By the time they had been able to get together in Key West, or anywhere in the Keys, Sean had been gone most of the time, so it really wasnt that strange that shed never had a chance to meet him before.
It seemed odd that the OHaras could so clearly resemble one another and yet look so different. When shed asked Jamie OHara what Sean looked like, he told her that Katie was Sean in a dress. That wasnt true at all. Sean was very tall, three or four inches over six feet, with a linebackers shoulders. Katie was slim and willowy. While Katie had auburn hair, Seans was lighter, though with the same streaks of red. Katies eyes were a hazel green while Seans were more of a golden color. He had almost classic features, just like Katie, but he looked like a man who had braved the wind many a time, and his jaw leaned toward the square side.
Maybe that had just been because hed been talking to herand she sensed that shed irritated him.
Maybe I should have mentioned first that I knew you both, Vanessa said dryly to Katie.
Katie smiled and swirled a stirrer in her coffee cup. Ha-ha. Perhaps hes feeling as if were ganging up on him! Oh, well, Sean is just beingSean. Hell get over it. Really, I think the lure of the mystery will get to him, once he thinks it all out. I think. She looked at Vanessa with concern. Butare you sure you should be doing this? Maybe you should just leave it all alone.
You know I cant do thatyou know you couldnt do that! Hey, Ive talked to people around here. You plunged headfirst into finding out what had happened in Davids past, a pretty dangerous occupation, so I heard, Vanessa said.
Yes, but I didnt realize at the beginning that there were going to be more bodies, Katie murmured. And David was determined.
All right, then, let me put it this waycould you just forget about it? Katie, I saw that poor girl the night she disappearedand wound up dead. She was terrified. There was something on that beach. Other people go over there still, despite what happened.
Katie frowned. But nothing has happened since, right?
Not on Haunt Island, Vanessa said.
What happened otherwise? Katie asked.
In two years time? I dont know everything, but Im suspicious every time I hear about any bad things happening. I know about one boat that disappeared in that area. A charter boat on its way to Bimini about a year ago. Disappeared, as in vanished.
Things dont really disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, Katie said. It was just that for years, we didnt know what had happened. But they found the planes that went down years ago, after World War II. They finally found them. No one knows why they went down, but they certainly have educated theories. So a charter boat didnt really disappearits out there somewhere.
Well, one of Jays boats disappeared, Vanessa said flatly. It disappearedand Travis and Georgia were found dead on the beach.
Katie looked at her sympathetically. The Bahamian authorities, Florida State authorities, and even the FBI got in on the investigation, Vanessa. Theres a problem with the oceanwhen things go down, they may go down miles. There are storms, there are currents. There were no clues on the island. She cleared her throat. They, um, never found the rest of the bodies, right?
Vanessa shook her head. Id say they actively investigated for monthsmaybe even a year. The torsos, hips and legs were never found. God, I cant even believe Im saying that!
But there was a suspect, right? Carlossomeone?
Carlos Roca, Vanessa told her. But he was a good guy. A friend.
Okay, so, no matter how you might think that he was a good guy, and even if he was a friend, you have to admit, Vanessa, it does appear as if Carlos had already killed Travis, and that when he said hed take Georgia back to Miami, he was lying. What he did was kill her, get the boat down the beach, find where hed stashed Traviss body, and stage the heads and arms. Then he stole the boat and dumped the rest of the bodies into the ocean. Oh, Vanessa, I know you dont want to believe that. But theres no other explanation.
Carlos would have popped up somewhere. And the boat would have been found.
Katie let out a long sigh. Nessa, the boat could have gotten into troubleand it might have sunk. And Carlos might have gone down with it. God knows where he might have tried to go from Haunt Island. But that boats out there somewhere. I dont know about the bodies anymorefish are ravenous little creatures, reallyand not so little, often. Time, salt water
Isnt Davids cousin, Liam, a detective now? Could he know something? Vanessa asked.
Yes, I talked to him after you called me. He was never in on that investigation. Hed heard about it, of course, but he didnt have anything to do with it.
Jamie OHara strode down the bar to where the two of them were sitting. Dont you be worrying, Miss Loren. If I know my nephew, and I think I do, hell come around.
Katie arched a brow at Jamie. Uncle Jamie, dont go getting her hopes up, hmm?
Jamie winked at Vanessa.
You think hell come around, too, dont you, Katie?
Katie frowned. Then she sighed. Yes, I started on David this morning, sowell, well see. But, Vanessa, I dont want you to be soobsessed. I know my brother and David, and I know that theyre fascinated by mysteries like this, butyou have to understand, she added quietly. David came home determined to discover the truth behind a ten-year-old murder case because he had been accused of murder.
Yes, I know, Vanessa said. Shed read all about the insanity that had first driven David Beckett out of Key West, and then home. Naturally. She had been friends with Katie OHara for years. She had read every word in the papers when the case had been solved, and that had brought her back here. Key West had two of its own native conchsDavid Beckett and Sean OHaraabout to embark on a film project that would bring to light many of the mysteries that surrounded the area throughout the decades and even centuries. David Beckett had a military background, and Sean OHara had filmed in many dangerous places, had received a great deal of defensive training and certainly knew how to take care of himself. Beckett also had a cousin who was a detective with the Key West police. They were the right people to at least explore the waters, and the story, and make her feel at the very least as if she were doing all that she could to find out just what had happened to Georgia, Travisand Carlos Roca.
Oh, I mean, Davids a great person! Katie said, quickly defending the love of her life. You have to understand, its not that he wouldnt care, or that he wouldnt be horrifiedbut hes not FBI, a cop or any other kind of law enforcement. She brightened suddenly. Hey, Ill set up a meeting with Liam. I mean, if Liam gets into it, maybe he could help us out.
That would be greatthanks, Katie. Id like to meet him and hear what he thinks, because Im sure he had to have heard about it, at least when it was all taking place.
Well, Jamie said, well and good. Now you cant sit here in the bar, moping about all day. Go enjoy the fall. Beautiful days weve got going here now. Days that are the kind that bring people south. Getget out of bar, go and do something.
Oh, I mean, Davids a great person! Katie said, quickly defending the love of her life. You have to understand, its not that he wouldnt care, or that he wouldnt be horrifiedbut hes not FBI, a cop or any other kind of law enforcement. She brightened suddenly. Hey, Ill set up a meeting with Liam. I mean, if Liam gets into it, maybe he could help us out.
That would be greatthanks, Katie. Id like to meet him and hear what he thinks, because Im sure he had to have heard about it, at least when it was all taking place.
Well, Jamie said, well and good. Now you cant sit here in the bar, moping about all day. Go enjoy the fall. Beautiful days weve got going here now. Days that are the kind that bring people south. Getget out of bar, go and do something.
Hey, I know that my friend Martybig-time into piratesis getting ready for his booth and show for the Pirates in Paradise performances this year. Lets go give him a handhe loves to talk pirates. I bet he knows all about that pirate you were using for your horror movie, Mad Miller. And I can almost guarantee you he knows about Kitty Cutlass and Dona Isabella, too.
Katie, Vanessa said, I did tons of research. And I love the historylove it!but were talking about people murdered just two years ago.
But you were filming history, right?
Vanessa grimaced. Well, historyfractured beyond beliefthat we were using for a slasher flick.
So Ill call Liam. Well have dinner. Well have him over to the house.
David will be there, right? I meanyou are living with David at the Beckett house, right? Vanessa asked her.
David will be on your side, Katie said. Ill call while we head over to Martys.
How do you know that youll convince David to be on my side? Vanessa asked.
Katie laughed. I can be very persuasive. No, all kidding aside, they should agree to follow your mystery. Its good film. Theyll be delving into piracy, the founding of the areaand something thats contemporary and horrible. People like justice and a satisfactory ending. No one can bring the dead back to life, but there is something to be said for closure. We dont feel that we failed those who died if we can figure out a riddle and bring a killer to justice.
I may have you do all the talking, Vanessa told her.
It will work out, Katie said.
Vanessa wasnt at all sure that she believed Katie, but she had to keep trying. She had exhausted other possibilities. She had plagued many law-enforcement agencies, and people had been kind and they had said the right things. But the case, though open, was not being actively investigated. Her only recourse was filmmakersand those with a preplanned budget and a plan. And a wealth of knowledge about the history of the area.
Great, Vanessa said. She smiled at the elder OHara behind the bar. Thank you, Jamie. Katie, lets go play with the pirates.
Clear air turbulence in the Bermuda Triangle.
That was one of the main causes listed on a number of the flightsmajor commercial flights and smaller, private craftthat had plunged a thousand feet or more or had trouble in the last few decades.
There were other losses, however. A number of disappearances in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. It wasnt officially an area at all, and had only become so in latter historythe U.S. Board of Geographical Names didnt recognize it as a place with a name at all. Superstition ruled a lot of what people believed about the area, and it had a doppelgänger on the other side of the world called the Devils Sea by Japanese and Filipino people.
The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the strange events in the area had to do with magnetism. In the Bermuda Triangle, magnets might point true north in contrast to magnetic north, which had to do with circumnavigating the earth. The compass variations could be as great as twenty degrees, which would definitely cause havoc when attempting to reach a destination.
Sean leaned back in his computer chair, studying the screen.
The next theory had to do with gasgas from the sea itself. Subterranean beds shifting due to underwater landslides could cause a vast leakage of methane gas. An Englishman from Leeds University had proposed the theory as late as the 1990s that the weight of the gas in the water could cause a ship to sink like a rock and also that the gas in the air could cause instantaneous combustion of a fuel-filled jet in seconds flat. Boom.
The first odd occurrence went all the way back to Christopher Columbus, who, along with several of his men, reported mass compass malfunctions, a massive bolt of fire that suddenly fell from the sky into the sea and then strange lights on the horizonall in the area of the Bermuda Triangle.
Switching from site to site on the Internet, Sean had to admit that he found what he was reading fascinating.
But from magnets and gas, the theories went off into other realms, ones he was certain he couldnt buy himself.
Aliens. Apparently, the belief that aliens were responsible for the disappearances was more widespread than hed wanted to know. Some people believed that extraterrestrials had brought down a massive ship hundreds of years ago. That ship was down below the ocean floor. Sometimes the aliens were angry and destructive. Sometimes, to perform their evil deeds in their evil laboratories, they would send out their own vessels to snag ships or planes and bring them down below the surface.
Some people believed that they made trips to earth only now and then to snatch planes from the sky and ships from the sea.
Another theory had to do with the lost city of Atlantis. The psychic Edgar Cayce, who passed away in 1945, had claimed that heand many other peoplewere reincarnated residents of the doomed Atlantis. He said that the city had not been in the Old World at all but near Bimini, in the Bahamas. The people had been highly advanced and used fire crystals for their powerfire crystals that had gotten out of hand and exploded, thus causing the sinking of Atlantis. There were still fire crystals deeply embedded in the ocean, and their power surged sometimes, causing ships, people, planes and debris to disappear. He prophesied that Atlantis would rise again in 1968 or 69.
In 1968, the Bimini Road or Bimini Wall was discovereda rock formation of rounded stones beneath the sea near North Bimini that definitely bore the appearance of an ancient great highway. Some geologists argued that it was a natural highway; others were convinced that it might have been a man-made structure dating back three to four thousand years.
Sean had seen the Bimini Wall, and it was fascinating, but he wasnt a structural scholar, so he couldnt determine if the wall had been there forever, lurking beneath sand and the elements, or if it had been man-made.
He didnt believe that Cayce had once been a citizen of the fabled Atlantis.
Another man had put forth a crystal theoryRay Brown. While diving in the area in 1970, he had gotten cut off from his friends. Hed found an underwater cave. The cave had been extraordinary. Hed seen a pyramid formation against a beautiful aquamarine light. Obviously, some higher intelligence had been at work in the cave, creating the light, the formation and the smooth workmanship within the cave.
Hed found a crystal sphere in the pyramid, and taken it. When hed left the cave, hed heard a voice telling him to get out and never to return.