Booty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery (13 page)

Shadows in the fort were lengthening—time to get about my business. I was looking for something that couldn’t be moved. So what was it? A cannon, a building, a hiding place for the treasure? If such a treasure even existed.

Moving down a dark and empty hallway, my footsteps echoing on the stone floors and against the passageway walls, I felt a chill trace along my back. I turned, expecting to see Jitty. Instead, I heard footsteps that stopped only an instant after mine.

When I looked, there was no one behind me.

The rush of adrenaline sent my heart rate into overdrive. Taking slow, deliberate steps, I slipped down a corridor I hoped would give me an exit to the courtyard. There were outbuildings with better vantage points—and hiding places.

The footfalls imitated my own. Same pace, same speed. Someone stalked me, and didn’t care that I knew it. I thought about the big felon at Atmore. The look in his eyes, the way his elbow had jammed hard into my ribs meaning to hurt me. I could be in a very bad place.

I couldn’t stop moving for fear the stalker would come upon me, so I kept walking. Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I dialed 911. Nothing. The walls of the fort were thick. Reception on the island was iffy at best. Here, at Fort Gaines, there was nothing. I shoved the phone into my pocket so the telltale light wouldn’t give me away.

The corridor was blindingly dark. It seemed to stretch forever as I groped forward as quietly as I could. The footsteps drew closer. Unhurried, but gaining ground. My pursuer had longer legs than mine, which led me to believe he was a man. And he wasn’t stumbling as I was. He knew the terrain.

At last I came to a window and caught the glint of moonlight on the Gulf water. The waves crested in the silver light, and I looked out and down for an escape route. Below, waves crashed against boulders put there to stop erosion. No freedom there.

I had two choices. I could continue down the corridor at a cautious pace, or I could run. Both had inherent dangers. One suited my nature better than the other. I sprinted into the darkness, one hand in front of me to stop a head-on crash into a wall.

It took a moment for my stalker to realize I was in a dead-out run. Then I heard him after me, footsteps ringing on the stone floor.

I ducked through openings with barely an inch to spare, and at one point I heard a curse. I didn’t recognize the voice, but it bought me a bit of extra lead time.

When I came to a small alcove, really nothing more than an indentation in the brick wall, I pressed myself inside it and crouched, doing my best to suppress my harsh breathing. My pursuer slowed also. His footsteps drew slowly closer, step-by-step. At times he paused, and I could only guess he was listening for some sign of my whereabouts.

In my youth, I’d played hide-and-seek with my school friends. It was chilling fun on a hot summer night when we burrowed among heritage camellias and shrubs. I remembered the excitement and tension of waiting to be found, trying hard to remain quiet and still. I’d never been much good at it, but this night I had no choice but to perfect the skills. Knees hugged to my chest, I pressed my face into my jeans and sought perfect calm.

He drew close—the footfalls sounded heavier, male. The leading edge of a flashlight beam climbed along the stone floor in front of my hiding place. I held my breath and pressed against the cold stone, wishing to merge with it. The light scampered along the hallway cobbles, seeking a clue to which direction I’d gone.

My breath sounded like a train roaring in my ears, but I knew it wasn’t loud. Still, I did my best to draw in oxygen, shallow and soft, squeezing my eyes tight in the foolish notion that if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me.

Unbelievably, the footsteps drew abreast of me, and I peeked out. The flashlight illuminated black pants and black spit-shined shoes, about a size ten. His right hand hung down at his side, a .38 gripped loosely in his fingers.

I had no time to ascertain other details. He moved down the hallway, the light flicking here and there, searching. And then he was gone.

I waited as long as I could and removed my shoes. In my socks I hurried down the hallway the way I’d come until I came to a narrow opening that appeared to lead out of the fort. Ignoring the gravel and debris, I raced across an open area toward the parking lot.

When I finally got to my car, I took a deep breath. Shifting behind the wheel, I glanced in the rearview mirror. A flashlight beam signaled from one of the parapets on the fort wall. The light shone and blinked. Then winked back to life. Five times. A signal. I thought of the old pirate tales where islanders lured ships onto a reef, deliberately causing a wreck.

The villagers then rushed out into the shallows to pillage the remains of the boat. A similar thing had happened to Armand Couteau’s ship. When he’d returned to Dauphin Island with his beautiful bride to reclaim the treasure of Esmeralda Cortez that he’d hidden, he’d ventured too close to the island’s changing coastline. A sudden storm had blown the ship onto a reef, and she’d grounded and broken apart.

Couteau and LuAnn had washed ashore. They’d both been taken prisoner, and he’d died of his wounds. LuAnn was returned to slavery and sold. A bitter ending to a fairy-tale romance.

But I couldn’t waste time romanticizing the past and pirates and treasures. I put the SUV in drive and blasted out of the parking lot, spinning rocks everywhere. I considered the dangers of going home, but there was no evidence of anyone following me, so I returned to the cottage.

When I was parked beneath the beautiful beach house, I sat for a moment, allowing my breathing and heart rate to calm. There was a possibility that the person pursuing me had been a night watchman, someone paid to make sure teenagers and vandals didn’t get into the fort and damage things.

Or, it could have been someone snooping around, the same as I had been. Someone hunting for clues to a long-lost treasure.

The possibility that concerned me was that it was someone who’d been watching me and saw an opportunity to catch me alone and scare or harm me. My gut told me it was this third option.

By the time I’d run through the various scenarios, I could enter the cottage with perfect composure. Graf had left the sliding glass doors to the beach balcony open, and the drapes billowed in the sea gusts. I could almost taste the salt on the air. The surf surged, a sound both gentle and wild.

“Graf?” There were no lights on, and I wondered where he was. Both bicycles were in their places beneath the cottage. I’d had the car. If he left, he was on foot. Dauphin Island didn’t have a taxi service that I knew of.

“Graf?”

A low whine carried from the bedroom, and I hurried to release Sweetie Pie and Pluto. When I stood in the doorway of the darkened room, I realized the sliding glass door here, too, had been left open.

And yet there was no sign of Graf.

Fear paralyzed me for several seconds. The notion that someone had come and taken Graf—maybe hurt him—was an emotional sledgehammer into my brain. Perhaps not rational, but neither was Gertrude’s attack on my fiancé.

A low-pitched whine brought me back to my senses. Sweetie grasped the hem of my shirt and tugged me downstairs. With my dog in the lead, I crossed the living room to the balcony. Passing through the kitchen, I caught the scent of food cooking. Graf was sitting on the balcony in the dark, a glass of wine in his hand.

Relief was sweet, but it also brought a tide of anger. “You scared me. Are you okay?”

He remained in the dark, the moonlight glinting on the glass, but his features were obscured. “Yes, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. Everything is ready except the fish. I’ll put it on whenever you’re hungry.”

We left the wild night and worked together in the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the meal. “Did you talk with your agent?” I asked. I’d been eager to tell him about the encounter at the old fort, but now I held back. Something was wrong with him, and I’d halfway convinced myself the man at the fort had been a night watchman, not someone hunting for me.

“I did. The roles are both good. I should take one.”

“When would you start shooting?”

“You know Hollywood. Lots of hurry up and wait.”

I heated the skillet while Graf cut up cucumbers for the salad. “Tell me about the parts.” I loved hearing the details of his work, and I needed the talk of work and career. Graf’s latest cowboy movie had opened doors, and now he was getting offers for roles as the tough guy as well as romantic leads. The movie we’d planned to film together was still a possibility, too. Whatever he wanted—I’d made peace with the idea that for the next few years, I would follow my man. It was only temporary. If this was what he needed to get his career back on track, it would happen.

“In one I’d play the father in a coming-of-age story set in the nineteen sixties. It’s a great role. The other is an action movie.”

The scripts were on a table beside the lamp and chair. I wiped my hands on a dishcloth and picked them up.
Season of Innocents
was an adaptation of a novel. Marion Silber was the screenwriter. I glanced through the first pages. The opening was compelling. “Sounds great.”

Graf snapped on the television. “Dauphin Island is under a hurricane watch. It’s too soon to tell which track the storm will take, or the strength at which it’ll come in, but we need to keep alert.”

“We can always pack up and head home.”

“Is that what you’d like?” he asked.

“No.” He’d asked for space, but I had to be honest. “Graf, I picked up a marriage license in Mobile. I’ve arranged for an officiant to perform the ceremony on the beach Saturday morning. My plan was to get married, then meet up with our friends in New Orleans to celebrate at the Black and Orange Ball. I wanted to surprise you, to show you how much I love you. I don’t want to risk the storm, but I’d like to seal our marriage, if you—”

“It’s impossible to make plans with a storm out there.”

“I know. We may have to abandon the plan, but you’re so close to a full recovery. You’ve worked hard, and the limp is gone.” I had to believe in the future, in our future. I’d been too tentative in accepting Graf’s marriage attempts. It was my turn to push.

I retrieved the velvet box with two Irish wedding rings I’d purchased. He started at the rings, running his finger lightly over them. “They’re beautiful. The perfect rings.”

Yet he didn’t sweep me into his arms. He didn’t kiss me. The joy I’d imagined was missing. “I’m sorry. You asked for some space.” I threw the dishtowel on the counter and fled.

His hand caught my wrist. “This is everything I ever wanted, Sarah Booth. Everything. A future with you—I couldn’t ask for more.”

“Before the accident, this was all you wanted.”

“Things have changed.”

“What’s changed so drastically that you don’t want to marry me?”

“I’m not certain that path is open to me.” He picked up his jacket. “I’m going out. I’m sorry.”

“No, you are not going to walk out on me. What’s going on with you? I deserve to know.”

“How can I tell you what I don’t know myself?”

“I understand that the gunshot changed things. Changed you. But every day that passes, you withdraw a little more. You have to talk to me.”

He put a hand on my jaw, caressing my cheek. “I make you a solemn promise, Sarah Booth. When I come to terms with things, I will tell you. I simply can’t right now. I’m going for a walk.”

11

I awoke with Sweetie Pie licking my face, a damp warmth that made my stomach churn. Reaching for my cell phone to check the time, my stumbling fingers encountered an empty wine bottle. The momentary bliss of amnesia the wine had given vaporized as events of the night rushed back. Graf had rejected my marriage proposal. My brilliant response was to drink myself silly.

Now it was midnight, and Sweetie was licking me like a Dreamsicle and whining in my ear. Had I even remembered to let my loyal hound out for a bathroom break?

“Shit.” I sat up and felt the first throb of a bodacious headache. My stomach sloshed dangerously and pain slammed into my forehead. Wine hangovers are the worst.

Sweetie’s dash to the door reminded me of obligations I had to tend to no matter how bad I felt. “I’m coming,” I said, struggling to my feet and tripping over a second dead soldier. With a hangover, I should at least have some respite from hurt feelings, but such was not the case.

The night had turned chill, and there wasn’t a glimmer of moonlight from the overcast sky. Throwing on a jacket, I opened the front door and followed Sweetie into the night. The hound bounded over a dune and toward the beach.

“Sweetie,” I called, struggling through the cold sand to catch up with her. My feet felt too big and clumsy.

When I crested the rise, I saw my hound on the beach, nose to the ground. She’d hit a scent. But of what? The memory of the man in the old fort hit me like a physical blow, dissipating the brain-fog effect of the hangover. That quickly, my mind sharpened and my senses focused.

Sweetie’s long, bloodcurdling howl reminded me of the nemesis of the Baskervilles. And then my pup was off, down the beach like a streak. I thought fleetingly of the gun in the trunk of my old roadster, back at Dahlia House. I hadn’t brought a weapon on vacation. I’d never anticipated working while at Dauphin Island. Fate had simply handed me a puzzle to solve. There’d been no way to anticipate that asking a few questions would result in danger.

Gun or not, I wasn’t about to let Sweetie Pie track down a potential stalker without backup. I took off at a sprint.

Each step in the sand was answered with a pounding pressure in my forehead. Running with a hangover headache wasn’t my smartest move, but I had no choice.

Sweetie streaked to the east, toward the more populated area of the beach. I increased my speed, barely able to match my fleet hound, who was nothing more than a dark, fast-moving blot against the white sand.

When I was about to give up hope that I’d catch her, Sweetie stopped. Nose in the air, she sniffed the wind.

“Criminy, Sweetie, do you want to give me a heart attack?” I grabbed her collar. “What is it?”