Ghost Shadow

Now his grandfather was gone. They would never reopen the museum. Tomorrow, he’d talk to Liam about selling off the characters. He knew many were made with fine craftsmanship and were valuable. Then work could be done to restore the house, and it would definitely be a valuable commodity.



So what the hell was he doing here himself?



He’d had to come. And he’d found himself staring at the exhibit, wishing he remembered more about Tanya and yet aware that the sight of her on Elena’s bed was permanently embedded in his memory. Nothing of the girl herself. Everything about the horror of her death.



And now, this girl, standing there staring at him, her scream just an echo in their minds.



“Who the hell are you and what in hell are you doing here?” he demanded.



The girl flushed. She was an exceptionally attractive young woman, early to midtwenties, with deep auburn hair, long and loose down her back, and, even in the muted light, eyes so startlingly hazel they seemed to be gold. Her features were cleanly cut and beautiful, and her body, clad in jeans and a T-shirt that advertised a local bar, was lean and well formed. There was something familiar about her, but he wasn’t sure what or why.



She stared at him, obviously recovering herself. Her cheeks were red at first, but then she appeared to be angry, as well.



“Who are you, and what the hell are you doing here?” she demanded in return.



“What?” he snapped.



“You heard me-I asked who you are, and what in hell you’re doing here,” she said, an edge of real anger in her voice.



He stared at her incredulously.



“Are you drunk?” he demanded.



“No! Are you?”



He walked around from the rear of the exhibit to accost her. She stepped back warily, as if ready to run out of the room.



Good. He was tempted to come closer and shout, “Boo!”



He didn’t.



“I’m here because I own the place,” he told her. “And you’re trespassing. You have about two seconds to get out of here, and then I’m going to call the police.”



“You are absolutely full of it,” she told him. “I own this place.”



Again, he was startled.



“You’re wrong,” he said harshly, “and I’m tired of the joke. This place is owned by the Beckett family, and it’s not for sale-yet.”



“Beckett!” she gasped.



“Beckett, yes. The name that you see on the marquis outside. B-E-C-K-E-T-T. This museum has been the property of my family for decades. I’m David Beckett. It is four in the morning and I’m wondering what you are doing here at this time. I actually belong here-at any hour. Now, if you please, get out.” He spoke evenly, almost pleasantly. But he meant the get out.



It seemed now, after hearing his name, as if the young woman facing him had changed her attitude suddenly. She seemed to back away. I’m a Beckett. Oh, yeah, David Beckett. Person of interest! he almost shouted.



It had been ten years since he had left, determined that he wouldn’t let the past follow him, not when he was innocent, not when someone else had taken his fiancée’s life, long after she had taken leave of him.



“I’m so sorry; I should have known,” she said. “Actually, we’ve met. It was years ago, but I should have known, you do look a lot like Liam. I’m Katie-”



“I don’t care who you are,” he said, startled by his abrupt rudeness. He shook his head. “Just get out. It’s private property.”



“You don’t understand. I believe that I do own this place. I just have a few last papers to sign on Saturday. Tomorrow. Liam is, after all, Craig’s executor-okay, you both are, if I understand it right, and you’d told him to go ahead and act in his absence. Liam was ready to sell.”



David frowned.



Sell? Never. Not the museum. The museum needed to be dismantled, taken apart. He wasn’t superstitious, he didn’t believe in curses. But this place held a miasma. There was something that appeared to be evil in the robotics. The faces were too lifelike. The ones that moved didn’t jerk about-they looked like the real thing from a distance.



They invited idiots and drunks and psychotics to behave insanely. Commit murder, and leave the corpses behind, far more fragile than the imitations that might survive many decades.



David shook his head, feeling a twinge less hostile. He still couldn’t really figure out who in hell the girl was, but, at least she wasn’t a drunken tourist who had stumbled in. A Northerner, probably. Someone who had come to Key West convinced it was not only a sunny Eden, but a place to make a good few bucks off the spending habits of vacationers. But she’d said that they’d met?



“Whatever you might have thought, whatever you might have come to believe, the museum is not and will never be for sale. If it’s the house you’re interested in, it may come up on the market in a year or so,” David said flatly.



She stared at him steadily. Now it seemed that she was the hostile one. “So, you’re David Beckett, suddenly home and taking interest in the family-and the family property. How nice. Perhaps you should speak with the lawyers. I believe that the sale has gone through.”



“Look, Miss-”



“Katherine O’Hara, and don’t be superior with me, because my family has been down here as long as yours-or longer. I hope that you’re wrong, and that this sale can go through. I love what your family created. This is a beautiful place, and your grandfather and great-grandfather did such a fabulous job showing history, the simple, true and the bizarre. I don’t understand…”



Her voice had trailed as she stared at him. She looked nervous suddenly.



Was she thinking that no matter what the newspapers or police had said, he might be a murderer? A very sick one at that, setting a corpse into an historical tableau?



After all, she had said that her family had been here forever, and yes, he did know of O’Haras who were longtime residents, but…



“Katie O’Hara?” he said sharply.



“Yes, I just introduced myself,” she said with aggravation.



“Sean’s little sister?”



“Sean’s sister, yes,” she said. She left out the “little,” her aggravation apparently growing.



“Sean doesn’t have any part of this, does he?” His tone was sharper than he had intended.



“My brother is working in the South China Sea right now, filming a documentary, and no, he has nothing to do with this. But I don’t see what-”



“Nothing. Look, nothing has anything to do with anything. This place will never be a museum again, and I’m pretty damned sure you just looked at me and remembered why I feel that way.”



She inhaled, as if steeling herself to speak patiently. “Something terrible happened. You were cleared. Your grandfather closed the place, but he always wanted to reopen it. We will never rid the world of psychos. I intend to have security, and locks and make sure that nothing so terrible could ever happen again,” she assured him.



He leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, and stared at her incredulously. “And a bunch of frat-boy idiots wouldn’t try to put a blonde mannequin in here, ever, or suggest that you do a mock-up tableau of Elena with Tanya’s body? Haven’t you ever watched those horror movies with parts one, two, three, four, five and so on, where the same stupid people keep going to the same stupid, dark woods to wind up dead? What if the psycho who did it is still hanging in the Keys? What do you think of that kind of temptation?”



“I wouldn’t let it happen. All people are not horrible, and it’s a wonderful museum. I’ve worked really long and hard-”



“Right. You must be all of what now, twenty-two, twenty-three?”



“Twenty-four, and that’s hardly relevant. I already have my own business-”



“Katie? Katie O’Hara?” He laughed suddenly. “Katie-oke! That’s your business?”



She stiffened and her face became an ice mask. “For your information, Mr. Beckett, karaoke is big business these days.”



“At your uncle’s bar, of course.”



“You really have matured into a rather insufferable ass, Mr. Beckett,” she said, her tone pleasant. “I will leave. I’ll see you with my attorneys tomorrow.”



“As you choose. Good night, Miss O’Hara. And forgive me. I didn’t mean to laugh at Sean’s little sister.”



She stared at him. “I really don’t care, Mr. Beckett. And neither would Sean. We’ve both worked hard and been responsible, and we make our way quite fine, thank you. And by the way, I never knew you were friends with my brother. Is he aware of the fact?”



He laughed then. He had been an insufferable ass. It was this place. It was the possibility that it might be opened again.



It was him.



He had left here. He never hid his past. People knew about Tanya, about what had happened. But outside of this place, no one assumed that he had done it, that despite his honest and upright alibi, his entire family had lied to save him.



Being back here…



“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive. To you, Miss O’Hara, and not to anyone’s sister, younger or otherwise. However, the place is seriously not for sale. And my reasons are valid. I don’t want to see history repeating itself.”



“We’ll see tomorrow,” she said.



She moved away, but then turned back to him. “I should have known you. Recognized you, I mean. Your grandfather talked about you all the time. Craig Beckett was a wonderful man.”



He was surprised at how her remark seemed to sting. He had loved his grandfather-he didn’t know anyone who hadn’t liked and respected his grandfather. And he had seen him often over the years.



Just not in Key West.



“Thank you,” he said, lowering his head.



“I’m glad you’ve managed to make it back now, since you couldn’t be here for the funeral.”



“If you knew my grandfather, Miss O’Hara, you know that he didn’t believe much in funerals-or in massive monuments to the dead, caskets worth thousands and thousands of dollars or any other such thing. Memories exist in the mind, he always told me. And love was something distance could never quell. So I am fine with my memories, and in my conscience.”