“One more thing, Marty. Will you do one of your sea shanties for us?”
“A privilege, boys, a privilege!” Marty said. He went for his old guitar in the corner. “Should have a squeeze box, really, but this will do.”
“Give us a chance to move the lights and the camera around a bit,” Sean said. Marty nodded happily and practiced strumming his string and tuning the instrument.
“Ready,” Sean said. “And we can film several takes, so you’re under no pressure.”
Marty grinned, strummed and sang.
“Oh, the sea, she is my lady,
E’er my lady true,
For the lady t’was my lady
Back upon the shore”
Mary strummed the last chord, set the guitar down and grinned.
“Cut,” Sean said. “Perfect!”
“Great,” David agreed.
“Should we do another, for safety’s sake?” Marty asked anxiously.
David glanced and Sean and shrugged with a grin.
“Sure, we’ve got the time, the people, and you—you’re an amazing intro, Marty,” Sean said.
Marty was pleased. He blushed. He picked up his guitar again, explained that it was an old sea shanty his father had taught him, one that had come down from old pirating days.
The next take was even better. Marty was just warming up.
They spent a while longer there, letting Marty go over a few facts and figures from history and the area, and then they wrapped it up.
While they packed the equipment, Jay asked, “Can I get started immediately on the footage, show you just what you’ll be getting?”
Sean hesitated, wondering what his problem was with Jay. Of course, he knew. Allen was close with Vanessa Loren. He was being unreasonable.
“Yes.”
“I’ll go back now—”
“Go to my place. I’ve got the equipment set up that you need,” Sean said.
Jay nodded with pleasure. “You won’t be disappointed.”
“If that comes out well enough, you’ll be wanting to take some shots at the setup for Pirates in Paradise, down by Fort Zachary Taylor,” Marty said. “Costumes, knives, swords, reproductions of all kinds. Pirate food and grog. Hey, everybody wants to be a pirate. Everybody wants to be Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, huh?”
They all agreed that Johnny Depp had done wonders for piracy, and then left the house at last. David went on to find Katie, and Sean took Jay Allen to his house, to the back, where he had his computer set up with all the software Jay might need.
And where he found Bartholomew, reading the screen—and pushing the keys.
“What the hell?” Jay murmured.
Sean reached over and pushed the escape key and then keyed in for his film system.
“You might have just said ‘move,’” Bartholomew said. “Or, more politely, ‘Bartholomew, old fellow, I need the computer now. Would you mind?’”
Sean didn’t respond.
“You’re good to go,” he told Jay.
“You’ll see, you’ll see—and you’ll want me more than you ever expected,” Jay promised, sitting down to get started.
“Go for it,” Sean told him.
“You’re not going to watch over my shoulder, are you?” Jay asked.
Leave this guy alone in his house?
“Don’t worry—I’ll be here, looking over his shoulder!” Bartholomew assured him.
Sean lowered his head to hide a smile. It was perfect. He could leave and yet know every single thing that went on in his house while Jay was there.
“Actually, no. I need to see a few friends,” Sean assured him.
“Okay, I’ll lock up,” Jay told him. “When I’m done. I’ll leave it in a ‘Marty’ file for you to find when you get back.”
“Great,” Sean agreed. “All right, then. I’ll call you if I don’t see you.”
He walked to the door. Bartholomew had taken another chair, at the table, his feet plunked upon it. He was watching Jay Allen with narrowed eyes.
When he headed for the door, Jay called him back. “You really don’t know how much I appreciate this opportunity.”
Sean nodded, and left.
With the door closed, he smiled. Bartholomew could be a true pest, an annoyance, taunting him when a response would make Sean appear to be totally insane.
But the old pirate/privateer was actually a damned good guy.
Oddly enough, a damned good friend.
Vanessa didn’t want to stay in her room at the inn, and she had been sincerely un-invited to be involved in the day’s shoot with Marty. She had decided to go explore down by the grounds at Fort Zachary Taylor, wearing a bathing suit beneath a cover-up dress, and force herself to stay calm and away from anyone with the name Beckett or O’Hara.
The main events of Pirates in Paradise weren’t taking place yet, but Vanessa learned from the first “pirate” she encountered that the booths would be starting to open the next day with eager, friendly vendors—all in pirate attire, of course—and that the first parties would take place that night. She was invited to come—he’d get her in free. She thanked him, said that she wasn’t sure and explored a lot of the merchandise.
At one booth, she found a beautiful display of reproduction jewelry. As she looked through the pieces she was impressed. The booth carried pen-and-ink drawings of various ships, lists of their manifests, the pirate “code of honor” and many more bills of lading and other pieces of the past, all historic copies.
She started when she looked up after studying one case to see that the picture above it was of Dona Isabella. Or at least it was a likeness similar to that which Marty had given her.
The girl attending the booth, a pretty young thing who looked to be no more than a teenager, came before her smiling. She was in a corset, skirt and big billowing blouse, with a tricorn hat perched atop her head.
“She startles everyone,” the girl said. “Dona Isabella, I mean. What a gorgeous creature—to die so sadly. Do you know the story?”
“Yes, actually, I do,” Vanessa told her.
“She’s supposed to haunt a lot of places, you know. Pirate Cut for one—a few divers swear that they’ve seen her! And, let’s see—she haunts the south end of Duval Street, where she supposedly lived. And Haunt Island, of course. I mean, what would Haunt Island be without a few haunts?”
Vanessa smiled. She didn’t want to talk about Haunt Island.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the piece in the display case that had drawn her attention. It was a jeweled pendant, a mermaid studded with various precious stones.
“Oh, this is a reproduction of one of Dona Isabella’s necklaces. Beautiful, isn’t it?” She giggled. “There was description of it in the ship’s manifest. There were always three manifests, you know. One for the ship’s owner, one on the ship and one left with the dockmaster’s office from the original embarkation point of a ship’s journey. This pendant was in the manifest—well, not this pendant, it’s a reproduction, of course—and, as you can see, Dona Isabella is wearing it in this picture, which is another copy, of an oil painting that hangs in a museum in Spain.”
“It’s gorgeous. Truly, absolutely gorgeous,” Vanessa said.
“And more reasonable than you would think. Okay, truthfully? It’s done in ten carat—if I’d had my say, it would be fourteen carat at the very least. Eighteen for such a piece would be closer to the original. And the jewels—that really looks like a ruby, but it’s a garnet. And that’s not a sapphire, it’s blue topaz, and the yellow stones are citrine.”
“How much?” Vanessa asked.
The girl smiled and told her. The piece was more than affordable. Vanessa bought it.
She looked at an exhibition that was going to be on food, and she glanced through the costume racks, remembering when the world had been bright, when she had done so with high excitement, thinking that she and Jay were about to produce their first full movie. That was then, this was now. She walked around and saw some excellent outfits—should Sean and David want them for anything—then moved on to the beach.
It was a decent day, even though they were into fall. The air temperature was still rising to eighty-five, and the water at the shore was only about ten degrees cooler. She’d grown up in the chilly freshwater springs of north Florida, so it was a lovely temperature to her.
She lay on the sand, slipped on her sunglasses and watched the waves.
She tried not to think about the fact that she was ready to kill Jay. She could remember the look in Sean O’Hara’s eyes when he had met Jay, when Jay had said that he was applying for work. She looked like the agent sent in to scope it out.
What was, was.
Except that she needed the truth more than Jay.
She needed to silence the nightmares.
To keep from thinking too much, she headed into the water. She swam awhile, working her muscles, then ambled back toward the shore, watching a father play with his children—a boy of about ten and a little girl, around five—and as she walked, not paying attention, she crashed into someone. A hard body. She stepped back awkwardly and quickly apologized. Hands shot out to steady her.
It was Sean.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself. You’re hard to find,” he told her.
“Well, I would have been easier, if I’d known you were looking for me.”
He smiled. “I called.”
“Oh—my phone is with my towel and bag, on the shore.”
“Ah.”
“So—you were looking for me. How’d the filming go?” She realized she was shivering. It was getting later than she realized; the sun was beginning to sink, and while the temperature was still far from cold, being wet made her shiver.
He arched a brow to her. “Not that badly, trust me, no need to shake.”
She laughed. “Sorry, I’m suddenly freezing.”