“Or buy us a new one. She’s got the money for it,” Chris said. They wiped back a few sweat-struck strands of their hair, which they’d dyed in rainbow streaks for Pride last month.
“I don’t want a new van,” Oscar protested. “This one has character.”
“If character means getting gallons per mile, instead of miles per gallon, then sure.”
While Chris and Oscar retrieved the final equipment case, Tina posed and snapped a photo of herself with the ocean as a backdrop. “One bar. Do you think it’ll go through?”
“Sending it to Zeek?” Nigel guessed.
Zeek Holt was one half of Zeeking the Unknown, another online ghost hunting show. They’d collaborated with OtP to investigate an old asylum, and now they regularly promoted each other’s channels. Zeek and Tina started dating a few weeks after the asylum, though Zeek’s more-intensive shooting schedule regularly ate into their time together.
“I can’t believe they’re doing the Stanley Hotel, like every other ghost show ever,” Chris muttered as they returned with Oscar. Zeek’s partner on the show, Adrienne, was their ex from college and so their criticism wasn’t entirely unbiased, but Nigel privately agreed.
“It pays the bills, and we aren’t here to judge how others run their businesses,” Oscar reminded them.
The catamaran slid up to the dock, engines powering down from a growl to a purr. Ethan Brown hopped down to secure the lines. Ethan worked for the woman financing their recent work, Patricia Montague, as her personal assistant. He was dressed for a day on the water, in a salmon-colored polo shirt, white shorts, and deck shoes.
Two other figures came to the railing on the upper deck. Dr. Ruth Lawson waved a greeting; she wore her silver hair in a long braid and was dressed in a faded t-shirt advertising a land conservancy, cargo shorts, and stout boots.
The woman beside her, Patricia Montague, couldn’t have looked more different. Her white hair was in a pixie cut, and her clothes consisted of a cream-colored suit that must have been linen, or else she’d have expired from the heat. Everything about her looked expensive in the understated manner of those born to old money. She didn’t wave, but left her hands resting on the railing as she peered down at them.
“Need help getting stuff aboard?” Dr. Lawson called.
“Nope, we’ve got it,” Nigel assured her. Lawson hadn’t exactly been a spring chicken back when he was an undergrad at the Duke Institute of Parapsychology, and the years since had thinned her arms and legs, dotted her skin with more liver spots. He certainly wasn’t going to ask her to pick up an equipment case, even if it was light.
Ethan helped them get everything stowed for the short trip across the sound, then cast off and made for the upper deck and the captain’s chair. Apparently he drove Montague around in more than cars; did he have a pilot’s license as well?
They followed him to the upper deck, which thankfully had a roof for shade. Dr. Lawson and Ms. Montague had already sat down beside each other on the bench-style passenger seating; Lawson gestured to a built-in cooler. “Help yourselves to some water before you get dehydrated.”
Chris opened the cooler and passed cold bottles to them. Glass bottles, even, of some expensive brand Nigel had never heard of. He drank gratefully. Beside him, Oscar pressed the chilled bottle to the back of his neck, condensation mixing with sweat.
Dr. Lawson leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, hands dangling loose between her legs. “Welcome aboard,” she said. “Are you ready to enter the Devil’s Den?”
CHAPTER
TWO
A little shiver tried to work its way up Oscar’s spine. Devil’s Den wasn’t the most reassuring name—but then, the Outer Banks were full of perfectly normal places whose monikers dated back to the times when pirates sailed these waters. Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills, Whalebone, Salvo—though that last one came from the Civil War. History ran deep out here.
Of course, he was probably more spooked by the fact that another medium had been killed by a poltergeist on the island, than by the name. Back in the 1980s, Dr. Lawson and Ms. Montague had worked—more than worked—with Robin to investigate a haunting. They hadn’t disclosed any details yet, but Robin’s death had split the two women apart, and they’d only come back together at the abandoned asylum in West Virginia a few months ago.
Maybe this was what Ms. Montague had always been aiming for when she secured their services via a grant for Nigel and generous financing for OutFoxing the Paranormal. For someone to follow her back here, complete the work they’d left unfinished so many years before.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Ruthie,” Montague chided her…girlfriend? Ex? Both? “The island is only called that because pirates used to anchor here. There is—was—a fresh spring, plus timber for repairs.” She paused, then added, “Of course there are legends of buried treasure, but that’s nonsense. Pirates spent their ill-gotten gains in the seaports along the coast. It was one of the reasons they were so hard to catch. The locals had no interest in killing their golden geese, and so were less than cooperative with authorities.”
“If all the stories about Blackbeard burying treasure were true, he wouldn’t have had time to do any actual piracy,” Nigel agreed wryly. “So the island is uninhabited now?”
“Yes. It’s quite small, and as you can see, the only way in and out is by boat.” Montague folded her hands on top of her silver-handled cane. “The only house on the island was built in 1908 by a tobacco magnate named Seth Ullman. The Cottage, as he called it, was meant as a summer retreat and constructed according to his own specifications. Every May, he would adjourn to Devil's Den with six of his closest friends and business partners.”
Dr. Lawson cleared her throat. “We don’t want to give too much information away before our medium has a chance to get his impressions.” She glanced at Oscar. “No offense, Fox.”
“None taken.” Human brains loved nothing more than to fit data into preconceived patterns, and he wasn’t about to fool himself into thinking that didn’t apply to him.
“Then let me just say another family owned it in the 1980s, when we were here before. After…” Montague trailed off, then rallied. “Well, my family ended up buying the island. It’s been abandoned ever since.”
A gull swooped closer, then perched on the rail, eyeing them up to see if they had any food. Disappointed, it let out a shriek and took off, joining its fellows trailing behind the boat. The coast receded into a green-gray haze behind them, and the waters of Pamlico Sound glittered in the summer sun. Between the shade and the stiff wind from the boat’s movement, he’d stopped sweating; when he licked his lips, he tasted the salt evaporation left behind.
Nigel finished off the rest of his water. “Didn’t Robin already collect impressions, though? Surely your previous investigation established the facts of the haunting.”
