Bone Island 03 - Ghost Moon (24 page)

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.”

T
he 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.

“Oh, my God! Oh, thank God! Avery, you’re all right!” Kelsey said.

She managed to set the book on the hospital bed before she bent over him, kissing his cheek, his forehead and his lips.

“Wait, wait!” he told her.

She jumped back. “Did I hurt you? Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, I’m fine, you didn’t hurt me, only my head is spinning just a bit. Where am I? No, no, dumb question. We’re in a hospital.”

Kelsey furrowed her brow, worried. “Avery, don’t you know what happened?”

He was thoughtful for a second, touched his head and winced. “Yes, I do. I was talking to the dolphin.”

“Yes, you were out at the docks. You were fascinated by the dolphin. I went in, and you were going to talk to the dolphin awhile longer. When I came out, you were in the water.”

He nodded.

“Avery, what happened?”

He looked at her as if something was dawning in his mind. He smiled. “She saved me. He saved me. I’m certain. I felt myself falling, falling…and the creature lifted me up!”

“Avery, Jonas and I pulled you from the water. Liam administered CPR.”

“I don’t remember that, but thank you. No, bless you. I’m assuming you all saved my life. But, Kelsey, honestly, I do remember the creature, the dolphin, being there. I think I would have gone straight down if it hadn’t been for the dolphin.”

He was obsessed with the dolphin. He was marveling about the animal, and, of course, she was amazed and gratified, as well. She’d heard such stories before, about dolphins rescuing swimmers, divers, surfers and shipwreck survivors. She didn’t think it at all impossible that a dolphin had kept him from drowning initially, and she was deeply grateful.

But she needed information from him.

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Liam. He
sounded a little tense when he answered, but she told him quickly, “Avery is awake.”

“Thank God,” he told her. “Does he know what happened? Can he talk to me on the phone?”

“He thinks that the dolphin saved him at first—the dolphin that hangs out by the docks next to the beach.”

“Okay,” Liam said. “And before? Can he talk to me?”

She held the phone up to Avery’s ear. She didn’t hear Liam’s question to him, but Avery’s response was clearly audible.

“Hell of a headache, and hell of a thing. I don’t know what happened. I was leaning over the dock. Then my head was killing me, the world was going black and I was in the water.”

Kelsey was certain that Liam asked him to think, to try to remember every second leading up to what had happened.

“I was…was talking to the dolphin. Do you know they make noise? It was kind of making a little noise and moving back in the water…and…”

Avery stopped speaking. “I think I did hear something. Like a pounding. Yes! I felt a vibration on the wood, too. I thought that Kelsey had come back out. But before I could really register the sound or turn…I was in the water, my head killing me, the world going black and spinning.”

Liam spoke again.

“I didn’t scream!” Avery protested. He waited, listening. “I’m telling you, I didn’t scream. I would remember screaming. In surprise, in pain, in…whatever! I didn’t
scream. There was no time. It was bang, and then the rush of the water and the pain in my head.”

Avery listened again to Liam, closing his eyes for a minute. “Of course. Of course, I will do my best to remember more, but…it was sudden. So sudden. Seriously, I went into the water. How the hell do you scream in the water? I mean, I suppose you could try, but…no one would hear it, certainly. Oh, my God. I was attacked on that property by some bastard!”

Kelsey, watching him, shook her head. “You don’t ever have to go back there!” she whispered.

“Like hell! I want to know who did this!” Avery told her.

He spoke to Kelsey’s cell phone again. “Sorry, Liam. Kelsey was telling me that I didn’t have to go back there. I told her no slinking ass was driving me away from staying with her. Whoever this is wants to separate her from the rest of us. I’m not letting that happen! What? Oh, I haven’t seen the doctor yet. I woke up with Kelsey reading to me, and then she called you right away. All right, yes, of course.” He closed the phone and handed it back to her.

“You hung up on him?” she asked.

“He wants a doctor to come in and see me, and see how I’m doing, and decide how long I have to stay here,” Avery explained. “He was in the middle of something. Blood and guts on the beach.”

“What?” Kelsey demanded.

Bartholomew was back on his feet, anxiously frowning.

“There was a dead animal on the beach, that’s what
it sounded like. Not a human being,” Avery explained. “Are you going to go and get the doctor for me?”

“Yes, of course!”

Kelsey ran out to the nurses’ station, excitedly told the woman on duty that Avery had come to and ran back to the room. There was a different physician on that morning, but he came in just seconds after Kelsey had returned to the room.

He spoke to Avery, listened to his words, asked him to point his fingers in different positions, alike and opposing, and stared into his eyes carefully with a light.

Afterward, he supported Avery as he stood for the first time, and they took a few steps together.

Finally, the doctor said, “You’re looking very well, Mr. Slater. Very well indeed. That was a nasty bump you got on your head. We’d like you to stay one more night for observation, then take it easy for a week or so.”

“Oh, I can’t stay,” Avery said.

“Avery, they said that you needed to stay in the hospital another night,” Kelsey said.

“Well, I can’t. I need to be with you. And you know that you can’t stay here. You need to be working on your grandfather’s estate,” Avery said firmly.

“I don’t want you here alone,” Kelsey said.

“Here’s the deal, Kelsey, and that’s that. I’ll stay, if you’ll go home. And if you’ll have another friend come over during the day while Liam is working. That’s it, that’s my final offer!”

The doctor looked from one of them to the other. “This
is
a hospital, miss. Your friend will be safe here.”

“I take it he never saw
Friday the 13th,
” Avery said, grinning. “Parts one or two!”

“I beg your pardon?” the doctor said.

“I’m sorry, nothing,” Avery said. He looked at Kelsey. “I will catch up on
People
and
US.
I will be fine. You’ll call someone to come and get you—someone who will stay with you. And I’ll think about what happened, and try to remember.”

Kelsey felt as if she were being ripped in two. She knew now that her grandfather had counted on her finding the reliquary, on doing the right thing with it.

She needed to go through his ledgers, to find out how he had labeled the various pieces and where he wanted them to go.

But she didn’t want Avery to be alone.

“Avery, you’re staying. I’ll get on the phone with Liam and work things out.”

She looked across the room. Bartholomew had proven he was a willing if spectral guardian.

Bartholomew was staring back at her.

“Oh, no!” he said firmly. “Where you are going, I’m going. I am not staying here and leaving you and Liam alone down there. No. No, absolutely not!
No
—and I mean it!”

No goat had ever deserved to end its days so heinously.

Franklin Valaski stared at Liam, shaking his head. “Liam, not to judge, but why me? Shouldn’t animal control have been called on this one?”

“We have laws against animal abuse, and this is abuse
if I’ve ever seen it,” Liam said. “Hell, I don’t even know where anyone got a goat on this island!”

“Up on Stock Island, sir!” Ricky Long told him. Along with members of the crime-scene unit, he and Art Saunders were working the bizarre crime.

Liam looked over at him and shrugged. “There’s a fellow up there with goats. I mean, there may be some down here, but…roosters. We have roosters and chickens everywhere. You’d have thought this nut might have gone for a rooster. It wouldn’t be all that easy getting a goat!” Ricky Long continued.

Liam hoped that was true. That would help him a great deal.

He looked around. The men and women of the unit were all working diligently, searching the beach for any evidence—gum wrappers, cigarette butts, footprints, trash in containers, anything and everything—but he was afraid they were also thinking that he was losing his mind. They were all still working a murder; there were drug busts daily, prostitution rings, grand larceny, gang violence, smuggling and any number of other serious events happening, and they were looking for clues to a goat-murderer.

“Hey!” he snapped loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. “I have good reason to believe that whoever butchered this goat killed Gary White. We’re looking for an organized man who functions well day by day but has a seriously delusional personality. He’s taking after Peter Edwards, an historical character who supposedly sacrificed goats on the beach in a like manner to curse Southern blockade runners. And if I hear one
more snicker, someone is going to be on trash duty for the next month!”

Everyone went back to work.

Liam turned to Franklin Valaski. “Cause of death?” he asked flatly.

Valaski stared at him. “Liam—”

“Cause of death!”

“All right, thankfully, I think the throat was slit first. This is an isolated area, near the fort, busy by day, dark by night. Perfect for someone to get a goat out here, and even if anyone had been around to hear, the animal would have died so quickly it wouldn’t have had much time to let out a noise. Get the windpipe, and, well….”

“What kind of a weapon?” Liam asked.

Valaski sighed, his gloved hands on the wound.

“Something incredibly sharp. Like a sacrificial knife.”

“It’s not a problem at all, really, I don’t mind!” Vanessa assured Kelsey. “I have work with me. Copies of a lot of the film we took, my computer…right now, I’m weeding through, looking for the best footage and clearest explanations of different events we chronicled, along with the main event, the massacre on Haunt Island…so I’ll be fine. And Sean will be fine without me for a night,” she said, grinning. “It’s good to miss each other now and then—it makes you know how wonderful it is when you’re together!”

Kelsey smiled. “Thank you.”

“And I will be with you. I don’t work at all today. I can help you at the house,” Katie assured her.

They were in Avery’s hospital room, and Avery wasn’t pleased.

“I’d be fine alone,” he insisted.

“You’ll be fine giving me your opinions of what we’ve got,” Vanessa said firmly.

He threw up his hands. “I feel useless. I feel worse. I’m taking up time that people need.”

“Avery, please, deal with it!” Kelsey said firmly.

Avery looked at Katie. “You won’t leave her for a minute? I can’t believe that Liam approved this, but…” He lifted his hands in aggravation once again. “I am overrun by women!” he moaned.

“But we all have cute friends,” Katie teased.

“Don’t add insult to injury,” he moaned. “I do not need to be fixed up!”

Kelsey laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “Behave. Promise?”

“I’ll keep him in line,” Vanessa said.

Katie and Kelsey waved, leaving the hospital room at last. Katie O’Hara had driven up, and she and Kelsey would drive back. In the morning, when Avery was released, someone would make the trip back up to bring him down to Key West and the Merlin house. He was stubborn; he was not going to stay anywhere else as long as Kelsey was staying there.

As she drove, Katie said, “So we’ve determined that Avery was attacked. It’s a pity that he didn’t see anything. Or hear anything. Whoever is doing all this is incredibly good, I’ll give him that much.”

“He did see something. He saw a dolphin. Well, we
both saw the dolphin. It is a fascinating creature—it observes people as we observe it,” Kelsey said.

“I should have been outside, watching over him,” Bartholomew said from the backseat.

Kelsey saw Katie frown at the ghost in the rearview mirror.

“It’s all right—I see him,” Kelsey said wearily, closing her eyes as she leaned back in the passenger’s seat.

“What?” Katie asked. The car swerved slightly.