She heard a groan. It wasn’t him and it wasn’t her.
“Oh, good God, woman, you’ve got a room, go to it!” Bartholomew said.
She started and jerked back. Bartholomew was leaning against the counter, appearing irritated and disturbed by the entire scene.
“Room!” he said, waving a hand at her. “Go, go!”
“What?” David said. “You can pull back at any time, Katie. I swear, I’ll leave at any time. Now, if that’s what you want. You’ve got to be sure.”
She glared around his head at Bartholomew and pulled David back to her. But she practiced restraint. She kissed him, running her fingers over his shoulders up to his nape, and into his hair. It was so thick and rich. Touching his hair was arousing. She was in sad shape.
“Katie, go!” Bartholomew said.
“You go!” she whispered over his shoulder.
David backed away. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“No, no!” She caught his hand and headed up the stairs. She ran, pulling him behind her, then stopped suddenly.
Ghosts. Ghosts kept interrupting her life. Victims who wanted to speak to her…
Ghosts who needed her.
But not tonight!
“Katie,” David began.
She stopped him. “I’m sorry. I’m scared. But don’t leave. I want you, I want this. It’s just…the last time was Carl Waverly and I dated him all through college but then he wanted to get married and move to Seattle and I knew that I had to come home and that was…that was it and a long time ago, but don’t worry, I won’t make more out of it than it is…oh, God, way more detail than you needed, right?”
He smiled and laughed with a husky sound, and his eyes were dark and yet alive with a brilliance that seemed to be warmth or tenderness. “It was great detail,” he assured her, and he pulled her against him and lifted her from her feet, sweeping her off them. Soft light came in gentle streaks where the drapes weren’t completely closed and dust motes seemed to dance in a fantasy world. He laid her on the bed, and he came down beside her, kissing her as he began with the buttons of her blouse. For a second she was still, then it seemed the whole of her was on fire, and his movements weren’t nearly fast enough. She writhed against him, finding buttons herself. She pressed her lips against his throat and his collarbone, working at his tailored shirt. Hers was slipping away at last, her breasts were free and her flesh was against his. Shadows made it easy, the glow of light made it beautiful. She felt his lips against her breast while his fingers found the belt buckle of her jeans, snap and zipper, and his fingers played erotically over the silk of her underwear while she shimmied from her jeans, tugging at his while she did so. She felt his muscles tense and ripple where she touched him, felt the crush of his mouth against hers, again the thrust and plunge of his tongue, deep and evocative. Somehow their clothing was gone, shed, a part of the tangle of coverlet and sheets on the bed and their hands and lips were everywhere. His mouth slid down the length of her, teased and tasted, while his fingers stroked up her inner thighs. There was a wonderful sense of power and strength about him, he was gentle and vital and vibrant. He seemed to know exactly where to touch and then kiss and caress, a slow burn started that seemed to flare out of control.
She felt herself explode within, and the feeling was growing again. He was over her, his eyes touching hers, and he moved into her, thrusting in a way that seemed to fill her completely and then stroked, moving with greater power and speed, reaching higher and higher, slowly, beginning again, leading her once again to a point where she exploded cataclysmically, shuddering and shaking in his arms, so sated that she felt she could die. She seemed to fall down in a field of clouds, except the clouds were sweaty and sleek, and it was amazing to be held against him with such a contrast of sensations filling her flesh and mind.
Sex. Just sex. First sex. Awkward when the clothing was strewn and the pinnacle reached…
But it wasn’t. He came up on an elbow, and his smile was deep. His features were really masculine and beautiful, rugged, never pretty, and yet…beautiful.
“Umm. You were well worth waiting for,” she whispered.
“We didn’t wait that long,” he said, smiling at her.
“Seems like forever,” she said softly.
“Thank you. And…obviously, the point now is not to instantly jump your bones, so I suppose it will be all right if I tell you you are really amazingly beautiful and certainly, anyone could wait a lifetime for you.”
She laughed. It was easy being with him. Naked and panting, it was still easy. “Did you get to Ireland in your travels?” She teased. “Kiss the Blarney stone?”
He stroked her hair, looked into her eyes. “Never,” he assured her. He held her against him, still studying her face. “Sean’s little sister. You did grow up well.”
“You’ve really got to quit referring to me as Sean’s little sister.”
“I do, absolutely. I don’t intend to feel guilty a moment when I see Sean. You are, beyond a doubt, very grownup. And out. In all the right places.”
“Thank you, again.” She laughed, and then her breath caught, and suddenly they were clinging to one another again, and rolling on the bed, passionately touching and teasing, and once again, making love wildly, desperately reaching at moments, smiling at others, laughing…and then climaxing again. The world seemed to have no end. They talked about music and coming home from school and finding a way to make it all work. He talked about lighting and photography, getting into underwater film, loving the world beneath the sea, and she reminded him that Key West had some of the most fantastic sunsets in the world.
When she slept that night, it was deeply.
When she woke, the woman was back.
Not Tanya, the other woman. The dark-haired woman. She was seated across the room in the dressing-room chair, and she was looking at Katie forlornly.
Katie bit her lip and turned her head slightly, glad to see that she and David were both decently covered beneath the coolness of the air-conditioning.
She stared at the girl in her room, and she moved her lips without a whisper. “Not here! Never in my room.”
The ghost frowned, blinked and then nodded. She stood, and glided sadly toward the door, and disappeared through it.
8
Katie woke up early. Lazy, smiling, she’d turned to David, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he was there with her. They made love again, slowly, leisurely, feeling the heat of the day grow and glow upon them as the sun rose.
When she drifted off again, David left her a note, telling her that he’d be at his grandfather’s house.
He still couldn’t call the place his own.
He wanted to spend more of his time with the files Liam had left for him. The police reports were filled with sheets on the detectives’ door-to-door questioning of neighbors. No one had seen anyone enter the museum other than the Becketts and tourists.
Many neighbors saw him.
There were the statements, sworn by his grandfather and others, that he had worked at the museum until midnight, and then been at home and with his family until the next morning, when he had left to go to the museum once again.
Danny Zigler had been questioned; he was one of the few people with a key to the museum. But a set of keys had hung just inside the kitchen door of the Beckett house, and many people knew that they were there. It had been determined that there hadn’t been a break-in, so someone had come in with a key. There hadn’t been an alarm system, despite the expense that had been poured into the place over the years.
Forensics had yielded little other than the fact that Tanya had been strangled; an injury to her knee was at least a week old. She had apparently skinned it. The autopsy report noted that Tanya Barnard had not been tortured-a small blessing.
David dragged his fingers through his hair, and began drawing a chart of the timeline. First, time of death. Second, time in which to get into the museum. It had been open until midnight the night before. That meant her body had been elsewhere for several hours, then moved into the museum. Whoever had put her in the museum either had a key, or knew where the keys were kept. Many people knew about the key. But the Becketts had all been home and together after midnight on the night of the murder. Which meant, David thought, that it had been planned. Meticulously planned. Days before, someone had to have taken the key and had it reproduced. He had a key, there was a key they kept in the house, Danny Zigler had a key and Liam had a key.