LITMIR.BIZ

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      David and Liam shook hands with Vanessa and were pleasant and cordial. Sean, of course, she had already met.

      He waited quietly.

      Then the awkward silence fell at last.

      “Why doesn’t everyone sit, and I’ll get some drinks and snacks,” Katie suggested.

      Great! Vanessa glared at her, feeling as if she had suddenly been thrown to the wolves.

       But she was the one who wanted help!

      She sat stiffly, folding her hands around her knees as she looked at the three. “Perhaps this is way out of bounds. But I don’t know where else to go from here.”

      “Start at the beginning,” David suggested. “Sean has told us what you want us to do—but start back at the beginning, the film shoot you did, everything that happened that night and everything that happened after.”

      Vanessa decided to start out looking straight ahead, and then she decided to speak as naturally as possible and not avoid anyone’s eyes. “I’ve loved Key West since I was a child, since my father first brought me down here. When my friend Jay Allen came to me saying that he wanted to make a film, the first thing that came to my mind was the story of Mad Miller, his mistress, Kitty Cutlass, and the murder of poor Dona Isabella. Everything went fine, and we were down to a skeleton crew—Georgia and Travis, the last characters who remained alive, Jay and myself, of course, two young production assistants, Bill Hinton and Jake Magnoli, and Barry Melkie, our soundman. Zoe was everything as far as props, costume and makeup, with the help of Bill and Jake. Oh, and of course, Carlos Roca. Lew, our Bahamian guide, was there, too. That night, we had just about wrapped, and I was by the fire…Jay was there, I’m not sure who else at first, but everyone was just winding down. Suddenly, Georgia came screaming down the beach—she’d seen heads sticking out of the sand, arms. She described a scene that was the exact one in which we found her and Travis the following morning.”

      “You found Georgia and Travis?” David asked.

      She nodded gravely.

      “You found the bodies?” Sean asked.

      “I did,” Vanessa said. “Lew and Jay came quickly down to the beach, then the others…and then the Bahamian authorities.”

      “Let me see if I’ve got this straight, though,” Sean said. “Georgia and Travis were found dead. Georgia had been running down the beach. Where was Travis?”

      “No one knew,” Vanessa said.

      “Then why didn’t you look for him?” Sean asked.

      “Frankly, we thought he was part of a huge prank being pulled on Georgia. Jay was aggravated with him. We did go down the beach—Lew, Jay and I—and there was nothing there. Except—”

      “Except?” Liam asked.

      “The sand where we later found the two had been churned up. It looked as if maybe there had been something stuck in the sand.”

      “And that didn’t bother you?” Sean asked.

      “We were filming a horror movie. We thought that someone was playing an elaborate prank, and, as I said, that Travis was involved in the prank. I’m afraid that a lot of pranks are carried out on film sets,” Vanessa said evenly. She took a deep breath. “Anyway, Georgia was in terror—she wasn’t going to stay on the island. She was having an absolute fit, so Carlos said that he could take her into Miami and head back first thing in the morning. We all thought it was best. But Georgia and Travis were found on the beach, and Carlos and the boat disappeared.”

      “I’m not sure there’s much of a mystery there,” Sean said. “Apparently, Carlos stole the boat after he killed the two.”

      “I don’t believe it, not for a minute,” Vanessa said. “The police, the Coast Guard, the FBI—every known agency looked for the boat and Carlos, but it was as if they had vanished. What you don’t understand is that Carlos Roca wasn’t capable of doing something so horrible. He was one of the most gentle people I’ve ever met.”

      “I wasn’t in on the investigation, but I do remember it,” Liam said. “And I’m sorry to tell you this, but most of those law-enforcement agencies believe that Carlos Roca did murder the two young people and steal the boat.”

      “I don’t care what they believe!” Vanessa said.

      She was surprised when Sean said, “Of course, there’s another scenario. Someone else hijacked the boat, someone who might have already taken Travis. That person either killed Carlos first to take control of Georgia or had Carlos knocked out somewhere. Then did the grisly deed on the island and dumped Carlos in the Atlantic.”

      David leaned forward. “Okay, here’s the curious part—where was Travis? Had he been killed and his body hidden? And was it possible for someone to have killed him, hidden his body and managed to go after Carlos and Georgia in the boat, get back to the island without being seen, find the one body, stage the gruesome death scene, and then get rid of Carlos? And how, with the alarm that must have gone out, could they have gotten away with the boat? Everyone in the Bahamas, South Florida and all of the Caribbean would have been on the alert.”

      “Well, stealing the boat, gassing it up, changing it—that seems the easiest part of it,” Sean said.

      “I agree with you—where Travis was when the whole thing started would be a nice piece of the riddle.”

      “Dead,” Vanessa said softly.

      “Probably dead, but where? And how was he killed, and then not found until later?” Sean mused.

      “These are the questions everyone has asked time and time again, and they haven’t found the answers. But they aren’t people who know the legends, know the area—”

      “Snacks and beer!” Katie announced cheerfully from the hallway.

      She set nachos with steaming cheese and other ingredients on the coffee table and passed around the tray she carried with ice-cold beer bottles.

      Vanessa accepted a beer with a gaze that said both “Thanks” and “How could you have left me alone in here?”

      Katie smiled. “I know you all,” Katie said, sitting, “and there isn’t a better mystery out there!”

      “I have a lot of work to do now,” Liam said. “And it’s a bad time, a very bad time, at the station.”

      “Nothing has been decided,” Sean said.

      “We’ve all agreed to talk about it. We’ve talked about focusing on a number of mysteries and legends, but we haven’t decided what our focus is going to be,” David said. “It’s Sean’s decision. I am gung-ho on the idea of pooling our resources and working locally, but Sean’s been doing the budget, mapping and research, so it’s his decision.”

      “Yes, but if you’re thinking about the story, I ought to be on the trip,” Liam said. He looked at Vanessa. “It hasn’t occurred to you to be afraid? The killer or killers were never caught. They might still be out there,” he said.

      “Afraid?” she asked softly. “I still have nightmares. I see Georgia alive and screaming, and I see the heads and the arms sticking out of the sand. I remember being terrified of the dark for nearly a year. And then I got very angry, and I finally figured out that I’d probably have nightmares for the rest of my life if I didn’t do something to discover the truth. I think the killer is a coward—he worked in the dark, at night. I think there has to be a way to stand against him. That starts with finding him—and when he’s found, I don’t care if they give him life or the death penalty, just so long as he can never do anything so horrible to anyone else, ever again.”

      She stood up. They were going to agree, or they weren’t.

      “I’ll let you all talk,” she said. “Katie knows where to find me. Thank you for your time.”

      

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