Ghost Night (4 page)

Sean locked his jaw, determined not to turn, or respond to the ghost in any way.

“No one is hired unless David and I agree,” he said to Vanessa.

“That is certainly understandable,” she said. Again, she paused. “I know all about David Beckett, as well. I know that he was once accused of murder, and I know how desperate he was to find the truth. And the truth was discovered. I can’t believe that he wouldn’t understand how I feel, or be sympathetic to my cause.”

Sean felt tension steal through his body. The Effigy Murders had been bad, very bad. He still felt they were all recovering from the terrible things that had happened. He still had scars beneath his hairline.

David would be sympathetic, he knew.

“Go on,” he said quietly.

“Then—I think you need to make me your assistant. I’m excellent at managing a schedule, and I can write a scene, narrative, interview questions, anything you need, at the drop of a hat. I know you do a lot of your own scheduling and writing. That’s why I say
assistant.
I went to film school. When needed, I can handle any kind of a camera. I’m fit so I can tote and carry. The filmmaker in you must see what there is here—a legend that remains a mystery, historical and contemporary. You can look for the
Santa Geneva,
you can really follow the path of those who came before you. And if you leave out piracy, and the stamping out of the pirates, and the supposed massacre on Haunt Island, you’re doing a disservice to everyone.”

He leaned back. “If this is such a great documentary, why don’t you do it yourself?” he demanded.

She leaned back, biting her lower lip. “Well, for
one, I don’t have the kind of money you need for a documentary. And…”

“And?”

She leaned forward. “Look, I’ll work cheap. I’ll work harder than anyone you ever imagined.”

He leaned back, shaking his head. “I’d like to help you, I’d really like to help you. But it seems as if you’re chasing something, and I’m not—I’m not what you’re looking for. If these murders haven’t been solved, you need a private investigator. You need—”

“Have you ever tried to look for a private investigator who specializes in water, legends and boats?” she asked irritably.

He hesitated for a moment. “Look, from what I understand, every agency possible was involved in that case. If there are no clues, there are no clues.”

“No one wanted to follow through on the legend—or the history,” she said, exasperated.

He felt his fingers tense around his coffee cup and he stared at her. “You’re trying to tell me that pirates returned to massacre your friends?” he asked.

Something about the tightening in her lips and the way that she stared at him caused him to feel as if he should be ashamed—as if he had spoken out of turn.

But he hadn’t. And he couldn’t explain to her that he knew what ghosts were capable of doing, and what they weren’t. As a matter of fact, he knew a few of them….

“That’s not what I’m suggesting at all,” she said.

“Then?”

“I—don’t know, exactly,” she said, looking away. “Here’s the thing. We’ve had this movie stowed since it happened. But…people know about it. I’m afraid we’ll
get an offer from a major distributor. My partner would gladly sell. I don’t want to sell—not unless I can get some justice for those who were involved. I don’t want to make money on sensationalism, on something…something unsolved. I’ve gotten Jay to agree that I can try one more time to discover the truth.”

“I—”

“Please. Please just tell me that you’ll consider doing it?” she asked.

He stared at her, not knowing what to say.

No. A flat-out no would be a great answer. He and David hadn’t set anything in stone as yet, but…no. This one had to be a no. They both had their individual exemplary careers, they knew what they were doing. They could write themselves.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t think my partner will agree,” Sean said.

“Will you ask David Beckett?” she queried stubbornly.

He smiled. “Will you quit asking if I talk to him and he says no?”

She smiled. “You’re—Look, I know I’m asking a lot without much to offer. But I am really good at what I do, and if you give me a few weeks, I promise, I’ll help to make anything you want to do come out as brilliantly as possible. I’ll be slave labor, I swear.”

“I don’t want slave labor.”

“I’ll be the best damned assistant you’ve ever had,” she swore.

“Take her up on it!” Bartholomew said. “Hell, my boy! Take her up on it just for the pleasure of having her upon your wretched little boat.”

“I’ll talk to David,” he said.

“You really will. And…and if he’s hesitant, if there’s any chance, will you let me try to persuade him, as well?” she asked.

He forced an even smile.
No, just say no!

He asked himself if he would be so torn, so tempted, if the person asking him wasn’t this young woman, not just beautiful, but…strong. So confident in her ability that she would swear she could make his work the best ever.

Ability.

The way she looked.

The sound of her voice.

The mystery involved. Yes, he knew the damned legend. And hell yes, he was curious.

“Look,” he began.

But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the door. She let out a little cry of surprise and gladness.

Sean swung around. His sister had just come in the door.

He looked at Vanessa Loren.

Ah, hell.

Hell.

The young woman knew Katie. He should have figured.

He stared back at her, irritated, and suddenly certain that it was all over.

“You know my sister,” he said.

She glanced at him while rising. “Yes, I know Katie. I’ve been on a few dive boats with her, and of course, I bring friends in here for Katie-okie when I’m down….”

She started to head out to see Katie. He set his fingers around her wrist, drawing her back.

She didn’t jerk away, but then his hold was pretty firm. Those huge, cornflower-blue eyes of hers lit on him.

He smiled coldly. “You know my uncle, too, don’t you? And my uncle knew just who you were and what you wanted.”

“I’ve met Jamie before, yes,” she admitted. “Katie can explain it all to David, if you don’t want to, but I know that she’ll convince him that I’m right. I came to you first, because Katie told me that David had said all the major decisions were going to be yours, so if you just agree—”

He stood, releasing her wrist.

“I don’t like being played,” he said flatly. “Good day, Miss Loren.”

She didn’t call after him.

Bartholomew did.

“Sean! Oh, come on, Sean. I can help you with this, I was around when it all happened,” the dapper buccaneer cried to him. “Sean, oh, do come on! If I were flesh and blood, I’d be on this like a mosquito at a topless bar! Sean!”

Sean passed Katie near the doorway. “Hey, sis,” he said, kissed her cheek, and kept on going.

They’d all just survived near death. They had dealt with total insanity.

He would have to be insane himself to get into something like this again.

“Mr. O’Hara!”

She had followed him out. The lithe and dignified
Miss Loren had come rushing out, and now she stood on the sidewalk, staring after him.

Despite himself, he paused.

She walked to him, her chin high. “I never meant to play anyone,” she said. “I’m just desperate for help. You don’t understand,” she said.

“I think I do,” he told her.

“No, no, you don’t. I have reason to believe that someone must find out what happened, not just for those who were killed, but…”

“But what?”

“Other things have happened. Bad things. Not involved with filming, but with other boaters who disappeared near Haunt Island.”

“The sea can be huge and merciless, Miss Loren. And sadly, throughout history, many a boat and ship have disappeared without a trace.”

“There’s more to it. I know there’s more to it, and I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I’m afraid that if the truth isn’t discovered, more people will die. That there will be blood and death…a massacre again, and maybe this time, here, in Key West.”

V
anessa walked back into O’Hara’s, trying to feel as if she hadn’t just been crushed in a major defeat.

Katie was sitting at the bar, talking to her uncle. She watched Vanessa as she came up and took the stool next to her. Vanessa had known Katie forever, or so it seemed. They’d met when Katie’s school had brought a group of Key West students up to dive the springs and Vanessa’s school had been hosting the week of camp. She wasn’t sure if she’d liked her at first, being ten and wary of kids who came from cool places like Key West. But she’d been paired with Katie, who had an exceptional voice, for the talent show, and Vanessa had been her harmony and backup act, and they’d won the grand prize—two new regulators for their scuba equipment. That had begun the friendship. Of course, they’d been kids living almost four hundred miles away from one another even if it was the same state, but they’d kept up as much as possible, visiting one another at their respective colleges and meeting whenever they could.

By the time they had been able to get together in Key West, or anywhere in the Keys, Sean had been gone
most of the time, so it really wasn’t that strange that she’d never had a chance to meet him before.

It seemed odd that the O’Haras could so clearly resemble one another and yet look so different. When she’d asked Jamie O’Hara what Sean looked like, he told her that Katie was Sean in a dress. That wasn’t true at all. Sean was very tall, three or four inches over six feet, with a linebacker’s shoulders. Katie was slim and willowy. While Katie had auburn hair, Sean’s was lighter, though with the same streaks of red. Katie’s eyes were a hazel green while Sean’s were more of a golden color. He had almost classic features, just like Katie, but he looked like a man who had braved the wind many a time, and his jaw leaned toward the square side.

Maybe that had just been because he’d been talking to her—and she sensed that she’d irritated him.

“Maybe I should have mentioned first that I knew you both,” Vanessa said dryly to Katie.

Katie smiled and swirled a stirrer in her coffee cup. “Ha-ha. Perhaps he’s feeling as if we’re ganging up on him! Oh, well, Sean is just being—Sean. He’ll get over it. Really, I think the lure of the mystery will get to him, once he thinks it all out. I think.” She looked at Vanessa with concern. “But…are you sure you should be doing this? Maybe you should just leave it all alone.”

“You know I can’t do that—you know you couldn’t do that! Hey, I’ve talked to people around here.
You
plunged headfirst into finding out what had happened in David’s past, a pretty dangerous occupation, so I heard,” Vanessa said.

“Yes, but I didn’t realize at the beginning that there
were going to be more bodies,” Katie murmured. “And David was determined.”

“All right, then, let me put it this way—could
you
just forget about it? Katie, I saw that poor girl the night she disappeared—and wound up dead. She was terrified. There was something on that beach. Other people go over there still, despite what happened.”

Katie frowned. “But nothing has happened since, right?”

“Not on Haunt Island,” Vanessa said.

“What happened otherwise?” Katie asked.

“In two years’ time? I don’t know everything, but I’m suspicious every time I hear about any bad things happening. I know about one boat that disappeared in that area. A charter boat on its way to Bimini about a year ago. Disappeared, as in vanished.”

“Things don’t really disappear in the Bermuda Triangle,” Katie said. “It was just that for years, we didn’t know what had happened. But they found the planes that went down years ago, after World War II. They finally found them. No one knows why they went down, but they certainly have educated theories. So a charter boat didn’t really
disappear
—it’s out there somewhere.”

“Well, one of Jay’s boats disappeared,” Vanessa said flatly. “It disappeared—and Travis and Georgia were found dead on the beach.”

Katie looked at her sympathetically. “The Bahamian authorities, Florida State authorities, and even the FBI got in on the investigation, Vanessa. There’s a problem with the ocean—when things go down, they may go down miles. There are storms, there are currents. There
were no clues on the island.” She cleared her throat. “They, um, never found the rest of the bodies, right?”

Vanessa shook her head. “I’d say they actively investigated for months…maybe even a year. The torsos, hips and legs were never found. God, I can’t even believe I’m saying that!”

“But there was a suspect, right? Carlos…someone?”

“Carlos Roca,” Vanessa told her. “But he was a good guy. A friend.”

“Okay, so, no matter how you might think that he was a good guy, and even if he was a friend, you have to admit, Vanessa, it does appear as if Carlos had already killed Travis, and that when he said he’d take Georgia back to Miami, he was lying. What he did was kill her, get the boat down the beach, find where he’d stashed Travis’s body, and stage the heads and arms. Then he stole the boat and dumped the rest of the bodies into the ocean. Oh, Vanessa, I know you don’t want to believe that. But there’s no other explanation.”

“Carlos would have popped up somewhere. And the boat would have been found.”

Katie let out a long sigh. “Nessa, the boat could have gotten into trouble—and it might have sunk. And Carlos might have gone down with it. God knows where he might have tried to go from Haunt Island. But that boat’s out there somewhere. I don’t know about the bodies anymore—fish are ravenous little creatures, really—and not so little, often. Time, salt water…”

“Isn’t David’s cousin, Liam, a detective now? Could he know something?” Vanessa asked.

“Yes, I talked to him after you called me. He was
never in on that investigation. He’d heard about it, of course, but he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Jamie O’Hara strode down the bar to where the two of them were sitting. “Don’t you be worrying, Miss Loren. If I know my nephew, and I think I do, he’ll come around.”

Katie arched a brow at Jamie. “Uncle Jamie, don’t go getting her hopes up, hmm?”

Jamie winked at Vanessa.

“You think he’ll come around, too, don’t you, Katie?”

Katie frowned. Then she sighed. “Yes, I started on David this morning, so…well, we’ll see. But, Vanessa, I don’t want you to be so—obsessed. I know my brother and David, and I know that they’re fascinated by mysteries like this, but…you have to understand,” she added quietly. “David came home determined to discover the truth behind a ten-year-old murder case because
he
had been accused of murder.”

“Yes, I know,” Vanessa said. She’d read all about the insanity that had first driven David Beckett out of Key West, and then home. Naturally. She had been friends with Katie O’Hara for years. She had read every word in the papers when the case had been solved, and that had brought her back here. Key West had two of its own native conchs—David Beckett and Sean O’Hara—about to embark on a film project that would bring to light many of the mysteries that surrounded the area throughout the decades and even centuries. David Beckett had a military background, and Sean O’Hara had filmed in many dangerous places, had received a great deal of defensive training and certainly knew how to take
care of himself. Beckett also had a cousin who was a detective with the Key West police. They were the right people to at least explore the waters, and the story, and make her feel at the very least as if she were doing all that she could to find out just what had happened to Georgia, Travis—and Carlos Roca.

“Oh, I mean, David’s a great person!” Katie said, quickly defending the love of her life. “You have to understand, it’s not that he wouldn’t care, or that he wouldn’t be horrified—but he’s not FBI, a cop or any other kind of law enforcement.” She brightened suddenly. “Hey, I’ll set up a meeting with Liam. I mean, if Liam gets into it, maybe he could help us out.”

“That would be great—thanks, Katie. I’d like to meet him and hear what he thinks, because I’m sure he had to have heard about it, at least when it was all taking place.”

“Well,” Jamie said, “well and good. Now you can’t sit here in the bar, moping about all day. Go enjoy the fall. Beautiful days we’ve got going here now. Days that are the kind that bring people south. Get—get out of bar, go and do something.”

“Hey, I know that my friend Marty—big-time into pirates—is getting ready for his booth and show for the Pirates in Paradise performances this year. Let’s go give him a hand—he loves to talk pirates. I bet he knows all about that pirate you were using for your horror movie, Mad Miller. And I can almost guarantee you he knows about Kitty Cutlass and Dona Isabella, too.”

“Katie,” Vanessa said, “I did tons of research. And I love the history—love it!—but we’re talking about people murdered just two years ago.”

“But you were filming history, right?”

Vanessa grimaced. “Well, history—fractured beyond belief—that we were using for a slasher flick.”

“So I’ll call Liam. We’ll have dinner. We’ll have him over to the house.”

“David will be there, right? I mean—you are living with David at the Beckett house, right?” Vanessa asked her.

“David will be on your side,” Katie said. “I’ll call while we head over to Marty’s.”

“How do you know that you’ll convince David to be on my side?” Vanessa asked.

Katie laughed. “I can be very persuasive. No, all kidding aside, they should agree to follow your mystery. It’s good film. They’ll be delving into piracy, the founding of the area—and something that’s contemporary and horrible. People like justice and a satisfactory ending. No one can bring the dead back to life, but there is something to be said for closure. We don’t feel that we failed those who died if we can figure out a riddle and bring a killer to justice.”

“I may have you do all the talking,” Vanessa told her.

“It will work out,” Katie said.

Vanessa wasn’t at all sure that she believed Katie, but she had to keep trying. She had exhausted other possibilities. She had plagued many law-enforcement agencies, and people had been kind and they had said the right things. But the case, though open, was not being actively investigated. Her only recourse was filmmakers—and those with a preplanned budget and a plan.
And
a wealth of knowledge about the history of the area.

“Great,” Vanessa said. She smiled at the elder O’Hara behind the bar. “Thank you, Jamie. Katie, let’s go play with the pirates.”

Clear air turbulence in the Bermuda Triangle.

That was one of the main causes listed on a number of the flights—major commercial flights and smaller, private craft—that had plunged a thousand feet or more or had trouble in the last few decades.

There were other losses, however. A number of disappearances in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. It wasn’t officially an area at all, and had only become so in latter history—the U.S. Board of Geographical Names didn’t recognize it as a place with a name at all. Superstition ruled a lot of what people believed about the area, and it had a doppelgänger on the other side of the world called “the Devil’s Sea” by Japanese and Filipino people.

The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the strange events in the area had to do with magnetism. In the Bermuda Triangle, magnets might point “true north” in contrast to “magnetic north,” which had to do with circumnavigating the earth. The compass variations could be as great as twenty degrees, which would definitely cause havoc when attempting to reach a destination.

Sean leaned back in his computer chair, studying the screen.

The next theory had to do with gas—gas from the sea itself. Subterranean beds shifting due to underwater landslides could cause a vast leakage of methane gas. An Englishman from Leeds University had proposed
the theory as late as the 1990s that the weight of the gas in the water could cause a ship to sink like a rock and also that the gas in the air could cause instantaneous combustion of a fuel-filled jet in seconds flat. Boom.

The first odd occurrence went all the way back to Christopher Columbus, who, along with several of his men, reported mass compass malfunctions, a massive bolt of fire that suddenly fell from the sky into the sea and then strange lights on the horizon—all in the area of the Bermuda Triangle.

Switching from site to site on the Internet, Sean had to admit that he found what he was reading fascinating.

But from magnets and gas, the theories went off into other realms, ones he was certain he couldn’t buy himself.

Aliens. Apparently, the belief that aliens were responsible for the disappearances was more widespread than he’d wanted to know. Some people believed that extraterrestrials had brought down a massive ship hundreds of years ago. That ship was down below the ocean floor. Sometimes the aliens were angry and destructive. Sometimes, to perform their evil deeds in their evil laboratories, they would send out their own vessels to snag ships or planes and bring them down below the surface.

Some people believed that they made trips to earth only now and then to snatch planes from the sky and ships from the sea.

Another theory had to do with the lost city of Atlantis. The psychic Edgar Cayce, who passed away in 1945, had claimed that he—and many other people—were reincarnated residents of the doomed Atlantis. He
said that the city had not been in the Old World at all but near Bimini, in the Bahamas. The people had been highly advanced and used fire crystals for their power—fire crystals that had gotten out of hand and exploded, thus causing the sinking of Atlantis. There were still fire crystals deeply embedded in the ocean, and their power surged sometimes, causing ships, people, planes and debris to disappear. He prophesied that Atlantis would rise again in 1968 or ’69.

In 1968, the Bimini Road or Bimini Wall was discovered—a rock formation of rounded stones beneath the sea near North Bimini that definitely bore the appearance of an ancient great highway. Some geologists argued that it was a natural highway; others were convinced that it might have been a manmade structure dating back three to four thousand years.