The Vision

Gayle Wilson

The Vision

In memory of

Victoria Jane Graham Davant, my sister.

She has gone on before me

but there isn’t a day that goes by

when she doesn’t speak

to me in my heart

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Next Month

Prologue

The form drifted eerily.

From a distance, it almost appeared to be a woman.

At first Genevieve Wallace didn’t know what she was seeing. There it was at the bottom, drifting ever so lightly with the current, looking almost like…a woman.

She looked to her left and saw that Vic Damon was just feet away, concentrating on a jutting coral ridge that created a cavelike effect in the pristine waters. With what they had recently learned about the La Doña, they were trying to see what might be hiding more or less in plain sight.

The easy, rhythmic sound of her own breathing filled her ears, and she looked at her air gauge. She still had twenty thousand psi, and her depth monitor showed she was hovering between forty-five and fifty-five feet beneath the surface. She could check out the strange form without compromising her own safety.

The water was like crystal, a shimmering color between blue and green. The temperature, too, was absolutely perfect. It was a wonderful afternoon in which to take the time to explore the smallest detail that drew her curiosity.

Last week, when they had started working the area, it had been different. Their first day out, three members of their five-person crew had been violently ill, including Marshall Miro, the owner of Deep Down Salvage. Gen didn’t get seasick, but with everyone around her heaving…it hadn’t been pleasant. But now the winds had died down completely. The surface was nearly as smooth as glass. The sand had settled.

Visibility was good.

It was almost as if the shape in the water was beckoning to her. Still hearing the rhythmic sound of her own breath, she gave a kick of her fins and started toward whatever it might be.

As she drew closer, she thought that someone had dropped a mannequin in the ocean. From a distance, it had looked like a woman. The closer she got, the more that impression became set in her mind. Yes, it was some kind of mannequin. She wasn’t easily frightened, but she could feel a frown of curiosity creasing her brow as she moved closer.

Blond hair floated freely in the water, creating a halo effect around the mannequin’s head. There was something soft and beautiful—eerily lifelike—about it. Kicking to propel herself directly in front of it, she saw that it was dressed in a white gown, which billowed with the movement of the water.

The serenely molded face stirred a feeling of deepest sadness in her.

She almost reached out in sympathy.

Almost…

With a shock, she realized that it was down here on the ocean floor because it was weighted. There was rope around the ankles, connected to a canvas bag full of what seemed to be bricks.

The sound of her breathing stopped abruptly.

She had to force herself to breathe again.

It wasn’t a mannequin. The body was real.

The blood in her veins turned to ice. Sickened, she did reach out, knowing she had to touch the face. There was no hope the woman was alive. There were no escaping air bubbles; there had been no other boat for her to have come from…and yet she knew she had to touch her, find out if there were some way she might be saved.

Just as her fingers were about to make contact with the woman’s lifeless skin, her head rose. Her huge blue eyes opened and rested on Genevieve’s. They were filled with sadness.

Her flesh was grayish-tinged white. Her lips were blue.

She stared at Genevieve, her mouth forming a silent O, and she lifted her hand, reaching out to Genevieve, as if seeking a touch of consolation.

She started to smile, as if heartbroken.

It was a terrible smile, a knowing smile. A lifeless smile.

Then she formed a single word with those blue, dead lips.

Beware.

1

“Hey, no one ever said the sun made people sane,” Jack Payne, an old-time and expert diver, said, staring at Thor Thompson with an amused cant to his head.

Thor, in turn, was staring at the woman.

He’d first seen her earlier that day, when his boat, The Seeker, had met up with the group the state had hired. They were both involved in the same exploratory mission, and there had never been any reason, as far as Thor was concerned, not to co-exist with other companies and other divers. Especially on this project. The state of Florida, along with the environmentalists and the historians, was solidly against some of the methods treasure seekers had used in the past. Coral reefs were fragile. It was one thing to disturb a little nature when there was a verified find; it was quite another to rip the sea floor to shreds in the pursuit of a find. Though the historians were the ones who had set this project into motion, they were going on a theory, and there had to be proof of that theory before the state allowed in any of the big machinery that might tear up the beauty of the reefs—the state’s real treasure, as far as tourism went.

Thor was working for the federal government, not himself, and since the Deep Down Salvage group was working for the state, it wasn’t as if one of them was going to seize the treasure from the other. If it turned out to be true that the Marie Josephine was hidden beneath sand and coral and the continuous reef life, and they did discover a pirate cache, they would both make out well, but it wasn’t as if the proceeds wouldn’t be divided, or as if the state and U.S. governments—and maybe others—weren’t going to be taking the majority of the haul. As a diver who’d spent his career working on old wrecks and salvage, he had done well, and it wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate his creature comforts. But he had never been in it for the riches that some salvage divers continually sought. He liked the work, the history and the thrill of discovery.

With the recent discovery of the wrecked La Niña just off Calliope Key, all sorts of people had once again become excited about the fact there were thousands of undiscovered wrecks off the Florida coast. It was more than plausible that at least some of those wrecks had been hiding pretty much in plain sight. Too often, people simply didn’t know or wouldn’t recognize what they were looking for. The sea could totally camouflage the remains of a ship after centuries, something researchers had learned much more about in the recent past when vessels of various kinds, having outlived their usefulness, had been purposely sunk to help create artificial reefs. Along with the passion, however, had come the cautionary voices of the historians and environmentalists. A number of the search areas where archives suggested the Marie Josephine might be found were marine sanctuaries. Solid proof of a find—more than a few pieces of eight, some ship’s silver, or even cannons—would have to turn up to allow for any dredging, hauling or sifting equipment to come out.

Thor’s group, known as the Seekers, along with their lead research boat, wasn’t on call for just fantastic finds. There were times when the work was far more painful than exciting, when they went looking for survivors or the remains of a crash, times when they didn’t dive into the extreme beauty of the Caribbean, the Florida Straits or the Gulf of Mexico. There were dives into swamps, as well, and those were excruciating. The work here, though, was something he enjoyed—at which he hoped he excelled. They were on the trail of pirates. The initial work, done by the state historians, had sent them straight into some of the most beautiful water he had dived anywhere in the world. He liked what he was doing right now. It was the intimate kind of work that was the most exciting. Because they were going on speculation, this was real underwater exploration. Sure, they had sonar and radar, but because storms and time could play such havoc with the remnants of the past, they were also going back to basics, using their own eyes, their own instincts.

Big money—despite the possibility of a big payoff—was hard to get in the speculation stage. Still, people were more important than equipment right now. That was why he was there, and that was also why she was there.

The woman he was watching was an expert diver, so he’d been told. But he and his crew had been about half a mile from the Deep Down Salvage boat when he’d seen her bob frantically to the surface. He would have rushed in for a rescue, but her own people had been quick to recover her. When they had come broadside just to make sure everything was okay, she’d sounded like a lunatic, going on and on about a body in the water. He’d gone down.

And found a lot of parrot fish and tangs.

Since they were all staying at the resort, she was there now, with her buddies, and from the look on her face, they were still ribbing her. The whole thing felt strange to him, because she looked like the last woman in the world who would ever lose her cool. Frankly, she had a look that instantly aroused whatever was sexual and carnal in the male psyche. She was very tall—five eleven, at least—and everything about her was elegant. Even now, she appeared both calm and confident. She had long auburn hair, striking green eyes, dark, well-formed brows, a heart-shaped face and features that exemplified the phrase “perfect symmetry.” He’d seldom seen anyone look better in a bathing suit. She would have made a hell of a model, then again, she also would have made a hell of a stripper.

Her mere presence in any room was enough to draw the eyes of any red-blooded male within range.

It was a pity she seemed to be certifiably crazy.

“Conchs are the worst of the lot,” Jack said, breaking into Thor’s thoughts.

“What?” Thor looked back at the older man.

“I said,” Jack told him, lighting his cigar, “that Conchs are known for being crazy. You know, Conchs. Like me. Native Key West folks.”

“Well, I’m glad you added a subcategory there,” Thor told him.

Jack shrugged. “That’s right. You’re a Jacksonville boy. North of the state—might as well be a different breed.”

“The sane breed?” Thor said, offering a dry smile.

Jack puffed on his cigar and watched the flame. He was somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, hair still long and iron-gray. He wore a huge skull-and-crossbones earring in one lobe and a chain with a Spanish doubloon around his neck. He was built like a man half his age who spent hours at the gym. In his own words, he’d been diving since the rest of them had been in knee britches. He was a man who knew what he was doing.

“Ever hear of Count Von Cosel?” Jack asked.

Thor stared at him.

Jack smiled. “He was a German immigrant—not a real count—working down here in the hospital. He fell in love with a Cuban girl named Elena. He knew she had tuberculosis. He made up some weird kind of cure, but despite his efforts, the girl died. Family had her buried. A few years later, he decides she should be buried in a great mausoleum, so he builds it, and supposedly that’s where the girl’s body is interred. But as time goes by, folks start to notice odd things about his place. Like it looks as if he’s dancing with this huge doll. Turns out the poor bastard dug up Elena and tried to put her back together again so that he could try some whacked-out thing to bring her back to life. Bastard slept with the corpse for years, repairing her constantly. Finally the family got wind of it, and the sister goes to see him. There was an uproar, but there’s a statute of limitations on whatever crime they figured it to be, so he gets off. This is Key West, after all. He not only gets away without being charged, he winds up with people sending him money to survive.”

“You’re a lying sack of shit, Jack,” Thor told him.

“I swear to you, it’s a true story. Ask anyone. Look it up. Newspapers all over the country carried the story.” He paused and took a puff of his cigar. “The point is, comparatively speaking, the young lady you’re staring at is as sane as they come. And damned better looking than any other I’ve ever seen with these old eyes.”

Thor shook his head and lifted his beer. “I saw her out there today, and when you’re diving, the last thing you need is someone going off the deep end, no pun intended. Ask her out on a date, Jack, but don’t bring her on my boat. There’s too much at stake.”

“I’ve gone diving with that girl many a time, Thor. She knows what she’s doing. As far as hooking up with her, hell, I could be her father. And I’ve known her forever, since she was a kid.”

Thor shook his head again and turned his focus to the water. Late summer. Hot days, gorgeous nights. There was always a breeze coming off the ocean. And the sun, when it set, was glorious. It was eight at night, and the sky was getting ready to change. Now it was light. Soon it would be pink, purple, gold, yellow, blue…streaks of color that would slowly deepen. Then, around eight-thirty, it would suddenly go dark.

He was staring at the water…and then he was staring at her again. It was hard not to stare at her, he thought, realizing what it was about her that drew him so powerfully. She emanated a natural, easy sensuality. It was evident in her every movement. Nothing forced, nothing overt. Something she herself wouldn’t even know she possessed.

“Sun’s going down now,” Jack commented. “You could take off the shades.”

Thor smiled again. Hell, no. He liked the ink-dark Ray-Bans. No one could tell when his eyes kept turning toward the other table.

“Can’t take your eyes off her, huh?” Jack asked.

“What’s not to appreciate about eye candy? I just don’t think any rational man—especially a diver—should get too close to a loose cannon.”

“Want to hear about the guy who thought his doll was alive and all the folks who think it’s cursed?”

Thor groaned. “Jack, give it a rest.”

“Hey, it’s all real stuff. Know where the name Key West came from? When the Spaniards first arrived, it was one big boneyard. An Indian tribe that died out? Killed in a massacre? No one knows. But there were bones everywhere, so they called it Cayo Hueso, Island of Bones. The English didn’t bother to translate the Spanish, just turned it into words they knew. I’m telling you, Thor, Key West is a unique place.”

Thor smiled slowly. “Jack, if you’re trying to convince me that she’s totally right in the head, you’re not getting anywhere. The woman claims she saw a body in the water. And that it talked to her.”

“Hey…for every tale out there, you’ll find a grain of truth.”

“Have you heard about a missing person in the area? Anybody looking for a murder victim? I had the news on—far as I can tell, everyone’s accounted for.”

“You’re sounding like a callous son of a bitch, and I know better,” Jack told him. “What you are is so focused on diving that you don’t mind going through women like Kleenex.”

Thor arched a brow. “Yeah? Haven’t seen you settle down.”

“Never knew a woman could keep up—in my generation. They probably existed somewhere. We just didn’t cross paths.”

“I don’t play where I work,” he said softly.

Jack let out a guffaw. “That’s ’cause the one woman on our team is married and an Amazon to boot.”

“Now, who’s being a son of a bitch?”

“Me? I think Lizzie’s great, but she’s all business. Tough as nails, and I think she could take me if we were arm wrestling. And if she couldn’t, well, who the hell would want to mess with Zach?”

Thor shrugged, amused. Lizzie—Elizabeth Green—was not a woman to be taken lightly. She wasn’t an inch shorter than his own six-three. Her husband, Zach, had been a professional basketball player, and between them, they were a daunting pair. Lizzie waged a lot of the company’s battles when they were seeking permits for projects. She could best almost any man. “Lizzie’s tough. And down to earth. She isn’t going to fly off the handle, seeing corpses that aren’t really there.”

“Come on. Everyone’s been spooked by something once or twice.”

“Maybe.”

“And you’re a pile of crap yourself, Thor.”

“You think?”

“You’d have your tongue on the pavement if she crooked her little finger.”

“Yeah? Bull.” He spoke coolly, but he knew he was lying. The nutcase was almost explosively hot. But he hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t fool around where he worked. Even on a long haul, they put into port somewhere, and that’s where he did his playing. Complications on a job were something nobody needed.

“I call ’em like I see ’em,” Jack said flatly. “No one’s ever accused me of lying.”

“Hell, I’m accusing you right now,” Thor said.

Jack laughed, noticing that Thor was watching the other table again. “Remember, Thor, the mighty can fall,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve been hearing that ‘mighty Thor’ shit all my life,” Thor told him, then waved to the bartender, the owner’s son, ordering another round.

“We all looked, Genevieve,” Victor said. “There was nothing there.”

“I’m telling you, I saw a woman’s body,” Genevieve repeated stubbornly, her jaw set. “Look, I don’t know if it was some kind of a joke, or if there’s a real murder victim down there. But I didn’t hallucinate. I saw it.”

Bethany Clark touched Genevieve’s knee. “Hey, honey, all of us see things down there sometimes. It’s the mind playing tricks. The water playing tricks, causing visual distortion.”

“Have another beer,” Victor said dryly. “It will make everything better.”

Genevieve groaned, gritting her teeth. She couldn’t say they hadn’t tried. She had kicked her way to the surface with the speed of lightning. Thankfully, she hadn’t been deep. The moment the woman had opened her eyes and smiled, she had felt such a sense of sheer panic that she had rocketed to the surface, which could have been deadly if she had been down deep. When she’d reached the surface, she had nearly choked on salt water, spitting out her regulator and waving her arms madly.

Marshall Miro, head of their unit, had been on board, and she knew she’d been babbling as he’d helped her out. Victor had surfaced right after her, having seen her ascent. Then Bethany and Alex, not too far distant, had come up, and Bethany had stayed aboard while the others had gone down, searching for the woman’s body. The Seeker, one of their fellow ships, had been in the vicinity, as well. Her crew had gone down, too.

And none of them had seen anything.

Maybe she had imagined the eyes opening, the woman reaching out, but she had seen a body. She just didn’t know what had happened to it.

Unfortunately, she had babbled something about the eyes and the fact that the dead woman had moved, even tried to speak, and now even Bethany, her best friend, thought she was crazy.

She glanced around the small resort in the old-town area of Key West where they were staying. She actually owned a house not even half a mile away that her great-great-however-many-greats-grandfather had built on the island years before the Civil War.

But this place was a local hangout. Jack kept his beat-up old fishing boat here, and there was one slip where three of the area cops kept their boats berthed. They liked to come here just to have coffee, or drinks in the evening.

She’d stayed here on purpose to be able to work this project at the blink of an eye with the others. Their dive boat was right there, where they needed it, along with The Seeker. There was no spa or twenty-four-hour room service, but what it did have was true old Conch charm. The main house had been built in the 1800s. Bungalows had been added right around World War II and were spread out over a sandy beach, and each offered an outside table and chairs on a little individual patio. There was also the tiki bar and “munch house,” as they called it, which opened at seven in the morning and stayed open until midnight or so. The night bartender was the owner’s son, so he kept it open as long as he was having fun. The menu wasn’t gourmet, but it was fresh and delicious.

Despite the fact the divers following her garbled directions hadn’t found a body, Genevieve had insisted on reporting what she had seen to the police—by then calm enough to report the body but not the fact it had seemed to move of its own volition. It had been late when they had actually returned to shower and change and meet here at the bar to dine on fresh fish sandwiches, and the resort’s own coleslaw and potato salad.

“Okay, guys, laugh at me all you want. I saw a body,” she said firmly.

Bethany lowered her sandy head. Victor, Alex and Marshall all stared at one another, trying not to smile.

“Hey, Gen,” Victor teased her. “There’s a lady at the bar who wants to buy you a drink…look—Whoops, no, sorry, you didn’t act fast enough. She’s disappeared.”

Genevieve glared at him through narrowed eyes. She wanted to wring his neck. Of all people to be so taunting…They’d gone through school together. He was a year older, but she’d matured faster, and having a shape in high school had been tantamount to being cool back then. She’d taken him with her to every social event in their adolescent past.

In college he’d finally filled out and grown a few hairs on his chest. He’d grown into his features, as well, and now he was tall, dark and good-looking. They’d never ruined a good friendship by dating, but he could irritate her as thoroughly as if they were a married couple.

“Victor…” she began.

Grinning, he waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know what I can go do with myself.”

“Hey, kid, it will be all right,” Marshall said, but he, too, was still secretly smiling. At least someone was amused, she thought. Marshall was the owner and founder of Deep Down Salvage as well as a local. As a kid, he’d been fascinated by the history of Key West, which was inextricably entwined with tales of wreckers and salvage divers. It was a mixed history. Sometimes they had saved the lives of the poor souls on a ship that came to ruin on the dangerous reefs.

Sometimes, however, they waited like vultures—hoping ships carrying rich cargos would flounder and sink. Such a system had created many a rich man throughout the centuries.

Marshall was at least ten years older than most of their group. He had made his name by working in the northern waters off Massachusetts, doing heavy-duty, cold-water salvage. But Key West was his home, the place he loved. He had used his earnings to come back and open his own company, buy his own boat and equipment, and set up shop. He made a good income, but he was always pleased to work on any historical effort, and he had a tremendous respect for the reefs, the water and the past. Deeply tanned and buff, and dead even with her own height, he kept his head shaven, a look that went oddly well with his almost ebony eyes and dark brows.

Sitting with his feet up, shades on despite the setting sun, he grimaced. “We’ll find out that there was something down there. You know…flotsam and jetsam of some kind.”

Alex hummed a version of The Twilight Zone theme song. “Yeah, flotsam and jetsam with a face and hair,” he teased.

She glared at him, hiking a brow. Alex was from Key Largo, a different world from Key West, since the city of Miami was barely an hour north. He was blond, bronzed and a child of the sea and sun, a graduate in history and a master diver, but she’d shown him secrets of the reefs here that only the natives knew.