For a moment, Vanessa felt the silence that fell among the group.
“You’re right,” she said. “Let’s see what happens on this trip. If we find out something new about what happened, if there is a prayer of solving the murders, then I’ll think about it. But if we find nothing at all and their deaths remain mysteries, Jay—please. Let’s shelve it.”
Jay looked at her, then looked away. “All right.”
“Promise,” Vanessa insisted.
“I promise,” he said dourly.
There was a silence again. Then Katie stood, raising her glass. “Here’s to great camaraderie and a wonderful work experience. Here’s to tomorrow!”
Again, glasses clinked, and they all toasted one another. The joy of the evening had faded, though, and soon, one by one, they were taking leave.
As they walked home, Sean told Vanessa, “You know, I can fire his ass now, if you want.”
She looked at him and flashed a smile. “No, Jay is good. And he promised, and he is my friend.”
“He’s your broke friend, it sounds like. And in a way, he has a point. I agree with you, but he has a point. Here’s the thing that I’ll say in his defense—he didn’t try to cash in on a tragedy. He had invested his life’s savings into that movie. He didn’t rush out and try to give it to anyone right after it happened.”
“You think he’s right?” Vanessa protested.
Sean shook his head. “Me? I don’t think I could do it—not when both of the victims were so young, not when they had family still living.” He slipped his arm around her. “Titanic the musical played on Broadway. I thought that a musical based on such a horrific event was in terrible taste. Katie wanted to see it, so the family went. And it was actually something that I wound up enjoying, that gave a certain honorable memorial to many of the people involved. Much better than the movie!” he told her, smiling gently.
“Sean—this was a slasher flick.”
“I know. Anyway, let’s get home and get some sleep, shall we?”
They didn’t get to sleep right away. They made love again, and it still seemed so amazing and new, and there was still so much they had to learn about one another. When she drifted to sleep, she was warm, secure and comfortable, and being with him seemed like a bastion against the world. It was ridiculous to think that she could actually fall in love with anyone so quickly, and yet, in the time they had known one another, she had come to realize that now she couldn’t imagine a time without him. She had let her pride stand in the way once—he had been a jerk—but he had proven himself, coming to her, and she thought that finding the right relationship had been as hard in the past for him as it had been for her, none of which mattered, because when she was with him, feeling his warmth and the vibrant pulse of his heart so near to hers, she didn’t envision the future beyond tomorrow.
She should have slept as sweetly and deeply as she had the night before.
But the dreams came again, though they took a different twist.
She was back at O’Hara’s, sitting on the bench at the patio, and Jay was speaking again.
“What if the mummy came to, and broke out…”
Then she was walking down Duval, and it was odd, because no one was there.
She was alone.
And then she wasn’t.
The streets were filled with pirates. She told herself that naturally the pirates were there. Pirates in Paradise was happening, and there were events to the last minute, and even then, some people stayed and dressed up, loath to get back to reality.
But they weren’t real pirates.
They were ghosts.
Ghosts existed.
They walked along, some in a hurry, some strolling together. Some talked and teased with wenches, some joked with one another. They strode, they swaggered, and one limped on a peg leg. They paid her no heed.
Then she heard carriage wheels. They seemed to come slowly, ominously. The sky blackened and a chill fog sprang out from the sea. The mist whirled in shades of gray, and the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves came ever more slowly.
She turned, aware that the carriage was coming to a halt, and that it was coming to a halt near her.
Or perhaps it was coming for her.
A woman, an elegant woman in silk and high fashion, stepped from the carriage, her every movement in slow motion. She looked straight at Vanessa, and Vanessa knew her. She knew the mermaid pendant the woman wore around her neck, and she knew the face—she had seen it on a figurehead that had led her to strange discoveries beneath the sea.
“You must help. You must listen. You must find the truth,” the woman said. She smiled at Vanessa, and produced a hatbox. She opened the hatbox, and lifted something.
It was Georgia Dare’s head.
“Vanessa!” Georgia cried to her pathetically.