by Nina Bruhns
“Yeah,” Jake said, sobering. “That bothers me, too. Peel stole that painting after he had all the journals. And now, this fire at Professor Rouse’s place. Why set that at all?”
“Admittedly,” Sully conceded, “these last incidents don’t fit.”
“Which is why,” Jake said, pulling up in front of the Old Fort Mystic Medical Center to drop him off, “I’m going to talk to the professor.”
Reluctantly, Sully got down from the truck and turned back to Elizabeth. “I’d like you to stay here with me.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, the stubborn light in her eyes telling him if he tried to argue he’d lose. “Jake will take good care of me.” She leaned down and gave him a k iss goodbye.
“Why don’t you keep the backpack with you?” Jake suggested. “A little light reading in case we’re late picking you up. See if you can find any more clues.”
With an irritated exhale, he waved and helplessly watched them drive off. He had a bad feeling about that. She wanted to talk to the voudou expert, and he could only shudder to think what she might learn.
And what she might ask Sully when she returned.
Chapter 13
E lizabeth waited patiently while Jake asked Professor Rouse a million questions about the fire, about what he’d seen and about what Peel—whom he always referred to as “the suspect”—might have been after.
“I can’t imagine what he could have wanted from me. I’m a college professor, not a rich man.”
“No expensive collections? No valuable or rare books?”
“The only things I collected were related to my research.”
“On voudou?” Elizabeth chimed in, trying not to let her eagerness to ask her own questions show.
“Yes, exactly,” Professor Rouse said. “I have…had,” he corrected sadly, “an extensive collection of voudou artifacts and a ton of books, but they are…were not terribly valuable. The most expensive was probably worth a couple hundred dollars. Besides, why would anyone burn down a house if their aim was to steal valuables from it?”
Jake pursed his lips. “Our suspect is unbalanced. We think when he doesn’t find exactly what he’s looking for, he torches the place in a rage.”
“Jeezus,” Rouse said, rubbing a hand over his face. “But what specifically was he after?”
Elizabeth listened as Jake asked about any old journals or paintings the professor might own, all with the same answer. Nothing.
“I think he was looking for you,” she said when the two men’s exchange reached a dead end.
They both turned to her in surprise.
“Me?”
“How do you figure?” Jake asked.
“Sully’s friend James Tyler thinks the arsonist is trying to cast a voudou spell or curse. I’m not sure why. It may be about getting money, or possibly something else. But the arsonist found an old diary containing the words to a voudou curse that reputedly worked.”
“So you think he wanted to force me to show him how to use it?” Rouse asked, his expression half intrigued, half horrified.
“You’re an expert. Could you? Show him?” she asked, and held her breath for his answer.
His mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “Well,” he finally said, “that depends.”
Her breath whooshed out. “On what?”
“On whether the man in question has voudou.”
“Huh?” Jake said, confused.
“By having voudou,” Rouse explained, “I mean possessing the power to make voudou work. No one really knows how you get it. Many believe you have to be born with it. Lots of people try casting spells and curses. Nearly all fail.”
“Do you have it?” Elizabeth asked, carefully hiding her excitement.
“Me?” The professor shook his head wryly. “No, I just study the phenomenon. To have voudou I think you really have to believe. I’m too much of a scientist to truly believe.”
Disappointment stabbed through her. “But you’ve seen it work?”
“Absolutely.”
“So how do you explain that?” she asked in frustration.
“I can’t,” he said. “That’s what makes it all so fascinating.”
“You don’t think it’s merely the power of suggestion?” Jake asked, for which Elizabeth was grateful. She felt close to a meltdown.
“Certainly, in some instances, maybe even in most, that’s exactly what it is. But there have been cases…” The professor shook his head, clearly captivated by his subject. “Some instances just have no rational explanation. At least that we’ve discovered.”
“Yet,” Jake said firmly.
Rouse smiled so his eyes twinkled. “Yeah. Yet.”
“So,” Elizabeth persisted, the need to have an answer burning in the pit of her stomach, “in those instances where it’s not suggestion, are you saying it’s not the spell or the curse, the words themselves, that have the power, but the person who says them?”
“That seems to be the case. Often it’s hereditary, practitioners passing on their gift to a son or daughter, but not always. Some just have it.”
All her hope deflated. “And no one knows how those people get their power?”
“Correct. Although…” He hesitated.
Her heart began to pound. “Yes?”
“There seems to be a correlation between very strong abilities and an unusually potent emotional motivator.”
Oh God. Blood rushed through her veins. “Such as?”
“Such as love—nearly always unrequited—or fury over a terrible injustice. But the most common factor is…” He clamped his teeth, gazing out over the still smoking remains of his home.
She didn’t want to hear it. Not really. Because somehow she knew exactly what he was about to say. But this was why she’d come—to get to the bottom of the truth about Sully. “Yes, Professor? The most common factor is?”
The professor turned and gave her a wan smile. “Revenge, young lady. Those with the greatest power for voudou feel the greatest need for personal revenge.”
They were late. Naturally.
Sully settled down in a cushy hospital reception area chair to wait for Jake and Elizabeth and opened the backpack. What the hell. He’d wanted to leaf through the journals anyway.
He pulled out a stack and shuffled through them, reading the years written on the front covers. Which to choose? Did he feel like reminiscing over old times, or did he want to know what had happened to his ship and crew after his death? Or maybe he should look for clues to the fires.
In the end, because his reading skills were so laborious, he decided to just skim down the pages with his forefinger, stopping to read only when he ran across something that piqued his interest, such as the names Elizabeth, John Peel, Thom Bowden and that rat bastard, Gideon Spade.
Even after all his fiancée’s treachery, Sully still felt a spike of fury at the man for stealing what was his. And making plans to steal everything that was his. For surely, Gideon was behind the plan to steal the treasure as well as Elizabeth.
He found a few more references to Gideon’s lamentations over her untimely demise, much to Davey’s disdain. Good man. Certainly there was enough to convince Sully he’d been right about his fiancée’s faithlessness. How could he ever have thought himself in love with the scheming wench? How could he ever have compared the present Elizabeth to her? The thought made him ill. For all the complications and impossibilities of their relationship, Elizabeth Hamilton’s emotions and feelings for him were real and true and never hidden.
He banked his despondency over his bad luck with both Elizabeths and continued to skim the journal. Five pages later he ran across a passage that made him sit straight up in his seat:
T’nite the Moon and Palmetto were all in an uproar on account o’young Billy McManus swore he seed one o’ the old dead Capns, Capn Tyree, walkin about the village a’ter dark like he were still alive. Young Billy took a bad fright ’n were shakin all nite. The men ar wisperin about Capn Sully�
��s curse. T’is the voudou, I tell ye. I warned him his dealins with that Haitian devil Jeantout would come to no good. An’ now pur Capn Tyree is a curst soul, God bless him.
Sully let out a long, uneven breath. So this was the origin of the legend. Tyree had told him how he’d stumbled about in a daze for weeks after their deaths, wondering why no one could see or hear him. Apparently only a very few mortals had been able to perceive Tyree’s physical being while he was still in his cursed, undead state. Young Billy must have been one of the unlucky few. How many others had there been over the years? Tyree’s wife, Clara, had been one and Mrs. Yates. And apparently also Wesley Peel.
Sully got to thinking. Had that been what set Peel off on his rampage to find the infamous voudou curse—that somehow he’d spotted Tyree’s restless spirit walking around Magnolia Cove, and put that living proof together with the legend of Sully’s voudou?
Sully leafed through the journals and found a few more references to Tyree sightings. A serving girl at a remote estate who insisted he was haunting the attic, a cabin boy on the Sea Sprite who fell overboard and swore it was Tyree who’d rescued him. A solicitor who lived in Tyree’s old apartments and woke one night to see him banging on the wall behind the bed—probably trying to get into the hidey-hole. All carefully recorded by Davey Scraggs.
No doubt he’d just as carefully recorded some of the mysterious incidents that happened while Sully was still alive—all after the rescue of Jeantout from the Haitian rebellion. Incidents where enemies who had caused horrific cruelties to women or children suddenly experienced terrible deaths. Owners of the slave vessels he’d freed who’d died screaming their remorse. All it had taken was a simple incantation whispered by Sully and their fates were decided. He hadn’t had to lift a finger, and his curses had all come to pass.
Little wonder the legend of his preternatural powers had taken root and grown. He wondered if he still held those powers. If they’d transferred to Andre Sullivan’s body along with Sully’s memories and soul.
Oddly enough, he hoped they hadn’t. It was a grave responsibility having the power of life and death over a person. Dieu, even life after death. In the past he never abused his power. At least he hadn’t felt he had. He’d used it only on people who were so cruel, so bereft of human morals and ethics that society would have condemned them, too, had the full extent of their terrible deeds been known to all.
But…Because of Tyree and Elizabeth Hamilton…and Caleb…he was learning that his actions had ramifications he’d never considered. With Tyree it had been just blind jealousy that had produced the ill-conceived curse, and Tyree had suffered for it for two hundre d years. With Lord Henry, Sully had wanted to cause him pain and sorrow, in retribution for his parents’ pain and his sister’s sorrow. But he now realized that curse was also causing innocent people, women and children whom he had only wanted to protect, equal pain and sorrow.
He no longer wished to have that power.
He sighed and stared up at the ceiling.
Had his need for revenge softened? Non. It still burned like a volcano in his gut. But only for one man. Lord Henry. It wasn’t Sully’s place to judge anyone else. He understood that now.
And vowed he would never, ever utter a single word of a voudou curse again, no matter how tempted he might be.
When Jake and Elizabeth came to pick him up, Sully greeted her with a kiss and Jake by tossing him the backpack. The physio was going well and he was able to walk as far as the truck carrying his stick instead of leaning on it. All around, he was feeling pretty damn good.
“How did it go with the professor?” he asked when they were on the road to Magnolia Cove.
Jake pursed his lips and Elizabeth folded her arms across her chest. “I still say Peel was looking for a voudou curse, not treasure,” she stated emphatically.
Jake glanced at Sully wryly. “We’ve been debating the case. Seems we disagree on motive.”
“Because of the professor?” Sully asked curiously.
“In spite of the professor,” Elizabeth answered. “Even though Rouse is an expert on voudou, Jake still thinks finding treasure is Peel’s motive.”
“True, Rouse didn’t own any of Scraggs’s diaries or Thom Bowden’s paintings,” Jake interjected. “But Peel did burn down the house. He only does that when he’s frustrated by not finding what he’s looking for.”
Elizabeth’s expression went stubborn. “That could equally apply to Professor Rouse himself. Peel didn’t find him, either, since he didn’t arrive home until after the fire was burning.”
They both turned to Sully, and at the same time Jake said, “What do you think, Andre?” Elizabeth said, “What do you think, Sully?”
God’s Teeth. “Perhaps you should call me Sully from now on, too,” he said to Jake. “As for Peel’s motive…I don’t know that we can say either way for sure at this point.”
“Thanks loads, Sully,” Jake muttered.
“I can’t believe you’re saying that,” Elizabeth persisted. She grabbed a beat-up accordion file from the dashboard and riffled through the pages. “In reading through the case file on the way back, I found this e-mail that Peel had sent to antique book dealers and auction sites around the country. He was searching specifically for the journal written the year Sullivan Fouquet and Tyree St. James had their duel and died.”
“The volume Clara found at the Pirate Museum and he later stole from her,” Jake said. “So?”
“So, that journal was in the backpack and I read it cover to cover yesterday. There isn’t one mention of any secret hiding place for any treasure. Not Sullivan Fouquet’s or anyone else’s.”
They all digested that as Jake made a left turn onto the Frenchman’s Island road.
“Tyler left me his notes about the case,” Sully offered. “I remembered a reference to a passage where Davey says Wesley Peel’s ancestor, John Peel, bragged about following Fouquet and St. James out to their buried cache. In a journal written five years after they died.”
“That’s strange,” Elizabeth said, setting the file back on the dashboard. “Why would John Peel wait five whole years to claim the treasure if he was the one who’d followed them to its hiding place while they were alive?”
Sully shook his head. “No idea.”
“Could he have gotten sick, or gone on a long sea voyage?”
“Non. John was mentioned several times in the years in between. Healthy and living at home.”
“I still think it’s about the treasure,” Jake said. “Greed, love and revenge. Those are the most common motives for a crime. I’m not seeing the last two, so my money is on the first.”
Sully winced inwardly at his mention of revenge, but didn’t have time to ponder it because Jake swerved to miss a dog that ran into the street, and the accordion file landed in Sully’s lap spilling its contents onto his thighs.
As he tucked the pages back into the folder, one of them caught his eye. It was a slick color flyer, an advertisement for the Moon and Palmetto pub. In the center of the page staring out from a fancy portrait were himself and Tyree looking as bloodthirsty as they ever did in real life. Behind them were the Sea Nymph and Sea Sprite in full sail, passing in front of a palmet to be decked island—which Sully instantly recognized.
The treasure island.
“I’ll be damned. What is this painting?” he asked.
Jake glanced over. “That’s the one they were unveiling at the Moon and Palmetto during the Pirate Festival the night of the fire. The one Wesley Peel stole. Why?”
“Just curious,” he murmured. It wasn’t like he could tell Jake about the island. There would be no way to explain how he knew what it was and no way to prove it.
“Quite a resemblance, eh?”
“What?”
“Between you and Fouquet.” Jake grinned. “You always did get a lot of mileage out of that. Remember?”
“Um, thankfully no.” Sully winked at Elizabeth as he tucked the flyer back into the folder. “Unles
s…didn’t you once mention a thing for pirates, chère?”
She blushed prettily. “Certainly not.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “See what I mean? I better drop you two off before it gets embarrassing.”
“Just pull in at the fire house,” he told him with a chuckle. “We can walk back to the Inn. You don’t mind, do you?” he asked her.
“Of course not. There’s a stop or two I’d like to make anyway.”
Jake parked and Sully passed the file over to him. “Good luck figuring it all out. Let me know if I can help.”
After saying goodbye, he and Elizabeth turned and started walking toward home.
Home.
Now there was a concept Sully had never properly thought about before. Probably because he’d never really had a home. Not since his family was torn apart so long ago.
He put his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder and kissed her hair. “I missed you,” he said, and realized it was more true than he’d like to admit. Every minute they were apart he missed talking to her, missed the sight of her smile, the scent of her, the small touches they exchanged and the sensual ones. Missed the sweet taste of her lips on his.
“I missed you, too,” she said smiling up at him, and he prayed she truly meant it.
He gathered her to him and pulled her close for a long, yearning kiss. “Ah, Elizabeth, what are we—”
Just then, the Magnolia Cove fire truck rumbled by on the way to pulling into the station. Four firefighters leaned out the windows wolf-whistling and waving with big grins on their faces.
“Hey, Chief! You go for it, man!”
Sully winced. Jake may have noticed he’d changed since the fire, but obviously the other men hadn’t. Not that it bothered him so much anymore. They’d catch on soon enough.
“Where y’all been?” he shouted back, keeping his arms firmly around Elizabeth. The dispatcher hadn’t informed him of any fire today.
“Rose Cottage,” Jeremy Swift yelled. “False alarm.”
Rose Cottage? That was Tyree’s place! Where Mrs. Yates was living all alone while he and Clara were on their honeymoon. The hair on the back of Sully’s neck started to prickle. “Mrs. Yates all right?” he called.