“What? By gang members? Like some kind of initiation? If we have a large clan of devil worshipers down here, I don’t know anything about it,” Liam said.
“I don’t think it was gang members or devil worshipers. I think it was someone…I don’t know. Someone involved, somehow,” Sean said.
“And recently, two unexplained disappearances,” Liam said.
“We may be getting into something very bad.”
“Well, I am a cop. It’s the kind of thing I’m supposed to be doing,” Liam said dryly.
“Are you set for tomorrow?” Sean asked.
“I am—shifts covered for two weeks,” Liam told him. “Why?”
“I’d like to go for some target practice sometime before tomorrow.”
“Target practice?”
“It’s been a while for me,” Sean said.
“You are really expecting trouble,” Liam said.
“Hey—now a nearly two-hundred-year-old body has been stolen. Yes, I guess I am expecting trouble.”
“And you still want to proceed?”
Sean hesitated. “I think I feel now more than ever that we have to,” he said. “Maybe stealing the body was someone’s idea of a prank. And maybe there is something here that we’re not seeing—but maybe we’re close, and there was something we weren’t meant to discover. I don’t know. Not much makes sense yet. But yes. With what and who we have—hell, yes, we have to move forward now.”
While Sean was gone, Vanessa continued to study the schedule, adding in notes and suggestions. She liked reviewing his work, and going over all the notes he had made about supplies, lighting and editing in the scenes that would go with the narrative.
She rose at one point, realizing that they’d had coffee but not breakfast. Now it was nearly lunchtime, and she was hungry.
She heard the sound of the air-conditioner kicking on as she walked to the kitchen. It might be late fall, but the day was growing warm. The sun was bright outside, casting the dancing rays of rebounding sunlight into the room to play with dust motes in the air again.
She froze again.
He was there again.
Someone by the window. Someone in pirate attire.
She nearly screamed. She felt again the weakness of her legs buckling.
At first, her mind raced in a somewhat rational direction.
Carlos. It was Carlos Roca. She had seen him, and he was real, and she was wrong, and Sean was right, and he was guilty of murder, and now he had come for her.
But it wasn’t Carlos.
It was the pirate—the dandy pirate.
The tall, striking fellow with the sweeping hat and brocade coat. The one she had seen yesterday, and then briefly again just this morning.
She would blink, and he would go away. He wasn’t real. He was her mind playing tricks.
Really no. She was seeing things.
But she blinked, and this time he remained. She realized that he was staring at her with equal consternation. He jumped up, his eyes locked with hers, and gasped.
“Oh my God!” he cried.
She was hearing things, as well as seeing them. Not just a figurehead through a camera lens. Oh, no, this was much worse. This was a walking, talking pirate ghost.
In her room.
She let out a weak scream.
He let out a weak scream.
Her mouth worked hard.
“Mad Miller!” she gasped.
“Good God, no!” the apparition replied in horror.
Replied. It was talking to her, the images talked to her now, even when she was awake.
She fell back against the door, her hand flying to her throat.
“You’re not there,” she gasped out.
“My God! You can see me!” he cried. “You can really see me!”
Her knees were really buckling now. And he seemed to be fading in and out, and she wasn’t sure what she saw, or what she heard.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“A friend, I swear. All right, I’m dead, I’m a ghost—but I’m a friend, honest to God, please don’t scream again!”
She didn’t.
So much for being strong. So much for being the kind of woman who just didn’t pass out.
She slumped against the wall and sank to the floor, entering a sweet world of darkness and silence.
12
As he headed back to his house, Sean tried not to dwell on the stolen corpse. He called different suppliers, making sure that everything was set for them to leave in the morning. He had a few calls to make, since they needed everything from diving supplies to film, memory cards, backup equipment and groceries.
David called to let him know that he and Jamie were at the dock and that things were coming as promised.
He tried calling Vanessa, but she didn’t pick up.
She was at his house—locked in.