Ghost Shadow

15

It took forever for the sounds of sirens to cut through the revelry of the crowd, or so it seemed. It seemed forever that Katie stood there, staring at Danny.

The stench that rose from him was horrible. Even when the dead heat of summer ebbed and fall began to arrive in South Florida, the sun was viciously hot. Encased in the effigy, Danny had been held in something like an oven.

When she had ripped up the effigy and he was exposed, the odor had risen like a miasma.

Katie imagined that the odor was actually what had finally alerted the revelers to the fact that there was something very serious, horrid and tragic going on. At first, people thought it was all part of a Key West game.

A game…

Key West loved her pirates.

She loved her ghost stories.

Her eccentrics…

She was a city that loved equality and fairness, a party, a good time, history, water and more.

This wasn’t customary.

Finally, though, the screams in the street became louder than the sounds of the sirens. The parade dispersed. Shopkeepers, innkeepers, costumed entertainers, bartenders-all came out to the streets, staring with horror. There was such a crowd that everyone had to whisper to everyone else, asking what had happened.

Uniformed officers on horseback were the first to arrive. The rescue vehicle was forced to park on a side road along with the detectives and crime-scene investigators.

Katie just stood, feeling it all, seeing all, sensing it all and feeling David’s supporting arms around her, for what seemed like forever.

Then Liam was there, the one to officially question her while they awaited Lieutenant Dryer’s arrival on the scene.

She heard snatches of conversation from the medical examiner and techs.

“Oh, Lord, he’s ripe!”

“Been in there at least a few days.”

“Must have been dead since he went missing.”

“Cause of death?”

“No way to know-he’s far too bloated. Got to get him to the morgue.”

“Katie,” Liam said. “What happened? Witnesses said that you just came to the effigy and started tearing at it. How did you know that Danny was in it?”

“What?” she asked, blinking.

“How did you know that Danny had been stuffed into the effigy?” Liam persisted.

“I-I, umm, well, I saw someone. Out the door-the doors at O’Hara’s are open, of course, you know. And I saw someone dressed in a Robert the Doll costume, and then the giant Robert the Doll effigy was right behind him, and I remembered the-the odor-and it seemed as if it was coming right in the bar and I…” She let her voice trail away. “I guess that I freaked out a bit, Liam. I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t take the smell and I suddenly realized it was coming from the effigy.”

“What about the manufacturer-how did Danny wind up in the doll?” David asked.

“The doll was up before Danny disappeared,” Liam said, glancing at his notes. “The manufacturer is local, just up on Stock Island. They’ve done these dozens of times. And the effigy was set up by the salsa club right there, and they’re baffled and mystified-again, they said that the doll was in perfect shape from the manufacturer when they assembled it.”

“So someone killed Danny Zigler and stuffed his body into a giant-size effigy of another Key West legend,” David said.

“That’s what it looks like so far,” Liam said.

The medical examiner and police photographers gave the word and the corpse was lifted into a body bag-oozing liquids-to be taken to the M.E.’s office.

The owners of the salsa bar argued with the police; that area of the street would have to remain cordoned off until it had been thoroughly inspected and cleared by crime scene. It was Fantasy Fest. What was the city going to do about the amount of money they were going to lose?

Katie had felt ridiculously frozen and weak. Paralyzed. Horrified.

But she was suddenly angry. It wasn’t a shock; she had seen Danny’s ghost. When she had looked out the door and seen him, then the costumed Robert the Doll performer, she had known. Danny had been showing her where he could be found. Poor Danny. He would have been so horrified. He loved Key West.

Now, he was part of Key West. Part of the stories and lore that would be told to generations from now until eternity.

“Am I free to go?” she asked Liam suddenly.

“Of course, Katie. But-” Liam began.

“Thank you,” she told him.

She made her way through the gaping crowd on the street and back to O’Hara’s. Her brother was there, looking aggravated, but managing to put up a stream of pirate songs with singers, music and words intact. He was startled when he saw her arrive.

“Katie, you just found the corpse of an old friend. Get David to take you home,” Sean said. “Or leave David. I’ll take you home. Hell, Jamie would close this place down and take you home.”

“No,” Katie said angrily. “No, everyone is acting like Danny is something disgusting in the street, as if he’s an annoyance, ruining a pirate parade.”

She took the microphone. “Folks, everyone knows that something terrible just happened. Everyone tried to get close, to find out what happened. Well, I’ll tell you. A friend of ours disappeared a few days ago. People were mad at him-they thought that he’d sloughed off work. In fact, it was even suspected that he had killed a woman. But he didn’t. He was murdered himself. He wasn’t an odor in the street-he was a good guy, a true conch, a real part of Key West. His name was Danny Zigler. He didn’t need a lot of money. He loved Key West, and he loved the simple things in life. This is for him. Honor him with me, if you will.”

She went to the computer and set “Danny Boy” to play. There was a dead silence at first.

“Danny Zigler was Irish?” Someone asked with confusion.

“Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s day,” a drunk sloshed out in reply.

“Sing along, a good fellow is gone and departed!” someone else said.

When it was over, she felt David at her side. “Katie, come on. We’re going.”

“We can’t go,” she said dully.

“We can. Sean and Clarinda can handle your system. And it will thin out early-even in the middle of Fantasy Fest, a dead man means something, Katie.”

She let him drag her away. She had known that Danny was dead. He hadn’t been her best friend, but he had been a fixture in her life. He had always been there.

David took her home. She wondered that he was with her, and she felt a little numb, and a little awed. He probably wanted to be haunting the police station. He’d want to know what happened to Danny Zigler. He had to be noting the fact that all the deaths were coupled with Key West legends.

At her house, she ran up and showered the minute they were inside. The smell of death had seemed to permeate her. She scrubbed her hair several times. At last she emerged and wrapped into her terry robe.

David had evidently decided to use her brother’s shower-the scent of decay and death had been too much for him, too. He was out of his pirate garb and in Sean’s clothing, something she was certain he would explain and Sean would understand. He had made her something hot.

“Tea-with a good dose of whiskey,” he told her, handing her the cup.

“I’m all right. I’m really all right. I knew that Danny was dead. It was just that it was so horrible-seeing him, like that. I’ve seen the dead before, I’ve been to funerals…but that!”

“Death is seldom gentle,” he told her.

She sipped the tea, and noted that it was very strongly laced with whiskey. She carried it out to the parlor and saw that Bartholomew was seated on the sofa, watching her with sorrowful eyes. “I wish I had realized, Katie. I can’t really…I don’t get scents and odors anymore. I would have stopped you. I tried to stop you, and you didn’t even see me.”

“It’s all right,” she murmured.

David had come behind her. He set his hands on her shoulders. “Go on up to bed, Katie. Try to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“You will. I’ll be here.”

She nodded after a moment, draining the tea. The whiskey washed through her, warm and soothing. “All right.”

She gave him the cup and headed for the stairs. She heard him make a startled sound. On the first step, she turned back.

David was still standing in the middle of the parlor, holding her cup.

He was staring at the table.

The ledger, the Beckett family ledger was moving.

Bartholomew was pushing it toward him, of course. He didn’t see Bartholomew.

But he had to see the ledger moving.

She went on up the stairs. As he had said, despite all that was haunting her mind-or perhaps because of it-she slept.

He’d had one beer. One damned beer.

And it seemed that the ledger on the table was moving. It was open.

He was tired. So damned tired. And more disturbed than ever. When Katie had gone on into the pub, Liam had told him that the police had gone into Danny Zigler’s house at last.

There had been no sign of books about the history of Key West.

There had been no money.

“You’re sure it’s what you saw, David?” Liam had asked him.

“Yes, I’m a photographer. I have pictures,” David told him.

“Then someone else let themselves into Danny’s apartment. Hell, David, I may have to let Pete know that you were in there.”

“Liam, don’t do anything just yet. Give me a little more time before I get arrested myself, thrown off the island, or until Pete decides he’s not letting me move out the door.”

“David, I’m feeling pretty damned slimy right now,” Liam told him.

“Pretend I never trusted you. Just give me a little more time. I don’t know why-I’m feeling that I can almost touch the last piece of the puzzle.”

He hated what he was asking Liam to do. But he also knew that someone out there was wearing a facade of complete normalcy-and killing people under that cover.

The ledger had been moving. In his mind’s eye, anyway. It was subconsciously telling him that the answers were right in front of him-he had to find them.

He set Katie’s empty teacup down and walked toward the ledger. It was open to a page filled with elaborate script that was somewhat difficult to read. But he knew the book; it had been in the family forever. Craig had told him that Alice and Esther had decided that their role in life was to preserve family history. They had recorded births and deaths, and events that had occurred in Key West during their lives.

Before Alice and Esther had recorded in the book, the task had been taken on by Josiah Beckett, his great-grandfather. Before that, it had been Helena, youngest daughter of the first Craig Beckett. And before that, it had been Beckett himself who had kept the records.

None of that mattered. The book was open to a page that recorded when the territory of Florida had become a state, and when David Porter had brought down his Mosquito Squadron, and piracy had been brought to an end.

He read over and over the part about the assault on the ship, the death of Victoria and the lynching of Bartholomew. He read about his ancestor’s fury and insistence that an innocent man had been hanged, and that a guilty man must be brought to justice. And how he had watched at the hanging tree himself while Smith had met with his end. Craig Beckett had stood there while Smith had cursed his family, something that hadn’t disturbed him in the least. He believed in men, in justice and in God-he did not believe in curses.

He definitely hadn’t been cursed, David thought. The first Craig Beckett had lived out a long and prosperous life.

The key turned in the outside lock and Sean O’Hara came in. David glanced at his watch. It was nearly 5:00 a.m. He should have been sleeping himself.

Sean came into the parlor. “Katie?” he asked.

“She went to bed several hours ago,” David said.

Sean nodded. “What a night, huh? Life is so-messed up, really. And then, maybe not. Maybe we all know that we’re mortal, and we live just like Poe suggested in ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ Dance until we drop ourselves. A man was found dead-even the most dense person has to assume murdered, since it would have been impossible for him to stuff his own corpse in an effigy. The revelry continued though. Cities have lives of their own, I suppose. And since tourists didn’t know Danny Zigler…”

Sean left off. “Did you wonder why I came home, David?” he asked then.

“Because you knew I was coming here,” David answered.

Sean nodded. “Bizarre, really. I knew that you hadn’t killed Tanya. Or, should I say, I believed that you hadn’t killed Tanya. But there was just something about the fact that you were going to be here. I didn’t know that you were seeing Katie, but I knew she wanted to open the museum. Maybe I knew that you would try to stop her. God knows, you’re the only one not trying to make a buck off of tragedy! But something is going on. Something that started when we were kids just out of school and heading into college. It’s still going on.” He reached into his pocket. “I’ve made a list.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re on it, and I’m on it.”

“Naturally.”

Sean came in and sat down on the end of the sofa, spreading out his list, made on a cocktail napkin.

In a neat row Sean had lined up names.

Pete Dryer

Pete Dryer’s family

David Beckett

Liam Beckett

Mike Sanderson

Sam Barnard

Sean O’Hara

Jamie O’Hara

Danny Zigler

“I’ve made a similar list a dozen times in my mind,” David said. “We can scratch out Danny Zigler-Danny is dead. We can scratch out Dryer’s family. I don’t think they’ve ever come back, even though they don’t live far away. Oh, you can scratch out Mike Sanderson-he proved that he had an alibi this afternoon.”

“And I’m going to scratch out you and me.”

“You can scratch out Jamie, your uncle, too. A dozen witnesses knew that he never left O’Hara’s that night,” David said.

“Okay, so that leaves Tanya’s brother, Sam Barnard, my cousin and a cop, Liam Beckett, and Pete Dryer, a major-league cop,” David said.

“That’s right.”

“My cousin was nowhere near the museum that night,” David said. “Pete was.”

“Pete’s a police lieutenant. And who knows? Maybe Sam hated his sister. Maybe Liam has envied you his whole life. Hey, you were the apple of your grandfather’s eye. You were the star football hero.”

“Liam played football, Sean. I was a linebacker, he was a quarterback. He was never jealous of me. I have a hard time believing that Sam killed his sister. And Pete has risen like a meteor at the station. He was just a beat cop when the murder took place. He loves Key West. Maybe this list is bull. Maybe we should both be on it. Me more than you, of course. I found Tanya in the museum, and I was the one dating her. Odd, though. I’ve read the ledger over and over. Katie seems convinced it all has something to do with the first Craig Beckett, who had a man executed.”

Sean looked around the parlor. He stared back at David.

He let out a sigh. “I’m thinking that we both need to pay more attention to my sister,” he said.

“I always listen to your sister.”

Sean gave him an awkward and crooked smile. “No, no, you’re not really listening to her.”

“What do you mean?”

He could have sworn that Sean was going to say something-that he was about to break down and tell him something about Katie that was incredibly important.

But he didn’t.

Sean shook his head, disturbed. “I can’t,” he said softly. “You have to speak to Katie. This is crazy. I’ve told Katie over and over… I love my sister. And people would think that she was crazy. You’d think that-never mind. I’m telling you, just pay attention to my sister. That’s all.”

David frowned, watching him.

Sean stood suddenly. “Hell, I’m exhausted. And there’s tomorrow. Great idea for me, this coming home thing. Not a vacation at all. Two murders in a week, but for the living, life goes on. I guess that’s the way that it always has been, and always will be.”

David was tired, and wished that he could somehow shake Sean to find out what he meant. But Sean wasn’t going to talk. He seemed really tired, disgusted and frightened for his sister.

“Some major cities have a murder rate of one a day, and they can’t shut down, I suppose. Of course, statistically, our murder rate is two a year, not two a week. The investigative unit deals with drug deals, and cleaning up the street most of the time. Drugs are dangerous, the officers are up against a lot, but…not usually like this,” David said.

“You just said ‘our,’” Sean told him.

“Our-as in Key West,” David said.

“We both left,” Sean said.

“Still, we’re conchs,” David said.

Sean was watching him thoughtfully. “So, once a conch, always a conch?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?” David asked, irritated. “We’ve been through history and statistics, so what are we on now?”

“My sister,” Sean said softly.

“I don’t think the city is safe right now, and I don’t intend to let anything happen to her,” David said.

“That’s not exactly where I was going. She is my sister.”

“Yes?”

“Well, this sounds odd as hell. Just what are your intentions with my sister?”

David stared back at him.

What the hell were his intentions.

“I-”

“Yes, yes, you’re going to keep her safe. And I will, too. There’s some kind of psycho out there, but a couple of fellows who work in video and print film are going to keep her safe.”

David realized that Sean had made a good point, and his defenses rose to the fore. “I served in the military, did my time in the desert, Sean.”

“But what if you’re the one putting her in danger?” Sean asked. “Say someone had been out to get you all those years ago-kill Tanya, frame you. So now that person has killed a prostitute-and Danny Zigler. And he still hasn’t left clues, and he still hasn’t been caught. It’s not like you and Katie have this long-standing love affair. You could be putting her in serious danger,” Sean said.

“Ten years ago, a killer got away with murder,” David said. “But that was then, and this is now. Science has come a long way. They’ve just discovered Danny’s body. The killer has to make a mistake. And it will be found,” David said.

Katie suddenly appeared in the entrance to the parlor.

She walked into the room. She paused, giving her brother a kiss on the cheek, and then walking over to David. She looked up into his eyes and slipped an arm around him before she faced her brother. “Sean, I love you. I’m grateful that you came home, and I’m grateful that you care about me. I’ll answer your earlier question. None of what’s happening between us was intended, so no one can have intentions. I know that I’m not backing away from my life, and I don’t want David backing away from me because of anything that’s happening. No one knows what will come in the future, but I know that what’s going on between us is honest, and that’s the only intention I want.”

“Maybe you two should just pretend then to step away from one another,” Sean suggested.

“I think it would be too late for that,” Katie said. She smiled and shrugged. “I think the damage is done, Sean, so please, don’t go asking David to stay away from me.”

“We’ve got to…I don’t know. We’ve got to be careful with every move, that’s all I have to say,” Sean told her. “Well, that’s not all I have to say, but we’re all exhausted. I’m going to bed. After I make sure the doors and windows are locked.” True to his word, he walked around the room, bolting the windows. With a nod, he left them there.

Katie turned in David’s arms. “Sorry you got involved?” she asked him.

He held her close and shook his head. “Never, Katie.”

He pulled her closer and lifted her chin. “Never,” he said. “Katie, Sean said that you had a dream, that you believed Danny was dead.”

She started to move away from him.

“Katie,” he said, pulling her back.

She stared at him, and he thought that she was holding her breath, that like Sean she was about to say something.

But she didn’t.

She stood on her toes and lightly kissed his lips. “We really do need some sleep,” she said. She caught his hand, and she led him toward the stairs.

They slept…

And they didn’t sleep.

At first, they held one another.

He drifted to sleep. He woke, feeling the heat of her form against him, feeling her moving. He didn’t move, not wanting to wake her.

But she was awake. Her fingers trailed down his chest, circled around his abdomen, moved lower. His breath caught as he felt her sudden, sure touch. He rolled, pulled her against him, taking her into his arms, meeting her lips and then using his own to create a slow trail of liquid fire along her collarbone and breasts.

For a moment, she was still, breath caught.

Then she moved. Fluid, easy, ridiculously graceful for the vital energy that suddenly poured through the two of them. Passionate, fierce…the ardent movement of her body escalated by the soft whisper of tenderness that came with the brush of her lips against his.

He became the aggressor, sweeping her beneath him.

The world went still, and there was nothing but the hunger and the need, the basic feel of flesh and cotton and sheets, and their words as they edged closer and closer to climax. Again, the world went still, and there were moments that were oddly as fulfilling as the instinctive need for sexual satiation, that could never be achieved unless more than just sex was involved.

He was becoming a philosopher, he thought.

No. Feelings were what they were. All the psychology and science in the world could never really answer the human question of why emotions raged where they did.

She lay beside him again, and slept, and he thought that again, maybe something as old as man was rising inside of him. He knew that he would die to protect her.

As the morning passed, he held her close, felt her flesh against his flesh, the rise and fall of her breathing.

What were his intentions?

He had never come home to stay. And then again, he had never felt this intimate with a woman, no matter how long they’d been together, no matter what the sexual appeal.

Not the time to think about it. There was a killer out there.

And they were no closer now than they had been ten years ago.

Or were they?

It seemed that the curtains suddenly flew, as if cool air whirled into the room. Katie sat up and looked around, and the ghost of Tanya Barnard was standing by her bed.

She reached out, and Katie took her hand.

“Please…” the ghost whispered.

She looked beyond Tanya. Danny was there, looking at her with prayerful eyes, and at his side, Stella Martin stood, watching her, waiting.

“You must help me,” she told them. “You must help me. Please, think, what do you know? Who followed you, who was with you-who killed you? Show me.”

They shook their heads, staring at her.

She looked to Danny. “The books, Danny-and the money. David saw them in your house. Who were you blackmailing-who gave you the money?”

She couldn’t hear him. His lips were moving. She tried to come closer to him, to study the movement. She wanted to scream with frustration.

I took the books from the library. And then I got the call. Stop. Stop looking for the past, or I would join it. Leave it be, and there would be money. And there was money. I found it under my pirate-skull doormat. And I didn’t know, but someone seemed to think I would find out what happened to Tanya, but I had no idea…that was the past. I kept the money. There was no way to give it back, no one to give it back to, because I really didn’t know.

Katie looked at the three ghosts. “Can’t you help me at all?”

Something, I saw something, someone thought I saw something. I saw Stella briefly. She came to the window, kept her back to the street. But then she was gone.

Stella stepped forward. Now we’re all gone, all gone, and there are impressions and things we see in our minds… Katie, help, you must help, you are the only one who can help.

She had the oddest sensation of being approached by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, all in one. Air seemed to sweep around her in massive currents. She was suddenly standing with a group in back of La Concha Hotel. She could hear the ghost-tour guide speaking, talking about the tragic suicides from the roof, and telling the story of the young man who haunted the place, a young man who had perished in the not-too-distant past when he had been distracted by a pretty young woman and plunged to his death down an elevator shaft.

Danny was with her. So was Tanya. And Stella. They were grouped around her on the tour. The others in the group seemed to be faceless. The guide was wearing a Victorian frock coat and vest, and a top hat. She couldn’t see his face. But then he turned. His face was Danny’s face.

The tour group moved from tragic event to tragic event. All the while, the tour guide talked of the ghosts that still haunted these places. Behind him, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy, Tanya and Stella sobbed softly.

“She’s still here,” Danny said clearly. “She’s still here. Go anywhere on the island, wax museum, oddities museum, history museum, you’ll see our dear Elena, Elena Milagro de Hoyos… You will see her. She is Key West. She is our most famous, and most bizarre, story.”

Tanya let out a long, wailing cry, and the wind shifted and the earth moved beneath Katie’s feet.

They were standing before the hanging tree.

By the tree, the building began to fade and disappear. Next door, where the main section of Captain Tony’s stood, bar stools evaporated, and she might have been on a whirlwind tour through a time machine. Bar…telegraph office…morgue…the visions swept by. Then, the landscape was suddenly raw and overgrown, rocky, with patches around them that were barren. She could hear the sound of the water, coming from the south, coming from the north, and the west. It was all around her…

A man was being dragged to the gallows…

Cursing…

Cursing a man named Beckett who looked on with fierce and furious eyes, eyes that seemed so familiar…

Again, the wind blew; it was as if she stood still while a hurricane raged. Time whipped by her. Fishermen, pirates, wreckers, smugglers and thieves…soldiers in blue, and soldiers in gray, and then sailors from a country united once again. She heard a cry on the wind. “Remember the Maine!”

And then, suddenly, the world was still. She was walking down a long hall in a building.

A strange-looking, skinny old man turned to her, arms before him, fingers flexing. “It is love, love for what is ours, love. Love-ah, yes, and family name. We are all that we create. And I have created love.”

He moved aside. There was a bed, within the confines of an airplane cabin. There was a woman in a bridal gown, laid upon the bed.

It was just an exhibit. Count von Cosel, and his Elena.

But Elena rose from the bed and looked up. It wasn’t Elena. Katie stared at her own countenance. She was there. She had taken Elena’s place in the exhibit this time.

Her own arm raised and pointed.

She turned.

And once again, she was staring at the hanging tree, and the noose and the dead man who dangled and swung beneath the branches.

“Katie!” David said.

She had let out a cry; she was sitting up in bed, soaked with beads of perspiration, and yet shaking as if it had suddenly plunged to ten degrees in Key West.

He drew her to him. “Katie, I’m here, Katie, it’s all right. You had a nightmare.”

She stared at him. For a moment, her eyes were unfocused. Then she seemed to really see his face.

“It was just a nightmare, Katie. And I’m here. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She relaxed in his arms. Then she pulled away. She stood, and she was naked and beautiful and natural, but somehow putting a distance between them, as well.

“Katie?”

She sighed, sat back down next to him and said, “David, even if we’d found Danny alive, he wouldn’t have been able to help us. He wasn’t blackmailing anyone, but someone did think that he’d seen something, or knew something. I think he had the books on Key West just because he wanted to make his stories better, but the killer knew that there was something in the books-in the history of Key West-that might give him away. He saw Stella the night before she died. The killer must have thought that Danny saw him then, because he’d seen Stella, and maybe the murderer. That’s why Danny died.”

“What?” David said blankly. Her words were so assured and natural. “Katie-”

“You’re going to walk out on me, David. But you have to believe me.”

“Katie, I don’t understand you. Your words about Danny are making sense, but…you had a nightmare.”

“No. It wasn’t just a nightmare. I-I see things that other people don’t, David.”

It was late; she’d been through a lot.

“Katie, we all have nightmares and dreams. And sometimes, they’re good and they help us. You have a lot on your mind. We’re pretty damned sure that the truth is in the past. Your mind was working while you were sleeping, and what you’re saying might be right.”

She took his face between her hands. “David…I’m…I care about you so much. And that’s why I have to say this. You can leave if you think I’m crazy. I see-I see the dead. When they remain. Not all the dead-some do pass on immediately. But I-I see ghosts. And I’m telling you because you have to listen to me and believe me now. I see ghosts.”

He was dismayed by the harshness in his voice, but he was worried about her. “Great. Ask them all who killed them.”

She rose, stepping away from him. “They don’t know. Sean has always warned me to keep my mouth shut. You don’t believe me.”

He couldn’t bear the distance between them. He stood, walking to her. She backed away, but he caught her and pulled her close.

“Katie-”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Katie, that’s a lot to take in suddenly. Please, you have to realize that.”

“It’s all right. I understand. You think I’m…not right.”

“Katie, I think everything about you is right. Do I believe in ghosts? I don’t know-that’s asking a lot. But do I believe in you? My God, yes, Katie, please… Let me digest some of this, huh?”

She was tense. So tense, she was like a piano wire pulled taut.

“Let me just give it all to you then.”

“What?”

“There’s a fellow named Bartholomew. He was a pirate-no, no, a privateer. He’s-he’s been hanging around a long time. He was hanged for something that he didn’t do. It was your ancestor who came back and indignantly saw to it that the real culprit, Eli Smith, was hanged, as well. That’s when Smith cursed the Becketts. David, please, the killer really means to have his revenge on you. I can’t really communicate with all ghosts, but Bartholomew has been around a very long time. He’s very good at being a ghost.”

He didn’t reply. It was crazy.

He’d seen the pages of the ledger move. He’d been drawn to it, as if a force was trying to make him understand, help him.

“Katie, I can’t just…I can’t just…”

“I understand.” She was trying to slip away.

He really didn’t understand, but he didn’t give a damn. He would try.

“Katie…”

She must have heard something in his voice. The words he couldn’t express. Suddenly, she eased, and she fell against him.

He held her with strength and warmth, smoothing her hair back.

“Don’t patronize me?” she pleaded.

“I swear, I’m not. I don’t know what I believe…but…”

She looked up at him.

“Katie, I believe in you,” he whispered again.