Vanessa popped the toast into the toaster. As she did so, she had the strange sensation that something cold passed behind her.
And Sean was looking in that direction, frowning.
“Is there a draft in the house?” she asked.
He shrugged. “A ghost—so I’ve been told.”
Vanessa smiled. “Really?”
“It’s actually a very old place, you know. But I think there was a structure here before, long, long ago, when the pirates were at their heyday. Real butter? Or the fake spray stuff?”
“What?”
“Which do you prefer?”
“Real butter.”
“In the refrigerator. I heard it’s not really that bad for you unless you consume the whole stick.”
“All things in moderation, so they say.”
He added cheese to the omelets while she got the butter and spread it on the toast. There was orange juice in the refrigerator, and she poured a glass for each of them. He directed her to the microwave as he flipped the omelet, slid it onto a plate and separated it to slide half onto a second plate. They set it all on the counter and took their seats again.
“Do you have a copy of your original script with you?” he asked her. “The script you wrote for the movie.”
“Sure. It’s still in my computer,” she told him.
“Can you give me a rundown?”
“We started from Key West, with three couples meeting up to take a trip out to Haunt Island. The usual college-age crew—Jay was hoping to reel in the seventeen-to twenty-one-year-old crowd. There was the good girl, the one you liked, the nerd…you know, the usual slasher cast. We had permits, of course, and filmed them getting together at the dock. They went diving at Pirate Cut, and they made fun of the story of Dona Isabella, and drew up silly pictures of Mad Miller and Kitty Cutlass. Then they did this ridiculous thing, like a game of Bloody Mary, but they called up Mad Miller. The first death occurs when one of the kids sees a woman floating in the water and goes to help her, but when he turns her over, her face is skeletal and eaten away. When he shrieks and tries to get away, the sea ghost of Mad Miller drags him down, cutting him up in the water. We’re talking true teen-slasher flick,” she said, grimacing apologetically.
“I understand someone trying to break in—and make a living,” Sean said. “Many a director has cut his teeth on a slasher flick, and some have made very respectable livings on that alone.” He seemed thoughtful as he munched on his toast. “Go on.”
“Well, the rest on board are terrified, of course, and they try to perform a ritual that will let the poor murdered Dona Isabella rest—and send Mad Miller and Kitty Cutlass to hell. One by one they end up dead as the boat limps toward the closest land—Haunt Island. Of course, the heroine, Georgia Dare, is something of a scholar and she discovers that Haunt Island was where everyone was massacred. In the script, Mad Miller and Kitty Cutlass come after them, but Georgia and her boyfriend—Travis, of course—find a way to raise the massacred dead, and they come to life and destroy Mad Miller and Kitty Cutlass, and then sink back into the sand. Simple, basic—some history, some ridiculous witchery, even if I did write it myself—good, gory teen fare.”
“What schedule did you follow filming?” he asked.
“I have that in my notebook, too. Oddly enough, most of the scenes were in order, and that was because we were so cost-conscious that we didn’t want to pay actors when we didn’t need them,” Vanessa explained. “Obviously, we filmed the scenes at Pirate Cut first, and then we filmed at a few of the reefs up by Key Largo, and then made our way over to South Bimini and finally Haunt Island. When Carlos and Georgia left on the night she was killed, they were supposedly heading straight for Miami.”
“And you don’t believe that Carlos Roca was a brilliant psychopath, pretending to be a great guy and savoring all the possibilities when Georgia went nuts and wanted to go home?” Sean asked.
“No. If he were that good an actor, he would have been in front of the camera, would have been there for years, and garnered a few Oscars,” Vanessa said with certainty. “But here’s the thing, of course—he’s gone. He can’t defend himself. I don’t know what I really even think that we can get out of this, but Carlos is another reason I’d so desperately love to find the truth. He might be a victim, too, and stand accused for this in the memory of his family and loved ones. It isn’t right.”
“We may do this and wind up with nothing more than an interesting documentary that merely gives rise to more questions,” Sean warned.
“It’s more than anyone else is doing right now,” she said.