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She streaked out froe beneath the stairway and raced over to the left hall of exhibits where she had left her brother She burst in on Robert the Doll In silence, he was jerking back and forth on his stand
She nearly tripped over a body She hunched down It was Saerly touched hihtly around his head With treers, she ripped it away from him
"Katie!"
The whisper was Bartholomew’s His hands were on her shoulders He motioned her to silence, but beckoned her to follow him
Her brother was stretched out in the facsimile of the cemetery, where the service was on his head; it wasn’t tightened She ripped it away fro
He had a pulse There was a gash on his head; she knew froers when she touched him
"Oh, God!" she prayed in a breath
"Katie!" Bartholoain
"You…you…you…you…you…are dead!" The words were followed by laughter She tried to rise carefully, to start to ed her
Too late She ducked to avoid a nineteen-twenties flapper, and crashed right into the wall of a big loves The gloves he had always known to wear Diver’s gloves, so plentiful in the Keys!
His hands wound around her neck She struggled
He winced and jerked suddenly, as if he’d been hit froainst him and bit his arm, bit as hard as she could She clawed at his flesh
If she died, which well she ain
Nor would he blae hand ca; she felt it with her jaw and head, stars sprung up before her eyes
And then a darkness deeper than any she had ever iined
David slohen he reached the lawn of the museum Any alarm noould cost Katie her life, and he knew it He had to believe that he had a chance That the killer was deter it He wondered if she was meant to be his finest work Katie O’Hara, so well-known and beloved in Key West Beautiful, and a songstress With a family as old and renowned as his own
And Sean was in there, somewhere
The door hadn’t been locked It remained open He couldn’t be sure how the killer would act and react, and he was certain that Liam would turn the house upside down But he had to hurry-if sirens suddenly riddled the streets, if he knew that time was nearly up, the killer would work faster
The killer had made a mistake He wouldn’t be able to cast suspicion on David or anyone else But David thought that he was so overconfident now in his quest for soeance that he wouldn’t believe that He would still believe himself invincible
And he would have taken care
David didn’t enter right away He stared at the floor behind the doorway It took him a moment, and then he saw it A trip wire Somehoould alert the killer that he was here
His eyes had attuned well to darkness He paused for just a moment at the entry, then leapt the turnstile as silently as he could He hurried toward the left hall
There was a body on the floor Heart in his throat, he hurried to it
Sa
"Ch-cha-cha-Charleston!" A flapper warbled out in a gritty voice