by Sharon Wray
Suddenly the force holding her down released her. She expelled the breath she’d been holding, and Zack helped her sit until she fell against his shoulder.
He maneuvered them so he was propped up against the headboard and she lay almost on top of him. His hand ran up and down her spine while she tried to make sense of what had just happened. It took a few minutes until she could breathe regularly and the tingling in her arms and legs went away.
“Sleep paralysis sucks.”
“I know.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she buried her face against his warm chest, drawing in his scent of bay rum. He still had his clothes on and she rubbed her cheek against the cotton T-shirt. “Were you dreaming about Danny?”
She nodded. When they were in college, she’d told him about her brother’s death and how when she dreamt about Danny she suffered from sleep paralysis. “It happens when I’m stressed.”
Zack’s chest lifted beneath her head. His breathing was strong and steady, unlike hers which was shaky and erratic. “It’s been a tough night. And the power has been out for hours.”
That must be why the air felt so still and hot. “Did it rain?”
“Thunderstorm. I brought in your laundry.”
She raised her head. “Thank you.”
He kept one hand on her back while the other pushed strands of hair behind an ear. “You’re welcome.”
He’d unbound his hair and it was longer than she’d realized. She reached to touch it until she decided she had no right.
“Allison, is this the master bedroom?”
She stiffened. “Why would you ask that?”
“Earlier tonight, I was checking the windows and doors, and I found a bedroom at the end of the hallway. It’s larger with an attached bathroom and sitting room.”
She closed her eyes. “Since it was his house, Stuart stayed in the master bedroom. Two years ago, I moved in here.”
“Why?”
“We had a fight. At the time, he thought it was better if we slept apart…temporarily.”
“But it wasn’t temporary?”
“No.”
“What was the fight about?”
You. She stared at his arm lying across his chest. The eyes of the dragon tattoo shone. It’d always surprised her that the dragon’s eyes were sad instead of fierce. In college, he’d let her trace the colorful design, teasing her because while he’d sit for hours in the tattoo shop, she didn’t have the courage to get a flu shot. “The fight doesn’t matter now.”
“Did Stuart’s affair begin before or after you had separate rooms?”
“After.”
“After that fight, you two never…”
“No. After I moved out, we never again spent the night together as…husband and wife.”
There. She’d said it. She’d been a complete failure as a wife and now Zack knew it.
He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked, but it couldn’t stop a rogue tear from tracking down her face. “I am too. So very sorry about so many things.”
“The affair wasn’t your fault.”
“I never should have married Stuart. My father’s death—”
“Which also wasn’t your fault.”
“—followed so closely by my brother’s death left me unable to love others completely. And tonight’s mess is the proof of that.”
“You know what I think about that belief. It is, and always has been, horseshit.”
Yes, he’d often said that. Yet she hadn’t believed it then and didn’t believe it now. “My father died because I ran away and he went looking for me in the woods. Then my brother died because I wasn’t paying attention.”
She didn’t deserve love.
“You were eleven when those accidents happened. You were a child and were never responsible. Regardless of what your mother has told you over the years.” He kissed her head. “One day, I’m going to prove you wrong.”
“Good luck with that.” She sniffled. “You’d have better luck finding Mercy Chastain’s ghost and asking her why she disappeared and how she died.”
He chuckled. “Does that matter to you?”
She yawned. “If I can find out what happened to Mercy and write about it, I have a good chance of making tenure.”
“That means I’m going to prove you wrong and help you make tenure.”
She yawned again. “How?”
“I’m going to find Mercy and ask her.” He moved until his head was lying on a pillow and hers was still on his chest. “Because I believe that ghosts are real.”
Chapter 9
The next morning, Isabel entered Washington Square and sipped her coffee.
She buttoned her black sweater over her yellow knit dress, and her sandals crushed oyster shells on the path around the park’s perimeter. She preferred meeting her crew early, before tourists appeared and the humidity took everyone hostage.
Clayborne waited beneath a pink crepe myrtle tree. His dirty jeans, black Harley-Davidson jacket lying on a nearby stone bench, and eau de licorice meant he’d come from the barn.
She placed her coffee on the bench and held her clutch handbag against her stomach. “Did you get my message?”
“About not following you anymore?” Clayborne tossed his cigarette onto the grass and ground it out with his boot. “Yep. I did it for the money.”
Which was the problem with hired help—she’d been telling Remiel that for years.
Clayborne squinted at her. “Did you know that Tremaine spent the night with Allison?”
Isabel brushed her hand across her forehead. Even though she’d been born and bred in the South, she hated the summer heat. “Tremaine won’t be an issue.”
“Why do you assume that? Allison is a beautiful—”
“Allison is a sad, pathetic widow.”
“One might think you were jealous of your lover’s wife.”
“That’s absurd. Why would I be jealous of her?”
“Because, in the end, Stuart didn’t choose you. You fucked him beautifully and betrayed him badly—so badly that he gave up his life to protect Allison.”
Isabel tightened her hold on her handbag. She had no intention of confiding her feelings about Stuart to anyone. She knew the truth. She knew Stuart had loved her far more than he’d ever loved Allison. She also knew, in Remiel’s world, emotions were not allowed. She may have loved Stuart, but no one could ever know that. “Allison is a sad, pathetic widow who is easily manipulated and controlled.”
“A sad, pathetic widow who has the Pirate’s Grille.”
“How do you…? Of course.” She moved into the shade beneath a towering oak tree. “Remiel told you.”
“He also told me Allison has an armed Green Beret hanging around, desperate to save her or protect her or whatever it is that heroes do.”
“Are you scared, Clayborne?”
“Fuck no. I’m just saying if you can’t control your emotions, your jealousy may end up biting you in your beautiful, firm ass.”
Great. Sexual harassment from the temp. “Right now I need you to set a diversion so you can get into Allison’s house and take the Pirate’s Grille.”
“Why? We don’t need it.”
“That doesn’t mean I want anyone else to have it.” She opened her handbag and handed him a slip of paper. “It’s probably in Stuart’s safe. Here’s the combination.”
He ran his fingers through his short blond hair. “What about Tremaine?”
“He’s on his way back to Savannah.” She’d not been thrilled when another member of her crew had told her about Zack staying with Allison, but Isabel wasn’t surprised. The protective types did things like that. “With Zack gone, Allison will have no one to turn to. Once we get the Pirate’s Grille, we’re done with Allison Pinckney.”
Cl
ayborne stared at Isabel for a long moment before grabbing his jacket. “You’re underestimating Allison and Tremaine. She may be emotionally broken, but she’s not weak. And the ex–Green Beret is nothing if not persistent. Jeez, he’s been in love with her for years.”
Heat crawled up Isabel’s spine. She didn’t need a reminder that Allison was the original sleeping princess, totally unaware of the two lovers—one dead and one alive—who protected her.
Isabel despised helpless, weak sleeping princesses.
She tilted her head and sent another barb. “This is why I’m the boss and you’re the help.”
Clayborne scoffed. “Speaking of help, our crew at the work site hasn’t found what we we’re looking for. Are you sure we’re searching in the right spot?”
“I’m sure. It has to be there somewhere. Tell them—no, I’ll call and remind them. A pirate’s treasure worth over sixty million dollars isn’t going to be buried in a chest a few feet in the ground. Besides, Stuart confirmed the location.”
“You tortured the information out of him.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Isabel brushed crepe myrtle blossoms off her skirt. “Did you find anything in Hezekiah’s office that could incriminate us?”
“No. There’ve been tons of cops coming and going since the explosion, so I couldn’t stay long.”
“After you get the Pirate’s Grille, send one of your men back there. Although he didn’t look it, Hezekiah played his game brilliantly. Make sure he left nothing behind. Now. Have you heard from your lover?”
Clayborne spat on the ground near his crushed cigarette. “That bitch has vanished.”
“Is there any chance she’s under the protection of the Prince?”
“Fuck if I know. I still can’t believe she stole the Witch’s Examination of Mercy Chastain from me and gave it to Stuart.”
“Bit of advice, Clayborne? Next time you confide in your lover, make sure she’s not half your age and desperate for money.”
“That’s not fair. She seduced me.”
“Your wife won’t see it that way.”
“My wife will never know.” Clayborne moved into Isabel’s personal space until she could smell his sour breath. “Ever.”
She waved a hand in front of her face. Men like Clayborne were all the same: insecure and arrogant. “Text me when you’ve completed your mission.”
When Clayborne left, Isabel sat on the bench to finish her coffee and check her phone. After calling the leader of the work site and reassuring him that the treasure had to be there somewhere, she checked in with her crews in New Orleans and Savannah. Thank goodness both places were quiet at the moment.
“’Tis a beautiful morning, Lady Isabel. Is it not?” The male voice, low and melodic, came from a nearby tree.
Isabel looked up and saw two men, a white man wearing a baseball cap and jeans, a black man in a seersucker suit. When she stood, both men hit their chests and bowed at the waist.
Fuck.
She considered her options. She had a gun in her purse, but they’d disarm her before she opened the clasp. While she had decent self-defense moves, she wasn’t capable of fighting off two full-fledged Fianna warriors. The only three things in her favor were the time of day, the public space filling with people, and the fact that she was a woman.
Although she’d learned the hard way that the not hurting women rule could be lifted.
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “It is a beautiful morning.”
The dark-skinned warrior came forward and spoke in a polished British accent. “My name is Marcellus. My brother is Horatio.”
Horatio stayed in the shadows, the thug behind Marcellus’s gentility.
“What can I do for you?”
“’Tis an unfortunate situation we wish to remedy. The Witch’s Examination of Mercy Chastain is without its appendix.”
She took a deep breath so she didn’t stumble over her words. “What happened to it?”
“Your lover removed it and told not a soul.”
Isabel sank onto the bench. Stuart had removed the appendix?
Marcellus crouched in front of her. “My lady, do you know where—”
“No.” She shook her head for emphasis. “I don’t know where it is.”
“’Tis unfortunate.” Marcellus, still in his crouched position, smiled. “We have a proposition.”
Isabel stood again, forcing Marcellus to do so as well. “I don’t make deals with warriors because warriors—and the Prince—can’t be trusted.”
Marcellus held up his phone with an image of a bank account statement. Her account. “’Tis a secret from the Fiend. Funded by your lover for your escape.”
She swallowed. The irony was the one thing she’d learned from dealing with the Fianna was that her contingencies needed contingencies. This account Stuart had set up for her was her last-ditch contingency in case she could no longer control Remiel’s sadistic tendencies. But if Remiel—aka the Fiend—found out, he’d consider it a betrayal. And her punishment would be far worse than what she’d done to Hezekiah.
She sat again and gripped the edge of the stone bench until the aggregate cut her palms. Please don’t let me be sick. “What do you want?”
Marcellus slipped his phone into his jacket pocket. “Betray the Fiend and accept the Prince’s offer of asylum.”
She met Marcellus’s brown gaze. While his eyes appeared open and honest, he worked for the Prince. “Remiel will kill me.”
Marcellus’s face softened and he crouched in front of her again. “My lady, let your desperation turn your trust into hope.”
Trust? Marcellus must be insane. Then again, he was a Fianna warrior. “I could never trust the Prince, and he will never forgive me.”
“What function has mercy except to confront sin?”
Mercy? For me? “The Prince will never offer me mercy. Not after I betrayed his brother. Not after the other things I’ve done.”
Marcellus bowed his head. “Your choices are thin, options deadly.”
She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Marcellus was right. If she didn’t take the Prince’s offer of asylum, and the Prince sent that financial file to Remiel, she was a dead woman. The problem was she understood, probably better than Marcellus and Horatio, that the Prince’s asylum was almost as terrifying as Remiel’s anger.
She opened her eyes. “I request a parlay with the Prince.”
Horatio came forward, clutching his own cell phone. “You have no words our Prince needs to hear.”
“That’s not—”
Marcellus held up his hand. This time Horatio handed her his phone with a photograph on the screen.
“’Tis time”—Marcellus stood—“to consider our offer. You have two days.”
She returned the phone and didn’t respond because words were pointless.
The men walked away with the kind of smooth gait that took tremendous strength and power to achieve.
She’d no idea how long she sat there, but she eventually texted the leader of her New Orleans crew about what she saw in that photo. Minutes later, she had her answer.
Yes.
In that moment, she knew the truth. If she didn’t find that treasure soon, she was dead.
* * *
Allison said goodbye to her student and shut her office door. So far this morning, she’d met with three graduate students and approved their research projects, sent off two emails to her boss, and left a message for a colleague at UVA who specialized in seventeenth-century pirates. The same colleague who’d notified her about the witch’s examination sale.
She’d also organized her files regarding her Finding Mercy Chastain research project—the one that would hopefully get her tenure—and she’d done an exhaustive internet search into the Fianna and found very little. What she did learn left h
er uneasy and more convinced than ever that she and Zack had met Fianna warriors in Le Petit Theatre seven years ago.
Fianna warriors—who came into existence in ancient Ireland—tithed their lives to the Prince and had to commit acts of penance. Acts such as only speaking in verse from books of ancient Gaelic poetry or, in later years, Shakespeare. They also learned how to walk in a certain way and had to complete a ruthless training regimen that included running naked and unarmed in the woods in winter while being hunted by other warriors. Then there was the barbaric, bloody rite of passage known as “the gauntlet.”
Oh, and apparently they bowed before they killed. Because, yes, the Fianna were also deadly assassins.
And so far she’d met four of these warriors who, also according to her research, weren’t supposed to exist. Two in New Orleans seven years ago and two last night. That left her with even more questions, the most important being: What connection did they have with Stuart?
After reheating her coffee in the microwave on her filing cabinet, she returned to her desk to study the Pirate’s Grille again. A breeze blew through the open French doors of her College of Charleston office, and Nicholas Trott rolled over on his bed beneath her enormous white board that held photos of her research into Mercy’s disappearance in 1704.
She stretched her arms over her head and checked the time. She was meeting her brother-in-law, Lawrence, at Pinckney House at eleven and wanted to get some more work done. But her focus had apparently stayed in bed. Although she tried not to think about the fact she’d spent most of the night in Zack’s arms and everything else that’d happened, she couldn’t let it go. Not Stuart’s affair. Not meeting the Fianna warriors—then and now. Not learning that Stuart had been searching for the dread pirate king’s treasure.
Whatever that meant.
As she scrolled through another Fianna search, her phone buzzed. She sipped her coffee, read Pastor Tom’s text, and responded. Yes, I’ll be at Stuart’s memorial service on Friday.
After all, she had been Stuart’s wife.
Another text came quickly, except this one was from an unknown ID.
What is it ye would see, my lady? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.