“If that is Dona Isabella,” Vanessa said.
Jay laughed, pretended a shiver and let out an “Oooooh! Well, of course, it has to be Dona Isabella. And her evil is rising—that’s why you two were afraid of the chest.”
“I wasn’t afraid of the chest,” Vanessa said, her tone aggravated.
“Right,” Jay said with a shrug.
Food came. The conversation changed to where everyone was staying on the island—Bill and Jake had taken rooms at the Banyan while Barry and Zoe were in the guesthouses on Duval, a couple blocks down from where Vanessa was staying.
Everyone talked about different projects. Barry admitted that he had looked up information on David and Sean and been impressed with their separate bodies of work. The evening wore on, then Jaden and Ted called it a night, promising to call Sean and David the minute they heard from Tara Aislinn, the woman who was coming down from the University of Florida, the forensic anthropologist they had reached who was fascinated by the find and delighted to come down and examine the body in the chest.
Before the group broke up, Sean said, “David and I are going to do some planning tomorrow. We’ll call you when we’re set with the decision on when to leave.”
Bill and Zoe decided to roam Duval and Barry went back to his room. Jay asked Vanessa if she wanted a walk down the street; he was tired and leaving. To Sean’s surprise, she stood and agreed.
David and Sean stood, as well. Vanessa came around the table and gave David a kiss on the cheek. As she neared him, Sean saw that her eyes were sharp.
He stopped her and asked, “What’s that look for?”
She shook her head and said softly, “You think that I set this up. You still say that I brought Jay in all the time, and I saw how suspicious you were earlier.”
“Admit it, Vanessa. They were all here already.”
“Admit it?” she inquired, her voice rising.
“Admit that…it all looks suspicious.”
“Whatever it looks like, it isn’t. And I guess I want more faith. You stared at me tonight as if you were suddenly certain that I’d planned the entire thing, our old crew taking over your project.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “Yes, it’s strange, but—”
“You’re a liar.”
“We can talk,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. Not tonight. I need some time. We can talk tomorrow. Tonight, well, tonight I need to take a look at everything that’s gone on.”
He was hurt, angry—and baffled, still feeling himself to be the injured party. He was doing exactly what she wanted.
But he wasn’t ready to throw it all over, and he wasn’t thinking about the project.
Vanessa…
The ego in him wanted to shrug and tell her that it wouldn’t be necessary to talk about anything intimate, if those were her feelings.
But he realized, too, that she must certainly have her own pride.
And he knew, too, that “talking tomorrow” was better than a real break. He’d give her the space she needed.
He was startled as she walked on by him, waiting for Jay. She was truly upset.
Jay gave David a cheery good-night and shook Sean’s hand. “What a day, eh?”
“Yeah, what a day.”
Jay hesitated. “Honest to God, this wasn’t any kind of a setup.”
“I never said that it was,” Sean told him.
Jay shrugged. “I saw the way that you looked at Vanessa.”
Lord. Were his suspicions—his thoughts—really that apparent? Even Jay had read his expression.
“You’re mistaken,” he lied.
Jay shrugged.
Vanessa was waiting for Jay on the sidewalk. He joined her, and Sean watched as they started north on Duval together.
“Well, that was interesting,” David commented.
“I’m sorry—doesn’t it feel a bit weird to you? First Vanessa shows up, pitching her slant to our project, then Jay. Then we think that it might make for a really interesting piece and put out a call to find the rest of the crew, and almost instantaneously they all show up?”
“Yes and no,” David said. He shrugged. “Maybe they did all hear about it and contacted one another. I don’t find it all that odd if they did. Trust me, I know. Events can change your life and haunt you day after day.”
David Beckett had once stood accused of murder—if not by law, in the minds of many people who had heard what had happened.
Sean let out a long breath.
Back then, he and David had been friends. Close friends. And he hadn’t known what to believe. All he had known was that he had wanted to get away from home, and for years and years he had traveled, staying mainly away from home. Knowing the truth about the past—even though he had not been directly involved, like David—had changed everything.
And it was true, too, that he had returned home in all haste when he had heard that David Beckett was here. And then he had been glad as hell, because he had found that David and his sister had become a duo.
“Honestly, I don’t care one way or another,” David said. “Here’s what I care about—Liam doing background checks on them, finding out their work schedules—or with the young ones, their graduation status—whether they’ve really got the credentials they claim, all that. Parking tickets are okay—I get enough of those myself. But nothing else.”
Sean shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You know that you’re more intrigued by this now than ever,” David said. “And hell, Vanessa Loren is like a damned dousing rod. One day, a pendant. The next, a chest. With a body. Let’s face it, we’re in it now.”
“Have you talked to Marty? And Jamie? Are they in?”
“They were in from the beginning, too. I say we get Liam on the background checks and plan to head out soon. I’ll warn Katie.”
“All right,” Sean said.
She had just walked away.
Clarinda came out to finish clearing the table. “Hey, this is really getting wild, huh? All these people—and a body!” She shivered, placing empty glasses on her tray.
“It’s a very old body, Clarinda,” Sean said.
Katie came out the back door and strode toward them. Sean and David had taken their chairs again—at opposite ends of the long oblong table.
“Well. I guess you two scared everyone off,” she said. She frowned and looked at Sean. “Where’s Vanessa?”
“She went to her room.”
Katie’s brows shot up. “What did you do to her?”
“Not a thing. She chose to go home,” he said, irritated. He didn’t feel like explaining himself to his sister. Somewhere in his mind, he recognized the double standard—he had felt like a pit bull when he had first found out about David and Katie.
“You must have done something,” Katie persisted.
He stood. “Katie, you and Jamie set me up with her—under false pretenses.”
“What?”
“You didn’t mention that she was a friend of yours—you had Jamie call me in to talk to her, and you knew all along what she wanted,” she said.
“Hey, hey, let’s not have a sibling war here,” David protested.
“No war,” Sean said. “All I know is that Key West is suddenly hosting a whole crew of people—who, incidentally, were all on that island when the murders happened—and it all started with your friend, Miss Loren, and now she’s mad at me for what I consider a perfectly reasonable question about how it all came to happen!”
“You probably accused her—basically—of being a liar,” Katie said.
“I did not,” he said.
“Then you implied that she was a liar.”
“Who are you related to here?” Sean demanded.
“Never mind. I’m going to go and get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning. Oh—Katie, sign the bill to me, will you, please. And make sure that you—”
“Take care of Clarinda. Of course.”
“Good night,” he managed, waving to the two of them.
As he walked the back way to his house, he wondered if he had been unreasonable.
But there was something everyone did seem to be forgetting.
Those six people had been on Haunt Island when Georgia and Travis had been murdered, decapitated and chopped into pieces.
Filming a horror movie that had turned very real.
Jay was cheerful as they walked. “You seem to have some kind of a regular homing beacon for finding things on that wreck. Wonder who the body is. Think it could really be Dona Isabella?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care right now. I’m exhausted.” They had reached Vanessa’s inn. She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll talk tomorrow, all right?”
“Okay, kid. Sleep well.” He started away and turned back. “Hey, Nessa.”
“Yeah?”
“Love you, kid. As a friend, you know.”
She laughed. “Love you, too. Good night.”
Upstairs, Vanessa was glad that her room was on Duval, and that she could hear the faint sounds of music, laughter and conversation. She turned on the lights, wondering if she had done the right thing or not. She cared about Sean, she was attracted to him in a way she might never have been to anyone before, but he had looked at her with suspicion when all four of the others had walked in.
And he had been the one to say that he wanted them all!
Even if they hadn’t known each other long, they had known each other well, and it was disturbing to her to know someone that well and not be trusted by him.
They might have gotten together too heavily and too fast. They needed the night apart.
And she was right; she was not apologizing for what she didn’t do.
That didn’t change the fact that her room seemed impersonal and cold. Nor that she felt incredibly alone, which didn’t usually happen to her. Normally, she liked her own company.
