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
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