Island of Bones (Haunted Florida Book 1) Read online

  Fuck.

  Luis tumbled to the ground with me in his arms, and we landed underneath the overhang by the atrium. Overhead, the spinning watery tornado cut a course over the house, ripping off a few shingles then it was gone.

  “Holy shit…” Luis gasped for air.

  “What was that?” I cried.

  “Water spout,” he said, chest heaving. “The moment I saw those palms kick up and tasted the salt in the air, I knew what was coming.”

  I forced myself to move, to shake off the shock.

  I couldn’t imagine how bad the actual hurricane would be if that had only been a precursory waterspout. What had I gotten myself into? But had the spout come naturally or had McCardle caused it? I couldn’t believe I was even asking myself such a question.

  “Thank you.” I sat up and hugged Luis. No, I didn’t know him more than a hole in the wall, but he didn’t have to save me. He could’ve let me die then fended for himself. But he didn’t. And right now, that made him my only friend on this island.

  You should’ve let her die.

  The words were not of this world, and I was getting tired of these ghosts fucking with me, their hateful messages echoes of an era left behind. They were ethereal and evil and full of spite, and it was no wonder my grandmother left this town. When I looked up at the cloud of gnats again, I saw the final wisp of McCardle glaring down at us, his wife Susannah by his side.

  FIFTEEN

  “I’m sorry. I have to go lie down.” I rushed out of there as quickly as I could and headed to my room. I felt Luis following me and hesitant to come in, so he hovered by the open door.

  “What happened out there?” he asked. “Something’s going on.”

  “No shit something’s going on,” I snapped back then pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can’t explain it.”

  “You were in some kind of a trance. I kept calling you.”

  “I know, I could hear you, but I couldn’t move. I saw him.”

  “Saw who?”

  “McCardle. I know it was him. I’ve never seen him, but I just knew somehow. He caused that water spout.”

  Luis narrowed his eyes a bit. “Ellie, I believe that you saw him. I told you many people do, but that spout…that’s a normal occurrence in these weather conditions. He couldn’t have—”

  “I’m telling you, he caused it!” I snapped again. “You’re the one person I know who believes in strange occurrences, and even you’re telling me you don’t believe in a strange occurrences. Jesus Christ!”

  “Alright, look. I believe you, okay? I’ll believe anything that happens here. Like I told you the other night, I would bring my tour groups here if Syndia allowed it. Also, if it weren’t so…”

  “Cursed?”

  “I guess that would be the word, yes.”

  Bacon appeared behind Luis but didn’t rub against his legs. He merely looked up as if waiting for an invitation. “Is this Bill Drudge reincarnated?” Luis asked with a laugh.

  “I’ve no clue. Psst, come here, Bacon…” I whistled and snapped my fingers to get him to come in, but he refused. When I got up to pet him, Bacon walked a little further away. When I was nearly close enough to scratch his head, he moved a little further away again.

  “I think he wants me to follow him,” I said, remembering his hiding spot and my grandmother’s photos. “He’s led me to objects before.”

  “Fascinating.” Luis crossed his legs and watched as Bacon led me back down the hallway, stopping midpoint to make sure I was still behind him then leading me into the other half of the property. The McCardle-Duarte side of the property on which I’d never been.

  “I can’t go that way,” I told the cat.

  “You have to.” Luis raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, then you’re going to have to distract Syndia. Take her to Home Depot or something. Tell her you’re out of screws. Anything.”

  “I’m on it. I’ll text you when we’re gone.” Luis pulled out his keys from his pocket and spotted Syndia coming out of the front office. “Ms. Duarte?” He blocked my line of view, giving me a moment to hide inside an alcove. “Could you come with me to get some materials while Ellie is lying down?” He disappeared into the main house. “She’s still not feeling well, and I could use the extra hands…”

  Down the corridor, Bacon meowed impatiently.

  “I’m coming,” I whispered. Nervously, I glanced everywhere and practiced an excuse in my head in the event that Syndia came back in and found me trespassing in her home. “I was just looking for Nottie,” I muttered out a fake reason. “Hoping she could give me some aspirin.”

  Yeah, right.

  I prayed to the universe that nobody would catch me in here. The thought that Syndia might have video cameras throughout the house suddenly occurred to me, but then I remembered that Syndia couldn’t even afford a new coat of paint, much less high tech.

  I followed Bacon to the last room on the left, entered the house, and was not too surprised to find it utterly cluttered. Newspapers, magazines, and boxes covered any view of the walls. More boxes filled with old electronics, wires, and busted light bulbs. Cassette tapes and old headphones, but I couldn’t stop to take stock of any of these things. I had to follow the cat.

  “Where are you taking me?” I stepped up to a flight of stairs and got a buzz in my pocket. The text from Luis. I glanced at it to make sure I was clear to go upstairs.

  She didn’t want to go but I said it was imperative. So we’re out. Hurry.

  Got it, I replied then headed up the stairs.

  Bacon meowed again then turned the corner while I thought about all the ways my life had changed in just the four days I’d been here. Here I was, following a cat through a house not my own, out of sheer certainty that he was leading me to something important.

  Once upstairs, I caught sight of a gray dusty tail entering a room on the right. Following the tail, I entered what appeared to be a guest bedroom overtaken by more stuff. Boxes and old furniture sat over rust-colored shag carpet. This had to be a breeding ground for fleas. Bacon bumped his side against an old cardboard box.

  “You want me to open that?”

  Bacon meowed in response.

  Quickly, I pulled the lid of the box and found old photos tossed inside. No rhyme or reason. Just a box of random photos, many black-and-white but most of them faded 1970s specials. “I can’t take that, Bacon. And going through it would take forever.” Still, I kneeled and rifled through the box, jumping at every sound I heard. “Damn it, my nerves.”

  There were family photos of what I assumed were the McCardles’ children and grandchildren in their younger days living in Key West. One after the other. The further I dug, the older the photos got. I had no idea what this cat wanted me to find, and now that I thought about it, I felt even more stupid for believing such a thing.

  “You just want attention, don’t you?” With my nerves in my throat at the thought that someone could come in any minute, I thought about abandoning this lovely trespassing adventure and returning to my room.

  But then I pulled out one particular black-and-white photo—the mosaic table inside Room 3, only it wasn’t. It just looked like it but on a grander scale. On the wall was a large, mural-type mosaic covering at least a quarter of the little room. It was hard to tell what the image was, since the photo was mostly gray and had faded even more since it had been taken, but it seemed to be a map of the Lower Keys and Cuba.

  I heard a shuffling outside the window. I parted the sticky old blinds and saw Nottie quietly sweeping the grounds. I let out a breath of relief. Did she not know that this place was about to get messy as hell? Sweeping would not help La Concha look any better, and after the storm, it would be even worse. She had to be doing something to get her mind off other things.

  Cold air filtered into the room. There was no A/C on. This made the hair on my arms stand straight up. I knew it wasn’t coming from anywhere in particular. “Who’s t
here?” I’d almost completely accepted that the ghosts ruled this resort, and I was no one to question their existence.

  I heard a car door slam.

  Shit. I had to get out of here.

  I hadn’t found anything spectacular but these photos were interesting. Plucking out as many of the series I could find, I closed the box and hugged them close. A few days ago, I wouldn’t have worried about Syndia but now I hated to think of what she’d do if she found me in here.

  Hurrying back the way I came, I paused downstairs just outside the door, sweat pouring down the sides of my face. Bacon ran out before me while I hung back in that smoky, nasty room waiting for the right moment to leave. I listened. When I saw Syndia enter the yard, heard Luis’s voice, and noticed that I’d missed a text (on our way back) my heart shot into my throat.

  Shit, shit, shit…

  How could I escape this room without Syndia seeing me?

  Not only that, but Nottie was still near the door sweeping the sidewalk, talking to herself. In her own little world. From the way she appeared to be lost in thought, you’d have never known that hurricane winds would be starting soon. I could dart out and make a run for it, but that might cause alarm. I could also quietly wander out and pretend like this was all normal. I opted for the latter.

  But then, I felt the chill return. Someone was following me—someone in the spirit world. The chill turned into shadows in the corner of my eye, and I knew then that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t want to see them, though. Didn’t want to face them again. Enough ghosts for one day.

  Bacon rubbed up against Nottie’s legs and meowed loudly.

  “What you want, cat? I fed you three times. Fine, let’s go eat again.” She rested the broom against the wall, and I sank back into the shadows until she’d passed. Nottie was gone for the moment, but now I had to get past Syndia out in the yard looking for more items to bring inside.

  As I nonchalantly scuttled down the corridor, Luis caught sight of me and gave me a questioning look, like why was I still on the wrong side of the property. He began to talk to Syndia again loudly, so as to cover up any noise I might make behind her, and I knew that was my cue to get my butt moving.

  “What do you have on that side of the yard over there?” he asked her, shooing me away behind her back.

  “You said you wouldn’t ask questions,” Syndia replied flatly.

  “I was talking about your famous legend. And your ghosts. This is about your yard.”

  She sighed, annoyed at Luis’s presence. “A few tires. The old shed we don’t use anymore. Just another thing to fix.” She scoffed. “Let’s get these last boards up, so I can rest and you can leave.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Luis said. “I just need to use the restroom. Would you excuse me a moment?”

  I shuffled all the way into Room 3 and closed the door knowing that Luis would be right behind me any moment. He cracked the door open and stepped inside. “Where were you? Didn’t you get my text?”

  “I didn’t notice. I was busy looking at photos.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of this.” I handed him the old black-and-whites and stood there, hand on chin, wondering where this mosaic would be today. “Have you seen it here before?”

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “Is it hard to take down a mosaic, you think?” I asked.

  “You mean by tearing down little piece of tile by little piece of tile? I would think so, yes. Probably easier just to cover it up. Why?”

  I was staring at the wall opposite the bed. It was old and stained and cracked, but that was a beautiful thing. It’d be easier to break apart. “Have any screws in your pocket?” I asked. Glancing at the mosaic table, I went up to it and crouched to the ground, looking up at the underside. A handwritten inscription was there in faded ink: For my love…1949.

  My grandfather. Another handmade gift to my grandmother.

  He reached into his pocket and produced a long wall screw for securing boards. “Am I a handy man, or what?” He laughed. “I have to get back outside before she comes looking for me. We got to Home Depot and when she saw the line for wood, she made me turn around. Didn’t want to leave you alone, I guess.”

  “Yeah, untrustworthy me. It’s okay. It gave me enough time.” I held up the photo and compared it to the wall. Then, I walked up to the crack in the left third and used the screw to chip away the plaster.

  “What are you…oh…you think that mosaic is still under there?”

  I didn’t just know it. I could see it in my mind. It was colorful and matched the small table etched with my grandfather’s initials. In fact, I’d seen it several times as a child. It hadn’t been just a dream. It had existed for real. And it was behind this wall.

  SIXTEEN

  Repetitively, I scratched at the wall with the screw.

  It may not have been the best of tools, but it was enough to loosen the chipped sections of the exposed crack. “I bet you anything…”

  Bet that this mosaic was underneath this plaster. If my grandfather had made this table, then he definitely made the wall mosaic, too, and where else would it be but in this room? The room Bacon preferred. The room I’d envisioned myself in as Nana. This had to have been their room—my grandparents’. The McCardles and Duartes had tried to cover over it, remove all traces of the family who’d once inhabited here.

  My family.

  “They used plaster instead of drywall,” Luis said, grabbing another screw and helping me chip away. “Why wouldn’t they just cover it up in one piece? So much easier.”

  “Exactly. One piece comes off too easily,” I said. My fingertips were beginning to get sore from the awkward scratching of wall with a rusty screw. “If they smeared over the mosaic with plaster, it’s because they didn’t want anyone to ever see it again. They wanted to cover it nice and good.”

  This house dripped with oddities. Between the cold drafts, the visions, the mysterious holes in walls, disappearing keys, and a resident cat who knew the place like a former owner would, I quickly learned not to be shocked by anything anymore. Still, I had to find that key. If Syndia stole it back, it had to be important.

  Our chipping at the wall created two little piles of white dust on the floor that danced in the vortices of the rogue wind entering the room. We scraped away in silence for ten minutes without revealing anything. Finally, it occurred to me what was wrong—we were working on the wrong wall.

  “Stop,” I said, catching my breath. “See the way the ceiling boards go vertically?” I pointed out. Taking the photo, I showed Luis the direction of the ceiling boards in the image. “If that’s the same ceiling as in the pic, then the boards end at the wall this way, butting up against the mosaic. So, it’s not behind this wall. It’s behind this one.” I pointed to the wall behind the bed. “Help me move this.”

  “Damn. Good catch,” Luis laughed.

  Together, we heaved the wooden bed frame aside and ran our hands along the wall. Luis knocked on it and tried stabbing another screw into the plaster, but it needed an exposed section like the crack we’d started with. “Ellie, we’re never going to chip this off with a screw. Let me go find a hammer or a pick-axe or something.”

  “I’ll go with you. There’s a shed in the backyard. Maybe there’s tools in there.”

  “Or dead bodies.”

  “Not funny.”

  We went outdoors in search of the toolshed, only to hear Syndia berating Nottie for not being spry enough to help her carry planks of wood. “After this storm passes, we have to reconsider your employment. Now that my mother is no longer your concern.”

  “Ms. Duarte, I have nowhere else to go. I can earn my keep in other ways. Cleaning the house or maintaining the garden maybe?”

  “I have nothing to pay you. Besides, you’re no spring chicken anymore. You’re pretty much useless to me now.” Syndia was so damn careless when she talked to Nottie. What made her think she could just insult a woman li
ke that? A woman older than she was?

  Luis and I tried to circumvent Syndia, but she spotted us. Hands on hips, she gestured with her chin. “Only one more window to go. It’s the large one in the atrium. Should I just cover it in tape?”

  “No, I’ll find something,” Luis told Syndia. “Tape won’t help.”

  “Well, find it quick, because this storm is starting.” She scoffed before tying her hair into a tight bun that only accentuated the leathery wrinkles on her face. Behind her, Nottie watched us carefully, and I couldn’t help but feel like she was asking for our help dealing with this crazed woman.

  “Why tape?” I asked, still watching Nottie. Dark shapes flirted behind her, spoke to her, but she couldn’t hear them. I blinked and focused on where I was stepping instead. Bacon ran in my way then trounced into the bushes.

  “When there’s no wood, covering a window in masking tape is the last option. Doesn’t keep it from blowing in, but the tape holds the glass together so the pieces don’t go flying everywhere.”

  I registered the wary look on Syndia’s face as her gaze followed us through the garden, now that we were wandering toward her family’s side of the yard. “There’s no wood left anywhere if that’s what you’re looking for,” she warned us then headed inside the house.

  “What are we doing again?” I felt more lightheaded and disoriented than ever, the deeper we ventured into the wildest, untouched section of the property. Here, weeds grew as tall as my knees and even the moths wondered when was the last time they’d seen humans cross through.

  “Looking for something we can use to chip away that wall,” Luis said. “What’s the deal with the mosaic anyway?”

  “I think my grandfather made it. He made the mosaic table in that room too. There’s an inscription on the underside to my grandmother.”

  “But I thought you were concerned about your missing key,” he said.