The Pirate Ghost

by Laura Pender

  She had been thinking that it had to have been this balcony that she’d seen from the water. Charles’s balcony. And if that was the case...

  She headed upstairs. It was clear Charles had done no decorating since moving in. The place was all darkly paneled, with a nautical theme. Tess found the bedroom easily enough, then stepped out onto the upper deck as the sun was half-submerged in the gulf.

  Yes, if someone had been on this deck, with the light of the bedroom on, she could have seen them from the water. Looking in both directions, she could see no other second-floor decks or balconies. It had to have been this house! A ground-level patio wouldn’t have been visible from her vantage point in the water.

  It must have been this house. This very house! And there had been two men, not just Charles, but two men.

  Who was the other man?

  Tess turned toward the bedroom again. Was the second man Paul Driscoll, the previous owner? She would have to find out where he lived now and ask.

  As she stepped toward the sliding glass door, a reflection low on the floor beside the wall caught her eye—a single semaphore flash. Tess stooped and groped around in what was fast becoming full night. She found a piece of glass, a bit smaller than palmsize, nearly flat and smooth. Taking it into the bedroom, she switched on the light and examined her find.

  It was the lens from a pair of eyeglasses. Bifocals.

  Tess slipped the lens into the pocket of her slacks. It clinked against the amulet, reminding her of the ribbon she still carried wrapped around her right hand.

  In the bedroom, she opened the closet. It was full of suits, mostly gray or dark blue, and there were several pairs of dress shoes. Nothing casual in there, just business. That didn’t seem like Charles.

  Just as she was about to close the closet door, a glimmer of light amid the shoes caused her to kneel and pull out a framed photograph. It was an eight-byten photograph of an older man with two young girls at his side shot from the waist up. He was gray-haired, smiling and wearing a dark suit like the ones above her. He wore glasses. And peering closely at the photograph, she could see — yes, he was wearing bifocals.

  Tess dropped the photograph as though it had stung her. She stood and slammed the closet door. Bifocals and a dark suit. A man who looked like the type to want a darkly paneled house and nautical prints on his walls. It must have been a picture of Paul Driscoll.

  She could imagine a man selling his house with all his furnishings, but she could not imagine him leaving without trying to find the missing lens of his glasses...

  So why had he?

  And why had Charles said he hadn’t been on the deck with his light on when it was so obvious that his was the only light she could have seen so clearly?

  Something I saw, she thought, or something that somebody thinks I saw. And if somebody thought she saw something, might it not be prudent for him to become friendly with her to find out if she did, indeed, see anything? Maybe he’d want to keep a close eye on her—even to the point of sneaking around her house in the dead of night.

  Tess froze, holding the ribbon like a rosary to drive her sudden fear away.

  CHARLES DUMONT WAS SEATED quite comfortably in the leather chair across the desk from Carl Downey.

  “You offered her one hundred thousand dollars,” he was saying, “but I’ll get you the property for half that.”

  “Why?” Carl smiled, knowing a con man when he saw one. “Why will you do me this great favor for less than I’m willing to pay?”

  “I’m not greedy.”

  “The hell you aren’t.” Carl laughed. “What’s the angle?”

  “The angle is that I have to leave town in the morning and I want to be sure of two things. One, that I am paid tonight. Two, that I keep you happy enough so that you don’t interfere with my departure.”

  “What you mean is that you’ve made a bundle off some other scam, so this is only a little bonus on your way out of the country.”

  “Whatever.” Charles shrugged. “Do we have a deal?”

  “We do. You bring the paper back signed and I’ll have your money here for you.”

  “Very good.” Charles stood and took the deed from the desk. “Don’t follow me, Carl. Your boys scared the hell out of her this afternoon, and I’d hate them to screw it up now.”

  “I won’t follow you,” Carl said. “But if you don’t make good, I’ll sure as hell find you.”

  “Well, then, we understand each other. Goodbye.”

  As soon as Charles left the room, Carl Downey was on the phone. “He’s on his way down. Give him plenty of room, but don’t lose him. I have to get the paper back as soon as she signs it.” There was no way Carl Downey was going to let some fake banker hold his project for ransom after the deed was signed.

  THINK! No, SHE JUST couldn’t remember exactly what she’d seen from the water on Saturday night. Just two men on the upper deck. Two men, and then the light went out.

  Tess was hurrying through the house looking for something, anything, that might tell her what he was trying to cover up. But there was nothing to jog her memory or give her a clue, and everywhere she looked, there was further evidence that Charles Dumont had never lived in this house.

  “Oh, Gabriel, I sure need you now,” she whispered, hastening down to the main floor and through the living room. “Please come back.”

  Though she didn’t believe he could, she felt for a moment his presence beside her. No, more correctly, in her mind. Necklace, she thought he said, just as he’d said in her dream. Necklace? It made no sense at all.

  In the kitchen Tess glanced over the countertops, scanning appliances and racks of knives. She opened and shut drawers without knowing what she was searching for. She made a circuit of the room wondering if she should wait for Charles to return or run while she could, wondering why the word “necklace” had popped into her head, wondering why she was still looking when she didn’t know what she wanted to find.

  And then she found it.

  The kitchen had a restaurant-size freezer that opened from the top. She pulled the door open. Just as quickly, she shut it. Paul Driscoll’s body was inside.

  “Oh, God!” she cried out. “Oh, oh, no!” She rushed to the wall phone and dialed 911. “Hello, yes, I want to report a murder. Yes, a—” But the front door opened, and she heard footsteps approaching. She let the phone drop and backed away as quietly as possible.

  Unfortunately, there was only the wall behind her, and all hope of escape lay across the room. Tess didn’t stop to think but bolted toward the kitchen door, hoping against hope to avoid Charles, to reach the door and the safety of a public street.

  But Charles caught up to her before she could run out, and he pulled her back into the kitchen. She found herself looking at the barrel of a gun aimed directly at her head!

  “Hang it up,” Charles said, motioning with the gun for her to hang up the phone. “Good. Now sit.”

  Tess sat at the table.

  “Right. You will do two things for me, Tess. One, you will sign this paper,” he said, laying the deed on the table before her. “And you will explain your actions in the boat today.”

  “And what do I get?” There was no way on earth that she intended to sign the paper. It would surely be the same as signing her own death warrant.

  “You get out with your life.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You think I’ll kill you?”

  “You’ve killed everyone else,” she said. She felt calmer now, the certainty that he intended to kill her no matter what she did giving her strength. “I assume that Darrell was an accident, but I doubt that Paul Driscoll was. And I know that Walter Chambers wasn’t.”

  “Well, they all were, in a way.” He put one foot up on the chair across the table from her and leaned on his knee. “Poor Paul Driscoll tried to back out of our deal. I got carried away. That wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t run into you on the beach. And once I knew you’d spent the night there,
well, I had to make sure I wasn’t leaving any loose ends.”

  “I’m the only loose end left,” she said. “It’s too bad your little suicide plan didn’t work out for you.”

  Necklace, a voice seemed to be saying in the back of her mind. Necklace. Why?

  “Yes, too bad. You put up quite a fight. How did you manage that?”

  “That would be three things you want from me. You said only two.”

  Necklace! Believe!

  “Right. About the boat, then. I’m quite curious ”

  “I was diving for treasure.”

  “Oh, of course.” He laughed.

  “Here, I’ll show you.” Tess slouched down a bit in her chair so she could slip her hand into the pocket of her slacks to retrieve the coins. She grasped the coins and amulet, pulling them free, and a sudden sensation of vertigo struck her.

  Wrong, lass! A necklace is needed! Believe! The words hammered through her head as she held the amulet in her hand, and she nearly dropped everything. She recovered and sat up again. Yes, that was the answer. A necklace! That’s why she had the ribbon! She gently dropped the amulet on the chair between her legs and placed two coins on the table before her captor.

  Charles focused on the coins and paid no attention to Tess. Under the table, she unwound the ribbon and began trying to slip it through the eyelet in the stone.

  “It’s too bad I’ve got to be going,” Charles said, holding one of the coins up to the light. “If there’s much of this, it would be worth millions.”

  “There’s a lot more,” Tess assured him, as she continued trying to thread the stone. “A whole ship.”

  “Not for me, I’m afraid,” he said ruefully. “But I guess I did well enough. What about the man in the boat? What happened to him?”

  “Man?” She almost had it now, struggling to grasp the ribbon with her fingertips without looking at it.

  “Don’t pull that on me.” He dropped the coin and raised the gun once more. “The man who disappeared. He dropped a stone of some kind, I think.”

  “Oh, that man.” Tess smiled, finally pulling the ribbon through. “He’s gone.” She tied the ribbon with a square knot, hoping the resultant necklace was large enough without her being able to look at it. Then, in sudden inspiration, she raised her hands and laid the stone on the table before her. “I do have his amulet, however.”

  “Shove it over here.” Greed lit Charles’s eyes as he looked at the carved image threaded with the faded ribbon.

  “Gabriel,” Tess said. “Come back, Gabriel.”

  “What?”

  That was all Charles said, however, for the red stone in the amulet suddenly gleamed and the necklace shook and then twisted on the table. Both he and Tess stared for a moment in silence while the world seemed to stop on its axis. Then the amulet slid across tabletop with a harsh, grinding sound, flew into the air and hung there from the ribbon for just a moment.

  Then it was as though the motes of dust in the air congealed and darkened into a human form. A man took shape, clothed in a silk shirt and dark trousers, with heavy leather boots up to his knees and at his side a sword hanging from a red sash.

  Gabriel shook back his mane of hair and laughed. “Yes!” But he didn’t pause to enjoy his transformation, or even to look at Tess, but swiftly drew out his weapon. “Run, lass! I’ll handle this fool!”

  Charles jumped back in confusion and fright, instinctively raising his gun and firing blindly as he staggered away. The bullet was wide of the target, but Gabriel’s sword wasn’t. It cut a stripe across the con man’s jacket as he turned to flee.

  Gabriel gave chase, cutting off Charles’s path to the front door. Charles spun wildly, firing once more, then ran toward the door to the beach. Gabriel’s sword pricked his back, urging him out to the sand, where he rolled down the hill to the moonlit surf.

  “You’re mine, Dumont,” Gabriel shouted. “You’ll not get away.”

  Tess ran after the two men, afraid of the gun Charles still clutched. Afraid, too, that Gabriel might kill him. When she reached the door, however, there were two other men running toward the combatants.

  The newcomers joined the melee, one of them falling at a swipe of Gabriel’s sword, the other shooting at Charles. “No, wait!” Charles was shouting as Tess reached the top of the hill. “I’m not going anywhere!”

  “You’re right,” one of the men called back.

  “He cut me! That other guy cut me!” the second one cried out.

  Gabriel turned away from Charles and Charles raised his weapon as Tess screamed, “Gabriel! Look out!”

  There were three shots, and Tess started running, heedless of any danger to herself. Gabriel dived and rolled and came up staggering, then lunged at Charles with his sword. But Charles was already falling, struck by a shot from one of the men who were now running up toward their car. Gabriel fell to his face in the sand.

  “No!” Tess cried, kneeling at Gabriel’s side. “Not again!” She turned him over, amazed at the blood on his chest, dark in the moonlight. “Don’t die! Don’t leave me!”

  “I shan’t be leaving you,” Gabriel said, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Then he pushed himself up with a groan, staggered a couple of steps and fell to his knees near Charles Dumont.

  “What are you doing?” Tess asked. “Lie still now.”

  “Dumont, you bloody fool, you don’t want to die, do you?”

  “No,” Charles gasped. Blood dribbled from his hps. “Get help.”

  “I’ve got your help here,” Gabriel said. “It’s kept me alive and it’ll do the same for you. Will you take it, man?”

  “What?” The question was feeble, barely a whisper.

  “Will you take this amulet to keep from dying? Will you accept it as my gift?”

  “Yes,” Charles moaned. “Anything. Please, yes.”

  “Then I give it to you,” Gabriel said, lifting the necklace from his own neck. “I give you this precious ornament to keep you here, Charles Dumont. It’s certainly what you deserve.” He slipped it around Charles’s neck just before the man’s eyes slid shut.

  Tess knelt beside him, staring at the banker. “Gabriel, what have you done?”

  “I’ve saved my hide and damned his soul,” the pirate replied. Then he turned toward her and said, “See?” He stretched out his arms.

  The blood was gone from his chest, the bullet wound healed

  “Oh, Gabriel!” Tess threw herself into his solid, warm embrace. “But he’s dead. It didn’t save him.”

  “Oh, but I’m sure that it did. Just as it saved me,” he told her. “He’s around somewhere.”

  The growing wail of a siren broke them apart then, and Tess stood, looking up toward the house. “You’d better get out of here,” she told him. “I don’t know how to explain you to the police.”

  “Yes, ’twould be awkward.” Gabriel took the necklace from Charles’s neck and stood with it. “I’ll take this away with me.”

  “Don’t touch it!”

  “Never you worry, lass. I don’t own the thing any longer,” he assured her. “I gave it away and it no longer has any power over me.”

  “Then you’re alive? Really alive?”

  “Yes, I am at that. And I’ll never leave you, darlin’ Tess, never through all eternity.”

  Epilogue

  The sun set over the Gulf of Mexico with a magnificent burst of yellow-orange light that darkened to deep red at the horizon. Tess stood on the deck of the Maria Louisa II and watched the sun sinking into the sea, feeling as though she was alive for the first time in her life. Alive and content.

  There was a time when she didn’t think she would ever be feeling anywhere near this good. No, Sergeant Wilkes had tried his best to lock her up for good despite the mounting evidence against Charles Dumont. Eventually, however, even he had to admit she was blameless in her husband’s death. Tess figured he’d finally given up on her when they discovered that Darrell’s estate was only a paper one. All that Tess stood
to inherit were his debts.

  Claiming salvage rights to the Maria Louisa was far easier than she had expected. All they had to do was bring up something from the ship proving its identity and they could claim the wreck as theirs. There were massive taxes to be paid, of course, but nothing compared to the finds. Workmen and marine historians were salvaging the ship’s cargo now, while she and Gabriel took their honeymoon cruise on the two-masted sailboat they’d bought with the first of their proceeds.

  And so here they were, just the two of them, on the wide expanse of the ocean.

  “A lovely view, isn’t it?” Gabriel came to her side, his arm slipping around her as he tipped his head to rest it on her shoulder. “The lure of the sea.”

  “I understand why sailors love it,” Tess said. “The whole world is open to you just over the horizon.”

  “And what’s behind you is over the horizon, as well,” he replied. “Which was always as much motivation to sail as the lure of what lies ahead.”

  “And what does lie ahead?” She snuggled against him, rubbing her cheek against the crown of his head.

  “Great things, my dear. We’re destined for great things,” he proclaimed. “When the remainder of the ship’s treasure has been brought up, we’ll have the world at our feet.”

  “I don’t need the world at my feet,” she told him. “Not right at the moment anyway.”

  He turned her to him, kissing her cheeks. “You have me at your feet.”

  “And I am at yours.”

  “Then everything is perfect.” He held her to him as they watched the sun set together. “Or, nearly perfect.”

  “Why only nearly?”

  “We have one piece of unfinished business, lass,” he said. “One task only.”

  Gabriel withdrew a small bundle from his pocket and unwrapped the paper around it. The amulet lay within, the red stone glowing dully.

  “I thought perhaps now might be the time to be rid of it.”

  “Oh, Gabriel, does he deserve to be lost so far at sea? I mean, Charles was a con man and a murderer, but it seems so cruel.”