The Vision (2 page)

her out on a date, Jack, but don’t bring her on my boat. There’s too much at stake.”

“I’ve gone diving with that girl many a time, Thor. She knows what she’s doing. As far

as hooking up with her, hell, I could be her father. And I’ve known her forever, since she

was a kid.”

Thor shook his head again and turned his focus to the water. Late summer. Hot days,

gorgeous nights. There was always a breeze coming off the ocean. And the sun, when it

set, was glorious. It was eight at night, and the sky was getting ready to change. Now it

was light. Soon it would be pink, purple, gold, yellow, blue…streaks of color that would

slowly deepen. Then, around eight-thirty, it would suddenly go dark.

He was staring at the water…and then he was staring at her again. It was hard not to stare

at her, he thought, realizing what it was about her that drew him so powerfully. She

emanated a natural, easy sensuality. It was evident in her every movement. Nothing

forced, nothing overt. Something she herself wouldn’t even know she possessed.

“Sun’s going down now,” Jack commented. “You could take off the shades.”

Thor smiled again. Hell, no. He liked the ink-dark Ray-Bans. No one could tell when his

eyes kept turning toward the other table.

“Can’t take your eyes off her, huh?” Jack asked.

“What’s not to appreciate about eye candy? I just don’t think any rational man—

especially a diver—should get too close to a loose cannon.”

“Want to hear about the guy who thought his doll was alive and all the folks who think

it’s cursed?”

Thor groaned. “Jack, give it a rest.”

“Hey, it’s all real stuff. Know where the name Key West came from? When the

Spaniards first arrived, it was one big boneyard. An Indian tribe that died out? Killed in a

massacre? No one knows. But there were bones everywhere, so they called it Cayo Hueso, Island of Bones. The English didn’t bother to translate the Spanish, just turned it

into words they knew. I’m telling you, Thor, Key West is a unique place.”

Thor smiled slowly. “Jack, if you’re trying to convince me that she’s totally right in the

head, you’re not getting anywhere. The woman claims she saw a body in the water. And

that it talked to her.”

“Hey…for every tale out there, you’ll find a grain of truth.”

“Have you heard about a missing person in the area? Anybody looking for a murder

victim? I had the news on—far as I can tell, everyone’s accounted for.”

“You’re sounding like a callous son of a bitch, and I know better,” Jack told him. “What

you are is so focused on diving that you don’t mind going through women like Kleenex.”

Thor arched a brow. “Yeah? Haven’t seen you settle down.”

“Never knew a woman could keep up—in my generation. They probably existed

somewhere. We just didn’t cross paths.”

“I don’t play where I work,” he said softly.

Jack let out a guffaw. “That’s ’cause the one woman on our team is married and an

Amazon to boot.”

“Now, who’s being a son of a bitch?”

“Me? I think Lizzie’s great, but she’s all business. Tough as nails, and I think she could

take me if we were arm wrestling. And if she couldn’t, well, who the hell would want to

mess with Zach?”

Thor shrugged, amused. Lizzie—Elizabeth Green—was not a woman to be taken lightly.

She wasn’t an inch shorter than his own six-three. Her husband, Zach, had been a

professional basketball player, and between them, they were a daunting pair. Lizzie

waged a lot of the company’s battles when they were seeking permits for projects. She

could best almost any man. “Lizzie’s tough. And down to earth. She isn’t going to fly off

the handle, seeing corpses that aren’t really there.”

“Come on. Everyone’s been spooked by something once or twice.”

“Maybe.”

“And you’re a pile of crap yourself, Thor.”

“You think?”

“You’d have your tongue on the pavement if she crooked her little finger.”

“Yeah? Bull.” He spoke coolly, but he knew he was lying. The nutcase was almost

explosively hot. But he hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t fool around where he

worked. Even on a long haul, they put into port somewhere, and that’s where he did his

playing. Complications on a job were something nobody needed.

“I call ’em like I see ’em,” Jack said flatly. “No one’s ever accused me of lying.”

“Hell, I’m accusing you right now,” Thor said.

Jack laughed, noticing that Thor was watching the other table again. “Remember, Thor,

the mighty can fall,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve been hearing that ‘mighty Thor’ shit all my life,” Thor told him, then

waved to the bartender, the owner’s son, ordering another round.

“We all looked, Genevieve,” Victor said. “There was nothing there.”

“I’m telling you, I saw a woman’s body,” Genevieve repeated stubbornly, her jaw set.

“Look, I don’t know if it was some kind of a joke, or if there’s a real murder victim down

there. But I didn’t hallucinate. I saw it.”

Bethany Clark touched Genevieve’s knee. “Hey, honey, all of us see things down there

sometimes. It’s the mind playing tricks. The water playing tricks, causing visual

distortion.”

“Have another beer,” Victor said dryly. “It will make everything better.”

Genevieve groaned, gritting her teeth. She couldn’t say they hadn’t tried. She had kicked

her way to the surface with the speed of lightning. Thankfully, she hadn’t been deep. The

moment the woman had opened her eyes and smiled, she had felt such a sense of sheer

panic that she had rocketed to the surface, which could have been deadly if she had been

down deep. When she’d reached the surface, she had nearly choked on salt water, spitting

out her regulator and waving her arms madly.

Marshall Miro, head of their unit, had been on board, and she knew she’d been babbling

as he’d helped her out. Victor had surfaced right after her, having seen her ascent. Then

Bethany and Alex, not too far distant, had come up, and Bethany had stayed aboard while

the others had gone down, searching for the woman’s body. The Seeker, one of their

fellow ships, had been in the vicinity, as well. Her crew had gone down, too.

And none of them had seen anything.

Maybe she had imagined the eyes opening, the woman reaching out, but she had seen a

body. She just didn’t know what had happened to it.

Unfortunately, she had babbled something about the eyes and the fact that the dead

woman had moved, even tried to speak, and now even Bethany, her best friend, thought

she was crazy.

She glanced around the small resort in the old-town area of Key West where they were

staying. She actually owned a house not even half a mile away that her great-great-

however-many-greats-grandfather had built on the island years before the Civil War.

But this place was a local hangout. Jack kept his beat-up old fishing boat here, and there

was one slip where three of the area cops kept their boats berthed. They liked to come

here just to have coffee, or drinks in the evening.

She’d stayed here on purpose to be able to work this project at the blink of an eye with the others. Their dive boat was right there, where they needed it, along with The Seeker.

There was no spa or twenty-four-hour room service, but what it did have was true old

Conch charm. The main house had been built in the 1800s. Bungalows had been added

right around World War II and were spread out over a sandy beach, and each offered an

outside table and chairs on a little individual patio. There was also the tiki bar and

“munch house,” as they called it, which opened at seven in the morning and stayed open

until midnight or so. The night bartender was the owner’s son, so he kept it open as long

as he was having fun. The menu wasn’t gourmet, but it was fresh and delicious.

Despite the fact the divers following her garbled directions hadn’t found a body,

Genevieve had insisted on reporting what she had seen to the police—by then calm

enough to report the body but not the fact it had seemed to move of its own volition. It

had been late when they had actually returned to shower and change and meet here at the

bar to dine on fresh fish sandwiches, and the resort’s own coleslaw and potato salad.

“Okay, guys, laugh at me all you want. I saw a body,” she said firmly.

Bethany lowered her sandy head. Victor, Alex and Marshall all stared at one another,

trying not to smile.

“Hey, Gen,” Victor teased her. “There’s a lady at the bar who wants to buy you a

drink…look—Whoops, no, sorry, you didn’t act fast enough. She’s disappeared.”

Genevieve glared at him through narrowed eyes. She wanted to wring his neck. Of all

people to be so taunting…They’d gone through school together. He was a year older, but

she’d matured faster, and having a shape in high school had been tantamount to being

cool back then. She’d taken him with her to every social event in their adolescent past.

In college he’d finally filled out and grown a few hairs on his chest. He’d grown into his

features, as well, and now he was tall, dark and good-looking. They’d never ruined a

good friendship by dating, but he could irritate her as thoroughly as if they were a

married couple.

“Victor…” she began.

Grinning, he waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know what I can go do with myself.”

“Hey, kid, it will be all right,” Marshall said, but he, too, was still secretly smiling. At least someone was amused, she thought. Marshall was the owner and founder of Deep

Down Salvage as well as a local. As a kid, he’d been fascinated by the history of Key

West, which was inextricably entwined with tales of wreckers and salvage divers. It was

a mixed history. Sometimes they had saved the lives of the poor souls on a ship that came

to ruin on the dangerous reefs.

Sometimes, however, they waited like vultures—hoping ships carrying rich cargos would

flounder and sink. Such a system had created many a rich man throughout the centuries.

Marshall was at least ten years older than most of their group. He had made his name by

working in the northern waters off Massachusetts, doing heavy-duty, cold-water salvage.

But Key West was his home, the place he loved. He had used his earnings to come back

and open his own company, buy his own boat and equipment, and set up shop. He made a

good income, but he was always pleased to work on any historical effort, and he had a

tremendous respect for the reefs, the water and the past. Deeply tanned and buff, and dead even with her own height, he kept his head shaven, a look that went oddly well with

his almost ebony eyes and dark brows.

Sitting with his feet up, shades on despite the setting sun, he grimaced. “We’ll find out

that there was something down there. You know…flotsam and jetsam of some kind.”

Alex hummed a version of The Twilight Zone theme song. “Yeah, flotsam and jetsam

with a face and hair,” he teased.

She glared at him, hiking a brow. Alex was from Key Largo, a different world from Key

West, since the city of Miami was barely an hour north. He was blond, bronzed and a

child of the sea and sun, a graduate in history and a master diver, but she’d shown him

secrets of the reefs here that only the natives knew.

“Oh, you—” she said, then broke off in aggravation and rose, taking her beer with her to

the little fence that looked out over a deep channel where the resort’s pleasure crafts and

fishing boats were berthed.

“Don’t go away mad!” Alex called.

She spun around, shaking her head and forcing a smile as well. “Just wait, my dear,

devoted friends! Somewhere along the line, you will get yours. I’m not going away mad,

I’m just going away.”

“Hey, don’t be mad at me,” Bethany said.

“I’m not mad,” Genevieve insisted.

She walked on down to the dock, nursing her beer, looking out at the sunset. It was

beautiful and tranquil, but she was roiling inside. Why had she been so panicked? She’d

twice worked rescue situations that had become retrieval situations, and they had found

bodies both times, once after a plane crash in the southern Glades, and once after a

boating accident off Key West.

But the dead hadn’t looked at her then.

Digging a flower bed at her house, she’d dug up bones once—but that hadn’t been as

shocking as it might have been elsewhere, not in Key West, the Island of Bones.

But those bones hadn’t disappeared.

She felt a presence next to her, tensed and turned, certain that one of her friends had

joined her to continue the torture.

“You all right?”

She turned at the soft masculine query to see Jay Gonzalez. He was still in uniform, hat

low over his forehead, sunglasses dark and concealing his eyes.

She smiled. She liked Jay a lot. He was in his late thirties now, and had been young

himself when she had first met him. He’d pulled her and a few friends over when they’d

been in high school, and, admittedly, there had been a few beer cans in the car. He hadn’t brought them down to the station, though. Instead, he’d taken every one of them home.

He was one of the cops who kept his boat here. He didn’t go out on it often anymore.

He’d been out on it when his wife had fallen overboard and died. But he still kept it up.

Maybe he even visited it now and then because he somehow felt closer to his wife when

he was on it.

But he wasn’t there now for the boat, she knew. He was there for her.