Heather Graham - Ghost Shadow

“Ah, well, look-he writes it himself. He had a fellow named Smith hanged. Seems like Smith was a bit of a bastard. Attacked a ship and killed all aboard-then saw another man hanged for the deed.” David closed the book, carefully set it back on the mantel, and turned to his aunts. “That was wonderful. I’ll be in town for a while, at least. Next time, I’ll take you out.”

Sean rose and Katie followed suit. The aunts stood as well, ready to walk their guests to the door.

“David, darling, you must come here again, too-anytime. You’re family, and we do love you so!” Esther told him.

“Of course. But I want to take you out.”

“I’m afraid it will have to be somewhere quiet these days,” Esther said. “We’ll talk!”

They both stood on tiptoe to kiss David then Sean goodbye. When they came to hug Katie, she asked, “Would you two trust me to take your ledger for a few days? I would absolutely love to read it. I’ll be very careful with it.”

“Well, of course!” Ester said. “We’ll be delighted for you to read it.”

“And we know you’ll take care with it,” Alice said.

She thanked them. Sean looked at her and rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “I’m going to be careful!” she whispered to him.

“It’s a bit frightening, borrowing a family treasure,” Sean said, aware that the others were looking at the two of them.

“Katie, I know you’ll take it home and take good care of it,” Alice said. “We’re not worried in the least.”

“I’ll defend it with my life,” Katie promised.

“Good Lord, don’t do that, child,” Alice said, smiling. “Your life is worth far more.”

A minute later, they were in the car, heading back. One of the streets was blocked for construction; Katie hadn’t intended on coming down Duval with its throngs of tourists, but she did so.

“Good God, what is that?” Sean demanded from the backseat.

“What?” she asked. Her eyes were on the road. Tourists didn’t have the sense to look before they stepped off the sidewalk.

A red light allowed her the chance to look. One of the shops had a Robert the Doll mannequin out in front, except it was oversize.

“A balloon?” Sean asked, puzzled.

David was looking out the window, as well. “No, I think it might be canvas, but it’s got some kind of an inner structure, wood or metal. Damn, that’s ugly.”

Katie kept driving. She could see that there was a line to get into the museum where Stella Martin had been killed and laid out.

Stella was still at the morgue.

And people would be thronging in to see where she had lain.

“Capitalism at its best,” Sean murmured.

“We do need to survive as a city,” Katie said.

She drove on, turning down her street and bringing the car into the drive. “Sean, should I back out and park in the street so that you can reach your car?”

“No. I’m going to bed. I could sleep for a week. If I go to sleep now, I may feel human again by tomorrow.”

She parked the car and they all got out. Sean headed toward the house and then looked back. He strode over to them with purpose. “All right, someone has been killed, and Fantasy Fest may be starting off with a bang, but there is a killer on the loose. Katie, if you two don’t come here for the night, you make sure that I know you’re staying out.”

He stared at David.

“Of course,” David told him.

“All right, all right, it’s a little bit weird, but I actually prefer it if you stay here at night,” he said.

Neither of them moved.

Sean waved a hand in the air and walked on into the house.

“I’m going to take a run down to the police station. Will you go in for a while and promise me that you’ll stay there?” David asked her.

She lifted the journal. “Sure. But you know, I work tomorrow night again.”

“Hey, I’m getting to just love karaoke,” he assured her.

She kissed his cheek and headed into the house. “Lock it!” he called to her, and then started walking.

Katie went on in and set the ledger on the dining-room table. She wished that she had the books from the library as well, but they were at David’s house.

She couldn’t read more than one at a time anyway, she told herself.

It had been hot outside. She ran upstairs, jumped into the shower and afterward slid into the coolest cotton dress she could find. The shower refreshed her, and she went back downstairs. She set the kettle on the range top to boil. Now that she was cooled down, she was in the mood for a cup of hot tea.

She turned away from the stove and went dead still.

Her heart thudded against her chest, and seemed to stop.

Danny Zigler was here.

She looked to the door, and saw that it remained locked.

She had seen him last night; it might have been a dream, or something like a dream, but she had already seen Danny, and she had thought that he was dead.

But now she knew.

How she had ever imagined that he might be flesh and blood, that he might have broken into the house, she didn’t know.

He began to fade even as she stared at him. He had his old baseball cap in his hands, and his hair seemed unkempt. His clothes looked mussed and dirty.

“Danny,” she said softly.

He faded away completely.

Then he reappeared. He pointed to the table.

She frowned, looking down.

He was pointing at the journal she had taken from the Beckett house.

“Danny, what is it? What am I looking for?” she asked.

He faded away again, his arm, hand and then fingers disappearing last.

Then, there was no one there at all.

Craig Beckett wrote a wonderful log. It was personal, but she assumed that he had gotten accustomed to keeping such a diary because he’d been a ship’s captain.

He had lived a long life, dying at the age of ninety-six in eighteen ninety-five. He painted a vivid picture of when Key West had been little more than a trading post with a hardy group of settlers working to turn it into a place that would boast, in the Victorian era, the highest per capita income in the United States.

It was the early pages she turned to first. He wrote about being a young sea captain in the navy and his decision to leave the navy and work for David Porter as a civilian.

He described the events she had learned about from Bartholomew in detail. Of course, he hadn’t seen the attack that had taken Victoria’s life-the attack that Eli Smith had blamed on Bartholomew-but described it from imagination and experience. The canons firing and fire streaking through the sails of the ship, men and women screaming as smoke, fire or the tempestuous sea threatened their lives. Pirates killing everyone in their path with their broadswords. It was an unprovoked attack, and one that shocked the town, because David Porter had all but eliminated piracy a few years before it had taken place.

Craig Beckett wrote about his friendship with Bartholomew. “A man of my heart; a man who loved the sea, and his country. He might have remained a brigand, but he knew that I spoke to him truly, that I understood how he had taken enemy ships and no others. In the city, he was a model citizen, but also a man, who came to love too deeply if not with sense. I sincerely doubt that the rascal Smith could have ever started such a rumor, one so vile as to take a life, if Bartholomew had not so deeply loved Victoria. It was with the heaviest of hearts that I learned of the crowd that formed, a lynch mob, one with no more sense than that of a school of fish, darting here and there at the whim of one, that burst in upon that good fellow and dragged him to the hanging tree. They say that he died with dignity, claiming his innocence and showing no fear.”