“I can’t believe you were shot,” Sarah said as Nate maneuvered the boat along the river.
He wasn’t concerned about the wound. He’d suffered worse pain.
The sun had come out, and she’d put on her straw hat and had Grady’s map in her lap. Nate steered as they motored by miles of undisturbed coastline edged with banyan trees, marsh grass, and dense swamps. Despite the desolation and humidity, it was beautiful. Maybe it was the isolation that appealed to him. Or the white birds skimming along the water shimmering in the heat.
They’d had no problem finding and loading up the boat. Although they’d had to make hard choices about what to bring. They’d both agreed on clothes, food, and water. But Sara had wanted to take boxes of research until he convinced her the boat would sink. She’d finally agreed to take what would fit in her straw bag. Which, unsurprisingly, was a lot.
She pointed to a cut in the river. “Turn right there.”
This estuary was narrower and shallower, and he had to guide the boat carefully. He didn’t want the outboard motor to get caught in seagrass. As they went deeper into the isle, the trees along the banks formed canopies above them, cutting off the sunlight.
Sarah had been quiet since leaving Pops’s house.
“Sarah? Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure I have enough information to solve the cipher.” She sighed. “Everyone has given up so much to help us. I can’t believe what they’re risking. Especially Sheriff Boudreaux and Detective Garza. They could lose their jobs.”
“I know.” That was a truth Nate lived with every day.
She touched his knee. “How are you feeling?”
He knew she wanted to know about the seizure he’d had after being shot as well as how his arm was doing, but he didn’t want to worry her. “I don’t have a headache, so I’m good.”
“I’m glad you drank another cup of tea before we left Pops’s.”
His stomach wasn’t. “I know you were fired.”
She nodded and stared at the map again. “My boss warned me not to apply for that grant, but I did it anyway.”
“Any idea how he found out?”
“No.” She pointed to a dock on their right. “It was a foreign granting agency, but I keep forgetting that the world of historians seeking grant money isn’t just competitive, it’s small.”
He guided the boat to the dock and handed Sarah the rope. She got out and tied them up. Keeping the boat balanced, he handed her supplies, which she stacked on the bank. The cabin sat sixty yards away, on a crest of land, surrounded by the encroaching forest.
“Does this cabin belong to Pops?”
“Kind of. Grady and Pops are Capel land caretakers, and they use it whenever they’re out here.”
“I’m hoping primitive refers to no cell service and not no indoor plumbing.”
He was worried about the same thing. Once their supplies were unloaded, he picked up the case of water and led the way to the cabin.
She grabbed the duffels and a bag of groceries and followed. “Once we’re unloaded—”
“We’ll go to the cemetery.” He saw her biting her lower lip. “Don’t worry. You can do this.”
She went up the four steps to the porch of the rough-hewn cabin. Opening the door, she said, “We can do this.”
He lowered the case of water onto the porch, took her bags out of her hands, and dropped them. Then he removed her hat and drew her in for a kiss. It was a long, lingering kiss. The kind that promised breakfast in bed, Sunday picnics, and snuggling by the fire on winter nights. The kind that promised forever. Because forever was what he wanted. Forever was what he’d dreamed of even when he hadn’t been dreaming. Forever was what he knew he’d never have.
He lifted his head and looked into her brown eyes. Every time he was close to her, the humming in his body that foreshadowed a seizure eased. She wasn’t his cure, she was his hope.
“Nate?” She wrapped her arms around him. “I can’t lose you.”
“I know.” He kissed her head and gently undid her arms. “If we’re going to see that cemetery—”
“Alright.” She wiped her face with her fingers. “Let’s get settled, and I’ll grab my things.”
Before she moved, he swept her up and carried her over the threshold.
She wound her arms around his neck. “What are you doing?”
What I will never have another chance to do. “What does it look like?”
She pressed her forehead against his and whispered, “It looks like Heaven.”
* * *
An hour later, Nate tied the boat to a mangrove tree near the Cemetery of Lost Children.
Luckily, the cabin hadn’t been too primitive. It had a bedroom with a queen-size bed, a bathroom with a shower and a tub, and an open kitchen and family room with a fireplace. They’d found clean sheets, a homemade quilt, and towels in the closet.
While Sarah made the bed, he searched the cabin for weapons. Water and power were provided by a generator on the side porch. There was gasoline as well as a canoe in the shed. He’d found wire and rattraps with which to make trip wires. And he’d checked out the ham radio. Thank goodness there was a Morse code book in the drawer. Although he hoped he wouldn’t need it.
Nate helped Sarah out of the boat. “Do you have a camera?”
“I’ll use my phone. It’s in the backpack with the water, ammo, and knives.” They both had pistols, and he also carried the shotgun and machete. “Can you locate us on our map?”
Now they were using the map of the cemetery the hooded man had dropped off at the gym yesterday.
“Yes.” He studied the map, looked around, and started walking. “I always liked math and things like orienteering because I’m dyslexic and hated to read.”
She followed. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s not a big deal. That’s why you’re solving the cipher and I’m protecting you. I’m your muscle.”
“Oh, Nate.” Her voice sounded so low, and he watched a blush rise from her neck to her cheeks. “You’re much more than that.”
More than anything else in the world, he wanted that to be true. “Come on. Let’s find a hide site.”
* * *
Sarah followed Nate up a ravine, not liking how heavy her breathing had gotten. She really needed to exercise more. “Are we close?”
Nate read the map and then scanned the area. “Soon.”
“I’m not sure what the scale is on that map, but it’s a pirate map. It could be anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Pirates measured distance—on land—in feet, yards, paces, and leagues. It was part of their ploy to make their treasure maps difficult to decipher.”
Nate paused to study the map again. “Good to know.”
When her stomach rumbled, she regretted not eating more of Pops’s jambalaya. But she’d been too wound up to eat more than a few bites. “I wish we had strawberry pie.”
He laughed. “Is that your new comfort treat?”
“It’s my new everything treat.”
“I thought that’s what I was.” Laughter leaked out of his voice.
“How can you not be freaked out right now?”
“Because”—he reached down to help her up the steepest part of the ravine—“I’ve been in much worse situations.”
“I’m not sure I want to know about those.”
Once she stood next to him, he kissed her hand. “I can’t tell you anyway.”
Of course not. Still, it hurt her heart to think that he had painful memories he couldn’t share with her.
“You’re going to be okay, Sarah. I’ll make sure of it.”
She stopped because she was sad and angry at how unfair all of this was to him and his men—but mostly him. “What if we ran away together? I don’t have a job, but I have money saved. We could change our names. Live our lives together, forever.”
He caressed her face with one hand, while the other held the shotgun on his shoulder. “We can’t do that, sweetheart.”
“Why?” She blinked quickly so she wouldn’t cry. “This is all…wrong. You weren’t responsible for that massacre. You were kept in a POW camp. Your men are in prison. You were tortured and poisoned until you lost most of your memories.” Her voice broke. “Haven’t you given enough?”
He pulled her in until her head rested on his chest, his chin on her head. “I can’t leave because if I do, my men will pay the price.”
She sniffled. “I don’t understand.”
“If I don’t return to Maine, the men in Savannah join the others at Leedsville.”
She backed up until he dropped his arms. She wanted to see his green eyes, make sure he was telling her the truth. “Says who?”
“Says Kells. I knew the rules—that I had to return or my men would be punished—before I left the prison hospital.”
“Kells,” she scoffed. “The same man who signed your commitment papers.”
“I can’t leave my men. I won’t let them face the consequences of my cowardice.”
“You’re not a coward. Why can’t you see that about yourself?”
He kissed her softly. “I don’t want to argue. I want you to trust me. Can you do that?”
He was right. She didn’t understand, but she wanted to. “Yes, Nate. I trust you.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, they stood in front of a tomb with yellow police tape blowing in the wind.
“Look.” She pointed to the Hic est finis iter est scriptor carved along the top of the stone crypt. The name JONES had been cut below the phrase. The building was four feet deep by six feet wide. A wrought iron fence surrounded the plot.
Nate walked the perimeter, and she followed. They stopped in the back where the dirt looked clumpy and congealed. Someone had stuck yellow marker flags in the ground. “This is where the banker was found.”
She shivered and focused on the five-pointed stars and five-petaled roses carved into the stone. They were so worn and covered with lichen, they were almost invisible. “Can you hand me that ledger from the backpack?”
A moment later, he handed it to her. “This book looks old.”
“It is.” She flipped through the pages, looking for a Jones entry. “The even stranger thing is that someone sent it to my house and didn’t leave a note.”
“Huh.”
“This mausoleum was built by Thomas Toban in 1750, yet the people inside died between 1630 and 1703.” She handed her phone to Nate. “Will you take photos for me? Especially the stars and roses?”
“Sure.”
While he took photos, she read. “Thomas commissioned at least six tombs in this cemetery, most of them for families who’d died decades earlier. I wonder if Thomas built these tombs to hide—maybe even protect—the older Prideaux hide sites.”
“Makes sense.” Nate finished taking photos. “Ready?”
“Yes.” She followed Nate to the front door. It took a few tries to find the right key, but the doors swung open easily. “One might think the hinges had been recently oiled.”
Nate used the backpack to prop open one door, re-slung the shotgun onto his shoulder, and handed her a flashlight. “Shine the flashlight into the room, but my pistol and I go first.” He didn’t wait for her response. He drew his weapon and entered the crypt.
She was, by now, used to his ordering-people-around style. He motioned her in, and she gagged on the stench of decay.
“Sarah, breathe through your mouth.”
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and see…no caskets. “Where are the bodies?”
Nate walked the perimeter. Slime covered the walls, probably causing the disgusting odor. “No idea.”
Her foot caught on something metal on the floor. An iron ring attached to a trapdoor. When they opened it, the light shone into pitch-blackness, barely outlining stairs.
“I’ll go down first,” he said. “I’m not sure about the stairs.”
She handed him the flashlight. “Be careful.”
A minute later, he said, “It’s wet, but the stairs are safe.”
She counted twenty steps, then felt Nate’s hands on her waist. He lifted her and she landed on a plank floor covered in water up to her ankles. Nate swung the light around a room that was four times the size of the crypt above them.
Tabby made from sand and crushed oyster shells covered stone walls. “My research was right. The walls are lined with opus signinum.”
He pointed the light to where the floor sloped down toward a dark corner. Water flowed under the planks, and there was a door nearby with another padlock. “We’re at the water level, if not lower, of the estuary this place backs up to.”
She walked the room. “These rivers and streams change with the tides and the seasons, and according to my research, the hide sites were only dry two to four weeks a year. The pirates who built them didn’t have access to them at the same time, which is why they built so many.”
“That’s smart. Missions run out of the same safe house for weeks aren’t a good idea. You want to keep moving.” He shone the flashlight on the door again. “More roses and stars.”
“In classical navigation, they mean time and distance.” She paused. “The ledger entry for this tomb had the numbers 0519 written in the margins.” She touched his arm until he moved the light between them. “The numbers could indicate time. The months and weeks the sites were dry before they were flooded again.” She counted on her fingers. “This hide site is dry in May, starting the nineteenth week of the year.”
He pointed the light along the bottom edge of the room. “See those clay tubes? That’s how the water flows in and out. This cellar is flooded for most of the year, except for a few weeks from mid-May to mid-June.” He swung the beam around again. “Except this is the fourth week in June and the hide site is just now filling up.”
“Maybe the tidal patterns are changing. And tonight is a new moon. The tides should be even higher.”
“Or Thomas got the dates wrong.”
Dates? She moved his light to shine on the door’s stars and roses. “You’re brilliant!”
He smiled. “How’s that?”
“Time. Specifically, thirteen days.” She took his hand and led him to the stairs. “We’re missing thirteen days from 1752.”
They got out of the hide site and shut the door. Nate locked up, put away the light, and shrugged on the backpack before saying, “What are you talking about?”
“These tombs were built before 1752.”
“So?”
She started the trek to their next stop. “In 1752, the British government dumped the Julian calendar for the Gregorian calendar.” She waved a hand around the cemetery. “The colonies lost ten days, like, poof.” She snapped her fingers for effect. “Because of the way leap years work, which is math that’s way too complicated for me, those ten days in 1752 are equivalent to thirteen days now.”
Sarah sank onto a flat tomb, feeling more light-hearted than she had in days. “We haven’t solved the cipher yet, but we found a hide site. We proved they actually exist and to hell with The British Journal. I know it’s stupid, but I want to call my boss and tell him I was right all along.”
Nate knelt, placed his gun on the ground, and held her hands. “It’s not stupid. You’ve been searching for these sites your entire adult life. You should be proud.”
She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. She loved the feel of his lips, his woodsy smell like pine and freshly cut grass, the happiness she felt in his arms. “We did it, Nate.” This time she spoke so softly, it wouldn’t even count as a whisper. “We found a hide site. Now we’re going to save you.”