The Reef Roamer (The Roamer Series Book 1) (4 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Jayme kicked off her shoes and stretched her long legs out in front of her. First Class definitely had its advantages. After her flight to Aruba in coach four years ago, she realized how much she had depended on Donald talking to her to keep the claustrophobia from closing in. The extra room in First Class helped, although it wasn’t the same as a companion. It was also much more expensive, but her best friend Peggy had always told her, “You’re worth it, babe.”

With her thoughts turning toward companionship, she realized how much she missed having someone close. Was this the key? The missing element in her life?

“Would you like some champagne, Miss Haller?” the perky blonde flight attendant asked. It was nice to have a stewardess who attended the needs of only a handful of travelers instead of an entire planeload.

“No, thank you. I would like some iced tea, though, if it’s not too much trouble. Unsweetened, please.”

A drunk driver had taken Peggy from her the year before she lost Donald. Jayme had been crushed with the loss. Consequently, she drank little herself and had no patience for anyone who drank too much.

“No trouble at all. I’ll be right back.”

Sipping her iced tea, Jayme gazed out the window at the white puffy clouds moving steadily past below them. This was a far cry from the trip to Aruba, and she remembered how nervous she had been to travel alone, knowing she would have to sooner or later. That trip had changed her life. It was a change in herself that Jayme had been looking for - and found.

When Jayme had returned home after that first trip, she contemplated the ‘assignment’ Katherine had bestowed upon her. Never one to do things halfway, she decided on a unique approach. She watched the video she had taken over and over again. On the second viewing, she began making notes. By the fifth view, she was excited over the prospect of editing and running a clean version of sixty minutes. Weeks condensed into one hour, definitely a challenge. Jayme had spent so much time at the multimedia center over the shoulder of the technician, he suggested that next time she buy her own editing equipment. So she did, using some of Donald’s abundant insurance money. That first sixty-minute DVD on Aruba was what Katherine had seen. A newly edited version of thirty minutes was what Katherine showed at It’s Time to Travel.

Jayme’s next trip, to Bonaire, was even better. She knew more about her camera’s capabilities and the editing process, and more importantly, she knew more about what people wanted to see. On her trip to Curacao, now completing the ABC Islands, she began making verbal notes directly onto the recorder when possible. This helped her make accurate, on-the-spot observations, and she was able to delete the original notes from her final copy.

At the suggestion of the media tech who had edited her first video, Jayme always made a copy of her digital memory cards to a high-capacity thumb drive before editing. Then she used the original card for editing with its higher resolution. The result was quite professional, and Jayme, being the perfectionist she was, was pleased. She then made an hour version and a half hour version. This delighted Katherine. It gave her an option with her travel clients, some who professed to not have the time to view an hour-long travelogue. No matter what length, the film was thorough; Jayme’s low, sultry voice was the only narration, sometimes mingled with local music and muted voices from the crowds, and the DVD always ended with a spectacular sunset and Jayme saying,
“Sunset in (wherever she was), there’s none like it anywhere else in the world.”
It soon became her trademark.

The Reef Roamer
video was an instant hit at the first travel convention Katherine had taken it to. The orders for the half hour versions began to swamp Jayme’s post office box. The Reef Roamer was in business.

For as much pleasure as Jayme received out of the vacation and diving, it was still work to get the right shots, go to places she didn’t feel like visiting, always playing the naïve tourist, and then the editing, which sometimes took weeks to get exactly right and which she always insisted on doing herself. Though it was work, it never ceased to amaze Jayme how well she was paid for having fun. This was a definite bonus since she didn’t like to use Donald’s insurance money to live on, although there was enough of it that she could have, and she had already set aside the money from the sale of the business for Alan.

The anonymity was also fun. The more well known
The Reef Roamer
became though, the more she found years of acting in community theater helpful to throw suspicion off when necessary. Jayme could change character at will. It was all too easy to slip into the grieving-widow looking-for-something-to-do role when she had to. People didn’t like to be around grief, and that role kept them from getting too close to the truth. Jayme usually used the I-don’t-know-anything-about-my-camera scenario when tour guides got too interested in what she was doing. An airhead couldn’t possibly be the Reef Roamer! Mostly, suspicion arose because she was so attractive and exuded self-confidence, and beautiful women rarely traveled alone, unless there was a reason.

***

Setting her iced tea down in the airplane lap tray beside her, Jayme rummaged in her oversized bag for the travel documents. The bag was another prop, this one being bright orange with yellow and pink flowers that were meant to look like hibiscus. Katherine was so thorough in her arrangements that Jayme rarely even looked at where she would be staying until she was in the air.
Hmmm,
she thought,
Fantasy Island.
Would there be someone on the ground ready to shout ‘Ze plane! Ze plane!’

She chuckled out loud, causing the other first class passengers to glance in her direction. This had to be a real tourist trap, she mused. She herself would have avoided places that sounded too touristy, but this was a job, and others wanted to see these places before they spent their hard-earned money. Even if it wasn’t quite her style, Jayme always tried to make the best of it.

Next on the agenda was two weeks on Holm Cay. From being in the islands before, Jayme knew that
cay
was pronounced
key
, which indicated one of many islands. The brochure was quite promising. The resort boasted spacious rooms, air conditioning, plenty of hot water, a freshwater swimming pool, spa services, white sand beaches, and a restaurant and lounge open from 7am to midnight. They also offered snorkel and scuba tours to the area reefs. They clearly stated that while they had a fax line, they did not have internet connection and there was also no cellphone reception, so there was plenty of peace and quiet. Exactly what Jayme would need after a week of being a ‘tourist’. She could feel herself relaxing at the thought of long walks alone on a deserted beach. A sudden stab of loneliness surprised her, and she focused her attention back to the papers in hand.

Then there would be the final week in Marsh Harbor. That realization sent Jayme’s pulse racing. Was she really ready to face all the memories that place would bring? She knew she had to try. She’d been struggling the past five years, trying to build a new life for herself, one without Donald, and felt she was almost there. She could now think of him without her throat closing up and her green eyes turning liquid. This would be the final test: going back to the place he died. Maybe she should even try to find Miguel and dive that wall again. It would make some interesting footage.

Jayme shuddered involuntarily. The last video she took on that wall was locked away at home.

***

A month after the funeral and before her son Alan had to return to the Army base, he was helping her sort and put away all the scuba gear that had been unceremoniously dumped in a corner of the basement. Alan had found the camera, its battery pack long dead. He had removed the old VHS cassette and slipped it into the nearby VCR, rewound it, and set it on play. Silent images of staghorn coral and triggerfish filled the screen; a passage through a coral tunnel, a close up of a scrawled filefish hiding in the rocks loomed at them. Jayme and Alan stood mesmerized. The scene jerked, then blurred from movement too fast for the auto focus to work. The camera stilled and the focusing lens centered on the steel gray body of a shark moving away. A murky red cloud momentarily fogged the camera lens, and then the scene aimed at the bottom. For the rest of the footage, the camera was obviously not being controlled, as it hung from the tether at Jayme’s waist. There were scenes only of scuba fins and bubbles.

For a few seconds the bubbles parted, and there, for the first time, Jayme saw the shark had indeed returned and was circling below them. A cry escaped from deep in her throat. The camera was then dropped from its tether onto the deck of the boat, taking pictures of water splashing and surf-shoed feet. A dark red pool began forming inches from the lens. Jayme couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horror being played out in front of her. Mercifully, the camera was then pointed at an air tank. Shortly after, the film went blank. Alan shut the VCR off and looked at his mother. It was the first, though not the last, time they cried together.

***

Jayme moved down the gangway tunnel and stepped into the Miami terminal to wait for the next flight over to Marsh Harbor. Even with air conditioning, it was tropical humidity, and Jayme breathed deeply. Having a two-hour layover, she found a quiet spot to sit and texted Alan:

Jayme:
I’m in Miami; depart in 90 minutes for Abaco. Call me
.

Her texts were brief and never signed. Alan was on base and working so she wouldn’t interrupt him unless it was a dire emergency, which had happened only once. She could wait until he called when he was free. Five minutes later, her phone rang.

“Hi, Mom! What’s up?” Alan said when Jayme picked up the phone.

“Just letting you know where I am and that I’m on schedule.
And
that my two week stay on Holm Cay will be silent running.”

“You’re staying somewhere with no internet or cell?” He laughed. “Geez, Mom, you must really need the break.”

“Actually, I do need the break. Are you going to be able to meet me when I leave there? I’ll be in Marsh Harbor in three weeks, and I haven’t seen you in six months. Oh, I’ve already deposited the airfare in your account,” Jayme reminded him, hoping the guilt would sway any last-minute hesitation.

“I’ve already got my ticket for the flight from Tampa to Miami and for the hop to Marsh Harbor. I don’t have a flight number or exact time on the commuter flight yet. Does this hole-in-the-wall place have a fax so I can let you know?”

“Yes, that it does.” She gave him the number.

“It will be really good to see you, Mom. It’s been way too long,” Alan said. Jayme could hear voices in the background and Alan answering with a ‘yes, sir’. “I gotta go, love you, Mom.” He hung up.

“I love you too, Alan,” she said to a dead phone.

***

Alan stared at his computer screen. The screen saver he recently designed bounced clown fish at random intervals, while every few seconds one of them made an attempt at escape only to be eaten by a giant clam. He moved the mouse and silenced the screen, thinking he now had three weeks to work up the courage to tell his mother about his new girlfriend, the one he was thinking of proposing to.

***

Jayme stepped out onto the portable metal stairs that had been pushed up against the side of the small commuter plane. She paused briefly, closed her emerald green eyes, and breathed in the hot, humid air of the Caribbean. A light breeze lifted her deep brown curls away from her pale face, and she smiled. One of the things she loved most about traveling was leaving the dreary winter behind and in a few short hours being in the tropics. She collected her luggage, which looked to be excessive, and made her way to Customs. Three suitcases plus a carry-on did seem to be a lot, though as Jayme opened one after the other for the customs agent, he smiled at her efficiency. One suitcase was specially fitted to hold all her camera equipment in neat foam cutout compartments, thus reducing the possibility of in-flight damage; one case held her scuba gear—a smart diver never advertised the presence of expensive equipment; and only one case held her few clothes, as she intended to live in a bathing suit or shorts and a t-shirt. The carry-on was reserved for her personal items and her laptop, one Alan had built just for her, with experimental, high-tech programs for editing the memory cards from anywhere in the world.

The agent wished her a pleasant stay in the islands and stamped her passport, grinning again, this time with a sweeping look up her shapely body. Jayme blankly returned his expression, collected her bags, and headed for the taxi line.

Being a seasoned traveler, she knew it wise to find a friendly and trustworthy taxi driver, one who could sometimes be convinced into being a tour guide, for a price. A friendly native could give more information and insight than the local Chamber of Commerce. Caye Crocket was such a driver.