In Search of Truth Page 2

  She looked around for something—anything—that would help her make sense out of the night. Yet all she saw were grinding bodies on the dance floor. The scent of alcohol and sex masked the cloying smell of incense. Her eyes burned from the smoke drifting in the air.

  A sex club?

  “Tha…thank you.” She stumbled over her words. “I can’t believe I’m so clumsy.”

  The man with dark skin, dark brown eyes behind his mask, and a buzzed head, wore a tux that clung to his wide chest and thick thighs. “I am called Marcellus. ’Twas my privilege to serve you.”

  Before she could answer, Marcellus disappeared into the crowd.

  Allison smoothed down her skirt, hiked her gown’s corset, and clutched her handbag. It was time to learn why Stuart had been murdered.

  * * *

  Zack Tremaine halted at the end of Charleston’s dankest and darkest alley and answered his cell phone. The ID showed the call coming from Iron Rack’s Gym in Savannah. “What?”

  “Kells just figured out you left Savannah. Again,” Alex Mitchell said in a voice that couldn’t have sounded more disinterested. “Your boss is pissed.”

  “Kells can go to hell.” Zack moved toward the building Allison had entered. She’d almost seen him and he’d had to hide behind a dumpster. The chauffeur in a nearby limo had earbuds in and his eyes closed. The rats were doing their own thing.

  “Kells is already there. That’s why he called a staff meeting. To which I was not invited.”

  Because, as an unpredictable ex-con, no one wanted to deal with Alex and his moods.

  “A staff meeting at this time of night? Why?”

  “No idea.”

  Random staff meetings didn’t surprise Zack at all. It’d been almost three months since Zack’s Green Beret unit had been suddenly—and dishonorably—discharged and forced to leave Fort Bragg.

  Now that he and his men, including their former commanding officer, Colonel Kells Torridan, were managing a run-down gym in Savannah, Zack had adjusted to their new, much quieter life. Unfortunately, Kells hadn’t adjusted. He still believed their group of eight men—nine including Alex—who lived above the gym were an active Special Forces unit, with Kells in charge. He even continued to dress the part.

  Only now, instead of having missions in the world’s worst hot spots, Kells was determined to find out why they’d been dishonorably discharged by a secret congressional committee. Since their new mission to redeem their reputations and reclaim their lives was going nowhere, Kells had decided to channel his anger, paranoia, and frustration into a let’s kick Zack in the ass daily party.

  Not to mention the insults.

  Zack rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Alex, is there anything else?”

  “Your sister, Emilie, called. Your godmother, Vivienne, told Emilie where you’re living now.”

  Fantastic. Since the night of the dishonorable discharges, he’d been avoiding his family. Not because he didn’t love them, but because he wanted to protect them. Unfortunately, Vivienne and Emilie didn’t understand that sentiment. “What did you tell Emilie?”

  “That you were in a meeting and would call her later.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How’s the girlfriend stalking going?”

  “Allison isn’t my girlfriend. I’m just gathering intel.”

  “Riiight. This is only the eighth time in the two months since her husband’s murder that you’ve gone to Charleston to check on her.” Alex crunched a chip or a cracker.

  “Because her husband was also one of my best friends.” Zack peered up at the boarded-up building that Allison had entered. “Can you run down an address for me?” After giving Alex the street name and number, Zack said, “It’s an abandoned mansion near the Cooper River.”

  “I’m checking now.”

  Zack would’ve done it himself except all he had was a crappy burner phone. With the state of his permanent record, he wasn’t about to take any chances by getting online in a public internet café. “Have you heard of the Satyr Club? Everyone is wearing formal clothes and masks.”

  “Nope.” Typing sounded in the background. “Could be a sex club. Satyrs are those mythical Greek fertility spirits with exaggerated—”

  “Never mind.” Zack didn’t like to think about what Allison was doing in there.

  “I found something.” Alex paused. “Huh. It is a sex club that requires rare coins for entrance payment.”

  “What kind of coins?”

  “Old ones like Roman denarii and gold pieces of eight.” Alex whistled low. “These things are expensive. Like thousands of dollars.”

  “Any idea how I can get into this club without Roman currency or a tux?” Because right then, he wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and combat boots and had eleven dollars in his back pocket.

  “Call Vivienne. She might own the place.”

  “She doesn’t own it.” Vivienne’s exclusive clubs were run out of private homes. “Any other ideas?” Zack wasn’t expecting anything. Their unit was in a dismal financial state.

  “Uh-oh,” Alex whispered. “Kells just came out of the staff meeting.”

  “No—”

  “Zack?” Kells said in a firm voice laced with fury. “Where the fuck are you?”

  Shit. “In Charleston.”

  “I distinctly remember not giving you leave. Again.”

  Zack leaned his shoulder against the brick building. “I remember that too.” And, obviously, I didn’t care.

  “Yet you went anyway.”

  Maybe I wouldn’t have if you’d apologized. “Yep.”

  “Against my orders.”

  “Yes, sir.” He’d known when he’d disobeyed orders that Kells would be annoyed. But Zack hadn’t given a fuck. He was tired of being Kells’s punching bag.

  Kells cursed under his breath. “You need to stop trailing Allison. If her husband’s death two months ago had anything to do with our unit, you would’ve found it by now.”

  “Sir, Allison may be in danger.” Jeez, how many times did they have to have the same argument?

  “You’ve no evidence she’s another target of her husband’s murderer. I want you back in Savannah ASAP.” Kells softened his tone the smallest bit. “No good will come of spending time with her. Her husband chose to engage with Remiel Marigny and paid the price. Just because we share our enemy—”

  “Who’s a vicious arms dealer.”

  “Doesn’t mean we need to get involved in Stuart’s death.”

  “But—”

  “When you return, we’ll discuss your leaving without permission.”

  Whatever. Zack hung up. Yes, he was all about the insubordination tonight.

  “Thou truly art a lily-livered boy.” The male voice came from the darkness behind Zack. “A most notable coward.”

  A loud whoomph made Zack duck and turn. The man emerged from the shadows, swinging a two-by-four. Zack slammed his fist into the man’s stomach. The man stumbled back and swung again; this time the board clipped Zack’s forehead. Pain shot through his head, and he hit the ground hard, elbows first. He rolled to his side and his spit tasted like he was sucking on pennies. His vision splintered.

  The man tossed the board away and stepped over Zack’s body, saying, “Good night, sweet bastard prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

  Oh fuck.

  Despite Zack’s fractured sight, he watched a pair of dress shoes walk away.

  The farther the assailant walked, the wider the picture became. Zack blinked as the darkness swallowed him. But in those last few moments of lucidity, he saw a tuxedoed man stop near the iron-railed staircase, wrap an arm around his waist, and bow.

  Chapter 2

  Allison pushed through the dance floor and rushed into another room where half-dressed people sat at a bar
. More bodies wrapped around each other on settees lining the perimeter, and she held her breath until making it into a hallway with a double staircase.

  She paused to inhale fresher air. Once she felt less shaky, she hurried up two flights of stairs. On the third floor, she pressed her hand against the carved wooden door that marked the end of the sexy nightclub and the beginning of the real club—the real club where she might find some real answers about Stuart’s death.

  After more deep breaths, she entered. The parlor was lit by candles, and despite the windows being boarded up on the outside, velvet curtains covered the glass. Men and women in evening clothes sat on sofas drinking green cocktails out of crystal glasses. Two men with masks guarded the entrance into the next room.

  “Allison?” A woman with long black hair pulled into a high ponytail and wearing a red one-shouldered silk gown appeared. The woman, older than Allison, walked with such grace her dress moved and shimmered like it’d been melted and poured on her perfect body.

  Allison clutched her handbag against her stomach and gritted her teeth. What was Isabel Rutledge doing here?

  Diamond earrings sparkled in Isabel’s ears and a gold chain around her neck disappeared in her neckline. After kissing Allison on both cheeks, Isabel said in her refined Savannah drawl, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  Allison didn’t want to be rude, but she had more important things to do than talk to Isabel. Especially since Isabel was the kind of person who, because of her beauty and confidence, made every other woman in the room feel less than.

  Allison checked out the room again, but no one looked like he was the leader of a 350-year-old antiquarian club. “I’m here to see Hezekiah Usher.”

  Isabel took Allison’s elbow and led her toward the armed guards. “Are you sure you want to do this? Hezekiah has strange…yearnings.”

  Great. Something else to worry about. “What are you doing here?”

  Isabel’s smile exposed sparkling white, perfectly aligned teeth. “My family is a longtime member of the Usher Society.”

  Of course it was. As a Rutledge, Isabel was a member of one of the oldest families in the South. Almost as old as the Pinckney and Fenwick families.

  Almost as old as the Chastain family.

  Isabel motioned to the guards. “Mrs. Allison Chastain Fenwick Pinckney has an appointment.”

  Allison hated that long name. Yet in this secret world, on the knife’s edge of polite society, your names—your people—carried more weight than your reputation and wealth.

  The door opened and Allison entered the beautifully appointed room. Despite the mansion’s outward decay, this office gleamed with oiled mahogany, polished brass, and low-lit bankers’ lamps. Her heels sank into the thick rug as she moved closer to the plumpish bald man sitting behind a desk large enough to land a 747. Again, velvet curtains separated the boarded-up outside from the inside.

  The man stood and held out his hand. “Mrs. Pinckney? I’m Hezekiah Usher.”

  They shook hands over the desk covered with stacks of papers and books and maps. Once he released her hand from his sweaty grasp, she sat in the leather chair across from him.

  “Isabel.” Hezekiah motioned to the other woman. “Would you leave us?”

  Isabel retreated, but Allison, who could read bitch as well as the next woman, recognized the anger in Isabel’s eyes.

  Hezekiah wore a gray suit made of shiny cotton that matched the sweat beading on his head. “Mrs. Pinckney, I want to extend my condolences on the death of your husband.”

  The desk lamps blinked, then dimmed.

  When the lights returned to full power, she said, “Thank you.”

  “I have to admit I was surprised to receive a call from you on my private cell phone.”

  “Not as surprised as I was when your business card—with your private cell phone number—was found in Stuart’s coat pocket. The one he was wearing when he was killed.”

  Hezekiah leaned his elbows on his desk, tented his fingers, and stared at the map. From her vantage point, it appeared to be a map of the French Quarter in New Orleans. “How…interesting.”

  “Mr. Usher.” Allison sat forward and tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. “Stuart had written the words Witch’s Examination on the back of that business card. When I contacted my colleague at the University of Virginia, she mentioned you recently acquired an early eighteenth-century—1703, to be exact—witch’s examination.”

  Hezekiah’s eyes darkened. “Before I answer any questions, I have to ask: How do you know about the Usher Society?”

  “I’m a professor of anthropology at the College of Charleston. Every anthropology and history PhD student in this country knows about you—even if they have no idea how to find you.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  Was he daring her? If so, she had nothing to lose by continuing.

  “The Usher Society was founded in Boston in 1647 by your ancestor, who you’re named after.” She exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “He owned the first bookstore that sold the first books ever published in the thirteen colonies. Since 1647, the Usher Society has been the world’s leading archivist of antique manuscripts. The Usher Society studies and catalogs documents for their members’ private collections and sells other documents for select clients. Unfortunately, since selling black market antiquities is frowned upon, you must keep your side business quiet. Hence the sex club that fronts your establishment.”

  Hezekiah’s lips looked like two floorboards pressed together. “You’re not what you seem, Mrs. Pinckney.”

  She batted her eyelashes in a lame attempt to ease the tension. “I’m just a cultural anthropologist who’d like to know why your business card was in my dead husband’s pocket.”

  Hezekiah played with the edges of the map. “Stuart was a member of the Usher Society. He was on my board of directors.”

  “Wait.” She leaned back in her chair. That’s not at all the answer she’d expected. “What?”

  “Stuart became a member years ago.”

  “I, uh, had no idea.” She cleared her throat delicately. “Doesn’t joining the Usher Society cost money?” As in a lot of money?

  “It does.”

  “Did Stuart come…” Allison waved her hand to the anteroom where the well-dressed and well-connected drank absinthe and cuddled on velvet sofas. “I mean—”

  “He came often. The men and women of the Usher Society were his people.”

  Her arms felt numb and tingly. Stuart had hung out here and she’d never even known?

  “What did Stuart do here?” She shook her head to erase the images of the sex club downstairs. “I mean…why?”

  “Why was Stuart a member?” Hezekiah picked up a pen and played with the clicker. “Only Stuart can answer that question. I can tell you that he was well liked by the other members of the Usher Society and was not a member of the Satyr Club. He disapproved of the things going on below us.”

  She exhaled her relief. “Did Stuart buy and sell manuscripts?” Because, seriously, she handled the household budget. If he was involved in something like this, she would’ve known about it.

  “Not at first.” Hezekiah tossed the pen aside and grabbed a stress ball. His restlessness made her fidget in her seat. “It was only recently that Stuart found a document for which I’d been searching most of my career. When I sold it for him, he requested I use the proceeds to buy another on his behalf.” Hezekiah handed her a cardboard tube eight inches long and an inch in diameter. “This is a rare document known as the Pirate’s Grille.”

  She opened the tube’s plastic end and slid out a page encased in archival plastic. When she unrolled it, she found a paper with random rectangular cutouts. Someone had also drawn two calligraphy swirls that divided the cutout rectangles into three parts. “Where did you get this?”

&nb
sp; “Have you heard of an eighteenth-century pirate known as Thomas Toban?”

  She laid the document on the desk and reached for a nearby magnifying glass to study the rectangular cutouts of various sizes. “No.”

  “Very few have. Unlike most of the buccaneers during the golden age of piracy, Thomas Toban went after other pirates instead of unsuspecting traders.”

  “Really?” She moved the magnifier and noticed a sketch of a broken daisy in a lower corner. “That’s unusual for a pirate to go after other pirates.”

  Hezekiah, still holding his stress ball, pointed to a painting on the side wall. It showed two eighteenth-century wooden ships in combat, both flying pirate flags. “Thomas had a vendetta against the Prideaux pirate family because they murdered the woman he loved.”

  She’d recently read about the Prideaux pirates in a peer-reviewed history journal. She got up to study the oil painting, encased in a thick, gilded frame, that was at least three feet wide and two feet tall. “You mean those pirates from Savannah who used to blackmail their victims with poison derived from a rare lily?”

  Hezekiah came over to stand next to her. “Yes.”

  “Didn’t the Prideaux pirates also accuse their sister of being a witch and burn her alive in 1699?”

  “Yes. But accusing her had been a ruse to commit murder.”

  Allison had read that as well.

  “When their sister attempted to run away with Thomas, they murdered her for her betrayal. This painting represents one of many brutal battles off the coast of Savannah between Thomas’s ship, the Rebecca”—Hezekiah pointed to the black pirate flag decorated with a red heart pierced by a white sword and the words Noli Oblivisci below—“and the Prideaux pirates.”

  Allison stood on her toes to get a better look at both flags. The other pirate flag, also black, had a white skeletal fist gripping a cutlass. Red blood dripped down the blade to form the words Sans Pitié. “‘Never Forget’ versus ‘Without Pity.’ I bet that was an intense battle.”

  “Indeed.” Hezekiah took her arm and led her back to her chair. “Thomas spent his career destroying the lives of the Prideaux pirates, but they weren’t the only men on his revenge list.” Hezekiah moved to the other side of the desk again and pointed to the Pirate’s Grille. “Thomas believed the Prince, the leader of a secret army of assassins known as the Fianna, was complicit in the death of Thomas’s lover. That document belonged to the Prince until 1710.”