The next morning, Zack poured himself another cup of coffee and made room at Allison’s kitchen table so Alex could sit. He and Alex had already shared texts about everything that had happened last night and agreed to meet this morning to come up with a new plan.
Zack and Allison had woken early and gone to her office to get all of her research on Mercy Chastain. Then after they’d returned home, he’d made breakfast. Now he had a bread pudding in the oven and a whiskey sauce on the stove. While he stirred the alcohol into the melted butter, Nicholas Trott napped on his bed and Allison was responding to emails on her laptop. Apparently, her UVA professor friend had emailed with some information on Henry Avery.
Zack was still processing the news that Allison had considered taking a job at UVA. Yesterday, while going through Hezekiah’s papers again, he’d found the UVA letter again and read it without telling her. She’d not just been offered a job. She’d been offered a full tenured professorship. A professorship that didn’t require her to find a centuries-old witch or publish in obscure history journals. A professorship that would’ve set her free from her life with Stuart.
Instead of asking her about it, he’d folded up the letter and placed it on top of Hezekiah’s papers and maps. Maybe, when all of this was over, they could discuss it. Until then, he had to focus on finding that treasure.
As if realizing his thoughts were all about her, she smiled at him and he winked.
Today she wore a long chiffon skirt, made with layers of different shades of blue, and a navy T-shirt. Except it wasn’t like any T-shirt he’d ever seen. This one had a scoop neck, tiny sleeves, and fit like it’d been painted on. Between the tight top, flowy skirt, and her hair pulled back from her face with a clip, she reminded him of why men went to war, welded steel, and rocketed to the moon.
“Alex,” Allison said as she sipped her coffee and typed, “did you know Zack could cook?”
“Nope. To be fair, there’s no kitchen at the gym. Just a hot plate and a slow cooker.” Alex poured himself a cup of coffee and sat next to her. “Did you find anything in that stack of paper you took from Hezekiah’s office?”
Zack used the spatula to point to three stacks of paper he’d retrieved and organized on a nearby credenza. “No.”
“Too bad.” Alex drank his coffee and looked at the tracings Zack had removed from the envelope. “What are these?”
Allison closed her laptop and, after telling him about the apotropaic marks they found in Pink House and in Stuart’s planner, she said, “These apotropaic marks mean something. I’m just not sure what.”
“And you think they’ll lead you to Mercy Chastain? Maybe tell you how she disappeared and what happened to the treasure?”
“Yes. The only place we haven’t checked yet is Fenwick Hall.”
“Fenwick Hall is where Allison grew up.” Zack put a bowl of strawberries he’d picked in her conservatory on the table. “That’s our next stop.”
Alex took a pencil and a clean piece of tracing paper and placed it over the Pink House rubbings. Once he retraced those, he did the same with the rubbings they’d found on the page in Stuart’s planner. When he was done, he drew an outline around all of the ovals. The two rubbings fit together making one full circle. He even added the odd lines around the perimeter of the circle. “These ovals are part of a hexafoil. Overlapping ovals that form a flower within the confines of a circle are called a daisy wheel.”
“That’s right.” Allison studied the new tracing. “How’d you know that?”
“I’m from Boston but my mother was from Ipswich. These things are all over that area, mostly in barns.” Alex opened the planner. “Is breakfast ready yet?”
“It’s coming,” Zack said.
“It smells delicious.” Allison smiled at Zack again, and he saw the secret happiness hiding in her gaze. It had been an incredible night, but since they’d woken, they’d barely spoken about what they’d done. They showered separately and dressed quickly. It was as if they’d both been hit with the shyness bug.
Considering the work ahead of them, Zack was relieved by her distance. Everything they’d done together carried emotional weight. And to be honest, he wasn’t sure he could carry that weight along with his worry about Emilie. And that just made him feel guilty.
Could he be even more of an ass?
At least he could make Allison a decent breakfast. After he took the bread pudding out of the oven, he ladled whiskey sauce over the top and served three plates. Then he sat next to Allison, across from Alex. It was time to get to work. “Alex, what happened last night?”
Alex swallowed a bite of pudding and followed it with a gulp of coffee. “This is good.”
“No,” Allison said with a mouthful, “it’s incredible.”
“Thanks.” Zack kicked Alex under the table. “Focus.”
Alex wiped his lips with a napkin. “Aidan asked me to leave town with him.”
Zack hadn’t expected that. “And?”
Alex waved his fork around. “I said hell no. Then Horatio took me to see Emilie. He drove me around for at least an hour.”
Zack pushed his plate away. He didn’t feel like eating. “That doesn’t mean she’s an hour away.”
“True. I was blindfolded. They could’ve driven in circles. Once they took off my blindfold, I saw Emilie sitting on a bed. She wasn’t bound in any way. She recognized me from Ranger School graduation and gave me a hug.”
Zack gripped his mug until Allison touched his wrist. “Was there a stench?”
“No,” Alex said as he went for another cup of coffee.
Allison glanced at Zack. “What does that mean?”
“In a hostage situation, there can be adrenaline, fear, urine, sweat, vomit—it all has a terrible smell.”
“Fear has a smell?” Allison asked.
“Yes,” both men said at the same time.
“Last night, there was no smell.” Alex added a shit ton of sugar to his coffee and leaned his ass against the counter. “I mean, no human scent. I did recognize three other things though: rosemary, lavender, and something else I couldn’t identify.”
Allison released Zack’s wrist to take a bite of pudding. He was glad she was eating.
“You think that Emilie isn’t in desperate straits?” Allison asked Alex.
“She’s been kidnapped, but she’s not being tortured or made to eat her own vomit or forced to sit in her own shit.”
When Allison’s eyes widened, Zack glared at Alex. While they’d both seen a number of terrible hostage situations and had heard Nate’s story of torture at the POW camp in Afghanistan, Allison didn’t need to know the gory details.
“Was Emilie scared?” Allison asked.
“Yes, but she’s tough. I told her that her big brother was going to save her.”
Good. “Did she talk?”
“She rambled about how sorry she was for something. Then she cried. But when Horatio walked away to make a call, she told me in an extremely calm voice that she heard two other warriors talking. Apparently, they’d interrogated someone and learned about the city of bell towers.” Alex drank his coffee, his brow furrowed. “I think she was fake crying.”
“That sounds like my sister.”
Allison touched Zack’s arm. “I wonder what the city of bell towers means?”
Her touch sent shivers down his leg, and his foot tapped the floor beneath the table. “It’s probably Charleston, Savannah, or New Orleans. All three are known for having more churches than people.”
Alex found her folder that held her Mercy Chastain research. “Do you think this city of bell towers is where Stuart hid the appendix?”
“I don’t know,” Allison said.
Alex took out some photos and laid them on the table. They were images of a wooden beam with broken daisies carved into them. “What are these?”
“Photos I took as part of my search for Mercy Chastain. After her arrest, Mercy was held in an early version of Saint Philip’s Church on Meeting Street. While she awaited her trial, she carved these daisies. The church was nearly destroyed by a hurricane in 1710 and rebuilt in its current location on Church Street. Because building materials were scarce at the time, they reused what they could. These beams, with Mercy’s carvings, are now in the choir loft.”
Alex sorted through the other photos. “Why a broken daisy?”
“I don’t know,” Allison said. “I noticed broken daisies sketched on the Pirate’s Grille. And I know they’re on the pages of the witch’s examination.”
While Zack ate, he studied each photo as Alex finished with them. Despite the camera’s flash, the photos were still dark. “Allison, do you have a magnifier?”
“I do.” She stood and laid her napkin on her chair. “I’ll be right back.”
When she left the room, Alex lowered his voice. “I can’t believe Isabel blew off the Prince.”
Zack laid all the photos on the table in a long row. “What do you think that means?”
“No idea,” Alex said. “It can’t be good.”
Allison returned, handed Zack the magnifier, and he laid the glass over one of the photos. “Do you see what’s near the broken daisy?”
Alex and Allison leaned over to look. He adjusted the glass to get the best view, then pointed to the carvings in the edge of the image. “Those look like apotropaic marks.”
Allison glanced at him with wide eyes. “They do. I was always so fixated on her broken daisy, and there’s so much other graffiti, I never noticed.”
Alex grabbed another plate of pudding and ate standing up. “Is it possible that Mercy made the Pirate’s Grille to help Henry hide his treasure?”
“I guess…but that would mean she’d have known about Henry Avery’s treasure.”
“That’s a good point,” Zack said. “Did Hezekiah mention where the Pirate’s Grille came from?”
She shook her head. “All I know is that the pirate Thomas Toban stole it from the Fianna in 1710.”
Zack stood and stretched his arms over his head. “Thomas Toban must’ve known about the treasure if he went looking for the Pirate’s Grille.”
“It’s possible. Thomas knew Henry.” Allison opened her laptop again. “Yesterday I emailed my colleague at UVA. She sent me back some notes.”
“The one who offered you the job?” Zack got up to pour more coffee.
“Yes.” Allison typed instead of looking at him. “My colleague specializes in lesser known seventeenth and early eighteenth century pirates. This morning she sent me information on Thomas Toban. In 1700, Thomas bought Henry’s ship the Fancy and renamed it the Rebecca.”
“That was after Henry stole his treasure?” Alex asked.
“Yes.” Allison scrolled. “Henry stole the treasure around 1695 and disappeared with the loot. In 1700, Thomas met Henry in Nassau and bought his ship. In 1701, under an assumed name, Henry moved to Charleston and built Pirate House as an alehouse and a brothel. In 1702, he started his affair with his barmaid Mercy, they had a son, and he built Pink House for them.
“In 1703, Mercy was accused of witchcraft and eventually exonerated. In 1704, Mercy and Henry disappeared forever. Yet despite never marrying Mercy, Henry left Pink House, Pirate House, and a lot of money to their son. Henry also directed that if anything should happen to him and Mercy, the boy would be cared for by relatives.”
“That,” Alex said as he licked the whiskey sauce spoon, “sounds like premeditation.”
Zack grabbed the spoon out of Alex’s hands and dropped it into the sink. “It also means Mercy probably knew Henry’s true identity.”
“But would she have known about the treasure?” Alex asked.
“Everyone knew about the treasure,” Allison said. “It was such a huge deal when it happened that Daniel Defoe and Robert Louis Stevenson wrote novels about buried treasure based on Henry Avery’s exploits.”
“What if Mercy was in on the gig?” Zack covered the bread pudding with tinfoil and slipped it into the fridge. “What if she and Henry made their getaway with the idea of taking the treasure and living the rest of their lives together in peace?”
“Why?” Allison asked. “They had a life here with a child, and no one knew who Henry was until after they disappeared.”
“Leverage.” Zack snorted because he was annoyed he hadn’t thought of it earlier. “What if Mercy’s accusation wasn’t about witchcraft at all? What if it was blackmail?”
Allison stood, her arms wrapped around her waist. “You mean someone was using Mercy to blackmail Henry to give up the treasure?”
“It’s possible.”
“I have to admit,” Alex said, “it makes sense. It’s what the Prince is doing with Emilie.”
Allison frowned. “Other than going out to Fenwick Hall to find more daisy wheels and hope they lead us to Mercy, we don’t have many more clues. I can’t find the witch’s examination’s appendix and we don’t have the Pirate’s Grille.”
“I’ll go to Saint Philip’s,” Alex said. “See if I can find the apotropaic marks Mercy carved.”
Zack pulled the photo from his back pocket and threw it on the table. “This is our only other clue. This unknown man. He might be some random dude Isabel hooked up with.”
Alex took the photo and frowned. “I know this guy. Not his name, but I’ve seen him before. He works for Remiel. At least, he used to.”
“Are you sure?” Zack asked.
“He was there the night I tried to kill Remiel.”
“Wait.” Allison glared at both of them. “Alex, you did what?”
“It’s a long story.” Alex smiled at her. “I’m sure Zack can fill you in.”
Allison blinked a few times and then started putting her photos back into her Mercy Chastain file. “The problem is I grew up in that house and I don’t remember seeing any markings like that anywhere. My mom was obsessed with Mercy Chastain. If we’d had apotropaic marks in the house, she would’ve known. Then there’s the issue that I don’t have permission to go out there.”
Alex opened his mouth until Zack shook his head. That was a later kind of conversation.
Alex picked up the tracing he’d done of the daisy wheel. “These things are often in the barns. Are there older buildings on the property?”
“There is a barn, and it’s older than the house by two hundred years. There are some old carvings on the second floor, but they’re not apotropaic marks and they’re later eighteenth century. But the original barn was built in 1710…the same year the original Saint Philip’s church was destroyed.” Allison went back to her laptop and typed some more. “It says here that Pink House and Pirate House were also damaged during that hurricane.”
“Is it possible Mercy carved the apotropaic marks while being held in the church?” Zack said. “Then, after the hurricane, the church’s wood was divided up and used to rebuild Pirate House, Pink House, the new Saint Philip’s Church, and the barn at Fenwick Hall?”
Alex flipped through the planner again. “Why would they do that?”
Allison shut her laptop and brought dishes to the sink. “Because there were no hardware stores. In colonial days, everything was reused.”
“If we’re right,” Zack said, “Mercy carved the apotropaic marks while in captivity in 1703. Then, after the hurricane in 1710, the wood she’d carved was distributed throughout the city with no one realizing.”
Alex picked up the planner again. “Did you see this?”
Zack read one of the calendar entries. Almost all of the days had an I in them, except for one with the notation CAB/ILL 9 a.m. “Allison, what does CAB/ILL stand for?”
She rinsed the plates and Alex went over to load the dishwasher. “It stands for Charleston Architectural Board. It’s a group that watches over all of the renovations and new construction in the city. Stuart was one of its directors and went to monthly board meetings.”
Zack scanned the other pages, but there were no other notations for CAB. “I don’t think this was a board meeting.”
Allison wiped the counter with a dishrag. “The CAB has a library and bookstore on Meeting Street. The ILL probably stands for Interlibrary Loan. Maybe Stuart borrowed a book?”
Alex cleared the table of crumbs and offered, “After I go to Saint Philip’s, I’ll check out the CAB. Is there anything else you need me to do? I gotta make up for not getting back the Pirate’s Grille.”
“Nate keeps texting. Help him come up with a story to keep Kells off our asses.”
“Okay.” Alex grabbed his motorcycle helmet off the counter. “I’ll let you know when I find something.”
Allison’s phone rang and she excused herself to talk to her UVA colleague.
Zack walked Alex out to his bike that he’d parked near the burned-out building. “Horatio told me something last night.”
“I’m not sure you can trust anything a warrior says, even if you can understand it.”
Probably true. “Horatio suggested Kells was somehow involved in this mess.”
Alex put on his helmet and mounted his bike. “Any idea what that means?”
“I was hoping you could find out if Kells and the Prince have a history. Maybe Kells has intel we could use.”
Alex stared at the ignition until Zack hit his shoulder.
Alex nodded, turned the key, and gunned the engine.
As Alex drove away, Zack was sure of one thing: Alex knew more about Kells than he was sharing. And Zack hoped that wasn’t going to be a problem.