“I don’t think that it’s work she’s looking for, but I don’t know. She’s pretty tense. She wanted to know about the recent business down here—you know, all the nasty stuff with the murders—and she was mainly wanting to know, so it seemed, how you all coped with the bad things going on. Like, frankly, were you a pack of cowards, was it really all solved by the police, did I think that you were capable people—and did you really know the area.”
“Oh, great. She sounds like someone I really want to hire!” Sean said.
Jamie laughed. “She’s not that bad—she was dead honest in the questions she asked me. She didn’t use the word coward, that was mine. There’s something I like about her, Sean. Talk to her. She seems tense and nervous—and somehow, the real deal.” His uncle leaned closer to him. “There’s some mystery about this girl, and yet something real. Talk to her. Oh, and by the way, she is really something. She’s got every diving certificate, advanced, teacher, you name it. She’s gotten awards for her writing, and oh—hmm. She happens to have amazing blond hair, giant blue eyes and a shape to die for, nephew. Check it out. Go ahead. What’s the matter, boy, scared?”
Sean looked at his uncle in surprise and laughed. Scared? No. He was at least intrigued. Couldn’t hurt to talk to the woman. He and David were anxious to get started on their project because it was important to both of them—and it was also what they were best known for in their separate careers. But they were discussing just what bits and pieces and stories they would use for their documentary. Bartholomew’s situation was a must, Robert the Doll was a must, and the bizarre, true and fairly recent history of Elena and Count von Cosel was also a must. It wouldn’t be Key West if they didn’t touch on Hemingway and the writing connection. And there had to be pirates, wreckers, sponge divers and cigar makers, and how the Conch Republic became the Conch Republic. But as to exactly what they were using and what they were concentrating on, they were still open. They hadn’t made any hard-and-fast decisions yet, but since David was home and planning a wedding with Sean’s sister, they had decided that, at long last, they should work together. Friends in school who hadn’t seen each other in a decade, they had both gone the same route—film. Once the tension and terror of a murderer at work in Key West had died down, David had decided he was going to stay home awhile. That had a lot to do with the fact that he was in love with Sean’s sister, Katie O’Hara. But David was a conch, too—born and bred in Key West from nearly two generations of conchs. David belonged here.
Sean had stayed away from home a lot, too. But now he was excited about the idea of working with David—and working on a history about Key West and the surrounding area, bringing to light what truth they could discover that lay behind many of the legends. One thing had never been more true—fact was far stranger than fiction. But as he knew from living here, fact could become distorted. Tourists often asked which form of a story told by a tour guide was the true one. He and David meant to explore many of the legends regarding Key West—and, through historical documents, letters and newspapers of each era, get to the heart of the truth. Fascinating work. He loved his home. Key West was the tail end of Florida, an oddity in time and place. An island accessible only by boat for much of its history. Southern in the Civil War by state, Union by military presence.
Bartholomew suddenly let out a soft, low whistle, almost making Sean jump. He gritted his teeth and refused to look at the ghost.
“Pretty, pretty thing!” Bartholomew said. “I’d have been over there by now, not wondering if there was some secret agenda behind it all!”
Somehow, Sean refrained from replying. He even kept smiling and staring straight at his uncle.
“Are you going to stare at the shadows? Or are you at least going to let the girl have her say?” Jamie demanded. “I’ll bring coffee,” he added.
“I know where the coffee is, thanks, Uncle,” Sean said. He came behind the bar to pour himself a cup, trying to get a better look at the woman at the booth.
She was waiting for him. There was no looking at her surreptitiously—she was staring back at him. She was still in the shadows, but his uncle seemed to be right about one thing—she was stunning. She had the kind of cheekbones that were pure, classic beauty—at eighty, she’d still be attractive with that bone structure. Her hair was golden and pale and simply long, with slightly rakish and overgrown bangs. He didn’t think she spent a lot of money in a boutique salon; the shades of color had come from the sun and the overgrown, rakish look was probably because she didn’t spend much time getting it cut.
She was dressed more like a native than a tourist—light cotton dress with a little sweater over her shoulders. Down here, the days were often hot, tempered only by the ocean and gulf breezes that were usually present. But inside, it could be like the new ice age had come—because of the heat, businesses were often freezing. Jamie kept his swinging doors to the outside open sometimes—it was a Key thing. Trying to be somewhat conservative in the waste of energy, the air blasted in the back, not near the front.
Coffee in hand, he walked back to the booth at last. “Hi. I’m Sean O’Hara. We’re doing interviews tomorrow and the next day at the old Beckett house, because, I’m assuming you know, it’s a joint project between David Beckett and myself.” He offered her his hand.
She accepted it. Her grip was firm. Her palms were slightly callused, but they were nice, tanned. Her fingers were long and she had neat nails, clipped at a reasonable length rather than grown out long.
Her eyes were steady on his.
“I’m Vanessa Loren,” she said. “I have real experience and sound credentials, but that’s not exactly why I’m here, or why I wanted to meet with you here.”
He shrugged, taking a seat opposite her in the booth.
“All right.”
She suddenly lifted both hands and let them fall. “I’ve actually practiced this many times, but I’m not sure where to begin.”
“You’ve—practiced?” Sean asked. “Practiced an interview for a job?”
She nodded. “I’ve practiced trying to explain. This is really important to me.”
“All right. Start anywhere,” Sean said.
She lowered her head, breathing in deeply. Then she looked at him again. “Unless you’ve been under a rock, you must have heard about the Haunt Island murders.”
He blinked and tried to remember. He’d been filming in the Black Sea two years ago, but he had heard about the bizarre murders. Members of a film crew had been gruesomely slain on an island just southwest of South Bimini. Though uninhabited, the island belonged to the Bahamas.
He hadn’t moved into the booth and hadn’t left room for Bartholomew. However, the ghost had followed him to the booth, and leaned against the wall just across from them.
“Yes, I heard something about the murders,” he said carefully.
“I was with the film crew,” she said. “One of my best childhood friends was the director, and I was the scriptwriter. We both put money into the venture, and we were doing double duty. When I say low budget, I mean low budget. But we had it together—we knew what we were doing, and we worked incredibly hard. The film wasn’t going to win an Oscar, but we had hopes of having it picked up by a national distributor.”
“Don’t know much about that,” Bartholomew said sorrowfully, as if he were part of the conversation.
“You were making a film, and people were brutally killed,” Sean said, ignoring Bartholomew. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for her. Sadly, there were a number of unsolved mysteries that had little chance of being solved. He vaguely remembered some of the newspaper articles his sister had e-mailed him at the time—a lot of people were chalking the tragedy up to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. “What are you trying to tell me, or ask me?”
She took a deep breath. “It’s really all the same area—the same area you’re doing a documentary on. Do you know how many boaters go from the Intracoastal, South Florida, say Fort Lauderdale and Miami, out to Bimini and then on to Key West?” she asked. “Or vice versa. We’re all connected here.”
“I know that,” he said, feeling oddly irritated. “We always intended to do a documentary on the area.”
“This is a story that shouldn’t just be included, it should be the main focus,” she said somberly. “Why?”
“Because it’s an unsolved mystery. And there’s a killer or killers out there.”
“Sadly, there are many killers on the loose at any given time. I’m not sure what we can do for you. David and I are not law enforcement,” Sean said. “And if we were, Haunt Island is still the Bahamas.”
“It doesn’t sound as if law enforcement has had much luck yet,” Bartholomew interjected.
“I was there when it happened,” she said quietly. “The truth must be discovered.”
“But we’re just doing a documentary,” Sean protested.
“You’re doing a documentary on history—and oddities and mysteries. You’ll never find a better mystery,” she said flatly. “I admit, the script was written for what would basically be a teenage-slasher-type flick,” she said. “But it was based on history. Key West and Bahamian history.”
He shook his head. “All right, I’m still getting lost here. You were filming a movie based on history, but it was a slasher film? Low budget? A historical slasher film? You’re talking big money there.”
She shook her head. “Not with the people we had working with us. The new digital age has helped a hell of a lot. And we had easy access to costumes—we bought most of them here, some from the shop on Front Street, and some at Pirates in Paradise. We refitted one of our boats, and with a little digital finesse, we had a pirate ship, which could become pirate ships. We knew what we were doing—I’m talking about people with real degrees in film and real experience—and more. It was our project.”