With his senses set to high, he counted eighteen clangs of a ship’s bell and watched an enormous tanker ship, piled with crates, glide by, most likely en route to the South Seas. A family of tourists from New York City—he could tell by their speech and mannerisms—fawned over the purses and T-shirts for sale in the open stalls.
Raking the faces of people ambling along the ballast-paved street, he saw no sign of Grimes or Little Hitler. His sixth sense told him they weren’t here. This place had too much of a family atmosphere.
Sean tossed back his coffee. “Let’s take a walk,” he suggested, surging to his feet.
Ellie rose immediately, without question. He could tell she was trying to follow his guidelines without fault. For some reason, that made him smile. It couldn’t be easy for her.
Cruising past the shops in the renovated warehouses on River Street, they ascended the cobbled hill to Bay Street and pressed into the heart of town on Drayton.
Isaac’s had just opened its doors for business. This morning, the pub looked like just another friendly establishment. Its windows sparkled; its tiled floor had been freshly mopped. He felt no qualms about leading Ellie inside.
Four businessmen held an impromptu meeting at one of the tables. One loner sat at the bar’s far end, drowning his miseries in morning beer, but otherwise the pub stood empty. The same barkeep who’d been working the other night glanced up at them and went back to hanging goblets on a rack.
“What can I get you?” he asked as Sean gestured for Ellie to join him on the bar stools.
He ordered two iced teas, waited for the crusty older man to slide their glasses over the smooth wooden counter, and then asked, “You remember me from the other night?”
Ellie cautiously stirred her tea.
“Yeah, sure,” said the barkeep.
“Remember the guys sitting at the table in the back?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Two tough-looking guys,” Sean elaborated. “One was wiry with a black mustache; the other was a big, greasy-looking guy with a tattoo on his knuckle. I think his name is Grimes.”
Ellie frowned into her tea.
The bartender’s flat expressionless eyes told Sean he wouldn’t admit to anything. “Sorry, I don’t remember.” Sticking a toothpick in his mouth, he turned his back on them.
“Of course not,” Sean muttered, wondering at the wisdom of reaching over the counter and swinging the man around. He looked like the type to carry a weapon, though, and Ellie was liable to end up getting hurt.
“How about you let them know I’m looking for them?” Sean suggested, slapping a five-dollar bill on the counter. “Come on, hon,” he said, urging a quiet Ellie to get up and leave her untouched drink.
As they stepped into the sunshine, Sean cut a look through the window and met the barkeep’s narrow-eyed glare. It wouldn’t be long before those goons came looking for him, so long as he stayed out in the open. The problem was, that put Ellie squarely in the middle of a fight.
With her hand in Sean’s but her thoughts turned inward, Ellie scarcely noticed where Sean was leading her. Something he had said to the barkeep had her thinking of the night her boys were taken and the awful moment the door handle of her car had slipped from her grasp.
She remembered fixing her gaze on the dark mark on the man’s left hand, fighting with every ounce of strength to keep it in sight. “Sean!” she cried as her certainty grew, goose bumps sprouting on her skin.
“What?” he asked with a tolerant, sidelong glance.
“That tattoo you mentioned,” she began, cautioning herself not to be too hopeful. “Was it, like, right here, on the man’s left hand?” She touched the knuckle on her index finger.
Sean stopped abruptly in his tracks. “How’d you know that?”
“Oh, my Lord.” She reached for him as the blood seemed to drain from her head. Shock and hope struck her simultaneously, leaving her nearly speechless. “I saw it,” she breathed.
Sean turned her to face him. “What do you mean? When?”
“The fat man who dragged me from my car. He had a tattoo right there.”
“Are you sure? I’ve seen the composites. He didn’t look like either one of them.”
“That’s because I never got a good look at his face. All I knew was that he was fat with small eyes. The other guy was strong and burly with acne scars. I got a good look at him.”
“Then who’s the little guy with the mustache?” Sean inquired.
“I don’t know. Maybe he drove the van.” It had been pointed out to her later that a third person had to have driven the van.
Sean scrubbed his eyes with frustration. “Why wasn’t the tattoo included in the kidnapper’s description?” He was clearly irked that he’d been face-to-face with one of the kidnappers and hadn’t realized it.
“Until you mentioned a tattoo just now, I thought it was just a stamp like you get at a bar.”
“Could you draw it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It was just black lettering of some kind, maybe numbers.”
“That’s what I saw, too,” said Sean, glancing up the street. He patted his pockets. “We need a pen and paper. And I want to look at those composites again.”
Peering across the street, Ellie spied a sign that read ola-wyeth public library hanging on a building wedged between two shops. “Over there,” she said.
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her deftly through moving traffic and to the woodsy-green double doors.
Bells jangled as he swung it open for her. They stepped into a room crammed with shelves and overflowing with books of a bygone era. Dust motes sparkled in the sunlight that sneaked through the blinds in the windows up front, but the rear of the library remained dismally shadowed. A single computer hummed quietly in the corner.
“Can I help you?” An elderly black lady stepped abruptly from between two racks of books. Her wrinkled face made her look a thousand years old.
“Morning, ma’am,” said Sean with a winning smile. “Do you mind if we borrow that computer there?”
Ellie noted the pens and scraps of paper next to it.
“Not at all,” said the old woman, beckoning them warmly. “Just don’t ask me how it works.” She shuffled over to the desk and jotted down the password. “My name’s Edith. If you need me for anything, just give me a shout. If it’s history you’re after, I can lead you straight to a book or journal, but I don’t know a thing about the Internet.”
“We’ll be fine, thank you,” Sean promised, pulling up a seat for Ellie so they could sit side by side. He nodded at the pencil and paper. “Draw what you remember,” he requested. “I’m going to look up those composites.”
Biting her lip in concentration, Ellie drew the general outline of the fat man’s tattoo. It had squared-off edges reminiscent of block lettering or numbering, but nothing specific came to mind. Glancing up, she saw that Sean had gone straight to the FBI’s official home page and had navigated to a page entitled “Kidnapped/Missing Persons.”
As the photographs of Christopher, Caleb, and Colton popped onto the screen, Ellie drew a pained breath. God, how she missed them! Sean groped for her hand and clicked on Christopher’s name, taking them to a description of the abduction and the composite sketches of the suspects.
“That one,” said Ellie, nodding at the fat man. She glanced at Sean’s furrowed brow. “Is it him?”
“I think so,” he said with confidence. “The chin’s the same. That’s about it, though.”
“I never got a good look at his face.”
“That’s okay. You saw his tattoo. Let me see that.” He took her rendering of the tattoo, spun it upside down, and smiled grimly. Grabbing the pencil, he began amending it to fit his own recollections. “What about this?” he asked.
As she regarded the drawing, tears of hope flooded her eyes. “That’s it.”
“We’ve found the sons of bitches, Ellie,” he whispered hoarsely. “This means the boys are probably here!”
With a cry of relief, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you!” she cried, giving him all the credit for hounding down the bastards.
He pulled back, catching her face in his hands. “Listen, hon,” he urged. “We have to be discreet about this. What if Drake was right? What if Dulay did mastermind the kidnapping?”
Ellie swallowed hard as she searched Sean’s worried gaze. Drake had made the Centurions sound so menacing, so well organized, so above the law.
“It’s okay,” Sean assured her, snatching his cell phone off his hip. “We’ll call Butler. We’ll get the FBI on it.”
As Sean placed a call to Butler, Ellie eyed the composites in a new light. What if the kidnappers were Centurions? What hope did she have that the FBI could get her boys back when it took an undercover investigation to prove their leader’s crimes?
“He’s not answering,” Sean told her with the phone to his ear.
Reading the words “ALSO WANTED FOR QUESTIONING,” Ellie scrolled to the bottom of the Web page. Seeing a photo of herself and of Sean, she gave a strangled cry.
He glanced up and nearly dropped his cell phone. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed. At the same moment, Butler’s voice mail beeped loudly enough for Ellie to overhear. “Sir, this is Sean Harlan,” he rapped out. “The kidnappers are here in Savannah. I’ve run into at least one of them personally. And I’ll bet you my trident they’re Centurions, working for Owen Dulay. Maybe you could get down here before tomorrow. And while you’re at it, you can take that fucking announcement off the Web site about me and Ellie being wanted for questioning. Call me back,” he added angrily.
They both looked up as Edith shuffled down the aisle toward them. “You there,” she called, wagging a finger at them, her old voice quavering. “What are you doing?”
Sean came politely to his feet. “Ma’am?”
“What are you doing in here, mentioning that name?”
He blushed at the reprimand. “Which name, ma’am?”
“The Centurions,” she whispered with fright.
“Do you know about them?”
“Hush!” she cried, holding out both hands to ward off further words. “Did anyone come in while I was in the back?” she asked.
“No ma’am,” Sean assured her.
“Then wait,” cautioned the woman as she scurried to the window to snap the blinds fully closed. Bolting the front doors, she flipped a sign over, advertising the library as closed, and circled back to them, her mouth pinched in dread.
Ellie and Sean shared a mystified look.
Edith leaned close, smelling of rosewater, to whisper in their ears, “One must never mention the Centurions in public. People who do so have a way of ending up dead.”
“Sorry,” said Sean, darting a bemused look at Ellie.
In the gloomy room, the woman’s sunken eyes seemed to have disappeared in her face. “Now,” she added, “what is it you were saying about them? Something about a kidnapping?”
Sean nodded at Ellie.
“We think they kidnapped my sons,” Ellie admitted, a small part of her still incredulous.
Edith hissed in a breath. “Poor child,” she exclaimed, sinking into Sean’s empty seat to clasp Ellie with soft, dry hands.
“You’re not surprised?” said Sean.
The old woman’s face screwed up into a bitter mask. “My father was a Centurion,” she admitted darkly. “He was killed for falling in love with a woman who wasn’t his wife, a black woman, my mother. Such a crime was unforgivable.”
A cold shudder moved up Ellie’s spine. How had her boys fallen into the clutches of such a narrow-minded society?
“Is there something you can tell us,” Sean prompted, “that would maybe help us find Ellie’s sons?”
Edith pressed a gnarled hand to her mouth, as if to stem the flood of secrets she had harbored for decades. But then she removed it. “What can they do to me now?” she reasoned, chuckling at her dark humor. “All my life, I’ve lived in fear that they would come for us, too, to kill us as they did my father. I’m eighty-eight years old,” she reflected with bitter irony. “I’ve kept quiet for too many years.”
“Please,” Ellie pleaded, desperate for some insight, some understanding, anything that might be useful in recovering her boys.
“Wait here,” the woman decided, pushing painstakingly to her feet. She hobbled toward the back of the library.
Sitting in the seat she’d vacated, Sean gave Ellie a much-needed hug. With her ear to his chest, she could hear his heart pumping hard and swift. Were they really this close yet still this far from finding them?
As Edith returned, Sean released Ellie and she looked up to see Edith extending to them something wrapped in newspaper. “Only a sworn Centurion can own one of these,” she divulged, peeling back the paper to show them the slim leather volume inside. “This was my father’s. He lived and breathed its instructions and philosophies, but it couldn’t keep him from falling in love with Mama. It’s the only thing I have left of him. Take it but beware. There are Centurions everywhere—not just in the South. Their network is complex and far-reaching. Keep it hidden,” she added, wrapping it up again. “If you’re seen on the streets with it, you may soon find yourself in a heap of trouble.”
“We won’t forget your kindness,” Ellie promised.
“I’d rather you did forget it,” said Edith honestly. “Be careful,” she added, touching Ellie’s arm. “And good luck.”
To Ellie’s sensitive ears, she didn’t sound too hopeful of their success.
With the Centurion handbook tucked under his arm, Sean led Ellie back into the blinding sunshine.
Feeling that time was running out on him, Drake trod the uneven sidewalk, passing the Colonial Park Cemetery and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist with its massive double spires.
Skyler’s absence at the soup line today had left him feeling uneasy. Aside from the Sundays she took off regularly, this was the first day since his arrival at the shelter that she hadn’t come to tend the homeless. He left shortly after lunch to look for her, his feet carrying him along the familiar route down Abercorn toward Dulay’s mansion on Jones Street.
Time was running out for Skyler also. Wasn’t she due to marry at the end of the month?
The sight of a cream-colored Lexus turning the corner up ahead made his heart leap. He was both relieved and pleased to see Skyler at the wheel. Pulling her car along the curb, she lowered the passenger window to greet him. “Hi, Drake.”
“Hey,” he called back, heading toward her with a grin. Stooping to look through the window, the first thing he noted was her casual attire. Wearing shorts and a T-shirt, she looked young and carefree, the way she was supposed to look. He had to drag his gaze up from her golden toned thighs. “We missed you today,” he scolded.
“Sorry. I went to visit my mother, but my father’s out of town, so I’m playing hooky from the soup line,” she admitted with an unrepentant little smile and a glitter in her eyes.
“Really?” The announcement both intrigued and worried him.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” she added, reaching under her seat. “I wanted to give you this.” She handed him a notebook.
“What is it?” He peeked inside, frowning at the sketches of flowers and delicately penned notes.
“My mother’s garden journal. I figured you should brush up on your landscaping skills before your interview tomorrow.”
He looked at her sharply. “What interview?”
“My father agreed to interview you for the gardening position,” she announced rather smugly.
“Oh, man!” he exclaimed, unable to contain his excitement.
“Don’t get your hopes up. He doesn’t know you very well,” she warned.
“This is awesome!” he insisted, taking another peek at the notebook. Every shrub, every flower was named and described in detail. He actually had a shot at getting the job now. She might have just saved his ass without knowing it.
“Mama loved her garden,” Skyler reflected, sorrow creeping into her voice. “When she realized she was getting Alzheimer’s, she wrote everything down so that someone else could care for it the way she did.”
Drake ran a finger over the drawing of an iris. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “I promise to give it right back. What time’s the interview?”
“Tomorrow at eleven. Do you know where we live?”
“Yeah,” he admitted with a sheepish smile.
“Okay.” She sent him a curious look. “Just announce yourself at the front door, and Jakes, the butler, will let you in.”
“Will you be there?”
Her mouth drooped abruptly, and she looked away. “No. I’ve got a fitting in the morning.”
He suffered a familiar, overwhelming urge to kiss that frown away. “Where are you headed now?” he asked.
She drew a deep breath and let it out. “Oh, I don’t know. The beach?”
He nodded approvingly. “Good. You could use some time to yourself.”
She flicked a shy, contemplative glance at him but didn’t answer.
“You still going to marry that guy?” he blurted, feeling as tactless as an eighteen-year-old. It maddened him that she was going through such misery.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, unable to look at him. “I guess so,” she murmured.
According to FBI analysts, the Charleston millionaire Ashton Jameson was fifty years old. Picturing Skyler under his heaving body made Drake want to puke.
“You could cancel,” he suggested, trying to keep his tone light. “I mean, hey, we’re in the twenty-first century. Arranged marriages aren’t hip anymore.”
Skyler gnawed at her lower lip. “I have to go,” she said, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Wait.” He put his hand firmly on the car door, keeping her there. Her wide blue gaze traveled from his knuckles to his mouth to his eyes. Desire seemed to leap out and grab hold of his throat.
“Let me come with you,” he heard himself beg. Then he waited for her answer, the air stripped from his lungs.
“Drake,” she whispered, a trace of longing evident in her fearful tone.
“Your dad’s out of town, right? He’ll never know,” he persisted. He couldn’t believe he was soliciting himself so boldly. But an opportunity like this would never come again.
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