“ ‘Aunt Queen,’ I went on, ‘Fr. Kevin isn’t going to believe all this about Rebecca and her ghost any more than the sheriff will believe it. So why should we call him? After Mass he always laughs when he asks me about Goblin. I think he’s seen me speaking to Goblin in church. No, I know I don’t want to talk to Fr. Kevin. Just forget about that.’

“Aunt Queen was in no mood to give up. She’d told me that first thing in the morning she was heading for her favorite goldsmith in the French Quarter to get a gold crucifix on a chain for me, and then she’d head for the rectory at St. Mary’s Assumption Church to have Fr. Kevin bless the crucifix, and then she would discuss the entire matter with Fr. Kevin and find out what he thought.

“ ‘And meantime,’ she asked, ‘what do we do about these earrings and this cameo brooch?’

“ ‘We’re to save them. We have to. The DNA in this tissue can’t be that degraded. We have to find out if she was the one who really died out there. That’s what Rebecca wants of me; she wants recognition; she wants to be known.’

“ ‘And she wanted you to burn down this house, Quinn.’

“ ‘She’ll never persuade me to do anything like that again,’ I insisted. ‘I’m wise to her.’

“ ‘But you care about what she wants,’ said Aunt Queen, her tongue just a little bit thick from the champagne.

“ ‘It’s justice, Aunt Queen,’ I said. ‘It’s justice that I, a descendant of Manfred, have to carry out. Maybe it won’t amount to much—say, just putting her cameos into the case in the living room with a special card explaining they belonged to a famous love of Manfred Blackwood. Maybe that will allow her spirit to rest. But for now, don’t worry anymore about me. I’ll do what I have to do, and I’ll do what’s best.’

“By that time I had pushed her past all patience, and after two more glasses of champagne I was humoring her, concealing my silent secret schemes.

“I loved her. I love her totally now. But I knew, knew for the first time that I had to deceive her, had in some way to protect her from protecting me.

“Of course I was going out to the island, and of course I was going to invoke Rebecca, but just how and when I wasn’t so sure.”

CHAPTER 13

13

“I WOKE UP very early, dressed in my hunting jeans and vest, and while Big Ramona still slept I sat down at my computer and wrote a letter to this strange invader of Sugar Devil Island, which went, sort of, as follows:

Dear Trespasser,