Vargas would never let her live. He’d throw her over in deep water. And she was drugged; she wouldn’t be able to stay afloat.
Vargas was almost in the boat. Liam was ready to leap when the boat suddenly tilted out of the water.
Kelsey crashed overboard. Vargas tried to hold on to her, and he went in, too.
Liam made a dive into the water, desperate to find Kelsey. Something swirled around his feet.
It was the dolphin. A good twelve feet long, powerful. The animal had caused the boat to tilt. And, though he couldn’t really believe it, the dolphin was leading him to Kelsey.
He dived, and dived again, following the large, sleek sea creature.
And his arms came around Kelsey. He pulled her from the water, screaming her name as they surfaced. She gasped, choked, coughed, and opened her eyes and stared into his.
“Liam,” she said.
He half swam and half dragged her to the shore. As he did so, something like an iron fist landed on his back.
Vargas. Vargas, rolling him over, straddling him, lifting the knife high over him in a frenzy. He bucked with all his strength and threw the man from him. Vargas lifted his arm to throw the knife.
His aim went askew as Kelsey staggered to her feet and threw herself against him. The knife went flying to the ground, and Vargas shoved Kelsey aside, desperate now. He turned and ran for the house.
Liam jumped to his feet, racing after him. Kelsey came behind him. As they tore into the living room, Vargas suddenly stopped.
Just stopped, dead still.
“No.” Vargas was staring at nothing. Staring toward the fireplace.
“No!” he repeated.
Liam started forward. Vargas rushed to the fireplace and reached into it, drawing out the shotgun that Cutter had held on his lap, the shotgun that had disappeared on cleaning day.
“Kelsey, down!” Liam said and made a dive himself for the police-issue Smith & Wesson he had dropped earlier.
Vargas shot wildly, at nothing.
But it wasn’t nothing.
There was a woman in the room, slowly materializing. She was wearing a blue dress, and she had long dark hair and had beautiful blue eyes. Kelsey’s mother.
The shots went straight through her.
She walked to Vargas and said softly, “There is a hell, and you will rot in it. You will never touch my child!”
“Witch! You’re not real. I’ll show you your precious daughter!”
Vargas let out a long gale of hysterical laughter and spun around, aiming the gun at Kelsey. She rolled swiftly to the side, and Vargas tried to follow her. His finger twitched on the trigger.
Liam took fleeting aim with the Smith & Wesson.
And he shot the man.
Vargas fell.
Liam could hear his men out in the yard, running now toward the house. He hurried to Kelsey, trying to help her up. She was still staggering, but when she’d gotten to her feet, she whispered, “Liam, I’m…I’m fine.”
He eased his hold on her. He watched as she walked to the apparition of her mother.
“I loved you so,” Kelsey whispered.
A spectral hand touched her cheek with infinite tenderness, and then disappeared in a soft glow of light.
“Love is forever, my darling child,” Chelsea Merlin Donovan said. “I will always love you.”
Epilogue
“I must admit, I was afraid that you’d want to do one of those Titanic deals. You know, how the woman threw the gem back into the sea!” Jaden said.
Kelsey laughed. “Hell, no! That’s too much money. I’ve divided it between a lot of Cutter’s favorite charities. AIDS, cancer, heart, diabetes and the animal shelter! The reliquary itself is being returned to the Church and France, and I’m actually well on my way to getting a great deal of Cutter’s collectibles to the museums where he wanted them to be. Oh—the fake reliquary? We’re giving that to you and Ted, Jaden,” Kelsey added.
Jaden gasped. “Oh, you can’t. It’s far too valuable.”
“But you don’t intend to sell it. And anything is only as valuable as what one pays for it. You two should have it. You will appreciate it, as Cutter did.”
Jaden looked at Ted.
“We couldn’t!” Ted said.
Jaden pinched him. “Maybe we could!”
Liam laughed softly. “Kelsey wants you to have it. Take it.”
“Can you imagine, that monster lurking in that house, on and off, all those years? I guess he found the way in when he worked for the Merlins all those years ago,” Katie said. “Ugh! Too creepy.”
“I think,” Kelsey said, “that he got himself attached to Cutter, and he saw the book, and he found out more about the things that had gone on in Key West and decided bit by bit to put together everything that had been used over the years. He was invisible, because he could come and go so easily. He was a thief—and he was a psychopath! At least, that’s how I see it.”