The Pirate Ghost

by Laura Pender

  Then she saw that the lawyer’s Rolodex file was open to the D section, the name “Driscoll, Paul” exposed. Tess looked at the card and suddenly recognized not the name, but the address—379 Sandhook Road.

  It was the address of the house Charles Dumont had apparently come from when she’d met him on the beach. It was the house Gabriel had wanted her to search earlier in the day. And then she remembered the name, as well.

  Had Charles bought the house from this Paul Driscoll? Had Walter Chambers helped him with the purchase? Maybe that was how they’d met. After all, it was clear from his office that Walter Chambers wasn’t exactly the type of high-priced lawyer whom she might have expected a banker of Charles’s stature to use.

  She knew now that her only possible next move was to return to that house and find a way to get inside. That’s where the answer had to lie!

  But first she had to make her way out of the building without arousing suspicion.

  She pulled the lawyer’s door shut with the toe of her dry sneaker, then peered out the front window of the reception room into the parking lot. For nearly five minutes, she searched for police vehicles or passersby who might identify her later.

  One person left the building and drove off in a late-model sedan, but she saw no one else. As far as she could see, the cars parked below her were unoccupied. The coast was clear.

  Tess used the tail of her blouse to grasp the knob of the outer door and was just turning it when she paused, looking back at the secretary’s desk. There was one more thing to check before she could leave.

  She hurried to the desk, stood behind it and studied the tidy arrangement of items upon it. In the upper left-hand corner sat a daily appointment calendar, the pages separated into lines for each hour of the workday and designed to be flipped over on twin metal rings.

  Tess noticed immediately that the calendar was already turned to the next day’s page. The lawyer had appointments with two people in the morning and one in the afternoon and another to visit his dentist at three. She pulled a tissue from a box on the desk and used it to cover her fingers while she flipped the page over for today’s schedule.

  But that page was for yesterday. Someone had removed today’s sheet from the calendar! Her hopes of finding out who was scheduled to meet with Walter Chambers today had been dashed!

  Tess scowled, then she flipped back several pages to find that Charles Dumont had met with him on Friday morning at ten and Thursday at two. There was also a notation for an afternoon meeting a week ago Monday, but it had an additional jotting penciled at an angle in the margin. Tess tilted her head to read the words, feeling an odd mixture of fear and elation at the same time.

  Beside Charles Dumont’s name was written “Driscoll deal,” in a light, feminine hand. That confirmed the connection between Charles and Paul Driscoll. The “deal” referred to was probably the purchase of the house on Sandhook Road. After all, Charles hadn’t said how long he’d been in residence there.

  She had to think things over. She couldn’t do that here, so she turned the pages back to where she’d found them and then hurried to the door. Once again, she used the tissue in her hand to turn the knob, and pull the door shut behind her. Then, moving as casually as she could, Tess walked along the length of the balcony and headed downstairs to the parking lot and her car.

  “Miss Miller?” a man called to her just as she slipped the key into the ignition. Tess jumped and grasped the wheel with convulsive force “Miss Miller?” the man repeated.

  She turned. A dark-haired man leaned over and looked in at her through the window. He didn’t look like a cop; maybe she was all right.

  “What?”

  “Had a hard time tracking you down,” the man said. “I’m Jay Sturgis. I represent a party interested in purchasing some property you own. We had contracted to buy it from your husband before he died only to find that you hold title to it. Could we go somewhere and talk about it?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t have title to any property, Mr. Sturgis. Not anymore. I’ve got to go now.”

  “Well, we need to make an arrangement quickly, miss,” he insisted. “We’re willing to pay a fair price.”

  “How much?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars.” He smiled like a used-car salesman making an offer that was really too good to be true. “Fair enough, I think.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. “Goodbye.”

  Tess put the car in gear and drove off, leaving the man no choice but to step back and watch her drive away. Only when she was in traffic and headed home did she allow a shudder of fear to betray her tension. That was too close for comfort.

  She knew she should have gotten more information from that Sturgis fellow, but she couldn’t bear to stay in the lot a moment longer. Now she could only wonder what he was talking about. She had signed all the papers Darrell had given her. None of his little tax dodges had been missed, and he had regained title to all the business property and real estate he’d put in her name. What on earth could that man have been talking about?

  As she drove, another thought occurred to her. What if Darrell had made some kind of deal with that man but had held out in some way by leaving a key piece of real estate in Tess’s name? It wasn’t unthinkable that he might do something like that. He’d play any angle he could think of to make a dollar.

  What if the man had found out about the scam? What if he’d decided to do something permanent about Darrell. And what if he thought Tess had been in on it with her ex-husband?

  What if?

  Maybe it was time that she took steps to find out more about Darrell Cage’s business affairs.

  “SHE MUST KNOW WHAT we’re after.”

  Jay Sturgis dropped the folder of papers on Carl Downey’s desk and sat heavily across from the older man. “She wouldn’t even talk to me.”

  “You told her our price?”

  “Yes, but it was no deal.”

  Carl scowled and looked out the window for a moment, then he turned back toward his assistant and said, “Well, you did your best.”

  “We could offer another twenty thousand,” Jay suggested. “Hell, we could double the price and still come out ahead.”

  “No, she’d see right through that. Nobody doubles their offer, Jay. You say she wouldn’t talk—even for a hundred grand?”

  “No, just drove away.”

  “Well, you did your best,” Carl repeated. “Leave the papers with me and go on home.”

  “But, sir, we’ve got to convince her.”

  “Yes, we do,” Carl said stonily. “Go home, Jay.”

  Jay Sturgis started to say something but stopped himself. Carl Downey hadn’t gotten where he was in the construction business by taking no for an answer, and his tone left no room for doubt that it was in Jay’s best interest to go home and have nothing to do with anything else at the office this evening.

  “Good night, Carl,” he said.

  “Good night.” Carl remained immobile in his chair until the door had closed behind Jay, then he picked up the phone and dialed a three-digit extension number. “Okay,” he said into the receiver. “Go to it.” After hanging up the phone, he left the office and went out to an early dinner in a very public place.

  TESS DROVE UP TO Darrell’s house with a sense of trepidation filling her heart. These three acres surrounded by a low stucco wall had been her home once. The white Art Deco house was where she had hoped to build a home with the man who had seemed so wonderful. There were too many memories here.

  Of course, that was all before she’d met Gabriel Dyer. Oh, Gabriel. What was she going to do? She had to get him back!

  But now, she had to look for clues. She approached Darrell’s estate beneath a canopy of thickening gray clouds, determined to find an explanation for the man’s puzzling offer.

  Despite the divorce, Darrell had insisted that she keep a key as well as a remote control for the front gate and garage. Now she was glad she’d done so, and sh
e used the remote to open the gate, then drove up to the house. She didn’t know what her legal status was or whether she was entitled to come here or not, but she felt she had as much right as anyone, no matter what she thought about Darrell. The police would probably be perfectly happy to have her poking around in Darrell’s things in the hope that she might do something to incriminate herself in his murder.

  Well, there was little likelihood of that. But if the cops hadn’t taken everything away, and if they hadn’t searched his house as thoroughly as they had hers, she just might find something. She might even find a motive for someone else to have killed Darrell Cage.

  See, Gabriel? I’m not giving up I’m not licked yet.

  But even as she thought about the stalwart pirate, she couldn’t help the feeling of pain and loneliness that welled up within her. What had become of Gabriel Dyer?

  GABRIEL’S FIRST real sensations in over three hundred years were too brief and confused to be sorted out at once. The feeling of the solid boat beneath his feet and the sun on his back. The rocking motion of the light waves and the cool gulf breeze. The smells of the ocean and of the lotion Tess wore. All these things struck him at the same time, as though the touch of the amulet had been a gong rousing him out of a deep slumber. He exulted in the feelings, the remembered but yet brand-new feelings of life within his own body. He rejoiced.

  And then the fire struck his hand and engulfed him before he had a chance to react. The fire burned him as no fire ever had, scalded his very soul with ancient magic so strong that it overcame his body and the world around him, overcame his life once more.

  He was in darkness.

  He was lost to the world that so briefly claimed him.

  But he was aware, and in that awareness came the realization that he was as he had been before. The amulet hadn’t killed him, though he imagined Tess thought so. No, it hadn’t killed him, but he’d obviously done something wrong in using it and now he was as good as dead when it came to helping Tess.

  In the darkness, he floated as if in a stupor for an uncounted period of time, drifting away from the pain that had consumed him and separated him from his love.

  Eventually, the world came slowly back. It was as though a black fog was lifting away from it. The green of the ocean and blue of the sky washed in from behind the darkness to engulf him in new colors—the colors of life just beyond his reach.

  And the world of a timeless ocean surrounded him and soothed him with its rhythm even as it taunted him with reminders of the life that had almost been his. The brief touch he’d had was enough to make him burn with desire for more, and that emotion was the only feeling allowed him in his eternal home beneath the waves where he’d died.

  Where was Tess, and how could he tell her not to give up hope for him yet? How could he help her now?

  How, indeed?

  TESS HAD BEEN SURPRISED that there was so little evidence of the police investigation at Darrell’s house. There were no yellow tapes across doors warning people to keep out, no padlocks or warning signs. She’d expected at least that much. But then, the house hadn’t been a crime scene, had it? And though she hoped not, she now expected they’d taken away anything of any possible use.

  But Tess knew Darrell Cage better than the police did, and she knew that what he’d left out for public scrutiny would only be the tip of the iceberg. Darrell was a grasping, manipulative man, and he wouldn’t allow all his assets to be known if he could help it. No, he’d wanted to hold on to his possessions too badly for that.

  Tess had entered the house and hurried through the spacious living room, where the white walls and light oak floor seemed to amplify the gray light filtering through a skylight. Beyond that lay Darrell’s home office, a square room facing the ocean, with a beamed ceiling and oak wainscoting. It was there that an official presence became known.

  His file drawers were open and empty; the drawers of his desk were stacked atop the desk where his computer had normally sat. All his papers seemed to have vanished.

  But had they found all of Darrell’s hidey-holes? She didn’t expect that they would have.

  The closet in his office was long and narrow with shelves along either side. Mostly, the shelves held boxes of old books and tax records, some supplies as well as his sports equipment. The thing she was interested in was still in place, though. An open cardboard box with two baseball gloves, a couple of balls and a baseball cap was in the rear corner just where it should have been. She knelt and pulled the box out from the wall and then pressed her fingers into the corner and felt the floorboards. She counted three boards from the corner. The third one came up if you knew where to push on it.

  Beneath the board was a space large enough for a file folder to stand upright. There were two such folders hidden inside, and Tess withdrew both of them, stepped back quickly and sat in the desk chair with them.

  The first folder held handwritten notes, mostly concerning land deals with Downey Construction. There was no financial information in the folder, just dates, names of people and lists of various lots of land.

  The second folder held the printouts to accompany the notes. This was the first time she’d ever heard of Cage and Ventura except from Tommy Mott, and her first cursory glance answered many of her questions.

  Cage and Ventura was, as she had assumed, a holding company, but it was really just a front for Downey Construction. The purchase money came from Downey through Jay Sturgis, the very man who had approached Tess in the parking lot that afternoon. The title to the property Darrell had bought was held by Cage and Ventura, but the truth was that Downey Construction held title to the land all along.

  Darrell had been buying property for over three years, much of it going into her name at the time of purchase. So it was clear now that he hadn’t remembered to get all of it signed over to him when they’d divorced. Could he actually have forgotten?

  No, he hadn’t forgotten. Not Darrell. He had purposefully left it in her name She had no idea why he had done such a thing, but he wasn’t the type to make a mistake like this. No, he’d left things just as he had wanted them. Unfortunately, he’d been killed before he was able to complete whatever scheme he’d been working on.

  She needed more time to examine the documents, and she couldn’t do it here, so she rolled the folders into a tube and stuffed them into her straw tote and prepared to leave.

  Back in the living room, she noticed a second car parked outside. A dark sedan with tinted windows sat behind her old car, but there was no sign of the driver. It definitely wasn’t a police car. That much was certain.

  She froze, staring at the mysterious vehicle and listening for any sound of someone inside the house. Nothing.

  Tess began backing away from the front door slowly, then with increasing speed, until she turned and ran back to the office and threw open the door to the beach. That was her undoing.

  “Hey, lady! What’s your hurry?”

  A man rushed at her from the side, captured her in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground. She thrashed in his grip, but it was no use. He’d locked his arms around her and wasn’t about to let go.

  “What do you want?” she cried out. “Put me down!”

  “We’re just going to do a little business,” the man insisted. He carried her back through the house to the front door. “You’ve got some papers to sign, and then you’ll be on your way.”

  “I don’t know about any land! It was Darrell’s scam!”

  “So you have to tie it up for him, that’s all.” They stepped through the front door, then stopped. A second man lay on the ground beside the driver’s door of the sedan. Blood flowed from his scalp behind his left ear. “What’s this?” The man released her, dropping her to the ground. “What’s going on?”

  He received his reply in the form of a solid blow to the back of the head. The man fell to his face on the ground.

  Tess spun around, ready to run She saw Charles Dumont, standing there with a baseball bat in his hand an
d grinning at her like the Cheshire cat.

  “Home run,” he said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A shout of alarm can carry a great distance. But even beyond the range of hearing, fear can be felt. The sudden anxiety, the hair rising on the back of the neck for no reason ... fear is a tangible thing, electric and alive, that crosses all boundaries physical and psychic.

  Tess’s fear rippled through the waters of the gulf like the shock of an ocean earthquake, and her alarm was notice to all who could feel the passing wave.

  For Gabriel, the sudden and unmistakable feeling of Tess’s fear was a beacon toward which his spirit could fly to find his love. The water became a blur that burst into sunshine as he flowed along the fading signal she’d sent out. In a few brief moments, he was moving to the white stucco house and behind the running figures of Tess and Charles Dumont.

  He was there when they leaped into the banker’s car and sped away; he was with them in their flight north along Sandhook Road to the house where he’d been that afternoon. He clung to her like a mist as she sat with her bag clutched to her chest and tried to collect her thoughts. I’m here! Listen to me, lass. I’m not dead! I am with you as always if you’ll just bring me back. Call for me! Believe in me!

  But Tess’s mind was filled with other things, horrible thoughts and impressions that spilled over to Gabriel’s mind. The dead lawyer and Darrell’s ill-conceived land manipulations and the attack at the house all jostled together in Tess’s mind as she stared numbly at the ocean and wondered what she could do now.

  There was no room for grief or remembrance in her thoughts at the moment.

  “YOU’LL BE SAFE HERE,” Charles said to her as he handed her a cup of tea and sat beside her on the couch. “Now, what was going on?”