The girl attending the booth, a pretty young thing who looked to be no more than a teenager, came before her smiling. She was in a corset, skirt and big billowing blouse, with a tricorn hat perched atop her head.
“She startles everyone,” the girl said. “Dona Isabella, I mean. What a gorgeous creature—to die so sadly. Do you know the story?”
“Yes, actually, I do,” Vanessa told her.
“She’s supposed to haunt a lot of places, you know. Pirate Cut for one—a few divers swear that they’ve seen her! And, let’s see—she haunts the south end of Duval Street, where she supposedly lived. And Haunt Island, of course. I mean, what would Haunt Island be without a few haunts?”
Vanessa smiled. She didn’t want to talk about Haunt Island.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the piece in the display case that had drawn her attention. It was a jeweled pendant, a mermaid studded with various precious stones.
“Oh, this is a reproduction of one of Dona Isabella’s necklaces. Beautiful, isn’t it?” She giggled. “There was description of it in the ship’s manifest. There were always three manifests, you know. One for the ship’s owner, one on the ship and one left with the dockmaster’s office from the original embarkation point of a ship’s journey. This pendant was in the manifest—well, not this pendant, it’s a reproduction, of course—and, as you can see, Dona Isabella is wearing it in this picture, which is another copy, of an oil painting that hangs in a museum in Spain.”
“It’s gorgeous. Truly, absolutely gorgeous,” Vanessa said.
“And more reasonable than you would think. Okay, truthfully? It’s done in ten carat—if I’d had my say, it would be fourteen carat at the very least. Eighteen for such a piece would be closer to the original. And the jewels—that really looks like a ruby, but it’s a garnet. And that’s not a sapphire, it’s blue topaz, and the yellow stones are citrine.”
“How much?” Vanessa asked.
The girl smiled and told her. The piece was more than affordable. Vanessa bought it.
She looked at an exhibition that was going to be on food, and she glanced through the costume racks, remembering when the world had been bright, when she had done so with high excitement, thinking that she and Jay were about to produce their first full movie. That was then, this was now. She walked around and saw some excellent outfits—should Sean and David want them for anything—then moved on to the beach.
It was a decent day, even though they were into fall. The air temperature was still rising to eighty-five, and the water at the shore was only about ten degrees cooler. She’d grown up in the chilly freshwater springs of north Florida, so it was a lovely temperature to her.
She lay on the sand, slipped on her sunglasses and watched the waves.
She tried not to think about the fact that she was ready to kill Jay. She could remember the look in Sean O’Hara’s eyes when he had met Jay, when Jay had said that he was applying for work. She looked like the agent sent in to scope it out.
What was, was.
Except that she needed the truth more than Jay.
She needed to silence the nightmares.
To keep from thinking too much, she headed into the water. She swam awhile, working her muscles, then ambled back toward the shore, watching a father play with his children—a boy of about ten and a little girl, around five—and as she walked, not paying attention, she crashed into someone. A hard body. She stepped back awkwardly and quickly apologized. Hands shot out to steady her.
It was Sean.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself. You’re hard to find,” he told her.
“Well, I would have been easier, if I’d known you were looking for me.”
He smiled. “I called.”
“Oh—my phone is with my towel and bag, on the shore.”
“Ah.”
“So—you were looking for me. How’d the filming go?” She realized she was shivering. It was getting later than she realized; the sun was beginning to sink, and while the temperature was still far from cold, being wet made her shiver.
He arched a brow to her. “Not that badly, trust me, no need to shake.”
She laughed. “Sorry, I’m suddenly freezing.”
“Then let’s get out and get you a towel.”
“It’s a good plan,” she said.
She hurried ahead of him and found her towel. He had worn cutoff chinos into the water, and just the edges were wet. He reached for the polo shirt he had thrown on the sand near her things and skinned it over his head. She towel dried quickly and slid on her dress, and still she was shaking.
“Ah, you know what you need?” he asked, taking her discarded towel and wrapping it around her shoulders and rubbing them.
“Dry clothing?” she suggested.
“A hot toddy—and Irish whiskey. I know where they make the best.”
“Would that be a place south on Duval known as O’Hara’s? I hear that it’s a real hangout for actual locals—conch-type people—and that the tourists crash in sometimes, wanting to hang with the locals,” she said with a smile.