Rick nodded. “Everything’s fine. Thanks.” He headed toward the door, winding through the crowd again.
Pete’s phone pinged. “Here’s a message from David: Sophia’s phone was in her bag. She didn’t hear it. What’s Remy’s excuse?”
Rick’s phone pinged: Did you find them? Kenzie.
He responded: Yep. Then he followed Pete around to the side of the café. Twenty to thirty tables were packed into an area enclosed by a railing and covered by an awning. Pete walked over to Sophia and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled up at him, then frowned. Instead of joining them, Rick found a bench and watched the action from a distance. Remy lifted Sophia over the railing, and she and Pete walked off together.
Bet that’s an interesting conversation.
A few minutes later, Remy joined him on the bench. “Pete was pissed.” Remy shook his head. “I didn’t hear his call. He should be yellin’ at me, not her. It’s my fault.”
“I can’t argue with you, Remy. You know how serious this is. We’re all part of a team. If we can’t depend on you—”
“Rick, stop! You know you can trust me. I didn’t hear the call. There was a commotion about twenty feet behind us. I was givin’ Sophia emergency instructions, tellin’ her I would lift her over the railin’, and which direction we’d run. By the time I remembered to check my phone, I’d spotted you at the door.”
“How’d Sophia handle it?”
“Like a pro. She handed me her bag, said it would slow her down if she had to run. Her eyes were alert, her body primed to run.” Remy laughed. “She asked if we could bring the beignets with us.”
“Gutsy woman.” Rick pointed with his chin. “Here they come, holding hands. I guess they reached an understanding.”
“Sophia told me the plan,” Pete said. “I admit, when I couldn’t reach either of you, I was ready to wring your neck.”
Remy winked at Sophia. “Consider me her Secret Service patrol. I’d take a bullet for her.”
Sophia kissed Remy’s cheek. “I hope it never comes to that. I promise to always listen to you.”
“What I want to know is how fast she would have moved if she’d been drawing instead of eating,” Pete said.
“It woan have mattered,” Remy said.
Now it was Sophia’s turn to wink at Remy. “I might not have moved as quickly, but I would have listened.”
Rick pushed to his feet. “Sounds like you learned a couple of lessons. Let’s get a drink. Where are we eating?”
“We have six-thirty reservations at Brennan’s. We can have drinks in their Roost Bar while we wait for David and Kenzie.”
“Lead the way,” Rick said. “I need a drink and authentic Creole cuisine.”
He fell in line as they walked down the sidewalk. They needed a backup system to communicate with each other. They all had sat phones, so there wasn’t a danger of being out of signal range. Maybe they should all get microchip implants. David used the technology to track Charlotte Mallory when that asshole kidnapped her in Washington, DC. If it worked all those years ago, it could work now as well. He added it to his list.
Tonight they needed to figure out where Billie went and go after her. The longer they delayed, the harder it would be to explain her absence. God, he just hoped that, wherever she was, there wasn’t a damn war going on.
8
Barataria (1814)—Billie
Billie followed the path for about thirty minutes until it split into two separate trails. There was no sign nailed to a tree indicating how many miles to the nearest town, but the tracks she’d been following took the path to the left.
Which made her decision simple. Go right.
No food or water and being terrorized by snakes and smugglers had impacted her brain function. She might not be clicking on all cylinders, but she knew enough to stay far away from the bad guys. But…and this was important…the bad guys would have transportation out of the swamp and clean water to drink.
She didn’t have to march up to their compound and knock on the door. She could get eyes on their setup and consider other options.
While she mentally reviewed her game plan to find a place to sleep, guitar music and the soft crooning of a male voice singing a French ballad filtered through the trees.
The music was dizzying, as were the antique pistols, canoes, the strange clothes worn by the smugglers, and the biggest question: how the hell did she get here? It was like she’d been dropped into the middle of another world.
The singer’s absolute pitch lured her down the path.
Within minutes she came upon a community of brick and cypress-framed houses lining a narrow road that led to a large, two-story whitewashed manor house with balconies in the front and back. Spanish arches led into a cobbled courtyard with multiple doors open to reveal a sandy beach and a turquoise-colored bay where a single ship lay at anchor.
She blinked and blinked again. Part of her research during the staff ride while at West Point was a study of early nineteenth-century sailing ships. And the one swinging at anchor at the mouth of the river, alone in the limitless glow of a yellow twilight, was a three-master, square-rigged on the fore and mainmast and gaff-rigged on the last mast. She’d never seen such a beautiful sailing vessel in person. Even the majesty of the ship seemed to agree.
It was the kind used in the Jack Sparrow movies. But why was it here? Were they filming another movie? But there were no Jeeps, no satellite antennas, no trucks, no dressing-room trailers.
While she stood there gaping, the sky transformed from soft shades of blue into a mix of purple, pink, and orange. She had to make a decision now to either walk into the idyllic estate or go back some distance and make a bed in the trees.
Do it or don’t. Indecision was worse than a wrong decision.
The choice was made for her when the muzzle of a pistol thumped against the base of her skull, and the hammer cocked.
9
New Orleans—Rick
By tacit agreement, while they dined at Brennan’s, there was no discussion of the topaz brooch, Billie’s disappearance, or the earlier scare over Sophia’s whereabouts. Instead, Remy entertained them with Cajun stories about the bayous and laissez les bons temps rouler—let the good times roll.
“If it walks, crawls, or swims, we have a sauce to put it in and a song to sing about it,” Remy said. “My mère traced our family back to the French Acadians. They were forced into exile from Nova Scotia in the early eighteenth century in the le Grand Dérangement.”
“The Great Upheaval. The Great Expulsion. An entire population was exiled, and they called it an inconvenience. Really? Being deported is traumatic. I should know, my parents shipped me off to Italy as a seventeen-year-old,” Sophia said. “So where’d your ancestors go?”
“N’Orlanz,” Remy said, “but they doan stay long. They hightailed it out of there and settled elsewhere.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Rick watched as a waiter tripped. It happened so quickly there wasn’t a damn thing Rick could do to help the poor guy. The entire tray of plated food he’d balanced on his hand hit the floor, and the sounds of breaking glass and clattering silverware echoed through the restaurant.
Sophia shot up out of her chair. “Uh-oh.”
Pete, David, and Remy all reached for their concealed carry as they turned in the direction of the noise, but they didn’t draw their guns. Kenzie ducked. Rick’s reaction would have been the same as the guys’ if he hadn’t watched the accident happen. The loud clang still stuttered his pulse, tightened his gut.
The waiter’s red face and ears would have been comical if he hadn’t been so mortified. But Rick had to give the guy credit for his quick action, offering a free round of drinks to the diners whose meals were now all over the floor. That was the thing about accidents—recover and move on.
“That happened to me while I was waitressing in college,” Sophia said, joining the quiet, murmuring buzz of patrons. “I know exactly how he feels. I should go hug him.”
“It happened to me too,” Remy said, finger drumming on the tabletop.
“Hug me instead,” Pete said.
Remy reached for Pete, and Pete played along, giving Remy a guy hug, including the requisite slap on the back.
Sophia laughed. “I think he meant me, Remy.”
Remy clinked his beer bottle against Pete’s. “Okay, give me a hug, Sophia, and consider that the hug I gave him.”
“You guys are nuts.” She grinned as she poured more wine into her glass and picked up the dangling conversation thread. “If your family lived outside of New Orleans, what brought them here?”
“They came here for college and stayed.” Remy took a pull from his long-neck beer. “My mère did that AncestryDNA test thing. We’re an equal mix of French and Spanish, and I spoke a mixture of both languages growing up.”
Sophia focused on Remy’s face, squinting. “I see more Spanish in you than French. You remind me of Miguel Angel Silvestre.”
“Who’s he?” Kenzie asked.
“A sexy Spanish actor. But Remy, you dress like a Frenchman. I’ve never seen you make a fashion faux pas, like wearing sport socks with a suit.”
Pete glanced down at his feet, then back at Sophia. “Are you talking about me, Soph-darling?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. Frenchmen are chic, put together. Less is more mysterious. Look at Remy. He looks effortlessly cool in his blazer with jeans, sticking with blacks and neutral tones, along with a crisp white shirt. You, my dear, ooze sex appeal, too, and are impeccably groomed, and your face is never scruffy like his.” She looked back at Remy. “Although I like the look. Pete, you put a lot of thought into what you wear and splurge on accessories like your watch, and you have fun with color. Go bold or go home. Both of you are confident and secure.”
Rick pointed his beer bottle at David. “I guess Scotsmen and American men are slobs, then.”
Kenzie made an unladylike noise before she could swallow the beer in her mouth, and sprayed David, who calmly dabbed at the wet spots on his shirtsleeve. “That’s priceless, Rick,” she said. “But, all four of you have unique sexy styles.”
“Women don’t even notice David’s clothes or whether he’s clean-shaven,” Sophia said. “He walks into a room and instantly commands attention, powerful and magnetic. Women are drawn to him, and men want what he has. Rick, on the other hand, has that cowboy thing going on, looking sexy in his jeans, oozing masculinity, self-confidence, and has an aura of mystery. He’s iconic. He talks low, slow, and not too much. And,” she smiled, “he never squats with his spurs on!”
Kenzie covered her mouth this time and laughed until tears streaked down her cheeks. She was still snickering and wiping away tears when she said, “You forgot to mention David’s sax.”
“Oh, I love to listen to him play,” Sophia said, “but Rick’s voice—a haunted smokiness and curled at the edges…well, it just strums my heart. And when he sings with Connor, man, oh man, I’m lost in the sheets.”
Pete grinned and gave Rick a thumbs-up. “I reap the rewards every time the family has a songfest.”
Rick flinched and covered his eyes. “Thanks, partner. I can’t unsee that.”
When the laughter stopped, Sophia asked, “Remy, are your parents still living here? I’m sorry if everyone else knows this, but even after three years, I still feel new to the family.”
“I know how you feel. But in answer to your question, my père died of cancer before I went to high school. After Katrina, my mère and I moved to Alabama to be close to my aunt while the city rebuilt. The latest statistics say the population is at eighty percent of what it was before the storm. My mère’s part of that missin’ twenty percent, but she woan move back.”
“So how’d you get to Kentucky?” she asked.
Their waiter—not the red-faced one—refilled their water glasses and removed empty plates. As soon as he walked away, Remy continued, “UK was the only school to offer me a football scholarship with the guarantee I’d start my freshman year. There was too much competition in Alabama. After I graduated and didn’t get drafted into the pros, I joined the Army and trained to be a combat medic.”
“But you came back to Kentucky?” Sophia asked.
“I liked livin’ in Lexington. I met Trainer Ted”—Remy made air quotes—“the first month I was back, and Ted was lookin’ for a certified EMT and bodyguard. I wasn’t certified, but since I’m a trained medic, he wanted me to meet Meredith and Elliott. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“And now you’re working a hundred hours a week for MacCorp,” Sophia said.
Remy gave her one of his sexy, crooked smiles. “Now I’m travelin’ the world in first-class. Can’t complain. But man, I thought I was dreamin’ the first time I went to the castle in Scotland.”
Sophia smiled at Pete. “My first trip to the castle was pretty amazing too.”
Pete pulled her over for a real kiss, not one on the cheek. “It was three days before you got to see the inside.”
“Yeah, and we were pissed about that,” Rick said. “We were all expecting you to come to dinner. So were the kids. When you didn’t show up, David got on the computer and found you before you even checked in at the Balmoral in Edinburgh.”
Rick thought back to the night Pete and Sophia reunited and disappeared to find privacy. After several drinks, the guys had taken bets on when the couple would reappear. They all agreed it would be longer than forty-eight hours, but Rick won—seventy-six hours. He’d never seen Pete so happy or so exhausted.
Sophia poured the last of the red wine into her glass. “Well, it’s nice to know you’ll find me if I ever get kidnapped again.”
Pete’s jaw dropped. “Kidnapped? You’ve got that backward. You kidnapped me. You were the one who kept saying, ‘Go faster.’”
Sophia’s eyes widened, and her face turned the same red as the wine. “Try rephrasing that, Peter Francis.”
From Pete’s barely contained smile, his double entendre was intentional.
She swatted his hand. “I meant to go faster on the freeway.”
He flipped her hair back behind her shoulder and teased her neck with his fingers. “It was the most fantastic ride I ever had.”
Sophia put her head in her hands and shook it slowly. “What am I going to do with you?”
He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. “Love me, I guess.”
Rick’s entire body knotted with something like grief or longing, a deep current of need more compelling than sexual desire or hunger, a nameless yearning that called out but went unanswered year after year. When he was able to speak again, he said, “Let’s wrap this up before Pete gets us kicked out of this fine establishment.” Rick finished the last swig of his beer and pushed back from the table.
“Aw, Rick. Come on. This is a nice break. How often do we get to go out and enjoy a meal and conversation without kids?” Kenzie asked.
“Not often enough, but we’ve got problems to solve.”
“I’ll text the driver, then,” Kenzie grumbled. “He said to give him ten minutes to get back here.”
“Rick, since the house and car rentals are already on yer Amex, ye can pick up the check,” David said. “Kevin set up a New Orleans account on the system, so post yer expenses there.”
“You want Kevin to yell at me. Okay, I can take it.” Rick put his Amex inside the black holder and passed it to the waiter.
“I’ll be right back,” the waiter said.
Pete pulled Sophia’s chair back from the table, and as she stood, she asked, “Do we have a budget? I planned all my adventures a year ahead of time, and I always had one.”
David pulled out Kenzie’s chair, skimming his hand over her shoulder. “Ye’re probably the only person who’s ever asked. Mallory still thinks adventures come with blank checks.”
“We usually don’t have living expenses because we’re at one of our properties,” Kenzie said. “Kevin won’t like this arrangement. He’ll
insist we come home.”
“As long as the topaz brooch is here, we’re staying,” David’s voice was low, too soft to be heard by people at neighboring tables.
Rick signed the credit slip, and they filed out of the dining room in a gaggle. The blackened redfish in his stomach settled like a lead weight, and something tickled at the back of his awareness, like an itch he couldn’t quite reach. But that had been a constant since walking in on David hours earlier. He reflexively felt for his Glock anyway, and it was where it should be, holstered inside his waistband at three o’clock.
He arrived at the restaurant’s front door first, but he gave Remy a slight nod. The bodyguard exited before David, Pete, and their wives, leaving Rick to cover the rear. A glance behind him did little to relax the short hairs on the back of his neck.
He was still overly sensitive to the possibility of danger. And while there might not be a problem right now, it didn’t mean there wouldn’t be one in five minutes.
Sophia looped her arm around Pete’s and leaned her head against his shoulder as they strolled toward the curb. “You know, thinking about Kevin and his budget, I have a lot to make up for since I left the bag of gold you gave me in the past. I’m surprised Kevin hasn’t asked for reimbursement or sent me back to get it.”
David, walking behind her with Kenzie, said, “He wrote it off. Don’t worry about it.”
Sophia glanced back at him. “But I will, now that I know he’s so particular.”
“Jack found a notation in General Mallory’s log about the gold,” David said. “When the general discovered the pouch and its contents, he wrote to Jefferson, but Jefferson didn’t want it. The general and his wife debated how best to use the money to honor ye.”
“I hope they freed their slaves. The general and I had long discussions about the inhumanity of slavery versus the South’s dependence on free labor.”
“You were persuasive. The Mallorys freed their slaves, but at the time, freed slaves couldn’t stay in Virginia, so families had to move north. The Mallorys returned to the system of indentured servitude to attract workers from Ireland and Scotland.”
The Topaz Brooch Page 11