The Last to See Me (The Last Ghost #1) - M Dressler Page 0,93
have to, though. I wish it was all done and over with already, and Dane could come and just do whatever he’s going to do to the place, gut it and tear it to pieces for all I care. That’s what I really feel. That’s me.” She hands the whiskey back to him.
“Yes.” Pratt smiles and drinks and exhales and seems, although I don’t know why, relieved. He puts the flask away. “I believe you now. I know you’re exactly who you say you are.”
“You seem happy all of a sudden.” She smiles back. “What happened at the cemetery? Did you—did you get—?”
“We’re getting close. But I need you. We’re in this together. For just a little longer, what do you say?”
“Is that why we’re going to the house now? Because you know something? You know how to call it out, how to make it—manifest?”
“We were always going back to the house, Ellen.”
29
I waited until the sailors were singing noisily in the saloons. I hurried through the mist and rain to the lee of the harbormaster’s hut. I saw the Lorna, lying quietly at anchor. I clutched the post at the head of the cliff steps and saw no one stirring outside the ship’s lighted cabins. The gangway took my feet without a sound. The hatch was exactly where my father said it ought to be. I had to set my wet case down to pull one of the hinged doors open. Then I was shivering and pulling my valise in and closing the door behind me and creeping toward the round windows still glowing with a little light, even in the mist and the lingering gale. A yellow haze from the electricity burning all around the cove fell into the hold. From time to time I heard voices, shouting. I backed deep in, soaked to my skin, and found a berth for myself by sitting on a coil of rope beside three tied barrels of fish oil. I hadn’t thought about what they would do if they found me. I had to make sure they didn’t. Slip out again at the fort, when it was safe.
After a while, the rain stopped and I heard footsteps coming out of a cabin. A low voice spoke, and then a higher one, and as they grew louder near the hatch I could begin to hear them both.
“… a special shipment from my father to my sister … our best redwood …”
“Duty … this is over-diligence …”
“But … I’m happy here.”
“You don’t want … ashore?”
“Captain, my father insists. I’m to keep an eye on this shipment until it reaches the fort. He’s testing me, in his way.”
“Well I’m sure you’ll rise to the test, son.”
Their voices funneled down from above me.
“Is this rain finished, do you think, Captain Alstad? Will the wind shift now?”
“All is well, Albert. I’m less concerned about the weather than whether you’ll be bored keeping company with an old man.”
My breath caught. It was Albert, the younger Lambry son. The eager one, Quint always said. The one who’d do anything his father asked. I remembered how his face looked in the glow of the July fireworks over the harbor. Excited. Round as a cherry. Not a hair on his chin.
“I’m not bored at all. And I like doing what my father asks me to do.”
“You’re a good son. You and your brother both. Were you sad to see him leave for Eastern climes?”
“Not at all. I was happy for him. And my parents, too. My brother was starting to feel restless and tied down here, Captain. He wanted to leave.”
“Wanderlust.”
“I’m a much more steady type. Easy-going.”
“Would you like to go in and play some cards? No harm?”
I couldn’t hear what Quint’s brother answered. And I didn’t care to. It didn’t matter to me. He couldn’t know what was in his brother’s heart, could he? I’d seen his parents’ faces. He didn’t know what had happened. Only Quint and I did.
The hull of the Lorna rose and fell so sharply that I had to reach for one of the barrels beside me. This was no time for losing my balance. I was glad I wasn’t one of those squeamish girls who get sick just looking at a skiff rising and falling on a crest. I’d never been on a big boat but I’d watched them long enough, and the Lorna seemed sturdy and weatherly. She rolled without much groaning, the hold smelled fresh and rich and live with oils and