Liam rose and motioned for a crime scene tech. The man hurried over, took pictures as Dallas indicated, and then moved back to the fence where hed been working.
Whoever he was, Dallas told the dead man quietly, well find him.
Two of Dirks assistants came for the body, and another tech walked up to Liam. Sir? Anything specific you want us to look for? he asked.
Inspect the alley and all the nearby streets, and the yard, too. Our vic was seen with a knifea big knife, like a bowie knife. Try to find it. Search everywhere our victim could have been.
Do we need a permit for the yard? the tech asked.
Hannah is a friend. We have her blessing for anything thats necessary. Do your jobs, but dont be careless. Try not to leave the place looking like a war zone, Liam said.
The tech nodded and moved away.
Dallas shook his head, looking from the yard to the house. How the hell could anyone think that a dying man was a ghost? he demanded.
The power of suggestion, probably, Liam said. People love ghost tours. They go on them all the time. They want to be scared. They dont want real danger, but they want to be scared. Hell, Dallas, nothings changed since we were kids. This place survives on tourism. Tourists like stories. Were full of them.
But this guy was stumbling around your friends yard and she didnt wake up until some tourist screamed, and then she was all, Wow, you saw a bloody ghost in my yard? Okay.
Hannah is a good kid, Dallas. Lay off. She was dealing with screaming tourists who told her they saw a ghost, not a man.
Dallas nodded. Yeah, all right.
Come in and talk to her. Talk. Dont yell.
I was never yelling.
You basically accused her of causing his death.
The hell I did. I merely suggested that an intelligent and rational human being might have thought from the get-go that there was something more than a ghost in her yard.
Liam lowered his head, a slight grin on his face. Im going in for coffee. If you can be nice for a few minutes, youre invited, too. He looked up at Dallas, and his smile faded. You heard the doc. He couldnt have been saved unless hed been in an emergency room when it happened. Its not Hannahs fault your man is dead.
I know. I just...I just feel like something is escaping me and that I should be able to grasp it, and I cant. Ill be pleasant. I promise.
No sarcasm?
No sarcasm.
They took the path from the gate past the pool, where the techs were busy stringing tape to try to salvage what they could of the victims route from the yard to his death.
There were no blood trails to the yard, which seemed impossible, but unless the techs could find something with their equipment that neither Liam nor Dallas had seen, Jose Rodriguez might as well have appeared in the yard like the ghost those kids had thought he was, because there was no sign of where he had been before he showed up by the pool.
How could that be? He must have been bleeding steadily by that point.
There was a crime scene marker at every spot where Hannah OBrien had seen blood as shed followed the trail through her yard to the alley.
Dallas couldnt help himself. He paused, looking at the lawn chairs beside the pool. He imagined the couple lying there....
Opening their eyes.
Seeing Rodriguez bleeding, holding a knife, then screaming in terror at what they thought was a ghost.
They had still been out there freaking out when Hannah came out to see what was going on, so why hadnt Rodriguez stayed there with them and asked for help?
The pool was surrounded by attractive tile work, which gave way to lawn. It appeared that Rodriguez had stumbled past the chairs, then across the grass, past the bushes edging the yard and through the gate into the alley. It hadnt rained recently, so the foliage was dry and brittle. He had to assume there would be evidence if Rodriguez had gone through it. Since there wasnt, he had to assume Rodriguez had taken almost a straight line out to the alley.
Had the gate already been open?
He closed his eyes and tried to picture what had happened.
Sliced, bleeding, dying...but he hadnt headed to the house?
Why?
There could be only one reason.
Rodriguez had come from the alley, trying to escape through the yard, and the killer had been behind him. But hed seen the kids by the pool and hadnt wanted anyone else to die, so hed sacrificed his own life and turned around, back toward danger.
So where was the killer now?
And where was the knife the couple had seen Rodriguez waving?
The answer was obvious.
The killer had followed him until he had fallen, then wrested the knifewhich might well have been dripping with the killers bloodfrom Rodriguezs dying grasp.
2
Hannah had hurried past the pool area and inside without looking back. Once there, she leaned against the door, just breathing.
She still felt as though, even if she were pinched, she wouldnt feel anything.
Hed been real. The ghost in her yard had not been a ghost at all. At least, he hadnt been a ghost when her guests had seen him. He had been realhed been flesh and blood and...
Alive.
But according to the medical examiner, nothing could have saved him at that point.
And still, in her mind, she kept replaying everything about finding his corpse as clearly as if it were happening all over again. First the blood...
And then the body.
Shed rushed to his side, fallen to her knees while fumbling to get her phone from her pocket. Shed touched him, ready to do whatever necessary to help him.
And then shed seen his eyes.
Dead eyes.
Every corpse shed ever seen had been laid out tenderly in a casket at a wake or a viewing.
The dead never look right, never, no matter how good the mortician is, Melody had told her once.
But they didnt look like the dead man in the alley. Lying there as if hed known death was coming, as if...
As if he had tried to speak, tried to say something before succumbing to the darkness.
If only shed gotten there sooner.
No. She couldnt have gotten there sooner; she hadnt had any idea of what was going on when Shelly and Stuart had started screaming, and it had seemed so cut-and-dried. Shelly, already on edge after the ghost tour, had thought shed seen a ghost and Stuart had gotten carried away on the wave of her hysteria. And then shed had to deal with all the other guests shrieking and shouting and just generally going nuts.
There was nothing she could have done. Even if shed run right out to look for a bleeding man with a huge knife in his hand, it would have been too late. Hed already been dying.
Keep telling yourself that, she muttered drily to herself. She realized she felt incredibly guilty, which was ridiculous, because she hadnt done anything wrong.
But the man had been alive....
And now he was dead.
She pushed away from the door. She didnt just feel guilty about the dead man, she realized. She felt guilty for suspecting her resident ghosts of being up to no good, which had been entirely stupid of her. They always looked exactly the same. Melody was always beautiful in her Victorian gown, and Hagen always looked like a handsome swashbuckler in his fawn breeches, boots and muslin poets shirt. They didnt change clothingand they didnt run around with weapons, much less bleeding.
She needed to do something, get busy. She couldnt just stand there all day feeling guilty. But shed already stripped all the beds in a fury and cleaned the house, powered by the adrenalin that had raced through her after the scare and the effort of getting all her guests settled elsewhere. By the time the sun came up, the Siren was ready for business. Too bad she didnt have that much energy every day.
In the kitchen she poured herself another cup of coffee and took out her scheduling book. Stuart and Shelly and their friends had been due to stay another three days. There were prospective guests who had wanted to come, but shed had to turn them away. Several had left their numbers, though. Maybe she could call them and...
And tell them that a dying man had walked through her yard before his death and scared everyone else away?
The pages seemed to swim before her eyes.
She thought she heard someone knocking at the back door. She rose and went to check.
No one.
She moved back through the house, looking out the windows as she went. There were people walking along the sidewalk out front, but no one was at her door or trying to get her attention.
She headed back to the kitchen, but once she got there she felt a strange sensation creep along her spine as if she wasnt alone.
Melody? Hagen? she said. Her words were softand hopeful.
But neither of her resident ghosts replied. They were angrythey had a right to be.
But, despite their silence, were they here, watching her? Watching everything that was going on?
Guys, please, Im really, really sorry, she said.
No one answered her. She decided she must be feeling off because of the bad night shed had and all the people crawling around her yard, not to mention that shed stumbled on a body this morning. She let out a soft sigh and tried to imagine her bank accounts in her minds eye, then decided on a course of action. She asked herself again whether she should call the potential guests whod left their numbers or not. Maybe it was too soon.
Too soon after discovering a dead man.
Hannah drummed her fingers on the table. She was glad that Liam had come when her emergency call had gone through; he had been her friend for as long as she could remember. As for the FBI agent...
She didnt have anything against FBI agents. Her cousin Kelsey was an FBI agent. She wished fiercely at that moment that Kelsey was still in Key West, but she was in the D.C. area, part of a special unit. Hannah hadnt gotten to see a lot of Kelsey since shed moved.
Hannah missed her.
Missed her now more than ever.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, suddenly overcome by the urge to speak with her cousin.
She stopped herself before opening speed dial. She would call Kelsey soon and spill everything that had happened. Kelsey was tough but compassionate. She would put everything in perspective.
Hannah just wasnt going to call her now, while she was in a panic. She would wait until she was calm, when she wouldnt sound as hysterical as Shelly had sounded that morning.
Her best course of action right now was to try to come to grips with what had happened. She winced.
She hadnt even known the man.
But she had held him in death.
She gave herself a mental shake. She needed to be busy so she could take her mind off things.
Hard to do, of course, when her guests had fled.
So she would sit down, breathe, check out her bank accounts and assure herself that she could weather this storm. Yes, a man had died and that was tragic. But she hadnt known him, and she had done what she could. She had to move forward now.
* * *
Liam was obviously good friends with Hannah OBrien, Dallas thought when his friend went straight to the back door, opened it without knocking and walked right in.
The house was oldprobably one of the islands oldest. Tongue-and-groove paneling was evident in a rear room that had been set up as a social area, with a large flat-screen television surrounded by old bookshelves that also held a stereo system. The furniture seemed to be what was locally called Victorian Keysrattan and wicker decorated with cushions covered in period-design fabrics. The drapes back here were sheer and floated through large open windows that looked out over the patio and pool.
Hannah? Liam called.
In the kitchen! came the reply.
You should lock your door, Liam told her.
I usually do, she replied. Honestly.
By then they were walking through the formal dining room. If it had been 1839, Dallas thought, the room wouldnt have looked any different. The table was large enough to seat at least twelve and was highly polished. Intricately carved legs each ended in a dragons head. Lace doilies, along with a handsome silver service, covered the tabletop. Liam didnt pause but walked on through to the kitchen. Dallas followed him.
There was another table in the kitchenthis one smaller and far more casually set. It sat six, tops. The kitchen itself was large and in keeping with the rest of the house. The sink had reproduction faucets that resembled old pumps, the counters were butcher block, with marble tops by the stove and sink. Copper pots and pans hung from the rafters, and there was a huge fireplace with a large kettle hanging over carefully stacked wood. Dallas was pretty sure it was just for show.
Hannah was seated at the table. She had changed into a sundress and was no longer covered in blood. Her hair was wet; she had apparently washed it. Her cheekbones were high, her eyes were wide. She was, he thought, very much a beauty, like a classical statue in her near perfection.
She was sipping from a mug as she studied a record book in front of her.
Im debating whether to call the people I had to turn away, she told Liam drily. My bottom line could certainly use the help.
Dont know how to help you there, Im afraid, Liam told her as he pulled out the chair to her right and helped himself to coffee.
Theres quiche and croissants if youd like, she said. Obviously Im not serving a dozen guests this morning.
How sad. Your guests are gone, Dallas snapped before he could stop himself.
She stared at him, obviously stung by his tone. I found that poor man. I saw his face. It was... She shuddered. Anyway, think whatever you want of me, but were still here and so is the food, so help yourself if youre hungry.
He was hungry; the call from Liam had dragged him out of bed early in the morning, and he hadnt had a break since. But he felt like an ass. No way in hell could he accept her food after hed just been so rude to her.
Im pretty sure you both know I didnt kill that man, she said quietly. But the clothes I was wearing are in that paper bag if you need them for anything.
The lab might want them, Liam said.
Interesting, Dallas said. Thats a good call, but its interesting that you thought ahead like that.
She gave him a smile that wasnt a smile at all. The techs outside asked me to bag up the clothing I was wearing in case they could find trace evidence from the killer on it.
Dallas kept his mouth shut and took a drink of the coffee Liam had already poured for him, but inside he was thinking, You ass all over again.
Hannah, by any chance did your guests tell you what direction the ghost came from? Liam asked her.