The scene was set for romance.  The tapered candles were white with golden flames at their tips.  The tablecloth was white as well.  Burgundy napkins cushioned the silverware.  The wine glasses were full of an expensive red.  Soft violin music played from hidden speakers.  Beside the table, the wall of windows offered a view of the night-dimmed city and the traffic filled streets below.  Above the skyline, a full moon rode the winds, tainted orange-red by atmospheric pollutants.  This was the moon above the L.A. skyline.

Frank’s phone buzzed in his pocket.  He ignored it.  Tonight was too important for distractions, whatever they were about.

He sighed under his breath, as his eyes clung to the gorgeous creature across the table.  She wore a wicked red gown that bared throat and shoulders in a sexy display of pale flesh.  A necklace of black pearls matched lustrous hair piled high in a chignon.  Her eyes were dark and broody.  Frank had invited her out in an attempt to distract her from her pain. 

At least she dressed up for me.

“That’s a very nice dress,” he offered.

A ghost of a smile came and went.  “It was Tom’s favorite.”

And there he is; the ghost between us.  He got in my way while alive, and in death, remains a big pain.  He picked up his glass and took a sip.  Well, ghosts are like memories, they fade in the sun.  I just have to give Cassandra time.  He set his glass down, and picked up his fork.  The Brazilian sea bass was excellent.  He just didn’t like the cold, glassy eye staring at him.  The open mouth seemed like it had one too many secret to spill.

The NIGHT CROSSING was an expensive sea food restaurant, but he could well afford such luxury.  Now that Tom was dead, the business they’d founded was all Frank’s.  A token amount of stock was held by Cassandra, but not enough to give her anything close to control.  Not that she cared; she came from old money.  That wasn’t what had had interested her first in Frank, then Tom.  Losing out on the love of his life to Tom had rankled, but he’d hidden his hurt and stayed friends with them both.   

He was glad of that now.

He took a bite and chew mechanically, setting his fork back down.

I was always good at taking the long view, anticipating markets, planning for the future.  Tom was more a day to day operations kinda guy.  I know Cassie loved him, but she will turn to me in time, and I’ll have everything I’ve always dreamed of.

“Frank?” her voice was a soft caress.

“Yes, dear?”  He was wearing her down; she no longer frowned at the little endearment he habitually used.

“That night, on the boat...”

He tensed.  “I’ve gone over the story time and again.  It happened just like I told the Coast Guard.  A squall came up out of nowhere.  At least, for us.  Our radio was acting up and we didn’t get the warnings.  By the time we grew concerned over the black clouds and turned around, it was too late.  The storm caught us out to sea with too many miles to safe harbor.” 

His eyes were caught by his red wine.  It was swirling in the glass as if tossed by an unseen storm.  He picked up the glass to hide its agitation.  “We, uh, lost an engine seal and went dead.”  Damn mechanic gambled away the money he was supposed to be using to fix up the boat.  “The ship started taking on water.  The pumps couldn’t keep up.  Damn engineer took the lifeboat and left us to die—may he rot in Hell.”

Adding to his irritation, his phone was buzzing again.  He ignored it.

Frank gripped his wineglass tightly.  Peering into the trembled wine, he relaxed his hold before the glass could shatter in his hand.  He carefully set the wine down.  His right hand formed a fist on top of the tablecloth.  He was surprised when Cassandra reached over and wrapped his hand with her own.

“I’m not blaming you,” she said.  “Everything was out of your control.  I just need to hear it all, to know what his last moments were like.”

“Closure doesn’t come that easy,” Frank said.  “The heart’s a willful beast that tends not to let go of what it wants.”  He knew that from bitter experience.

She nodded.  Leaning forward, the candle light shone stronger on her face.  Her eyes emerged from shadow.  They were bright with unshed tears and pain.  “Part of me will always love Tom, but I do know I can’t live in the shadows of the past.  You don’t have to worry about me quite so much.”

Frank sighed, turning his head to stare out into the night.  “Worrying about you is all the joy that’s left to me.  Floating for days on that piece of wreckage, watching Tom suffer—as I did—with dehydration and exposure.  We had to stay awake all that time so we wouldn’t slip into the water and drown.  We didn’t know the search planes were getting closer.  If he’d just been stronger…”

It wasn’t Frank’s own face he saw reflected in the glass, but Tom’s.  They’d clung to the detached cargo hatch, riding the waves, exhaustion piling on.  Cold had seeped deep in their bones. 

The third sunset after the storm, the water was bloody fire.  Lips were swollen and puffy.  Tongues were achingly thick.  And still, all that bastard could do was mumble endlessly about hanging on and being with Cassandra, the woman he’d stolen from me. 

Frank remembered how he’d scrambled up, sliding on his hip, balancing precariously as he drove his heel into Tom’s startled face.  Again.  And again.  Until the face was bloody, and the man let go.  The sea claimed him.  In its way, it had claimed them both.

That damned bloody sea…  It drove me crazy.  Wasn’t my fault.  Not my fault. 

“Frank?”  Her soft voice brought him out of his memory.  

“Sorry,” he said.  “I guess I’m not very good company, myself tonight.  It’s been a year now—a year today—and I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

“I know what you mean.”  She smiled gently.  “I don’t believe anyone we’ve ever really loved is gone forever.  I may be part mystic, but I don’t believe science can explain everything.”

The sea bass said, “It can explain bloody murder.”

The world seemed to be spinning faster under Frank.  He clenched the edge of the table so he wouldn’t go flying off into space.

Cassandra stared him in the eyes.  There was a message there he couldn’t quite read.  “What do you say we get out of here?”

The sea bass said, “The Sea remembers!”  

Shut-up!

Heart pounding, throat dry, Frank shoved back from the table, scooting his chair.  “Sure, tired of this place anyway.”  They walked arm-in-arm to the cashier.  Frank dug out his wallet as the man brought their bill up on an electronic screen.  Frank handed over a credit card and payment was made. 

A receipt was offered.  Frank waved it away. 

The cashier said, I hope you enjoyed your meal, Mr. Costings.”

“It was fine.  We’ll be sure to come back.”

“We?”  The cashier looked up in surprise, scanned the area, and shrugged.  His smile looked a bit strained.  “Well, have a good night.”

“Yes, same to you.”

Frank escorted Cassandra to the elevator.  They entered the empty car alone.  Red velvet lined the elevator like a bloody omen.  Frank jabbed the button for the lobby.  The car dropped.  His phone buzzed.  He drew out his phone.  He had a text.   “Someone’s going to suffer for this.  I told the office not to call me tonight under any circumstance.”  He had the ring in his other pocket.  If tonight had gone better, he might have proposed.

Cassandra drew away from him.

The text was from Cassandra: I’M SORRY TO BE SO LATE.  COULDN’T HELP IT.  SEE YOU SOON.

Frank frowned, looking up.  “I don’t understand.  You weren’t late.”

“Oh, but I am.  Very late.”  Her outlined changed: growing taller, flatter in the chest, more muscular, the features blurring like something seen underwater.   Until it was Tom standing there, not Cassandra at all.

Frank crowded back into a corner.  “You!  It can’t be.”

The voice was male now.  “No, I suppose not.  I’m probably just a psychological quirk, a figment of your enduring guilt.  Modern man doesn’t believe in ghosts, not in this enlightened age.  We are so passé.”

Frank slid along the wall to the control panel.  He punched the button for the next floor down.

He jabbed it over and over, then other buttons as the door remained sealed, as the car descended toward hell.  Water sloshed his feet, licking his ankles.  He looked down.  Thick, red, more like blood.  A cold, bloody tide had come for him.  The scent was a metallic tang.  The air smelled of sea salt.  He heard the sound of lapping waves, the cry of gulls.  The blood climbed higher, to his knees, his hips.

He stared at Tom.  “Please, you can’t do this.  It was an accident, my foot just slipped.  I didn’t mean to kick you.”

“In the face?  Over and over?  Yeah, I can see how that might happen.”

Anger flushed through Frank.  He took two sloshing steps toward the ghost.  “Damn you, she was mine.  I’d found her first.  You stole her from me.  You had no right to be happy at my expense.  No right.”

The blood was up to his hips, coming in from God only knew where.

Tom laughed.  “Funny, I’m here to tell you that.  Well, I’ll give you more of a chance than you gave me.  Here’s another test of endurance.  Let’s see if you can hold your breath all the way down to the ground floor.”

The blood surged past Frank’s chest, draining the warmth from his body with its icy, spectral touch.  Thick and cloying.  The iron scent gagged him.  Then the car was full, displacing the air, and Frank floated, eyes clenched tight, kicking with his feet to reach the ceiling tiles.

There usually a hatch up here, a way out.

Blindly, he felt for it, shoving the tiles aside.  His hands frantically sloshed about.  A handle!  He was going to live.  He was going to…

A foot kicked his hand away from the handle.  Again.  And again.  His eyes opened reflexively as a kick caught him in the stomach.  His breath burbled out.  The elevator lights were beaming pinkish rays through the blood, making the whole experience surreal. 

No, I can’t die this way.  I can’t … die…

But he did.  From the outside, he watched his body sink, still staring.  The doors opened at the lobby and the red tide poured out, dragging the corpse along.  Frank watched his body lying still and lifeless.  The carpet was dry except for the spot under the body.  The outpouring blood had evaporated like a nightmare passing away.  The clothes Frank wore were drenched in blood.  It gushed from his open mouth as he did a good impression of the Brazilian sea bass. 

The ghost of Frank turned to spit hate at Tom, but he was gone. 

A scream ripped the air. 

Frank looked over to see Cassandra, frozen just inside the lobby, having come through the front entrance.  Her face was distorted by the scream.  Horror darkened her eyes.  She crumpled in a feint.  He needed to go to her.  The wind of his desire brought him closer.  He reached out, but his hands went through her. 

A tall man in an expensive Italian suit came into the building and took in the situation at a glance.  Running in from elsewhere after hearing the scream, a crowd gathered.  The man in the tailored suit picked Cassandra up and easily carried her toward a more private corner of the lobby.  His broad back shielded her. 

After a few moments, she stirred, latching onto the stranger, her ears deaf to Franks howls of frustrated rage.