Deeper (7 page)

5

The next
morning started off with perfect weather.
 
Just cool enough to be a relief from the worst of the summer and not so
miserable that the crew from the school needed to worry about freezing to death
in the water.

Charlie wanted
nothing to do with it.
 
He put on a
polite smile for the people hiring out the yacht, but other than that he was
cold as ice.
 
For my part, I'd spent most
of the night trying to figure out exactly what the hell had happened with the
girl he pulled out of the water, and had come up with nothing at all.

Except the
obvious choice I was trying to avoid.
 
I
didn't believe in ghosts.
 
Still, there
were no traces of where she would have gone, and there was no reason for a girl
to be wearing the old-fashioned clothes she had on, especially in the water.

I could have
told myself it was all just the booze, but Charlie made that a little harder to
get away with.
 
My first mate was not a
coward, but I could see that he was shaken by what had happened.
 
He was also staying busy enough to make it
impossible for me to get him alone.
 
I
think he did it on purpose.

He offered his
services to the college professor, and Ward, being a well-educated man and down
one diver, took him up on it.

The kid I
thought was Diana's brother stayed back at the hotel.
 
His leg was aching to high hell, and he
wasn't much up to even thinking about diving.
 
I think she was happier with it that way.
 
Whatever their relationship, it was obvious
she felt responsible for him.

I didn't talk
to too many of them that morning, aside from getting directions from Ward and
his sidekick.
 
They wanted to start the
dive on the other side of the reef, as far from town as possible, and try
mapping out whatever they found down below the surface.

I have to be
honest here, I was a little fixated on the girl Charlie had pulled out of the
water.
 
Not to the point where I couldn't
pilot a yacht, but to the point where I wasn't much good for conversation.
 
The evidence wasn't adding up too well.
 
Unless the girl had somehow managed to jump
from a nearly fetal position and clear the railing, there should have been some
sign of how she'd left on the deck as I walked to get the blankets was easily
seen, and the same with Charlie's tracks.
 
So it wasn't impossible that she'd just gotten up and hidden
herself.
 
Besides, I don't think she'd
have been physically capable.

Belle always
loved to read mystery books.
 
I was more
into reading the newspaper.
 
My point
being that the idea of actually trying to find out what the hell was going on
was never really much on my mind.
 
The
people hanging around on my yacht were the ones who were supposed to solve the
strange events going on in the area.
 
The
whole thing was annoying me, the same way as not remembering who sang a song on
the radio can get under my skin.
 
I kept
looking out the windows as I aimed us for the far side of the reef, and I kept
looking over at Jacob and Mary Parsons.
 
The mister of the couple was talking with Ward, and whatever they were
discussing had the both of them more animated than I'd seen them before.
 
The missus was curled up in a way that only
cats and women ever seem to manage comfortably, and writing notes in a
ledger.
 
I wondered if I should tell them
what I'd seen.

Charlie would
be opposed.
 
Still, wasn't that the sort
of thing Parsons said they'd come out her for in the first place?
 
I looked at Mary Parsons for a while longer,
enjoying the way the wind played with her hair.
 
If she noticed me staring, it didn't seem to bother her.

Finally, I
decided I'd tell Jacob.
 
Charlie could
get upset, tell me to fuck off, whatever.
 
I couldn't bring myself not to help someone like Parsons with what I
knew was a lifelong quest.

But I'd wait
awhile.
 
I didn't want a gaggle of
college kids as an audience.
 
Whatever
the man decided to make of the story, I preferred he do it without anyone else
hearing about it.

*
         
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*
         
*
         
*

For a group
that was spending a small fortune on renting out my yacht, they weren’t exactly
organized.
 
Charlie took care of
that.
 
He very calmly set about
rearranging the equipment they were taking with them and double-checking all of
the gear.
 
He wasn't the only one, mind
you, but between him and Diana they got everything handled in short order.

Ten divers hit
the water and sank below the surface just a few minutes after I anchored the
Isabella
.
 
After that, it was a lot easier to pull Jacob
off to the side and let him know about the encounter.
 
He nodded a lot when I was talking to him and
then he asked me a million questions regarding what I'd seen and what Charlie
had witnessed.
 
He was clinical, but I
could see that he was also very excited about the notion of whatever had
occurred the night before.

After he was
done, I started regretting what I'd said.
 
Not because of his reaction, but because he called his wife over to ask
me the same questions all over again.

Mary Parsons
was a puzzle, and I didn't much know if I felt like solving the equations that
would explain her to me.
 
For one thing,
she was quieter than I'd expected.
 
Belle
always loved watching those asinine shows on the paranormal, especially around
Halloween, and I'd seen the couple plenty of times.
 
Normally, at least on the show where they
were featured, Mary did all the talking.
 
Seeing her on my yacht, I'd never heard her say much of anything, except
when she called her husband to her side.

For another
thing, she was doing her absolute best not to look as pretty as she was.
 
I'm not saying she had model features or
anything, but she was good looking enough to catch most men's eyes, and as
outspoken as she was on TV she was doing her very best to look and seem like a
church mouse.

One thing I
learned, and fast, was that she didn't stay shy when it came to the business of
ghost hunting.
 
As soon as Jacob told her
I'd seen something the night before, she slipped away from her perch on the
deck and came to find me, notebook in hand and tape recorder at the ready.

"So, can
I ask you a few questions, Captain?"

I looked at
her and wondered how I could have ever thought she was shy.
 
There was nothing at all subdued about the
way she looked at me.
 
I don't mean
sexually, if that's what you're thinking.
 
I mean, she had a very intense gaze and I knew she was going to analyze
every word I said, looking for any sign that I might be making things up just
to get her attention.

"Of course.
 
You're paying my bills."
 
I
looked over and saw Jacob pulling a cigarette out.
 
I threw a nod and a wink Parsons' way and he
tossed one over to me.
 
I don't really
smoke much anymore, but I got the feeling I might need one before his wife was
done with the interrogation.
 
"I
figure the least I can do is make it easier for you to get your job done."

"Thanks."
 
She eyed the cigarette like it was one of the
FBI's most wanted, but said nothing as I lit up.

"So what
do you want to know?"

"Everything."

I told her
what had happened the night before, careful not to embellish.
 
When I was done she looked at me and then at
her husband and for just a moment she smiled brightly, an excited, almost
hyperactive grin that she shut down as soon as it showed itself.
 
Kind of a pity, really,
because she had a nice smile.

"So, you
actually held this girl when you carried her on board?"

I resisted the
urge to ask if I was supposed to carry her up by her hair.
 
"Yeah, I've still got the wet clothes if
you want to check them out."

"No,
that's okay."
 
She chuckled, which
was good, because I sure as hell didn't want to go rummaging through my dirty
laundry.
 
"Can you describe
her?"

"Looked
like mid-teens, fourteen or fifteen, with dark blond hair, pale skin, might
have been five-foot-four or so, tops.
 
She was a little thing."

"You said
her clothes were archaic?"

"Old-fashioned, yeah.
 
Like they belonged at the turn of the century, maybe
even a little earlier."

"You said
she was cold?"

"Well,
yeah, but she'd been in the water for a while before I even spotted her.
 
I'm surprised she held on as long as she did
before we got to her."

"Did she
say anything?
 
Make any noises at
all?"

I had to think
about that.
 
"No."
 
The notion made me frown; I hadn't been
thinking about much of anything but pulling her from the water and how damned
cold she felt.
 
Reflecting on it, I
hadn't heard her so much as breathing, but I hadn't been aware of the absence
during all the chaos.
 
"No I don't
think she did."
 
But she had to have
been breathing, didn't she?
 
I mean, I'd
carried her up the damned ladder.
 
I'd
felt her moving against me, holding on to me as I scaled the side of the
Isabella
.

Mary looked at
her husband and nodded.
 
Jacob leaned
back on the railing and smiled at her.
 
I
got the feeling there was something they weren't telling me.

"How long
were you gone before she disappeared?"

"Maybe a
minute,
tops.
 
I was
in a hurry when I got the blankets."
 
I shrugged.
 
"Charlie was
right there next to her and I don't figure he looked away for more than a few
seconds."

"Can you
describe her face?"

"Not a
chance.
 
All I saw was hair and wet
clothes."

"What do
you think happened to her?"
 
I tried
to read her face, to get an idea of what sort of answer she wanted, but at that
moment the light was gone and all I saw was an expressionless face that would
have made most poker players sweat bullets.

"Honestly?
 
I don't know.
 
If I thought ghosts could touch you, I'd say maybe she was a
ghost."

Mary looked
away from me and crossed her arms over her chest.
 
There was a chill in the air, but she was
wearing a nice, thick sweater and the rising sun was finally getting around to
warming the world around us.

"Oh, some
of them can touch you, Captain Joe.
 
Some
of them can do more than just touch."

Part of me
wanted to ask her what she meant.
 
I
gagged that part quickly.
 
Not because I
was afraid of offending either of the people I was dealing with, but because I
was pretty sure I didn't want to know what else a ghost could do.

"I
thought ghosts were supposed to be floating white sheets or little spots of
light on film."
 
I was trying to
lighten the moment, but it didn't work.

Jacob looked
my way and pitched his cigarette butt over the side of the yacht.
 
That sad sack face of his scolded me with an
expression as his wife seemed to almost collapse in on herself.
 
Then he went over to his wife and put an arm
around her.
 
They still looked mismatched,
like he should have been her uncle maybe, but not her husband.

I stayed where
I was and watched them walk away, feeling like I should apologize and having
absolutely no idea why.

*
         
*
         
*
         
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*

When in doubt,
fish.
 
The few people still on the
Isabella
were busy doing their own
things, and I decided to see if there was anything worth catching in the cove.

I don't sport
fish.
 
I eat what I catch, as long as it
looks edible.
 
I spent the better part of
the afternoon reeling in a bluefish and grinning ear to ear.
 
Even the Parsonses came over to cheer me
on.
 
The damned thing wasn't going to win
me a world record, but by the time it was all said and done I was sore and the
fish was dead.
 
It looked like I'd be
cooking dinner for the crew and our passengers that night.
 
Fish steaks all around, and
maybe a case of beer to wash them down.
 
What the hell; it cut back on my expenses on the included meals and no
one would have to worry about the food being fresh.