by Mia Marlowe
“I’m aware of that,” she said. “That’s why the journal is in a safe deposit box, which would be opened if anything should happen to me.”
She held his gaze for what seemed like an eternity. If her impairment hadn’t conditioned her to maintain eye contact for long periods, she’d never have managed it.
“What do you have in mind?” he finally said.
“Crimes committed by elected officials are always more juicy that those committed by the rest of us,” Sara said. “The FBI wants you to testify.”
“Roll on the senator, you mean?
“You really don’t have much choice. The painting and the note will do it with or without you. But the case is much strong with you. If you cooperate, Agent Griffith assures me he’ll clear you on the Federal charges of election fraud,” Sara said.
“So if I do you this favor, you’ll give me Neville’s journal?”
“No,” she said. “You’ll testify about the election fraud because it will keep you from prison. However, it will not help you with the commonwealth’s prosecutor who will want to charge you with all Neville Rede’s murders.”
“And you’re the star witness,” he said. “If I were you, Ms Kelley, I’d be worried.”
“Is that a threat?”
He made a dismissive gesture.
“Even if I didn’t have Mr. Rede’s journal, I want you to think about something. I watched your nephew shoot a man yesterday to protect me. Then he left him to die in the dark. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think twice,” Sara said. “If something happens to me, what do you think Ryan would do about it?”
Garibaldi was silent for a moment. “So, I presume you’re offering something.”
“I am,” Sara said. “I intend to keep the journal for the rest of my life. But I might be persuaded to keep its existence a secret.”
“And what will this convenient amnesia cost me?”
She drew a steadying breath. “Ryan,” she said. “You forced him into a deal with you. I want you to release him from his promise.”
Garibaldi’s brows warred with each other. Then he shook his head.
“Very well. It seems we’re done here. Enjoy prison.” Sara rose to her feet and started toward the door. Garibaldi beat her there.
“Let’s not be hasty,” he said as he shepherded her back to a seat at the table. “As you know, I’m a man with many business interests, but in my spare time, it amuses me to play a friendly game of poker.” He gave her grudging nod. “It seems you’re holding all the cards today.”
“I am,” Sara affirmed, hardly daring to inhale.
“You win this hand.” He raised a brow at her. “But remember this, Miss Kelley. There’s always a new deal coming.”
Chapter 38
Skin pinked with new tans, the young couple looked like hundreds of other snowbirds escaping the chill of November in New England. They met up outside the entrance to the straw market in Nassau and then walked at a leisurely island pace back toward the slip where their shining SeaRay was tied up. The man took the bag of oranges and mangoes from the woman’s arms and they linked hands.
“Oh, wait just a minute,” Sara said as she and Ryan passed a news stand that catered to tourists who wanted the latest from home. She paid for a Boston paper and started reading the lead story aloud.
“Forget Joey the Rat and Benny Two-Time, crime boss Nicholas Garibaldi has a new nickname. The commonwealth of Massachusetts’ prosecutor christened him ‘The Citizen Don’ for his testimony in the ongoing case involving election fraud. The former racketeer has earned the gratitude of the populace for his whistle blowing over the electronic voting machine scandal.”
“It took more than gratitude for Uncle Nick to become a whistle blower,” Ryan said.
“Well, if it keeps him out of prison and enjoying favorable press, who knows? He might decide to become a respectable businessman.”
“You’re always too trusting,” Ryan said as they climbed aboard the WaveDancer. Lulu yipped a greeting from her hiding place under the companionway stairs. She bounded to the fantail and did a welcome home jig as Ryan stooped to pet her. “Some watch dog.”
“Trust, but keep the journal safe,” Sara said. “That’s my motto.”
Ryan climbed the ladder to the sedan bridge. Sara settled onto a deck chair with Lulu on her lap to read the rest of the paper. In another article, Detective Matt Kelley was praised for his role in stopping serial killer, Neville Rede. Thanks to his work, the Boston PD closed dozens of unsolved murders scattered throughout New England.
Kelley put to rest rumors of a cache of artworks discovered in Neville Rede’s apartment.
“There are a number of canvases, but you can’t consider them art. They are evidence in a serial murder case,” the detective said.
Discounting the possibility of a public showing or sale of the seized paintings, Kelley admitted that art experts had been brought in to consult on the case. However, the experts rated the paintings as wholly unoriginal, merely the ‘work of a talented mimic.’
“Suppose Ted Bundy or Charles Manson had painted pictures of their victim,” Kelley argued. “Showing them to the public would be obscene. For sadism and cruelty, Neville Rede was every bit their match.”
After the prescribed period of time for retention of evidence, the canvases will be destroyed.
“Matthew got a commendation,” Sara said.
“Good,” Ryan said leaning down from the sedan bridge above her. “But I got the girl.”
Sara smiled. He certainly did. Once she convinced him that Uncle Nick had released him from his promise to join the family business, Ryan lost no time in staking his claim on her.
He convinced her to request a year’s sabbatical from the school and Ryan gave the same notice to his doctoral program advisor. Sara sublet her apartment to a nice, quiet retired couple, which pleased Mr. Kaplan no end since in his opinion too many of the building’s residents were “loud-mouthed kids.”
Then, with promises to send postcards to her family along the way, she and Ryan loaded up the WaveDancer and started cruising south. They took their time exploring Chesapeake Bay and the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but when autumn started bearing down on them in earnest, they made a bee line for the warmer waters of the Caribbean.
Sara turned the page on her paper.
“Looks like the incumbent senator was defeated,” Sara said. Since the electronic machines were tainted, Massachusetts held its election the old-fashioned way, hanging chads and all. And kicked the scandal-ridden bum out on his keester. Of course, the senator denied involvement with the election fraud scheme. His aids, he claimed had done it, suffering from misguided but right-hearted loyalty.
But once Nicholas Garibaldi was finished testifying, the senator might well land in prison instead of just being demoted back to the general citizenry.
“Did you vote absentee?”
“No,” Ryan said. “We’re taking the year off. The world will just have to limp along without my contribution to democracy as we know it.”
“Not very patriotic,” Sara said, basking in the superior glow of one who had cast her ballot by mail. “What are you doing up there?”
“Plotting a course to St. Thomas.” He leaned over the railing to smile down at her. “A US Virgin Island. How’s that for patriotic?”
“It’ll do,” she assured him. “I hear St. Thomas is beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you.” He climbed down the ladder and lounged on the gunwale, hands in his pockets. “I’ve got an ulterior motive for wanting to go there.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s US soil. We could be married on St. Thomas without too much red tape.”
“Not too much red tape, huh? Well, as long as it wouldn’t cause you too much inconvenience,” she said and turned back to her paper. If he was going to be so nonchalant about it, she had no need to take him seriously. She was determined not to let him see how his casual proposal stung.<
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“Sara, I mean it. I’m just doing this badly.” Ryan took the paper from her hands and knelt beside her chair. He pulled a small jeweler’s box from his pocket. “While you were picking out mangoes, I was picking out a ring. I wanted to surprise you. Will you marry me?”
Speechless, she opened the box. Instead of a diamond, she found a smoke-gray pearl set in platinum.
“I’ll get you a diamond if you’d rather have one, but once they’re cut, diamonds are pretty much all the same,” he explained. “This pearl’s not perfectly round, but that’s what makes it so unusual. Heaven and earth will pass away before there’s another pearl exactly like this one.”
His heart glowed in the depths of his blue eyes.
“That’s how long I’ll love you,” he promised. “That’s how long I’ll be faithful to you.”
She believed him. The pain of Matt’s betrayal was already receding, already felt as though it had happened to someone else. Her heart was healed, whole. She was ready to offer it to Ryan without reservation.
And she was determined not to push him away as she had Matthew. It was no sign of weakness to need someone. She needed Ryan. Just as he needed her.
“I love you, Ryan.” She put her arms around his shoulders and laid her forehead against his chest. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He kissed her with tenderness and slipped the ring on her finger. Her vision wavered through the tears that gathered as she studied the pearl.
Unique. Precious. A little flawed.
Like a human heart.
She smiled up at him. “This ring is perfect.”
THE END
Thanks so much for reading The Warning Sign. I hope you enjoyed Sara and Ryan’s romance as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you.
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If you’d like taste of my next book, Once upon a Plaid, please read on.
Once Upon a Plaid
Mia Marlowe
* * *
The boar’s head in hand bear I
Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary.
—From “The Boar’s Head Carol”
“However many pretty leaves and sweet-smelling spices ye put on the sorry thing, ’tis still just the head of a deid pig, aye?”
—An observation from Nab, fool to the Earl of Glengarry.
Chapter 1
“Christmastide is no time for such a Friday-face, Kat.”
Katherine quickly turned up the corners of her mouth. The frozen smile she forced into place felt almost natural. Heaven knew, she’d had enough practice, but her sister-in-law, Margaret, had caught her in an unguarded moment and that would never do. She flashed her teeth, praying no one in her father’s hall would know the difference between this mask she donned and a genuine expression of pleasure.
“I’m just a wee bit tired.” She forced down a gulp of her small beer and moved her food around her trencher without eating it. If Katherine had a single bite of songbird pie, she feared she’d retch. She picked out a sliver of meat and held it beneath the table for Angus. Her little terrier nibbled daintily, then licked the drippings from her fingers.
Angus cringed each time the deerhounds by the fire cracked the bones flung to them by the earl’s men-at-arms or fell to snapping and snarling among themselves over some choice tidbit. He didn’t dare stray far from Katherine’s side.
“After the work we did this day, I’m surprised ye’re not all in as well, Margie,” Katherine said.
The women had plenty to show for their labors. The great hall sparkled in the light of dozens of dear beeswax candles. The large end of the Yule log was crammed into the massive fireplace, roaring away cheerfully. Since it was long and thick enough to burn for the required twelve days of Christmas, most of the log stuck out into the hall between the trestle tables. Earlier in the day, before snow had begun falling in earnest, Katherine and Margaret had gathered armloads of greenery and festooned the hall with fragrant wreaths and garlands. The kissing bough, fashioned of ivy, fir, and mistletoe, had taken hours to construct and hang just so.
Not that I’ll have occasion to use it. An aching lump of loneliness swelled in Katherine’s chest.
“Right glad I am that ye decided to come celebrate Christmas with us.” Margaret finished the last of her pie with a satisfied sigh. “Thanks to ye, good-sister, I did more supervising than working. But if ye must know, women near their time don’t get tired, we get hungry.” She eyed Katherine’s trencher. “If ye’re not going to eat that...”
Kat shoved her food in front of her sister-in-law. After all, Margie was eating for two. Possibly three, given the way the fine fabric of her leine bulged.
Katherine forced herself to smile a bit wider so no one would suspect she died a little each time she looked at Margaret’s round belly. She raised her beer again.
It was comforting to hide behind the flagon. No one could know this Christmastide held not a drop of joy for her. Not even William, who ought to have known, who by rights ought to feel the same, had any idea what was festering inside her.
Or if he did, he didn’t care.
Katherine was dragged from her dark musings when Ranulf MacNaught, the most bellicose of her father’s pledge-men and her first cousin, snatched the bagpipes from the boy who’d been attempting to play them in fits and starts all evening. MacNaught started a wheezing squeal of his own. Even though he was Lord Glengarry’s nephew, Ranulf was given far more attention than Katherine thought he deserved. A certain faction of her father’s retainers fawned on Ranulf with houndlike servility. Now Lord Glengarry’s men-at-arms upended their drinking horns and banged them in time with the droning melody on the dark, scarred wood of the long tables. The pounding rhythm echoed in Katherine’s chest.
Her nose twitched. The smells of too much rich food, damp wool, unwashed dogs, and unkempt men couldn’t be completely obscured by evergreens and spice balls. The bright hall seemed suddenly very close, as if the stone walls were inching toward her.
“Odds bodkins, ’tis Christmas, Lady Katherine,” murmured a soft voice behind her. “Why are ye sad?”
When she turned toward the sound, she found Nab, her father’s fool, fingering the drooping ends of his ridiculous cap. His carrot-red hair shot out from under the cap in snarls and stringy braids. His multihued motley costume was stained with bits of the feast. Since Nab was usually the fastidious sort, except for his hair, which resisted all efforts to subdue it, Katherine guessed that food had been tossed at him, as if he were one of the deerhounds.
Apart from his odd appearance, she’d never understood why Lord Glengarry chose Nab to serve as his resident entertainer. Most court fools were sly and cruel in their comedy.
Nab was shy and quiet and hadn’t a mean bone in his slight body. But he had a habit of saying the most unusual things at the wrong time, which her father found hilarious. Nab’s gaze darted about, looking anywhere but at her. In truth, he rarely looked anyone directly in the eye. Even so, she knew his attention was fixed upon her, waiting for a response.
“Ye’re mistaken, Nab. I’m not sad. I’m tired.”
“Nay, tired is when ye yawn.
Sad is when ye pretend to smile.” He frowned down at the turned-up tips of his own shoes. “I’m thinkin’ ye are the one who’s mistaken. When I’m confused, I go to sleep and it all becomes clear in my dreams. Ye should find yer bed then. That way, ye willna still be sad tomorrow.”
Margaret chuckled. “The fool’s right in an odd sort of way. Find your bed, lass. Ye’ve worked yourself into a frazzle since ye came home to help me. Things will only get more boisterous here in the hall this night.”
As if to prove her right, Ranulf laid aside the pipes and bellowed, “If we’re to get this Yuletide under way, we must crown a Laird of Misrule.”
Katherine’s father rose from his place on the dais, leaned his heavy knuckles on the table, and skewered MacNaught with a gimlet eye. His grey brows lowered in a frown, though everyone chuckled, sensing that their laird didn’t mean it. Each Yuletide, this sham deposing of their true leader was but the signal that the revels were to begin in earnest.
“Are ye saying ye dinna like the way I do things around here, MacNaught?” Lord Glengarry boomed.
“Nay, milord. Rest assured, we’d follow ye blithely to Hades, singing as we go all the rest of the year.” MacNaught scraped a quick bow. “But Christmastide needs a master of revels, a proper Abbot of Unreason, and my Lord Glengarry is the soul of reason and benevolent rule. What we need now is a decadent despot, a feeble-minded tyrant.” He scanned the room till his gaze fell on Nab. “What we need is a fool! Get him, lads.”
“No.” Katherine leaped to her feet, but she was too late. Some of the nearby men snatched up Nab, who hated to be touched at the best of times, and bounced him hand to hand over their heads across the hall. He made pitiful bleating noises, sounding like the mournful Glengarry sheep when shearing season was upon them.
“Put him down this instant,” Katherine demanded, but no one seemed to hear her, least of all her father, who was roaring with laughter along with the rest of them.
