“Jim and Joan Roxbury,” Mrs. Swenor said as she handed me a picture. “Your parents.”

It was a photo of two smiling people, a man and a woman, with their arms around one another. The man was holding up bunny-ear fingers behind the woman’s head. What was so incredible about the picture—besides everything—was that the guy looked exactly like an older version of me. He had my same dark hair and eyes. The woman was tall, with blond hair that fell to her shoulders. Both looked tan and happy.

They were my parents. My real parents.

I was relieved, excited, curious, and more than a little bit sad.

“So my real name is Liam Roxbury?”

“No, your real name is Marcus O’Mara. Liam was the name your birth parents gave you.”

“I knew that they died, but nobody told me how,” I said. “Do you know?”

She nodded and took a deep breath. I felt bad for her because I was asking her to relive more painful memories. But heck, I had to know!

“They were on their sailboat in the Atlantic. They loved sailing. A storm came up quickly. The boat capsized. They were both presumed to have drowned.”

“Presumed?” I asked.

“Their bodies were never recovered.”

Wow. Grim.

“You were a year old. We thought of adopting you, but Michael and I were just too young. And Michael was torn up over Jim’s death. It wasn’t a good time to bring a baby into our lives.”

“Weren’t there any relatives to take me?”

“None. You were put up for adoption, and that’s when the O’Maras came into the picture. But I didn’t lose track of you. I wanted to make sure you had gone to a good family, and you did.”

I kept staring at the picture. My worries about being haunted didn’t matter much anymore. I was looking at my parents. My real parents.

“So I do know you, at least a little,” Mrs. Swenor said. “Now it’s your turn. Why are you here?”

All my worries came flooding back. I put the picture down and took a deep breath to buy time and try to kick my brain into gear.

She must have sensed that I was having trouble, because she said again, “There’s nothing you could say that would surprise me.”

“Don’t bet on that.”

She stared at me, waiting for me to say something.

“I’ve been,” I said, stumbling over my own thoughts and words, “I’ve been seeing things. Strange things.”

Her gaze didn’t waver, so I let it all out in a rush of verbal diarrhea.

“There was a bull, and an old lady, and things were smashed one second but not the next. I’m not sure what was real and what wasn’t, because I’m the only one who’s been seeing it.”

I stole a look at her, expecting her to roll her eyes or reach for the phone to call an ambulance to cart the loony kid away.

She didn’t.

“This is the tough part,” I said. “I saw your husband. At least, I think it was him. Or his ghost. That’s why I’m here.”

Mrs. Swenor didn’t show any emotion. I think she was trying to absorb the crazy information.

“Did he say anything?” she asked with a shaky voice.

It was the only hint that I was getting through to her…and that she didn’t think I was nuts.

“No. He just held out this old-fashioned key and—”

Mrs. Swenor gasped and sat back so suddenly, it was as if somebody had shoved her.

“You sure it was a key?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Well, yeah. I tried to grab it, but my hand went through it like it was, well, a ghost. And there were messages too. They said—”

“Surrender the key,” she said softly.

It was my turn to sit back.

“How did you know?”

Mrs. Swenor’s hands trembled. She ran them through her hair nervously, as if that would somehow stop the shaking.

“When Michael started acting strangely, I tried to get him to open up about it, but the most I got from him was that he had to do something else but was afraid it might be another mistake.”

“Another mistake? Did he make more than one?”

“I don’t know. All he kept saying was that he had to protect me, and the less I knew, the better.”

“Did he say what he had to do?”

“Yes. Apparently, twelve years ago, right before your parents went on that sailing trip, Jim gave my husband something for safekeeping. He asked Michael to take care of it until the time was right.”

“Right for what?” I asked.

Mrs. Swenor looked straight at me and said, “To give it to you.”

I gasped. At least I think I did. That’s usually what happens when you hear something that is so stunning, you have trouble breathing.

“My father gave your husband something for me twelve years ago?”

Mrs. Swenor stood and grabbed her purse from the floor next to the couch. She reached inside and pulled out a ring of keys. She flipped through them until she came upon one that was small and golden.

“That’s not it,” I said, actually feeling relieved.

She went to a table next to the couch. The table had a drawer; the drawer had a lock. Mrs. Swenor inserted the key with shaking hands, twisted it, and pulled the drawer open.

My heart was beating so fast, I was sure she could hear it.

She reached inside and gently lifted out a thin leather cord. Dangling from it was a four-inch-long brass key.

The key.

“Your father asked Michael to give this to you, but only when the time was right. I think that time is now.”

“Noooo!” came a scream from deeper in the apartment.

We both looked with surprise toward the hallway to see a little boy sprinting toward us. Before we could react, the kid ran into the room and snatched the key from her.

“You can’t have it!” he yelled, and ran back the way he had come.

“Alec!” Mrs. Swenor yelled.

He ran into a room at the end of the hall and slammed the door shut.

“This has been so hard for him. He was on the roof with Michael when—”

“I get it,” I said, and took off after the kid.

It was a totally brazen move. He wasn’t my brother, and this wasn’t my house. But if my real father wanted me to have that key, nobody was going to keep it from me.