“Can you talk to my mother or my grandfather?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. Truly sorry. If they’ve remained behind, I’ve yet to come across them,” he told her. “And I’ve been in this house quite frequently lately. Nor have I met either in the cemetery.”
This was crazy.
A crazy that she wanted.
“But if you’re here, isn’t it possible that they are here, too? Somewhere?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s possible. But I’ve told you—I have not had the pleasure of the acquaintance of your mother or grandfather.”
“They could still be here,” she said stubbornly.
He appeared to inhale and exhale, sighing, but, of course, he was a ghost.
He wasn’t breathing.
“I’m sorry, Kelsey. Key West sometimes seems to crawl with spirits, and yet they are but two or three percent of those from this area who have passed on to whatever it is the next life brings to us,” he said. “Some walk down Duval, seeking what they lost or never had, lovers come and gone, wives, husbands, children. And there are those who see one, and those who see many, like Katie O’Hara. Still, I don’t suggest you share your sighting of me with those who don’t already know of my presence. People do tend to think that you’ve lost your mind.”
“I think that I’ve lost my mind,” Kelsey said.
“I rest my case.”
She frowned suddenly and gasped. “It was you—you staring down at me in my sleep. Or, you are what I fear, what I feel.”
He sat very straight, staring at her indignantly. “Never!” he said.
“Was that fear, my imagination, then? My paranoia? Or was it as real as seeing a ghost?” she asked.
Once again, he seemed to sigh. “My dear, dear Miss Donovan. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions. This lack of life is much like life itself in several ways. I can only be one place at one time. I can only travel with the speed of my legs or that of any conveyance in which I might be seated. One day, before I pass over, I’d like to take an airplane ride. How wonderful! Soaring above the earth. Ah, but that is not for now. Now I am trying to discover what I can that will help you. I don’t have the power to push large pieces of furniture, but I am quite proud of my prowess with a modern coffee brewer. I can push buttons. I can think. I can see. And what I see, I can tell those who see me. Am I making sense?”
Kelsey smiled. She was seated at her grandfather’s desk. A ghost was sitting across the desk from her, speaking as if they were at a casual meeting.
Did the ghost make sense?
“You see me,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to tell you in what ways I can help—and in what ways I cannot.”
“Did you know my grandfather when he was alive?” she asked.
“I’m afraid I did not. I saw him a few times about town. But I did not know him. I spent years being nothing more than a shiver or, perhaps, upon occasion, a source of comfort, before Katie O’Hara finally spoke to me.”
“Did you know my mother?”
“No, I am afraid I did not.”
“Then how do you know that neither she nor my grandfather are about, haunting Key West?”
“This house is filled with pictures, Miss Donovan. I would recognize both.”
“Oh,” she murmured, disappointed. “What about Gary White?” she asked excitedly. “He was murdered. Surely his spirit must be wandering around seeking justice!”
“I’ve tried to explain—not everyone remains behind. Some pass through life to death and what comes after without this time in the midst of the veil.”
“Is that what it is, really?” Kelsey asked. “A veil between life and death?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what I’ve heard it called,” he said.
“I keep closing my eyes. You’re not disappearing,” Kelsey said.
“I won’t disappear. I’ve been coming clearer and clearer to you since we were first together,” he said. “Now…well, I’m sorry if it distresses you. You will continue to see me.”
Kelsey shook her head. “It doesn’t distress me. It makes me believe that I might see those I loved once again.”
“Kelsey, please don’t count on that,” he said.
“You were in the cemetery,” she said. “You spoke softly to me. You comforted me.”
He smiled. “I thought that you had felt me there.”
“My grandfather believed that my mother was murdered. My grandfather might have been murdered, and Gary White was murdered,” she said.
“Yes,” Bartholomew said. “I’ve heard. And, of course, forgive me, I’ve been reading over your shoulder.”
“But you don’t know who killed Gary White?”
“I wasn’t here,” he explained.