The boat had come around at last with Jay and the others on board. They’d been thrilled with their footage of the barracuda—which usually left people alone, unless they had something on them that sparkled and attracted the attention of the predators. Incredulous, she’d asked if they’d gotten the shots of her, floating in the water. Oh, yes, they’d done so. Then, seeing her face, Jay had been entirely contrite, and everyone had tripped over themselves trying to appease her for the afternoon.
But in her dreams, she didn’t see Isabella as herself. She saw her dead, murdered, empty sockets where her eyes should be, yet seeming to see, face skeletal and pocked with the ravages of the sea, bits of bone and skull peeking through decomposing flesh. The woman stared at her as if she were the enemy, and all around her, huge black shadows seemed to form, and they were made of seaweed and evil.
Then she was alone on the beach at Haunt Island, and they were coming after her, and she didn’t run because there was nowhere to go to escape the darkness and evil, she simply stood there, staring at them, as they seemed to grow larger and larger and come closer and closer, and she could smell the rot of flesh and a stagnant sea and she could almost feel the salt spray of the ocean.
Right before they embraced her, she awoke with a start.
For a moment she was disoriented in the darkness of her room. Then she heard a whistle from below her window, the wheels of a late-night taxi going somewhere and the laughter of the few drunken revelers still on the street, and her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She was in her little studio room atop the bathing suit and T-shirt shop on Duval Street. A glance at the faceplate of her phone told her that it was just about 2:00 a.m.
She stared at the ceiling for a while, angry with herself. She wasn’t afraid of ghosts or sea monsters. Someone real and alive had happened upon the island. A real person had killed her friends—and she just couldn’t believe it was Carlos. Carlos was probably dead. She hated the fact that everyone assumed that he’d been the killer, when he probably died trying to protect Georgia from whatever sick maniac had come upon them. It was chilling to think that the killer had to have been on the island with them when Georgia had first screamed, when they had all thought that Travis was fine somewhere, laughing at the cruel joke he had played on Georgia. They should have looked harder for Travis that night.
And yet, who would have really suspected anything? They were a large enough group. They’d been enjoying the shoot, and even the pristine isolation of Haunt Island.
She probably lay there for hours, and then drifted off.
Vanessa’s phone rang at 8:00 a.m. She knew, because the jarring sound caused her to bolt up, and she saw the time immediately. She fumbled to retrieve it from the stand next to the bed and answered breathlessly.
“Yes?”
“Vanessa?”
She felt as if her heart stood still for a moment. The voice sounded like that of Sean O’Hara.
“Yes?”
“Are you awake? Sorry if I woke you.”
He wasn’t one bit sorry, she thought.
“I was awake,” she said. So she was lying. She wasn’t sure what she had said or done exactly that had seemed to raise a barrier of hostility within him—other than that she did want him to take his project and turn it to her purpose.
“Ready to let me see your stuff?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“Diving, filming,” he said. Was there a touch of mockery in his tone? Was he amused that she might have thought that he meant something else?
“Of course. Anytime. Does this mean that—”
“It means I want to see if you’re as good as your credentials,” he said flatly.
“Of course. Where do you want me, when, and with what equipment?”
“I have equipment. You probably want your own regulator and mask.”
“Of course. What about cameras?”
“Mine are excellent quality.”
“So are mine.”
“Let’s see if you know my equipment, and my methods,” he said. “And if I hire you, it’s going to be as my assistant, remember? Hauling, toting. But…it won’t hurt to see what you can do with a camera. You never know when you may need some backup.”
“All right.”
“Meet me at the dock in half an hour. My dive boat is the Conch Fritter. I’ll be setting her up.”
“I’ll be there,” she promised.
For a moment she couldn’t afford to waste, she just sat there, staring at her phone. He hadn’t agreed.
But he hadn’t said no.
And in the water, she could prove herself.
She blinked, then shot out of bed. She had thirty minutes to shower, find a suit and run down the seven or so blocks to the boat docks.
And there had to be a cup of coffee somewhere along the way.
Vanessa Loren was all business when she arrived at the dock precisely on time. She was wearing a huge tank-type T-shirt over a bathing suit and carried a dive bag in one hand, a large paper cup of coffee in the other. Her hair was swept back in a band at her nape and she was wearing large dark sunglasses.
“Hand over the bag,” he said politely.
“I can manage,” she told him.
She could. Without needing a handhold of any kind for balance, she made the short leap from the dock to the deck with amazing dexterity, never in danger of losing so much as a drop of coffee—not that the company didn’t serve its coffee with A-one lids.
He shrugged as she landed. “Suit yourself. Want to grab that line aft?”
“Sure.”
Bartholomew leaned casually against the rail, arms crossed over his chest. “She’s got quite the physical prowess, and yet she’s light and sleek as a cat. I say, hire her on! Trust me, the women of my day were seldom adept at working on any ship. Ah, this is but a boat. There you go.”
Sean wanted to tell Bartholomew that there had been a number of famous and infamous women working upon pirate ships, but since Bartholomew was indignant at the term pirate, he’d deny it. And he knew that Bartholomew was going to goad him all afternoon.
He refrained from replying.
He went to the fore to release the front line and she scurried to release the one aft. He didn’t speak to her as he guided the Conch Fritter out of the harbor.
Bartholomew, however, kept up a running conversation.
“Ah, what a lovely day. Truly lovely day! Calm seas, a beautiful sky and just the tiniest kiss of autumn in the air. I do remember this reef—we forced a few Spaniards into her sharp tentacles, we did. Glorious sailing! Oh, and by the way—you do know that this is the area where Mad Miller supposedly attacked the Santa Geneva and kidnapped Dona Isabella. Alas, the ship upon which she sailed sank to the bottom of the sea with the nasty, evil creatures upon the pirate ship, Mad Miller’s flagship, slicing up many a man as he begged for mercy, cast into the water, drowning!”
Slicing them might have been a mercy, if they were drowning, Sean thought, but he kept silent.
As he cleared the channel, Vanessa came and took the companion seat by the helm.
“Ah, but she looks lovely there!” Bartholomew commented.
She did. She was relaxed, enjoying the wind that whipped around them as they sped through the water. The Conch Fritter wasn’t new, but she was a thirty-eight-foot Sea Ray custom Sundancer, and Sean loved her. She did twenty knots with amazing comfort—she wasn’t going to outrun a real powerboat by any means, but she could move. The cockpit was air-conditioned and equipped with two flat-screen TVs, and there were three small sleeping cabins, the captain’s cabin at the fore and two lining the port and starboard sides. There was a small galley and main cabin as well, and the helm sat midway through the sleek design with a fiberglass companion seat that offered plenty of storage. He’d had her outfitted with a helm opening and an aft boarding ladder with a broad platform, and portside and starboard safe holds for dive tanks.
“Yes, yes, you love your boat,” Bartholomew said, rolling his eyes. “And she is a thing of beauty! But then again, can anything rival the gold of that young woman’s hair, the sea and sky that combine in her eyes?” he asked with an exaggerated sigh. Sean thought, I will not look at you, you scurvy spectral bastard.
“Where are we going?” Vanessa asked above the hum of the motor.
“Pirate Cut—it’s a close, easy dive,” Sean said.
“We don’t even need tanks,” she commented.
“Ah, she knows the reef!” Bartholomew said. “Frankly, it seems that everything this young woman has said to you is true.”
“If you want to stay down and film we need tanks and equipment,” Sean said pleasantly to Vanessa.
She flushed and looked away, but it was obvious that she knew the reef, and probably knew it fairly well.
She did. She knew exactly where they were going, and how long it was going to take to get there. When they were still five minutes away, she stood and dug into her bag. She worked with a dive skin, not a suit, but a skin, light and not providing warmth. He actually liked a skin himself—a skin protected a diver against the tentacles of small and unseen jellyfish.
But he hadn’t brought one.
By the time he’d stopped the motor and dropped anchor, she had on her skin and dive booties. Dive booties could be good, too, he had to admit. He’d brought neither his skin nor booties, but he didn’t always wear them. She’d attached her regulator to a buoyancy-control vest and tank—the one next to the tank he’d prepared for himself. She wasted no time.
“What are we using?” she asked him.
He opened his storage container. He loved his equipment; he could spend hours perusing new camera equipment on the Internet.
He had many makes and models of video and still cameras, lighting systems and sound recorders, though often sound was added after shooting. He chose a Sony that day, with a Stingray Plus housing.
“Want help with your BCV and tank?” he asked.
“Nope, thank you.”
He’d worked on dive boats growing up; tanks were heavy, it was easy to go off balance with them. Most people didn’t mind help rising with them.