It hadn’t occurred to Nessa to take the whale comment seriously. She assumed Harriett was kidding around to entertain the pretty lady whose blue-striped sailing shirt and pearl earrings made her look like Jackie Kennedy. Yet just as Danskammer Beach was coming into view, Nessa saw a massive slab of dark gray flesh break the surface on the starboard side of the boat, and a spray of water shot ten feet into the air.
“Goodness!” she yelped, feeling the tingle of spray on her bare skin. “What is that?” If something so big could appear unannounced, who knew what else might be lurking beneath the waves.
“It’s a whale,” Harriett said with a knowing smirk. “A female humpback.”
“You guys got lucky!” Celeste shouted from the wheel. Harriett lifted an eyebrow and her smirk spread into a grin.
“You really can talk to whales?” Nessa asked.
“You said your grandmother’s friend Miss Ella spoke to snakes. I thought I might have a go at chatting with a whale. I’ve spoken to this one, but I can’t confirm she’s listening. She’s the strong, silent type. I yammer away, but she never talks back.”
The whale swam alongside the boat as if escorting them to their destination. As they got closer to Danskammer Beach, Nessa felt her body go cold. The two girls were down there, their faces staring up at her from the murky water.
She laid a hand on Harriett’s arm. “Would you ask Celeste to stop here?” Nessa asked. “And keep her busy for a little while, if you would.” They hadn’t discussed the importance of being discreet; it went without saying that no one needed to know they were looking for ghosts, not whales.
“Not a problem.” Harriett made her way to Celeste at the other end of the boat.
With the engine off, the boat bobbed up and down on the waves. The whale cavorted around the vessel, launching herself upward, twisting high in the air, and sending a burst of water into the sky when she slammed down on the surface.
“She’s putting on a show.” Jo took a seat next to Nessa. “It’s like she’s covering for us.”
“Yeah.” Nessa pulled a sketch pad and pencil out of her handbag. She wasn’t feeling chatty.
“Can you see the girls?” Jo asked quietly.
Nessa glanced up, her face grim. “Yes,” she said. “It looks like their bodies were dropped in the same place. If so, I don’t think it can be a coincidence. The same man must have killed them both.”
They floated just below the surface, their long hair undulating in the ocean’s currents. Mandy Welsh’s pale face shone like the moon. She had frank, honest eyes the color of moss. The rest of her body, clad in a billowing black dress, blended in with the depths below. With so many photos online, Nessa didn’t need to sketch Mandy. Her subject was the Asian girl in the red hoodie with long black hair and lips parted as if she wished to speak. She looked even younger than Mandy, Nessa thought. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Don’t you dare cry, Nessa, she heard her grandmother chide her.
“You’re good at that,” Jo said. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”
“I’m not,” Nessa told her as she sketched the outline of the girl in the hoodie. “I haven’t opened a sketchbook in years.”
The last morning of Nessa’s summer in South Carolina, her grandmother had slid an envelope full of cash across the breakfast table. She’d never had much to spare, so Nessa knew it was meant for something important.
“When you get home, find somebody who can teach you to draw,” she’d said. “You don’t need to be Leonardo da Vinci. But you need to be able to sketch a face so people know who they’re looking at.”
Nessa had never shown any promise as an artist, but she didn’t dare say so.