RACHEL AND LYNN
Rachel was really happy on this beautiful day. She was excited to get her first assignment. Rachel needed to make sure Timothy Billings did not get on a large charter boat that he had already bought tickets for. Timothy was 18 years old, and it was his first trip out of Kentucky on his own. His good friend, Benny Sims, would be going with him. Their charter boat, called Sarah’s Schooner, was in Destin, Florida, and they planned to arrive two days early to stay in a nice beachfront townhouse before they went fishing.
Lynn and Rachel flew to Kentucky a few days early to scope things out. Rachel thought they could remove all four valve stems from Timothy’s car tires. That would slow them down a day or two because they would have to order new parts.
On the day of the trip, Timothy discovered the four flat tires. In about ten minutes, he took the valve stems out of his dirt bike and his sister’s 10-speed bicycle. Timothy installed the valve stems into the four tires on his car and pumped up all four tires with his old bike tire pump. Soon, they were on their way.
As they drove off, Benny asked Timothy, “Who would do something like that?”
Timothy said, “I think Rex did it. He’s mad because I was hanging out with Sheila. She doesn’t like him like that. Sheila says she and Rex are just friends.”
Rachel and Lynn had their shields up so no one could see them, and they watched from the quiet road past Timothy’s driveway. Lynn giggled and said, “We should have brought one of the boys.”
Rachel said, “We just have to work smarter. We’ll get this. We don’t need the boys.”
Rachel put a tracker on Timothy’s car so she could keep up with him on the road. Lynn would track them with her cell phone to keep tabs on the boys.
Once Ben and Tim got on Interstate 75 heading south, they knew they had to stop at the first store they came to so they could stock up on junk food and drinks. As they were loading the shopping baskets, Benny put a 12-pack of beer inside one of them.
Timothy firmly said, “No, put it back. I can’t have that in my car.”
Benny said, “We’ll be on Interstate 75. The police don’t stop people on 75.”
Tim retorted, “We have to go through Alabama to get to Destin. They have Barney Five cops down there. They have whole counties that are dry, meaning you can’t even have alcohol in the county at all. We’re not getting it.”
With that, Benny put the beer back on the shelf.
As they headed to the front to check out, Timothy said, “This will do until we get down to the truck stop in Alabama.”
As they traveled down Interstate 75, Lynn’s mind was already working on their next scheme. Lynn was very quiet, but her brain worked overtime figuring things out. Lynn used the Anything App to determine when the boys would be stopping for gas. They would have to stop at a truck stop in Alabama.
As the girls pulled into the busy truck stop, they noticed two large buses parked near the exit side of the parking lot.
Rachel said, “That’s a rock band.”
Lynn asked, “How do you know that?”
Rachel replied, “Look at all the people getting off. See all that eyeliner and long hair? That’s a rock band. We need to meet those people.”
With that, Rachel jumped out of the SUV and walked quickly toward the bus, where she introduced herself and Lynn to the bus driver.
Lynn asked if they could hire the band.
The driver laughed and said, “You can’t afford them.”
Lynn asked, “How much for one day?”
The driver called the band’s manager from his bunk in the back of the bus. The manager introduced himself as Bill and asked them how long they wanted the band and where they needed to go to perform.
Rachel said, “They can perform right here. We want them to sing in the parking lot for a few hours.”
Bill said, “$2,000 per hour or $10,000 for the whole day.”
Lynn didn’t even flinch.
“Do you take American Express?” she asked.
Bill said, “No.”
Rachel chimed in, “How about cash?”
Bill smiled and said, “Cash will be real nice.”
So they hired the band for $10,000. Rachel wanted them to stay as long as possible.
The band and crew finished shopping and were getting ready to roll out and continue their trip. Bill called a meeting to announce the new performance date. The crew picked out a good spot in the outer parking lot and began setting up their equipment.
After the band started playing, two big, burly boys noticed Lynn and Rachel struggling to see over the growing crowd. Both men offered to hoist the girls onto their shoulders, giving them two of the best seats in the house.
From her high perch, Lynn saw Tim and Ben listening to the music while sitting on the hood of their car and was pleased. Just as planned, Rachel’s scheming idea was working perfectly.
As more people arrived, most of them parked their cars near the exit so they could watch and listen to the rock band blast out their powerful sound. Just as expected, the cars started piling up. Within a couple of hours, no one was able to get out of the crowded parking lot.
Timothy and Benny were enjoying the show until they realized they couldn’t leave. The parking lot finally cleared out around 3 a.m. after the band had finished all of its sets.
Timothy was worried about their room reservation. They were supposed to check in at 3 p.m. the previous afternoon. By the time they finally got to the condo, the receptionist informed them they had lost their room and would probably have to head toward Orange Beach, Alabama, to find another place to stay.
“Destin is having the big fishing contest this week, and everything is booked,” the receptionist explained.
Timothy eventually found a cheap motel in Orange Beach. It was clean enough, but that was about all it had going for it.
As Rachel and Lynn were following the boys to Orange Beach, Lynn studied the detailed page for Rachel’s assignment. It said they had to get Timothy off the charter boat because it was going to sink about two hours into their fishing trip. It said all the passengers would be fine, but if Tim was on the boat, he and Ben would be drinking again, and Tim would not wear his life jacket and would drown. He was not scheduled for heaven at this time and would be given more time on Earth.
Rachel and Lynn followed the boys to Orange Beach, but Lynn didn’t want to stay in the cheap motel, so she and Rachel rented a nice beachfront condo.
Benny still wanted some beer, but Tim hesitated.
Benny firmly said, “If it’s a dry county, the convenience store will not have any beer.”
With that, he made a quick beer run and was happy when he returned.
Today was Thursday, and the girls had to figure out a way to keep the boys off that boat. The boat would be leaving the dock in Destin at 8:00 a.m. Friday with or without the boys.
Lynn checked the tracker on her phone.
“The boys are on the move.”
The two girls got ready. It was morning, and they rushed through their hair and makeup. Fun note they were good to go in about two hours.
Anyway, Lynn said, “They don’t have to hurry. With my phone tracker, I know where our boys are going.”
On the way down Highway 10 toward Destin, the girls noticed that Tim and Ben had stopped at the Mega Fishing Pier in Destin. The boys thought they would get a look at their charter boat and all the other cool fishing boats.
It was about 2:00 p.m., and some boats had already come in with their catch.
Thirty red snapper were placed on a display board in front of one of the large boats.
Thirty king mackerel were displayed at another boat.
Down the pier a little farther, they saw a shark sprawled out on the wooden planks.
Tim said, “Must be ten feet long.”
The big, burly man holding a camera said, “No, it’s twelve feet. I measured it. It’s a bull shark. They caught him in freshwater upstream this morning.”
While the boys were busy, Rachel came up with another fun party boat idea.
Lynn asked, “What are you thinking?”
Rachel said, “These are all party boats, and this one is for sale.”
Lynn called the number on the for-sale sign, and with cash once again, Rachel became a new boat owner.
Lynn inquired about Rachel having all this cash all the time, to which Rachel explained, “The party business is an all-cash business. If you don’t have cash, you don’t get to throw a great party. And I like parties.”
Now the girls would have to quickly find the boys and invite them to ride on their new boat.
Lynn approached Timothy first. For some reason, he seemed to be in charge of things.
She asked the two boys if they could help her and Rachel drive their new boat.
Tim thought Lynn was pretty, and Ben thought to himself, I bet Rachel is hot.
As they approached the boat parked at the pier, Ben saw Rachel.
What a beautiful girl, he thought to himself. A little older, but very pretty.
The foursome got on the boat. It wasn’t huge, but it was plenty big enough to enjoy the Gulf of America in style.
They had a little trouble getting the boat started. It flooded out.
Benny pulled on the choke a few times, and then it finally cranked up.
“Oowee, that’s smooth,” remarked Tim.
They decided Tim would drive the boat until they were out in the bay, and then the girls could take a turn driving.
Rachel wanted the boys to go fishing with them tomorrow.
She said, “With a GPS system, I know where my uncle’s fishing spot is. It’s full of red snapper, grouper, and some flounder. We can win some money in the big fishing contest.”
Tim said they were already booked on the charter boat and had paid a pretty good price for that trip.
Benny punched him in the stomach and whispered firmly, “I ain’t going on no boat with a bunch of smelly old men. I’m going on this boat with these girls, and I need you here.”
“Ouch! Okay, okay,” Tim said with a big frown on his face. “We will go with the girls.”
The four of them rode around for a while in the lagoon and viewed all the big, luxurious villas along the shoreline.
As the sun slowly set, they headed back to the docks at Destin. They were sightseeing and enjoying the view.
Benny inquired of Lynn why both girls were smiling like two Cheshire cats.
Lynn looked at Rachel and said, “We just love it when good things happen. Tomorrow is going to be great.”
That’s when all the trouble started.
A harbormaster’s boat pulled up beside them and told them to stop and be boarded by one of their deputies.
Tim was driving once again.
After investigating, the deputy reported back to his boss that one of the girls was the owner. She had a bill of sale, but no title.
The harbor captain said, “So you’re telling me no one has a safety permit to drive the boat, and we are not sure who owns it?”
“That is correct, sir,” the deputy said.
The deputy told all four of them to get on the harbor boat, and with that, they impounded Rachel’s new boat and returned all four passengers to the Destin Harbor docks.
The deputy told them to walk away as fast as possible.
“Right now,” he exclaimed. “You are not under arrest. You can come down to the courthouse and reclaim your boat in about a week if you have the title. Y’all need to hurry before the captain changes his mind. Get out of here,” he exclaimed loudly.
Lynn and Rachel went to one of the many colorful beachwear stores and bought two of the cutest bikinis they could find, one bright red and one dark blue, for an idea Lynn had cooked up.
The girls rented a room at the cheap motel where the boys were staying, not to stay in, but so they would have access to the swimming pool.
When Timothy saw Lynn sitting by the pool, he went over to meet her, even though he had no bathing suit. He said he hadn’t come there to swim. Wearing his faded blue-jean cutoffs, he walked right up to Lynn and said hello.
She giggled a little at the sight, but Timothy assured her he wasn’t going in the pool. He was too much of a man for that. Swimming was kids’ stuff, he said.
It was getting dark now, and Rachel had come out to sit beside the pool. Benny noticed that his friend had one too many girls around him and decided to help him out. As he got closer, he realized they were the girls from the boat.
He walked right over and introduced himself to Rachel, and they hit it off immediately.
“I remember you,” she said with a warm smile.
The boys finished off most of the beer Benny had bought, but neither of them had much experience drinking alcohol. Both were only eighteen years old and couldn’t legally buy it back home in Kentucky.
The girls helped the young boys back to their motel room. They were becoming a little unsteady on their feet.
Benny offered the girls drinks, but both turned him down.
“The drinks are for real men,” Rachel teased. “We girls only drink wine.”
Benny offered to run to the store and get them some wine, but Rachel hugged him and laughed.
“No, we don’t need any wine. Besides, you can’t drive. You’ve been drinking.”
With that settled, the foursome headed upstairs to the boys’ room. They planned to watch a movie on cable television.
They found a really good romantic comedy about two couples vacationing in Hawaii. Everyone laughed at the similarities between the movie characters and their own situation.
Things became a little awkward when the kissing and making-out scenes appeared, but Rachel laughed it off and made a few playful jokes that eased the tension.
The boys finished off the twelve-pack of beer. As inexperienced drinkers, Timothy had never really consumed alcohol before, and Benny had very little experience with it himself. Before long, both boys were getting a little loopy.
One thing they did manage to do was set their phone alarms. They synchronized them for exactly six o’clock in the morning, giving themselves plenty of time to get up and make it to the charter boat in Destin.
Tim asked if the girls wanted to watch another movie or maybe go dancing.
“Let’s watch another movie,” Rachel said.
About halfway through the second movie, both boys were sound asleep.
Rachel raised Tim’s arm high into the air and let it drop. Lynn did the same thing with Benny.
“They’re out cold,” the girls chuckled.
Rachel smiled and said, “I have our little problem fixed.”
“The problem of keeping these two off that charter fishing boat?” Lynn asked.
“Yes, exactly.”
Rachel told Lynn to pick up Benny’s cell phone and turn it off. Rachel did the same thing with Timothy’s phone.
“Since their alarms won’t go off, they’ll miss their charter boat,” Rachel said. “Mission accomplished.”
“Want to hit the beach?” she asked.
“I’d love to, my lady,” Lynn replied.
With that, the girls locked their dates inside the little motel room and headed back to the beachfront condo. They decided to take a long walk along the moonlit beach.
“It’s dark, scary, and beautiful all at the same time,” Lynn said.
The next morning, when Timothy woke up, he immediately panicked when he saw his phone was turned off.
His first thought was that the girls had robbed them.
He rushed through the room checking their belongings. Nothing was missing. Then he realized the girls must have turned off their phones.
He quickly checked Benny’s phone. It was turned off too.
Once his phone restarted, the horrible truth became clear. It was already ten o’clock in the morning.
They had missed their boat.
Tim shook Benny awake.
“Why would the girls do that?” he asked.
The two young men marched to the girls’ room and banged loudly on the door. They pounded so hard that other guests complained, and the motel manager came to investigate.
The manager informed them that the girls had checked out the night before.
With nothing else to do, the boys spent the day enjoying the sandy beach across the street from the motel and headed home the following day.
Rachel and Lynn caught a flight out of Destin and returned to Hawaii, where the little red airplane was waiting to take them back to their island.
“I always love the ride back to the island after a mission,” Lynn said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Rachel replied. “It always feels good to do something nice for someone, especially when they don’t know you’re doing it.”
Back at the mansion the next day, Lynn was reading an article about a charter boat sinking in the Gulf of America.
There had been eighteen survivors of the boating disaster. All of them were rescued by the United States Coast Guard.
The boat’s name was the Sarah Schooner, the very same boat Timothy had been scheduled to board.
Lynn sent a copy of the story to Rachel.
Rachel texted back, “Oh yeah, I already knew that. It was in the detail pages.”
Holy Ghosts 