“They’re just seeking truth,” Bartholomew said.
Sean started to speak, but he could have sworn that he heard Bartholomew mutter, “Dumb ass!” just beneath his breath.
“What was that?” he demanded.
“Pardon?” Bartholomew said innocently.
“You just called me a dumb ass!”
“Did I? I didn’t mean to speak aloud, which, sadly, in most cases, with most people, I actually don’t,” Bartholomew said.
Sean rose and approached Bartholomew. “Is it possible you could go haunt someone else for a while?”
“Of course. There seems nothing I can do about the fact that you—behave like a dumb ass.”
Sean let out a groan of aggravation. “Because?”
“That young woman did nothing to you.”
“Wow, excuse me. Are you missing the fact that two people were heinously killed?”
Bartholomew looked away. “Yes, there is that. But you know that she had nothing to do with that.”
“And how do I know that? Maybe she was the murderer, maybe Jay is a maniacal killer—maybe one of the others,” Sean said.
“They were there,” David agreed.
“But do you really believe that bringing them all in was some kind of a setup?” Bartholomew said. “If so, you are certainly thinking and behaving as—a dumb ass.”
“Bartholomew—” Sean began.
“Yes, yes, fine! Remember, my friends, you may need me. But for now, I’ll go haunt someone else!” Bartholomew responded, aggravated. Shoulders high, posture proud, he strode through the room—and through the front door.
“They check out,” David said to Sean, when Bartholomew was gone. “So what do you want to do?”
“Two boats,” Sean said. “Which is what we’ve always planned, Conch Fritter and Jamie’s Claddagh. Jamie can captain his own boat, and he’s a hell of a dive master. Katie and you with Jamie, and I’ll take Ted and Jaden, and we’ll bring Marty along, as long as he’s still interested, and, of course, Liam. Four of us on each boat. We’ll split up the six from the original trip.”
“You think that they were involved in a conspiracy—all of them—to kill their leading couple and leave them outrageously staged in the sand?”
“No. But two people died. Somebody killed them.”
David shook his head. “There have been a lot of disappearances and bad things happening out in that area—we’ve just dug up reports of several that occurred in the last couple of years. And it’s not like there’s one bad guy out there. There are probably a lot of less than honest people plying a pirating trade in the straits. Drug runners, people who smuggle cargo, taking them for whatever they might have, to get them into the United States. Whoever committed the crimes may be long gone, killing people in the streets of Venezuela for all we know.”
“Those two weren’t just murdered,” Sean argued. “They were displayed. They were displayed in a way that played into the movie being made.” He hesitated. “As if someone didn’t want the movie made? God knows—but whatever did or didn’t happen, I think we need to keep the original six split up.”
“Agreed,” David said. “So when do you want to head out?”
“Day after tomorrow. I want to revise the original shooting schedule and make sure that we have both boats stocked. And—” he hesitated and shrugged “—I want to spend some time at the shooting range with Liam—it’s been a long time since I shot at something with anything other than a camera.”
“You really think we’ll come across trouble?” David asked.
“I really want to be prepared—hell, in the last few years, from what we’ve seen, too many charters and pleasure boats have been lost. Even without what happened with the film crew, I think it might have been a nice wake-up call to be ready—for anything,” Sean said.
His cell started ringing. He picked it up. Liam was on the line.
“Is David with you?” Liam asked.
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
“No,” Sean said.
“Put the phone on speaker, will you, please?”
He did so.
“I don’t know if this means anything or not,” Liam said. “But I have a report on my desk about another boat that has disappeared—with all four aboard. She’s called the Happy-Me. She’s a thirty-footer that can sleep six, top-of-the-line radio, sonar, all that. She was owned by a retired couple, Jenny and Mark Houghton, who were traveling with another couple, Dale and Gabby Johnson. They were headed out for a couple of weeks, stopping different places. They had notified the Bahamian authorities that they’d be visiting a few different ports in the Bahamas.”
“How long have they been missing?” Sean asked.
“A couple of days,” Liam told him.
“There’s still the possibility that they’re fine, that they had trouble, that they’re on an island, waiting for a search party,” David said.
“There’s the possibility. But the couples’ children have been calling every law-enforcement agency in the area. One of the daughters says she knows that her parents are dead. They never failed to check in,” Liam told them.
“Are there search parties out there?” Sean asked.
“Of course,” Liam said. “Coast Guard, Bahamians, volunteer rescue societies. But there’s been no sight of the boat or any survivors. Of course, it might have no connection with Haunt Island as well, but Haunt Island was on their agenda.”
“Thanks, Liam,” Sean said. “We were just reading about another disappearance in the area. A boat called the Delphi.”
“The Delphi went missing a year ago,” Liam said. “So, two years ago, the film crew is attacked. Last year around the same time, a boat goes missing. And now another.”
“There have been other boats that have vanished,” David pointed out.
“Right. But these two went down somewhere near Haunt Island,” Sean said.
“If this one is down—we don’t actually know that yet,” Liam said.
Sean was thoughtful.
“So?” Liam asked.
Sean looked at David. “So I say that we really have to be prepared for anything and keep our eyes open at all times.”
“Did you hear anything about the body in the chest yet?” Zoe asked Vanessa.
Vanessa shook her head. She and Zoe were down by Fort Zachary Taylor, cruising through the many booths the vendors had set up near the “pirate” campgrounds.
“Not yet. I believe that the person Jaden contacted is on the way down but is planning on bringing the body back to a lab at the university,” she said. They were at a booth that displayed books—some old rare, and very expensive, and some copies—sea charts and maps. One large map that included the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean ports, Florida and the Bahamas was hung on a supporting beam of the booth. It was large and glass-encased, and Zoe paused, looking at it and shivering. “I think I’m crazy myself!” she said. She followed a path from Key West, up around the islands to Miami, and then across to Bimini. “That’s it—that’s our route. Look at all the little red crosses on it! Those are all ships that have gone down or disappeared over the last decades—and centuries! I think I’m crazy, wanting to do this. No, I have to do this. I can’t wait to actually sleep again.”
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.”