One Dark Wish, page 14
“Sell.” Antoine took out a cigarette but Zack pointed at the NO SMOKING sign.
Jeez, did this guy even know what decade it was?
Antoine put the cigarette away. “These are cash-and-carry transactions. You get a cut and our protection. The previous owner appreciated our help.”
“Protection?”
Antoine’s smile showed off two gold grills. “It’s bad out there, man. Did you see what happened to that hotel two weeks ago? And those fires along the river?”
“No, thanks.” Zack used his friendly-yet-go-piss-off voice. “New management. New rules. And one of our partners is a cop.”
Antoine’s smile did a U-turn. “Cop?”
Zack smiled. “Yep.”
Antoine pursed his lips. “My boiiiiiiis aren’t going to like this.”
Zack pointed to the door. “They’ll like jail even less.”
When Antoine left, Ty appeared from the door that led to their living quarters. He’d just returned with groceries and now clasped a legal pad. “Where’s Luke?”
“Kells’s office,” Zack said. “Why?”
Ty dropped the pad onto the desk. Handwritten notes about the night of the doomed Afghan operation. “We don’t fucking need this right now.”
Zack tucked Ty’s pad into a folder with Luke’s spreadsheets. “Need what?”
“I was listening to the police scanner, and I think Nate might’ve been shot.”
* * *
Nate held Sarah’s hand as they moved into the tunnel. She didn’t mind; she just didn’t want him to notice that she was shaking all over. Partly from the adrenaline, partly from the kiss.
“Sarah, tell me a story. Talking will help keep the fear away.”
“I will if you tell me who Remiel is and why he wants my cipher solved.”
“Remiel…hates me and my men. I don’t know why, and I have no idea why he wants what he wants. I’ve never even met him.”
Oh. Not exactly what she was expecting, but his sincerity told her it was the truth. She coughed and stepped carefully over uneven stones. Why did dark air always smell stale and moldy? “What kind of story do you want?”
“How did your mother learn about the cipher?” With Sarah’s wobbly phone light, they walked down a dim hallway until reaching a stone staircase. He dropped her hand so they could descend in single file.
Her sandals clip-clopped on the steps. “When my mom was in high school, she and her friends were obsessed with collecting Anne Capel’s seventeenth-century natural remedies. They spent hours researching in the SPO library and duplicating recipes in my grandmother’s kitchen. Then one day at the SPO, in a moldy box, they found Rebecca Prideaux’s diary.
“The diary was—is—ruined and hard to read. Since the girls knew about the tragic love story of Thomas and Rebecca, they read what they could of the diary. What little they learned made them believe that Rebecca hadn’t betrayed Thomas and that he wasn’t responsible for her death.” A landing appeared, and Nate took the light so she could step down. “Their teenage obsession shifted from Anne’s recipes to redeeming Rebecca and Thomas’s love story.” After three more steps, they turned left.
“And did they?” Nate asked. “Redeem the love story?”
“No. Only a few pages of the diary are readable. But my mother couldn’t let the story go.”
“Why?”
“A year after finding the diary, my mom discovered a Georgia Pirates book at the SPO. This book has the only peer-reviewed discussion of the Prideaux pirate cipher with examples. But the most interesting thing is the book’s chapter on Rebecca Prideaux. The author claimed that Rebecca transcribed the cipher in her diary to take with her when she eloped with Thomas. The diary was her leverage. And it’s the diary the mob used as evidence in her trial.”
“Wasn’t she burned as a witch?”
“Yes. Her family couldn’t kill her just for stealing the cipher. Since Rebecca’s diary was filled with Anne’s herbal remedies and Anne, years earlier, had been accused of witchcraft for using these remedies to kill forty-four kids, the mob used the diary to prove Rebecca was a witch. The trial was a farce.”
When they neared a steel door, he walked through first, weapon out. What was that rustling sound near the walls?
Nate must have heard something as well because he shut the door behind him and took her hand. “What happened after your mom found that book?”
“She and her friends continued to collect evidence, visit cemeteries—until my mom turned sixteen. And got pregnant.” Sarah’s voice cracked. “With me.”
Nate paused at the tunnel’s split. Metal building debris blocked the right tunnel. Rocks partially filled the left. He dropped the bag, took her phone and laid it down, and held her to his chest while one hand traced her spine.
“When I was three”—her words sounded muffled—“my mom and I moved to Boston. She married my dad, and he adopted me. Then when I was sixteen, she died in a car crash.”
He tightened his arms, and she buried her face into his warmth. He didn’t say anything. He hugged her as if knowing that this was something she rarely spoke about. He’d suffered the same kind of loss and understood how powerless words were in the face of intense grief.
Still, she was a grown woman and didn’t like standing in the dark with squeaky sounds getting louder. Pulling away, she wiped her eyes. “Are we there yet?”
He chuckled and found her bag and phone. “Almost.”
He helped her scramble onto the blockade while she held her skirt to prevent it from getting torn. Once he was on the other side, with her bag and the light on the ground, he put his hands on her waist and swung her down. He stood there, his hands on her waist, in the shadows. “Is that why you became a historian? Because of your mother?”
Sarah placed a hand on his chest, amazed at how strongly and powerfully his heart beat beneath all those muscles. She felt so…fragile next to him. “My mom kept that Georgia Pirates book, and I memorized the stories in it, from the poisonous Capel lily to the deal General Francis Marion made to get the Prideaux pirate cipher and find the hide sites.”
“General Marion? From the Revolutionary War?”
She nodded. “It’s never been proven, but the Georgia Pirates book claimed that General Marion used the Prideaux pirate hide sites to move men and matériel during the war. After reading those stories, I knew that was the time frame I wanted to study.”
“You want to find the hide sites and redeem Rebecca and Thomas’s love story.”
“Yes. My thesis, the one published prematurely, hypothesized that not only did the hide sites exist—because you’d be surprised by how many don’t believe they do—but that Thomas Toban solved the cipher and his nephew, who became a pirate as well, offered the hide sites and the cipher to General Marion. I also claimed that Thomas didn’t betray Rebecca. I just couldn’t prove it.” She waited for him to laugh at her and was surprised when he didn’t.
Instead, he kissed her, collected her bag and phone, and led her down the tunnel. “And your grant proposal that Cassio doesn’t want you to submit?”
“If I win the grant, I’ll have enough money to restore the diary properly. Since my boss doesn’t want me to fuss with the hide sites anymore, I thought that I could go about it a different way—by reading Rebecca’s diary and finding out the truth.”
“You have the diary?”
“It’s in a safe at the SPO.” She heard squiggly sounds and hoped she wouldn’t step on anything that moved. “The plan was to restore the diary and Rebecca would tell me how to find the hide sites and redeem her love story.”
“That’s a hell of a lot to ask from a diary of a sixteen-year-old Puritan girl.”
“Which is why The British Journal destroyed my career when it published my draft thesis. Of course it was supposition and hearsay,” she scoffed. “I hadn’t restored the diary yet.”
He held her elbow as they turned a corner. The air smelled like moldy cheese and old bathrooms, making her sick. The tunnel widened, and something ran over her toes. “Ick!” She had to wear sandals today? “Where are we?”
“Almost out.” He raised the light higher, and she could see a door at the end. “There are tunnels under the entire river walk. I’ve heard they were used by pirates.”
“They were built in the nineteenth century by the textile factory owners to store raw cotton and linen. But your story is more romantic.”
“I bet Augustus never would’ve made it through these tunnels.”
She laughed, just now realizing how talking about her mother had lifted a darkness that had shrouded her heart. A darkness she hadn’t even known was there. Despite the stench, she breathed deeply, more grateful for Nate’s presence than she’d ever be able to admit. “Augustus is an academic historian, not a field historian. He’d never have gone out to the isle or traveled underneath a city. With rats.”
They halted before the oak door. When Nate opened it, she used her hand to shade her eyes from the blinding daylight. They were along the river, and she inhaled the fresh air. Crowds moved in and out of shops and restaurants. Helicopters flew overhead, and thunder rumbled in the distance. No one noticed they’d appeared out of nowhere. And it seemed to have gotten ten degrees hotter.
Nate turned left and walked with his arm wound possessively around her waist. She clutched the bag on her other shoulder and shivered, despite the heat, at the realization she’d not only accepted his protection, she’d told him things about herself she’d never told anyone before.
Not even Augustus.
* * *
Nate led Sarah across the street, sure he’d lost the hooded man. Now that he was out of the tunnels, his buzzing phone was giving his ass a massage. No doubt one of his men had seen the police helicopters. No doubt Ty had heard something on the police scanner he’d set up in the bedroom he shared with Luke. No doubt Garza was freaking out. But Nate didn’t have time to chitchat.
He kept her close while dodging a tour bus and a police cruiser. They were only a few blocks from the gym. He’d considered taking her through another tunnel, the one between the club and the gym, but it had rats that could take down a medium-size dog.
Instead, he headed for another stairway leading from the river up to the street. He glanced at Sarah, still keeping up with his brisk pace. She had dirt smears on her face, and her hands were scratched. At least the handkerchief around her upper arm hadn’t bled through. It had been a small cut, and he tried not to think about how much worse it could’ve been. When he found Etienne again, the bastard would pay for even looking at Sarah.
Nate stood on the stairs and held out his hand. “Ready?”
She put on her hat again and took his hand.
“One more thing.” He didn’t have the time to give her details, but his friends’ lives were on the line.
She squeezed his hand. “You can trust me, Nate. I know what it’s like to be betrayed. I won’t do that to you or your friends. I promise.” She adjusted the bag on her shoulder until he took it from her. The strap had left an angry red mark.
She tried to take the bag. “You can’t carry that and reach for your gun.”
A zinging in his head forced his eyes closed, and he dropped the bag. Not now. Not here.
He kicked all of his physical and mental strength center and front. He would not collapse in front of Sarah. Sweat dripped down his neck, and his fingernails tore into his palms until he felt a soft touch on his arm. He opened his eyes only to see Sarah’s brown gaze in his line of vision.
“Are you alright?”
He pressed a hard kiss against her soft mouth. He’d lost count of how many kisses he’d stolen. And, honestly, he didn’t care. She tasted as sweet and warm as fresh-picked strawberries.
When he raised his head, she laughed, but her eyelashes lowered. “I guess.”
He adjusted the bag’s weight on his shoulder. He thought about apologizing, except he wasn’t a bit sorry and intended to do it again. “Let’s go.”
They hurried up the stairs, headed down the street, and slipped into an alley. That led them behind a service station parking lot. They crossed the asphalt broken by weeds and roots and made it into another alley. Little sunshine ever made it here, and the lack of light left the cobblestones covered in a slick green mold.
She slipped, and he wrapped his arm around her waist. The gym’s back door was ahead. Only another sixty feet—then a shadow blocked his way. It was tall and dark and held a nine-mil.
Sarah stopped.
“It’s alright,” Nate whispered. “It’s Ty.”
Ty came on them fast, keeping her between their large bodies. “What took so long?”
“A tail.”
Nate handed Ty the bag in return for an ammo clip. They entered the garden, which consisted of two palmettos and an azalea. “Zack is on the roof.”
Nate slipped the clip in his front pocket. “Take her inside.”
“Will do.” Ty took her arm as another man came out the back door. “Hey, Pete.”
Pete didn’t answer. He just grabbed Nate’s arm and dragged him to a fire escape ladder leading to the roof.
Chapter 17
Where was Nate going? When Pete followed Nate up the ladder, Sarah noticed a knife tucked in Pete’s back waistband.
“Miss Munro?” Ty tugged on her arm.
She followed Ty into the gym’s storage area but tried to get one last peek before the door closed behind her.
“This way, Miss Munro.”
Ty was near an opening on the other side of the room, which led to the main gym. She squared her shoulders and followed. The storage area was stuffed with gym mats, punching bags, folding chairs, and moldy boxes. It was also dimly lit by a few hanging bulbs. Was that a rat?
As they made their way through the gym, she ignored the stares of the men who were working out. She found Luke in the main office, sitting at the desk, typing on his laptop. She took off her hat and laid it on top of a ledger.
Luke shut the laptop and stood. “Hello, Miss Munro.”
Ty dropped the shopping bag on the chair. “Would you like something to drink, Miss Munro?”
“Water would be nice.”
“Where’s Nate?” Luke asked Ty.
“Roof.” Ty went to the mini-fridge with the coffeepot on top and found two cold bottles.
After opening her water and drinking two long sips, she asked, “What is Nate doing?”
Ty’s smile stopped two miles from his eyes. “Making sure you two weren’t followed.”
“With extra ammunition?”
“Just a precaution.” Ty cleared his throat and took a long drink from his bottle. He ran a fist over his lips. “Soooooooo…are you and Nate…you know?”
She tilted her head. “Are we what?”
“Fucking.”
Her mouth opened and shut. She didn’t know what to say.
“Jeez, Ty. Shut the hell up.” A woman came into the room and held out her hand to Sarah. “I’m Samantha. We met a couple weeks ago at Juliet’s Lily.” Juliet’s Lily was the most exclusive landscape architecture firm in the city, and Samantha had consulted with Juliet Capel—the owner—on some old documents.
Sarah tried not to stare at the slender woman with wild blond-red curls that almost reached her waist, black leggings, combat boots, and purple lace tank top. “Nice to see you again.”
Samantha pointed to the handkerchief on Sarah’s arm. “Ty, get Pete’s medical kit and some hot water.”
Ty finished his bottle in four gulps. “That’s not on my chore list.”
“I’d like to apologize for Ty.” Luke, with his laptop, moved toward the door. “Ty’s been under serious stress, and he’s concerned you’re not Nate’s type.”
“That’s enough from both of you.” Samantha stared at Ty. “Go. Now.”
Ty tossed his bottle into the trash and left the room.
Once Ty disappeared, Sarah asked Luke, “When you said ‘Nate’s type,’ did you mean the breathing type or the easy type?”
Samantha laughed.
Luke clasped his laptop against his chest like a shield. “I didn’t mean…I don’t think you’re that type. You’re the other type.”
“Luke!” Samantha’s higher-pitched voice carried in the small room. “You should stop talking now.”
Luke hurried out.
Once the men were gone, Samantha moved the bag so they could sit in the two chairs across from each other. “Are you okay?”
Not really. “Yes. Thank you.” Sarah took another drink of water, unsure of what to say or why Samantha was asking.
Ty appeared with a medical kit, a towel, and a bowl of water and placed them on the table.
“Where are the rest of the men?” Samantha dipped a towel into the water and squeezed out the excess.
“Zack, Pete, and Nate are on the roof. Cain is clearing a tunnel. Luke is at the front desk. Vane is teaching, and I’m”—Ty’s gaze rested on Sarah before skittering away—“managing the main gym.”
“And Kells?”
“Out.”
Samantha put on blue plastic gloves and unwrapped the handkerchief around Sarah’s arm. “You should probably return to the floor.”
Ty left the room again.
“Don’t take anything Ty says personally.” Samantha washed the cut on Sarah’s arm with the wet towel. The cut stung more than Sarah had expected. “He’s always in a bad mood.”
“Oh.” Sarah held Nate’s handkerchief edged with strawberries and now stained with blood. She’d have to wash it again before returning it. “Does my arm need stitches?”
“No.”
Thank goodness. “Didn’t you tell me two weeks ago that you’re dating a man named Pete? Would that be the gym’s Pete?”
Samantha’s smile transformed her face. “Yes. Pete and I met at the club. I was…am…a cocktail waitress there.”
