Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (4 page)

“O’Faoilin,”
Rowan said, shaking hands with the man. He nodded to Beverly. “Ma’am,” he said.
There were so many landmines during this time about how to address people. The
fact they were Irish and clearly not upper crust was a relief to Rowan. Even if
he got it wrong, they weren’t likely to take offense.

“Pierce, have a
seat. Join us.”

“I’m obliged,”
Rowan said, sitting. A dining steward appeared with a clean wine glass and put
it at Rowan’s place setting. “Your sons not eating?”

“My…” O’Faoilin
frowned, then his face broke into a smirk. “Oy, they’re me
boys
,” he said, laughing, “not me sons.”

“Okay,” Rowan
said, looking at Beverly and inviting clarification.

“They are my
husband’s employees,” she said softly. “Not our children.”

“Oh, okay. Have
you ordered?”

“So have you,
mate,” O’Faoilin said. “There’s only the one dish tonight. Cod with spuds.”

Only probably not described that way on the menu
, Rowan thought with a wry grin.

“So, going to
give a speech at the British Museum,” O’Faoilin said. “Verra impressive. And
you with no family to soak up the honor?”

“Just me, I’m
afraid.” Rowan wasn’t sure whether O’Faoilin was asking if he had family or
just none to accompany him. It didn’t matter. This guy would be decent company
for one night, and after that Rowan intended to mingle or spend the bulk of the
two-week trip going over his speech and making notes for the book.

“What is your
speech about, Professor Pierce?” Beverly asked.

Rowan noticed she
slurred the slightest bit when she spoke. Not for the first time he wondered
how a fat Irish bumpkin like O’Faoilin could be married to a woman who
obviously came from a refined background.

“I already told
ya what it was about,” O’Faoilin said to her tersely.

Rowan looked at
him in surprise. The jolly affect seemed to have vanished in the time it took
an axe to fall.

“I’m just making
small talk, Tommy,” Beverly said, her voice now just above a whisper.

“I’m happy to
talk about it,” Rowan said, glancing between the two and hoping to soften what
felt like a tense moment.

“Ya shouldn’t
need to talk about it if the stupid bitch would mind how much she drinks.
And
how she speaks to me.”

At first, Rowan
wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. The sight of Beverly shriveling up into
herself made no mistake though of what O’Faoilin had said.

“Whoa, steady on,
pal,” Rowan said. “There’s no cause for that kind of language.”

“I’m not yer
bleeding
pal
, Yank, and I’ll use any
kind of language I like to me own wife.”

As soon as he
said the words, Rowan saw the dark bruises on Beverly’s arm and he couldn’t
believe he hadn’t seen them from across the room. Was he just so starstruck
with the whole ship-from-the-past thing that he’d gone
blind
?

He tried to catch
Beverly’s eye but she was staring steadfastly at the tablecloth now.

“Mrs. O’Faoilin
…Beverly…you don’t have to put up with this. I would be happy to give you my
cabin for the duration of the trip—”

“Are you out of
your fecking mind?” O’Faoilin stood and threw his napkin down. Out of the
corner of his eye, Rowan saw the man’s bodyguards advancing on the table.
Beverly scooted her chair back as if to leave and O’Faoilin leaned over and
gripped her arm. “Make one more move and I’ll break it again,” he hissed.

Rowan was on his
feet at the same time he felt the biggest of the three men lay hands on him. At
six-foot-four he wasn’t small, and he shrugged off the man’s grip easily.

“I’ll be needing
you to escort our new friend here back to his cabin, boys. Seems he’s had a bit
too much to drink and is offending the Missus with his insinuations.”

Rowan watched
O’Faoilin turn to the nearby table of diners and pour on the charm. “And don’t
we all know how forward the Americans can be!”

Rowan watched the
diners smile tolerantly and turn back to their dinners.

“I’ll have the captain
pay you a visit, O’Faoilin,” Rowan said. “Men like you ought to be
horse-whipped.”

O’Faoilin
reseated himself. “Be that as it may, Yank, the Missus and I would now like to
finish our meal in peace.” Rowan watched the man tear a piece of bread in half
and reach for his wine glass as if there was no more to be said on the matter.
His wife continued to stare at the tablecloth, her hands in her lap.

Rowan felt a
surge of anger flood through him. Could he help her if she refused it?

He debated going
to a table of his own, but he didn’t think he could sit in the dining room and
eat a meal knowing the poor woman was cowering just a few feet away, terrified
and anticipating more abuse once they went back to their room. Besides, it was
pretty clear the Three Stooges here were up for knocking a few tables over
should he decline the invitation to exit with them.

“This isn’t
finished, O’Faoilin,” he said, turning on his heel and marching to the door,
the three men close behind him.

The dining area
took up most of the Lido Deck, which featured a slim walkway that circled the
entire level. It was hugged by a waist-high railing that was the only barrier
to the choppy Mediterranean Sea below.

Once outside,
Rowan snarled at his escort. “Back off.” He turned to walk back toward the
bulwark and the level where his cabin was, but as soon as he did he felt one of
the men grab him from behind and whip him around as if he weighed half what he
did.

“No chance,” a
second man said in a heavily accented voice, pushing his face close to Rowan’s.
He looked Slavic or Russian, with a broad forehead and small dark eyes that
darted wildly about.

Rowan struggled
to free himself, but the man holding him was quickly aided by the Slav and the
third man who together dragged Rowan backward into the dark recesses of an
overhanging steam funnel.

He jerked his arm
from the grip of the man behind him and slammed his fist into the Slav’s leering
face. The man’s head snapped back and he staggered backward into the funnel,
cracking his head on it when he did. Rowan twisted around and slammed his head
into the chin of one of the men attempting to hold him. Blood exploded from the
man’s mouth and he went down hard. Grunting loudly, the third man, his eyes glittering
in the darkness, launched himself at Rowan, knocking him onto his back. The two
slid across the deck, Rowan on the bottom fighting to get his arms up to jam
his fingers into the man’s eyes or nostrils.

“Outta the way,
ya bugger!” someone yelled from behind his assailant. When the man scrambled to
his feet, Rowan twisted away, narrowly escaping the knife that thumped into the
wooden deck.

Before he could
get to his feet he felt hands on his jacket pulling him back. He slipped free
of the coat but a hammer-grip of hands clutched at his arms and neck and forced
him backward. The man he’d head-butted had one arm around Rowan’s neck and one
around his waist. He spun Rowan to face the Slav, who Rowan saw was pulling on
a set of brass knuckles. Straining to cover his unprotected abdomen, Rowan’s shift
forced the first punch into his hip instead of his stomach or face.

The second, third
and fourth punches, however, were painfully on target and happened in such
quick succession it was hard to believe he wasn’t being pummeled by more than
one man. The pain emanated up from his diaphragm and down both arms and legs.
In a fog of pain and panic, Rowan registered that his ribs were cracked just
before the man holding him from behind grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked
his head back, exposing his windpipe.

“Use your knife,”
he heard the Slav say. “Be quick about it! Someone’s coming!”

The next thing Rowan
felt was the stinging shock of a single strip of fiery agony scream its way
across his throat before the blessed blackness of the night enveloped him
completely.

3

Cairo
1925

Years later, Ella
would remember the day they came and that she’d somehow known what was coming
long before they even spoke. Hours before she came to the door and saw the US Ambassador’s
messenger standing on her doorstep, dread and doom riffling off him in redolent,
almost visible waves, she had somehow known he would come—and knew what
he would say.

Lost at sea
.

It hadn’t been four
full days since she’d seen his train off before she was looking at the same
valise and overcoat she’d last seen in Rowan’s possession on the platform.

Could he be any place comfortable without his overcoat?

She marveled in
stunned grief at how it takes two weeks to sail from Port Said to London, but
she could have a useless suitcase and a coat flown to her in less than two
days. It seemed that the ship made an unscheduled port in light of Rowan’s
disappearance.

She sat in the
salon of the townhouse, Halima to one side of her, her hand firmly clasped in Ella’s.
Tater, for once, was mercifully napping. The Ambassador’s emissary looked as
miserable as Halima and Ella felt. A young man from Indiana, he was clearly low
man on the totem pole to be delegated to the delivery of bad news, Ella thought.
She imagined he must be pretty committed to a life of public service—or
perhaps just the desire for what some would consider the most exotic and
desirable government posting in the world.

“How?” Of course
she didn’t believe it. Not for one minute. But as soon as she heard the facts,
she’d be able to point out to everyone else how they’d made the error.

The news of my death has been grossly exaggerated.

“I…he just
disappeared. Not accounted for. They’ve looked everywhere and he never retuned
to his cabin.”

“When?”

“The first night
at sea. That is to say, he never spent the first night there.”

“They’re saying
he fell overboard?”

“Yes, ma’am. I am
so sorry. The US government is so sorry.”

“And he
definitely boarded the ship?”

“Yes, ma’am.
Several people saw him board. Several people saw him at dinner that night.”

“
Where
is he supposed to have gone
overboard?”

“Pardon?”

“The nearest
port.”

“Uh…that would
be…I’m not sure. It was between dinner and breakfast when the porter came to
make up Professor Pierce’s cabin.”

“So you’ve got a
window of about twelve hours? He was lost sometime during that time?”

“I…I suppose so.”

“Can I ask you
how difficult it is to fall overboard? Are there no railings on this ship?”

Ella felt Halima
squeeze her hand and she knew her friend was trying to calm her, to beg her to
take a breath.

“It’s nearly
impossible, Ma’am,” the young man said. His eyes flicked casually to his wristwatch.
“The rails are higher than a man’s waist.”

“So he probably
didn’t accidentally fall over,” Ella said, her voice dull, her eyes blank.
“He’d have to have intentionally vaulted over them. Or been pushed.”

“There’s no sign
of…that is to say…” The young man stuttered and looked to Halima as if she were
the sane one of the duo. His eyes pleaded with her.

“Do you have a
card?” Halima asked him.

Quickly, he
pulled one from his breast pocket and stood in one movement.

Halima took the
card. “We will contact the embassy shortly if we have more questions,” she
said, standing to escort him out.

Ella watched the
two leave the room. The sun from the bright autumn day streamed into the salon,
making the crewelwork on the couch pillows glow like jewels.

No way Rowan was dead. No effing way.

Halima hurried
back to kneel before Ella. “Dearest?”

Ella looked into
her eyes. “He’s not gone, Halima,” she said. “I know I’d feel it if he were.”

“We’ll find him,”
Halima said simply, taking both of Ella’s hands in hers. “We’ll start from the
beginning and go step-by-step to the end.”

Ella nodded
slowly. “And we’ll find him.”

The next several days
were solemn ones in the townhouse except for the occasional squeal of laughter
from a fully recovered two-year-old. Rowan’s boss came to visit on the second
day, but because Ella knew he didn’t have new information to give her on what
might have happened to Rowan on the ship, she asked Halima to tell him she
wasn’t feeling up to a visit.

The Ambassador
sent a personal note of condolence.

On
the third day, Ella sat in the screened lanai in the back garden of the townhouse.
Tall
and spiky papyrus stalks with their pale flowers grew in thickets along the
north wall. Ella knew the Egyptians considered the papyrus plant to be the
symbol of life itself.

 
It was all very well, she thought, to say
she’d find him—but how? What possible first steps
were
there? Where was the beginning, as Halima had so optimistically
alluded to three days earlier?

And meanwhile,
where was Rowan? If he wasn’t really gone—and Ella refused to even form
the words in her head—then where was he?
Whether he’d fallen or jumped or been thrown overboard, he had to be
somewhere right now, didn’t he? Was he in the sea? Was he on another boat?

It couldn’t be
voluntary. Ella simply couldn’t believe anything would have deflected Rowan
from his aim to get to London to deliver his speech. And it couldn’t be
accidental. Even falling-down drunk—as many ship passengers often
were—there was no easy way for anyone to fall into the ocean from the
ship.

So it was
deliberate.
Somebody threw Rowan
overboard
. The only real question that remained then—and this one was
even bigger than why—
was Rowan dead
or alive when dumped into the sea?

Ella shivered and
pulled her cotton cardigan closer around her shoulders. She knew she shouldn’t
be cold in the heat of Cairo’s summer. The temperature still hovered at hundred
degrees. The problem was, a tiny part of her was starting to believe, was
starting to make friends with the idea by bits and pieces, that perhaps Rowan really
wasn’t coming back. That Rowan really was…

“Ella?”

Halima popped her
head out the doorway and made a face. “Can you be comfortable out here?”

“What is it, Halima?”
Ella asked turning her face away. Unless it was news of Rowan she wasn’t
interested.

“I thought we
could read the mail together,” Halima said, coming out to the lanai and seating
herself next to Ella on the outdoor divan.
 

“What are you
talking about? I don’t give a damn about the mail.”

“I know,
dearest,” Halima said. “Let’s just get through it, yes?”

Something in Halima’s
voice nudged Ella out of her comfortable misery long enough to look at her
friend. “Something’s come in the mail?”

Halima placed an
opened envelope in Ella’s lap. “I have read everything,” Halima said in a
solemn, steady voice. “I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t, of
course,” Ella said, picking up the letter to glance at it. The first thing she
saw was the golden embossed stamp of the US Embassy. The two lines in the
middle of the page formally notified Ella that Professor Rowan Pierce, US
Citizen, of late residence in Cairo, Egypt, had been officially declared dead.

Ella sucked in a
breath and sat up straight. “They can’t do this! They don’t even have a body.
It’s only been…. Why would they do this? Have they found something?” She looked
at Halima, who handed her another letter, also opened.

Ella snatched it
and quickly read the single paragraph of typewritten copy. She looked at Halima
in disbelief. “They’re throwing us out of the country?”

“They’re revoking
your visa,” Halima said.

“Same thing.”
Ella looked at the letter again and then stared into the depths of the
townhouse’s garden. Blood red geraniums grew in thick hedges around the
perimeter. Marvel’s gardener kept the wide patch of sod in the center vibrant
green for all that Cairo was essentially a desert. “I can’t believe it,” she
said, nearly to herself. “Without Rowan and his job, I can’t stay.” She looked
at Halima. “And there’s nowhere back in the States we can go either. Not in
1925 anyway.”

“I know.”

“What are we
going to do, Halima?” Ella looked at the two letters again, and then at her
friend.

“First, we shall
have lunch. And then we will take the little one to the park because he loves
it so and it will help clear our heads.”

“I can’t believe
any of this is happening.”

That afternoon,
Ella allowed Halima to take full control of both her and Tater. She waited in
the salon, her purse in her lap, while Halima clucked around the baby, tucking
him into his carriage, packing his bottle and preferred lovies into his
blankets with him. When she pushed the carriage to the door, she called to Ella,
who walked behind Halima and the butler as they carried the carriage down the
front steps of the townhouse.

Halima strode
ahead of Ella, pushing the carriage and leading the way to the park. It was the
first time Ella had stepped outside the townhouse since word of Rowan’s
disappearance. The sun was bright and the sky painfully blue.

It made
everything seem all that much worse.

She saw that Halima
had gone to the same bench they always sat at, which overlooked a wide expanse
of unnaturally green lawn and a fountain. The pigeons that flocked to the
fountain were a never-ending source of delight for little Tater.

When Ella caught
up with them she slumped onto the bench. “How the hell is a walk in the park
helping?” she asked querulously. “How in the hell is it going to help me stay
in Egypt? Or find Rowan? Or not want to feel like I could die?”

Halima tucked in
a corner of Tater’s blanket and handed him a cookie, which he gobbled up
immediately. She pulled him from the carriage and set him down on his sturdy,
short little legs. A silken rope was tied to the front of his jumper. He
instantly ran to scatter the pigeons.

Halima smiled at
him but spoke to Ella. “First things first, dearest.”

“That’s all very
well but what
is
the first thing?”
Ella’s face was creased in frowns.

Halima turned to
her. “It seems to me that before you can make any decisions about what to do,
you must find the truth about
Effendi
.”

“The truth,” Ella
said, her eye caught by Tater’s exuberant pouncing amongst the pigeons. “You
mean the truth about whether he lives. Or…not.”

“Yes, dear one.
I’m afraid that must be answered first.”

“But they want to
throw me out of the country,” Ella said. “I don’t have time to look into the
mysterious surroundings of Rowan’s disappearance.”

 
“Is not
time
the one thing you have more of than anyone else?”

Ella looked at
Tater and spoke slowly, carefully choosing her words. “You’re talking about the
time travel thing.”

Halima clapped
her hands. “Very good, little man!” she called to Tater. “You have protected us
from the evil flying dwarves! Now come claim your reward.”

Tater trotted
back over to the two of them and went straight to Ella. She pulled him into her
lap and kissed him soundly. It occurred to her that she hadn’t spent much time
with him since she got word of Rowan. Her arms tightened around him just when
he began struggling to be released to chase more pigeons.

As Tater ran back
toward the birds, Ella closed her eyes and let the sun’s rays caress her face.
She felt the breeze from the trees lift the strands of her hair. “Alright, Halima,”
she said, her eyes still closed and feeling just the tiniest bit better in
three days. “I know you have a plan. Let’s hear it.”

They went to Olna’s
shop in the bazaar that very day. It was almost as if Halima had planned it all
along. She sat outside the shop with little Tater on her lap—his eyes
round with wonder and alarm at all the strange things to see and smell and
hear—while Ella went inside.

Olna’s shop
didn’t smell any nicer than the last time Ella had visited it two years earlier,
she noted. She supposed part of that was from the burning incense, but the rest
of it was due to whatever it was the incense was intended to cover up. Olna,
herself, didn’t look five minutes older, although Ella admitted it would be
hard to tell. As it was she looked to be anywhere between eighty and death.

“I was wondering
when you would come,” Olna said when Ella stepped through the door of her shop.

“Oh?” Ella said,
walking boldly in, glancing around the shop—its shelves still crammed
with every kind of dusty, useless knickknack one could find in an illegal
antiquities shop in 1925 Cairo. “And why is that?”