Echoes of Evil

by Heather Graham

  “I thought so,” he’d said.

  “You thought so?”

  “There’s something about him. He’s bright, he’s even-keeled. And he always seems to be paying attention.”

  It had been easy for Liam to accept Brodie McFadden’s gift.

  Why not? She had her own.

  Except that she hadn’t been able to find Cliff again after her one brief sighting.

  “Cliff, where are you?” she muttered aloud.

  A passerby looked at her curiously.

  Great. One of the ghosts of Key West wasn’t even taunting her—and she was still managing to appear completely eccentric.

  She sped up, arriving at the museum just as Colleen was about to lock the door.

  “Hey,” Colleen said. “Are you all right? You’re looking a bit like a thunder cloud.”

  “Oh, sorry. I... I don’t know what I was thinking,” Kody lied. “How was today?”

  “Wonderfully busy. And so many compliments. One lady was a little bit bitchy. She said it was false advertising that you called the place ‘The Haunts and History Museum.’ She wanted more haunts, I guess. I explained to her that our haunts came from our history—and that we did have an entire room dedicated to hauntings, ghosts and the weird. I think she wanted something like a haunted house.”

  “You can’t win them all,” Kody told her.

  “Right. I was pleasant, though. But I didn’t give her her money back!”

  Kody laughed. “She’ll skewer us on the travel review sites. One star—or no stars.”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t think about that.”

  “That’s okay—we’re very lucky. Most people give us five stars and call us ‘a Key West must!’ We will occasionally have people who won’t enjoy the museum.”

  “Another man wanted more info on the Victoria Elizabeth.”

  “Did you tell him that the ship is still being explored and archived?”

  “Yep. He asked if you had any hidden information.”

  “And you told him that I didn’t?”

  Colleen nodded proudly. “I said that we were working with Sea Life, but that we didn’t have any information as yet. When we did, it would be displayed for all the world to see.”

  “Thank you. Do we have people still in there?”

  “Nope. I was just locking up.”

  “Thanks. Go home...or out. Are you going out again?”

  Colleen flushed. “I think... I’m not sure yet. I may go home and go to sleep early.”

  “And dream again?” Kody asked her.

  The bright red color that flooded to Colleen’s cheeks assured Kody that she was right.

  “Colleen, you need a life—a real life, not a dream life. You’re young, you’re pretty—and you’re very sweet and bright! Meet someone—go on a date.”

  “Oh, yeah, look at who is telling someone to have a life.”

  “Colleen—”

  “Never mind. I’m not listening to your excuses. Maybe I will go out,” Colleen said. She laughed suddenly and went to collect her purse. “There’s the kettle calling the pot black, as my mom would say. We should go bar hopping together one night.”

  Kody gave her a smile—she’d never been a bar hopper.

  “Maybe we’ll find a concert to go to or something,” she said.

  “Okay...a concert!” Colleen said. She smiled and gave Kody an air kiss.

  When the door shut behind Colleen, Kody spoke to the air. “Cliff Bullard, where are you? You have to stop making a young girl’s dreams better than having a life!”

  There was no answer.

  Angry, Kody sat down behind the counter and logged on to the computer. She pulled up the name “Arnold Ferrer” from her email list.

  She went back to the first message, written to her and Ewan Keegan just after the wreck of the Victoria Elizabeth had been discovered.

  Dear Miss McCoy and Mr. Keegan, having read about the discovery of the slave ship Victoria Elizabeth, I find it incredibly important that I write to you—and offer up documentation and a few artifacts that have come to me through my family. I am sorry to say that one of my ancestors was aboard the ship, as an investor in the human cargo. With so many so tragically lost when the ship went down, I believe I must share my family’s history with the world upon the historic discovery of the wreck. I am interested in meeting with you, if you would be so kind as to reply to this message.

  She started to move on to her reply—and Arnold Ferrer’s next message. But a sudden thump from the far back of the museum startled her.

  She sat still, wondering at first if Colleen was certain that everyone had left.

  She rose and walked into the hall. “Hello? Is anyone still here?”

  She heard nothing at all.

  For a moment she stood still.

  “Cliff?”

  There was no answer.

  She returned to her chair behind the counter and the computer.

  She read her reply. Thank you so much! Ewan Keegan and I would love to meet with you, sir, and certainly to see your documents. And we thank you for contacting us.

  Ewan had sent a similar message.

  Ferrer had answered, I have long been haunted by the terrible cruelty of the slave trade—and shamed that a family member had been involved. Even though it was long in the past. I am not seeking any kind of financial reimbursement; I wish only to share what I have—lest we ever come close to such a cruelty again. As Americans, we must face and admit our massacre of native peoples, our cruelty and ignorance in the slave trade, and even our interment of our Japanese citizens during World War II. I truly wish to help in any way that I can, and plan on making a trip to the Keys in the very near future.

  She started to look at her next email.

  But she heard a sound again. She wasn’t sure what it was.

  She walked back into the hallway, but an intuition of danger began to creep up her spine. She turned, ready to grab her bag and run out into the street.

  She had her phone; she might be paranoid, but she was going to call Liam and wait until he could get to her.

  Or she could call Brodie McFadden. She knew he would come.

  She heard a sudden whisper in her ear. It was strangled, and barely a sound.

  “Get out...”

  She sprinted to the door, and out to the street.

  And right into the arms of Brodie McFadden.

  7

  Kody McCoy flew into Brodie as if she had been propelled by the fierce winds of a storm.

  He braced himself and caught her, holding her tightly for an instant, then setting his hands on her shoulders and steadying her as she straightened. There was a turmoil of emotions in her eyes, and her words came tumbling out. “I’m so sorry. Something...there was something in the museum...a noise. I thought someone was still in there...but it scared me. I didn’t mean to knock you over! I heard a whisper. I don’t know who was speaking...” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Dead—I think. But...there’s something back in the museum. Something...someone... I thought guests, at first, someone hadn’t realized we were closed. But that whisper... I mean, I wasn’t being stupid or anything—really. I was headed out to call Liam. Or you. But then that whisper...”

  “Okay. So, you were alone in the museum—or you thought that you were alone in the museum. But you heard noises. And cautiously and reasonably you were just going to walk out and call one of us—but a spirit seemed to whisper a warning to you?” Brodie summarized.

  She nodded her head firmly. Her eyes were stunning pools of trust at that moment, luminous amber. The silky softness of her hair teased over his fingers.

  He gave himself a mental shake.

  “Stay here. The street is pretty busy. You should be just fine. I’ll check it out. Wait for me?”

  She nodd
ed.

  “Yes, of course. Oh, I just sounded like a babbling idiot, but honestly, I’m not. I’m fine.”

  He walked into the museum, glancing at the reception and ticket area. He went into the hallway and through the exhibit rooms one by one. No one was there, and nothing seemed disturbed. He went to the back, in the storage and setup area, and then he checked out the two restrooms.

  In the second, a window was open. Curious, he walked over.

  The museum was in an old building—the historic marker at the front recognized that it had been built in 1864. The bathroom obviously a later addition/change in the original structure. The window frame was still original to the building. The glass panes in it, however, were not—it was good glass, storm glass.

  But the window could be locked—or slid open or closed. It was wide open.

  A fair-sized person could have opened the window and scooted over the ledge.

  There were no screens on the windows; Brodie assumed they were usually kept shut—the museum was air-conditioned, and the restroom was extremely clean.

  He looked out. In back was an alley and then a wire fence—behind the fence was the backyard of another house, one that was probably circa 1930.

  There was no one in the alley—which would not have fit vehicles, just pedestrians—nor was there anyone in the yard of the house behind.

  Brodie closed and locked the window. He walked back out to the front.

  Kody was waiting.

  “There’s no one in there now,” he told her.

  “I heard something, I swear,” she told him.

  “I’m not saying you didn’t. I’m just saying that there is no one there now. One of the bathroom windows was open.”

  “It shouldn’t have been,” she said, alarmed. “We keep them locked.”

  “All right, so someone may have been back there, and they opened the window and crawled out to escape. Or, someone was in there who—who decided the restroom needed fresh air when they were finished.”

  She almost smiled, but her humor quickly faded. “I heard something. I don’t imagine sounds.”

  “I believe you,” he said. “But then, someone whispered to you, right?”

  She nodded.

  “But you didn’t see anyone—living or dead?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s much we can do now.” She was looking at him as if she wanted more—expected more.

  “Kody, we could try to get fingerprints. But you’re going to have fingerprints from the dozens of people who might have been in there. And while I believe you completely, it would be hard for any officer to justify such a search when you just heard a noise and there’s nothing out of place and nothing missing.”

  She nodded. “Okay. You did lock the window?”

  “I did.”

  “And you’re certain that there is no one in there now?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “You checked around boxes and everything? No one was—hiding? I mean, you do carry a gun.”

  “I do have a permit.”

  “Of course, I wasn’t implying that.”

  “You don’t like guns?”

  “Oh, no. If someone is running around the Keys strangling people and causing them to die from anaphylactic shock, I’m incredibly glad that you carry a gun.”

  “Well, I guess that’s...good. Anyway...”

  “Were you coming to see me?” she asked him.

  “I was. I wanted to tell you that I talked to the bartender at the Drunken Pirate.”

  “Jojo was working?”

  “Yes. He said that almost all of your friends bought Cliff Bullard drinks the night that he died.”

  She waved a hand in the air dismissively. “People buy him drinks all the time. He doesn’t say no—it helps the staff and the bar and therefore, the little hotel. He drinks one or two sometimes, but he usually managed to very discreetly dump them. I’m sure my friends weren’t the only people buying him drinks.”

  “No, they weren’t.”

  “Maybe he got something on his way to the bar, Brodie. He had to have inadvertently picked up something that had nuts in it—God knows, we have coffee shop chains and other little places where he might have seen something that he decided to munch on.”

  “He would have asked if it had nuts.”

  “Most probably. But sometimes, Brodie, we have language barriers here. People come from all over to work here. Maybe someone didn’t understand what he was saying.”

  “I thought you were the one convinced that he was murdered.”

  “I... Oh, I don’t know! Maybe I don’t want to believe that he was murdered, and if so, someone else—not a friend who knew him—did it. If it was at the bar, how did someone buy him a drink—and slip nuts into it? You’d know a nut if you hit it in liquid.”

  “In its original form. Almond milk or nut oil or something like that could be added to a drink.”

  She was silent, studying him. He found himself fascinated again with the color of her eyes, not quite green, not brown, not hazel...amber or tawny or gold, depending on the moment, the way she was looking, the environment around her.

  He turned. “Uh, did you want to lock up for the night?”

  “Yes, yes, of course, thank you.”

  He opened the door for her; they both walked back in.

  “Oh, before all the drama, I was checking the email correspondence I was having with Arnold Ferrer. I don’t think that it ever got that deep, but...”

  “I’ve already gotten it all.”

  “And have you spoken with Liam?”

  He nodded. She let out a long breath. “Well, so we all...know. And we all know that we know, and we all see ghosts—and neither of these damned ghosts is talking to us!”

  “So far,” he said. “You think that Cliff is here, right? I mean, somewhere.”

  “Oh, yes—a promiscuous ghost!” she said. “The big brat is visiting women by night.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nothing...nothing too...weird. Both Colleen and my friend Adia—our waitress from lunch—believe that a man is coming to them by night. They’ve both been thrilled to meet him. They don’t seem to know that it’s Cliff.”

  “Maybe it isn’t Cliff,” Brodie suggested.

  “Arnold Ferrer? No, because Rosy thinks that he comes to her, too. Which, of course, would be more of a natural thing...she is his wife. Except that Rosy doesn’t want Cliff to be a ghost—maybe she’s just in so much pain.”

  “Maybe Cliff doesn’t feel that he needs to go by the rules—now that he’s dead.”

  “But where is he? Why isn’t he helping us?”

  “I don’t know. Anyway, let’s lock up. I’m starving.”

  “All right. We could just go to my house—”

  “There’s a shrimp special in that little place by my hotel. Let me take you out.”

  “Really, I can cook something—”

  “Next time.” He smiled at her, enjoying the idea that there would be more than one dinner together.

  He wasn’t sure that he wanted to go to her house; he wanted to talk with her alone. Brodie saw Captain Hunter as a good presence—but a third wheel nonetheless.

  “Sure.”

  As they walked, Brodie told her what he knew about Arnold Ferrer. “He has a child, five years old.”

  “Oh? Bev told me that he was gay.”

  “Gay men do have children, you know that.”

  “Of course.” She frowned. “I think I remember hearing that he had a great friend—an old friend. Must be the child’s mother.”

  “Maybe she can give us a clue about him. Oh, here’s something else—not sure if Liam told you or not. He was a guitar player and singer, as well.”

  “Do you think they were both
killed for being entertainers? That seems...a stretch. And if someone has a vendetta...well, the Keys are filled with entertainers.”

  They reached the restaurant. For once, it seemed, Kody didn’t know the server.

  “Not a friend?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know everyone,” she said. “We’re just an island. And tourists are everywhere all the time, but residents do get to know one another. I’ve known Liam forever. And his family. And I have a really good friend—she’s moved away, up in Northern Virginia now—who owned a bed-and-breakfast and had her own ghosts. Her husband now is an FBI agent—a man was killed in her backyard and he was the agent investigating and...anyway, she comes back down when she can, but the thing is...we’re close. Especially those of us who...well, who can see the dead.”

  Brodie realized that he was staring at her, frowning. She went silent and stared back.

  “The Krewe of Hunters,” he said.

  Now she frowned. “Yes. How do you know? Are you really a PI? How do you know about the Krewe? That isn’t their official title. It’s considered a rather elite group—they have their own offices.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “How?”

  He leaned closer. It seemed that Key West was rife with those who saw the dead—still, those who didn’t tended to think that there was something seriously wrong with those who “thought” that they did. There was no need to share with the other patrons of the little seafood restaurant.

  “Both of my brothers are joining the Krewe of Hunters.”

  “Oh!” she said, and then, “Small world,” she added dryly.

  “The Krewe is run by a man named Jackson Crow, but it was created by Adam Harrison—a philanthropist who had a son who was gifted differently and...well, anyway, I’ve known Adam since I was a kid. He loved the theater—in fact, he owns one now—so my parents worked with him, back in the day. But Jackson Crow is the special field agent in charge, and his wife, Special Agent Angela Hawkins works with him and... I was thinking about calling one of my brothers and mentioning this case... I think it might be right up their alley. And they have unlimited resources.”

  “You were thinking about it?” she said. “You have a connection like that? Yes, call them!”

  “Right after dinner,” he promised.