“What did he look like?”
She ran her fingers through her hair and looked away. “Like what you all look like,” she said. “Greasy, dirty, horrible.”
Sully laughed. “I guess we do all look alike.”
Once the fire was going, he pulled out a handful of dried beef jerky and handed it to her. She hesitated to take it.
“It’s not poisoned,” he said.
“That’s right,” she said snatching it away and giving him a fierce look. “Because drugging poor defenseless women is not something you do, is it?”
He bit into his own jerky and eyed her. “Where are you from?”
“You know the answer to that very well.”
“I mean what timeline. You won’t convince me you are from 1825.”
“I don’t care to convince you of anything.”
“You should come closer to the fire so your clothes will dry.”
“Don’t act all solicitous! If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be stranded on a godforsaken island surrounded by sea snakes and crocodiles in the middle of a category four hurricane!”
Sully grinned. “Don’t forget the stinging jellyfish,” he said. “You can die from the sting. Did you know that? Or just wish you had.”
She didn’t answer and he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small bottle of rum. He held it out to her. “It’ll help you stay warm.”
She reached for the bottle. “Offering me succor after you’re the one who’s put me in this mess doesn’t absolve you.”
He pulled off his sodden scarf and draped it over a stick propped near the fire. “I don’t expect it to,” he said, smiling.
“How did you know this cave was here?” She wiped her mouth and handed the bottle back to him.
“It happens to be my favorite hiding place in all the Dry Tortugas,” he said, taking a swig from the rum. It burned all the way down his throat in a way that warmed him like the small fire couldn’t possibly. He felt his shoulders relax and he rotated his neck to try to work the kinks out of it. When he turned to hand the bottle back to Miss Morton, she was staring at him with her mouth open in complete shock and horror.
***
Ella felt the effects of the rum rush to her head, and if it wasn’t for the hard wall of the rock cave behind her back supporting her, she would have collapsed.
“Are you all right, Miss Morton?”
Ella waved away the pirate’s concern, not trusting her voice to speak.
Had she really seen what she thought she had? Was that even possible?
“I’m…I’m surprised you revealed it,” she said. “I thought pirates were fairly secretive about their treasure.”
“Well, I consider this our treasure, Adele. May I call you Adele?”
“No, you may not. How do you figure it’s ours?” Ella asked, trying to keep him engaged talking while her mind when into hyperdrive.
How is it possible? Could it be a coincidence? Had she really seen it?
“Are you sure you’re all right, Miss Morton? You have had quite an afternoon and nobody would fault you if you would like to retire early.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you? You keep forgetting that you are the reason I’ve had quite an afternoon. Kidnapped, attempted rape, being attacked by crocodiles and now sitting in a cave during a hurricane.”
“You keep saying hurricane, but I’m fairly sure Doppler radar has yet to be invented.”
“I don’t care if it’s only a tropical storm,” Ella hissed. “It’s still really shitty!”
“I grant you it is,” Sully said, “but I have no control over the weather. Even you can see that.”
Ella rubbed her arms to stop the shivering that was starting back up. “Did you…did you see…my father?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And he agreed to give me a wrecking certificate.”
“What did you say to make that happen, because I happen to know he doesn’t give them out and certainly not to a criminal low-life monster like you.”
“My, my, it’s almost as if you know me,” Sully said, raising his eyebrows. He tossed a few more small sticks onto the fire. Ella watched it snap and spark against the torrential downpour beyond the cave opening.
“I just showed him some of the more amazing features of a semi-automatic weapon and entreated him to imagine one in the hands of every pirate in the West Indies.”
“You brought a semi-automatic pistol to 1825?”
“I admit I did. The judge seemed to think a wrecking certificate was a small price to pay to avoid a new Golden Age of piracy.”
“Are you kidding? He agreed?”
“He’s a protectorate of his province, Miss Morton. Of course he agreed. Pirates with Glocks? Can you imagine?”
“And you’d do it?”
He shrugged. “As it happens, I only have the one gun.”
“So you were bluffing. Why wouldn’t they just blow you and your whole mangy crew out of the water—literally—rather than deal with you?”
“I should think that’s obvious. Because I have the judge’s daughter.” He smiled.
Ella took another long swallow from the rum bottle and handed it to him. “And when you hand ‘the judge’s daughter’ back? What’s to stop them from killing you then?”
“That is where the joint possession of the single biggest uncut diamond you will ever see comes into play.”
Ella watched him dig into his leather bag and pull out what looked like a piece of cloudy quartz the size of a small duck egg.
“Now that I have a wrecking license,” he said, holding the diamond up for her inspection, “riches and respectability are virtually assured me. As a result, I have every confidence I will be able to convince you to the advantages of a marriage with me.”
“You have got to be kidding.”
“In fact, I suppose this is as good a time as any. Miss Adele Morton, would you would be so kind as to receive my very sincere request for your hand in—”
“Stop! I don’t even believe you think you’re proposing to me after yanking a burlap bag over my head, drugging me and then nearly raping me. You’re certifiable.”
“And you, Miss Morton, are a spinster getting older by the day.”
“I’m only thirty-two!”
“Worse than I thought. I would’ve said late twenties. Anyway, the fact is you are not in a position to be choosy or you’ll end up the embodiment of pity in Key West society. I’m told I am not physically revolting to behold. I didn’t, in fact, rape you when I had the chance, did I?”
“Wow, what a prince. I may swoon.”
“As I’ve explained, I expect very soon to be a rich man. I will easily be able to sustain you in the comfort to which you are accustomed. And if all that weren’t enough, did you see the size of my…er, diamond?”
“A real comedian.”
“I should say, however, that if you’re not immediately open to the idea, I’m prepared to keep you with me however long it takes to convince you that I can be a good husband to you.”
“You do know I’m already married, right?”
“I know that you are not.”
“But even ignoring that fact, I think the single biggest hole in your plan is that when Morton gets home tonight, he’s going to find his dear daughter happily playing the piano forte in his own parlor—not cowering in some crappy pirate’s ship as I’m sure you led him to believe—and he is going to know that you have nothing on him. Nada.”
Sully narrowed her eyes, trying to understand her words.
“Hello? Am I connecting?” she said, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “I’m not the judge’s daughter.”
She wasn’t sure why she admitted her identity. He could simply kill her now and not even bother to bury the body. A sharp push into the rising waters outside their cave would neatly do the trick.
Sully cleared his throat and Ella saw that his right hand had begun tapping his knee nervousl
y. “That’s not possible,” he said. But from the way he said it, Ella could tell he believed her. Somehow he must have begun to suspect she wasn’t Adele.
“Scheisse,” he said softly, gazing out in the direction of Key West.
“You can say that again,” Ella said, enjoying the look of nausea that crept over his face. “So back to my question of what’s to stop him from having you killed the next time you’re in town?”
Sully shook himself like a waterlogged dog and rubbed his face. Ella watched him physically address the new situation in his mind.
“Well, for one, the man’s not a murderer.”
“Unlike you.”
“Why do you think you know me, Miss…?”
“Mrs.,” Ella said. “Mrs. Ella Pierce.”
Sully stared at her and then snapped his fingers, his eyes widening. “The lighter. You’re Ella from the lighter.” He nodded his head. “You’re with the giant, am I right? That fits. I knew he was a traveler.”
“And yet you held him against his will, flogged him—tried to sell him into slavery!”
“I see where you’re going with this, but you do know who I am, yes?” He grinned at her as if he had just told a charmingly self-effacing joke. “I am not the social workers union for displaced time travelers and fellow wayfarers. You know this? I admit I found my suspicions of the giant mildly interesting, but I live now. I am the captain of a pirate ship. To me he was just another crew member—and a fairly valuable one as it turned out.” He looked at her with surprise as if he just thought of something. “He signed back up to crew on the Die Hard.”
“You’re lying.”
“I saw him just this morning, doing what he always does, mending and fixing shit on the ship.”
“That’s…that’s not possible.” Ella was stunned. Had Rowan been onboard all along? Why did he go back to the ship? She thought of the lighter still in Sully’s cabin.
Of course.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The reason I think I know you is because of this.” She pulled her necklace from her blouse and, without letting him touch it, held it in front of his eyes.
He frowned. “Where did you get that?”
“My mother, if you must know. Her name was Freida Vogel.” She watched his face register her words and blanch, and when it did her stomach began to churn. Up until that moment she hadn’t been absolutely sure. She hated herself for how her lips began to tremble as she spoke. “She…she got it from her mother, my grandmother.”
Sully looked at her in stark amazement.
He hasn’t given it to Grandmother yet. Hell, he probably hasn’t even met her yet, let alone married her.
“It…it is not an uncommon design,” he said hesitantly.
“Bullshit. With this big-ass V?” She shook the necklace at him and then shoved it back into her blouse. “Are you going to tell me you didn’t create this insignia? I saw it in your cabin on your journal.”
She watched him trying to take in her words, to understand what she was telling him.
“You’re from Germany,” she said, driving the knife in further.
He shook his head as his eyes fixed on the long unmoving horizon of the sea. “No,” he said softly.
“You’re not from Germany?”
He glanced at her. “Austria.”
Close enough.
“I know how you die.”
He appeared startled but covered well. “How is that possible?”
“You really want to know? Because I imagine most people wouldn’t. I read about your death.”
“So. I become famous, do I? In what timeline?” He nodded to himself with what looked to Ella like pride.
“You are such a piece of work,” she said with disgust. “It happens in the nineteen forties. And really, it was the trial that was famous. After you’re found guilty you’re hung with twenty-four other murdering scumbags. And all your names sink into oblivion never to be remembered again.”
She saw something flinch in his face but he recovered quickly. “May I ask how you were interested enough to pluck my name from the ignominious oblivion of history’s annals?”
“I researched you four years ago, in 2011 when I was living in Heidelberg, because I needed to know why it was my mother would kill herself rather than live another day as your daughter.”
Sully shook his head as if it was finally getting to be too much for him to take in. “Your mother…” he said in a daze.
“Turns out,” Ella continued, her anger growing as the image of her son’s heart shaped birthmark on the back of his neck superimposed in her mind over the one she had just seen on Sully when he took his scarf off, “and you’ll excuse me if I vomit into my hankie a little, but it turns out I may be related to you.”
Now she had his attention. He studied her intently without speaking, but his eyes urged her on.
“Let me ask you,” she said, “before you recreated yourself as the notorious Captain Erik Sully, terror of the West Indies, were you by any chance born Rudolph Vogel?”
Ella watched his face. He tried to hide his reaction but his eyes went to hers in the closest thing to fear she’d yet seen on his face.
Bingo.
He looked out over the horizon and shrugged. “Anyone with a little researching skill could have unearthed background on Rudolph Vogel. I don’t suppose you have any palpable evidence—beyond a piece of junk jewelry—to support this claim?”
“Not that I give a damn what you think, but…” Ella lifted the drooping hair extensions from her neck and turned her head. She heard his intake of breath when he saw the birthmark on her neck. “My son has one like it, too,” she said.
When she turned back at him, he was frowning but nodding. “You say I have a daughter. Do I not sire any sons?”
“Really? That’s what’s important to you? Well, yes, Herr dickbag, you do, but he goes by a different name now after his sex-change operation.”
Sully stood and began to pace in the small cave. He was clearly finding it difficult to sit still.
“I dunno, Sully,” Ella said, wanting to drive the knife in, to hurt him. He was the reason why she had no mother. This man. “People seem willing to go to extreme lengths not to share the same air as you. Maybe your son couldn’t stand being the same sex as you.”
He stopped fidgeting and examined her with a frown and she watched his face clear. “My granddaughter,” he said with wonder, looking her over from head to foot. Then he threw back his head and laughed until he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Certainly explains why no sparks flew between us, eh?” he said, wiping away tears of laughter from his eyes.
“You are a sick and confusing sociopath.”
***
So it was all out in the open.
Ella peeled off her stockings and hung them next to Sully’s scarf. The wind continued to howl but the rain seemed to be slowing. An hour earlier she’d left the cave to relieve herself in the bushes and came back drenched. Sully had left twice to find more wood and each time he shook off less and less water when he came back.
She wasn’t sure when she’d made the leap to realizing he was her grandfather, the infamous Rudolph Vogel. At some level, she must have known it from the moment she met him, seated opposite her in his cabin. There had been something about him then, something indefinable that made so much sense now.
It was like she knew him.
Was there a gesture, a tic, an unconscious affect? Or was it his laugh, the way his eyes crinkled when he was amused? Had she heard or seen a female version of the same thing from her mother all those many years ago? She studied his face, so dark and open, always smiling, where her mother’s was fair and tormented. And yes, there was something under the bone structure, under the smile, something reflected in the eyes that was the same as hers.
From the moment Ella laid eyes on him she had felt that connection, that he was a part of her.
A terrible, festering, disgusting part.
&nbs
p; One thing at least—although it looked like sleep would be hard won tonight after confirming her worst fears, she had very little appetite left. Leaning against the rock wall of the cave, Ella stared into the small crackling fire. Sully hadn’t spoken much since her revelation to him. He too spent a lot of time staring into the fire. She assumed the fact she was likely his granddaughter would prevent him from wanting to kill her for not being Adele Morton.
Or perhaps he’d want to all the more.
“I can’t sleep,” she said. He looked at her as if surprised she was still there.
“Are you cold?” He reached for his coat as if to hand it to her, a gesture that surprised her.
“No, it’s because I can’t stop thinking.”
He dropped his hand from the coat and returned his gaze to the fire. “I know.”
“Can I ask where you came from and how you got here? And why?”
Sully ran a hand across his face as if trying to manually rearrange his thoughts. She heard him sigh deeply before speaking.
“I was born in Salzburg in 1905. One day, after an incident involving the crippling of my best friend—not my fault, by the way—I was running through the woods and fell off a small cliff. I must have lost consciousness, and when I awoke people were tending me. They transported me to a nearby hospital where I remained some days. I was not yet twenty years old. When I was well enough to leave the hospital, I was taken in by one of the physicians and his wife. It was 1968—a marvelous time, I must tell you. Have you been there?”
Ella shook her head in wonder. “I was born in eighty-two.”
“Anyway, I spent the next fifteen years there and saw many amazing advances. I went to university in Berlin and studied medicine like my adopted father. But I soon dropped out. I felt there was something missing in my life, and in the seventies one was encouraged to explore one’s deepest, even most farfetched dreams as possibilities. The history of my country, as I’m sure you know, is pocked with lies and reprehensible accusations. We were painted a monster in the eyes of the world. I knew I’d missed that time—a time that, by my birthright, was mine to live.”
“Well, trust me, you do end up living it.”
Sully grinned at her. “It’s so strange, is it not? You and I, here in the eighteen hundreds. Do you think your traveling abilities are because of me? That you inherited them?”
Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) Page 24