Bone Island 01 - Ghost Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

earlier.
    The light that she had seen from the street had come from the entry. It was the muted light of the foyer’s chandelier, and it cast a gentle glow over the place.
    Katie opened her mouth, about to call out, but she didn’t. She chose not to twist the turnstile-the noise here would be like an explosion. She sat atop the old mahogany desk and swung her legs around, then stepped to the other side.
    Looking up was eerie. Figures of Papa Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, were posed coming down the stairway. They had always been a big hit at the museum, with eighty percent of those going through the place having their pictures taken with the pair.
    “Don’t you dare go up those stairs,” Bartholomew commanded sternly.
    Katie almost smiled, grinning at him. “Bartholomew, you’re scared. A ghost can’t be scared. My God, Bartholomew. You were a pirate.”
    “Privateer. My boat was authorized by the government,” Bartholomew corrected irritably. “And don’t be ridiculous, I’m not frightened. Yes, wait, I am frightened for you, foolish girl. What is the matter with you? I know your family taught you better. Innocent young ladies do not wander into dark alleys.”
    “This isn’t a dark alley.”
    “No, it’s worse. You can get trapped in here.”
    “I’m not going upstairs,” she assured him.
    She walked to the side, realizing that she was going in the wrong historical order. She wasn’t going up the stairs; she just wanted to see what was going on.
    “Katie,” Bartholomew warned, following her.
    She turned and stared at him. “What? I’m going to be scared silly? I’m going to see ghosts?”
    “Ghosts will seldom hurt you. Living people, bad people, criminals, rapists, murderers and thieves-they will hurt you,” Bartholomew said sternly.
    “Just one more minute… We’ll check out the downstairs, and I’ll call the cops. Or Liam. Liam is a cop. All right? I just don’t want to cry wolf.”
    “What?”
    “I don’t want to create an alarm when there’s no need. Maybe Liam was here earlier and left the light on.”
    “And the door open?” Bartholomew said doubtfully.
    Katie shrugged.
    She walked to the left, where the tour began once visitors reached the first floor. The first room offered one of Key West’s most dramatic tales-the doll story. As a little boy, Robert Eugene Otto had been given a very creepy doll, supposedly cursed by an angry family servant who knew something about voodoo. Robert Eugene Otto became obsessed with the doll, even naming it Robert, after himself. Robert the Doll moved about the house and played pranks. In later years he drove the real Robert’s wife quite crazy.
    From the somewhat psychotic, the history in the museum became sad and grimly real with a memorial to the sailors who had died aboard the battleship Maine when it had exploded in Havana Harbor in 1898. The museum’s exhibit showed sailors working on the ship. From there, curtains segued into an area where dancers moved about at the Silver Slipper. World War I came and went. Prohibition arrived, and bootleg alcohol made its way in an easy flow from Havana to Key West.
    A pathway through the pantry in back led around to the other side of the house. It was dark, with little light from the glow in the foyer seeping through. Papa Hemingway made another appearance as 1931 rolled in and Pauline’s uncle bought them the house on Whitehead Street as a wedding present.
    Katie knew what she was coming up to-the exhibit on Count von Cosel and Elena de Hoyos. Just a small piece of the museum, really, in a curtained sector through an archway. It had always been a popular exhibit. Until, of course, the re-created figure of poor Elena had been replaced by the strangled body of a young Conch woman. The beginning of the end.
    People liked the bizarre, the romance and even the tragedy of history, but with this event fear had suddenly come too close. It was one thing to be eccentric in the Keys.
    Real violence