A few pieces of jewelry and some candelabra were actually intact and were now being displayed at the local museum. The rest of the gold had been melted down and sold as a kind of permanent trust fund for Ocean House so that people could continue to come here always.
Tourists were making reservations in droves. Ocean House was booked solid from Thanksgiving through the first of the year. Some families had even started to make reservations for the following summer. There were so many curiosity seekers who wanted to see where the treasure from The Queen Isabella had been buried all these years that her mother had started a waiting list. It was a miracle they’d been able to get the pool all to themselves for just this one afternoon. Sharon supposed it wouldn’t happen too often in the future.
“You were really sure it was Phil. Weren’t you?” Sharon asked. “I mean, you were so intent on chasing him. But you were taking a chance luring him to the pool and blowing it up.”
“I was willing to bet my life on it. Sorry I almost bet yours, too.” He put his hand over hers.
Sharon smiled. Dan was everything she’d ever wanted in a guy and more. She couldn’t believe she’d been so blind as to fall for Phil. “Where did you get the idea to use dynamite?”
He shrugged. “Just popped into my head when we were reading Charlotte’s manuscript. But, of course, I didn’t have any. I found some out in the storage shed behind the pool. Almost like somebody was on the same wavelength I was. Did your parents use it for anything?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Just a coincidence, I guess.”
Sharon thought of Charlotte and her ghost, then quickly put the idea out of her head. “Why did you tell me in the woods that it wasn’t Phil?”
“I didn’t want you to say anything to him. It would have been dangerous.”
“Well, you might have at least confided in me about Irene!”
“I didn’t know myself until the very end. Wasn’t that something? She fooled us all. She did that English accent so well, who would have guessed she was just an undercover cop from Virginia instead of Irene Cragmoor? Man, what a setup!” Dan shook his head.
“That was kind of an elaborate hoax for the police, wasn’t it? Havin’ her pose as a wealthy investor throwing lavish parties for the BEST OF THE BEST?”
“True, but she got to live upstairs and she could investigate twenty-four hours a day,” said Dan. “And you were right. She did plant the mike and send the cops after us in the woods.”
“What tipped them off to begin with? The police, I mean.”
“They said it was Old Dave from Dave’s Treasure Trove. He’d seen shadowy figures prowling about Ocean House even before your family moved in. I guess Dave told them the stories about the gold, too. Everybody assumed there was gonna be big trouble.”
“You can say that again!”
“Irene really freaked you out, didn’t she?” Dan grinned.
“You’d better believe it! That explains those binoculars, though. It even explains her dropping the murder weapon into the pool, leaving pictures lying around for the murderer to find, and why she was always the first one in my room when something went wrong. No wonder she carried fake IDs and got into cars with strange guys! I just couldn’t put it all together and guess what was going on. I thought she was trying to drive me nuts!”
“Must have been pretty creepy thinking Sue, Angel, and Vicki were in on the act, too.”
“That was the pits! Sue, Vicki, and Angel were all part of the pact. We agreed to keep our eyes open. We all thought Irene was up to something. Suddenly the others switched sides. How was I supposed to guess Irene had spilled the beans and convinced them I was guilty that night out at the pool? Nobody came clean with me until after it was all over.”
“You can thank me for that,” Dan said. “They all thought I was the murderer. They were trying to keep you away from me.”
“All this confusion is enough to blow your mind!” Sharon said.
Dan pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the pool beside her. He gave her a hug. “At least Phil can’t get his claws into you anymore. It’s life without parole for him and his buddies.”
“I’ve got my work cut out for me around here,” Sharon said, taking a look at the estate through the glass pool enclosure. New hedges had been planted. Every day gardeners could be seen on the property. Even the tennis courts and the Jacuzzi were being refurbished following the dynamite explosion.
“Is it really true what I’ve heard about your dad?” Dan asked.
“Oh yeah, the owners and investors have offered him a job. He’ll still be able to take international business trips, but he’ll be taking them for Cragmoor Resorts instead of that Atlanta firm. Ocean House will be his home base. He’ll have an office here.”
“So your mom and dad are back together for good?”
“They’re gonna give it another try.”
“How about you and me?” Dan leaned closer to her ear. “Are we back together for good, too?”
Her heart started hammering at Dan’s nearness. She felt a tingle up and down her spine. A warm feeling spread over her. She’d broken up with him last summer because she thought he was more interested in his hobbies and took her for granted. Well, these days he did little besides hang around her. He always called and drove her to school. They went out several times a week. He even walked her between classes, as if he were still afraid something might happen to her. Perhaps that close brush with death had taught him something about his own feelings for her as well.
“Well … I don’t know.” She teased, knowing very well.
“Is that so?” He jumped into the water and started pulling her in by the foot. “We’ll see what we can do to convince you.”
Sharon shrieked in delight as he pulled her into the pool after him. She landed with a big splash right beside him. He didn’t give her much of a chance to catch her breath, however. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her underwater. Only gradually did they surface.
A shiver of a different sort went down her spine. Sharon pulled away. She got the very distinct feeling that someone was watching them. She glanced up at the window of the octagonal tower that she was still using as a bedroom before the guests took it over again. There sat the doll out on the balcony that had also been recently rebuilt.
“What’s wrong?” Dan asked.
“I—I don’t know … Dan, did you ever get the feeling that maybe Charlotte does haunt this place? Maybe it wasn’t just Phil and his pals playing tricks on me? Maybe some of it was for real?”
Sharon recalled the letter she’d gotten from the head psychic. It had congratulated her on being a successful medium for the ghost Charlotte. The old lady had said, “There is more to the world than we know.”
Dan laughed. “That’s nuts!”
“I just felt that the doll was watching me. I’ve been having dreams.”
“Like what?” He dragged her over to the shallow end and sat on the steps. He put her on his lap. She could sense he was in his “humor Sharon” mood.
“I’m not kiddin’. Just last night I dreamed that I heard footsteps on the stairs. The weeping lady came to my bedside again. I pinched myself, but I couldn’t wake up. This time she stopped crying, put away her handkerchief, and smiled at me. Then she vanished.”
“Who knows?” Dan shrugged. “I guess when you think about it, Charlotte Williams, our CW, won big in the end.”
“You’re right!” Sharon said, amazed at herself. She’d finally figured out what her dream meant. Charlotte had trapped Phil just as she had trapped her worthless husband decades ago. She’d driven her own husband mad and then to his death with his gold lust. Now she’d seen that Phil had been locked away for good because of his. She’d kept her promise that no one would ever have the treasure. Maybe in her own lifetime she’d suffered much and met an untimely end. But in the next, she’d gotten her revenge two times over.
Sharon said, “I don’t think Charlotte’s going to bother us anymore.” Sh
e glanced up at the window. The doll’s face had changed.
The doll was smiling.
*
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Pool Party Page 13
