“And what were you going to do with Bret?” She brushed by him into the second floor hallway. “Leave him shackled to the bed as the water rises? Why haven’t the police taken him?”
“Please, Rebecca, I know that you must be very upset.” He placed his firm hand on her shoulder. “I sympathize with your confusion and anxiety, but I’m only trying to protect you.”
“Your uncle is right, Rebecca. You should listen to him.”
She spun around.
Edward, wearing his dark gray Inverness coat, stood between the banisters. He stepped closer, blocking easy access to the stairs. “Mr. McGowan is in very serious trouble despite all your uncle’s efforts to help him.”
He draped the cape over his head as a hood, almost concealing his face. Rebecca was surprised to see the sudden change in Edward’s appearance. His fiery gaze fixed on her and held firm.
“I don’t believe you.” She folded her arms across her bosom. “The police should have been here by now.”
Uncle Cade held out hand as if to console a woman in emotional distress. “Bret McGowan is not the man you think he is,” he insisted, still maintaining an unusually calm tone. “His travels and experiences have changed him, exposed him to foreign vices that have contaminated his spirit and ruined his moral character.”
He lowered his hand. “All of his friends have noticed the drastic change in his behavior since his return but you . . .” Uncle Cade smiled as if calming her when she was a child. “You’ve already witnessed the remorseless destruction he is capable of, yet you are still so easily swayed by his devilish charms.”
Rebecca unfolded her arms. “Uncle,” she said, resting her hands on her hips. “I respect that you don’t want Mr. Caldwell and his friends involved in this any more than they need to be, but please.”
She turned, looking down the stairs to the main floor. “We can help Bret if we speak up and tell what we know to be the truth. Whatever happened to Mr. DeRocha, you both know as well as I do that he was dead before Bret arrived.” Rebecca took a step toward the first stair. A moment later she felt a hand on her elbow.
She stopped and turned. Edward squeezed her arm and stared with grim determination into her eyes.
“What are you doing, Edward? Let go of me at once.”
Rebecca looked to her uncle for assistance but the warm smile was gone already gone from his face.
“Your mother—my sister, Annabel—sacrificed everything after the war so that I could achieve everything that you see and so that you could have the comforts most people only dream of enjoying.”
He closed her bedroom door and locked it with his master skeleton key. “She believed in me, and the great work that lay ahead if our race is to survive. Do you think I would betray her sacred trust so easily? This was decided before you were born.”
Rebecca tried to pull her arm away but Edward only strengthened his grip. “What are you talking about? Please make him let go, uncle.” She tried to pull away again. “He’s hurting me! Please! What does my mother have to do with this?”
Edward raised his pale face and stared at her through the contracted pupils of his severe, dark eyes. “I have watched over you all my life, just as your mother and uncle instructed. I have been patient and respectful, waiting for the day when your mother’s promise would be fulfilled.”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “I have even tolerated and forgiven your indiscretions with that heartlessl womanizer, McGowan, but please, dearest Rebecca . . . don’t test me any further.”
Rebecca was almost gasping for breath. Suddenly, it felt as if there wasn’t enough air at the top of the stairs for all of them. She batted away his hand. “Are you drunk, Edward? I’ve never heard such disgusting nonsense in all my life. I’m fed up with both of you, with your science and your ascendant races.”
With a burst of effort, Rebecca finally broke free of Edward’s grip. “I’m going to wait out the storm somewhere else in town. When this blows over the two of you had better come to your senses and call the police . . . or I will.”
Rebecca pushed her way through them and took one step down the stairs. The moment her foot landed on the second step, Edward’s strong hand reached around her waist and another pulled back on her shoulder. “Ahh Rebecca,” Edward cooed. “Didn’t you say I was worthy of only the finest woman?”
“You’re insane! Let go of me!” Rebecca clawed at his hands trying to wrestle free of his grip.
Uncle Cade grabbed her flailing arms. “Rebecca, calm yourself. I understand. There’s nothing half so sweet in life . . .” He recited the words of her favorite poem and helped Edward drag her back. “As love’s young dream.”
Edward already had the damp cloth around her mouth and nose. Her trusted family friend, now a terrifying stranger, grabbed the back of her head, pushing her face down into its moist folds.
Rebecca gagged and scratched at his face but the strong, sweet smell of the liquid was already making her drowsy, her body sluggish and feeble under their overpowering strength.
Why the memory came to her at that moment she didn’t know, but she was singing again in the drawing room of their first home. There, in that place of enchanted perfection, her childhood was still serene and would be forever the reflection of the only heaven she wanted to know.
As if in a dream, her uncle’s soothing voice whispered in her ear. “The beginning of a new world must always wait until the waters recede once more.”
Rebecca struggled to open her mouth again. If there was any chance of redeeming herself in Bret’s memory and heart then only that letter could hope to save her. She had to tell him but her lips were too heavy, like the body that had abandoned her as she dropped to the floor.
Thunder and lightening cracked overhead as Chestnut splashed through the rising, ankle-deep flood water. There was more flooding than Gabrielle expected, which could mean trouble for anything or anyone below street level—like Bret.
She slowed her horse and rounded the corner of the small street leading to the back of the Theogenesis building.
Gabrielle dismounted and hitched him to an old post near the wall. She studied the street level windows of the building. A flickering light glimmered from the first cellar window near the rear. Gabrielle crept toward it, bent on her knee, and peered inside.
She gasped and jerked back. My God, how could they? Her first thought was to confront Caden and demand an explanation, but the rising water in the cellar demanded she make an immediate decision regardless of the consequences.
Frantically glancing around, she spotted a broken brick on the back stairs of the building across the alley. She darted across, grabbed the brick, and without a moment’s hesitation, smashed the window.
Gabrielle cleared the broken glass from the frame. She whispered his name. “Bret?” Only the rising wind answered with a howl behind her. She shrank away in unconscious, cold fear as the word “dead” moved across her trembling lips. She couldn’t see clearly in the murky shadows. “Bret?” She heard a muffled sound. Gabrielle prayed for strength and lowered herself over the edge into the cellar.
Blood raced through her chest as she stepped through the almost knee-high water toward the bed. Bret had been gagged and strapped to an old bed frame and the water was almost over the edge. He coughed as the water sloshed up against his face.
Bret looked at her as if staring back from some awful place of impenetrable solitude. He shook once, then twice, his legs twitching as though he was shivering from the damp cold.
She untied the red lace gag from his mouth. “Bret, are you all right?” Recognizing the scarf, she tossed it aside in the shallow water. That conniving, lying bitch! Gabrielle fumed. “Why did they do this to you? Where are the police?”
Bret raised his head off the bed. “Thank God, Gabrielle . . . I thought I was going to meet my maker.” He shook his head and coughed violently. “Please, I need my medicine . . . on the barrel.”
Gabrielle picked up the small, blue medicine
vial and examined it. “I’m sorry, Bret. It’s empty.”
Bret’s eyes went wild with fear and he gasped out loud. He hung his head and clenched his jaw tight as though he was trying with all his strength to keep his gut-wrenching howl inside.
Gabrielle slapped her hand over his mouth and whispered. “Shhh. Keep quiet. Caden and the others could still be here. You have to be strong, Bret.” He relaxed his jaw and nodded. Gabrielle took her hand away.
Bret took a deep breath. “I’ll deal with Caden later but now we have to get somewhere dry and safe. Please, untie me. I’ll tell them I escaped after I turn myself in. Nobody will ever know you were here.”
Gabrielle glanced at the bolted cellar door. “There’s a storm coming our way. It’s bad out there and getting worse by the minute. The water keeps coming further and further into town.”
Bret closed his eyes and looked away. “You think I killed Timothy. I can see the disgust in your eyes.”
“If you can . . . it’s not for you.”
“I know what Caden wants and so do you. He could be waiting outside with a shotgun hoping I’ll find a way to escape. Is that how you found me? Did he tell you?”
Gabrielle stared at him in silence for a few moments. She had to believe that underneath those fearfully anxious bloodshot eyes, there still remained the strength of character and caring soul of the man she had loved.
There had to be because the man she had loved, still loved, would never have done such a terrible thing to even a deserving enemy, let alone an innocent friend.
Bret was ill, his judgment confused, no wonder he distrusted everyone he thought was a friend, even her, after being tied up like a sick animal and left to suffer.
Gabrielle drew a breath and made her decision. She was determined to help him get well again and had to believe that after everything they had meant to each other, he would have done the same for her.
She stepped to the end of the cot. “We’re going to have to trust each other like we did before, Bret.” She searched his liquid eyes looking for the glint of trust she needed so desperately to find.
Bret hung his head for a moment. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.” He raised his head and gazed into her eyes like a condemned man being set free. “But I’m more thankful that you have always been there for me, Gabrielle, even when I didn’t deserve it. I owe you more than I can ever repay and I promise that I will make it up to you . . . and more.”
And more? Gabrielle’s heart raced in time with her swift hands as she untied Bret’s feet.
Bret watched her intently as she unbound his wrists. The instant his hands were free, he loosened the hangman’s rope around his neck and pulled the rope over his head.
Bret stared at it for a moment as though holding something stolen from a grave. “Help me move the barrel under the broken window.” He dropped the rope on the bed. “I’ll go up first and help you out.”
The crushed shells of the street seemed to glide under Bret’s shoes as if he were slogging through waves at the beach.
His vehicle had refused to turn over in the rain and he felt heavy and sodden by more than the torrents striking against his soaking wet skin. Dark blood battered his heart then trickled away in dirty rivulets back to the dim, underground sea from whence it came.
After being trapped in the water and damp cold of the cellar all he wanted to feel was the soothing warmth and liquid release of his medicine flowing through his veins again.
How he craved for that weightless feeling, to soar above the horses and buggies and people caught unprepared, scurrying this way and that, searching for dry refuge from the ever-increasing rain.
Bret clenched his jaw under his downturned hat, pricked by invisible pins and needles that pierced his skin without warning. He hadn’t murdered Timothy. He was certain of that much but whatever happened, there was nothing he could do to prove his innocence now.
His home was closer and the only thing that mattered was to escort Gabrielle there safely, wait out the storm, and hopefully, his fever. Once both had passed he would call his lawyer and turn himself in to the police.
He turned and watched Gabrielle unhook Chestnut. She led the soaked, skittish horse by the reins. And what of Rebecca? What was her part in all of this? Would she speak up in his defense or lie and side with Caden’s false accusations?
Bret’s mind was pulled in so many directions he felt the strands would unravel at any moment. Already too long without his medication, he unconsciously searched for a comforting memory to distract him from his torment.
Without being fully aware of the reason why, Rebecca’s angelic voice filled his mind once more. “It matters little now, Lorena, the past is in the eternal past; our hearts will soon lie low, Lorena, life’s tide is ebbing out so fast . . .”
Bret needed to let the words out for fear the sound of her voice would drive him over the edge of an abyss from which he might never return. He nervously hummed another old song to himself.
“What are you babbling on about?” Gabrielle looked at him as if he was mad. “If that thing doesn’t work, leave it.”
“The wind, the wind, the wind blows high.” Bret reached out and touched her cheek. He glanced up at the darkening clouds over the dawn’s horizon.
Gabrielle closed her eyes. How she missed Bret’s touch, the caress of his knowing fingers gliding across her moist, excited skin— but this was wrong—all of this was wrong and she had to help him make it right for everyone.
She swung quickly, slapping Bret across the cheek with her wet riding glove. “Stop it!”
Bret tilted his head to the side as if amused by her anger. “The rain comes scattering down the sky . . .”
The second sharp smack of her leather glove brought the pain of the present back into his mind. He shook his head and rubbed his face as he stared at Gabrielle and her horse in the pummeling rain. “All right, Miss Caldwell, do you think striking a sick man will bring him to his senses or is that the best medicine you have to offer?” He smiled.
Gabrielle’s dark hair was loose and matted wet against her head and neck. “That’s the only medicine you’ll get from me right now, Bret McGowan. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? Were you thinking of running away? Do you want to sign your death warrant? You promised to contact your lawyer and turn yourself—”
A whiplash crack of lightening snapped across the dark sky. The horse reared, yanking the reins free of her hand. It turned and bolted back down the street toward the beach. She yelled and ran after her horse. “Chestnut!”
Bret coughed and rubbed the rain out of his eyes. The crash of booming thunder was the final hard, sobering jolt that shook him to the core.
A force inside his soul pushed him off his cloud and he fell, fell hard, hitting the earth again, but landing this time on his feet. He tensed, his wound muscles ready to react to whatever came next. “Stop Gabrielle! Let him go!”
Gabrielle stopped and flung her arms up in frustration.
Bret looked up again at the smoky, churning billows in the air. He looked across the wet street. A driver was running toward a hansom cab, the kind preferred by tourists for a night out on the town.
Bret’s single, lucid thought—focused on the gathering wind and water around them—froze into a chilling certainty excluding all others. “Driver!” Bret yelled and grabbed Gabrielle’s hand. “Wait!”
CHAPTER 23
Saturday, September 8, 7:43 a.m.
Gabrielle turned her knees from the water splashing against the door of the hansom cab. She peered over the edge. The water was higher than when they first entered the cab.
She leaned back from the sight of the water level having inched its way up from the crushed shell road toward the cab’s footboards as it approached the corner of Bret’s street. She had lost track of time. How long had it taken to travel this distance through the rising floodwater?
The cab veered to the right. Following the gradual descent of the road, it slowed to a slugg
ish halt as the water swiftly rose up the sides and near the hub of the wheels. The horse neighed, snorted, and kicked the water.
The trap door on the roof slid open. “That’s it, folks,” the driver said, peering down at them from his perched rear seat. “Lizzie won’t go any further. Ride is on me but you’re on your own now. Best we all hightail it out for higher ground.”
He looked up at the blackened sky. “Maybe them Cubans was right after all. Sure looks like a bad one rollin’ in.”
Bret grabbed Gabrielle’s hand and squeezed. “We’ll be fine now, darlin’. We just have to wade through it like everybody else.” He opened the door and stepped down into the flowing, knee-high water.
For a few moments there was a lull in the wind and Gabrielle felt a numb, heart-sunken silence fall between the sky and the flowing water.
She didn’t want to move from her dry seat, hoping that Lizzie would have a change of heart and take them safely to Bret’s home.
As Gabrielle hesitated she heard the cracking and crashing of falling wood coming from the direction of the beach.
She turned around and looked south toward the Gulf. The sky and water seemed to rumble toward them from the distance, murky and swift, in a rushing sound of flying debris and shattering planks of timber.
“Don’t be frightened,” Bret said. “It’s only small cottages right on the beach.” He waded around the cab. “Only fools and tourists build there. It never takes much to blow them down.” He held his hands up toward Gabrielle.
“Bret?” Gabrielle turned around, looking back up the street toward the center of town. “My house is north where the ground is higher. Don’t you think it would be better—”
“What are you afraid of?” He stared at her. “After the last bad one in ’86 I had the house raised twelve feet. It lasted then and it sure as hell will get through this.”
The driver disconnected the horse from the cab and was wading through the water leading Lizzie back the way they had come. He stopped and waved one last time before turning the corner. A moment later a door mat-sized piece of broken roofing bumped against the spokes of the cab’s front wheel, paused, then floated by.
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