The Vision (33 page)

there’s something we’d like you to try.”

“Oh?”

“Hypnosis,” Adam said, rising.

Genevieve nearly dropped the plates she was carrying, staring from one of them to the

other.

“Past-life regression, or something like that,” Bethany said.

Adam hesitated. “I don’t know exactly what we’ll discover. But I can question you while

you’re under, and maybe…. Don’t be worried. We choose a safety word before you go

under. That word will bring you back to the present, wide-awake, if you find yourself

under duress.”

Her hands were shaking and she didn’t know why. Bethany stood and took the plates she

was holding from her. “No reason to break the china,” she said cheerfully.

“I won’t do this unless you’re entirely willing,” Adam said.

“I…I am willing. If it can help. I’m willing to do just about anything,” she said. She lifted her hands. “What do I need to do?”

“Just relax, and trust me. Nothing more,” Adam said.

“That’s what all the guys say,” Bethany teased.

They all smiled. Then Genevieve looked seriously at Adam.

“I do trust you,” she said.

“Then we’ll begin.”

Terrified he was going to kill himself and Brent and whoever else might be on the road,

Thor forced himself to stay calm and drove onto the shoulder. They were almost at the

lab, but he needed a break.

Throwing the car into Park, he looked in the back seat again.

It was empty.

He stared at Brent.

“There was just someone in the back seat,” he said.

“Yes,” Brent agreed.

“He’s gone now.”

“He probably thought you were about to have a heart attack.”

“I nearly drove off the damned road.”

“Yes, I noticed that.” Brent smiled.

“I don’t fucking believe in ghosts! What the hell is this bull you all are pulling on

everyone? Smoke and mirrors. How the hell are you doing it?”

Brent didn’t flinch. He just stared at him. “You tell me,” he said, calm, quiet. “You’re a

logical man. You figure it out. Maybe there are things in this world that you can’t

explain. Maybe there really was a ghost in your back seat.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Thor repeated stonily.

“Okay. Don’t believe in them. But shouldn’t I drive?” Brent asked.

“We have about four blocks to go,” Thor said. “I can drive.”

He pulled back out onto the road. He didn’t want to look into the rearview mirror, but he

couldn’t help himself.

The kid was back, staring at him.

“You’re not there,” he snapped.

And then he drove on. Cautiously.

A strange wind was blowing. She was accustomed to the sea, loved the sea, and yet today

something in the air was disturbing…frightening.

Or was fear creating the disturbance within her own spirit?

No one believed her, not even her own father. But then again, he was such a liar. Yet, she

dared not decry him too passionately, lest the truth be known. And the truth was far

worse….

She stared toward the horizon, certain help would come.

Then she turned and looked nervously at the ship’s guns. There seemed to be so many.

She was a proud ship, but the ocean was vast, and any ship, no matter how proud, was but

a speck on the sea.

She turned around, aware of the wind, and also aware of something else.

Silence.

A strange and eerie silence. The ship shouldn’t be quiet.

A sensation of evil crept along her spine. She looked slowly around her. There should

have been men in the rigging. The wind was changing and the men should have been

shouting to one another, hurrying to trim the sails.

Not a single sailor was topside.

But he was.

Staring at her. With that smile she hated so much.

“What’s going on? Where is everyone?” she demanded.

“Gone,” he said simply, and smiled more broadly.

The chill along her spine became glacial.

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“They wanted to swim,” he said pleasantly, approaching her. Slowly. Still keeping his

distance. He was enjoying himself.

She watched him very carefully, then looked to the horizon again.

Maybe she was hoping, maybe it was real, but she thought she saw another ship on the

horizon. But the weather was changing so quickly. Calm seas began to roil. A mist

seemed to have suddenly sprung up over the water, a sure sign of changing temperatures.

She was worrying about a storm, she realized, while he…

She was worrying about a storm rather than face the truth.

“You have…you have taken over the ship? But…the men are loyal to…”

“Seamen, dear girl, are most often loyal to the highest bidder,” he commented. “You

forget the port from which we have just come. And that new men had to be hired on to

replace those who took ill so seriously—and so suddenly. You forget so much—my

dear.”

“I forget nothing! You, sir, lived in the recesses of your mind and imagined truth where

there was none.”

“You betrayed me.”

“Never.”

“You betrayed us.”

“There was no ‘us’ for me to betray.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. History will tell the tale. And it will be

the truth. The pirate destroyed all.”

Her eyes widened.

It was then that she saw what he was about. Saw the two men emerge from behind a pile

of rigging.

One was huge, with burly arms. She’d seen him before, when the first mate had been

railing at him for some dereliction of duty.

He was winding a length of thick rope.

The second man dragged a canvas bag of ballast with him.

“You should have loved me,” he said softly.

She turned, desperate to crawl over the railing and cast herself into the sea while some

margin of hope remained.

Too late.

She felt their hands, dragging her back.

She screamed. Screamed as if the sound could break the heavens, penetrate earth and sky,

somehow bring salvation. But they were on her. Huge and heavily muscled. She had not a

prayer. She knew that when the first blow struck her cheek and she went reeling. She

fought the loss of consciousness, knowing her fate, disbelieving, and yet still…

Knowing.

There was a ship on the horizon. A distance away, still, but closing. Oh God, oh God,

dear Father in Heaven, forgive me…

The rope was tied securely around both her ankles and the bag of ballast. Still, she bit, scratched, screamed, cursed….

She was lifted.

As she hit the water, she heard the first boom of cannon fire.

17

S heridan’s real facilities were in the northern part of the state. Still, he had managed to do a good job of making it look as if he had kept a research lab in town for at least a

decade.

A grad student sat sentinel in the antechamber; specialists the professor had called here

were busy at various locales throughout the complex of rooms—too many, Thor thought,

considering the few artifacts they had turned up thus far.

Sheridan led Thor and Brent into his office, ignoring his people as if they were no more

than honeybees buzzing around, expected to produce.

“The letter was written by Anne, and signed with a flourish. She had lovely penmanship,”

Sheridan told them, warming to his subject. His desk was laden with papers and books.

Thor wasn’t quite sure how the man could find anything.

Sheridan looked up at them triumphantly. “There was far more going on than one might

have expected,” he announced.

“Like what?” Thor asked.

“I’ll read you my translation. The ink was poor in a few spots, but…imagine, almost

perfectly preserved after all these years.”

“Professor, if you would?” Thor said, trying to hide his impatience.

He didn’t need Sheridan going all intellectually ADD on him at the moment. He’d been

trying to keep it together since he’d slammed his way out of the car.

Who would have expected this dive would be the one on which he found the woman he

loved.

And lost his mind.

If he’d seen a ghost, he should be considering a long vacation. If he hadn’t seen a ghost,

something criminal was going on with Adam Harrison and his gang.

He stopped thinking and started listening when Sheridan began to read.

Today I awoke afraid, as I had not been before. I was aghast at the lies being told, yet did not dare to utter the truth.

But I know he will come.

And for all that is reputation and all that is legend about the man, I know that one thing is true: his love for me. He will see the battle is swift and sure. He will see that the good do not die. He will be merciful. For me.

But while I wait, I am afraid, so I will write my prayers.

Sheridan stopped speaking and looked up at them as if he had just translated the Dead

Sea Scrolls.

“That’s it?” Thor asked.

“Yes, that’s it!” Sheridan exploded. “Can’t you see? There was a conspiracy going on

aboard the Marie Josephine. Of course, I don’t know why Anne was afraid, who she

feared, or who she thought would come to her rescue, but…we will know more. I’ll

continue translating what I have, and you’ll bring me more.”

“Professor,” Thor reminded him, “another body has been discovered.”

“Yes, yes, sad.”

“There’s a killer loose in the Keys,” Brent commented.

Sheridan stared at him, frowning. “And you’re professional salvage divers. What’s going

on is sad, but I don’t see why it has to delay your work.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to have to, Professor,” Thor said. “The police have asked us to keep

the area clear until they’ve had time to look for evidence.”

“But you can help them—while you look for the Marie Josephine,” Sheridan said.

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I have more information,” Thor told him, cutting the

conversation short.

Sheridan rose. “We’re working on grant money, you know. This lab…it costs a fortune to

run. We’ve got to get back to work. We’re going to need much more to justify our

expenses.”

“I’ll keep you posted, I promise,” Thor told him.

As they left the offices, Thor tossed the keys to Brent, who caught them, looking

surprised. “Just drive,” Thor said wearily.

To Victor’s amazement, they didn’t arrest him. Even after they had said they were going

to do so.

Suarez was the one who let him go, after having shut him in the interrogation room alone

for at least an hour.

He released him simply, opening the door, popping in his head. “You can go.”

“What?” Victor said sharply.

“Leave. You can go.”

“I thought you were pressing charges against me?”

Suarez shrugged. “Change of heart. I just work here.”

Victor rose, telling himself that they didn’t have a damn thing on him, and they couldn’t

get the owner of Key Klothing to press charges.

As he walked past Suarez, he felt his every muscle tightening, and he couldn’t stop

himself from saying, “I may be suing. False arrest!”

“You were never arrested.”

“Police brutality, then.”

“We never touched you.”

“Mental cruelty.”

“Hey, buddy, we’re not getting divorced or anything here,” Suarez protested.

“I promise you, I’ll have my eye on you,” Victor threatened.

“Funny. I was about to say the same thing.”

Victor lifted his chin. He decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat before the detective

found another reason to detain him.

Audrey awoke. Her mind was in a pea-soup haze. She was tied up, nearly smothering,

and in pain, but she couldn’t figure out where she was, or how she had gotten there.

Then it all began to come back to her.

She was terrified, trapped in tight quarters, a gag in her mouth, the lingering thud of the

drug in her head, and the bindings chafing at her wrists and ankles.

As the fog cleared, she became more aware of her position.

She could barely breathe, down here in the hold; she needed to keep still, to save her

oxygen.

Despite that, she cried. Wet tears that slid down the grime on her cheeks.

She remembered how it had happened, step by step.

And realized she was going to die.

So far…just the torture. Inflicted because her attacker had an ego that seemed to know no

bounds.

How much more torture?

Could she do anything…play into it?

She wondered if air could get in? She realized all the things she didn’t know about the

sea, about boats.

She was going to die. When the game of torturing her grew old.

She could only put it off….

She resolved to herself that she would put it off. She would play along, say anything—

good God, do anything—if it could keep her alive for one more minute.

Someone would finally figure it out, surely.

She wasn’t the one he had really wanted, she knew. She was just a poor substitute.

Substitutes were so expendable….

No!

She had to fight, had to stay alive, say anything, do anything….

Oh, God.

Genevieve. Eventually she, too, would be here.

And she, too, would die.

Despite the circumstances, Genevieve appeared to be in the best of spirits as she opened

the door to see Thor and Brent standing on her porch.

“Victor is out,” she said first, without preamble.

“Oh?” Thor asked cautiously.

“They have nothing on him, of course,” she said indignantly.

He cleared his throat. “He was the last one seen with her.”

“But ask Bethany—he couldn’t have been with her long because he got back to his

cottage too quickly,” Genevieve said with a wave of her hand. “I’m onto something,