“Hey! Where are you?” Katie asked her brother. “Far away still, I take it. It’s great to hear from you.”
“We talked a week ago on Skype,” he reminded her.
“Skype is great-when you have a sibling halfway across the world.”
“I’m in Hawaii now. I’m coming home for a while, kid.”
“That’s wonderful! It will be like old-home week.”
“I know,” Sean said.
She frowned. “How do you know?”
“David Beckett left me a message about going back.”
“He left you a message?”
“E-mail,” Sean explained.
“But I thought-”
“I didn’t have access for a few days, but the filming project finished up. I’m in Hawaii, and I head back to California the day after tomorrow. Then Miami the following morning-”
“I’ll come pick you up.”
“No, no, I’m going to rent a car. I’ll be there sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“That’s wonderful, Sean! Oh, watch the traffic. The first events for Fantasy Fest are starting soon.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the traffic. It will just be aggravating. I could hop a puddle jumper in Miami, but I kind of want to drive down. Even with the tourists clogging the road.”
“Okay. That’s super, Sean!”
He was quiet. She thought that she had lost the connection. “Katie?” he said then.
“What?”
“Don’t go telling anyone that…that you see things.”
It was her turn to be quiet. Sean had been amused the first time she had seen a ghost. She had been six, in first grade, and they’d been playing at the church. The ghost she had seen had been a nun. Sean had taken it all as a joke. Her feelings had been terribly hurt, but she had quickly realized that he had been trying to defend her. The other kids meant to torment her and laugh at her-which they did, until Sean turned it all around, laughing at them for falling for the joke.
Later, Katie had been alone at the playground. The nun had come to her, and spoken gently, assuring her that she had a gift, and that she must guard it carefully.
But when her grandfather had died, her mother’s tears had shaken her. She had seen her grandfather, trying to comfort her mother. She told her mother. Her mother believed she was just trying to comfort her-until she told her mother where Grandpa had left his old gold pocket watch, and that he wanted Katie’s father to have it.
Her mother had been looking everywhere for the pocket watch.
Katie was careful then. She didn’t tell anybody about the sailors, servicemen and pirates who roamed the docks.
She avoided eye contact with the ghosts. It hadn’t worked with Bartholomew.
She had thought that her brother had forgotten about her ghosts, because she never mentioned a ghost again. Sometimes, though, she had information or could tell him things because a ghost had pointed something out. She would remain stubbornly silent when he asked her how she knew something.
“Katie?”
“What?”
“Don’t go saying anything, anything at all-especially not to David. I know why he’s in town. If God himself comes down to speak to you, don’t say anything-do you understand?”
“I think God is busy, Sean. The world is a mess, if you haven’t noticed. I don’t think that he’s coming down to talk to me,” she said.
“Katie, please. I know you…think you see things,” Sean said. “I’m just…”
“Sean, you think that whoever killed Tanya Barnard is still around? It’s been ten years.”
“David has come home to find the killer, Katie. I’m willing to bet that he’s making that pretty clear. And if he’s right, the killer is going to be afraid. Please, Katie…listen to me?”
“Love you to death, big brother,” she said. “And I’m listening. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t see things.”
“That’s what I need to hear, kid,” Sean said. He was quiet for a minute. “And be careful.”
“Of what?”
He was silent, but it was as if she could hear a single name in the silence between them.
David.
“Big brother, you either believe he’s guilty, or you don’t.”
“I don’t.”
“Then?” she asked.
“It’s-sad, sometimes…”
“You believe in a person or you don’t.”
“I do,” he said.
“Then?”
“All right, let’s say I believe in him. Belief isn’t all black-and-white. And not only that, but what if someone had been after him? What if that person is still around? Just watch out for yourself. Careful on getting too friendly.”
“I’m thrilled I’m going to get to see you,” she said, ignoring the warning.
“Yeah. See you soon! And behave until then, huh?”
“I’m just a regular angel, Sean.”
His snort was loud and clear. “Love you, Katie. And behave, I mean it.”
“Oh! We’re going in circles here, dear boy! I thought David was your friend, Sean.”
“He was. He is, I assume,” Sean said. “But…”