One of the women asked her specifically about the Artist House bed-and-breakfast and one of Key West’s most famous—or infamous—residents, Robert the Doll. Hannah led them down Eaton and stood across the street from the beautiful old Victorian house.
“Some of you may already have heard of Robert the Doll,” Hannah said. She tried not to be distracted by the crowds streaming past. She told herself that she was virtually surrounded. The Beckett brothers—Liam and David—were there. Kelsey was right at her side. Logan was standing at an angle just in front of her, almost blocking her tour group. And Dallas was so close behind her that he was nearly on top of her.
“Robert is an interesting case. The natural need of a child for an imaginary friend? Or truly a cursed object? Robert Eugene Otto grew up in the gorgeous Victorian manor across the street from us, now a charming bed-and-breakfast called the Artist House, because Robert did, in fact, grow up to be an artist. Born in 1900, he was a six-year-old boy known as Gene when, in 1906, he was given the doll—which he named Robert—by a Bahamian servant. According to the story, the servant was unhappy with the family. Perhaps they had somehow slighted her. At any rate, she gave the doll to young Gene, and soon afterward his parents would hear him talking to it. The strange thing is, they swore they could hear the doll talking back to him. Sometimes at night Gene screamed. The parents would find him cowering in bed with the room in disarray. No matter what happened, he would always say that Robert the Doll did it.” She smiled and paused.
“Did Gene Otto just use the doll as an excuse? Or was something strange really going on? He’d walk all over town, dressed in a sailor suit like Robert’s, carrying the doll. Eventually Gene went away to school, and later he married another artist, Anne. There were a number of strange rumors after that. He built a nursery, and Anne thought they were planning for children, but the room was for Robert. There were disturbances at the house, and the police would come and find Anne looking...a little the worse for wear, but Gene would tell people that Robert did it. Truth? Or just a story embellished through the years? No one knows. What is true is that Gene died in 1974. Anne moved back north, where she was from, and she rented out the house with one stipulation. The doll was to go in the turret room, and the door was to be kept locked at all times. Anne died in 1976.
“The first family to own the house after Anne died had a little girl. In interviews as an adult, she claimed that the doll was cursed, that it spoke and did evil things. Workmen claimed that Robert moved their tools. Robert wound up at the Fort East Martello Museum, where he remains today. You can visit him there, but beware. Word is that you must ask Robert’s permission to take his picture, lest your camera be cursed.”
Dallas suddenly whispered in her ear, “Keep talking, keep them here,” he said.
Trying to hide the tremor that ran through her at his words, she went on. “Another reason to visit the museum is to take the nighttime haunted tram.”
“You’re saying we should take another ghost tour, too?” one of the college boys asked her.
“Absolutely. And by day you definitely have to see the Key West Cemetery. Be sure to get your picture taken in front of the stone that reads ‘I told you I was sick,’” she said. “The cemetery exists because in the mid-1800s a storm raged through Key West. Bodies and bones literally came flooding down Duval Street, washed out of the original cemetery by the storm, so it was decided then to create a cemetery on the highest point on the island. They reburied what bodies they could there, and used it for all future burials.”
That left her with nothing else to say; she’d finished her story, and it was time to move on. But Dallas was gone—just gone. He had disappeared after whispering to her.
She looked for Logan, and realized he had stepped away and was on his phone.
She started ad libbing, pulling up whatever facts she could. “The body of Ian Chandler, the first owner of my home, was one of those that was found after the flood, and though his marker is gone, his remains are still there somewhere,” she said, wondering when someone would grow impatient and ask her what they were seeing next.
Luckily Logan caught her eye just then. He nodded to her, and gestured. She read his mind.
Move on, but slowly.
“And now,” she said, “it’s time for us to head back toward Duval, where I’ll leave you all at the Hard Rock. You can indulge in your complimentary drink and a meal, and perhaps see a ghost on the second floor—especially you ladies, since it’s said that a man named Robert Curry haunts the ladies’ room, where he hanged himself.”
Where the hell had Dallas gone? she thought with an increasing sense of panic.
Something had happened. She knew it, and she had a feeling Logan knew exactly where Dallas was, and that someone had been watching them. She just had to finish the tour and then she could get back to the safety of the Siren.