Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3)

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  “Yer…yer lover?”

  As Sully moved carefully down the ladder to the waiting boat with its lone sailor in it, he bit back the laughter that was in danger of tumbling out.

  As far as anyone knew, there were only men on the island, although some of the other ships often sailed with whores. If Toad had even an iota of wit in him, he might recognize it when he heard it. As it was, Sully left him sputtering with confusion and shock.

  Just like Sully preferred most people he dealt with.

  15

  Miami, Florida 1925

  The flight to Miami from Cairo was only slightly less harrowing than the jaunt from Cairo to Casablanca the month before. Once again, Ella carried Rowan’s uncle’s dog tags from the Gulf War and enough jewelry to support her and then the both of them for two months in 1825 Key West. She didn’t know how long it would take her to recover from the trip this time but she assumed, coming so quickly on the heels of her last trip, that it wouldn’t be pretty.

  She had written a note to be found on her very likely nearly comatose body with instructions that she was to be taken to the nearest hotel or hospital. She prayed it wouldn’t be necessary. Because she knew that memory loss was one of the concerns with time traveling again so soon after her last trip, she’d jotted down a brief note to herself outlining what her plan was once she reached 1825.

  God forbid I should travel back a hundred years in time and then forget what my plan is for finding Rowan.

  Halima had worked to create hair extensions for her that, with luck, she wouldn’t need to wash before she returned home to Cairo. Prancing around 1925 pre-flapper Cairo with a short bob was one thing. Pre-Civil War Florida, definitely another. In 1825, Ella needed her hair.

  When she landed in Miami, she immediately booked passage on the Overland Railway to take her south. She marveled as she looked at the magnificent train, knowing that in ten years time the rail route would be destroyed by a hurricane and never rebuilt. She and a few girlfriends had driven to the Keys during a college break ten years back and the trip had taken just shy of three hours from Miami to the southern most tip of the islands. The train ride in 1925 took nearly exactly the same time and the views—with only endless miles of gulf and ocean on either side as the train flew southward—were hypnotic.

  Florida’s first mind-blowing thrill ride before Disney, she thought with a smile as she looked out the window of her first-class compartment. She would totally have to take Tater to Disney as soon as he was a little older. A needle of sorry burrowed into her happy mood and she shook it off—along with thoughts of her boy. Tater was fine, she reminded herself. He had Halima. And soon he’d have his mommy and daddy, again, too.

  When she arrived at the train depot in Key West, the humidity immediately began to frizz her carefully coifed extensions and a curling iron had not been one of the things she’d packed for this trip. It was late afternoon when she arrived, which suited her perfectly. She didn’t want anyone looking at her too closely for the transformation part of her mission.

  Night was ideal as the setting for so many possibilities, she thought. And while one normally thought of nighttime as being the province for the criminal element needing to cloak its activities and intentions, it was also quite helpful for neophyte time travelers who weren’t exactly sure of what they were doing.

  Without the help of the Internet, Ella’d had to do the best job she could in Cairo to research hotels of Key West in 1825.

  The results hadn’t been plentiful. The only bit of information she’d unearthed that had been at all helpful was the location of a clinic near what would later be known as Mallory Square. From what she could decipher from the periodicals at the library at the American University it was a clinic for rich people’s ailments. There was even a little drawing of one of the typical hospital rooms. And since it didn’t look to be depicting any raving lunatics in the background, Ella decided to believe it would be suitable for her needs.

  What other choice did she have?

  She picked up her valise—this time carried slung over her shoulder with a wide leather strap to mitigate the chances that someone would relieve her of it before she was fully conscious—and walked to the Square.

  Key West in 1925 was a far cry from what she could expect in 1825, she knew. Right now, it appeared to be owned by the rich. Fashionable, well-dressed men and women strode down the matching boardwalks lining Whitehead Street, flanked by dress shops, art galleries, hotels and dining establishments. She noticed La Concha Hotel towering high above all the other structures on the horizon.

  The streets were paved and full of cars and trucks, although there were more than a few roosters pecking around the perimeters of the alleyways that emptied into the main road. But then, they were there in 2013 too.

  She was surprised at the noise level in the city. Between people talking, laughing, vendors hawking and the sounds of the traffic, it was almost deafening. She stopped at a street vendor. She’d been able to change currency in Miami and so purchased a cold chicken sandwich and a bottle of beer, which she ate slowly at a wooden picnic table off of Duval Street watching the street traffic. She had plenty of time before she had to find the spot where the clinic would be located in 1825.

  Might as well not go back in time hungry.

  After she’d eaten, Ella walked to the site where the clinic would be in 1825. It looked like it was a souvenir shop of some kind now. Next door was a hotel. It wasn’t terribly fashionable but it didn’t look to be a flophouse either. She went in and booked a room. Resisting the urge to start her journey fresh in the morning—and reminding herself that fresh would likely work against her attempt to cross over—she stripped off her 1920s clothes and once more, pulled on the heavier 1820s costume.

  Why can’t I do this someplace that’s not a hundred degrees humidity for a change? she thought as she buttoned up the snug bodice of the cotton gown and refastened the chignon she’d worn her hair in from Egypt. As she locked her hotel room and stepped into the street, she was startled to see a woman standing on the opposite street corner wearing almost exactly the same outfit that Ella, herself, was.

  Shocked, and wondering for a moment if she had already switched back, Ella took a few steps closer to the woman to see that she was posing next to a man clearly hired to look like a pirate. She was smiling as another man took their photograph.

  Tourists, Ella thought. As she watched, a woman came from behind the pair and helped the woman out of the costume. It was a garment worn as a backward coat or smock over one’s clothing, Ella realized as the second woman turned to a line of people and helped another woman don the garb.

  Well, at least I won’t turn too many heads walking around 1925 Florida dressed like I’m looking for the planter’s ball, she thought wryly.

  Not that she intended to be in 1925 long. She walked to the corner of Duval Street with the rest of the gathering crowd to watch the sunset—famous even in 1925—mesmerize and dazzle the crowd of tourists. It occurred to her that the perfect time to try to cross over was when everyone else was transfixed by the show of the sun retiring for another day. She moved away from the crowd and, with her back to one of the brick shop fronts, tucked the note into her bodice that would alert anyone who found her to take her to the nearest hospital.

  She took a half step into the alley, checking first to see that it was empty, then popped the top button of her dress, reached in and grasped her mother’s necklace.

  Need your help, Mom, she thought, closing her eyes to concentrate better. Need to find my husband. Need to get back to my baby. Tears sprang to her eyes as, once again, the necklace vibrated in her hand and the vision of her mother holding Tater came to mind—the mother who never held her was cooing to her grandchild.

  Anger and indignant resentment broke through the pain and the sadness until Ella felt like she needed to slam her fist into something. You let me down, you bitch! You abandoned me when I needed you! What kind of mother does that? And when the immediat
e swirl of recognition and guilt engulfed Ella, causing her stomach to suddenly reject her recently eaten lunch, she was already sinking to her knees in the mud and the filth in the alley of 1825 Cayo Hueso.

  ***

  Later, Lawrence would wonder what possessed him. Later, when he had come to his senses and realized what he’d done, he’d allow himself a moment of horror and self-loathing to know that he could be even capable of doing it. And not just to commit the act—but to do it without a second’s thought or hesitation.

  When he first saw her, he assumed he was indulging in his usual habit of late of imagining every woman he saw who was remotely her same height and size to be the beautiful, mysterious bella Ella, as he’d dubbed her in those urgent moments in the middle of the night when, under the covers and in his mind, she would come to him and beg him to make her his.

  So it wasn’t a total surprise to see her and to believe it was her. The game had caused so many hours of pleasures—and inevitable hours of depression and anger and disappointment. Just not so many he was capable of stopping. But when he went closer—as he always did—to punish himself, to underscore his own weakness and frailty of appetite, for that moment when the lady would turn and she would not, could not, be his Bella—this time, she changed in front of his very eyes until it was revealed that it was her.

  Breathtakingly, impossibly, her.

  “Ella!” The name wrenched out of his throat without thought. She stood, half slumped against the brick wall in back of the crowd that had gathered to see the sunset, her hair tumbled down into her face, her valise lying on the ground at her feet, a broken strap dangling from her shoulder and the bodice of her dress open at the neck to reveal a hint, just a hint…and then she looked at him.

  It was her.

  In two strides he was at her side, his hands on her shoulders as he had never dared to do in Casablanca. He tilted her chin to see if she were ill or injured and came within a hair’s breadth of kissing those plump, pink lips, parted so slightly as she gazed up at him.

  “Ella,” he said. “It’s me, Lawrence. Lawrence Bingham. What has happened? Have you been assaulted?”

  She looked at him as if she didn’t recognize him. True, it had been nearly four months since not only did she not meet him for breakfast as promised, but since she had disappeared completely. How in the world could she possibly be here now? He was sure she had not taken passage on the Miranda. He had been over every inch of that ship nearly every day on the desperate chance he might find her.

  As she allowed him to take her by the elbow and lead her out of the alley and past the evening crowd, he noticed she was totally compliant, almost as if stunned.

  “Where are you staying?” he asked. “I’ll escort you to your hotel. Are you sure you’re all right?” Although she had yet to say a word, it was clear she was not “all right.”

  He was startled and delighted to find that she was holding onto his arm rather tightly, her breasts pressing against it. Perhaps that was the singular moment that pushed him over the edge. He had never escorted a woman before that resulted in such presumed intimacy and he felt quite undone by it.

  “Who…who did you say you were?” she asked as they walked. She looked at him with such trust and hope and confusion. That was the moment that finished him. He allowed a beat and then the words were out of his mouth before he even knew to stop them, let alone think them.

  “My dear, have you had a fall? Surely you know me. I am your fiancé.”

  ***

  The last thing she remembered was pyramids and sand. Had she been on vacation in Egypt? Ella sat on the edge of the narrow bed in the ornately outfitted guest room and stared at the painted pine paneling. She could smell the sea even with the windows closed. She tried to remember why she might have been traveling in Egypt.

  She had no earthly idea.

  Have I had a stroke? How did I get here, and where is “here,” and am I really engaged?

  For the thousandth time since she’d awakened in the alley, Ella looked down at her gown, a heavy brocaded cotton that cinched at her waist and dropped straight to the ground. And the biggest question of them all: why the hell am I dressed like Scarlet O’Hara?

  When the English guy, Lawrence, brought her to this clapboard house a few blocks from where he’d found her, all Ella wanted to do was take an ibuprofen and lie down. At the time, she was sure if she could just take a moment to get things clear in her mind, she would be fine.

  That was before she went through her suitcase.

  In it, she found six pairs of panties, a set of dog tags for somebody named Elliott Kincaid, an old-fashioned tin of aspirin, sanitary napkins, a velvet bag containing a diamond bracelet and several rings: one ruby, three emeralds and a large opal; a black and white photograph of a little boy being held by a dark-skinned woman in some kind of middle eastern dress, another photograph of a total hottie—tall, with thick dark hair, and very sexy eyes—she had no idea who he was—and a passport under the name of Ella Pierce.

  Why is my name changed?

  On the back of the photo of the hottie, someone had written in pencil, Rowan.

  She looked at her passport picture again. She had obviously posed for it wearing some kind of twenties flapper-style dress. But her hair was long to her shoulders. Why am I traveling with a fake passport? Then she saw the date.

  April 18, 1923.

  And her hand began to shake.

  What the hell can this mean? It must be a hoax but why?

  She sat quietly for a moment, trying to calm her breathing. Sounds from elsewhere in the house made her start. When she and Lawrence arrived at the house there was nobody home. Now Ella could hear voices; definitely a female one and at least two males.

  A tremor of unease ran up her arms until she found herself rubbing them through her long-sleeved dress. She jerked the lid of her suitcase back open and rummaged around clothing clearly meant for someone starring in a Jane Austen flick. Her hands stopped when she found the gun. A small single-round derringer with ornate etchings on the grip, it looked like it belonged in a museum display case. She held it in her hand, noticing how light it was.

  Where was I going that I thought I might need this?

  The sound of a creaking floorboard outside her bedroom made her freeze. Instead of putting the gun back in the valise, she quickly tucked it under the mattress. She heard the soft ping of a loose round dropping to the wood floor.

  When she didn’t hear a repeat of the noise, she let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and turned back to the valise.

  That was when she found it.

  An envelope tucked into the side gusset of the suitcase with the words: To Myself scrawled in her own hand on the front. With shaking fingers, she ripped open the envelope and read.

  Note to Self (ha ha) — In case you have a brain fart and can’t remember the plan: it is to hole up somewhere safe—a hotel or even a clinic would be fine as long as it isn’t for the criminally insane—until you get your strength back. Rowan’s death certificate says he died within the city limits so you’ll need to look for him in the wharfs, hotels, whorehouses, and taverns—basically any place where sailors congregate.

  If you have to remove the extensions and go under cover again like Casablanca, do that.

  God forbid you should forget how to get back home, but if you do—it’s the necklace, the dog tags and as much emotional agony as you can drum up. (Probably have no trouble with that last one.)

  You’ve got until November first. If you haven’t found him by then, come home.

  Ella stood holding the note in her hand, more bewildered than before.

  Dog tags? Casablanca? What? She squinted at the note. Definitely her handwriting. What the hell did it mean? Who is Rowan? The hottie in the photo?

  Her shoulders slumped. “An address for ‘home’ would’ve been nice,” she said speaking through her teeth in at attempt to calm her mounting frustration.

  She reached up and fo
und the long extensions twisted into her own hair. Why had she cut her hair? She hated short hair. And what did the note mean hole up somewhere safe until you get your strength back? Had she been sick? She stood up and walked across the room to the window. She felt fine. Except for the fact that she was looking at horse and buggies out her window and she didn’t know a single soul in the whole world.

  Hold on. That’s not true. She knew Lawrence. She had recognized him immediately although she still didn’t know from where. Obviously, she’d fallen and hit her head and suffered a memory loss just like he suggested. That has to be it.

  She put her hand to her head but could find no lump.

  She glanced at the note, which she’d dropped on the floor. The note says the hottie is dead. Why am I looking for a dead guy? She rubbed her arms again and looked back out the window. She watched the activity as a man and woman—both dressed in period dress—walked down the residential street. She noticed an elderly man selling produce from a horse-drawn cart.

  She let out a small sigh and went to the ceramic bowl and found the pitcher full of fresh, lightly scented water. She splashed her face and patted it dry with the rough cotton hand towel next to it and then moved back to the bed and sat down on it. The bed crackled as if it were stuffed with leaves and twigs instead of ticking.

  I must be on a movie set or something. How do Lawrence and I know each other? Why am I dressed like this? How do I explain to these people that I don’t know why I’m here or…why they’re here?

  A light tapping at the bedroom door made Ella jump to her feet. She stared at the closed door, unspeaking.

  “Miss Pierce?” A female voice. Young-sounding.

  Ella didn’t move. The tap on the door repeated itself. “Miss Pierce? May I come in?”

  Finally, Ella went to the door and cracked it open just wide enough to peek out. A young blonde woman, early twenties, stood there holding a tray of tea and sandwiches.