Blood, Ash, and Bone Page 6

  “Did you say dress ball?”

  “Yes, the Black and White.” He frowned. “Aren’t you going?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “But it’s the culminating event of Expo.”

  “It’s out of my income bracket. Also, there’s not an army in the world that could get me in a hoop skirt. You’re on your own, Rhett.”

  Trey blinked at me. “Hoop skirt?”

  “It’s period dress, Trey, didn’t you know?” I smiled. “You’d better hope Armani makes nineteenth-century frock coats.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “I agree. Have fun.”

  He looked as if he might choke on his own outrage. “Every item on my schedule is…and I suspect that…I mean, it seems as if there’s an agenda that has not yet been shared with me. As if I’m being…I need a word. Multi-syllabic, starts with ‘m.’”

  “Manipulated?”

  “Yes. Exactly. And that you’re being manipulated too.”

  “Probably. Yes.”

  “But Marisa agreed…we agreed.”

  For the first time, I heard the betrayal in his voice. Back in the spring, Marisa had authorized all manner of subterfuge to spy on him. Nothing personal, she’d explained, just business. They had reached a tentative tête-à-tête, but he had not forgotten. And while his intuition had several wires sprung, it functioned well enough to flare the occasional red alert. It was flaring red now.

  “Don’t be fooled by that charade,” I said. “Marisa wants me on that golf trip. Because you’re right—we’re being manipulated, both of us.”

  “How?”

  “The Harringtons are after the Bible, and they’re using us to draw a bead on it. Me to find it, and you to inadvertently sell me out.”

  He looked insulted. “I would never—”

  “Not intentionally, of course, but you know as well as I do that sometimes you accidentally reveal exactly what you’re trying to conceal. Marisa’s counting on some informative pillow talk to fall out of your mouth.”

  “I assure you, my assignment doesn’t include spying on you, in bed or otherwise.”

  “Of course it does. They just haven’t told you so.” I regarded him over the rim of my wine glass. “But guess what? Savannah is my own personal briar patch. I’ve got moves here, boyfriend. Try and keep up.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re enjoying this.”

  I took a sip of wine. “Oh, yes. Immensely. You might too if you’d loosen up a bit.”

  He kept his eyes on me as the jet engines roared and the plane swung toward the runway. I knew the look. It was the look I got when I pulled off a Krav move perfectly, or hit a solid kill shot at the range. A surprised but confident look, as if I’d upped the ante when he had four aces in pocket.

  The plane rocketed down the runway, the sudden force slamming me backwards in my seat. And before I could figure out what was happening, my snack cup went flying toward the back of the plane. It hit the restroom door with a ballistic smack, scattering nuts and dried peas like BBs.

  I looked around the cabin. Every single person—Marisa, Reynolds, the guy with the golf clubs—had a steadying hand on their plastic cups. Trey’s expression was bland, practically innocent. He raised his hand for the flight attendant.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “my girlfriend lost control of her snack mix.”

  Chapter Nine

  The windshield wipers swish-swished as we crossed the Talmadge Bridge, the river a slate-colored twist beneath us. Our rental, a Lincoln Town Car, ferried us over the water in a cushioned bubble, as if its tires weren’t even touching the pavement. In the distance, the faux gaslights of downtown Savannah glowed through the patchy fog.

  Across the river on Hutchinson Island, the Westin Hotel stood sentinel against the mother-of-pearl sky, a sixteen-story, sandstone-colored rectangle with eighteen holes of golf spreading behind and six hundred feet of deepwater dockage before. Right next door, the Savannah International Convention Center stretched along the water—post-modern, stark white, its curved roofline half-concealed by the shrouding mist.

  “Our home away from home,” I said. “For the next week anyway.”

  Trey flexed his fingers and frowned. “This steering is loose. And everything’s…soft.”

  “You’re used to the Ferrari, that’s all.”

  I turned back to the window, listening to the clop-clop-clop of the bridge plates underneath us. I’d left Atlanta in cold clear sunshine, but Savannah was warm and misty, in the first stages of a soft ripening autumn. It stirred something deep inside me, something tidal.

  “The whole city’s cursed, you know. By a frustrated journalist, shaking his fist on his way out of town: ‘I leave you, Savannah, a curse that is the far worst of all curses—to remain as you are!’ And it has, in many ways. Exactly the same.”

  Trey kept his eyes on the road. Marisa and Reynolds followed behind us in a BMW, their headlights ghostly and inexplicably sinister. All of us gathering, each for different reasons, the Lowcountry spreading out its ancient, mossy welcome mat.

  I turned to Trey. “So you’re creating a security plan for Reynold’s very own golf tournament.”

  Trey hesitated, then nodded. “The Harrington Lowcountry Classic.”

  “Is he coming to the Expo too?”

  “Yes. And the reenactment at Skidaway Island. And the Black and White Ball.”

  “Busy man, Mr. Harrington, when he’s not trying to snatch my Bible.”

  Trey tightened his fingers on the wheel and said nothing. He missed the sensory feedback and response of the Ferrari. I’d once thought Ferraris were about indulgence, but after spending time with Trey, I knew they were really about control.

  Not that I’d ever gotten my sticky fingers on the wheel. Not yet anyway.

  Despite the rain, I rolled down the window and let the smell of the Lowcountry into the car—the humid air thick as vegetation, the chemical pong of the paper mill, the salt-clean top notes of the ocean. It was impossible to separate the land and the sea in Savannah. They encroached and flowed, sometimes antagonistic, always intimate, island and marsh and estuary in sustained restless cycles.

  I turned back to Trey. “Are you working tonight?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “Not officially. There is someone I’d like to see, though.”

  “Who?”

  “Winston. My former employer. He runs a tour shop on River Street. John thinks that Hope might have contacted him about finding a buyer for the Bible.”

  “Do you think John’s right?”

  “I think Winston is a good place to start. Like a reunion, only…not.”

  “Tai—”

  “I’ll stick to places I know, and I’ll tell you where I’m going and what I’m doing at all times.”

  In profile, Trey always looked older, sterner, the first hint of wrinkles visible at the corner of his eye. He flexed his fingers on the wheel yet again, softening his grip.

  “Okay,” he said. “That seems sensible.”

  ***

  We’d booked an executive suite at the Westin, on the seventh floor. The room sprawled like a drunken debutante, overflowing onto a balcony with a river view. Below us, the dock lay like a charm bracelet, bordered by a courtyard and swimming pool. Across the water, the blocky River Street skyline glowed gray and amber. The drizzle had dampened the party somewhat, but I saw pedestrians up and down the cobblestones, umbrellas bobbing.

  Trey unlocked the interior door and opened up an adjoining room. This was going to be his office while we were there. Mine too apparently. My boxes of Confederate gear were stacked in the corner, rain-dappled but obviously towel-dried by efficient hands. Trey opened his briefcase on the desk and pulled out a sheaf of paperwork.

  I linked my elbow with his. “Not yet. Come here first.”

  He let me pull him onto the canopied balcony. I pointed across the river, to a small shop next to a docked riverboat on the east end, the touristy section. “T
hat’s Lowcountry Excursions. I watched them build this hotel from right there.”

  “You gave tours there.”

  “Yep.” I patted the balcony. “This place we’re standing used to be scrubland. When General Sherman threatened the city, the Confederate army escaped across the river to this island, then fled for South Carolina under cover of night. The mayor, waking up the next morning to an undefended city, wisely surrendered. And Sherman decided not to burn down the place.”

  A massive freighter ship plowed its way past, blocking our view. It was as big as an office building, colossal, with Cyrillic characters spelling out its name.

  I shook my head. “Every summer, some drunken tourist tries to swim across the river, with ships like that coming through.”

  Trey measured the distance with his eyes. “That’s seven hundred and fifty feet from bank to bank.”

  “Correct. But drunk people sometimes make unsound decisions.”

  I didn’t tell him I’d almost done it myself once, chock full of hurrah and stupidity. And bourbon. I’d chickened out, but one of my classmates had taken the plunge. The Coast Guard pulled him out half-drowned fifteen minutes later, upchucking algae and brackish brown water.

  I looked over Trey’s shoulder to his desk. It was a collection of golf course maps, hotel blueprints, graphs, and charts.

  Trey followed my gaze. “I’m studying the basic protocols for some of the major tournaments. Of course this one will be on a smaller scale. Most of the work for Mr. Harrington will be his own personal protection plan.”

  “To keep him out of trouble?”

  “To minimize the potential for liability.”

  “Same difference.”

  Trey didn’t disagree. “I have to finish the intake report tonight.”

  “I know. It’s okay. I’m going to try to catch Winston.” I leaned against the railing, and the wet breeze flipped my hair across my face. “Hope worked for him too, you know. That’s where we met. I specialized in ghosts and the Civil War, she knew architecture and famous people.”

  Trey didn’t reply. He was half a second from telling me he didn’t want me to go by myself.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” I said. “We made a deal, fair and square.”

  He shot me a look. “Hardly fair.”

  “But a deal nonetheless.” I rubbed his arm. “Winston is an old friend. I’ve known him for years. I’ll be fine.”

  Trey examined me, his head tilted. Finally, he squared his shoulders and pulled the keys to the Lincoln out of his pocket.

  “Remember,” he said. “Sensible.”

  ***

  He insisted on escorting me downstairs. In the fifteen seconds it took to reach the lobby, he paced off the elevator’s dimensions and scanned the ceiling, finally locating the barely perceptible security camera in the corner. Its presence seemed to reassure him.

  In the lobby, a uniformed bellhop approached us with a little half-bow. “Mr. Seaver?”

  Trey stopped. “Yes?”

  The bellhop handed him a card. “You have a delivery, sir. Ms. Randolph too.”

  Trey looked over the bellhop’s shoulder. Two sets of golf clubs leaned against the front desk like incognito celebrities, a men’s set and a women’s. Callaways, top of the line. Trey opened the card.

  “From Reynolds Harrington,” he said. He handed the card back to the bellhop. “Take them to the room, please. I’ll be right up.”

  Then he put his hands on his hips and looked hard at me. “Do you have your keys?”

  “Room key, car key, cell phone, pepper spray. I even have the .38.” I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “This is my home turf. I know these streets like I know my own bones.”

  He softened a bit. A peck on the cheek usually had that effect. I headed out the doors, tossing him a wave. “Back in two hours. Be careful with my new clubs.”

  Chapter Ten

  The rain had cleared out all but the most intrepid tourists, the sweetgrass rose-makers and the buskers too, leaving behind a layer of mineral-rich ozone. The street blossomed with familiar sounds and smells—fried shrimp and warm pralines, spilled beer and pipe tobacco, the echoing churn of the paddleboats plowing the water.

  I walked carefully on the cobbled walkway, old ballast stones from centuries of ships; they were slippery and treacherous, downright deadly for the high-heeled and inebriated. I was neither, but still cautious. The last thing I wanted to do was call Trey to come and rescue me because I’d sprained my ankle.

  So I was moving slow. Paying attention. Which was why I noticed the shadowy figure duck into the alley.

  I stopped at the candy shop and pretended to watch a man dump a vat of glazed pecans on a marble slab. I tried to scan the sidewalk with my peripheral vision, but saw only a couple walking arm in arm, a gaggle of art students laughing and elbowing each other.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept walking. When I passed the alley, I paused and looked inside. River Street had several of these passages, some stair-stepped, some simple inclines, some narrow, some wide. They all led from River Street to a single long passageway running parallel to the sidewalks and the river, behind the shops. This particular alley had a fire-escape at its entrance, and I waited under it, back against the wet limestone, listening and watching.

  But the shadow had vanished.

  I knew it wasn’t my imagination, however. I also knew I’d shown my hand. Whoever was following me knew I’d burned them—they’d be extra-careful next time, and I was certain there’d be a next time.

  Five more minutes of walking took me to the front door of Lowcountry Excursions. I was disappointed to see a CLOSED sign. Granted, it was a Monday afternoon in the off season, and rainy to boot, but rule one of the tour industry was “always be open.” I put my hands to the glass and peered inside.

  I saw a faint glow toward the back, like a small lamp burning. I followed another side alley around back, the memories crowding like fog, irresistible. I remembered River Street ablaze with summer heat, bursting with tourists, Hope and I taking our break together in this narrow lane behind the shops. It was shaded and cool there, even if it smelled of shrimp shells and standing water and slick stone. We’d sucked down cigarettes, joined by the waitresses and busboys, bound in the camaraderie of exhaustion and nicotine.

  I tried the back door to Winston’s shop, the one marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. I gave it a push, and soft blurry light squeezed out the sliver, accompanied by the sounds of human activity. I peered inside and saw Winston.

  He hadn’t changed a bit—mouse-brown hair sticking up in points all over his head, a round face like a harvest moon, one of his eye-blinding Hawaiian shirts paired with worn jeans. He crouched behind the counter on one knee, shoving a box into the storage area, muttering to himself.

  I leaned against the wall. “Good help is so hard to find these days.”

  He jumped and cursed, banging into the counter. The box jangled, the sound of glass against glass, and he moved in front of it quickly, like it contained the crown jewels. Already he was acting suspiciously, and I hadn’t even asked the first question.

  He squinted. “Tai? Is that you?”

  I stepped into the circle of light. “Hey, boss man.”

  He forced a grin. “Well, I’ll be damned. It is you.”

  The front of the shop lay dark and deserted behind him, but I could make out hazy details. Rows of brochures, a display of Savannah-themed trinkets, a stand of guidebooks. And there, perched beside the cash register, a cage containing a familiar wad of feathers and fluff. It croaked at me, a crooning demented noise.

  “You’ve still got Jezebel, I see.”

  He snorted. “Damn bird won’t die.”

  The parrot glared at me, then trilled in exact mimicry of a cell phone. The bird was violent emerald green splattered with white and blue, one eye cocked like a lunatic peeking through a keyhole.

  Winston grimaced. “Stupid bird. I swear it’s possessed.”

  I pulled a pa
ck of gum from my pocket, shoved two sticks in my mouth. “So how are things with you?”

  Winston leaned against the counter, firmly between me and the box. “Pretty good. You looking to get your old job back?”

  “Jeez, no. I’m here for the Expo. Got a new gig now.”

  “Doing what?”

  I told him. He laughed. But he didn’t move from his spot in front of the counter.

  “How about you?” I said. “Still making money hand over fist?”

  “Not so much. Lots of competition now—tour buses, tour carriages, tour hearses. Tourists are getting too lazy to walk.”

  I remembered hanging out with the other guides. We often held contests to see who’d spun the biggest sensationalistic lie and passed it off as fact. Tourists would believe any story, it seemed, if it had a bloodthirsty rogue slave or star-crossed lovers in it. And the tips would increase accordingly.

  I tried to look nonchalant. “You haven’t seen Hope around by any chance?”

  “Hope? Is she back in town?”

  He delivered the line smoothly, his eyes wide. I realized then that I didn’t need Trey at all—Winston’s lie glowed like the Vegas strip on his round innocent cheeks.

  I shrugged. “So I’ve heard.”

  “I’m surprised you’re still speaking to her.”

  “I’m not. But we have some business.”

  Winston frowned. “You’re not looking to beat her up, are you?”

  “No. It’s a long story. I figured if she really were back in town, you’d have been her first stop.”

  “Why would she come looking for me?”

  “Because that’s what people do—they stick with what they know. Here I am, after all, back in Savannah. Back in this shop, talking to you.”

  “Sorry. Haven’t seen her.” He gave me a curious look. “I heard Boone got out of prison. Is that for real?”

  Boone again. I was wondering when people would forget we were connected. As long as he was a local legend, however, I guessed that would be never.