Still, with his police-issue revolver in his hand, he walked around. It seemed as if things were different. Just subtly different.
He went from room to room, and checked every window. Nothing had been opened. It had to be his imagination. A statue of the Virgin Mary on the voodoo altar seemed just a bit out of whack. The suit of armor that had so terrified Ricky Long seemed to be a step forward. The mummy in his open sarcophagus seemed to have shifted.
But there was no one in the house, and it was locked tight.
As he walked, Liam decided that he’d have an alarm company out the next day. He didn’t know why the place hadn’t gotten an alarm system years ago. Maybe Cutter had wanted the perp who he believed had killed his daughter to come back. He had spent the remaining years of his life waiting.
At last, he went upstairs. He opted for a hot shower.
He missed Kelsey. He could smell the scents of her soap and shampoo. He’d taken what he had thought that she might want for an overnight stay in a chair at the hospital, but she was still there, everywhere, in his senses and in his mind.
When he came out, skin still hot and damp from the shower, he started to hit the bed.
But Kelsey seemed to be with him. He grinned and locked the bedroom door.
He went to bed, thinking he was so exhausted that he would sleep quickly. But he didn’t. Her sweet, clean, erotic scent was in the bed, and he stretched his arm out where she should have lain, and he missed her. It hurt. Deeply.
What the hell would he do with himself if she left him for another life?
He couldn’t dwell on it; he needed sleep. He tried to will himself to rest.
He finally drifted off.
He woke, eyes flying open, and not knowing why.
He had heard something downstairs.
He got up quietly and slipped into his chinos and pulled a polo shirt over his head. He didn’t put shoes on, but quietly opened the door and started down the hall.
He tiptoed down the stairs.
Morning’s light was pouring in; it was later than he thought. A glance at his watch told him that it was almost ten o’clock.
There was nothing.
He looked across the living room. He went from room to room, swearing when he stubbed his toe on the giant gargoyle.
He went back upstairs, and through every room, and still there was nothing.
He stood still, listening. There were just the usual sounds of a winter’s day in Key West. Birds. A distant sound of laughter and music. A ship’s horn.
Shaking his head, he went back to Kelsey’s bedroom and finished dressing.
As he did so, his cell phone rang.
“Boss?” It was Art Saunders.
“Yes, what is it?” he asked tensely. He groaned inwardly. “Another murder? What’s happened?”
“Well, it’s murder in a way.”
“Art, spit it out, what the hell has happened?”
“Um, it was the murder of a goat. The poor thing sure as hell didn’t die of natural causes. We have a dead goat on Smathers Beach. Looks like its throat was slit and its entrails were arranged across the sand. You’d better come quickly.”
13
The little notes her grandfather left were on thin, delicate paper, folded discreetly in the pages. She couldn’t just shake the book to find them; she had to go page by page.
As she did so, she read aloud when a particular passage seemed relevant.
“Here’s an interesting one, Avery,” Kelsey said. Avery hadn’t opened his eyes yet, but she was speaking to him, just as the doctor had said that she should. “It’s a prayer for a house! ‘Oh, Lord, let your presence protect this time and space, may you bless those who dwell within, and may you blacken and burn the hearts of those who do work against thee. Cast Satan and all his minions from here, and let all that is done here, and all that abide here, rest in your arms, the arms of Goodness, and Mercy, and Peace. Let us reflect your Divine Spirit, and no other.’”
“Very wordy,” Bartholomew said. He was leaning back in a chair at the far side of the room. He’d been there with her, and she was touched to realize that he had watched over her when she had drifted off through the night. Sleep hadn’t been easy. The chair extended, the hospital staff had given her a pillow and blankets, but she was cramped and tired.
When she had gone for coffee earlier, Bartholomew had been torn. He didn’t want her alone; he didn’t want Avery alone.
In the end, he had decided that whoever was attempting murder at every turn was still in Key West—obsessed with the reliquary and the Merlin house. She had gone for coffee and an egg sandwich, and he had stayed and watched over Avery.
“Nice.”
It wasn’t Bartholomew who spoke; it was Avery.
Kelsey gasped, nearly throwing the book from her hands. She looked at the bed. Avery was offering her a weak smile.
His eyes were open.
Bartholomew jumped to his feet, looked at Avery and sank back into his chair, arms crossing over his chest as he smiled at them both like the Cheshire cat.