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

grown up. She was in a pair of rolled-up capri jeans, a soft cotton V-necked T-shirt and sneakers—she seemed as elegant as a swan. A little tremor ripped through him. Time could wash away so easily. Once, she had been the love of his young life, the seductress of an adolescent’s libido and the object of many a dream.
    And she was home.
    “Liam!” she said again, and laughed. “Oh, Lord, I am so sorry.”
    “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry—I tackled you,” he told her. “I heard you were coming. I just never expected you to arrive so quickly.”
    “So, what were you doing here?” she asked him.
    He shrugged. “Folks have been breaking in,” he said.
    “Oh, yes, I heard—Joe Richter, told me. He said thepolice suggested that the locks be changed and—oh!” She stared at him, her brows arching. “Liam—okay, I guess that you are the police officer who told him to get the locks changed?”
    He nodded. “Guilty as charged. I’m with the criminal investigation unit. Seems a lot of crime down here has to do with brawls on Duval and drugs but we’ve also had our share of serious crime lately.”
    Kelsey nodded in agreement. “I read about your cousin being cleared in Tanya Barnard’s death and the awful things that happened.” She grimaced sheepishly. “I was happy—David is a great guy. Just because I haven’t been here doesn’t mean that I don’t read. And I read a really bizarre story about murders that took place near here—out on the islands. Sean O’Hara was involved, right?”
    “Sean and David were filming a documentary. They meant to go through our history of oddities and wound up following the minds of the mad. But it’s over. They finished up the filming a few weeks ago and are thinking about their next project. David has moved back—he’s living at our grandfather’s place. He and Katie O’Hara are planning their wedding now.”
    “Oh, that’s wonderful! Katie—so, what is Katie doing these days? Cutter told me that she went up north to college, but came home.”
    “She’s home. She runs Katie-oke at O’Hara’s.”
    “I can’t wait to see her,” Kelsey said. “Katie was younger, of course, but we took a sailing class together, and I knew Sean fairly well. She was such a cute little ragamuffin, running around with him all the time!”
    “Actually,” Liam said, glancing at his watch, “you can see her right now, if you’d like. Have you eaten? I can take you to O’Hara’s for some dinner and old-home night.”
    She hesitated. Liam wondered if her current life involved a boyfriend, a lover or even a husband. She wasn’t wearing a ring but still he wondered if there had been a husband who was gone now. Maybe he was pushing too far too fast. It just seemed so normal and right that she was here.
    “Sorry, no pressure,” he told her.
    She shook her head. “No, no…I was just looking around—before I panicked when I heard you at the door. This house is going to take…wow. A lot!”
    “Were you really going to do much tonight?” he asked.
    “Probably not. Um, why not? I had a sandwich, but I’d love to see O’Hara’s.” She smiled again. There were the dimples he remembered.
    “Hey, by the way, how did you get here?” he asked her.
    “I have a rental car. I drove down from Miami,” she said. “The car is around on the side—that’s where we always parked. I guess Cutter hasn’t had a car for a while?”
    “Not in years. He never left the house.”
    “How odd—he traveled the globe, and then he became a hermit,” she said.
    “He was a fascinating old fellow,” Liam said. “Brilliant. A real-life Indiana Jones.”
    “Hmm. I think most of my friends thought of himmore as Uncle Fester, I’m afraid. Or Dr. Frankenstein, creating monsters out of his collections of strange things,” Kelsey said.
    “Well, you have friends here who cared about him. Shall we go?”
    She hesitated, frowning. “Liam—you said you were in the criminal investigation unit.