Heather Graham - Ghost Shadow

There was a body on the floor. Heart in his throat, he hurried to it.

Sam Barnard. David checked for a pulse. The man was breathing.

“Ch-cha-cha-Charleston!” A flapper warbled out in a gritty voice.

David jerked around. There was movement. He hadn’t intended to ever have these robotics work; he’d have brought in some experts and gotten them off to good homes elsewhere.

But tonight, they had a life of their own.

They’d been activated to hide other noises in the museum. They had been turned on to scare and frighten, and distract.

He wouldn’t be distracted. But he had to be very careful. He knew where the killer was. And he knew that the killer would be waiting for him.

Hurriedly, he searched the room, but he could only find Sam Barnard. He silently swore to the unconscious man that he would arrange for an ambulance the second he could. Once he had found Sean. And Katie. Katie…

Alive. She had to be alive!

He thanked God that he was good in darkness, and silence. He started through the museum. The killer would be waiting. He prayed that there was a way to surprise him.

Katie felt a stunning pain in her head. She blinked, and the world was still a realm of murky darkness-with odd, milky shapes blurring her vision.

She tried to move, and she could not. She tried to twist around, and she realized that she was strapped to a table.

She was covered in…

White. White. A white wedding dress.

She was wearing a wedding dress and veil, and she was strapped down on the slab that was a bed in the Elena de Hoyos exhibit in the museum.

Terror streaked through her, filling her with horror and panic. She almost squirmed; she would have screamed in hysteria if it hadn’t been for the gag in her mouth and the tape over it.

“Katie, Katie O’Hara!”

She was more horrified as she heard the crooning voice. For a moment, things seemed to jiggle above her, and then come into focus.

Pete. Lieutenant Peter Dryer. Of course. They’d been so stupid.

Who knew the families? Who could get keys to houses and museums? Who could be at any crime scene, and be expected?

Who had been the great-great-great-grandson of a man named Smith, Smith who had left behind a daughter who had married an immigrant named Dryer?

“Oh, Katie, I’ve saved the best for you. There’s a trip cord there, by the door. When David Beckett comes to save you, he’ll pull the wire. So cleverly planned. See-well, you can’t really see, so I’ll explain. I have your brother all trussed up and dressed like Carl Tanzler. All right, all right, so you saved your brother once! But I’m very good, and I can change my plans, and I really like this. I like this so much. Tanzler! Ha-ha. Sure, sure, Sean is young and much, much better looking, but… He’s got himself a syringe full of embalming fluid and other toxins, and if I’ve got this right, he’ll plunge them right into your heart when David enters. Then, of course, I’ll shoot the bastard for what he’s done to you. At first, I thought about letting him squirm in prison, but there are so many appeals, and hell, this is Key West, and the State of Florida considers us their wacky tailpiece to begin with. He might not get the death penalty. So! Old Key West justice. He dies here on the spot.”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

He fixed that for her, ripping off the gauze, jerking out the gag. It was horrible. She thought that she would choke.

She opened her mouth to scream, “David! It’s a trap!”

“Ah, loverboy isn’t here yet,” Pete said. “You can scream for a moment. Oh, yes, and it’s so good, so damned good! See what I did for your brother? He is a fine, strapping lad! Had that Sam Barnard down for me, and in a lock. Held him while I handcuffed him. And didn’t blink until I crushed his skull with the butt of my gun! There you go. Even the big and powerful fall to knowledge and careful planning. Remember that. Ah, well, you won’t really need to remember it long.”

“You’re a cop!” she told him.

“A good one. But you have to understand, Katie. I thought that maybe you did. My ancestor cursed the Becketts. He was hanged-because of a Beckett.”

“He was guilty!”

Pete shook his head. “Katie! You don’t understand. Some vile pirate had already been hanged, and there was no reason that my ancestor should have died.”

“He killed people.”

“He had a right! We were meant for great things. Don’t you understand anything? I had to get revenge on the Becketts for my family. For honor! I am the curse!”

“No! You’re a cop!”

“Yes, yes, and such a good one. Katie, time has gone by-time has waited. For me! Don’t go thinking I’m crazy, young lady. I have been on a mission. And David Beckett will finally pay the piper for his vile family. He should have been arrested and sent to the electric chair for Tanya-now that didn’t really hurt much. She was a little tramp. I was only a patrolman at the time, but she was so tipsy. And it was so easy. She was walking on one of the side streets, pacing. I stopped to give her a ride. She got right in the car, and I said I’d take her to the museum, to see David. She looked out the window, and I was ready. I didn’t even really know what I was doing then, but it was easy. I’d been prepared for the right moment, so I slipped that clean plastic over her head, and she had so much alcohol in her system…well, she went easy. Laid her out in back of the car…used the key to the museum I’d copied at least two or three months earlier, just waiting on ol’ David to get back, Mr. Hero Serviceman! Then, after midnight, I had lots of time to set her up. Now, that Stella, she was just at the right place at the right time, and I was at the right place at the right time, and good ol’David was back in the city, thinking he could tear the case apart.”

“Why did you let him?” Katie asked.

“Because I’m so damned good. With Stella, the city was rising. I just walked right up behind her while she was peeking through the bushes-afraid of the cops! Killed her-and left her there for hours. Who knows? Maybe folks even saw her and thought she was a drunk, sleeping it off. I went back for her, and hell, yes, missy, I had a copy of the key to that place, too-that shoddy new museum where I left Stella. Of course, I took the tapes from the surveillance cameras.” He paused to chuckle. “I even called David Beckett to come see the crime scene.”

“Danny,” Katie whispered. At least he was talking, at least she was playing for time.

“Danny, well, that saddened me,” Pete said regretfully. “I thought I could bribe him to just stop playing around. He got interested in old curses and figured out that I was descended from Eli Smith. He thought that it was funny that the police lieutenant’s ancestor was hanged for murder-funny! I tried to bribe him anonymously-couldn’t work up enough anger to kill the guy and thought that a little money might satisfy him. It would have worked, too-Danny was never exactly what you’d call ambitious! But then he saw me with Stella and I knew that he would start to put the pieces together. Danny wasn’t ambitious, but he wasn’t stupid.”

“He left the money and the books-that’s why you took your time getting a search warrant for his apartment, right?”

“I knew I had to get in there first,” Pete said.

“Why me?” she asked softly.

“Oh, Katie! Such a pretty, sweet thing! But he loves you, so…this is really the revenge I wanted. With Tanya, it was perfect-he had motive, he was young, he was big, he should have been angry. There’s motive for you! And…he cared about her, but not the way he cares about you. That’s too perfect. That’s real revenge!”

“Pete, Pete, think, you’re a cop, they’ll know it was you now!”