Authors: Leighann Dobbs
Celeste bent over Jolene’s shoulder to see the seven-year-old newspaper and the breath rushed out of her when she read it. “It’s an article about Mom’s death.”
Jolene looked at her with wide eyes. “Let’s see what else is here.”
Celeste bent down to help sort through the papers, which included menus, newspaper clippings and some pictures. She stopped short when she came to one that was eerily familiar—the cliff next to their house.
“Why would a picture of our cliff be here?” Jolene mused.
“I don’t know, but that looks like the spot where Mom was standing when she …” Celeste’s throat closed up and she let her voice trail off, not wanting to say the words.
“And look at this.” Jolene held up a scrap of dark pink silk fabric. Celeste didn’t recognize it, but the tone of Jolene’s voice made her scalp tingle.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure, but it looks like a scrap of fabric from the scarf Mom was wearing that day. The one that washed up on the rocks later on.”
Celeste stared at the fabric.
Why would fabric from the scarf her mother had worn the day she died be on this boat?
The boat lurched with the force of a large wave and the cabin door swung free of the brick, its rusty hinges screaming with the effort. Celeste lunged forward to catch the door before it slammed shut cutting off the light to the cabin.
She pushed at it and it swung back open. The figure of a man sprang into the doorway, partially blocking the light.
Celeste gasped when she noticed the light filtering through the shadowy figure.
“What is it? Jolene jerked her head in the direction Celeste was looking.
“A ghost,” Celeste whispered out of the side of her mouth. Then louder she asked. “Who are you?”
“I’m Barnes. This is my boat and you’re trespassing.”
“You don’t keep your boat up very well,” Celeste said. Clearly, he didn’t realize he was dead. “Where have you been?”
Barnes’ face swirled into a mass of wrinkles. “Been? Why, I been lobstering out at the point.”
“The point where our house is?”
“Your house?” Barnes glanced from Celeste to Jolene in confusion. Another wave set the boat rocking. Celeste braced herself on the counter to keep from falling.
“You’re those Blackmoore girls? But I thought you were much younger.”
“We were back then …” Celeste’s voice trailed off. She realized Barnes’ ghost was stuck seven years in the past, but had no idea how to explain it to him.
“What’s going on?” Jolene whispered in Celeste’s ear.
“It’s Barnes, the guy who owns this boat.”
“Well then, find out why he has this.” Jolene held the scrap of pink fabric up.
“Where’d you get that?” Barnes snarled at Jolene, not realizing she could neither see nor hear him.
“We should ask
you
the same,” Celeste said. “It’s our mother’s, isn’t it?
A mix of emotions flitted across Barnes’ face. He glanced behind him nervously. Swirls of vapor drifted around him.
“You girls shouldn’t be here. It could be dangerous.”
No kidding.
“What do you know about our mother?” Celeste persisted. The boat was rocking harder now and an acrid odor drifted past Celeste’s nose.
Gasoline?
“I knew your mother. Knew her well. I liked her a lot. That’s why I couldn’t understand …” Barnes’ ghost shrugged.
“Understand what?” Celeste prompted. “Our mother jumped off the cliff outside our home.”
“Is that what you heard?”
“Do you know different?”
“I set my traps out by the cliffs on the south side. I saw your mother on the cliff that evening. ”
Celeste’s heartbeat picked up a notch. “You did? What did you see?”
Next to her, Jolene was busy swiveling her head between Celeste and the ghost she couldn’t see. Celeste sensed the tension coming from her sister. She knew Jolene was dying to find out what they were talking about, but didn’t want to interrupt. Barnes was on a roll and Celeste didn’t want to stop the interrogation to fill Jolene in.
Barnes glanced behind him again, then his ghostly figure glided a few inches toward them. He lowered his voice. “Let’s just say your mother might have had company on the cliff.”
Celeste’s eyes widened. “Company? Who?”
Barnes glided even closer.
Bang!
The door slammed shut, leaving them in darkness.
“Celeste?” Jolene’s shaky voice filled the dark cabin.
“I’m right he—”
Kaboom!
***
Celeste instinctively held her breath as the blast catapulted her into the chilly ocean. She opened her eyes, searching the murky cove waters to get her bearings. Being an experienced scuba diver and accustomed to finding her way under water, it didn’t take long for her to figure out which way was up, and she quickly kicked her way to the surface.
She broke through amidst the flaming boat debris. Beads of water flung from her hair as she whipped her head around frantically searching for Jolene.
“Jolene!”
“Over here!” Jolene’s head bobbed in the water six feet away and Celeste swam toward it.
Behind them, the dock was a hubbub of activity as people rushed to the dinghies to get into the water and put out the flaming debris before any other boats caught on fire. Two fishermen had jumped in the water and were swimming toward her and Jolene.
“Are you okay?” Celeste came alongside Jolene.
“Yep. But I don’t think
Andrea June
is.”
Celeste spun around in the water and looked toward the
Andrea June
. Or rather where the Andrea June had once been. Only the deck remained. Partially submerged and slowly sinking. Celeste watched as the bow tipped up higher and higher, while the back of the boat sank lower and lower.
“Are you guys okay?” The two fishermen had reached them. “Can you swim back on your own?”
“I’m okay,” Celeste looked at Jolene. “Are you?”
Jolene nodded and the four of them swam to the dock, dodging debris and fishermen rushing out in dinghies on the way. The two men helped pull them out of the water. Someone handed them blankets. Even though it was eighty degrees outside, the ocean water in the cove was only sixties degrees and Celeste was chilled.
“What happened?” someone in the crowd asked.
“Must have been a gas explosion,” another answered.
“Whose boat was that?” Celeste heard someone ask behind her.
She turned and recognized the speaker as Bobby Shore, a local.
“Barnes,” she answered.
“Barnes?” An older man, Jonathan Wild looked at her strangely. “But, no one has seen him in years.”
Celeste shrugged and the harbormaster at the edge of the crowd spoke up. “He hasn’t been around, but his mooring fee’s been getting paid, so his boat has been sitting all this time.”
“If you ask me, its good riddance to that eyesore,” someone in the back of the crowd muttered.
“Probably should have gotten rid of that boat long ago. I bet the gas tank was compromised … it was in such a bad state of repair,” a woman said primly.
Celeste and Jolene sat on the edge of the dock and watched while the volunteers put out the rest of the fires, picked planks up from the decks of the other boats and netted the floating debris out of the harbor. It didn’t take long for the novelty to wear off and the crowd to disperse.
“What happened back there?” Jolene asked when the onlookers had left them alone on the dock.
Celeste knew she wasn’t talking about the explosion. “Barnes’ ghost was there. He knew something.”
“And those pictures and the scrap of fabric …” Jolene looked down at her hands. “I dropped it when the boat exploded. We lost that evidence.”
“We might have lost the physical evidence on that boat, but now we know you were right about there being more to Mom’s death than we were told.”
Jolene shrugged. “Well, the pictures and the scarf don’t prove much.”
“Not that,” Celeste said. “The last thing Barnes told me before the boat blew up was that Mom wasn’t alone on the cliff the day she died.”
Chapter Nine
Jolene’s wet clothes felt as heavy as if they were made of lead, but at least they weren’t still dripping. The walk home hadn’t been pleasant and now, walking up the porch steps, she winced as the soaked jeans chafed her thighs.
“I can’t believe no one at the cove saw anyone near the
Andrea June
,” Jolene said as she grabbed the front door handle. After the excitement had died down, they’d asked around and no one had noticed anyone anywhere near the boat.
“Do you think it really exploded on its own?” Celeste asked as the two girls headed toward the kitchen where they could take the back stairs upstairs to change.
Jolene made a face. “I doubt it. Too much of a coincidence.”
“Well, someone did point out that the neglect might have contributed to it. Maybe conditions were just right and we had bad timing.”
Jolene didn’t answer. She’d stopped short just inside the kitchen door. On the far side of the room, the door to the basement gaped open … the girls always kept that door firmly closed.
She glanced quickly at Celeste who was now also staring at the door. She walked slowly over, her heart thudding in her chest as she peered into the dim opening.
“Meow!”
A ghostly face appeared from the depths of the stairs and Jolene sucked in a breath, jumping back as Belladonna trotted into the kitchen with Eliza following behind her.
“Aunt Eliza!”
Eliza looked as startled to see them as they were to see her.
“Oh. Hi. I didn’t think anyone else was home.” Eliza glanced nervously at the basement door.
Celeste narrowed her eyes at Eliza. “What were you doing in the basement?”
I heard Belladonna crying down there, so I went down to see if she needed help. Thought she might be trapped somewhere.” Eliza’s brows mashed together as her ice-blue eyes took in first Celeste, then Jolene. “Why are you girls all wet?”
Jolene slid her eyes over to Celeste with a silent warning.
“A boat blew up down at the cove. We jumped in the water to help out.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie.
“That was nice of you. I hope no one was hurt.”
“No, thankfully. Just the boat.”
“Well, you girls should get out of those wet clothes. I’m headed into town to visit some old friends. Fiona let me borrow her truck.”
“Anyone we know?” Jolene asked.
“I’m sure you probably don’t. Just some people I knew way back.” Eliza leaned over to snatch Fiona’s keys off the counter and fumbled them. They clanked loudly on the floor and she retrieved them, then smiled weakly at the girls and headed down the hall.
“Did she seem nervous to you?” Celeste asked after they’d heard the truck start in the driveway.
“Yeah.” Jolene pushed the basement door shut. “And who in their right mind would go in that spooky basement alone?”
“Good question. Our Aunt does seem to have some oddities. Not the least of which is her chosen bedroom.”
“Yeah, I always thought that room was creepy.”
“Me, too.” Celeste glanced down at her clothes. “But she is right about one thing. We need to change.”
“Meet me in the east sitting room when you are done. I have something to show you.”
Twenty minutes later, Celeste appeared, freshly showered and wearing a white yoga outfit. Jolene was already sitting on the couch in a clean pair of tan capris and navy blue shirt, her laptop open on the coffee table in front of her.
“I wanted to show you this picture taken the night Mom died.” Jolene swiveled the computer toward Celeste so she could see the screen.
Celeste bent down and squinted at it. “Is that the cliff?”
“Yes, the very edge where she stood. Look at the footprints.”
Celeste’s eyes widened. “That’s a man’s shoe print. But couldn’t that have been there before from another day? Or maybe it was from the police attending the scene.”
Jolene shrugged. “Maybe. We all know that Overton didn’t do a very good job. I wouldn’t be surprise if he trampled all over the crime scene. But if what Barnes’ ghost told you is true, this could be proof.”
“Sure, but what does it really give us? We can’t look for someone who wore that shoe. The print could belong to thousands of shoes.”
“Right. We have to get more evidence before we tell anyone else what we suspect.” Jolene turned the computer back toward her and tapped on the keys.
“What are you doing?” Celeste sank into the chair opposite her.
“Just a little cyber detecting,” Jolene said. “We need to find out more about this Barnes guy. Do you remember him at all?”
Celeste shook her head. “No. But if he disappeared a long time ago, I guess I wouldn’t.”
“Right. Says here that he disappeared three weeks after Mom died.” Jolene looked up at Celeste. “That’s an odd coincidence … and whenever there’s an odd coincidence, I like to follow the money.”
Her fingers flew over the keys as she used her secret—and not entirely legal—software to access the bank database across town. She lucked out on the second try. Barnes still had an account at the Mariner National Bank.
“Ahh … that explains it,” she said.
“Explains what?” Celeste leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.
“Barnes had auto-pay setup in his bank account, so that’s how his mooring fees were getting paid. Among other things.”
“For seven years? He must have had a bunch of money in there.”
Jolene’s face scrunched up. “Yeah. It looks like he deposited a lump sum of twenty thousand dollars a few weeks before he went missing. This is getting more and more suspicious.”
“Was a big deposit like that unusual?”
Jolene scrolled back through the account. “Yep, it definitely was.”
Celeste chewed her bottom lip. “I don’t like it. Something was definitely going on. And I could tell Barnes’ ghost was scared and he didn’t even realize he was dead, which probably means he died suddenly and unexpectedly.”