“I wonder if it occurred to people that he might have been in tremendous pain—and that he wanted to raise his daughter without her having to remember how her mother had died on the stairs. A tragic accident,” David said.

Liam hesitated, thinking about the things the M.E., Franklin Valaski, had said the day before when he had studied Cutter Merlin’s mortal remains and mentioned the man’s dying expression, comparing it to that of his daughter.

She had fallen, but her eyes were open, her lips ajar….

And Cutter had been found with a relic in his hands and the book in his lap.

In Defense from Dark Magick.

Just what the hell had the old bastard been up to?

“I wonder if Kelsey will come back?” Katie mused. “Actually, I wonder what she’s like now. Do you think she became a Valley girl?”

“I don’t know,” Liam said. He was curious. He wanted to see her. It had been a long time. Other women had come into his life, and other women had gone. She was the only one who had ever teased his memory in absence. “I don’t know,” he repeated with a shrug.

And he suddenly prayed that she had become a Valley girl, that she would stay away and that whatever cursed the Merlin house, human or other, would never touch Kelsey.

The next night, it was a dinner of shepherd’s pie that he had to leave. It had just arrived, and the call came from the station.

It was Jack again.

“Lieutenant, I know you found kids last night, and I can’t believe they’re back, but we’ve just gotten another call. This time it was from a tourist who is staying at a bed-and-breakfast across the way. He saw lights on at the Merlin house, and he’s certain he heard a scream.”

Liam set his fork down. “There are lights on because I had an electrician out. The lightbulbs are all new. I left a light on inside the living room, and one on the front porch.”

“Sir, the lights are coming from an upstairs bedroom. The lights didn’t bother Mr.—” Liam could hear papers rustling as Jack checked his notes “—Mr. Tom Lewis, from New York City. What bothered him is that he could swear he heard a scream.”

“All right. I’m going out,” he said.

He slid off his bar stool. He’d been alone thus far that night, though Katie was working her Katie-oke, and he knew that David would be in soon. Clarinda had taken his order and delivered his food. She came by as he stood. “I take it you’ll be wanting this reheated when you get back?”

He smiled at her. “Yep, thanks.”

“The Merlin house again?”

“Yep. What made you say that?”

She grinned at him. “You don’t usually leave your dinner for drunks on Front Street.”

He nodded, thanked her and assured her that he’d be back.

On the street, he looked for Bartholomew, but he didn’t see the ghost, who usually hovered near or around him. It disturbed him to realize that he wished that Bartholomew was around.

He wondered if he should call for backup, but decided that he would be able to see in the house that night, and he wanted to move in quietly himself.

So thinking, he parked out on the road and walked onto the property.

When he reached the house, he moved quietly up to the porch. When he touched the front doorknob, he carefully twisted it and once again found it open. He pressed it inward carefully, remaining as silent as he could.

To his surprise, he heard conversation coming from the kitchen. “Look, none of this stuff is worth stealing. I thought we could find some small thing that would bring in a few bucks, something that no one would notice, and maybe sleep a few nights in a place that wasn’t a hellhole,” someone said. “But there’s nothing. We’re going to take a shrunken skull? There aren’t even any amulets or anything on that ragtag excuse for a mummy. And guess what? I don’t like this place! It’s creepy and scary. That damned door opened as if the house was sucking us in!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is a house—that’s all there is to it. Things are things. The dead are dead, and I don’t know about you, but I’m certain there’s got to be something that doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds and can be sold easily,” said a second speaker. “He’s supposed to have all kinds of jewels, diamonds and so on.”

“You know what? You’re wrong. This is bad. I don’t feel good about taking anything out of this place. It may be cursed, you know?” said the first voice.

There seemed to be a slight hesitation between the two; Liam almost moved forward, but then the second speaker said, “All right, so the house is…weird. Creepy. We look fast, we get out—fast. Hey, I was always kind of close to old Merlin. Ran errands and stuff. He owes me, honestly. So, nothing creepy will happen if we’re just careful about taking what we need, and not robbing the place blind.”

It was enough. Aware of his gun in its holster beneath his light cotton jacket, Liam stepped forward, walking casually into the kitchen.

The first man, with scraggly blond hair and a scruffy face, let out a startled yelp.

The second one spun around as if he were ready to pounce on the threatened danger; he saw Liam and backed down.

Liam knew them both.

The scruffy blond was Gary White, a guitar player who wasn’t bad, with a voice that, likewise, wasn’t bad. He could get work. Thing was, while he wasn’t bad, he just wasn’t good. That meant he didn’t work all that often, but he was still convinced that he’d get rich one day, that he’d be discovered in Key West. His last name fit him—his hair was so bleached out by the sun, it was platinum, nearly white.

The second man was Chris Vargas. He was dark haired, about a decade older than Gary, an inch taller, and he couldn’t play guitar at all. He had a beat-up old rickshaw, and made money running tourists up and down Duval Street. He had a home in a tiny apartment above the garage of a house on the south side of Old Town.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Liam asked tiredly.

Gary looked at Chris in alarm. His mouth began to work. “Uh—uh.”

That was all that he could come up with.

Vargas said, “Oh, hey! We saw lights in here. We knew that old man Merlin just died. We thought we’d better check it out.”

“Vargas, you ass, I just heard you talking,” Liam said.

Chris Vargas reddened. He was a lean, lithe man in decent shape from running up and down all the time with a fair amount of weight behind him. He could probably be dangerous, under certain circumstances, Liam decided. His features were sharp, like a little rat’s. He’d been scraping for a living too long, drinking to drown his unhappiness a few too many nights.

“All right,” the man said softly. “We—we weren’t after much, Lieutenant Beckett. Honest to God. Just some little thing.”

“And you were in here last night, too, trying to scare those kids to death, huh?” Liam asked.

“No, we were not in here last night!” Gary White said, indignant. He stood straight, and seemed really hurt at the accusation.

Liam looked at Chris Vargas. Vargas stared back at him, shaking his head emphatically.

“Oh, God, we’re under arrest, right?” Gary asked miserably.

“How did you get in?” Liam asked.

Gary looked puzzled. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. “Um—the door?”

“You walked in the front door. How? You picked the lock?” Liam asked.

“No, it wasn’t locked,” Gary assured him.

Liam believed him. Gary White was just a bit too dense to be a good liar.

“Look,” Vargas said, “we just walked in because—”

“You were robbing the estate,” Liam interrupted.

“Not really robbing,” White protested. “Just… Ah, come on, Lieutenant. If you heard us, you know that we’re just… All right, so we were going to take something really little. And, hell, we’re not bad. The kids in here the other night—those little bastards have broken into other places. They don’t steal, but they smoke pot, yeah, they smoke pot up in the rooms and play with all the stuff the snowbirds leave behind.”

“If you weren’t in here,” Liam asked wearily, “how do you know about the kids?”

“Because everybody knows about the kids,” Vargas said. “Ah, Lieutenant! You know this is a small town, really. Everybody knows everything. And it’s true. I heard they got the bejesus scared out of them here. I hope it’s true. It will keep the little rug rats from causing real trouble.”

“That’s right,” White agreed solemnly, nodding at Vargas as if the two of them were the most solid citizens in the world.

Gary White must have seen something in Liam’s face. He choked slightly, cleared his throat and asked, “Are you going to arrest us?”

This whole thing was beyond absurd. Two nights in a row. First, kids. Second? Two of the denizens of the place who weren’t known for violence, who just eked out a living. If he arrested them, an attorney would have them out on bail. And what would they get for trespassing? They hadn’t stolen anything; he had arrived too soon, and, from what he could tell, they couldn’t find anything they actually wanted to steal anyway.

He thought about the paperwork.

And, to his knowledge, Gary White had never done anything to break the law that was more serious than jaywalking.

“Get the hell out of here,” he said.

They both stared at him.

“Now,” he said.

They bolted like lightning. He turned and watched them from the kitchen doorway. They had trouble opening the front door, the one crashing into the other, crashing into the door, then each other again.

Finally, they made it out.

He walked to the door himself. There was nothing wrong with it that he could see. The lock hadn’t been picked.

Someone else out there had a key.

Tomorrow he’d have to have the lock changed.

Going from the West Coast of the States to the east coast made it difficult to arrive with much of anything left of daylight, especially once daylight savings time was gone. But Kelsey had found an early-morning flight that got her into Miami around three in the afternoon. She could have taken a puddle jumper down to Key West from Miami International Airport, but she wanted to drive. Baggage claim at MIA was insane, but eventually she was ready to head out for the rental-car agency, and by four-thirty she was driving south.