Ghost Night (18 page)

Vanessa was silent.
Yes, she still had to do this, too. But now…she felt a strange numbness. She didn’t date easily; she didn’t fall for people…she wasn’t good at accepting a casual drink. She had never gone out and slept with a man on a first, second, or even third date. But she had felt something about Sean, as if there were something real and deep that made intimacy heady and natural, and something that should have…

Should have been allowed to mature into more. She felt ridiculously empty and alone, and something inside her ached, and she still felt that she had to hold the distance, because it was wrong not to be trusted, and worse to want someone so badly that she might not care….

She realized she was staring blankly at the chart, lost in her thoughts, which had nothing to do with shipwrecks, when she heard her name called.

“Vanessa!”

She turned around to see that Katie was hurrying toward her through the crowd.

Katie—dressed up in pirate attire that appeared authentic and still attractive. She wasn’t dressed as a wench—no heaving bosom above a low-cut shirt and corset—but more like a man, in breeches, buckled boots, a poet’s shirt and frock coat, and an over-the-shoulder holster that carried several pistols and ammunition,
while the broad leather belt wrapped around her hips held a sailor’s cutlass.

Vanessa laughed, seeing her. “Wow! You look great. What’s up?”

“I need you. Hey, Zoe, how are you?” she asked, acknowledging Zoe.

“Fine, thanks. And you do look great. I costume people, and I couldn’t have done better,” Zoe said.

Katie rolled her eyes. “This is Pirates in Paradise. You have avid historians around here. Vanessa, Marty sent me out to ask you to come and be a part of the program.”

“What?” Vanessa said. “Katie, I don’t know anything about what they’re doing, I’d be a bump on the log, and it would just be…”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Vanessa!” Zoe said, enthused. “Come on, you’ve played a monster, a corpse and…and a body a zillion times. Why not find out about it?”

“Come on!” Katie drew her along. Vanessa did her best to lag. She liked being behind a camera. She loved being the eye that found the visions.

But Katie was determined. They came to Marty’s booth, and he greeted her with a huge kiss and was pleased to meet Zoe. “It’s the trial—just respond as you would if you’d been arrested,” Marty said. “Ah, come now, I did tell you girls that I might need some help.”

“Whose trial? If it’s Anne Bonny and Mary Reid, I don’t know enough of the history—”

Marty shook his head. “Look, everyone knows that a body was found, and everyone knows that Sean and David and crew are about to set off to explore the Mad Miller legend. It’s a mock trial, and you’re going to be
Kitty Cutlass—and you just respond however you feel you should. It’s based on the premise that Kitty Cutlass was saved.”

“But Katie is a performer—she’d make a far better Kitty Cutlass,” Vanessa argued.

“I’m the narrator,” Katie said. “Oh, come on, Vanessa. It will be fun. It will take the…well, it will occupy your mind while we all…wait.”

“But—” Vanessa began.

“Oh, come on, please!” Zoe said. “I’ll help get you all set. Marty, are there costumes somewhere?”

“Great—just go down the path there to my friend Sally, the one dressed up as Queen Isabella. She’ll give you everything that you need.”

Despite her protests, Vanessa soon found herself dressed up as Kitty Cutlass. She was not given a chaste costume like Katie’s. She was in a low-cut blouse with flaring white sleeves, a workaday corset and a billowing skirt and petticoat. Zoe arranged her hair so it was halfway tied high on her head, but with curling blond tendrils around her face.

She did not get any kind of holster—she had been stripped of her weapons.

She got handcuffs.

A large area of park had been set up for readings and theatrics; there was a modular stage, simple, with a judge’s bench and just a few stark wooden pews, and a box for the defendant. Vanessa was surprised to see Jamie O’Hara dressed up as the judge, sitting behind the bench. Marty himself was the prosecutor, Katie the narrator and, apparently, she didn’t have a defense attorney.

She was led through the crowd by a couple of Marty’s cronies. She was stunned to see that a full audience had gathered around and that, while they awaited the beginning of the mock might-have-been trial, they were chatting, arguing amiably amongst themselves and giving their opinions. There were avid-eyed children lined up and seated Indian-style before the stage.

Katie introduced the situation in her little speech, and then explained what might have happened had Kitty Cutlass, a woman who was a known accomplice of Mad Miller and accused of the murder of Dona Isabella, been saved from the sinking of the pirate ship and brought in to face the music—the law!

Vanessa, rudely cast into the little box on the stage, almost jumped when Marty began his prosecutorial tirade of her horrible crimes.

Listening to him, she suddenly found herself ready to enter into the game. She didn’t interrupt him; she waited until he was done and denied everything, assuring him that every shred of evidence he had against her was hearsay, circumstantial and in no way proof of any evil deed she might have performed. She had been guilty of loving Mad Miller, and nothing more. And they were wrong about Mad Miller, too. He had never been a murderer. Rather, he had been a man drawn to the life, eager for the rewards of the trade, but a man without a shred of bloodlust in his body.

As she spoke, she looked out at the audience at various times, demanding that they give an opinion. It had all been made up, conjured out of thin air, because every single
fact
that they were bringing forward was nothing more than speculation.

Jamie O’Hara raged from behind the bench that he would give the prisoner a chance—he would listen to thoughts and recommendations of her peers since the prosecution had failed woefully in bringing forth the burden of proof.

As she looked out then, Vanessa froze.

Many men were dressed as pirates. Many women were wenches, ladies and female pirates, and even the children in the crowd were in various stages of fun costume dress.

But there was one man standing behind the proceedings. He had a rich, full black beard and a headful of curly, almost ink-black hair. He was a tall man, and sturdy and strong. He had been watching from behind a group to the far rear, close to a row of merchants, which ended at a large growth of pines that grew raggedly before giving way to the white sands of the beach.

Her jaw dropped.

She’d never seen him with long hair or a beard.

But she knew him.

It was Carlos Roca.

His eyes, she was certain, met hers across the distance.

She cried out, ready to run after him.

But, of course, everyone thought it was part of the theatrics. She nearly shouted his name, but refrained, and when she tried to burst out of the box, Jamie O’Hara thundered his gavel on the bench, and Marty’s friends came rushing up to secure the prisoner in the docket.

She flushed, angry, feeling ridiculously desperate, and yet…

She didn’t want to shout his name.

And…

He was gone. Where he had stood, there was another man. Another pirate, quite a dandy of a pirate, really. This one had really rich long hair, queued at his nape, and he wore a cocked and sweeping plumed hat. His frock coat was brocade, his stockings and breeches were amazingly authentic. His face was aristocratic and handsome, and he was frowning at her as if she had truly lost her mind.

“What say you?” Jamie O’Hara roared.

“Guilty! I believed her until she tried to run!” a boy cried from the front row.

“Guilty! And sentencing for pirates, be they men or women, is that they be hanged from the neck until dead!” Jamie O’Hara roared with glee.

She felt blank, numb and disturbed. Had she been mistaken? Had she seen Carlos because…

Had she seen him because of this charade, because she wanted to see him, she had admired and cared about Carlos, and…

Her jaw fell open. The man who had taken his place seemed to be staring straight into her eyes, as well. He stiffened.

And seemed to disappear, as if he were fog.

Her knees felt like rubber. The world around her seemed to be a fog. She was going to pass out!

Good God! She didn’t pass out. She wasn’t the kind to be afraid of her own shadow, she had faced nightmares and the tricks the mind could play again and again. She wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t going to fall apart.

“Wait!” she suddenly shouted, remembering all that she could of pirate history.

To her surprise, everyone went still. The audience was dead silent.

“I cannot be hanged at this time. I plead my belly!” she announced.

“Brilliant!” someone in the crowd said. And there was laughter, and then applause.

“Well, then, we shall see! Sentence to be carried out when the condemned is delivered of her child, and so be it!” Jamie announced. His gavel slammed down again, and the charade was over. Marty hugged her and told her she was great, and Katie and Jamie were grinning proudly at her. Audience members greeted them all, asking pirate questions, and she stood and listened and spoke, and wasn’t sure what she said, or what she heard.

She was searching the audience.

She didn’t see Carlos Roca.

Nor did she see the “pirate” who had seemed to disappear into thin air.

Eventually, she made it back to Queen Isabella’s costume booth and the little makeshift tent where she had changed. Back in her clothing, she came out to find that Katie and Zoe were deep in conversation with Marty.

“I just talked to my brother. He and David spent a lot of the day working, looking up all kinds of things and planning what they want to do. It’s a go with a schedule—the crews are all set. We’ll be heading out on two boats, Sean’s and my uncle Jamie’s. Jamie is coming, of course, captaining his boat. Marty is coming, Liam and I, and Sean and David and Ted and Jaden. And your six, Vanessa. You and Jay, Barry, Jake, Zoe and Bill. We’ll set out the day after tomorrow.”

“Oh, Vanessa!” Zoe said, throwing her arms around her. “This is wonderful. Maybe…maybe we’ll figure things out!”

“Most likely we won’t,” Vanessa said. She didn’t know why she was now being disparaging. This might well be their only hope, considering the fact that no one else was still actively investigating and they all knew that there were still dozens of unanswered mysteries. “I mean, we can only go through the motions, and try to remember every little thing, and see if there isn’t something, some clue somewhere, that everyone has missed. And still, we may not find what we’re looking for…or even the kind of peace and closure it seems that we’re all hoping to find somehow.”

“But we may!” Zoe argued. “I’m so excited. I’m going—I’m going to go and find Barry and let him know when we’re leaving right away.”

“Okay, great,” Vanessa said. “And I guess you’re in touch with Bill and Jake somehow? Better let them know, too.”

“I’m on it!” Zoe said happily.

“Ah, for me?” Marty said, his eyes sparkling. “A chance of a lifetime! On the trail of one of the most infamous pirate tales ever!”

Vanessa tried to smile for him.

She had come here for this. And now…now she wasn’t sure about anything.

Katie turned to Vanessa. “Sean wanted to speak to you. I told him you were changing and that I’d have you call him.”

Vanessa nodded. Her heart seemed to take a little
leap, and she wanted to kick herself. He probably wanted to give her a list of rules.

“Sure. But, Katie, I’m going to head back to my room for a bit first—too much costume and makeup for me. I need a shower. Oh—thank you,” she said.

“Thank me?” Katie said, laughing. “See, you are a ham, and you didn’t even know it. You were great.”

Vanessa shook her head. “No. Thank you. For influencing David, for introducing me to Jamie—I’m not sure I broached it all right with your brother, but this…well, if anything can be discovered, I think that this is the crew to do it.”

Katie grinned happily. “Sure. And hey, I’m on this adventure, too!”

Adventure…

Vanessa wasn’t at all sure she saw it that way.

With a wave, she headed out of the park, leaving all the pirate booths behind her. As she watched, she searched the crowds.
Had
she imagined them both?

Many a big tall man with dark hair
might
look like Carlos Roca.

And in the midst of would-be pirates, imagining another pirate…

Face it: she wasn’t getting enough sleep.

It was a long walk back to her room, but Vanessa was almost glad of it. She needed to walk, to stride, to burn more energy.

She needed to call Sean.

She wasn’t ready to do so.

Reaching Duval and starting toward the north end, she realized that she was looking in shops and bars.
She couldn’t shake the belief that she had seen Carlos Roca.

But if Carlos was alive, then…

Did that mean he had murdered the others?

As she neared her inn, she glanced across the street at a group of “pirates” gathered in front of the Irish bar across the street.

One relaxed against the door frame, watching the band, listening to the music. He had dark hair. He was the man she had thought had to be Carlos Roca.

He looked at her. He looked straight at her.

It was Carlos Roca. It had to be Carlos Roca. It was his face.

He turned and disappeared into the bar.

“C
arlos, no! Wait, stay! It’s me, Vanessa!” she cried. She raced across the street. It seemed that pirates had spread across the place, and she tried to excuse herself and wend her way through big frock coats, big hair and bigger hats. She made her way through the bar, searching faces to see Carlos’s once again.

But she walked all way through to the emergency exit, and he wasn’t there. She burst into the kitchen, only to be shown out. The place was ridiculously crowded, and she realized he might have walked out through the gift shop, slipped through another wall of pirates when she wasn’t looking.

At last she gave up and walked her way through the pirates once again to the street.

She walked across, and straight into Sean.

He was standing in front of her inn, leaning against the wall, as if he had been there for some time. He seemed curious that she had come from the Irish bar, and was probably impatient, as well.

“I’ve been calling you,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d have thought that you might have been more
interested in everything going on. Especially as far as getting ready to head out—with your friends all involved now.”

“Look, Sean, they’re my friends, but not my
friends.
Jay, yes, I’ve known forever. And I like the others, but I didn’t bring them here.”

“I’m not holding any of it against you,” he said.

“How magnanimous,” she murmured, looking away. She wanted to shout that she thought she had seen Carlos Roca. She might have been wrong. And if she’d seen Carlos, everyone would decide that, since he was alive, he was guilty. Until she saw him, really saw him, she couldn’t say anything.

What if he was guilty? What if he had seen her, and knew that she had seen him? What if? He had seen her, he had looked straight at her before disappearing.

“Is that all?” she asked him. “It’s been a long day, and I’d really like to take a shower, if you’ll excuse me. I’ll be ready to work whenever you need anything, but for now…”

She started to walk by him. He blocked her path. She looked up and was surprised to see that his golden eyes were opened wide and that everything about him was just slightly awkward. “Vanessa…I’m not good at this. And I’d like you to understand how things looked…. I’m sorry.”

She was startled by the apology. It was amazing, coming from him under the circumstances.

Maybe he just missed the sex. But then again, so did she.

And still…

“I don’t lie, Sean,” she said stiffly.

“I didn’t accuse you of lying.”

“Well, yes, actually you did.”

“I…I’m sorry. Okay, I’m not good at this…I don’t know what else to say,” he told her. “I’ll ask you again, see it from my side.”

She nodded and smiled slowly. “Just say that you know that I don’t lie, and that you’ll believe in me in the future. That will work.”

“I know that you don’t lie. I’ll believe you in the future,” he said, his smile broad.

“Thank you,” she said softly. They stood there for a moment, looking at one another, not quite touching, and yet…

“I played a pirate about to be hanged today,” she told him. “I really need a shower.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not moving.”

“You haven’t invited me up.”

“Come on up.”

Maybe showers were destined to be something special between them. And maybe there was something that was just right, amazing, or the intangible bit of animal magnetism, chemistry, or whatever it was that made one person choose another over others. There was nothing awkward in her room, and there was no pretense between either of them. When she walked into the shower, she knew he was behind her. She turned into his arms, euphoric with the feeling that he was there, hard-bodied, rock-solid, vibrant, hot and real. Thoughts and fears left her mind for excruciating moments as she simply lost herself in the beauty and urgency of touch, running her hands down the wet sleekness of his flesh,
his sex, along his spine and buttocks, and feeling the deep thrust and hot persistence of his kiss, his tongue and his hands upon her.

They made love with the rush of the water and then, still enwrapped and absorbed in one another, they found towels and made their way to the bed. Once there, he started with a kiss again, hovering over her, golden eyes burning into hers, and then that kiss, his mouth on hers, and then moving to her throat, where he paused, feeling the thunder of her pulse, and moved on, sending a streak of lightning through her as he teased a breast and trailed his kisses onward again. His caresses were slow, a touch of agony in the midst of exhilaration and wonder. He touched and teased, drawing to a point of complete intimacy, and she twisted and writhed until her frantic energy and demand brought him back to her, and they locked together in a storm of frenetic energy that brought her to a point of climax after climax, shuddering in his arms.

He held her close then, murmuring, his kisses tender.

Eventually, their bodies cooled. Their hearts beat at normal rates, and the ragged sound of their breath was no longer a cacophony in the room.

He held her against him and then groaned softly. “Strange. I don’t want to get up. I’m starving, and there are things to do, and I don’t ever want to leave this bed.”

She laughed. “Of course you do. Eventually, you’d get bored here.”

“When the sun froze over,” he told her.

She stroked his face. “That was good. That makes up for your rather stilted apology.”

“Excuse me, that was real and heartfelt.”

“We could order food to be brought here,” she said.

He nodded and turned from her for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “We’re supposed to go over to Ted and Jaden’s workshop—the doctor of forensic anthropology arrived, and she’s been studying the trunk as we found it. She’ll give us what she can before she does all the tests on the body. Anything in the sea that long—even mummified, as the body appears—is very fragile.”

“Of course,” Vanessa said. She hesitated, wondering why she was so uneasy about the trunk.

Pandora’s box? If so, it was already open.

And yet, it hadn’t been something actually
evil
that she felt, just as if the chest was going to be a catalyst, and she wasn’t sure if she liked what it might cause to come about.

“Do you not want to come over there with me?” Sean asked.

“No, no, of course I want to come,” she said.

“Then I guess we have to get moving.” He stood, his back to her. “You know, I think you should get the tail end of your things out of here for good.”

She rose as well, coming around to look at him. “You want me to come over because I’ll be safer? Or because you want me there?”

“I’d say both, and that’s pretty obvious,” he said. She smiled.

She was glad to be invited.

Ecstatic, actually!

And it was true that she didn’t want to be here alone.
She had horrendous nightmares, she saw figureheads in the water, and on top of that, she kept thinking that she saw Carlos Roca and an unknown pirate who looked at her—and then faded into the air.

Really. They were going to have to lock her up soon.

“It’s late,” he said huskily. “Let’s grab pizza downstairs and then get over to Ted and Jaden’s.”

Dr. Tara Aislinn was in her midfifties, an energetic and enthusiastic woman who greeted Sean and Vanessa with real warmth. Her colleague, Ned Latham, was more subdued but apparently just as eager to be there. They had studied the chest and the victim within but hadn’t taken the body from the chest. They had come down in their van and, with permission, of course, would be moving the chest and the body to the lab in Gainesville.

Liam and David had come and gone, Sean discovered. They were late, of course, really late, but in his mind, that was fine. He hadn’t been in a serious relationship in a long time; he didn’t think he’d ever been in a relationship where he’d felt so lost and empty when it seemed that it had ended. David and Liam were capable, as were Jaden and Ted, and he knew that he’d never understand half of what the scientists could learn from the body, so everything had gone in the right direction without him.

“David is calling the media and letting them know what it was you brought out of the water,” Jaden told him.

“What exactly is he telling them?” Sean asked.

Dr. Aislinn laughed softy. “Just that we have arrived and are taking the chest and the body, and that we believe that the chest is early eighteen hundreds, and that a unique set of circumstances have preserved the body of a woman who died in the early eighteen hundreds, as well. More details will follow after we have conducted out tests.”

“And what can you really tell us?” Sean asked.

“That she’s
not
Dona Isabella!” Jaden burst out.

“What?” Vanessa said.

“Come, come, I’ll show you,” Dr. Aislinn said. “Dr. Latham, if you’ll assist me?”

They walked over to the chest and Latham carefully opened it and offered Dr. Aislinn a set of latex gloves from his pocket. After pulling them on, she reached in and touched the woman’s bodice. “This is cotton, and if you’ll notice—it’s difficult to see with the staining. If you’ll hold the flashlight up, Dr. Latham?—that’s home sewing. Dr. Latham, the hands if you will? I can’t draw them out—we’d break up the mummy—but you’ll note the nails. They’re chipped and broken, and not the nails of a lady. Whoever this woman was, she didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury. From what I’ve learned about this story, your Dona Isabella was supposedly killed on Haunt Island—or she went down with the ship in the storm. I don’t know who this is, but it’s not a lady of the time.”

“Can you date the corpse to a certain age?” Sean asked.

“Not without a more comprehensive examination,” Dr. Aislinn said. “But…” She shrugged. “My guess? Between twenty and thirty. I’m going to need X-rays of
the teeth and skull, the hips—all those things help establish age. However, I think you’ve found a pirate’s wench, perhaps a poor girl traveling as a maid or a servant.”

“We hope to be able to give you a great deal more,” Dr. Latham said.

“I’m sure you’re disappointed that it wasn’t a chest of gold doubloons, but this is just an amazing scientific find!” Dr. Aislinn said. She looked at Vanessa. “It’s extraordinary. I heard you also discovered the pendant—the exquisite mermaid pendant—that Ted showed me earlier. You’re quite an amazing woman, Miss Loren. You might have missed your calling as a salvage diver or treasure seeker!”

To Sean’s surprise, Vanessa’s smile seemed forced and her face seemed pale.

“Oh, I rather like what I do,” she said.

“How did you find these relics?” Dr. Latham asked.

“Beginner’s luck,” she said with a shrug. “And I wasn’t looking? I don’t know.”

“Well,” Dr. Aislinn said. “You have made an absolutely amazing discovery here. The mermaid pendant, of course, is beautiful. But the body! We can’t thank you enough. We’re delighted to be doing the research!”

“Wait!” Ted said. “You didn’t tell them the most gruesome part yet.” He looked at Sean and Vanessa and shook his head. “I mean, we know that the pirates could be violent. And what with the story of Haunt Island, it shouldn’t be surprising.”

Jaden said, “Horrible, just horrible. But—of course, long over now.”

“What?” Sean demanded.

“At first,” Dr. Aislinn said, “I thought that someone must have cared for this young woman deeply. Most of the time, those who died at sea were wrapped in shrouds—if that!—and sent overboard. This young woman was sealed in a chest. I thought that we’d discover that the cause of death had been consumption or the ravages of some other disease. But look at the neck—that’s not just decayed fabric there, or a shawl or scarf or any other such object. She was strangled. That’s the fabric with which she was strangled. I’m not sure what it is yet. We’ll know when we take a sample.”

“She was murdered,” Vanessa murmured.

“As you said,” Sean noted, “violence was common, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, but it’s curious,” Dr. Latham commented.

“Pirates blew one another to bits with cannons. They slashed with swords and cutlasses, and they shot one another with their pistols. It’s unusual that they would have strangled a woman.”

“She must have made someone very angry,” Jaden said.

“It’s going to be just fascinating to try to discover just who she was!” Dr. Aislinn said. “Of course, I understand all of you are heading out soon to start filming—a most fascinating documentary, I must say! But I’ll be in touch constantly by cell phone, and you can reach me anytime you like.”

“Thank you,” Sean told her.

“So,” Ted said, “we’re packing her up—the chest and the mummy—in the university van tomorrow morning. Tara and Dr. Latham are leaving then. But Jaden and I
are about to take them out for a night on the town, Key West–style. Can you join us?”

Sean didn’t have a chance to reply.

Vanessa spoke quickly. “Oh, thank you, and I hope you’ll forgive me. It’s been a long day, and I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, I’m afraid. But hey, you guys—take them to O’Hara’s. They’ll have a great time there.”

“O’Hara’s?” Dr. Aislinn said, grinning and looking at Sean.

“It’s my uncle’s place, and you will have a great time,” Sean said.

“Sean, I’m sorry, I’m really exhausted, but you, of course, are more than welcome to join them,” Vanessa said quickly.

She seldom looked vulnerable; for some reason that night she did. Sean felt a surge of tenderness, wanting to make sure that she was safe and warm and protected at all times.

“Sorry, all, and forgive me, too. These have been really long days. My uncle’s place has good food, reasonable drinks, and my sister is doing karaoke tonight. It’s a bit of a walk down Duval,” he said.

“Well, I do love walking, and I don’t get down here nearly enough!” Dr. Aislinn said.

Sean and Vanessa left, thanking them again. As they walked down the street, he took her hand—it was crowded that night. Girls were out in skimpy outfits and wench attire; some men were still in pirate costume while others were in jeans and T-shirts. It was Key West. A little cool that night for anything so simple as
body paint, but anything might have been worn along Duval.