“What could it hurt to talk to her?”
Genevieve sighed. “If it got back to the guys that I was talking to her…”
“Hey, she’s an old friend. There’s no law against talking to old friends.”
Genevieve shrugged and started to speak but broke off when she heard a voice calling them from outside her front door. “Hey, in there!” It was Victor. “Are you guys ready yet? I’m starving. Let’s go.”
“We’re ready,” Bethany called back. Then she turned back to Genevieve and spoke more quietly. “I’ve got Audrey’s number, if you want it. Then again, she’s got it posted all over Key West. If—”
“I have her number. We live in a really small place, remember?” Genevieve said softly, shoving Bethany toward the door. “And don’t you dare whisper a word of what I’ve said.”
“Of course not,” Bethany said.
“Do you believe in ghosts at all, Thor?” Bethany asked, sitting across from him at one of the group’s favorite seafood places on Whitehead Street.
She was cute, he thought, and apparently an excellent diver, as well, with a round, charming face that made her appear even younger than her twenty-something years. There was a simple eagerness and honesty about her that was very appealing. Different, of course, from the way Genevieve Wallace was appealing. Genevieve seemed to throw off a musk of sensuality and sophistication without the least awareness. Bethany was like a puppy, ready to be cuddled.
“Ouch!” Bethany cried suddenly, reaching down for her leg.
He’d felt the kick. Genevieve was seated next to him, so there was no way he could miss knowing that she had kicked Bethany beneath the table.
“It’s an innocent question,” Bethany said.
He glanced at Genevieve. She stared at him, her expression unfathomable. She was close to him. Very close, in the small booth. Once again they’d ended up together. Not that he would normally have had anything to complain about. Her perfume was subtle, an underlying tease. She’d worn yellow, a halter dress that contrasted perfectly with her dark hair and bronze skin, and set off the elusive green of her eyes. Her every movement aroused his baser instincts, a fact to which she seemed indifferent, maybe even unaware. She was accustomed to being with friends. She obviously took pride in her appearance but did little to enhance what nature had given her. He was in a polo shirt and shorts. The sleek feel of her leg—stretching out as she kicked Bethany—had rubbed along his like a brush of living silk.
She smiled. “Sorry. After the other day…you know.” She stared firmly at Bethany. “We’re not going to talk about ghosts.”
“I just asked if Thor believed in them,” Bethany said.
“No,” he said flatly, and stared at Genevieve again.
“Pass the bread, will you, please?” she asked.
“Have you been to our cemetery?” Bethany persisted.
“Bethany, drop it,” Genevieve warned. “He doesn’t believe in ghosts.”
“I didn’t say he did. If he hasn’t been there, it’s kind of a cool place, that’s all,” Bethany said.
“We used to try to walk the girls by there late at night and scare them,” Victor put in from across the table, next to Bethany. “It is a cool place. It was established in the 1840s, after a hurricane washed up a bunch of old coffins. You should check it out. The graves aren’t set up like in New Orleans, though there are a bunch of mausoleums. They’re stacked on top of one another. There’s a nice little memorial to the Maine. And if you go by at night…it’s creepy. I tried to make out with Genevieve there the first time.”
Genevieve let out a sound of exasperation. “The first time?”
He laughed. “Okay, the only time. It was sad. She was three feet taller than me at the time. I needed a ladder.”
“Very funny,” Genevieve told him.
He blew her a kiss.
“We could take the ghost tour,” Bethany suggested.
Genevieve groaned aloud. “I do not want to take the ghost tour. I thought we were going barhopping?”
“We are barhopping,” Alex said from the end of the table.
“Actually, that’s when most people see ghosts,” Jack chimed in ruefully.
“Yeah, the Hard Rock Cafe is supposed to be haunted,” Bethany said.
“We’re not going to the Hard Rock,” Genevieve said. She had sounded a little impatient and looked at him with just a hint of apology. “The Hard Rock is fine, and the building is supposed to be haunted. One of the Currys committed suicide upstairs and a prominent citizen shot himself in front of the fireplace. The staff tends to be super nice and the food is fine. But you don’t believe in ghosts anyway. It’s still a fine place. It’s just that…we’re going to our local friendly favorite places. Hey, Clint is playing tonight, you know. We’ve got to take our guests to hear Clint.” She looked at Thor again. “He can do anything. His own stuff, country-western, Buffett, the Eagles—and U2.”
“Hey, the girl down at Duffy’s is good, too!” Marshall called.
“Yeah, she’s great,” Genevieve agreed.
Their entrees came, some fish, some chicken, some steak. Just like the appetizers, their main courses were delicious.
Just then the check came, and Thor picked it up.
Genevieve turned to him. “Are you going to put it on a card? I’ll just give you cash.”
“Don’t give me anything.”
“It’s not as if we’re all on a date.”
“And it’s not as if I’m paying. We get reimbursed for meals,” he said.
“We’ll divvy it up later?” Marshall called to him.
“Doesn’t make any difference. I’ll just put it on the expense report.”
Marshall gave him a thumbs-up sign. Genevieve flushed uncomfortably and hoped no one noticed.
By the time he had paid the check and returned to the table, the group had risen and was milling outside the front door. This town wasn’t as insane now as it was during Fantasy Fest or the dead of winter, when the snowbirds flocked down, but the streets in Key West were busy year round. People did what they called “the Duval crawl”—just shopping and barhopping up and down Duval Street—into the wee hours. In Old Town, shops, restaurants and bars often kept their doors open, air-conditioning wafting out onto the street. With the amount of people around them as they headed to the first bar, Thor didn’t realize at first that both Bethany and Genevieve had disappeared.
In the bar, they found tables near the street-side door, far enough from the singer to be able to talk, enough inside that they weren’t deafened by the crowds outside. “Champagne all around,” Marshall said. “We can toast our first find.”
“Great. Where is the rest of our party?” Alex asked. “Genevieve and Bethany are gone. Why would Genevieve disappear? She and Thor were the ones who made the discovery.”
“They’ll be right back,” Victor said.
“Where’d they go?” Alex demanded.
Victor shrugged. “Some errand…I don’t know. They know the path we’re following. They’ll find us.”
“Well, hell, I say we toast without them,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.
“We should wait,” Lizzie said politely.
“Toast,”