The Cursed by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

seemed to be an intelligent young couple.
    They’d taken a small suite, so it was easy just to speak with them in their room. The couple was seated on the sofa, and Liam and Dallas had chairs facing them.
    “You’re saying that was a real man—and now he’s dead?” Stuart asked, staring at the two of them blankly.
    “Oh, God,” Shelly said, her eyes fixed. “Oh, God. He was alive. ”
    Liam wasn’t sure why, but he felt compelled to ease their guilt. “You couldn’t have saved him. The M.E. said that unless he’d literally been in an emergency room when it happened, there was nothing anyone could have done.”
    “We’ll never know, will we?” Stuart asked, wincing. “We screamed. We panicked. We were just so...”
    “I was terrified already,” Shelly said. “We’d been on the ghost tour. And there’s something about the way Hannah tells the stories.... She doesn’t get dramatic or anything, but all that history, it gets to you. We were down at the pool because I was too scared to sleep.”
    Stuart cleared his throat. “And we’d been drinking,” he admitted as if they’d committed a horrible sin.
    “It’s okay. This is Key West. Everybody drinks here,” Dallas said, glancing over at Liam. “But...it never occurred to you that he was real?”
    The two looked at each other. Shelly lifted her hands. “No.”
    Stuart said, “When Shelly screamed, I opened my eyes. I saw him and screamed, too. And then I blinked and he was gone.”
    “Okay, this is important,” Dallas said. “Think back. Do you have any idea where he came from? We think he was out back in the alley before he came into the yard. Did you see anyone else?”
    “Like I said, my eyes were closed,” Stuart said.
    “So were mine,” Shelly said. “When I opened them, he was just...there.”
    “Did you see or hear anyone before he appeared?” Liam asked.
    Stuart shrugged. “We heard someone when we were upstairs, but they were gone by the time we went down.”
    “No,” Shelly said. “I didn’t see anyone because no one was around. I mean, even when we came in things were pretty quiet.” She stopped to think for a moment, then said, “Wait! Stuart, remember when we were walking back? There was a group of people ahead of us. They were crashing into each other as if they were really drunk.”
    “They probably were,” Stuart said. “But, yeah, I remember them.”
    “Maybe the dead man was with them,” Shelly said.
    “How many were there?” Dallas asked.
    “Four,” Stuart said.
    “Five,” Shelly corrected. “I remember counting them. I was a little nervous, but I was thinking that there were six of us, so at least we had one more in our group in case they caused some kind of trouble. Of course, they were all guys and we only had three guys.”
    “I don’t know,” Stuart said. “That short one might have been a woman. Hard to tell. They were all wearing hoodies. Pretty weird, considering it was about fifty.”
    Interesting, Dallas thought. Someone else might remember a group like that, because most tourists didn’t bundle up when it turned sixty. Time to go and follow up on this first lead.
    He and Liam seemed to be of one mind. They rose together. Dallas handed them his card. “If you think of anything else—anything at all—please call me.”
    “Are you going to speak with the others? They might remember something,” Stuart said. “I mean, not about the—the dead man, but maybe about the group we saw when we were walking home.”
    “Yes, we’re just waiting for them to wake up,” Liam told them.
    Shelly looked over at Stuart. “That may be awhile.”
    Stuart nodded. “They’re going to be really hungover.”
    “We’ll be gentle,” Dallas promised.
    * * *
    Hannah blinked. The dead man was still there, looking at her beseechingly.
    He could—though he apparently wasn’t aware of it yet—just walk in through the door if he wanted to. Should she let him in?
    According to Agent Samson, Jose