“Land ho!” Captain Jack announced again as the Lucky Lady stood upright to crest the next wave. She smacked back down into the water again with a splash, blotting out the far more serious crash of waves ahead of them. The roar of the sea began to overpower the thunder of the storm.
“Captain Jack?” Mitch shouted. “Was that?”
“That’s right, Sonny,” Captain Jack’s gleeful voice had no problem cutting through the storm. “Those waves are hitting the reefs. Your girl’s island will be right behind them. Now you’ll learn why I call her the Lucky Lady.”
Before Mitch could move or answer, the tortured sound of rending wood split the air.
Captain Jack kept right on laughing.
****
The Lucky Lady did reach shore, but much like P’druza’s vessel before it, it wouldn’t find another one until the gash was removed from its hull. To know just how much work it would need, the passengers and Captain Jack would have to wait until the storm broke. Until then, they were in dire need of shelter.
“Are you sure this is Lazarus Key?” Mitch asked. All he could see were trees bent over by the wind and waves pounding the shoreline—nothing that could be recognized as a landmark.
“Sure I’m sure,” Captain Jack insisted. “I said so, didn’t I?”
“How do you know?” Mitch asked again.
“Ain’t no other place it could be,” Captain Jack insisted. “Besides, where else would you see all those crosses but Lazarus Key?”
“Crosses?”
“Sure, hundreds of them all around. Ain’t another place in the world like Lazarus Key.”
Mitch squinted into the storm again. He was astonished to discover that Captain Jack was correct. Crosses dotted the landscape in all directions as the land climbed away from the lagoon. A few were made of stone, but most were wood, and the majority of those in a bad state of decay. “What? Why?”
“Sort of takes your breath away, don’t it?” Captain Jack agreed. “Course it shouldn’t come as no surprise now, should it? I mean, what else do they do out here but bury people? Those Indians, the slaves, all those sick bodies, and the lepers—I’d say those hungry spirits like to be fed.”
The old man climbed up onto his beached boat, laughing to himself. “In the morning,” he told Mitch, “when the storm breaks, I’ll be able to tell you how long it will take me to fix the Lady again. You’ll have just that long to figure out how much it’s worth to you to leave Lazarus Key and go home again.”
****
The four passengers struggled up the trail toward the Sinclair mansion. Captain Jack had refused to leave the Lucky Lady, and the longer they walked past row after row of grave markers, the wiser the old man had seemed to be. Large or small, ornate or crude, fresh or rotten, crosses appeared to be the one uniform feature of the island. The wind howled ferociously, the rain pounded mercilessly, and the crosses continued to grow and dwindle as the group passed by them in the darkness.
Kit was carrying a small bundle of things he had borrowed from Captain Jack since he and Mitch had not had the chance to bring any of their own belongings. Mitch struggled along with Miss Tharpe’s large suitcase while Charlie huffed and puffed with his own luggage.
The mansion—and it was a mansion—was shuttered tightly against the storm. Mitch put down Tharpe’s suitcase and manhandled the brass knocker while Kit carefully surveyed their surroundings.
Sounds of life followed, and Mitch was suddenly uncharacteristically aware of his appearance—a more than two-day growth of beard combined with rumpled, dirty, soaking clothes. He didn’t even want to consider how foul he and Kit must smell. It was hardly the way he had imagined arriving at the home of the woman he loved. Neither was there anything he could do to fix it before the door swung open and exposed the four castaways to the lantern light inside.
A well-dressed colored servant appraised the group. Faced with reality and not his imagination, Mitch instantly recovered his poise. He might as well have been dressed in a hundred dollar suit in his father’s house in Pennsylvania as be shipwrecked and rain-soaked on Lazarus Key. He addressed the servant with confident assurance. “Would you inform Miss Sinclair that Mitchell Pembroke and his friends have come to call upon her?”
The servant pulled the door open wider to give them room to enter. If he was surprised by their appearance, he gave no indication. He spoke with a pleasant Caribbean patois. “I’ll tell Miss Sinclair that you’re here.”
As the servant left the room, Kit moved closer to his employer. “Did you notice anything unusual about him, Mr. Pembroke?”
“You saw it, too?” Charlie asked.
“Saw what?” Miss Tharpe wondered, saving Mitch from having to show his own ignorance.
“One hand,” Charlie answered. “That servant had only one hand.”
“Just like in the stories,” Kit affirmed.
“How terrible!” Miss Tharpe exclaimed.
“Do you suppose it was an accident?” Mitch wondered. Much as he didn’t want it to be, Lorali’s house and Lazarus Key grew more depressing and disturbing the more he learned about them.
“Let’s just say I brought my .38 for good reason,” Charlie answered.
Mitch was skeptical as to the current usefulness of a gun. He was taking no comfort from the one shot derringer in his own pocket. Modified to take a single .45 cartridge, he had plenty of reason to doubt its utility after his dousing in the storm. His hunting rifles and target pistols were back in Miami at the Fontainebleau.
****
“Mitch?”
Lorali swept into the room, her long dark tresses flowing behind her lithe frame as she hurried to throw her arms around Mitch’s neck. Her bold kiss was all excitement and pleasure without a hint at the problems or concern that had caused her to run away from Miami. For his part, Mitch caught Lorali up and hugged her, absolutely convinced in that moment that following Lorali here was what she had wanted him to do. All gloom and suspicion fled from his head. He put her down only when she began to squirm against his wet chest.
“What are you doing here?” Lorali asked him, her voice half-swallowed in a delighted giggle. “How on earth did you find me? And for God’s sake, I know it’s raining, but how did you get so wet?”
“The water came with the shipwreck,” Mitch teased. “And what else was I supposed to do? You left without saying goodbye.”
“I left you a note,” Lorali protested.
“Ten words,” Mitch reminded her.
“A-hem!” Miss Tharpe cleared her throat. “I really don’t want to interrupt your reunion,” she insisted as she went on to do just that, “but it has been a very tiring journey and we will all get deathly ill if we don’t get out of these wet things.”
“How rude of me,” Lorali apologized, even as she realized she didn’t know who two of the people with Mitch were.
“This is Miss Agnes Tharpe,” Mitch assisted her. “She was invited here by your brother to explore the history of the island.”
“Of course, Miss Tharpe,” Lorali responded. “I didn’t realize you would be coming so soon. Derek will be so pleased.”
“I wrote you a letter,” Miss Tharpe protested.
“I’m sure that you did,” Lorali soothed her. “But our postal service depends on Miguel taking the yacht into the keys and sometimes things get lost. Derek will be so excited you’re here. He’s been so eager to meet you.”
Having reassured Miss Tharpe, Lorali turned toward the private investigator.
“Charlie Diamond,” he introduced himself, clearly taken aback by Lorali’s grace and beauty. Hearing she was pretty was one thing. Seeing her in the flesh was something else entirely. Her lightly tanned body was soft and lithe, and long ebony tresses framed the most intriguing eyes that he had ever seen. Almost golden, the eyes were as rich as her angelic voice.
“Charlie was a passenger on our boat,” Mitch informed Lorali, suddenly embarrassed by Charlie’s mission and wanting to delay the awkward moment wh
en Lorali learned he was looking for her old boyfriend.
“Nice to see you again, Miss Sinclair,” Kit greeted her.
“And you, Kit,” Lorali agreed, “although I can scarcely believe you let Mitch traipse all the way out here.” She entwined her arm around Mitch’s. “Although I’m delighted that you did, darling.”
“Mr. Pembroke gives the orders, Miss Sinclair,” Kit reminded her, far less comfortable than his employer with their surroundings. “I’m just around to make sure they get obeyed.”
He hoped anyone listening understood what he was saying.
****
“Mr. Pembroke, I don’t like any of this,” Kit announced for the umpteenth time in the past hour.
The two men were speaking in Mitch’s room on the second floor of the Sinclair house. Kit had been given the room across the hall, but had abandoned it to talk with Mitch while they waited their turn for a bath and shave. Miss Tharpe was more than taking her time in the bathroom and the Sinclairs seemed short on servants to help prepare the water.
Mitch’s room, like the rest of the house, readily revealed the less favorable signs of age. The curtains and bedspread were threadbare and faded. The paneling on the walls was warped and cracked. The floor groaned interminably whenever either man shifted his weight. All in all, Mitch would say that the Sinclairs were putting up the brave front that many wealthy families attempted when confronted with the limit of their means. It would be good to take Lorali out of this place.
“Mr. Pembroke,” Kit said again, wishing that Mitch would at least argue with him. Both men were half-dressed and draped with blankets.
“I’m in love with her, Kit,” Mitch acknowledged. Hardly a startling observation, and certainly not an answer to Kit’s concerns.
Sighing, the ex-boxer stopped cleaning his Colt .45 and put aside the gun oil he had discovered in the sea locker where he had protected his firearm from the elements. Kit didn’t like guns, but he had decided early on that if he were to take his responsibilities as Mitch’s bodyguard seriously, he would have to be prepared for anything. Mitch had laughed when he had seen Kit’s first choice of weapon and had bought him the Colt the following Christmas. “If you’re going to carry a gun,” Mitch had advised him, “you might as well make sure it’s one that can do the job.”
“I know you love her…Mitch, but you have to keep your wits about you. It’s like going into the ring against a friend. You don’t want to hurt him but you have to protect yourself.”
Mitch smiled. “I think that’s the first time you’ve called me by my name.”
“I never thought your father would approve,” Kit confided.
That was probably true. Mitchell Pembroke II liked his employees to keep a respectful distance from the family. “Well, I approve,” Mitch told him. “If my father complains, tell him you earned the right at Lazarus Key.”
“Mr. Pembroke?”
“At least you seem to think you will. What is it you’re worried is going to happen?”
“I don’t know…Mitch, but this isn’t a good place.”
“What are you afraid of?” Mitch asked again. “Those who hunger? All of those graves?”
“I’m not afraid,” Kit insisted, “just worried. What happened to Eddie Mason and to Joseph’s hand? I’m worried that no one knows we’re here and our boat might not be able to take us home again. And I’m especially concerned that you sat there and watched me clean my gun for twenty minutes without working on your own derringer. It used to be that you wouldn’t let dew get on a gun without thoroughly cleaning it when you got the chance.”
Mitch took the derringer out of his pocket and looked at it. “I was worried about what Lorali would think if she found me cleaning it.”
Kit tossed him an oily rag while Mitch ejected the wet cartridge.
“Lorali isn’t going to hurt me,” he insisted.
“How can you be so sure?” Kit asked him. “It seems to me that she already has.”
****
Mitch and Kit came down to the main floor at dinner time still tired after the boat trip but anxious to mingle with people again. Miss Tharpe sat by herself in an overstuffed chair making notes in her journal. Charlie Diamond was busy refilling his glass from a bottle of rum on the bar. Neither Lorali, her brother, nor the one-handed servant was present.
Charlie took a large swallow, then topped off his glass again. His eyes darted up nervously as the two men entered the room, but relaxed when he saw that it was only Mitch and Kit. He stumbled across the room and planted himself in front of them. “Am I glad to see you guys. I haven’t been feeling too welcome while I was waiting for you to come down.”
Mitch stepped around Charlie and poured himself a drink. “May I get you something, Kit?” He raised his voice. “Miss Tharpe?”
“Not right now, Mr. Pembroke,” Kit answered.
Miss Tharpe looked up from her journal and smiled patiently. “I believe that if you look at your map, Mr. Pembroke, you’ll discover that since the end of the Spanish American War, Lazarus Key has been United States’ territory. It is therefore governed by the prohibition against the consumption of alcoholic beverages.”
Charlie scowled, but Mitch lifted his glass. “Here’s to Prohibition.”
Before Mitch could actually drink, Charlie started complaining again. “They just aren’t friendly. I mean, I’ve been shipwrecked, for Christ’s sake. Why aren’t they making me feel welcome?”
“I can’t imagine why,” Mitch responded without any trace of sincerity. “Did you tell them why you’ve come? That should have them gushing with warmth and affection.”
Charlie gulped his drink.
Kit called for Mitch’s attention. “Mr. Pembroke.”
Mitch turned to find the room had grown more crowded. A short and muscular Hispanic man had quietly wheeled a golden-eyed invalid into the room. The invalid’s features were slightly darker than Lorali’s and the curl in his hair suggested African ancestry, which Mitch immediately realized Lorali must share as well. Not that it mattered to him, but his father would throw a fit when he found out. Not that he wasn’t already going to be angry that Mitch wanted to marry a woman whose family wealth was in obvious decline—just one more obstacle to a lifetime of happiness with Lorali.
Mitch smoothly offered the invalid his hand, hoping he hadn’t overheard his conversation with Charlie. “You must be Lorali’s brother. I’m glad to finally get the chance to meet you.”
The man’s grip was surprisingly firm. “I, as well, Mr. Pembroke. Lorali has hardly stopped talking about you since she came home. My name is Derek Sinclair.”
“Please call me Mitch, and let me introduce my friend, Kit Moran. We’re sorry to drop in on you unannounced like this, but you’re a little hard to get in touch with in advance.”
Derek didn’t offer his hand to Kit. “I’m just pleased you made it safely through the reefs,” he assured Mitch. “So few people do these days. We have far too few visitors.” He was a handsome man—even if his legs beneath the blanket which covered them refused to set just right.
Miss Tharpe cleared her throat a moment before Mitch could introduce her. Derek hastened to correct the oversight. “Miss Tharpe,” he apologized, “I hope you’ll forgive me for not coming to meet you when you arrived, but I was sorting through the family papers and I thought it best to let you recover a bit from your journey.”
“Of course I understand,” Miss Tharpe assured him. “I’ve just been sitting here admiring this wonderful old house. Does it date back to Robert Sinclair?”
“Yes, Grandfather Robert built this for his wife when he started the sugar plantation. One of his many legacies. My father and grandfather tried to turn it into a leprosarium, but that was never a successful venture.” He gestured toward his legs beneath their blanket. “With my infirmity, I didn’t feel I had the strength to carry on the operation, and from what I understand there’s very little need anymore. Leprosy is no longer as common as it was during the ninete
enth century, although it still surfaces occasionally.”
“Is that what’s wrong with your legs?” Charlie intruded.
Derek eyed the fat man from top to bottom, taking in the cheap suit and the empty glass of rum. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
Charlie wiped his hand on his jacket and stuck it out toward Derek. “Charlie Diamond.”
Derek looked at the hand but did not take it. Charlie awkwardly pulled it away. His eyes danced around the room looking for help and settled uncomfortably on the Hispanic man.
“To answer your question, Mr. Diamond, yes, I have leprosy. It is yet another legacy I’ve inherited from my ancestors. Lorali has been more blessed.”
As if on cue, Lorali stepped into the room radiating charm and grace. Every eye turned to see her, and the men were in no hurry to look away. Mitch offered Lorali his arm and led her back to the others.
“Kit,” she apologized, “I’m afraid that suit of Daddy’s just doesn’t do you justice.” She went on, explaining to her brother, “Kit was the best-dressed man in Miami. I think he’s the real secret of Mitch’s success with the ladies.”
“A man of many talents,” Mitch agreed.
“I’m grateful for the clothes just the same,” Kit thanked Lorali. “I prefer to wear a shirt when I’m not in the ring.”
“Our loss I’m sure,” Lorali answered, drawing a frown from Miss Tharpe and Derek and an embarrassed retreat into silence from Kit.
“I’m sure our guests are hungry,” Derek announced. “And I need to be careful not to over exert myself. Miss Tharpe, I look forward to spending more time with you in the morning.”
“You’re not going to stay for dinner?” Miss Tharpe asked, clearly disappointed.
“I’ll eat something later,” Derek assured her. “If you’ll excuse me? Miguel, take me to my room.”
Obediently, the Hispanic wheeled the chair into the hall, leaving Charlie looking nervously after him.
****
“I think I recognize Miguel,” Charlie told Kit.
Dinner had ended, Miss Tharpe had retired, and Lorali was singing while Mitch tried to accompany her on the piano. He was remarkably good, but with the piano thirty years out of tune, there wasn’t much that he could do. Fortunately the storm dampened most of the off-key noise, leaving Lorali’s voice to float across the room.