Bone Island 03 - Ghost Moon by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

suppose,” Jamie said. “When he got older, that’s when folks started talking about him. They said that he got himself into too many places that maybe he shouldn’t have gone. It wasn’t until his daughter died, though, that folks started saying that he might have been a Satanist, or a witch. Trying to explain that wiccans, or witches, practiced an ancient form of religion that had to do with nature and that Satanism meant worship of the Devil didn’t seem to go over. After his daughter died, people said everything in the world about him. He’d signed the Devil’s book. He held Black Masses. You name it, people said it.”
    “He was a nice old man, and a great storyteller,” Katie said. “I was out there a few times. Kelsey is a few years older than me, but we were in a sailing class together, and we all went to her place for a picnic after the final day. Cutter was great. He dressed up in a suit of armor, then showed us how heavy it was and why a knight needed a squire. He was wonderful.”
    Jamie shrugged. “Well, you know how people gossip, and you know how rumors start. People said that his daughter died because he’d signed a pact with the Devil—and that was why Kelsey’s father got her the hell out the minute he could after his wife passed away.”
    “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 hadstudied 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