Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (9 page)

“Hans!
Goedemiddag
, my friend,” Aldegonda said
as they walked closer.

“Jan! I cannot
believe it is you. News of the
Eendracht
is all over the city.”

Sully saw the
pharmacist’s eyes dart to him and then back to the Dutchman.

“Yes, but as you
can see, I am well. Is Dirk here?”

“Dirk?” Again the
fat man was looking more at Sully than at Jan. “Dirk? Why, no, Jan.”

“But he will be
here soon,
ja
? Doesn’t he always come
about now?”

“About now? Oh,
yes. You are right, Jan. If you would like to wait…”

Aldegonda turned
to Sully. “It may be an hour or so. I know a pub not far from here where we may
wait more comfortably.”

Sully looked at
Hans. “And it is
Dirk
that we must
see?”

“Yes,
meneer
,” Hans said, his hands trembling on
the counter in front of him. “You want Dirk.”

Sully shrugged.
“Then lead on to the pub.”

The public house
was a dark affair, but considerably cleaner and less threatening than any
tavern or dining facility one might find within a half mile of the harbor.
Still, Sully noted, these sorts of drinking establishments were the
province—regardless of where they were located—of the shiftless and
the opportunistic, the craven and the malevolent.

After two glasses
of watery rum, Sully he began to feel the first beginning twinges of concern.
Aldegonda sat with his hands on the table across from him.

“So, who exactly
is Dirk? Is he the one holding your treasure? Does the pharmacist know of it?
He looked very nervous.”

“That is his
manner,” Aldegonda said. “I knew him at university. Dirk, as well.”

“Which
university?”

Aldegonda looked
at him in surprise. “Harderwijk. Do you know it?”

Sully shook his
head. “I went to Strasbourg. Does that surprise you?”

“That you are an
educated man? No.”

“You were going
to South Africa when we met?” Sully smiled wryly at the connotation of the word
met
. To the man’s credit, he saw that
Aldegonda smiled, too.

“Yes,” he said.
“Off to make my fortune. Or, in this case, to lose it.”

“You have a
wife?”

“I do. Back in
Amsterdam. Who waits for me.”

“None of them
waits too long.”

“Arabella will
wait.”

“That is a
beautiful name.”

“It fits her,
too.”

“You’re a lucky
man.”

“That remains to
be seen, Captain Sully.”

“How did you find
this treasure which will buy your life?”

“Dirk and I
discovered it together.”

“Then why does
he
possess it?”

“It was too
dangerous to travel with. I needed to go back to Amsterdam to tell my father…to
explain my new opportunities to my family.”

“You went to
boast that you were now rich.”

“Yes.”

“And now you are
poor again.”

Jan shrugged. “As
long as I have my life, I am a wealthy man.”

Sully frowned
when he said that.
How can the loss of a
valuable treasure render anyone, by any stretch of the imagination, wealthy?

It was then he
knew the man was lying.

“How many jewels
are in this treasure?”

“A number beyond
counting.”

“If it is a
number, it can be counted.”

“It is more
valuable than jewels.”

“Gold?”

“It can buy you
all the gold mines on earth and all the diamond mines in South Africa.”

“Is a diamond
mine why you were traveling to South Africa?”

Suddenly a young
boy ran over to their table and slapped a rough piece of paper down before
bolting away. Sully was on his feet but he could see as the lad wormed his way
out the crowd and into the street that he’d never catch him. When he turned
back, Aldegonda had picked up the paper. Before he could read it, Sully
snatched it away.

“It…it is
addressed to me,” Jan said, looking nervous for the first time since they left
the ship. “And it’s written in Dutch.”

Sully hesitated
and then handed the note to him. “Read it to me.”

Jan nodded and
Sully saw him silently scanning the note before speaking. “My dearest friend,
Jan. If you have come for the treasure at last, meet me at the crossroads on
the first road going east from the city. I will meet you there. Dirk.” Jan
looked up from the note and Sully reached over and took it from his fingers. He
read the Dutch and then looked up.

“You have left
out a few words,” he said. “You failed to read the part…” Sully read the note
out loud, “If you have come for the treasure
and have come with the money
, meet me at the crossroads.”

Aldegonda was
openly trembling now.

“Your friend Dirk
doesn’t seem to believe you own this treasure,” Sully said.

“It is a
misunderstanding.”

“Or perhaps it is
the opposite of a misunderstanding,” Sully said, tucking the note into his
breast coat pocket. “Perhaps it is your intention that I rob your friend Dirk
of his treasure and reward you for your deception with your life.”

Aldegonda licked
his lips again, his eyes flitting to Sully’s breast pocket where the note was.

“So, friend Jan,”
Sully said with a smile. “Must we hire horses for this little excursion or can
we walk?”

***

Five hours later,
Sully staggered aboard the
Die Hard
.
He had downed another three glasses of rum at an open-air opium den not two
hundred yards from where his ship was anchored. His head swam as he made his
way across the gangplank, his right hand clutching at the rope guardrail. Toad
ordered the plank to be lifted the minute he touched the deck and then turned
to him.

“So it was a
ruse? The bastard lied to us?”

Sully lifted his
hand to indicate he was indeed empty-handed. “I need a drink.”

Toad followed him
to the captain’s quarters, a cramped, ill-furnished but private space with a
rudimentary bunk and a chest of personal affects. On the lone table in the room
sat a bottle of whiskey and one glass.

“Take the glass,”
Sully said as he fell heavily into a seated position on the bunk, his head sunk
into his shoulders.

“What happened?” Toad
poured his own glass and handed the bottle to Sully.

“We were to meet
his man on the corner of town…”

“I should never
have left ye.”

Sully shook his
head. “The Dutchman was no threat. He just wanted to escape with his life.”

“Did his man show?”

“There was no
man,” Sully said harshly, taking a long sloppy pull on the whisky bottle. “We
waited for two hours and then the knave said he needed to empty his bowels.”

“And he tried to
run.”

“Stupid git. He
had a perfectly good horse yet he tries to escape on foot in the woods.”

“The maggot.” Toad
drank down his whiskey and slammed the glass down on the table. “I should have
gutted him the minute I laid eyes on him. I
knew
he was lying.”

“You knew when I
didn’t?” Sully eyed his man in drunken agitation.

“Ye shot him as
he was squatting in the bushes?” Toad said, obviously attempting to distract
Sully from what looked to be a decidedly deadly moment developing.

Sully reached for
the bottle again.
 
“I couldn’t kill
him enough. I left his body sprawled in a lily bush. The white petals turned
crimson. And now we’ve lost precious time.”

“The men have
orders to lift anchor at dawn.”

Sully nodded and
waved Toad away. “Leave me,” he said as he slumped backward onto his bed.

Toad paused and
then left, shutting the door firmly behind him. Sully lay on his back for a
moment and then gingerly touched his chest pocket and a smile began to inch its
way across his lips. He tugged at the pocket and extricated a small velvet bag
no bigger than five centimeters by twelve. He set it down carefully on the
small table by his bedside.

Who could imagine a treasure of such immense proportions in
such a little bag?

***

Early the next
morning, before it was light, Rowan was roused from a half-conscious state by
the realization the ship was moving. He looked around in the gloom and licked
his lips. They were swollen and split and it had been hours since he’d had any
water.

“Jan? You back,
mate?” he whispered hoarsely.

Silence.

Rowan worked a
kink out of his neck and he felt the first flush of relief and hope since the
pirates had taken him.

Have faith.
 

Jan is probably delivering my message to a Casablanca law
office this very minute.

 
 
7

Casablanca
1825

It wasn’t a hotel,
but at least it wasn’t a public toilet either.

Ella felt a sharp
poke in her ribs and she struggled to focus her vision. She realized she’d been
hearing voices for a few minutes now. She snapped her eyes open into the surprised
and grubby face of a street urchin squatting down beside her.

“Oy! She’s alive,
David!”

Ella’s hands
automatically went to her waist where her valise had been.

Nothing.

The movement
alerted the boy of her intentions and he pushed off the ground to his feet to
flee, but even through the sluggish remnants of her trip, the nausea and
head-pounding effects of what she had just done, she was faster.

Maybe she was
just more desperate.

Her hand lashed
out and grabbed his leg as he tried to run. Surprised at how light—and
young—the child was, she hauled him back to her. His squeals of pain and
fright only strengthened her fury.

“Where’s my bag,
you little sod?” she said, grabbing a handful of his hair with her other hand.

“Ow! Ow! David,
help! The hag’s got me, she has!”

“The
hag
is going to chop your head off and
eat it for tea, you little monster, if you don’t give me back my bag!”

Ella didn’t know
where the anger and the emotion were coming from. She only knew that the job
she had to do would be nearly impossible without that bag.

Getting back to
Tater would be nearly impossible.

“Give it ‘er!
Give it ‘er, David!”

Ella tightened
her grip on the boy and craned her neck to see if
David
was indeed coming. She was sprawled on the damp cobblestones
of a back alley between streets. She could hear horse traffic not far away. She
pulled herself to her knees, a feeling of dread and hopelessness beginning to
permeate her chest.

Should she go running
after this David? Could she do it and drag the kid with her? Should she try to
find a cop?

As she wrenched
the child around to shake him until his brains rattled, a sudden shadow passed
over the opening of the alley, followed by the hard impact of her valise as it
crashed into her head. She released the boy and grabbed at her bag. The pain in
her head was exploding from her temple to her jaw and she could taste blood on
her lip where it had smashed against her teeth.

She listened to
the sounds of two pairs of bare feet running away down the alley, cursing her
as they went. Her fingers felt for the lock on the valise and she felt that it
hadn’t been jimmied open.

If she’d awakened
even thirty seconds later, it would have been too late.

With a groan of pain
and a prayer of thanks, Ella pulled herself to her feet and tried to take
stock. Her dress was dirty but not irreparable. A lump was forming on her
temple and her lip was split. The netting of the snood was hanging loose and
draped around her shoulders. She fashioned it back on her head the best she
could under the circumstances. Getting out of the alley was probably the first
thing to do before any more denizens of the lower order tried to take a crack
at her.

As she hobbled to
the opening of the alley to peer out onto the street, there was one thing she
was absolutely sure of.

She was so
totally not in Kansas anymore.

The electric
streetlights were gone, replaced by gaslights, the road in front of her was
more mud than rock, and the smell of the horse-drawn vehicles was pungent and
pervasive.

She’d done it.
She’d gone back in time.
Now, please God,
make it be when Rowan was.

As she stood
looking at the street before her, a young man stopped and ran over to her.

“Good God,
Mademoiselle
! Have you been assaulted?”

Ella licked her
lips and allowed the man—clearly English and quite good-looking she
couldn’t help but notice—to take her elbow and lead her out onto the
street. As soon as he touched her, she realized that a little physical support
was actually quite helpful. She must have looked like she was about to
collapse.
 

“Yes,” Ella said,
hoarsely. “Hooligans attempted to steal my bag.”

Did they have the word hooligans in 1825?

“Where are you
staying? I’ll escort you there and fetch the
gendarmes
at once.”

“Thank you…
Monsieur
,” Ella said. Where was she
staying? Her pre-Google research with Halima had turned up the Salim Hotel. She
could only pray that was correct.

“The Salim?” she
said.

“As am I,” he
said, slowly guiding her along the walkway bordering the busy street. “You are
not French??

Crap. Being English, he’ll spot my fake accent in a flash.
Change of plans, Halima.

“No, I’m
American.”

“I say! We don’t
get many Americans in Casablanca. What in the world are you doing here?”

Okay. Probably should have thought this out a little more.

“My head hurts so
terribly, Mister…?”

“Forgive me! I am
Lawrence Bingham, Esquire. At your service. Missus…?”

“I’m Ella,” she
said, massaging her temple and smiling weakly. “Miss Ella Pierce.”

“Miss? You are
not possibly traveling alone? Are you here with your parents?”

Dear God, is he serious?

“I’m so sorry,
Mr. Bingham. Do you mind? My injuries…”

“Of course, Miss
Pierce. I beg your pardon. Let’s get you inside at once.” He reached over and
took Ella’s valise from her hand and it was all she could do not to snatch it
back. Instead, she took a long breath and focused on where they were going.

In front of them
loomed a large six-story building festooned with balconies and ornate
balustrades. A sign over a broad set of three double doors read,
The Salim Hotel
.

That bath and
beer were nearly in sight.

Ella lay on the
small hotel bed, her chest heaving, trying to gather her thoughts. Neither the
bath nor the beer had been possible in the end. But she was safe behind a
locked door where she could rest and think and plan. She’d assured Bingham that
she didn’t need to report the near-theft and that she just needed to rest in
her room. It hadn’t been easy to turn him off but she’d insisted. She had
dinner sent up to her room rather than sit alone in the hotel dining room,
which would only serve as a big red flag that she was weird—something she
did not want the other patrons to know.

She was
exhausted, her arms and legs literally trembling with the fatigue and exertion
of the day’s experiences. If she could, she’d start tonight. Probably she
should
start tonight. It was only nine
o’clock. There was plenty of time for her to slip out and head down to the
wharf and the pubs. But she knew if she did, she’d make a mistake. She was just
too tired to pull it off.

So she lay on her
bed, hearing the sounds of men’s laughter on the streets outside and the
occasional horse clop of a carriage or cart as it went by. And she thought of
the fact that Tater didn’t exist in this timeline. There was no laughing baby
boy or wise and loving Halima. Not in this lifetime. Neither had been born yet.

But there was
Rowan. He was here somewhere.

She closed her
eyes and tried to sense him or feel him somewhere in this world but all she
felt was loss.

Tomorrow she
would take the first steps to bringing her little family—so far apart in
every possible way—back together. And with that thought worming its way
through the tide of grief that threatened to overcome her, Ella slept.

The next morning,
Ella dressed in her one 1825s dress—the one she’d crawled around in a
dirty alley—and waited for night to come. In many ways, the day was
harder than anything she anticipated doing tonight. She was used to staying
busy and she always had projects simmering. Even in Cairo she had her artist’s
salon to wander into if the day’s nonevents became too oppressive.

Waiting. Doing
nothing. Wasting time in a hotel room waiting for night was not Ella’s strong
suit. She looked over her disguise for the evening but there was little she
could do to further her preparations. She didn’t plan on carrying more than the
cost of a few drinks tonight—that alone would blow her cover since she
figured cabin boys didn’t carry a lot of cash.

She went to the
hotel desk at midday to ask that her dinner be sent up to her again and that
she not be disturbed for the rest of the night for any reason, as she didn’t
feel well. The desk clerk clearly didn’t approve of her—wealthy young
American heiress or not. It was not proper for unmarried women to travel alone.
The fact that she was American explained it somewhat, the general consensus
seeming to be
God knows what passes for
proprietary in America.

It couldn’t be
helped. She would make herself as unobtrusive as possible and hope nobody
looked in her direction too much.

“I say, Miss
Pierce! You’re looking much better. I looked for you at dinner last night. Are
your parents with you?” Bingham appeared out of nowhere and began looking
behind Ella as if attempting to locate her entourage of family.

“Thank you, Mr.
Bingham.”

“It’s Lord
Bingham, actually.”

 
“
Lord
Bingham,” she amended. “I am not feeling well and am just going back to my
room.”

“Oh, I say, I am
sorry to hear that. Of all the dashed luck. Will you be down for dinner
tonight?”

“I won’t. Now, if
you’ll excuse me.” Ella turned and hurried back up the long sweeping stairway
to the overhead rooms.

“Please, allow me
to assist you to your rooms.”

Is this guy for real?

“That is not
necessary, Mr. Bingham,” she said curtly over her shoulder. She didn’t want to
be rude, but neither did she want to elongate their exchange in front of the
nosy desk clerk.

 
The rest of the afternoon was slow and
painful. It was dark at a little past seven and Ella could wait no longer. She
ran her fingers through her short hair and neatly hung her dress in the closet
before bracing her breasts tight against her chest and climbing into the raggedy
pants and long billowy shirt of her disguise. Her slippers were virtually
invisible on her feet, but a close examination would show them to be made of quality,
thick leather. She didn’t know where her evening sojourns would take her but she
had to assume that quick getaways might be called for.

She needed shoes
she could run in.

The valise, with
her money, jewels, her mother’s locket and Rowan’s dog tags inside, was locked
and stowed under the bed. She took one last look at the room and then went to
the door, opened it a crack, and listened. When she was sure the hall was
quiet, she slipped out, locking the door behind her and hiding the key on the doorjamb
before padding quickly to the window at the hall’s end. She knew it opened up
to the alleyway by the kitchen, which wasn’t ideal but would have to do.

Within seconds she
was out the window and climbing gingerly down the old tiled
roof—thankfully not sloped—to land on her feet in the kitchen
garbage. As soon as she hit the ground, she was moving into the shadows of the
alley and the street, heading to the Casablanca Port.

More than once,
Ella noted that the dark and sinister backstreets of any big city are only
dangerous to people with something to lose. She walked boldly past every kind
of cutthroat and thief without catching a second glance. She didn’t look like a
wealthy mark—or female—and so she was ignored.

She reminded
herself that her mission tonight wasn’t to talk to people, but to watch and
listen. She planned to make this first foray merely an investigative site hunt.
Check out which pubs she would go to and which ships at which docks she would
watch. Then tomorrow and the next night and the night after that, as many times
as she had to until she heard something about Rowan, she’d go to the taverns
with a single lone ale in front of her, her cap pulled down on her eyes and her
ears wide open.

That was the plan
anyway.

The first pub she
came upon that was fairly close to the docks, she felt emboldened to enter
instead of just note where it was. There were enough men milling about the
entrance, she felt she could easily hide among them. They were rough-looking.
Not just sailors or merchant mariners, but something else that swam from the
underbelly of dark men.

Pirates.

Ella knew that
Casablanca was a common stopping off point for pirates. She knew they gathered
here at the port and that they gossiped and swapped tales as much as any other
sailor. In fact, she counted on it.