Ghost Moon

“What if evil spirits unlock them to lure in the innocent?” Bartholomew asked. “I may be a ghost, but we both know that evil isn’t something that dies easily.”

Liam wondered if Kelsey Donovan was going to have Joe Richter sell the place for her, or if she’d come to Key West herself. He’d have to ask Richter. If Kelsey was going to come down and move back into the house, he had to stop whatever the hell was going on.

“Cutter Merlin wasn’t an evil man,” he said.

Bartholomew sniffed, sidestepping a huge stone gargoyle probably procured from a medieval church somewhere in Europe.

The gargoyle’s huge shoulders hunched and the eyes seemed to stare at them with malice.

“They say he practiced black magic!” Bartholomew told him.

“People make up whatever they wish regarding an old hermit,” Liam said sadly.

“He was some kind of a wizard. Or a witch, maybe. Men can be witches, right? Yeah, that’s right. They hanged men as witches in Salem, Massachusetts. And in Europe, too,” Bartholomew said.

“They hanged a bunch of innocent people caught up in hysteria or a land grab,” Liam said firmly.

As he did so, he heard a scream again. Male this time, hoarse and curt…and somehow just as bloodcurdling as the first he had heard that evening.

The sound came again, a scream of abject terror.

Then, it was broken off. Midstream, as if the screamer had…

As if the screamer’s throat had been slit.

Ricky. Ricky Long, screaming from the ground floor…

And then—not.

Liam forgot Bartholomew and the idiotic imaginations of the masses and went tearing down the stairs.

Chapter Two

Liam’s call had opened the door to the past.

Odd—that was actually what she had done in her mind, she realized. Closed a door. And as if that door had been real and tangible, she had set her hand on the knob and turned it.

Cutter Merlin, her mother’s father, had been so many things. He had doctorates in history and archaeology, and he had been the best storyteller she had ever known. His beautiful old house in Key West had been like a treasure trove, filled with things, and each thing had offered a story. She had loved growing up with the exotic. While her friends could be easily scared, she loved the idea that she lived with a real Egyptian mummy. At campfires she had told great tales herself, describing how she had awakened once to find the mummy standing over her…reaching out for her.

It had been great. The others had squealed with fear and delight.

Except for Liam, of course. She could remember the way he would scoff at her stories. He was two years older than she was, but in their small community they often wound up at the same extracurricular events, and even when they were in grade school, they had battled.

“Yeah, sure!” Liam said, mocking her story. “Like the mummy really got up. The mummy is old and dead and rotten, and if you let me in the house, I’ll prove it!” he would say.

“Ask my grandfather!” she’d dared him.

“I’ll be happy to,” he’d assured her. But he never did. He didn’t want to prove his words, because her stories made her popular.

And they were good stories, of course.

He’d been so elusive; that little bit older, somehow, even for a boy, more mature.

And sometimes, when they were grouped together out on the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor, she told stories that were true about the aboriginal tribes her grandfather had known, getting a little bit dramatic by adding the fact that Cutter had barely escaped with his life—and his own head.

Liam listened, rolling his eyes at her embellishments.

She had been tall, since girls did tend to grow faster than boys. But Liam had grown quickly, too, and by the time they had reached their early teens, he had stood at least an inch over her, and when she would talk, he would lean against a doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, that amused and disbelieving look on his face.

But when her mother had died, he had been like the Rock of Gibraltar, telling her to go ahead and break down when she had tried so hard not to cry in public, and he had held her while she had sobbed for an hour. He had been her strength that night, smoothing her hair back, just being there, never saying that it was all right that her mother was dead, just saying that it was all right to cry.

And then…

Then she hadn’t seen him again. Her father took her away from Key West, hurriedly, one night. She had left most of her belongings, taking only one suitcase, because her father had been in such a rush.

She’d told no one goodbye.

And no matter how real her life in Key West had been, everything about it had faded away. She had enrolled in a California school. She had acquired new friends. She had played volleyball in the sand, and she had finally learned to surf in cold water. Everything in their apartment was brand-new, and her father never even watched old movies.

There had only been one time when she had asked him about Cutter. She had never called him grandfather, grandpa, or even gramps—he had always been Cutter to everyone. And so she had asked her father, “Do you hate Cutter, Dad? Do you think that he hurt Mom somehow?”

He had hesitated, but then shook his head strenuously. “No, no. Cutter is a good man. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different, ever.”

“Then why did we run away from him?” she’d asked.

“Because bad things can follow a good man, and that’s that, and please, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

And that had been it.

Key West had faded away, like a scene out of a movie, one she had seen long ago. Until her father was dying, and he had talked about Cutter again.

Cutter wasn’t safe.

She’d loved him. She thought about it now, and she knew that she had really loved him. He’d had such a wonderful sense of adventure. His eyes had been brilliant while he’d described the pyramids in Egypt and the temples in ancient Greece. He talked about places like the Vatican, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame with great awe. He’d talked about the catacombs in Paris, and about marvelous, creepy grottos in Sicily.

His talent as a storyteller had been amazing. And, of course, he’d turned her into one, she thought. No one had ever really known when Cutter was telling the truth—and when he was spinning a very tall tale.

She called Joe Richter, the attorney, to let him know that she would come in person, and then she called Avery Slater, her creative partner, to let him know that she was leaving and why. And naturally, Avery appeared at her door within twenty minutes.

He was seriously one of the most beautiful people she had ever seen, and she used his image for one of her characters, Talon, an angel who had come to live among men. Avery was tall, and he spent his free time at the gym, so he was lean and muscled, as well. He had luxurious, thick, almost black hair, his eyes were chestnut and his features might have adorned a Greek statue. He was a skilled animator, her partner and one of her best friends. She knew that people often thought they were a romantic pair, but Avery was gay, not in the closet in the least, but someone who was very private as well, unless he was among close friends.

He burst into her home with the ease of a best friend, heading straight into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and finding the chardonnay. He poured himself a glass, didn’t offer her one and swallowed it down as if it were water, staring at her all the while.

“You can’t just up and go to Key West,” he told her, setting his glass down firmly on the counter.

“I’m not moving to Key West, I’m just going down for a few weeks. My grandfather died,” she said.

“Yes, yes, you told me that. But you weren’t close—you hadn’t seen him in years,” Avery reminded her.