She stared at him, and then at David, Liam and Katie. “Carlos Roca is on the island.”
Liam stiffened. “All right. We’ll figure out a way to keep you safe while we flush him out. No one is more fierce at protection than Jamie O’Hara, and between Sean, David and me—”
“No, Liam, no!” Vanessa said. “He’s hiding. He’s watching out—for us.”
“He said he was attacked on the ship, and he knows it had to be by one of the crew. He was struck on the head. He says Lew Sanderson will vouch for all this. He’s been keeping his secret all this time. He was tossed overboard, assumed dead or left to drown.”
“This is crazy,” David said.
“Vanessa, can Lew actually be an alibi? You don’t know that Lew wasn’t guilty,” Liam pointed out.
“Oh, please, I can’t believe that Carlos is lying.” She stared at them all. “Ask Bartholomew! Your friendly neighborhood ghost believes in him. We all know that faith can’t be held or seen, and I have faith in Carlos.”
“I hope you’re right, Vanessa,” Liam said softly. “I really hope you’re right. If not, you’ve just fed into the psychosis of a savage murderer.”
“Vanessa?” Katie asked.
“I know I’m right.”
“I’ll tell Uncle Jamie what’s going on, and he’ll let Marty know,” Sean said.
David nodded. “What do you think he’s waiting for?” he asked.
“The murderers to show themselves,” Sean said.
“And how will they do that?” Liam asked dryly.
“They’ll try to find a way to separate someone from the rest—and murder them, as well,” Sean said.
Liam nodded. “Somehow, we’ll have to find a way to bait them.”
That night, Vanessa knew that Sean was still angry with her.
He played his part well in front of others, but she knew. She knew the tension that knotted his body, and she knew the tone of his voice.
It wasn’t until they had gone to bed for the night that she realized just how angry.
“First you lied to me about him,” he told her, keeping his distance, arms locked behind his head as he stared up at their canvas roof. “You lied about seeing him. Then you did the most horrendously stupid thing in the world. You walked off into the woods.” He stared at her then. “Don’t! Don’t even try to get mad at me for saying it was horrendously stupid because you know it was.”
“Yes.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“I know it was stupid,” she said softly. “Sean, I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Sorry? Vanessa…that can’t always cut it, you know,” he told her.
She fell silent for a moment, aware of his distance. “Want me to sleep somewhere else?” she asked, praying that he would say no.
“I’m angry, Vanessa. Furious. You risked your life, you risked other lives. I’m disturbed about this trust thing we’ve got going—or not going. But your plan is to walk away anytime it gets rough between us. No. I don’t want you to go away—and I don’t want you running away from me when I’m right to be angry.”
She stared at him, not knowing what to say. She could have told him that she was pretty sure that she never wanted to leave.
But she didn’t know if that would be right at the moment.
She eased down by his side and laid her head on his chest.
After a moment, she felt his hand on her hair. And in time, he drew her to him.
That night, she dreamed. In the dream, she was still in his arms. She woke because there was a woman in the tent, standing before her.
She wasn’t afraid, and she didn’t know why she wasn’t afraid.
She had seen the woman before, on a crowded afternoon in Key West, when pirates and wenches were everywhere.
She should be afraid. She was certain that the woman was Kitty Cutlass. Pretty, not quite beautiful. Not dressed elegantly. Worn, tired.
“Please, if you would just understand,” she said.
“I think I do,” Vanessa told her. “You didn’t kill Dona Isabella. Dona Isabella planned the attack. The ship had riches on it that were supposed to go with her to her husband in Spain. She didn’t want to go to Spain, and she didn’t want her husband. She arranged with Mad Miller that he should attack the ship, but…she wanted to control the pirates, and she didn’t want you. You were the body in the chest, Kitty. It was you.”
The woman, the ghost in front of her, smiled sadly.
“She is evil.”
“She is dead now, too, Kitty,” Vanessa said. “She died in the storm.”
“Evil doesn’t die,” Kitty said. “You must be careful. Evil doesn’t die.”
Kitty faded away.
A few moments later, Vanessa awoke. She looked around the tent and realized quickly that there was no place for anyone to hide in the small tent.
She lay back and listened to Sean’s breathing, felt his warmth and the pulse of his heart.
She wondered if she had been guessing at the truth all along, and if the figurehead image of Dona Isabella leading her into a trap that day hadn’t finally made it clear in her mind.
Then she had straightened it all out in a dream.
Either that, or…
The ghost of Kitty Cutlass had been in her tent.
Either way, she felt that it was important that she knew what had happened. Somehow, letting everyone know the truth was going to help them solve the mystery.
In the morning, Sean announced that he wanted to make another trip out to the site where Vanessa had found the broken shaft of old mast with the encrusted coins, but that they’d start out again just after noon—first, they would set up to film Ted and Jaden working with the heavy cache of broken mast and encrusted coins. Ted said he’d be the display hands—Jaden would do the talking.
He and Jaden had freed and cleaned a few of the coins, and Jaden was happy to display them and happy to talk about what they had found and what they had done. “This was someone’s personal treasure, I believe, before it became the property of the pirate crew,” Jaden said, speaking to the camera. “We have a mixture here of gold and silver, and coins that show different mint marks, beneath different rulers. This coin bears a mark showing that it was minted in Peru, and here we have one that is very old, and I’m still working very delicately to see if we still have a mint mark. I would judge it was one of the first coins to come out of the mines of South America. This is why I think that the pirates didn’t actually amass the treasure, but that in sinking the Santa Geneva, they happened upon a collection of personal riches belonging to Dona Isabella’s husband and traveling back to Spain with her.”
Jaden displayed her work and spoke of the patience that was needed. Different people worked in different ways when working with centuries-old salvage, but she had Ted had both grown up in Key West and had worked with Jaden’s father, a salvage expert from the time he was a child, to learn their craft.
When they finished with the segment, Vanessa asked Sean if she could put forth a theory. He was surprised, but shrugged and told her that she was certainly welcome to do so.
“Walking along the beach?” Jay suggested.
“Sure,” Vanessa agreed.
“We’ll use two handhelds?” Jay asked Sean.
“I’ll observe on this,” Sean said.
Vanessa was aware that the group was mostly together, and that was what she wanted. Marty and Liam were at the boats, and Jamie had remained at the encampment while Ted and Jaden continued to work with the treasure.
But Jay was filming and Barry had the second camera while Bill and Jake held the light shield. Zoe was hovering, just in case she was needed. David walked with Sean, discussing shots and angles, and Katie followed, curious to hear Vanessa’s theory. Lew walked behind as well, arms crossed over his chest. He was watching out for everyone, and watching the terrain around them. Sean hadn’t said so, but she was pretty sure that he had found a few moments during the activity of the first filming to casually corner Lew—and demand to know what he knew about Carlos Roca.
It seemed that whatever Lew had told Sean, it had satisfied him.
There had been no call for a manhunt to drag Carlos out of the pine and shrub forest, nor had there been any suggestion that they weren’t alone on the island.
She wondered if what she was about to do was crazy, or necessary.
She walked slowly along the beach, almost unaware of the cameras or the reflector shield being wielded by Bill and Jake. “Yesterday,” she began, “we made an amazing find. People often wonder why, when a wreck has rested in the ocean so long and we have so much advanced equipment to put to work in the oceans these days, it hasn’t been previously discovered. As Sean O’Hara noted, we have to remember that conditions in the past might have been different, and that the ocean is always shifting and hiding her treasures. What we refer to as the Bermuda Triangle is a busy area where currents and weather are particularly active and where, perhaps, there are major magnetic fields at work. Basically, it’s natural phenomena that dictate what happens beneath the waves. Mad Miller’s pirate ship was taken down by a force of nature. And the force of nature, over the years, shifted the wreckage, and created a long debris field. Despite sonar, seagoing robots and other technical devices, treasures and wrecks can hide in plain sight. As in this case, the great metal hull of a World War II ship has hidden a great deal of the wreckage. What we have discovered this time is treasure. It’s my belief that we have imagined the real story of Mad Miller, Kitty Cutlass and Dona Isabella wrong. We saw what happened as Dona Isabella would have wanted the world to see it. She was a beautiful woman, a proud and haughty woman. She lived life as she chose in Key West in luxury. She traveled the Caribbean, and she took on lovers as she chose, all with her husband’s riches. I believe that she made a deal with Mad Miller. Somewhere, she met the pirate. She told him the course of the Santa Geneva and what riches the ship would carry. In return, they would split the bounty. It would be assumed that she’d died in captivity—but not until a ransom had been paid. Dona Isabella would then take on a new identity and live richly—without the yoke of her husband’s financial power over her—wherever she chose. I can’t imagine just what seductive power or force the woman wielded, because earlier, at the site of the Santa Geneva wreck, we pulled up a chest that held the body of a murdered woman. The ‘treasure chest’ of her body was stolen somewhere en route to a lab in Gainesville, but the experts noted immediately that she was not decked out in great finery. It’s my belief that Dona Isabella was entranced with the pirate way of life and perhaps with Mad Miller himself. Either on her own—or with his blessing—Dona Isabella murdered the one person who stood in her way in the act of completely subduing the pirate Mad Miller to her total control. In remorse, Mad Miller saw to it that Kitty Cutlass went to the bottom of the sea in a sealed tomb. With Dona Isabella now calling the shots like a true pirate queen, she and the remaining crews of the ships sailed on to Haunt Island, where the massacre of all those who would not bow down before her took place. She was truly in her power when she and Mad Miller then set sail again, only to sail into the embrace of a massive storm, and a watery graveyard for all aboard. How furious she must have been—furious with God and the heavens. She had at last obtained freedom, power and control—only to fall victim to the revenge of the sea herself. Once, Africans brought to these islands believed that the tempest within this area—now known as the Bermuda Triangle—was caused by the bitter fury of a woman who had not been kind, while her sister had taken pity on a poor and broken man who proved to be a god. The haughty sister married a rich and handsome man who turned out to be a demon who killed her and devoured her. Her fury caused the thunder and waves and strange phenomena that brought down ships and planes. Perhaps, in later years, sailors—pirates, patriots, merchants and pleasure seekers—might well find that same evil spirit rests in the bitter and furious soul of the heartless woman who murdered for power and riches.”
