“Elizabeth Kelly has never traveled, but she doesn’t know about her ancestors. They might have used the brooch,” Kenzie said.
“Charlotte will figure it out,” David said.
If Rick hadn’t been looking directly at Kenzie, he would have missed the eyebrow flash. Everyone in the family knew he had fallen in love with Charlotte and was there to support her when Braham was a no-show. David’s feelings for her mellowed after he fell in love with Kenzie, but every so often, that original spark seemed to flash, just like Kenzie’s eyebrow. She professed not to have a jealous bone in her body, but after hearing David talk about his faith in Charlotte had to stir up a few mixed feelings. Or maybe Rick was off base. After all, Kenzie was one of the strongest and most self-assured women he knew.
As the plane approached New Orleans Lakefront Airport air space, Pete’s phone beeped with a message. “Roy Landry is picking us up, Rick. He has an hour to bring us up to speed on the case.”
“Good. That’ll save time. I want to start at the estate sale, then go to Billie’s hotel,” Rick said. “We can Uber to the rental house afterward, or meet Remy and Sophia in Jackson Square.”
Rick put his laptop away and passed his coffee cup to Veronica—one of the members of the rotating flight crew. “You thought we were going back to California tomorrow, and now you’re stuck in New Orleans. Are you okay with that?”
“I have a good friend from college in the city and will enjoy it however long you want to stay. Now please turn off all your devices.” She glanced around the cabin to be sure all cell phones and laptops were powered down.
Rick often teased the flight crew, but he never crossed the line and always kept his interactions professional. “I hope we can wrap this up in a day or two.” He almost laughed at himself. There was no way in hell to wrap up this case in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
Veronica took the dishes and trash to the galley, then buckled into her seat. Everyone else put their headphones on and closed their eyes. For the next few minutes, like Rick, they were all mentally preparing for what lay ahead. Oorah!
6
Barataria (1814)—Billie
The drug smugglers and their canoes headed down the path that took them away from Billie. Then when the snake stopped nosing around on top of her and slithered away again, then wham! A bad case of the shakes hit.
It started with her head, traveled to her arms, hands, belly, legs, feet. She couldn’t stay on the ground, but if she told her legs to work—right, left, repeat—she wasn’t sure they’d obey.
Tears slid down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but her hand shook like she had palsy, and all she could do was smack her face. And that made her cry harder over a stupid snake that could have killed her, drug smugglers who would have gang-raped her, and damn memories that kept tripping her up. If her body needed to release its stress, then cry baby, cry. When she returned home, she’d go right back to her therapist’s sofa.
Five minutes, ten minutes—time had no meaning. When the shaking episode petered out, she pushed to her feet. It was time to move to safer ground and plan her next steps—literally and figuratively.
Why would someone drug her and abandon her in a swamp? Even better, who? And how could they have done it between the time she left the conference until she returned to her hotel room from the estate sale? She didn’t eat or drink anything except some of the water Morgan gave her. And besides, if someone wanted to get rid of her, why not just shoot her and throw her body in the Mississippi River?
And what had she done to make someone this mad? Maybe the colonel was tired of looking over his shoulder, waiting for her to get revenge for raping her. She’d heard he was up for promotion to brigadier general. What if he was tying up loose ends?
The only way she was going to find answers was to get the hell out of here. But she had no boat, no map, no compass, and only a few sips of water left in the bottle Morgan gave her earlier. Finding a source of clean water was paramount.
And so were shoes.
She couldn’t traipse around the swamp in four-inch Christian Louboutin ruby-red pumps, and cutting off the heels would be as heartrending as dropping a stack of collectible china plates. But since it was a binary choice—cut up her feet or cut off the heels to protect her feet—the decision was a no-brainer.
She gathered her belongings and forged a path to the small dock. She didn’t want to hang out next to the water for fear of alligators coming ashore, but it seemed safer there, under the shelter of the white pines.
She parked her butt on a tree stump and channeled her inner MacGyver. How would Mac fashion a pair of shoes if he was shoeless in a swamp? She put her elbow on her knee, knuckles under her chin, and considered what natural substances were flexible and able to withstand the pounding of walking over uneven ground. It took a couple of minutes before she snapped her fingers and high-fived herself.
Perfect! Tree bark for soles and roots for straps.
She hopped up and went to work.
Using her knife, she peeled two large pieces of bark off a pine tree, measured the pieces against her feet, and broke off the excess. The next step was to harvest roots to make cords to tie the sandals to her feet.
How much daylight did she have left? She glanced up at the sky. Maybe three or four hours. She’d have to find a place to sleep, probably in the trees, but cobbling shoes together came first.
She crawled around on the ground until she found a long, straight line of moss. She dug beneath the moss and removed the dirt to free the roots belonging to the tree she’d just stripped of its bark.
And in the process ruined her manicure.
Am I insane? My nails don’t matter.
She was trying to survive a day in a swamp, not stage an event for a high-end client. God, she’d gotten soft since leaving the Army. She dug and pulled until she had a pile of roots and sore hands.
All this work to save a thousand-dollar pair of shoes she never should have bought.
But she bought them using a small birthday check from her dad and a nice bonus from a client for a job well done. They were a special purchase—a big deal—and she wanted to save them if she could.
Satisfied with the quality and quantity of her harvest, she sat Indian-style, held the blade of her knife next to her thumb, and scraped the roots between the blade and thumb like she was curling ribbon. While she did that, she studied a Louboutin pump. How could she adapt the design for her sandals? Unlike her heels, she needed the straps to go on the insides of her big toes, then lace over and around her ankles.
She cut small holes in the tops and sides of the bark and threaded the root through them, braiding them into straps.
Voilá! The soles were as thick as a pair of Vibram work boots, didn’t cost a dime, and saved her Louboutins.
She rolled up the leftover roots, took another sip of water, slipped her knife into her jacket pocket, and slung the leather purse around her neck and shoulder. There was another hour or two of daylight, and if she followed the path taken by the drug smugglers for twenty to thirty minutes, she might find drinkable water. Whether she did or not, by then, she needed to stop for the night and find tree branches she could lash together to form a swamp bed.
But before she left, she took a thick branch and, using more roots, tied a flat stone to the top to create a temporary stone ax. It would have to do until she had time to make it sharper and more stable. Later she’d make a spear to add to her arsenal.
Water, a bed, a few hours of sleep. Then tomorrow she’d search for food and find her way home.
7
New Orleans—Rick
Detective Roy Landry was waiting on the tarmac at New Orleans Lakefront Airport, leaning against the driver’s door of a police-issue unmarked Ford sedan. After making introductions, Rick and Pete climbed into the Ford while the others eased into a black stretch limo with all the gear. Rick couldn’t remember ever riding in the back seat of a modified cop car. It smelled of a cleaning solution,
the seat was hard vinyl, and a reinforced glass partition separated the front seat from the back.
Pete watched the limo drive away. Since he and Sophia reunited four and a half years ago, they were rarely separated, but when they were, they didn’t call or text each other unless it was an emergency. Their behavior was so different from what Rick was familiar with that he finally asked Pete why he never called Sophia.
Pete gave him a sly smile and said, “When I go for a few hours without communicating with her, it’s like meeting at Loch Lomond all over again and seeing her in that damn red snowsuit.” He inhaled deeply, as if breathing her in, then continued. “Hello-again sex is like being with her for the first time. Why wouldn’t I want that as often as possible?”
Rick couldn’t think of a reason. And at that moment, he had never been so jealous of anyone as he was of Pete. Lucky son of a bitch.
“Thanks for picking us up,” Pete said to Roy. “Rick’s a piss-poor navigator and thinks he knows better than Siri how to get where we’re going.”
“That’s not true,” Rick said. “She’s gotten me lost before, and I’m suspicious of her directions.”
Straight-faced, Pete said, “She’s not real. You know that, right?”
Roy didn’t laugh, he cackled. “How long have you two worked together? You sound like two old ladies.”
“We’ve known each other since high school,” Rick said.
“I partnered with his sister for a decade, but Rick and I have worked for MacCorp for…what?” Pete glanced back at Rick. “Eight, nine years?”
“Eight and a half,” Rick said.
“Never heard of MacCorp. What is it?” Roy asked.
“It’s short for MacKlenna Corporation, a privately held company that owns Thoroughbreds and wineries. Pete and two of my brothers handle the security, and I run the winery in Napa.”
“Sounds like a pretty good gig.”
“It is,” Rick said. “That’s how we got pulled into this. My office staff in Napa is in panic mode over Billie’s disappearance, so I agreed to find out what happened and keep them informed.” Rick’s phone pinged, and he checked his messages. “I’ve gotten three messages from them in the past five minutes. Can you give me an update?”
Roy glanced into the rearview mirror. “Ms. Malone disappeared like Houdini, confusing the entire force. If you’ve got any ideas, man, we’re listening.”
Roy wouldn’t believe Rick if he told him the truth: Billie was carried into another time by a mysterious brooch. And an evil force, gaining strength after centuries of being subdued, was on the move and wanted not only Billie’s brooch, but the seven the MacKlenna Clan kept in a secure location. Rick shot a glance out the window to avoid eye contact with Roy. “If we have any suggestions, you’ll be the first to know. What else can you tell us? Anything?”
Roy handed Pete a file folder. “I brought photographs of the hotel room.”
“Any witness statements?” Pete asked.
“As of thirty minutes ago, nothing. Nobody saw Ms. Malone or talked to her after she left Morgan Bradshaw in the lobby.”
“What about the security video?” Pete asked.
“Nothing there either,” Roy said. “It shows her entering her room, then Ms. Bradshaw knocking on her door forty-five minutes later.”
Pete thumbed through the photographs, then passed the folder through the open sliding glass window in the partition. If he hadn’t known Pete for most of his life, Rick would have missed the aw-shit tightness around his jaw.
Rick opened the file. The first photograph was a view of a hotel room from the doorway, showing the brooch upside down on the dark-patterned carpet. When he turned to the second photograph, his heart nearly jumped out of his chest, but he stilled his face to conceal his excitement—or rather, dread.
Sitting open on the bed was a small wooden jewelry box. Sophia had one very similar. The next photograph showed a closeup of the box’s interior. In the center of the lining was a small tapestry, or more accurately, an embroidery with four brooches woven into a design with astrological symbols. Sophia’s box didn’t have the symbols. Was their presence significant? Kenzie was the family’s puzzle expert. If there were a pattern or puzzle, she’d find it.
Rick was familiar with three of the brooches in the embroidery—ruby, amethyst, and amber. The fourth was a blue stone, probably a topaz, as they suspected. Rick used his phone and snapped a picture—of the picture—of the inside of the box and texted it to David.
He thumbed through several more photographs of the room. The last one was a close-up of the brooch showing the stone and the intricate detail of the silverwork.
David replied to his text: Get it, and we’ll have two complete boxes.
Rick looked back through the photographs. Billie’s clothes were hanging, sorted by color, in the closet. Folded in the chest of drawers were sexy bras and panties, and she’d neatly arranged personal items on the bathroom counter.
“Where are Billie’s belongings now? Still at the hotel?” he asked.
“They’ll be released to her father. We don’t want to hold anything of value that could be stolen.”
“Inspector Malone is here in New Orleans?” Rick asked.
“You know him?” Roy asked. “He’s on his way down from New York City and should be here by now. When Ms. Morgan informed the lead detective that Ms. Malone’s father was on the police force, they notified him immediately.”
“I only know him by reputation,” Rick said. “He’s a damn good cop.”
Inspector Malone’s presence would complicate getting their hands on the brooch and box, but Rick would rather Inspector Malone had them than the police.
Rick flipped through a few more pictures. Billie’s cell phone was on the bed. “Do you know if Billie was wearing any jewelry when she disappeared?” When Kenzie disappeared, she was wearing diamond studs, which she sold for money to buy necessities. Amy Spaulding pawned her brooch for cash to bet on baseball games, which created all sorts of problems.
Roy put on his signal and merged onto Interstate 10. “According to Ms. Bradshaw, Ms. Malone was only wearing her West Point class ring. We notified pawnshops and secondhand jewelry stores to contact police if the ring shows up.” Roy switched lanes, and the car picked up speed. “If she put on more jewelry when she changed clothes, we have no way of knowing.”
“Did Ms. Bradshaw mention what stone was in Billie’s ring?” Rick asked.
“A blue topaz.”
In David’s vision, the torc had a blue stone. Both the brooch and Billie’s ring had blue topazes. Why was she drawn to that stone? Her eyes weren’t blue. He Googled the meaning of the stone: Associated with loyalty and love, represents eternal romance and friendship, symbolizes honesty and deep emotional attachment.
Rick stared at the words while mentally comparing them to the translation of the inscription on the other brooches: Love is not limited by time or space, but by the capacity of the soul. There was synergy between the meaning of the gemstone and the Celtic inscription, but he didn’t know what that meant…if anything. Maybe Kenzie could connect those dots.
He flipped back to the photograph of the brooch, then Googled West Point class rings and found a catalog showing blue topaz stones in the gemstone section. There were three options: light, medium, and dark. The dark option was almost an identical match to the topaz in the brooch.
“Do you know the shade of the blue topaz in her ring? Light, medium, dark?” Rick asked.
“According to Ms. Bradshaw, it was identical to the stone in the brooch.”
If the ring and brooch were identical, what about the torc? If Sophia saw the dead man and the woman with the bow, did she see the necklace when she drew it?
Rick had a disturbing thought. Had the brooch been removed from the torc to keep it safe? And if so, was bringing the necklace and brooch together again a way to ensure the clan’s long-term survival? And how in the hell would they ever find the torc after all this time?
He didn’t have any answers, so wrestling with them now was fruitless. He had to change the channel until he could discuss his thoughts freely. He asked Roy a question he hadn’t thought to ask Cate, “Is there anyone else from Napa attending the conference?”
Roy looked up into the rearview mirror again. “Ms. Malone’s ex-husband is here, and detectives are interviewing him now. But I heard he was presenting at a three-hour workshop that didn’t end until after Ms. Malone’s disappearance was reported.”
“Who told you he was here?” Pete asked.
“Ms. Bradshaw. She said Ms. Malone and her ex flew to New Orleans on the same flight.”
“Trying to rekindle an old spark, huh?” Pete asked.
“Ms. Bradshaw was very forthcoming with what she knows about Ms. Malone, including information about her marriage. It turns out her ex was gay.”
Wham!
That news hit Rick with the force of an out-of-control locomotive slamming into the station. What the hell? How long had she lived in a marriage that never had a chance of being all she wanted it to be? Had it made her reluctant to trust another man? If he wanted the answer, he’d have to find her. Man, that sucked.
“Is the Fontenot estate sale still going on?” Pete asked.
“Yeah, for a couple more days. Shall we go by there first?” Roy asked. When Pete and Rick nodded, he flicked his turn signal.
“I read the Fontenots were active in New Orleans society. Did you ever meet them?” Rick asked.
“I met them through my wife,” Roy said. “Mrs. Fontenot played the role of Sophronie Bosque, wife of Governor William C. C. Claiborne, during the annual reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans. Mr. Fontenot always played the role of Andy Jackson. My wife can talk your ear off about Sophronie.”
“Out of curiosity, what would she say?” Pete asked.
For a second, Rick couldn’t imagine why Pete wanted to know. Then he realized Pete was gathering information on the Fontenots as well as Billie. Learning about the couple’s habits and interests might lead to finding them later.
The Topaz Brooch: Time Travel Romance (The Celtic Brooch Book 10) Page 8
