LITMIR.BIZ

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dive, and it wouldn’t get busy until later in the day.

      And out in the boat, he wasn’t exactly alone.

      Bartholomew was with him.

      Climbing up the dive ladder at the rear of his boat, Conch Fritter, he tossed his flippers up and hauled himself on board. His cell phone sat on his towel, and the message light was blinking. Caller ID showed him that he’d been called from O’Hara’s, his uncle’s bar.

      “I thought about answering it, but refrained.”

      Sean turned at the sound of the voice. Bartholomew was seated at the helm of the dive boat, feet in buckle shoes up on the wheel, a National Geographic magazine in his hands.

      Bartholomew was getting damned good at holding things.

      “Thank you for refraining. And tell me again, why the hell are you with me? You hate the water,” Sean said, irritated. He pushed buttons on his phone to receive his messages, staring at Bartholomew.

      “Love boats, though,” Bartholomew said.

      Sean groaned inwardly. It was amazing—once he hadn’t believed in Bartholomew. Actually, he’d thought the ghost might have been one of his sister Katie’s imaginary friends. He realized he either had to accept that she was crazy or that there was a ghost. At that time, Sean couldn’t see or hear Bartholomew.

      But that had been a while ago now. While solving the Effigy Murders—as the press wound up calling them—he’d ended up with his head in a bandage and stitches in his scalp.

      It was the day the damned stitches had come out that he’d first seen the ghost—as clearly as if he had physical substance—sitting in a chair next to the hospital bed.

      Sean listened to his messages. The first, from David Beckett, asking him what time he wanted to go out. Sean grinned. David was in love—and sleeping late. Sean was glad, since it seemed that his old friend was in love with his sister, Katie, and she was in love with him. They’d both seen some tough times, and Sean was happy for them.

      The next message was from his uncle just asking him to call back.

      He did so. Still, he didn’t learn much. His uncle just wanted him to come to the bar. Sean told him it would take him about forty-five minutes, and Jamie said that was fine, just to come.

      “So what’s up?” Bartholomew asked.

      “Going to the bar, that’s all,” Sean said. He was curious. Jamie wasn’t usually secretive.

      “Can you keep a hand on the helm? Bring her straight in?” Sean asked Bartholomew as he brought up the anchor. Securing it, he added, “Jeez, am I crazy asking you that?”

      Bartholomew looked at him with tremendous indignation.

      “Really! That was absolutely—churlish of you! If there’s one thing I know, it’s a lazy man’s boat like this!”

      Sean grinned. “I’ll be in the head in the shower for about fifteen minutes. That’s all you need to manage.”

      “It’ll be great if we pass the Coast Guard or a tour boat!” Bartholomew cried.

      Sean ignored him. He just wanted to rinse off the sea salt—his uncle had him curious.

      He showered, dried and dressed in the head and cabin well within his fifteen minutes. In another twenty, he was tying up at the pier.

      Duval Street was quiet.

      As he walked from the docks to O’Hara’s, Sean mused with a certain wry humor that Key West was, beyond a doubt, a place for night owls. He was accustomed enough to working at night—or even partying at night—but he was actually more fond of the morning hours.

      “What do you think Jamie wants?”

      Sean heard the question again—for what seemed like the tenth time now—and groaned inwardly without turning to look at the speaker. Imagine, once he had wanted to see the damned ghost!

      Oh, he could see Bartholomew way too clearly now, though when he had first come home to Key West—hearing that David Beckett was in town and worried for his sister’s safety—he had come with his longtime fear for Katie’s mind. She had always seemed to sense or see things. But that had been Katie, not him.

      Bartholomew had apparently wanted to be known, though at first he proved his presence by moving things around.

      Then Sean had seen him in that damned chair in the hospital room. Now he could see the long-dead privateer as easily as he could see any flesh-and-blood, living person who walked into his life.

      He cursed the fact.

      He had never believed in ghosts. He’d never wanted to believe. In fact, he’d warned Katie not to ever talk about the fact that she had “strange encounters” or had been “gifted” or “cursed” from a young age. The majority of the world would think that she should be institutionalized.

      He wasn’t pleased that he saw Bartholomew. Now he had the fear that he would one day wind up institutionalized himself.

      And he was far from pleased that the dapper centuries-old entity had now decided to affix himself to Sean.

      “I will not answer you. I will never answer you in public,” Sean said.

      Bartholomew laughed. “You just answered me. Then again, we’re hardly in public, you know. I think the whole island is still asleep. Besides, you’re a filmmaker. An ‘artiste!’ People will happily believe that you are eccentric, and it’s your brilliance causing you to speak to yourself.”

      “Right. Don’t you feel that you should go and haunt my sister?” Sean asked.

      “I believe she’s busy.”

      “I’m busy,” Sean said.

      “Look, I’m apparently hanging around for something,” Bartholomew said. “Others have gone on, and I haven’t. You seem to be someone I must help.”

      “I don’t need help.”

      “You will, I’m sure of it,” Bartholomew said.

      Sean kept walking.

      “So what do you think he wanted?” Bartholomew persisted.

      “I don’t know,” Sean said flatly. “But he wanted something, and that’s why I’m going to see him.” He cast a glance Bartholomew’s way. The privateer—hanged long ago for a deed he hadn’t committed—was really quite a sight. His frock coat and stockings, buckle shoes, vest and tricornered hat all fit his tall, lean physique quite well. In his lifetime, Sean thought dryly, he had probably made a few hearts flutter. Sadly, he had died because of the death of the love of his life, and an act of piracy blamed upon him. However, after haunting the island since then, he had recently found a new love, the “lady in white,” legendary in Key West. When they filmed their documentary, Sean meant to make sure that he covered Bartholomew’s case and those of his old and new loves.

      He’d heard once that ghosts remained on earth for a reason. They wanted to avenge their unjust deaths, they needed to help an ancestor or they were searching for truth. There were supposedly ghosts who were caught in time, reenacting the last moments of their lives. But that was considered “residual haunting,” while Bartholomew’s determination to remain on earth in a spectral form was known as “active” or “intelligent” haunting.

      Bartholomew had been around for a reason—he had been unjustly killed. But Sean couldn’t figure out why he remained now. His past had been aligned with David Beckett and his family, and Sean had to admit that Bartholomew had been helpful in solving the Effigy Murders, all connected to the Becketts.

      Maybe he had stayed because of the injustice done to him and because he still felt that he owed something to the Becketts. All Sean knew was that he had been Katie’s ghost—if there was such a thing—and now he seemed to be with him all the time.

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