“At least we have a new lock—with a new combination.” She frowned. “But if we’re sure it was one of those three, why don’t the police just bring them all in?”
“I believe they’ll bring Aldous in for questioning tomorrow. We’re trying to be very careful. We don’t want to catch him but lose Bianca.”
“Of course.”
She stood there, dejected again, raven’s wing hair like a mourning cape around her slumped shoulders.
He walked over to her. “You were going to tell me something,” he reminded her. He started to embrace her, remembered he was still soaked and stepped back. “What? What was it you were going to tell me?”
“Blue,” she said. “Blue was in here, right after I talked to you on the phone. He spoke to me. He had a real conversation with me. But even though he’s been haunting the tavern for years, he’s not good at drawing whatever energy he needs to speak. I’d hoped so badly that he knew something. But, like you’ve said, ghosts or spirits seem to be the same as we are. They aren’t omniscient. They only know what they’ve seen. He didn’t see what happened. He just knew that the tunnel was being used. But he promised me he’s watching now.”
Malachi touched her hair, brushing his fingers down the silky length of it. “Blue is your ancestor,” he said. “It’s you he cares about.”
“He must have cared deeply about Gus. And the others who came before Gus and me.”
“I’m sure he did, but you’re his focus now. He’ll do anything to protect you—and the Dragonslayer.” He stepped back. “I’ll get in the shower.”
He left her in the living room and walked down the apartment hallway to the bedroom, shedding his wet clothes. He went into her bathroom; the Dragonslayer might be old, but Gus had had the bathrooms modernized. The faucet released a hard spray of steaming hot water.
He let it pound down on him, just standing there for several minutes.
And then he felt her. She’d stepped in behind him. She held the soap in her hand and worked it slowly over his body.
A shower can clear the mind....
In a radiant spray of heat he became lost in the sheer sensual pleasure of being with this extraordinary woman while the water pulsed, hot and vibrant, searing into his muscles.
They more or less made love. They teased and aroused, and teased and aroused again as they left the shower and halfway dried themselves, then fell into bed together.
Being together like this was sweeter every time. There was nothing arbitrary about it, nothing that didn’t seem to offer promise, nothing that brought back the pain of memory and the past.
He’d never really thought it possible. He was falling in love again.
*
Abby had never really liked playing Missy Tweed. To her mind, Missy had been an idiot. History said she’d fallen in love with Blue Anderson and that she’d cried when she was returned to her father. She disappeared into history after that, but Abby always felt she’d probably been a spoiled teenager and that, once home, she’d simply fallen in love again.
But here she was...playing Missy Tweed.
Paul, as Scurvy Pete, stood beside her on the platform. Roger, sober and seriously in “Blue” mode, was wearing his pirate best. They’d drawn a huge crowd; the little reenactments and the way the players talked and related tidbits of history were well documented and well-known, a high point in most tour books for their area.
Will Chan had taken on the role of narrator that day, dressed as a swashbuckling pirate himself. He talked first about the history of the city of Savannah and the early days of piracy. He told the crowd that pirates had found their way into coastal cities, often snubbing their noses at a royal governor and whatever military or local law might be in effect.
He told the story of Blue as if he’d been a true gentleman with the people of Savannah.
And then he told the story of the floundering of Missy Tweed’s ship and how the crew had been saved—and the damsel taken for a fair ransom. Blue believed that asking a ransom for Missy was well within the law; after all, he’d saved the lives of an entire crew. And if asking for the ransom wasn’t quite within the law, then so be it. He would still be paid. However, on his ship, every man knew that captives were not to be molested or harmed.
But Scurvy Pete had brought his own pirate ship flush with Blue’s; he’d wanted in on the action. And when he’d seen the delectable Missy, he’d wanted much more. Thus began the drama that the crowd was about to witness.