As they walked home, Sean told Vanessa, “You know, I can fire his ass now, if you want.”
She looked at him and flashed a smile. “No, Jay is good. And he promised, and he is my friend.”
“He’s your broke friend, it sounds like. And in a way, he has a point. I agree with you, but he has a point. Here’s the thing that I’ll say in his defense—he didn’t try to cash in on a tragedy. He had invested his life’s savings into that movie. He didn’t rush out and try to give it to anyone right after it happened.”
“You think he’s right?” Vanessa protested.
Sean shook his head. “Me? I don’t think I could do it—not when both of the victims were so young, not when they had family still living.” He slipped his arm around her. “Titanic the musical played on Broadway. I thought that a musical based on such a horrific event was in terrible taste. Katie wanted to see it, so the family went. And it was actually something that I wound up enjoying, that gave a certain honorable memorial to many of the people involved. Much better than the movie!” he told her, smiling gently.
“Sean—this was a slasher flick.”
“I know. Anyway, let’s get home and get some sleep, shall we?”
They didn’t get to sleep right away. They made love again, and it still seemed so amazing and new, and there was still so much they had to learn about one another. When she drifted to sleep, she was warm, secure and comfortable, and being with him seemed like a bastion against the world. It was ridiculous to think that she could actually fall in love with anyone so quickly, and yet, in the time they had known one another, she had come to realize that now she couldn’t imagine a time without him. She had let her pride stand in the way once—he had been a jerk—but he had proven himself, coming to her, and she thought that finding the right relationship had been as hard in the past for him as it had been for her, none of which mattered, because when she was with him, feeling his warmth and the vibrant pulse of his heart so near to hers, she didn’t envision the future beyond tomorrow.
She should have slept as sweetly and deeply as she had the night before.
But the dreams came again, though they took a different twist.
She was back at O’Hara’s, sitting on the bench at the patio, and Jay was speaking again.
“What if the mummy came to, and broke out…”
Then she was walking down Duval, and it was odd, because no one was there.
She was alone.
And then she wasn’t.
The streets were filled with pirates. She told herself that naturally the pirates were there. Pirates in Paradise was happening, and there were events to the last minute, and even then, some people stayed and dressed up, loath to get back to reality.
But they weren’t real pirates.
They were ghosts.
Ghosts existed.
They walked along, some in a hurry, some strolling together. Some talked and teased with wenches, some joked with one another. They strode, they swaggered, and one limped on a peg leg. They paid her no heed.
Then she heard carriage wheels. They seemed to come slowly, ominously. The sky blackened and a chill fog sprang out from the sea. The mist whirled in shades of gray, and the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves came ever more slowly.
She turned, aware that the carriage was coming to a halt, and that it was coming to a halt near her.
Or perhaps it was coming for her.
A woman, an elegant woman in silk and high fashion, stepped from the carriage, her every movement in slow motion. She looked straight at Vanessa, and Vanessa knew her. She knew the mermaid pendant the woman wore around her neck, and she knew the face—she had seen it on a figurehead that had led her to strange discoveries beneath the sea.
“You must help. You must listen. You must find the truth,” the woman said. She smiled at Vanessa, and produced a hatbox. She opened the hatbox, and lifted something.
It was Georgia Dare’s head.
“Vanessa!” Georgia cried to her pathetically.
Dona Isabella let the head fall back into the hatbox. She looked around her. Vanessa did the same. The pirates on the street were changing. They seemed to turn into black ooze. They cried out and screamed, and seemed as if they were moving in a black, malevolent mass toward the woman and the carriage.
The wind began to whip up. Vanessa knew that she had to wake up; the evil pirates were coming for Dona Isabella, but she was in their way.
“Here, here!” came a cry.
She turned.
And it was the mummy. The mummy from the pirate’s chest.
The face was leathered and dark and decayed. The hands were bony, with dead skin stretched out over them far too tightly. The clothing was stained and ripped, and the eye sockets were empty, nothing but black stygian pits.
“Come, come!” the mummy cried.
Her jaw fell open in horror. The bony fingers were coming closer and closer to her.
“No!” she whispered.
“Yes!” Someone was behind her. She felt the presence and spun around in terror.
The street was still dark; the carriage bearing Dona Isabella away was beginning to move. It was still in slow motion, yet it was trying so hard to pick up speed. Dona Isabella was running now from the wrath of the pirates. She sought escape, as she hadn’t found in the past.
Vanessa thought that she should have leaped into the carriage.
Because now she was caught between the mummy…
And the living, breathing man behind her.
Carlos Roca. She stared at him.
“Am I seeing you? Are you dead? Did you kill them, Carlos, did you have us all fooled?” she demanded.
He stood there, frozen in silence.
“I am alive,” he told her. “And I am innocent.”
He looked at the black shadows. “Come with me!”
“Come, come quickly!” the mummy begged.
She spun around. The mummy was there. So pathetic. So sad.
“Vanessa, you know me!” Carlos said.
Yes, she knew him, and he was there. Was he really alive, and was he running, too, or was he part of a black swirling mass of ooze and evil that was winding slowly down the street, ready to devour her…?
“You don’t understand,” the mummy said.
And the dead, leathered fingers, bones sticking out, nearly touched her…. She screamed.
And awoke.
And Sean was with her, holding her in his arms, smoothing back her damp hair, whispering words of assurance.
She felt the terror of the dream slip away from her, and she felt the strength of his arms. She ceased to shake and she turned him. “I’m so sorry…I didn’t think…when I was with you…”
He touched her face. “I’m not the monster in the dream, right?”
She laughed shakily. “No.”
“Then it’s much better to have nightmares with me than without me, right? Although,” he admitted, “these nightmares seem to plague you so cruelly, a therapist might be in order.”
“I had a therapist once,” she said. “It didn’t help.”
He rocked with her in silence for a minute, then said, “Then somehow, we have to find the truth. Catch a killer. And put the past to rest.”
The morning was a whirlwind of activity. There were dozens of air tanks that needed to be stowed, and though David had overseen the loading of the boats with grocery supplies, ice, film, memory cards, cords, computer needs, batteries, flashlights, flares and every conceivable necessity, they all had their personal gear to stow, as well.
Jamie had David and Katie, Liam, Barry and Bill and Jake aboard the Claddagh. Sean had Vanessa, Jay, Ted and Jaden, Marty and Zoe aboard the Conch Fritter.
And Bartholomew, of course.
The boats would follow one another through the day, hugging the Intracoastal up to Jewfish Creek, and heading out to the Atlantic at Key Largo. David and Barry would take turns with the camera during the day on the Claddagh while Sean, Jay, and Vanessa would trade off on the Conch Fritter. They would drop anchor that night southwest of Miami, and in the morning start filming at the first reef where the previous crew had begun their offshore work. Sean felt that he had had enough of Pirate’s Cut and that they should start filming in other areas. He had the Marty footage and the footage that Vanessa and Jay had already shot at Pirate Cut.
The first day was easy; it was getting to know the boat, the equipment and one another.
The boats met up at about 4:30 p.m., and tied on together—Sean wanted footage taken on board that night. He and David took turns in front of the camera, describing the voyage and their plans, and the film taken would be edited in with the shots they’d taken of leaving port that morning.
Jamie O’Hara had a portable barbecue grill that extended from the boat’s hull, and that night, the Claddagh’s crew was responsible for dinner. While Jamie and David barbecued, Katie and Bill prepared salads and green beans. Barry kept the camera going as they cooked and the group settled around to eat.
He took beautiful shots as the sun fell.
Vanessa enjoyed dinner; they all piled aboard the hull and deck of the Claddagh for their first major meal together, and she sat back with Katie, enjoying the light sway of the boat in the still night. That morning, the nightmare had all but faded away, and yet she was left to wonder if she had really seen Carlos Roca, if her dreams weren’t some kind of a warning.
And if she should tell Sean that she had seen him.
But everyone seemed to think that he had to be guilty. If she told anyone else at all—even Sean—and he appeared again somewhere, someone might shoot to kill.
She had to have imagined Carlos.
Except that she hadn’t imagined a dead pirate.
Odd, but true.
And Bartholomew was there. He hadn’t come across to the Claddagh. He stood at the bow of the Conch Fritter, just looking out over the sea. She wondered what he was thinking or feeling, or if—without flesh and substance—he couldn’t feel, and yet she thought that he could. She decided then that the soul had to consist of both intelligence and the heart, and it was rather sad, because pain could then remain long after death.
