Wake of the Bloody Angel

Chapter Thirty-four

I was leaning against the wall beside the tavern door when Angelina came down the street just before dawn. The mist was heavy off the river, and she emerged from it slowly, first a dark blob and finally an unmistakably feminine silhouette.

Neceda’s various businesses were getting ready for the day as well. Both the area farmers and the crews on the riverboats got early starts. A local boy swept the wooden porch outside his family’s shop and watched Angelina as she passed. She was old enough to be his mother, but some kinds of sexiness did not lessen with age.

When she saw me, she stopped. “You’re back.”

“I am.”

“You look different.”

“Weeks in a tropical paradise will do that to you. I have my report.”

The normal seen-it-all haughtiness left her face. She desperately wanted to ask me if he was alive, but she didn’t. Instead she calmly unlocked the door and I followed her inside. She locked the main door behind us, then went into the kitchen and unlatched the back door so Rudy the cook could get in and start the fires he’d need. She used flint stones to light a couple of lamps, then stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading up to my office.

“After you,” I said, and gestured that she should precede me. I did my best to stay neutral, to give away nothing. Inside my office, I found four messages had been pushed under the door, all the envelopes sealed with wax and embossed with various crests. One, from its weight, contained gold. There was an arrow as well, with a note wrapped around it. I knew what it said: Not today. But someday. A local gangster I’d once pissed off, my own little Rody Hawk, sent me one periodically to remind me how tough he was. I put them on my desk, sat down, and waited for her to do the same.

She still wore her shawl, and when she removed it, I saw the line of her bare shoulders. For some reason, this struck me as unbelievably sexy, and my resolve faltered. Then I wondered if she’d done it deliberately to distract me. Finally I realized the rather strange truth: I’d missed Angelina, too. Not in the same way as Liz, obviously, but neither in the sisterly way I usually felt about her, either.

“You’re staring at my boobs,” she said.

“No, at your shoulders, actually.”

“Did you miss them?”

“I did,” I admitted.

“Have they changed?”

“Not a bit. You’re a really beautiful woman, Angie.” She looked at me oddly. “Are you all right?”

There was nothing for it now. “I found Black Edward, Angie. He’s dead.”

She looked down and nodded. This wasn’t a surprise. “Yeah,” I said, and charged forward. “I also found his treasure, but then, you knew about that. That’s where all your money comes from. Two shipments a year, each one in a little wooden box but worth a very big fortune. All tucked away in your attic. But he missed both shipments this year, didn’t he? That’s why you wanted to know what happened.”

She did not move, but her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t care about the treasure. How did he die?”

I kept my voice even despite the rage building in me. “Slowly. And ironically. He accidentally locked himself in with his gold, and he starved to death.”

Her lower lip trembled. “So he died all alone?”

“Not entirely. He’d kidnapped a woman who looked a lot like you to keep him company. She couldn’t rescue him, but she stayed with him while he died. And before that, he painted things. He wasn’t a bad artist. You were his favorite subject.” “You mean her.”

“No, it was you. Jane Argo saw it, too. There was no doubt who he was painting. And according to the woman, there was no doubt who he was fucking all these years, either.” That was cruel, but I didn’t care. The sun had risen above the horizon by now, and the light came through the window. It made the tears dripping from her cheek sparkle as they fell. “I thought at first that he’d gone a little crazy,” I said. “He lived on an island with a bunch of other pirates, including his old first mate Wendell Marteen. You know Wendell, right? He’s the one who brought you the gold twice a year?” “I never knew where the gold came from for certain,” she said. “It would show up here, on the back step, on the spring and fall equinox. I just couldn’t imagine anyone else who’d send it. But he never included a note or anything.” She sighed, and wiped her eyes. “I guess if he was crazy, that explains some of it.”

“He wasn’t, at least not in the way you’d think. It wasn’t the heat or the isolation that got to him. He wanted those things. It was his own conscience he was trying to hide from. He’d been a pirate for exactly one voyage, but he’d done something so horrible, he couldn’t live with it. For twenty years, it chewed at him, but it never quite drove him crazy. And I think the reason he didn’t go nuts is because ultimately he believed it was all your fault.”

I tossed the journal onto my desk. Its wooden cover struck with a thud loud as a thundercrack in the morning silence. “He came to see you after he’d captured King Clovis’s treasure ship and hidden the gold and jewels on his island. He sneaked into Watchorn and found you in that cottage on the dunes. He doesn’t mention that you were pregnant, so I figure you weren’t showing yet and you didn’t tell him. He didn’t know what to do with so much money, and his crew was getting anxious to have it divided up. Most of them were veterans, and they’d been dreaming of a score like this all their lives.” I paused. “ You suggested he sink the Bloody Angel with everyone on board except him and Marteen. Marteen would be the sole survivor, making sure everyone knew the treasure went down with the ship. When a suitable amount of time had passed, he’d send for you to join him in his island paradise.” I tapped the journal. “It’s all in there.”

She sat quietly and did not respond.

“But he couldn’t stand the thought of what he’d done at your instigation. He wanted to take care of you, so he sent you boxes of gold twice a year. He hated you, but he also still loved you. So he abducted a woman who looked like you to keep him company. All those contradictions chewed at his insides for the past two decades.”

My chest felt tight from the emotions battling to escape. I continued, “I knew you had secrets, Angie. I knew you had money you didn’t use, and never talked about your past. Long Billy once warned me about how dangerous you were, but I thought he was just bitter because you’d kicked him to the mud. I thought at some level I knew the real you. ”

She still said nothing. She might have been a statue for all the emotion she showed.

“That’s my report. Edward Tew is dead. His treasure is lost. The fate of the Bloody Angel is no longer a mystery.” I waited a moment, then said, “You can get out now. It’s still my office, although I don’t know if I’m staying here. I told you before that leaving out something really important counts as lying. I’d say you left out plenty.”

Still nothing.

“And you could’ve said he was from Arentia. Two Eddies, both connected to you, both from the same kingdom. That was just spooky.” When she did not move, I said, “The door’s right there.”

“I was a girl,” she said at last, her voice flat. “I wanted to escape from that stupid town. I didn’t think about them as real people. Hell, I wasn’t even a real person yet. I thought I was being clever. One simple act, and the biggest treasure in the world was ours. But when I found out he really did it, that all those people died…”

Now I said nothing.

“That’s why I never spent any of the money. I just stuck it away. I live on what I earn here. I lie awake at night sometimes, thinking about what all that gold could buy, then I remember how much blood is on it.”

I still said nothing.

“I don’t know what the right thing to do in this situation is. I never have. I ran. I hid. I loved the wrong man and made a terrible mistake because of it, so I don’t let anyone get close, just in case I have another terrible mistake in me. I keep things to myself when I probably shouldn’t, because that’s how you keep people from getting close. Beyond that, Eddie, I haven’t got a clue. Does the past ever go away?”

A little jolt went through me. I’d done the same thing after Janet was murdered, although it took me years to admit my own culpability in her death. You could make the case that I was still doing it, since I’d left behind my Arentian heritage for good. Then I realized Jane Argo had done the same thing. And in his own way, Duncan Tew.

And Black Edward.

Two Edwards, both from Arentia, both of us sent running from our pasts by horrible events that were, at some level, our own faults. He loved Angelina the way I loved Janet, and that love led us both to make terrible decisions we could never make right. He hid from the world and wallowed in his guilt, kidnapping some poor woman to take Angie’s place. I became a mercenary and killed people for money.

And now I was berating Angelina, who had been my friend for as long as I’d known her, whom I’d trust with my life with no hesitation, for doing exactly the same thing I and everyone else in this case had done.

I went around my desk and took her hand. She stood, I put my arms around her and kissed her. I held her close against me, marveling at the way she felt. When the kiss ended, she stayed very close and looked up into my eyes.

“What was that for?” she said in a voice so quiet, so soft that I could hardly believe it was her.

“I love you, Angelina,” I said. “Not like Liz, but I do.”

She put a hand on my chest. “Liz wouldn’t understand this.”

“She’d understand, but she probably wouldn’t approve. Hell, she’s jealous of Jane Argo.”

Angelina giggled, then said, “We’ll keep it between us, and never speak of it after this.” She was so close, I could feel her breath on my face. “Do you remember the first time we met? I kissed you then.”

“I remember.”

And she kissed me the way she had that night. When our lips parted, she said, “Anything?”

I knew that I wasn’t leaving Neceda. She knew it, too. “Still not. You?”

“Not a thing. Come on, sword jockey, I’ll make you breakfast. And I won’t add this one to your tab.” She threaded her fingers through mine and led me out of my office.

She released my hand at the bottom of the stairs and went into the kitchen, where Rudy was already working his culinary magic. A few early risers sat at the bar, nursing cups of hot tea. I still needed to tell her about Duncan’s offer, but that could wait. I couldn’t imagine her slipping into the role of belated mother and grandmother, but perhaps some of that bloodsoaked gold in her attic might find its way anonymously to him. Angelina, Jane Argo, Dylan Clift, Duncan Tew, and I all chose badly for love and suffered the consequences. So far, I was the only one Fate had granted a real do-over. This might be the start of one for Angelina; I’d do what I could to at least make her see the opportunity. But I knew the answer to her question, and I suspected she did as well: The past never goes away.

“Hey, handsome,” Liz said, breaking my reverie. She sat down on the stool beside me at the bar, leaned over, and kissed my cheek. Quietly she asked, “How’d it go?”

“As well as it could have.”

She smiled, squeezed my hand, and lay her head on my shoulder. I hoped that someday Angelina, Jane, Clift, and Duncan all reached this same sort of peace. And wherever he sailed now, I sincerely wished it for the other Edward.