Confessions of a Pirate Ghost (Gambling Ghosts Series Book 3) Read online

  “So you swam ashore?”

  “He’s as strong as a gorilla and smells like tuna fish.” Did she sound like a damsel in distress? She hoped so, because that would buy her time. As usual her finely tuned lying skills came in handy.

  “So why no cops?”

  Oh, right. She squirmed. That had to fit into her cover story. “That’s embarrassing.” Think … think … “You see the guy …”

  “Tuna Breath.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, Tuna-Breath was not who I thought he was.” That was partly true and it was easier to tell a lie when part of it was true. “He … Now this is the embarrassing part. I know I should have checked him out, but I didn’t. He seemed okay, but it turned out he associates with some rough people.”

  Although she couldn’t see it, she imagined the ghost raised a brow.

  Harley sighed. Was he seeing right through her, or was he the strong and silent type? “I got scared, and left before anything happened.”

  “You jumped into the ocean in the middle of the night, because a group of men looked rough. Uh-huh.” Sarcasm dripped from his every word. “Deary, you can’t con a con man. Tell me your trade?”

  Trade? Oh, he means what do I do? “I’m an artist. I like to paint landscapes. I’ve been living in Florence for the last year.”

  “But tell me the truth.”

  “What do you mean?” She took another sip of her coffee and kept her eyes on her mug.

  “You’re lying. I can feel it. There’s more to your story. Come on. You can tell me. We don’t need to have secrets. I’m dead, after all.”

  Harley looked at the space the spirit stood in and considered her options. It would feel great to unburden herself for once and not get tangled up in lies, but if the information got out it could put her in danger, or jail. Still, something about his charm relaxed her. What the hell. Who would an invisible, specter of a pirate tell? And if he did, who would believe him?

  “Okay, you got me. I’m an art forger. A darn good one, I might add. I specialize in Monet and VanGogh, impressionist landscapes. Collectors love my work.”

  “So you don’t sell your own art?”

  “I’d love to. Believe me, I would love to sell my own work. But no one is interested in it. After I finished art school I had to come to terms with the market. People would rather buy a reproduction of an art piece from a big box store at half the price, than buy an original piece of art from a newbie. After trying to make a go of it for a couple years, I switched to painting the masters.”

  “You’re cheating your customers.”

  She took a long swallow. “I don’t see it that way. They get a good piece of art from me. That’s as authentic as it gets. I just happen to forge the signature.” She smiled. “And the papers. And I age the paintings. There’s skill in being a good forger.”

  “So you don’t feel guilty.”

  “I have to survive.” A pirate should understand that. “My turn. Why do you hang out in this teahouse?”

  “The poker games are good.”

  “Why can’t I see you?”

  Silence. “If I tell you that, you have to tell me what you’re running from.”

  “Deal.”

  “I can be seen for five days of the lunar month. On the full moon, two days before it and two days after it. The why of it is beyond me. It’s just the way it is in my dimension. We are all given different abilities.”

  “Where’s your ship?”

  “It’s harbored in Tortuga, but I can summon it at will. It is a ghost ship. It went down with me in a battle with the Spanish. I still hate the Spanish.”

  “I see. When’s the next full moon?”

  “Three days from now. My form will begin to shimmer in your world tomorrow. Your turn. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

  He certainly liked to get to the heart of things. What harm could there be in telling him? After all it was highly unlikely that he had the police on his speed dial. “A month ago I made a deal with a guy who called himself a businessman, Michel DeAngelo.” She bit her lip. “Anyway, he said he’d seen my work, knew it was forged and was impressed. He really gave me a lot of praise. I should have known not to trust him. My mother told me not to trust people who give you too many compliments. Anyway, he ordered two VanGoghs and offered big money, twice what I usually make dealing paintings on my own.”

  Silence.

  Normally she would check the eyes of the person listening to her story at this point, but she couldn’t see his eyes. Her stomach somersaulted as she swallowed her discomfort. “Michel was wilier than I thought. He had experts check out my VanGoghs and apparently they gave them a thumbs up, so he offered me more money to paint ten more. The money was good, but it felt wrong, scary-connected-to-the-mob wrong. I should have followed my gut and run. But the money was so good, you know.”

  “So he became your manager and took a cut.”

  “Yeah, but like I said, it didn’t feel right. I like to be independent, and when I found out he was making more than I was on the sales I got really angry. I came out here to tell him I didn’t want to work for him anymore. He welcomed my visit cuz he thought he could get into my pants. As if that would ever happen. Anyway, before I had the chance to tell him I wanted to be free of our deal …” She took a swallow of her coffee and looked intently at the counter.

  Three Sheets poured her another cup. “Go on.”

  “Sorry. It’s not easy. I didn’t realize it would be so hard to talk about.” Her throat thickened and her hand trembled. “I was standing just outside his office on his gigantic yacht. I heard him arguing with a man. I stopped and peeked around the entrance and saw him shoot a guy. He just pulled out a gun and bam. I gasped. I couldn’t help it.”

  “But he didn’t see you.”

  She shook her head. “No, but I think his brother saw me or heard me because his head swiveled to look my way.”

  “So you jumped off the boat and swam ashore.”

  “And here I am.”

  “Tuna-Breath will be looking for you.”

  ***

  The sound of the front door opening and closing, followed by footsteps announced a visitor. Harley put down her cup of coffee and grabbed a kitchen knife.

  “No worries, love, that will be Azalea.”

  A second later the woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. She raised one brow, looked at the knife and shook her head. “That’s no way to greet your hostess.”

  “Azalea, I would like to introduce my friend, Harley Davis,” said Three Sheets in a formal tone as if they were at a fancy cocktail party and he wasn’t invisible.

  “I don’t talk to people who hold butcher’s knives.” The white hair piled on top of the woman’s head, held together by a vintage pearl clip, looked as though it would topple over at any moment, but the rest of the woman looked sturdier than granite. Her smoky-gray eyes peered at Harley over a pair of tortoise-shell glasses perched precariously on her long, thin nose. Everything about the woman was thin, except her aura. Her personal energy felt too large to be contained in this or any other room. Her uniqueness would normally intrigue the heck out of Harley but in these circumstances, it just made her nervous.

  Harley put down the knife and folded her hands in front of her. “Sorry,” she said.

  “What brings you to my teahouse?”

  The piercing look in the older woman’s eyes stripped Harley to the bone with the precision of a surgeon’s knife. The woman seemed to be looking straight into her heart, reading all her carefully-kept secrets. She took a deep breath. Having just told her whole story to a ghost, a pirate no less, why shouldn’t she open herself up to this medium? Perhaps honesty would be her best card. “I need to hide.”

  “She swam ashore in the middle of the night,” Three Sheets said. “You never know what a high tide will wash ashore.”

  Azalea took off her coat and put it on a coat stand. “Have you recovered?” she said over her shoulder.

  “Yes. I was pretty sh
aky last night, but I’m warm now.”

  “Well, we can’t have you wearing a blanket all day. I’ll phone Abby—that’s our night cleaner and a woman you can trust with your life—and have her bring over some clothes for you. In the meantime, Three Sheets, you can be on your way. I want Harley to tell me her story.”

  The woman certainly knew how to take control. Harley turned her head to one side. How does one say good bye to a spirit? She blew him a kiss.

  He chuckled. “Bye, Harley. You’re in good hands. I’ll be back tonight.”

  After phoning Abby, Azalea poured herself a cup of coffee. “The cook and our waitress will be in soon. If you need to keep your story secret, you’d better tell me all of it.”

  “I found myself in a bad situation with the wrong man.” That was the story in a nutshell.

  “That’s pretty vague.” Azalea took a sip from her mug.

  Harley told her the whole story and concluded, “I didn’t mean to be dealing with a guy so connected, but I fell into that arrangement, ass backwards. I was on his boat because I thought I could work out a separation agreement, but he thought I was there for recreational exercise, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.” Azalea shook her head. “Oh, I do.” Azalea stared at her for an agonizingly-long moment. “I see,” she said.

  Harley worried just how much she saw. The fine hair on her arms rose.

  “I only need to hide for a few days,” said Harley hoping that to be the truth. “I’ll contact some friends to send me money and a passport. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Azalea nodded, but her flat expression showed she had doubts. Harley wished she knew what exactly they were, but the woman wasn’t easy to read. “I’ll help around here as much as I can. You name it, I’ll do it.”

  Azalea nodded. “I appreciate you wanting to earn your keep and I’m sure we can find you some chores, but Harley, you need to think this through. Do you really think money and a passport will make you safe?”

  “No, but it’s a start.”

  The front door opened and slammed shut. Harley looked towards the entrance. A young woman, she guessed to be about her own age, twenty-five, strode towards them. Harley had seen a lot in her travels, but this young woman truly stood out. She was a Goth wearing a French maid’s uniform.

  When she entered the room her dark eyes, outlined in thick, black liner and midnight black shadow, gave Harley a quick once over. “What now?”

  “Harley, this is our waitress, my niece, Joy. Joy, I’d like you to meet our visitor.”

  Joy grimaced as if meeting someone at this time in the morning was way too much. “Got a name?”

  “Not today,” Harley said.

  A smile tugged at the edges of her mouth, which was painted flat black. “Welcome to the house of the rising dead.”

  4

  Dead Sexy

  “I had to remind myself to breathe.”

  ~ Harley

  Harley spent the day helping out around the teahouse, which had the rushing-vibe of a suburban mall the week before Christmas. As she chopped vegetables, loaded the dishwasher and took reservations over the phone, a constant stream of customers flowed through. Azalea really knew how to sell her skills, if you could call her abilities a skill.

  What would it be like to be a medium? You wouldn’t want to be telling people bad news or they’d never come back with their friends. But all news isn’t good news.

  What if you had to read the leaves of someone who was about to die? What would you say then? Surely every person who entered didn’t have a handsome man and a lottery win in their near future? And Sunset Cove was small so bad news would spread quickly. Seeing the future was one thing; telling it another.

  In a back alley in Florence, Harley had glimpsed her future and not liked it one bit. A gypsy grabbed Harley’s hand and insisted she read her palm. Harley pulled away, but the woman kept pace with her and pleaded, “I must see your palm. I must see your palm.”

  “How about I give you five euros to not see my palm.”

  “No, lady. You don’t understand. I must see your palm.”

  The smell of garlic and basil wafted in the air. The woman had to be in her sixties. A black kerchief covered the top of her long, white hair and she wore a black shawl. On her feet were well-worn sandals. That’s what stopped Harley. The woman needed shoes.

  “I’ll give you ten,” Harley said.

  The woman smiled, displaying a missing front tooth. Funny how that can look cute on a kid and not so much on an old lady.

  “Fifteen?”

  “Harley,” the gypsy said.

  Harley froze. It was not just that the woman knew her name, but the way she said it—sharply, with an emphasis on the last syllable—exactly the way her mother used to say it when Harley was in trouble. And she was often in trouble. A tingling sensation crawled across her scalp.

  “I don’t want your money,” said the woman.

  Harley thrust out her hand and the lady held it with her misshapen, claw-like hands.

  “You must be careful,” the old woman said. “Very careful.”

  “Okay, I bite. What do you see?”

  “Your life line is long and strong, but there are other lines that cross it. Hmmm.”

  Harley swallowed, finding it hard to believe that hand wrinkles foretold her future. “So I’ve got a criss-crossy life?”

  “Don’t make fun of things you don’t understand, child.” The woman looked directly at her with eyes that no longer looked human. They had a marbled, other-worldly look, and her cold, remote stare bleached Harley’s mind of thoughts.

  “What do you want from me?” Harley grabbed back her hand and folded her arms across her chest.

  “You must be careful.” The woman continued to stare. “Your life is about to change. A vortex of supernatural forces waits to pull you into its core.”

  “Did Bob pay you to do this?” Bob was her on-again, off-again boyfriend who loved pulling pranks.

  “No. You have more to worry about than Bob’s sense of humor.”

  Harley reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet to be rid of the woman, who gave her the creeps, but by the time she pulled out the cash, the woman had vanished.

  A few minutes later Harley joined her friends in a restaurant and told them what had happened. They loved the story, but they all agreed she should stay out of back alleys.

  Harley had tried to laugh with them, but the fear in the woman’s voice stayed with her, haunting her in quiet moments, as persistent and malevolent as a tick on a dog.

  The next day Michel texted her, demanding they meet in Vancouver. So Michel was the danger the gypsy had warned her about, and she had walked right into it.

  ***

  As soon as closing time came, Joy threw on her raincoat and headed for the door. She turned towards Harley and gave her a lopsided grin. “Have fun with the dead.” And then she was gone.

  The cook, a quiet, rotund man with a big chef’s hat, left soon after. Last of all Azalea departed in her Mini Cooper. Her parting line, “Ignore the ghosts and keep the doors locked no matter what you hear.”

  That left Harley alone in the house—the haunted house.

  Great. Now I wait for the fun to begin. Wanting to be useful, she decided to polish the silver tea pot before she retired. She set herself up in the kitchen with a cotton cloth and polish.

  As Harley worked, she heard a man call her name. Looking up she saw Three Sheets shimmer into view. She lost her breath for a moment. Oh, friggen hell—a pirate of the Caribbean in his glorious prime, looking every bit as daring as the stories he told. Built like a gymnast, slim and muscular, he had a dark and dangerous aura. His black hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he had a well-kept beard and moustache. If she had to give a one sentence description of him, she’d say he looked like a cleaned-up, Captain Jack Sparrow. On his right cheek a two inch cut bled—or at least appeared to—and his eyes twinkled with mischief.

  Wh
at a sight! His specter had a silvery, ghostly glow. Who said a ghost couldn’t be sexy? Dead sexy.

  Putting that thought in her back closet, she smiled. “Look what the darkness dragged in.”

  5

  Slimy Predtors

  “Stop blowing holes in my ship.” ~ Captain Jack Sparrow

  The next morning Three Sheets watched as the thugs left their pretty boat. They were easy to spot, dressed in black jeans and black hoodies, looking more like bouncers from a low-class bar than a fancy yacht crew. They walked together to the street above the dock and formed a huddle. Three Sheets stood a foot away and listened.

  Between grunts and curses they decided to break up to cover the small town quickly. Their boss Michel had offered them an extra five thousand bucks if they brought Harley back to the boat that morning, dead or alive.

  They departed in pairs. Two headed north, but he ignored them. Heading south, towards the teahouse, were a tall, blond muscle-guy they called Hulk, and a square-built Italian they called Giovanni.

  Three Sheets followed them. At the first house, they knocked on the door and waited. The blond guy tapped his foot impatiently “Why can’t Michel just let her go?” he said.

  His partner shrugged. “My guess is she knows something he doesn’t want anyone else to know about. Why else would he offer us money? Michel can buy himself any woman he wants.”

  The blond nodded his head slowly, as if the effort of doing so, or the effort of following the idea—or perhaps both—was difficult. Hard to tell. Not the brightest light on the mob porch.

  A young man, probably in his early twenties, answered the door. Three Sheets had seen him before, a nice kid who had wires coming out of his ears most of the time and preferred traveling on a skateboard to walking. He figured him for a student at the local college.

  When he took the measure of the two men standing on his door step, his face stilled. “Yeah, can I help you?”

  Three Sheets had to stop himself from laughing. Did Tuna Mouth think people would warm up to these guys and tell them what he wanted to know? Not likely. Sunset Cove was a quiet town of respectable people, a tight group who chose to live by the sea and went about their own lives peacefully with one another.