The Ghost from the Sea (23 page)

W
alt and Jack
were waiting for Danielle when she walked in the kitchen door Monday evening. They weren't alone. Lily was there gathering a stack of napkins and paper plates.

“You're just in time for pizza!” Lily announced. “Everyone's in the dining room. Want some?”

“Thanks Lily, but I grabbed a burrito at the drive through on the way home.”

Lily closed the pantry door and faced Danielle, her hands occupied with the paper plates and napkins. “Did you find out anything interesting?”

“Yes, what did you find out?” Walt asked.

Jack eyed Lily appreciatively. She wore a snuggly fitting T-shirt and lounging pants, her red hair pulled up casually in a high ponytail. “I think I'm falling in love with this little doll. I could have showed her a good time back in the day.”

“That day is long gone, Jack,” Walt said impatiently. He looked back to Danielle, waiting for her reply.

Danielle flashed Jack a smile and then looked from Lily to Walt. “I read the diary, but it was basically all hearsay. Thelma was having an affair with some guy that was abusive, he broke it off, and when she threatened him, he supposedly threatened her life. Thelma claimed Walt was her lover, but Ethel never saw them together. I stopped at Marie's, and according to her, Thelma was having an affair with some actor. Marie's mother saw them together. I think Thelma told her friend it was Walt because she didn't want to admit who it really was.”

“Back then, actors were considered to be from the wrong side of the track,” Lily suggested.

“I agree. But it's kind of ironic; she was having an affair, so why does it really matter at that point who it was with?” Danielle asked.

“It just did,” Walt spoke up. “Cheating on her husband was one thing, but slumming was another.”

“Walt agrees with you,” Danielle told Lily. Danielle failed to mention that the actor in question had already hooked a woman of greater stature who wasn't afraid of what people thought; that was, of course, had she been willing to marry the actor as Eva suggested. But Danielle wasn't ready to tell Walt about her encounter with Eva. She needed to figure out just how she would tell him.

“Walt's here?” Lily glanced around.

“Yes. And Jack too. Who, by the way, thinks you're a hot little thing.”

Blushing, Lily looked to where she imagined Jack might be standing. “Really?”

With a cheeky grin, Lily tossed her head back, sending her ponytail swishing as she sashayed out of the kitchen, a slight more wiggle to her walk. “You're welcome to join us, Dani!” Lily called back as she stepped from the room.

Chuckling under her breath, Danielle shook her head. “I'm going to go take a shower, guys. I'm wiped out. It's been a long day. I think I'm going to go to bed early.”

“Is that it?” Walt asked as she headed for the door.

Pausing, she looked back at Walt. “Yeah, for now.”

D
anielle had just climbed
into bed and pulled the covers up over her when Walt appeared by her side.

“Where's your friend?” she asked.

“He's in the attic with Max. I told him I wanted to talk to you alone.”

Danielle snuggled down in the bed, her hands clutching the top of her blanket. “What about?”

“What aren't you telling me?”

Danielle licked her lips nervously. “What do you mean?”

Walt pointed to Danielle, “That.”

“That what?”

“You always lick your lips when you're keeping something from me.”

“I do not!” Danielle scooted down in the bed, pulling the blankets to her chin.

“What aren't you telling me?” he demanded.

After a moment, Danielle released hold of her blanket; she dropped her hands and arms on top of it with a flop and looked up at Walt. “I saw Eva tonight.”

Walt's eyes widened. “Eva?”

Danielle nodded. “Yes, at the museum.” She couldn't decide if Walt's expression was that of confusion or simply shock.

Silently, he sat down on the bed beside her. “Why didn't you tell me before?”

Danielle shrugged. “I was trying to figure out how to. I know what she meant to you.”

“Just tell me, Danielle.”

Danielle scooted back up in the bed. Leaning against the headboard, she looked at Walt and proceeded to tell him about her encounter with the famous silent screen star, Eva Thorndike.

When she was done recounting the meeting, she said, “I have to say, she's even more beautiful in person—well, you know what I mean. When I first saw the portrait, I thought she looked like the Gibson Girl, but she's actually more...umm, for a lack of better word…sexier. I always thought there was something a little virginal looking about the Gibson Girl.”

Walt laughed. “I always thought the Gibson Girl inspired the portrait artist's portrayal of Eva. He imagined her on a pedestal—untouchable.”

“I can also see how she was an actress. She's still very—dramatic.”

Walt laughed again. “Yes, Eva had a flair for the dramatic, even when we were children. But why hasn't she moved on?”

“I think it's her way of protesting her early death.”

Walt stood up. “I'll let you go to sleep now.”

Cocking her head, she studied Walt curiously. “You're okay with this, aren't you?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

Danielle shrugged. “I just know how in love you were with her. To find out she's still here—that she hasn't moved on.”

“I told you Danielle, I've moved beyond all that. I loved Eva once. I still love her, but now, as a dear friend. We'll see each other again, when we're both finished with what we have to do here.”

“I suppose I understand. It's kinda how I feel about Lucas.”

Walt nodded.

“Can I ask you one thing?” she asked.

“Anything.”

“Do I really lick my lips when you think I'm keeping something from you?”

Walt smiled. “Not really sure. But it does seem to be one of your nervous ticks—and you did tell me about Eva when I called you on it.”

Danielle scrunched up her nose. “One of my ticks? You mean I have others?”

Walt smiled, whispered
sweet dreams
, and then vanished.

S
he was rocking again
. Back and forth. Back and forth. Danielle opened her eyes. Once again she was in a rocking chair on Emma's front porch, with Emma in the chair next to her—the older Emma, as she was the last time Danielle had seen her alive.

“I didn't expect to see you again!” Danielle said brightly. “How's Emmett?”

“I haven't moved on yet. I can't. I must have shown you the wrong thing. That's not what they wanted you to see.”

“Did they tell you what they wanted exactly?”

Emma shook her head. “That would be too easy. Haven't you figured that out yet? Nothing in life—or death—is easy.”

“Okay…” Danielle considered the puzzle. “I assume it has to be something you witnessed—or maybe you were just there. After all, you worked in the Bluebell Diner; people were coming and going all the time. Maybe it's a conversation between some customers—something you didn't actually overhear, but something we can listen to now, if we go back.”

“Child, do you really expect to go back and listen to every conversation, of every person, who was ever in the diner at the same time I was? And maybe it wasn't when I was at the diner. Maybe it was when I was at the beach, in the store, at the—”

“Okay, okay, you're right. That would be insane. We should isolate it to, let's say, the week or two leading up to the storm and focus on anyone connected to the people who were killed.”

“I told you, I don't remember seeing any of those people.”

After a moment of silence, Danielle said, “Well, I just found out Thelma Templeton, one of the women killed on the boat, was having an affair with an actor, and they broke it off a couple weeks before the murders. He did threaten her life. Although, I can't imagine he would kill everyone on board that yacht just to keep their affair a secret.”

“An actor?”

“Anthony…I didn't get his last name. But he was once married to Eva Thorndike.”

“I know who that was.”

“You knew him?”

“I knew who he was. He used to come into the diner from time to time. The girls would fall all over him.”

“We could try him. Focus on any dates he came into the diner, right before the Eva Aphrodite went missing.”

In the next moment, Danielle found herself sitting back in the Bluebell Diner with Emma by her side. They occupied the same table they had been at during their last dream hop visit. They weren't alone. A handsome man sat across from Danielle, reading his menu.

“That's Anthony,” Emma explained.

“Oh, I see what you mean. Eye candy, but a little sleazy.” Danielle noted the heavily oiled slicked-back, coal-black hair and pencil mustache. “He could use a good shampoo…and a razor to get rid of that thing on his lip.”

“That's how they wore it back then.”

“I suppose,” Danielle said with a shrug.

“The other one will be here in a moment,” Emma explained.

“Other one?”

“The man he had breakfast with.”

Danielle glanced at the remaining empty chair. “Please tell me his friend will be taking that chair, and not mine.”

Emma laughed. “Yes, I was more careful about that. Sorry.”

As Emma promised, a man walked through the diner's door a moment later. Emma nudged Danielle and pointed to the man. Looking up, Danielle watched as he glanced around the room, spied Anthony, and then proceeded to walk in their direction.

Danielle's eyes widened. “I know that man!”

“You know him? How do you know him?”

“It's Ephraim Presley, the man who murdered Harvey Crump—the boy who haunted Presley House!”

Emma shook her head. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Ephraim Presley had worked for Eva Thorndike's parents as a caretaker, when she was still alive. He was also her ex-husband's accomplice in the original Thorndike jewel heist, back when the first set of diamonds and emeralds were removed from Eva's necklace and replace with fake stones.

Harvey Crump, a friend of Ephraim Presley's twin sons, had stumbled upon Ephraim's share of the jewel heist. That discovery led to Harvey's premature death. Danielle had witnessed Harvey's murder in a previous dream hop.

Ephraim Presley was also Heather Donovan's great-grandfather. She had stumbled upon the sins of her ancestor along with one of the emeralds he had taken. That emerald she had given to Danielle, in her attempt to set things right. It was the same emerald now on display at the Frederickport Museum.

“What did you want to see me about?” Ephraim asked when he reached their table and sat down on the only empty chair.

“I have a job for us. This is a big one.” Anthony stopped talking when Emma the waitress approached the table and poured them coffee. The men hastily gave her their orders for breakfast, and when she left the table, they resumed their conversation.

“How big?”

“This one's all cash. You won't have to worry about finding a buyer for any stones. But you can't be squeamish about putting some bullets through a few heads.”

Ephraim laughed. “For enough money, I'd plug my own mother.”

“I don't think he had a mother,” Danielle muttered, remembering what she had once read about Heather's great-grandfather.

“When, where, who?” Ephraim asked.

“Saturday night, on the Eva Aphrodite.”

“Marlow's yacht?”

Anthony nodded. “We can't leave any witnesses, so you have to be willing to finish the job. We have to kill everyone on that boat.”

“That's a lot of people. How do you expect just the two of us to pull that off?”