Halfway there, she paused.
Her heart seemed to rise to her throat and catch there.
Blue! She could see him. He was standing right by the winding iron stairs. He beckoned to her and went down them.
She might have been a kid again, frozen there. For long moments, she wasn’t sure she was even breathing.
He only comes when he’s needed, Gus had told her.
Abby came to life. She sprinted across the room and to the stairs.
A chain stretched across the iron railing of the landing here; it was in place as it should have been.
Abby slid underneath it and quickly followed the winding steps to the main floor.
A few diners lingered, but she’d been quiet and hadn’t been noticed. The grating was in place. She knelt down—and saw that the lock was open.
Heedless of anyone who might see her, Abby lifted the grating. It was dark below. There were lights, but Gus kept them off except for the ones directly by the grate. She hurried down the stairs, calling his name. “Gus!”
She reached the bottom and the dank tunnel that led out to the river.
“Gus!”
Someone seemed to be ahead of her. A shadow moving almost as one with the darkness.
She followed.
And then, ten feet along the tunnel, she found him.
Gus.
She fell to her knees at his side. “Gus, Gus, Gus!”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t feel her touch when she felt for a pulse, for any sign that he was breathing.
He was so cold!
Yes, cold, she realized, horrified and heartbroken.
Stone-cold dead.
2
Augustus Anderson was laid to rest a week after his death at the city’s incredibly beautiful Bonaventure Cemetery.
Abby’s family had a plot there, a group of tombstones that ran the gamut from the mid-1800s, when the cemetery was founded, to the last burial before this one, when her father had passed away. A lovely low fence surrounded the small plot. The number of people who’d come to the church ceremony and now to the cemetery to honor Gus was almost overwhelming. The crowd didn’t fit into the actual plot area and many waited on the other side of the fence, listening to Father McFey as he spoke his final words over the coffin and Gus was left to rest in peace.
Abby barely heard the service. Despite the fact that he’d been gone a week, she was in no less a state of mental turmoil. Friends had sympathetically reminded her of his age and that he’d died quickly and hadn’t suffered a long and debilitating illness, which would have mortified him. She didn’t need to be told. She knew she was blessed that she’d had him for so many years—and that he’d been lucky to have led such a robust and healthy life.
All of that was true.
But it wasn’t right. What had happened wasn’t right.
Gus, she was certain, had been murdered.
Making the suggestion to the police had merely brought her more sympathy.
Gus had been as old as the hills. She’d recognized the looks that the officers who were called to the scene had given her.
Poor girl’s lost her only living relative. She just came out of the academy at Quantico, and she can’t accept an old—old!—man dying, so she had to turn it into a mystery.
An autopsy had revealed that he’d died because his heart had given out.
She believed that. But his heart had given out for a reason.
Gus had expected her; he’d been anxious to see her. Gus never got up and suddenly decided he needed to go down into the old pirate tunnels—he hadn’t been down there for years. To ensure that the tunnel remained safe and supported the structures above, he sent workers down every few months. He maintained the tunnel because of its historic value. It wasn’t a place he went for exercise or to commune with his ancestors or anything of the kind.
She’d tried to be logical. Gus had been very old. She’d heard of a number of cases like his, cases in which someone had led a long and healthy life, and just dropped dead. Young runners occasionally dropped dead, for God’s sake.
She couldn’t forget how and when it had happened. Couldn’t forget what he’d said.
Come home. I need you.
She wished now that she’d insisted he talk to her over the phone, that she’d demanded he provide some sort of explanation.
But she hadn’t.
And still his words haunted her. If she didn’t discover why he’d said those words to her, they’d haunt her for the rest of her life.
She suddenly realized that everyone was silent, that Father McFey was looking at her. He’d finished with the ceremony, and everyone was waiting for her.
She held the folded American flag that had draped his coffin, since he’d seen military service in two wars, and a single rose. She was supposed to drop the rose on the coffin, allow others to do the same thing and officially end the burial of a man who had become an icon.
It seemed that half of Savannah had come out for the occasion. They needed to get back to their lives.
She needed to figure out how to organize hers.
She walked over to the coffin, which still sat above the ground; they wouldn’t lower it into the earth until she and the rest of the mourners were gone.
The soprano from Gus’s church was singing “Amazing Grace” as they finished and Abby was aware that Macy—and several other people—were sniffing and trying to hold back sobs.
Abby didn’t cry; she’d cried herself out over the past week. She stood and touched the coffin and spoke to him within her own mind.
Thank you, Gus. Love you, Gus. Thank you for loving me the way you did. You will always be a part of me, with me. I will never forget you....
She set her rose on the coffin and stepped back, gazing into the crowd. As she’d expected, Blue Anderson was there, across from the coffin, a little to the left, behind Gus’s old cronies—Bootsie, Dirk and Aldous. The men had dressed in their best suits for the occasion. But even in their tailored and proper attire, they looked like pirates. Bootsie had his peg leg, of course, and Aldous was still bald, still wore his earring.
Maybe the pirate resemblance came from the fact that Blue Anderson, in his splendid frock coat and sweeping pirate hat, stood behind them.
She stared gravely at Blue. He nodded to her, a gesture of consolation that somehow seemed reassuring.
Father McFey took her arm and led her from the burial site. A uniformed chauffeur waited to open the door to the black limo that would take her back to the Dragonslayer. Those who could join them would be there for a repast in honor of Gus.
It was what he’d wanted; he had let his wishes be known in his will. He’d wanted to lie next to his wife and his son, Abby’s father, and he’d wanted “Amazing Grace” and Father McFey. He’d left explicit instructions. And then bring our friends back to the Dragonslayer. Please laugh with them and remember the wonderful events in my life. Celebrate for me, for I was blessed, and life comes to an end for us all.
She turned before getting into the car. A very tall man she didn’t know leaned against another car, a silver SUV. He hadn’t come to the grave site, she thought. But he’d been watching—he’d watched the burial rites, just as he watched her now.
He was interesting-looking, certainly. He appeared to be six-three or -four. He was appropriately dressed for a funeral in a dark suede jacket, white shirt and a dark vest. Black hair was neatly clipped, with one swatch that sat slightly low over his forehead. She couldn’t see his eyes because he was wearing sunglasses but she knew he was watching her.
An old friend of Gus’s? Or a new one? Definitely someone she hadn’t met.
But he hadn’t really taken part in the service. He’d stood at a distance, as if he had needed to watch—and still meant to be respectful. Odd, to say the least.