“And you haven’t seen Gary White? His ghost, I mean?”
“Miss Donovan, if I had the answers, I certainly would have given them to Liam by now! All I can do is help him trace what we know and…tell him what information I can get from others, like myself, I have had the pleasure of meeting. Well, usually, it’s a pleasure. Now and then, one does come across someone quite unpleasant who has stayed behind. I’ll tell you what I know, and what I believe. There was a man named Peter Edwards. Whether all the stories about him are true or not, I don’t know. But, supposedly, he used black magic to curse or hex or kill Southern blockade runners during the war, and, later on, got mixed up with a very evil man named Abel Crowley. At some point in his life, he truly began to regret what he may or may not have done. Tattling on a man during wartime is much like killing him. Pete rued his transgressions, and he tried to use the book your grandfather had—the book in this very room—to atone for his sins. Pete is still walking around the cemetery. Perhaps he can help us again, and perhaps knowing about the books and what they are supposedly capable of doing, or enabling, is the key to what is going on now. I don’t believe that men can bring about hexes and curses. I believe they are capable of greed, envy, viciousness and violence.”
“All right. What do you think of Liam’s theory? After reading my grandfather’s notes, I think he’s right that someone knew about the real reliquary, and the fake reliquary, years ago. I believe that person somehow killed my mother—though exactly how her fall was caused, I don’t know. After my mother’s death…” Kelsey paused, perplexed.
“What?” Bartholomew asked.
“Nothing happened. My mother died, my father and I moved away, and nothing happened. Not until Cutter died.”
“A million-dollar diamond is a prize well worth waiting for,” Bartholomew commented.
She nodded, and then frowned again. Out the window, she saw someone moving.
The someone was running, running around from the front to the rear of the house.
“What in the world…?” she began, jumping to her feet.
Leaving Bartholomew to follow in her wake if he chose….
If he was real….
She raced around to the back.
She saw a man at the end of the dock.
And then she saw Avery.
He was facedown in the water, twenty feet from shore.
12
Ah, but it was invigorating, fascinating, exciting beyond imagination to watch!
Ah, they didn’t know….
He had been the one to do the screaming. Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha, and it had worked so well.
He was invisible.
He paused for a moment. Today, he had shaved it very close. He had barely disappeared into himself before the others had come, before the frantic quest for life had begun. But then again, cutting it so close led to the brilliant wonder that he was feeling now.
Victorious. Amazed, amused, so vastly entertained.
He watched, and he felt himself so incredibly clever, so jubilant.
He backed away….
Soon, the fun would really begin.
After questioning Chris Vargas, Liam returned to the station. He realized he never had bothered to have lunch, and he managed to eat a rock-hard bagel as he looked over the reports from the day.
Gary White had played at a small coffeehouse on Margaret Street in the days before he had disappeared and died. The owner hadn’t had much conversation with him. Gary wasn’t a brilliant performer, but he’d been fine, playing soft tones that fit the bill for people who didn’t want loud music. Getting away from loud music in Key West wasn’t always easy.
He had fixed a leaky pipe for a Mrs. Vinnie Wilfred over on Simonton Street the following afternoon.
He hadn’t been seen since.
He hadn’t spoken to anyone about the Merlin house, nor had he mentioned visiting the library, and he had certainly not spoken to any of them about reading any books.
Liam’s head was pounding. He was getting nowhere. He might be running down chimeras. No. Gary White was dead. Murdered. Someone had murdered him. The clues had to be out there.
He had died on the Merlin property.
That had to mean something, too.
It meant a killer was laughing at him as he chased his own tail.
He left the office at precisely five, thinking that Kelsey might have discovered something else helpful in her grandfather’s book.
He was just pulling into Kelsey’s drive when he heard the sound of her scream.
It was coming from the back of the house.
He jerked the car to a halt and went tearing around the house.
There were people in the water. Clothed people in the water.
Kelsey.
Avery.
And Jonas.
Liam rushed to the shore and saw that Kelsey and Jonas were pulling Avery from the water. Kelsey was speaking to her friend, words tumbling from her lips.
Avery was pale and bloated-looking; his lips were blue.