Heather Graham - The Cursed

“Oh, God,” Shelly said, her eyes fixed. “Oh, God. He was alive.”

Liam wasn’t sure why, but he felt compelled to ease their guilt. “You couldn’t have saved him. The M.E. said that unless he’d literally been in an emergency room when it happened, there was nothing anyone could have done.”

“We’ll never know, will we?” Stuart asked, wincing. “We screamed. We panicked. We were just so...”

“I was terrified already,” Shelly said. “We’d been on the ghost tour. And there’s something about the way Hannah tells the stories.... She doesn’t get dramatic or anything, but all that history, it gets to you. We were down at the pool because I was too scared to sleep.”

Stuart cleared his throat. “And we’d been drinking,” he admitted as if they’d committed a horrible sin.

“It’s okay. This is Key West. Everybody drinks here,” Dallas said, glancing over at Liam. “But...it never occurred to you that he was real?”

The two looked at each other. Shelly lifted her hands. “No.”

Stuart said, “When Shelly screamed, I opened my eyes. I saw him and screamed, too. And then I blinked and he was gone.”

“Okay, this is important,” Dallas said. “Think back. Do you have any idea where he came from? We think he was out back in the alley before he came into the yard. Did you see anyone else?”

“Like I said, my eyes were closed,” Stuart said.

“So were mine,” Shelly said. “When I opened them, he was just...there.”

“Did you see or hear anyone before he appeared?” Liam asked.

Stuart shrugged. “We heard someone when we were upstairs, but they were gone by the time we went down.”

“No,” Shelly said. “I didn’t see anyone because no one was around. I mean, even when we came in things were pretty quiet.” She stopped to think for a moment, then said, “Wait! Stuart, remember when we were walking back? There was a group of people ahead of us. They were crashing into each other as if they were really drunk.”

“They probably were,” Stuart said. “But, yeah, I remember them.”

“Maybe the dead man was with them,” Shelly said.

“How many were there?” Dallas asked.

“Four,” Stuart said.

“Five,” Shelly corrected. “I remember counting them. I was a little nervous, but I was thinking that there were six of us, so at least we had one more in our group in case they caused some kind of trouble. Of course, they were all guys and we only had three guys.”

“I don’t know,” Stuart said. “That short one might have been a woman. Hard to tell. They were all wearing hoodies. Pretty weird, considering it was about fifty.”

Interesting, Dallas thought. Someone else might remember a group like that, because most tourists didn’t bundle up when it turned sixty. Time to go and follow up on this first lead.

He and Liam seemed to be of one mind. They rose together. Dallas handed them his card. “If you think of anything else—anything at all—please call me.”

“Are you going to speak with the others? They might remember something,” Stuart said. “I mean, not about the—the dead man, but maybe about the group we saw when we were walking home.”

“Yes, we’re just waiting for them to wake up,” Liam told them.

Shelly looked over at Stuart. “That may be awhile.”

Stuart nodded. “They’re going to be really hungover.”

“We’ll be gentle,” Dallas promised.

* * *

Hannah blinked. The dead man was still there, looking at her beseechingly.

He could—though he apparently wasn’t aware of it yet—just walk in through the door if he wanted to. Should she let him in?

According to Agent Samson, Jose Rodriguez had been one of the good guys. Florida—especially South Florida and Key West, had a long history of Spanish settlement and Cuban immigration. His family might have been in the area for centuries. But wherever he had grown up, it seemed someone had taught him manners.

He was knocking. Hoping she would let him in.

She lowered her head for a minute. No, go away, please, she thought fervently. I don’t want to be ghost central. I don’t want to get involved with your murder.

She felt immediately embarrassed, because she knew that attitude was wrong. She had to help if she could.

She opened the door, swallowing hard. “Hello, Jose.”

At least his apparition wasn’t as bloody in the afterlife as his body had been in death. He looked as he must have soon before death, wearing a typical Cuban guayabera shirt and khaki pants. His hair was sleek, dark and combed back. He was clean shaven, with dark eyes and handsome features.

“You—you know me?” he asked her.

His voice was brittle, a little like sandpaper, as if he was just learning to speak.

She nodded. “I found you.”

He nodded. “I remember. You tried to help me, but it was too late.”

“Yes.” She studied him for a minute. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help. I hear that you were an undercover agent, one of the good guys.”

“Yes.”

“I guess you know you were murdered. My friend Liam Beckett, a police detective, has had some experience with...the dead. He doesn’t see as easily as I do, though—lucky me,” she couldn’t help but add a little bitterly. “But if you tell me who did it, I can tell him.”

A grim smile curved his lips. “If only it were that easy.”

“Your throat was slit. You really don’t know who did it? And you were carrying a knife—a big bowie knife—with blood on it. Of course, it’s gone now. The crime scene techs are still out there looking for it,” Hannah said.

“Yes, I see them. But they won’t find it,” he said.

Hannah realized that the techs in the yard could see her through the back window; they probably thought she was standing there talking to herself.

Maybe she was.

“May I come in?” Rodriguez asked politely.

She nodded. “Oh, of course. Please. Let’s move into the parlor.”

She led the way through to the front, taking an armchair by the fire and curling her legs beneath her. The ghost took a seat across from her on the sofa.

“I’m so sorry,” she said aloud. It seemed lame. He should have had a lifetime ahead of him. She took a breath. “I want to help you. But...how can you not know what happened?”

“Because whoever got me came up behind me. We—I was with a bunch of guys—had just turned the corner from Duval and I heard someone behind us. He grabbed me, and the other guys saw. One of them screamed ‘Run!’ and we all took off. I think the other guys had to be in on it—either that or they’re running scared, thinking they’re about to get the same,” Rodriguez told her. He stared at her for a moment. She thought he was assessing her. Perhaps he was deciding if she could be of any help.

“Anyway, like I said, we all took off,” Jose went on. “I threw the guy off me and crashed through the yard next to yours. That’s when he caught up with me. I didn’t have a gun on me, only my knife. I got a slice of him, but since I couldn’t see anything, I don’t even know where I cut him, but I know he...he got me. Slit my throat. I kept running, and that’s when I scared your guests. But I heard him coming after me. I knew I didn’t have a chance, and I didn’t want him to kill anyone else, so I kept running. I ended up in the alley, tried to write...” He trailed to a stop. “And then I...died. He followed me—must have, if the knife is gone. But he couldn’t leave it. They would have gotten his blood off it.”

Hannah found herself suddenly fighting tears. Even as he was dying, he had thought to save others.

“You’ve heard of Los Lobos?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I think most of the country has heard of them. Every once in a while there’s something in the paper about a body popping up somewhere and they’re suspected of the murder, or a treasure goes missing and they’re the only suspects. They’re like the mafia, or that’s what it sounds like, anyway.”