by Ghost Night
“How long have they been missing?” Sean asked.
“A couple of days,” Liam told him.
“There’s still the possibility that they’re fine, that they had trouble, that they’re on an island, waiting for a search party,” David said.
“There’s the possibility. But the couples’ children have been calling every law-enforcement agency in the area. One of the daughters says she knows that her parents are dead. They never failed to check in,” Liam told them.
“Are there search parties out there?” Sean asked.
“Of course,” Liam said. “Coast Guard, Bahamians, volunteer rescue societies. But there’s been no sight of the boat or any survivors. Of course, it might have no connection with Haunt Island as well, but Haunt Island was on their agenda.”
“Thanks, Liam,” Sean said. “We were just reading about another disappearance in the area. A boat called the Delphi.”
“The Delphi went missing a year ago,” Liam said. “So, two years ago, the film crew is attacked. Last year around the same time, a boat goes missing. And now another.”
“There have been other boats that have vanished,” David pointed out.
“Right. But these two went down somewhere near Haunt Island,” Sean said.
“If this one is down—we don’t actually know that yet,” Liam said.
Sean was thoughtful.
“So?” Liam asked.
Sean looked at David. “So I say that we really have to be prepared for anything and keep our eyes open at all times.”
“Did you hear anything about the body in the chest yet?” Zoe asked Vanessa.
Vanessa shook her head. She and Zoe were down by Fort Zachary Taylor, cruising through the many booths the vendors had set up near the “pirate” campgrounds.
“Not yet. I believe that the person Jaden contacted is on the way down but is planning on bringing the body back to a lab at the university,” she said. They were at a booth that displayed books—some old rare, and very expensive, and some copies—sea charts and maps. One large map that included the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean ports, Florida and the Bahamas was hung on a supporting beam of the booth. It was large and glass-encased, and Zoe paused, looking at it and shivering. “I think I’m crazy myself!” she said. She followed a path from Key West, up around the islands to Miami, and then across to Bimini. “That’s it—that’s our route. Look at all the little red crosses on it! Those are all ships that have gone down or disappeared over the last decades—and centuries! I think I’m crazy, wanting to do this. No, I have to do this. I can’t wait to actually sleep again.”
Vanessa was silent. Yes, she still had to do this, too. But now…she felt a strange numbness. She didn’t date easily; she didn’t fall for people…she wasn’t good at accepting a casual drink. She had never gone out and slept with a man on a first, second, or even third date. But she had felt something about Sean, as if there were something real and deep that made intimacy heady and natural, and something that should have…
Should have been allowed to mature into more. She felt ridiculously empty and alone, and something inside her ached, and she still felt that she had to hold the distance, because it was wrong not to be trusted, and worse to want someone so badly that she might not care….
She realized she was staring blankly at the chart, lost in her thoughts, which had nothing to do with shipwrecks, when she heard her name called.
“Vanessa!”
She turned around to see that Katie was hurrying toward her through the crowd.
Katie—dressed up in pirate attire that appeared authentic and still attractive. She wasn’t dressed as a wench—no heaving bosom above a low-cut shirt and corset—but more like a man, in breeches, buckled boots, a poet’s shirt and frock coat, and an over-the-shoulder holster that carried several pistols and ammunition, while the broad leather belt wrapped around her hips held a sailor’s cutlass.
Vanessa laughed, seeing her. “Wow! You look great. What’s up?”
“I need you. Hey, Zoe, how are you?” she asked, acknowledging Zoe.
“Fine, thanks. And you do look great. I costume people, and I couldn’t have done better,” Zoe said.
Katie rolled her eyes. “This is Pirates in Paradise. You have avid historians around here. Vanessa, Marty sent me out to ask you to come and be a part of the program.”
“What?” Vanessa said. “Katie, I don’t know anything about what they’re doing, I’d be a bump on the log, and it would just be…”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Vanessa!” Zoe said, enthused. “Come on, you’ve played a monster, a corpse and…and a body a zillion times. Why not find out about it?”
“Come on!” Katie drew her along. Vanessa did her best to lag. She liked being behind a camera. She loved being the eye that found the visions.
But Katie was determined. They came to Marty’s booth, and he greeted her with a huge kiss and was pleased to meet Zoe. “It’s the trial—just respond as you would if you’d been arrested,” Marty said. “Ah, come now, I did tell you girls that I might need some help.”
“Whose trial? If it’s Anne Bonny and Mary Reid, I don’t know enough of the history—”
Marty shook his head. “Look, everyone knows that a body was found, and everyone knows that Sean and David and crew are about to set off to explore the Mad Miller legend. It’s a mock trial, and you’re going to be Kitty Cutlass—and you just respond however you feel you should. It’s based on the premise that Kitty Cutlass was saved.”
“But Katie is a performer—she’d make a far better Kitty Cutlass,” Vanessa argued.
“I’m the narrator,” Katie said. “Oh, come on, Vanessa. It will be fun. It will take the…well, it will occupy your mind while we all…wait.”
“But—” Vanessa began.
“Oh, come on, please!” Zoe said. “I’ll help get you all set. Marty, are there costumes somewhere?”
“Great—just go down the path there to my friend Sally, the one dressed up as Queen Isabella. She’ll give you everything that you need.”
Despite her protests, Vanessa soon found herself dressed up as Kitty Cutlass. She was not given a chaste costume like Katie’s. She was in a low-cut blouse with flaring white sleeves, a workaday corset and a billowing skirt and petticoat. Zoe arranged her hair so it was halfway tied high on her head, but with curling blond tendrils around her face.
She did not get any kind of holster—she had been stripped of her weapons.
She got handcuffs.
A large area of park had been set up for readings and theatrics; there was a modular stage, simple, with a judge’s bench and just a few stark wooden pews, and a box for the defendant. Vanessa was surprised to see Jamie O’Hara dressed up as the judge, sitting behind the bench. Marty himself was the prosecutor, Katie the narrator and, apparently, she didn’t have a defense attorney.
She was led through the crowd by a couple of Marty’s cronies. She was stunned to see that a full audience had gathered around and that, while they awaited the beginning of the mock might-have-been trial, they were chatting, arguing amiably amongst themselves and giving their opinions. There were avid-eyed children lined up and seated Indian-style before the stage.
Katie introduced the situation in her little speech, and then explained what might have happened had Kitty Cutlass, a woman who was a known accomplice of Mad Miller and accused of the murder of Dona Isabella, been saved from the sinking of the pirate ship and brought in to face the music—the law!
Vanessa, rudely cast into the little box on the stage, almost jumped when Marty began his prosecutorial tirade of her horrible crimes.
Listening to him, she suddenly found herself ready to enter into the game. She didn’t interrupt him; she waited until he was done and denied everything, assuring him that every shred of evidence he had against her was hearsay, circumstantial and in no way proof of any evil deed she might have performed. She had been guilty of loving Mad Miller, and nothing more. And they were wrong about Mad Mill
er, too. He had never been a murderer. Rather, he had been a man drawn to the life, eager for the rewards of the trade, but a man without a shred of bloodlust in his body.
As she spoke, she looked out at the audience at various times, demanding that they give an opinion. It had all been made up, conjured out of thin air, because every single fact that they were bringing forward was nothing more than speculation.
Jamie O’Hara raged from behind the bench that he would give the prisoner a chance—he would listen to thoughts and recommendations of her peers since the prosecution had failed woefully in bringing forth the burden of proof.
As she looked out then, Vanessa froze.
Many men were dressed as pirates. Many women were wenches, ladies and female pirates, and even the children in the crowd were in various stages of fun costume dress.
But there was one man standing behind the proceedings. He had a rich, full black beard and a headful of curly, almost ink-black hair. He was a tall man, and sturdy and strong. He had been watching from behind a group to the far rear, close to a row of merchants, which ended at a large growth of pines that grew raggedly before giving way to the white sands of the beach.
Her jaw dropped.
She’d never seen him with long hair or a beard.
But she knew him.
It was Carlos Roca.
His eyes, she was certain, met hers across the distance.
She cried out, ready to run after him.
But, of course, everyone thought it was part of the theatrics. She nearly shouted his name, but refrained, and when she tried to burst out of the box, Jamie O’Hara thundered his gavel on the bench, and Marty’s friends came rushing up to secure the prisoner in the docket.
She flushed, angry, feeling ridiculously desperate, and yet…
She didn’t want to shout his name.
And…
He was gone. Where he had stood, there was another man. Another pirate, quite a dandy of a pirate, really. This one had really rich long hair, queued at his nape, and he wore a cocked and sweeping plumed hat. His frock coat was brocade, his stockings and breeches were amazingly authentic. His face was aristocratic and handsome, and he was frowning at her as if she had truly lost her mind.
“What say you?” Jamie O’Hara roared.
“Guilty! I believed her until she tried to run!” a boy cried from the front row.
“Guilty! And sentencing for pirates, be they men or women, is that they be hanged from the neck until dead!” Jamie O’Hara roared with glee.
She felt blank, numb and disturbed. Had she been mistaken? Had she seen Carlos because…
Had she seen him because of this charade, because she wanted to see him, she had admired and cared about Carlos, and…
Her jaw fell open. The man who had taken his place seemed to be staring straight into her eyes, as well. He stiffened.
And seemed to disappear, as if he were fog.
Her knees felt like rubber. The world around her seemed to be a fog. She was going to pass out!
Good God! She didn’t pass out. She wasn’t the kind to be afraid of her own shadow, she had faced nightmares and the tricks the mind could play again and again. She wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t going to fall apart.
“Wait!” she suddenly shouted, remembering all that she could of pirate history.
To her surprise, everyone went still. The audience was dead silent.
“I cannot be hanged at this time. I plead my belly!” she announced.
“Brilliant!” someone in the crowd said. And there was laughter, and then applause.
“Well, then, we shall see! Sentence to be carried out when the condemned is delivered of her child, and so be it!” Jamie announced. His gavel slammed down again, and the charade was over. Marty hugged her and told her she was great, and Katie and Jamie were grinning proudly at her. Audience members greeted them all, asking pirate questions, and she stood and listened and spoke, and wasn’t sure what she said, or what she heard.
She was searching the audience.
She didn’t see Carlos Roca.
Nor did she see the “pirate” who had seemed to disappear into thin air.
Eventually, she made it back to Queen Isabella’s costume booth and the little makeshift tent where she had changed. Back in her clothing, she came out to find that Katie and Zoe were deep in conversation with Marty.
“I just talked to my brother. He and David spent a lot of the day working, looking up all kinds of things and planning what they want to do. It’s a go with a schedule—the crews are all set. We’ll be heading out on two boats, Sean’s and my uncle Jamie’s. Jamie is coming, of course, captaining his boat. Marty is coming, Liam and I, and Sean and David and Ted and Jaden. And your six, Vanessa. You and Jay, Barry, Jake, Zoe and Bill. We’ll set out the day after tomorrow.”
“Oh, Vanessa!” Zoe said, throwing her arms around her. “This is wonderful. Maybe…maybe we’ll figure things out!”
“Most likely we won’t,” Vanessa said. She didn’t know why she was now being disparaging. This might well be their only hope, considering the fact that no one else was still actively investigating and they all knew that there were still dozens of unanswered mysteries. “I mean, we can only go through the motions, and try to remember every little thing, and see if there isn’t something, some clue somewhere, that everyone has missed. And still, we may not find what we’re looking for…or even the kind of peace and closure it seems that we’re all hoping to find somehow.”
“But we may!” Zoe argued. “I’m so excited. I’m going—I’m going to go and find Barry and let him know when we’re leaving right away.”
“Okay, great,” Vanessa said. “And I guess you’re in touch with Bill and Jake somehow? Better let them know, too.”
“I’m on it!” Zoe said happily.
“Ah, for me?” Marty said, his eyes sparkling. “A chance of a lifetime! On the trail of one of the most infamous pirate tales ever!”
Vanessa tried to smile for him.
She had come here for this. And now…now she wasn’t sure about anything.
Katie turned to Vanessa. “Sean wanted to speak to you. I told him you were changing and that I’d have you call him.”
Vanessa nodded. Her heart seemed to take a little leap, and she wanted to kick herself. He probably wanted to give her a list of rules.
“Sure. But, Katie, I’m going to head back to my room for a bit first—too much costume and makeup for me. I need a shower. Oh—thank you,” she said.
“Thank me?” Katie said, laughing. “See, you are a ham, and you didn’t even know it. You were great.”
Vanessa shook her head. “No. Thank you. For influencing David, for introducing me to Jamie—I’m not sure I broached it all right with your brother, but this…well, if anything can be discovered, I think that this is the crew to do it.”
Katie grinned happily. “Sure. And hey, I’m on this adventure, too!”
Adventure…
Vanessa wasn’t at all sure she saw it that way.
With a wave, she headed out of the park, leaving all the pirate booths behind her. As she watched, she searched the crowds. Had she imagined them both?
Many a big tall man with dark hair might look like Carlos Roca.
And in the midst of would-be pirates, imagining another pirate…
Face it: she wasn’t getting enough sleep.
It was a long walk back to her room, but Vanessa was almost glad of it. She needed to walk, to stride, to burn more energy.
She needed to call Sean.
She wasn’t ready to do so.
Reaching Duval and starting toward the north end, she realized that she was looking in shops and bars. She couldn’t shake the belief that she had seen Carlos Roca.
But if Carlos was alive, then…
Did that mean he had murdered the others?
As she neared her inn, she glanced across the street at a group of “pirates” gathered in front of the Irish bar across the street.
One relaxed against the door frame, watching the band, listening to the music. He had dark hair. He was the man she had thought had to be Carlos Roca.
He looked at her. He looked straight at her.
It was Carlos Roca. It had to be Carlos Roca. It was his face.
He turned and disappeared into the bar.
11
“Carlos, no! Wait, stay! It’s me, Vanessa!” she cried. She raced across the street. It seemed that pirates had spread across the place, and she tried to excuse herself and wend her way through big frock coats, big hair and bigger hats. She made her way through the bar, searching faces to see Carlos’s once again.
But she walked all way through to the emergency exit, and he wasn’t there. She burst into the kitchen, only to be shown out. The place was ridiculously crowded, and she realized he might have walked out through the gift shop, slipped through another wall of pirates when she wasn’t looking.
At last she gave up and walked her way through the pirates once again to the street.
She walked across, and straight into Sean.
He was standing in front of her inn, leaning against the wall, as if he had been there for some time. He seemed curious that she had come from the Irish bar, and was probably impatient, as well.
“I’ve been calling you,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’d have thought that you might have been more interested in everything going on. Especially as far as getting ready to head out—with your friends all involved now.”
“Look, Sean, they’re my friends, but not my friends. Jay, yes, I’ve known forever. And I like the others, but I didn’t bring them here.”
“I’m not holding any of it against you,” he said.
“How magnanimous,” she murmured, looking away. She wanted to shout that she thought she had seen Carlos Roca. She might have been wrong. And if she’d seen Carlos, everyone would decide that, since he was alive, he was guilty. Until she saw him, really saw him, she couldn’t say anything.
What if he was guilty? What if he had seen her, and knew that she had seen him? What if? He had seen her, he had looked straight at her before disappearing.