Heather Graham - The Cursed

They sat huddled over triple lattes, as if that could drive away the memory of the previous night.

“Shelly and Stuart are already packing up to head home, you know,” Yerby told them. She shook her head. “Shelly was so freaked out.”

“I wanted to kill her this morning,” Pete said. He winced. “Bad choice of words. But...we thought that she and Stuart were just freaking out over something imaginary.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen her so upset,” Judy offered. “And Stuart was just as freaked out.”

Yerby laughed. “We were all thrown—you should have seen us stumbling around like idiots.”

“Maybe you were stumbling,” Mark said.

“Hey, you were no better,” Yerby said.

“None of us was any better,” Judy said apologetically. “We were just...well, for Pete and me, this was our big weekend out. My folks have the kids. We have a four-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy, and we’re both teaching and getting our doctorates. We came down to go a little wild.”

“Hannah was great, though—you know, Miss O’Brien, the owner,” Mark said. “She calmed them down, and who the hell else is going to give you your money back and send you to a nice hotel in the middle of the night just because you got scared?”

Yerby lifted her sunglasses to stare at him. “Sounds like you’ve got a crush on her.”

Dallas could understand that. There was something unique about Hannah. She could snap back with precision, but she was also careful and wary—older than her years.

“Yerby!” Mark protested.

She smiled. “Just kidding. I almost have a crush on her and I’m straight,” she said with a grin. “She was pretty cool. But we were wrong—all of us except for Stuart and Shelly. They did see something. A dying man.”

“And I thank God we didn’t,” Judy breathed.

“Yeah, that’s why I can’t figure out how we can help you,” Pete said.

“Shelly and Stuart remember a group leaving Duval about when you did. Do you remember anything about them?”

“I don’t remember anything about anything,” Yerby said.

“I do!” Judy said, perking up. “Shelly was kind of unnerved all night. She took all those ghost stories to heart. Anyway, Shelly was walking with me, and she grabbed my arm. Said we should slow down and let that group get ahead of us. Just in case. They looked like trouble, you know? They were all wearing hoodies, so we couldn’t see their faces.” She hesitated for a moment. “It was almost like they were trying to look stoned or drunk when they really weren’t.”

“Did you see them anywhere else earlier in the night?” Dallas asked.

“We didn’t really go anywhere except for the tour and the Hard Rock,” Pete said.

“I didn’t notice them until Shelly pointed them out,” Judy said.

“Do you remember seeing anyone else that night who stood out?” Liam asked.

They looked at each other, then shook their heads.

“Okay,” Dallas said. “What do you remember after you were woken up? Did you hear anything from outside?”

“Except for Shelly screaming? Because I don’t know if we could have heard anything from outside besides that,” Judy said.

“Shelly screamed really loudly,” Yerby said, nodding.

“And, by then, even Stuart was pretty hysterical,” Mark added.

“Wait a minute,” Pete said, frowning. “I do remember hearing some kind of...thrashing. I went to the window in the back to look out, but I didn’t see anything. Although I didn’t look long. Shelly was hysterical, and we all ran out to see what was going on. But you have to remember—they were convinced they’d seen a ghost. None of us even began to imagine she might have seen a real man.”

“Back to the drunks in the hoodies. Did you notice any of them earlier?” Dallas asked. “Think about it. You notice people in hoodies down here. This is a vacation city. You mostly see shorts, halter dresses, tank tops, swim trunks.”

Pete frowned thoughtfully. “You know, earlier in the evening—before the tour—we were having a drink, and I do remember seeing at least one hoodie hanging over the back of a barstool.”

“Where were you? Do you remember?” Dallas asked.

“Yeah. A really cool Irish bar toward the south end of Duval. O’Hara’s,” Pete said.

Liam groaned.

Dallas turned to look at him. “Someone should be able to help us out there, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yeah, I think so,” Liam said.

“Yeah?” Pete asked. “How come?”

“My sister-in-law’s family owns the place,” Liam said.

4

“I’ve been watching the news all day. They still aren’t letting out much information,” Katie O’Hara said. She indicated the television above the bar and the wide-screen in the main room. “They went over the same few facts so many times it was ridiculous.”

“What exactly have they said?” Hannah asked.

“That an as-yet-unidentified man was found in an alley, his throat slit. That even once he’s identified his name will be withheld pending notification of next of kin. They’re warning people to stay in groups and stick to well-lit streets.”

“Hmm,” Hannah murmured. She’d told Katie about what had happened, and she didn’t feel she was violating anyone’s trust. She hadn’t revealed anything Agent Samson had told her, only confided in Katie regarding the ghost of the dead man. Besides, Katie was married to David Beckett, Liam Beckett’s brother, and she was sure to know what had happened through the family.

And, like Liam, Katie and her brother, Sean, had their own strange and unearthly Key West experiences. They all shared a strange bond because of that.

Hannah had desperately needed to talk to someone, and Katie was not just a good friend, she was a friend who knew all about souls who hung around after death because something was keeping them from moving on.

“What about Melody and Hagen?” Katie asked.

“I haven’t seen them since early this morning,” Hannah said, and winced. “I accused them of playing tricks. I think they’re mad at me.”

“They’ll come back. They love you—and the house,” Katie said drily. “But you say this Agent Samson is a hard case?”

“Rude. Obnoxious. And suspicious of me, for whatever reason.”

“I don’t think I know him,” Katie said.

“He said he grew up here.”

“It’s an island, but people come and go. Did he leave the Keys when he was young?”

“He’s supposedly friends with your husband.”

“Really? Well, he might have been. But he hasn’t been back here long, right?”

“I don’t really know. He and Liam seem to work well together, but I’m in a difficult situation.”

“Because he’s on your case and you have information that can help him, but you can’t tell him what you know because a ghost told you,” Katie said.

“Something like that. Except, of course, I can tell Liam.”

“I say you call Kelsey,” Katie told her. “Your cousin Kelsey O’Brien, not Liam’s wife.”

“I thought about that. I mean, she’s FBI, too—with a special unit that handles this kind of thing.” Hannah paused, then said decisively, “All right. I’ll call her.”

“No, I mean, like, now,” Katie said.

“I just hate to bother her,” Hannah said.

“Let’s see—dead FBI agent in your alley and another one thinking maybe you had something to do with it. And she’s not only an agent, too, she’s part of the Krewe of Hunters and specializes in paranormal cases. I don’t think calling her in these circumstances counts as bothering anyone,” Katie said.

Even as she spoke, Hannah’s phone—sitting on the table by her coffee cup—began to ring, and the screen identified the caller as Kelsey O’Brien.