Island of Bones (Haunted Florida Book 1) Page 14

  All around me…were things.

  Books, boxes, papers bound with rubber bands, drawings of maps, more photos of my grandmother in the nude, plus a big leather book. Using my toe to reach it, I dragged it toward me and opened it. Her handwriting filled the moldy pages. Drawings of herbs, descriptions of their medicinal properties, the garden she was planning to create, a moon sculpture she wanted right in the middle. Next to it, a postscript explaining how Bill had made it for her from leftover coquina in the neighbor’s junk pile, how marvelous the universe was that when she asked for something, it gave it to her.

  Pages and pages filled with gratitude about her life, her wonderful husband, the beautiful little girl they’d had in later pages. It’d all been here for seventy years. A secret storage room my grandfather had built to keep prying and judgmental eyes away from his family. He’d thought of it all—the location of a Spanish galleon, how to keep his wife happy, how to protect her.

  It was a shame he couldn’t protect himself.

  For the next several hours, as the storm destroyed the world outside, I sat cross-legged in this private space, surrounded by the energies of the people I loved. Thank you, Bacon. Thank you, roof ripping off, or I’d never have dug deeper.

  My grandmother’s book was called a “book of shadows,” and it contained everything she knew at the time—about herbs, yes, but also about crystals, their uses, and their properties. Apparently, she put out rose quartz, carnelian, and red jasper every time she wanted to make love with my grandfather and she gave him black obsidian to carry in his pocket each time he went out to sea.

  In the last pages, I felt her anger at how some of these things hadn’t worked or he’d still be here with her today. She questioned her abilities and started doubting what she had always thought to be true. And then she said something that made me stop—would her daughter have the same abilities? Would she even want to teach them to her for fear of the same persecution? She wasn’t sure. If Mariel showed an interest in the occult, she’d warn her of the dark sides. If she was inclined to learn the ways, then she’d assist her, but she wouldn’t insist upon it. She’d let her be who she was, witch-inclined or not. Same for any grandchildren she’d have in the future.

  Witch-inclined.

  My grandmother really had considered herself a witch?

  What did that make me?

  With all my hallucinations and abilities to perceive energy around me, did it run in me as well? “Nana, am I one, too?” I asked aloud. If that was the case, what was I doing here inside a wall space hiding from a storm? I felt so filled with pride, I wanted to walk outside and harness the gales, toss them back to sea, but I wasn’t a sorceress, for fuck’s sake. A witch was something else.

  It meant making things happen, knowing what others didn’t know. It was a natural inclination that everyone had, but only a few bothered to cultivate it. Maybe I had that inclination stronger than others.

  If Syndia thought I wasn’t here to take what was hers, lurking around every corner with her skull-bashing hammer, she was sorely mistaken. Guess what, I was here to take it. I would find that treasure. Like Mayai had said, it was time and I would fight for what had been taken.

  And the moment this storm was over, that was exactly what I intended to do.

  TWENTY

  Mara was massive. And relentless.

  Every time I thought a break in the action might come, she’d pick up again. Worse, the passageway had begun to flood, thanks to the roof flying off out in the room, so my ass sat in two inches of water. Wet, but safer here than there.

  I moved deeper into the tunnel, away from the rising water, and I brought all my family’s stuff with me. How would I get all these things out safely? If the hurricane didn’t destroy them, Syndia would. Lying on a crossbeam inches off the ground, I put Nana’s book of shadows, the photos, and my grandfather’s papers on top of my stomach to keep them dry. Then, I listened to the winds, as I clutched the maps tight.

  The passageway became a cocoon of whirling psychic energy.

  Not only was I stuck here during a strong storm, but these items held long-lost vibrations that spread through me even just touching them. Soon, the rhythm of the winds had rocked me into another trance, and two days without my meds, I’d inevitably see the spirits again.

  This time, it was I who traveled to where they were. I was transported to the ocean, a place I’d never been but could see with intense detail as though I’d grown up with it my whole life. The calm waters glistened under the evening sun, and the salt stung my burned cheeks and stubbled face. My boat, Mariel’s Luck, bobbed up and down on this gorgeous twilight, as the orange ball of fire began sinking to the west. There was still plenty of light left, and I didn’t want to go home without my prize. I wasn’t me in this dream but someone else—I was Bill Drudge, and this was the last day of my life.

  Nuestra Señora del Pilar was the lost Spanish galleon I’d been looking for the last seven years. It’d been part of a fleet of ten others traveling from Havana to Spain, bringing back untold riches, when they were blown off course by a deadly hurricane. The treasure was down there. I had tracked it over years of research.

  N 23º 54’ 27”, W 83º 37’ 54”

  Those were the coordinates to my destiny. Leanne hadn’t asked me not to go, but I could feel her trepidation. She’d slipped me the larger piece of obsidian. Earlier that evening, she’d talked in her sleep, begged me not to leave. But today was the day, I’d told her. I could feel it. Well, that much was true, only the day for what, exactly? A good day to die?

  We located the ship and began the dive around noon. After hours of diving, we discovered layers of spilled gold underneath the sand and knew we’d hit the mother lode, but when we surfaced, another ship had met up with ours and our lookout, Martin, was dead on the stern.

  The Havana Ferry—McCardle’s vessel—empty of passengers.

  What the hell was it doing here?

  When I climbed up into Mariel’s Luck, there he was waiting for me. The smug look on his face I’d remember for years to come. Even in death, you remember faces, smells, notes to memorable pieces of music. I told him there weren’t no way in hell I’d hand the gold over to him after my years of diligent research, but then he threatened my wife. Said he knew where we lived, laughed, then looked at his co-captain. “She’ll have no problem opening them pretty legs to me,” he’d said. He’d seen her do it many times before through the bedroom window.

  Didn’t I know that was one of the reasons Susannah hated her so much? It was my fault, he told me. Mine and Leanne’s, for being so obnoxiously in love. It made him horny and his wife resentful because of how often we did it. I could thank Leanne for what was about to happen, he’d told me, because his wife couldn’t wait to get rid of us.

  I seethed with rage.

  I wanted to kill him, but I knew this was the end of the line. After trying to reach for his long knife, my fishing spear and pistol nowhere to be seen—tossed overboard, most likely—there was no way I could win this. I handed him the one bag we’d managed to bring up from the depths. “Promise me you won’t hurt her,” I said.

  “Promise,” he said then he twisted my body around and slit my throat.

  Everything after that happened quickly. I’d moved into another dimension and watched it all unfold underneath me, as though from a higher plane. I was dead. I knew I was, but no way would I be moving on. I had to see what these bastards did with my gold and my woman. I had to make sure that she stayed safe.

  McCardle’s co-captain took my body back to the island in a motorboat while my neighbor piloted the ferry back to port. The motorboat arrived right at our home off the inlet where only Susannah witnessed my body and helped the sailor place it inside an empty shed. All the while, I could smell Leanne’s cooking filtering through the kitchen screen—shrimp in garlic sauce—hear my baby’s laughter, my wife’s humming, while I could do nothing to reach them.

  No wor
se agony than that.

  McCardle declared the bag of gold with officials, claimed someone had left it behind, then went back a week later to my coordinates to dig up the rest of the Pilar’s treasures. He’d used photos taken of my map, photos he’d sent his wife to go in and capture at my own home while my wife had been grocery shopping.

  The man had everything he needed to take all that was mine. It’d been my own fault for making my visions into art.

  Days later, my flesh was dismembered on the dock and fed to the fish, while my bones were placed in a pile next to that machine McCardle’s son-in-law had invested in. I was ground up, just yards away from my clueless wife and child. Ground up and mixed in with shells and turned into a porous cement to be used for a garden wall. The circular garden wall that would serve as a center hub for the McCardles when they purchased my home. Just a few months later, their property had doubled in size.

  The bitch had planned it for a while.

  But Ellie, I was only the first victim of many.

  Faux coquina had worked so well to get rid of evidence that Robert and his son-in-law went into the “disposing-of” business with mobsters returning from Havana on the ferry. For a small fee of several hundred dollars, they’d take the bodies off the criminals’ hands, run the motorboat back to La Concha and make Spam out of the dead. Some of their clients were pretty big—Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.

  They made enough cash, between the rest of the galleon’s gold and the blood money off these mobsters, to buy my woman out of our home. They expanded and made their own Camelot, but it wasn’t meant to be, Ellie. It wasn’t meant to be, because your grandmother employed her unique gifts that day and swore as she left, swore that prosperity and happiness of this family would never thrive.

  I heard her the moment she uttered the words.

  I helped her carry that intent to the Universe, Ellie, and whatever my woman spoke in those grief-stricken moments came true. That was why I loved her—she was fierce, brave, true to herself. And to be fair, McCardle stuck to his word.

  He never did hurt Leanne.

  The garden circle is lined with the bones of countless victims. And if you’re not careful, you’ll end up there too. Wake up. Wake up and forget this foolishness. You have your answers. I have my wife back. You need nothing else.

  Water droplets fell on my face from a rafter above, as his voice dropped away into a dreamlike abyss. I sat up and gasped, sucking in lungs full of air, as the passageway filled with more pulsating wind.

  I’d dreamed about my grandfather, finder of the Spanish galleon, Nuestra Señora del Pilar. His voice had been clear in my soul. When he’d felt the sun on his cheeks, I’d felt its heat. When he’d experienced elation at pulling up a bag full of gold doubloons, I’d felt the same. And when his heart had stopped upon seeing what awaited him on the decks of his ship, I’d felt it too.

  “But is there hidden treasure, Grandpa?” I asked.

  I needed him to tell me everything. “Is there?”

  Yes.

  I gasped. “Where? Please tell me where they put it.”

  The earth will tell.

  “What does that mean?”

  Our connection had gone. Of course, it had. I would have to return to the sleeplike state to hear him again. I’d have to hold his maps close to me again. I’d have to recreate the same atmospheric conditions again.

  He’d given me the answers I’d wanted. He’d given them to me as a full-blown episode of my brain disorder. I’d never see OCD the same way again. What an amazing gift, this channeling of otherworldly energy. He’d done it so I would move on. So I could forget this place and not spend another second here. But what he didn’t understand was that I wouldn’t go yet.

  I wasn’t finished, and yes, Grandpa, I was damned stubborn—ask my mom.

  If I’d stepped into a house of horrors, and Syndia was the current head of family business, I had things to finish. For Grandpa. For Nana. For Mom, too. Open the shed. Expose the revulsions that had happened here. Give coquina samples to police for DNA testing. I may have come to spread ashes, but that was almost a week ago.

  Now that I knew the truth, I had a new mission—revenge.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I could alert police and have them begin an investigation into my grandparents’ case. That would’ve been the sensible thing. Just walk out of here unscathed and present solid evidence. Problem was, all my evidence had come in the form of gut feelings, hallucinations, and dreams. They would lock me up in a mental institution before I’d ever see my grandfather’s gold.

  My other choice was to stay and fight. Bust apart the whole damn property like I’d done to this passageway. Clearly, Syndia hadn’t wanted to go that far. She’d chosen to preserve the buildings as much as possible. That was understandable, since they were her livelihood, but what did I care?

  When the wind finally seemed to slow down a bit, I ventured further down the passageway. Bacon had escaped through somewhere, I just had to find that exit. If the eye of the storm were going over us, then I should’ve been able to come out for air. But when I reached the end of the passage, I hit another wall.

  “Where did you go, kitty?” I whispered.

  As I’d left the area where the ripped roof had been, there was less light. I ran my hands along the walls and kept my ears open for any hints of where I was. Somewhere in the distance, a man was talking—a commercial, announcer’s voice. A radio. Someone was listening to a battery-powered radio, and the weather man was explaining how the top recorded winds had been 150 mph at the eye wall, a Category 2 storm, and how the other half wasn’t supposed to be as bad as the first. Only a few more hours to go, then they could assess the damage.

  “Well, so far we’re doing pretty good here,” Syndia muttered. Her voice seemed to be coming from the dining room, and I guessed that this wall ended somewhere in the living room.

  I jumped when suddenly, a section of the wall near the floor opened and Bacon popped through with a meow. A cat door. He’d stepped through an actual cat door I hadn’t seen before with a plastic flap and everything. So this was how he navigated the walls. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to come out that cat door, especially not with Syndia standing there.

  I decided to lie on my stomach to try and look through the cat door. This way, I could at least see what Syndia was up to and have an advantage over her.

  “I think we’re going to have some roof damage,” she said, “but I can have that fixed as soon as I find the rest of the gold.”

  Who was she talking to? Nottie, I imagined.

  Lifting the cat door ever so slightly, I peeped out and saw a lot of dust on the wooden floor, an area carpet and the side of the fireplace. Apparently, the cat door was in the corner of the living room. From here, I could also see all the plants the women had brought inside, a few legs of chairs, and Syndia’s flip-flops stepping back and forth. She still held the hammer in her hand, letting it hang by her knee as she paced the floor.

  “But I can’t let you in on it, Nottie. I’m sorry but I can’t,” Syndia said. “I know some people would say I should share it with you. I mean, you are the one person who’s stayed loyal to us when even my own sisters left me to fend for myself, but I can’t. First of all, you’re almost seventy. What would you do with that money? Second, how do I know you’re not going to leave me in the dust and take off with the whole thing when I’m not looking, huh? How do I know you’re not going to kill me?”

  Syndia actually cackled, the first time I’d heard her really laugh, but what was more disturbing was that I couldn’t hear Nottie’s reply.

  “I can’t let that girl out either,” Syndia added. “I knew she was after it the moment she stepped into this house. She only wants the truth. Pfft.” She scoffed. “Yeah, okay.” Dirty feet walked back and forth, stopping every so often so Syndia could presumably peek out through the boarded-up window’s edges. “Then she brought that tour guide. That man had been
here once before, if you remember. I should’ve taken him out when I had the chance. He’s the worst out of all of them. You told him too much, and I nearly fired you there.”

  Taken him out?

  The dead bodies in the shed came to mind, the ones from my dream with Luis. Was “taking them out” a regular thing for Syndia?

  “I hated the way he knew so much. Why would you tell him about the ghosts and the machines?” Syndia asked. “Not smart, Nottie. But you never were the brightest crayon in the box.”

  Bacon meowed at me and purred. I pet his head and made no qualms when his wet saliva cheek rubbed across my hand, as much as it drove me crazy. The radio turned down slightly, and I had the feeling Syndia was listening.

  “Shh,” I told the cat and held my breath.

  “The good thing about having strangers in the house, though,” Syndia added, “is that each one brings a different theory to the table. It’s good to hear their view of things, as much as I hate having them here. Like the ghost guide. The ghost guide told a group of tourists once that there was a change in energy around the fountain. I don’t know what that means, but maybe it’s buried under there.”

  The gold buried under the fountain?

  It would explain why McCardle’s ghost had so vehemently protected that area yesterday. Though yesterday seemed like ages ago, at this point. The storm had dragged the hours out and made them seem so long.

  “I just didn’t want to dig there, because you know…my grandfather had it made for my grandmother. It’d be a shame to destroy it. God, why don’t I just invite a metal-detecting crew to come in and find the damn thing then split it with them fifty-fifty?”

  My stomach growled. It’d been almost two days since I’d eaten.