Chapter 65
October arrived bringing chilly mornings and crisp blue skies. It was the witch’s month, with the Harvest moon and Samhain. Ingrid’s favorite month, back before her life had been upended.
Scoot, now persona non grata in town, closed her business and left for Tybee. Ingrid was relieved, but she doubted the woman was gone for good. Scoot Loeffler was no quitter.
Miles collected all his belongings from Ingrid’s place and moved into the Loeffler mansion.
He had gone to work in the gleaming glass tower by the river.
Word on the street was that Sailor had taken him under her wing.
He would eventually end up as a vice president in some random department, Ingrid figured, not that Miles cared.
The day-to-day of Savannah Sauce was an afterthought to him.
He owned half of the Loeffler fortune now.
He texted and called incessantly.
I want to see you, Ingrid.
I miss you.
Why are you so mad at me?
Sailor would love to see you, too.
Please, can we just talk?
I DID THIS FOR US!!!
Ingrid never answered them. How could she sit across from him at a table at Saint Bibiana, sipping a twenty-dollar cocktail and eating tomato toast?
She couldn’t believe a word he said. She knew he’d planted that joint and betrayed Boney with barely a thought.
She did not believe for one minute that he wouldn’t do the same to her. Or even Sailor.
Sailor was still CEO and in possession of half of the Loeffler fortune, but if Miles was still plotting, if he planned to go after Sailor somehow, how could she not protect her friend? The thought of what Miles might do now kept her awake most nights.
She attempted to go see Boney. He was still in the Chatham County Jail, awaiting his hearing, but she was told she wasn’t on his visitors list. “He’s got his lawyer and one other family member, that’s it,” the woman said, probably divulging more than she was supposed to.
Up in her bedroom, Ingrid sat at Edie’s desk and wrote him a letter, asking what she could do to help.
She mailed it but never received a reply.
One bright, brisk day, though, an invitation dropped through the mail slot on her door. A Halloween party thrown by Savannah Sauce to benefit the unhoused population of the city. A costume ball hosted at the Loeffler mansion by “Sailor Loeffler-Etris and Miles Loeffler.”
She was invited. Merely a guest, like everybody else on the list. Which probably numbered in the hundreds.
In spite of that, she decided to go. It had been exactly one month since the wedding, and she could not deny she was yearning to see Sailor again.
To draw a little nearer to the warmth of her light.
Ingrid found her costume from the back-back room, the same ensemble Edie had worn in the snapshot of her and Rill standing on the deck of Sargassum Sling.
The tiered skirt. Peasant blouse. Headscarf and hoop earrings.
She didn’t care if it made anyone uncomfortable with its obvious stereotyping.
To her, the costume was Edie. And Edie was power and love, light and strength—all things she desperately needed.
After she dressed, she did a cleansing ritual in her altar room, calling on Edie to be with her at the party. At the end, when she paid respect to the light, to the elements, and closed the circle, her whole body hummed with the positive vibrations. Edie was with her.
But as she walked down East Taylor toward Monterey Square, she felt a hint of cold in the breeze coming up from the river. The kind of wind that buffeted Savannah right before late fall. That wind spoke to her of a different kind of possibility. A possibility of danger and desolation.
She would need to keep her eyes open.
The double front doors of the Loeffler mansion were flung open and flanked by two security guards. Inside, Ingrid clocked more guards stationed at strategic points throughout the rooms and even on the first landing of the staircase.
Sailor and Miles weren’t playing around.
The hall was packed with family friends and business associates, all dressed in elaborate costumes.
There were superheroes and characters from fantasy books and TV shows.
Ghosts and cowboys, witches and milkmaids, ex-presidents and porn stars.
There was something different about this particular party, though.
This time the guests included regular, everyday people.
Local shop owners, professors from the art school, real estate agents, and even the bartender from the Wormhole.
It made sense. Now that Miles Drummond was a Loeffler, he was their connection to the common man.
And that was the thing about the common man—and woman.
They had plenty of cash to buy every flavor of the Loeffler sauces and chutneys, marinades and jams. These people worshipped wealthy families like the Loefflers.
They longed to brush shoulders with them.
They aspired to be them. They might not be capable of large donations, but even their small ones would add up.
Miles was no dummy.
To her right, in the front drawing room, she spotted Dean Remington and Sheffield talking to Gloria and Harmon Ledieu. She made her way over to them, finding herself enfolded in their protective embrace.
“Hey there, hon,” Gloria said, as Harmon dropped a peck on her cheek. “It’s been too long. We’ve been worried about you.”
“Poor little lamb,” Dean said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Sheffield took her hand. “I’m sorry I said ever said that guy was pretty. He’s such a bitch. A heartless, heinous bitch. I can’t believe he didn’t move you immediately into this house with him. After all you did for him.”
Gloria pursed her lips. Harmon muttered, “Damn straight.”
“Please come over for dinner,” Dean said to her. “Any day of the week. We all want to fuss over you, Ingrid.”
Ingrid nodded. She was finding it hard to speak without crying. She wasn’t totally alone. These people, her neighbors, cared for her. Even though she hadn’t been especially kind to them. “I will,” she finally blurted. “Thank you.”
Turning away to search for the bar, she stopped at the pocket doors that led to Rill’s study. She inhaled and pushed them open.
The room was empty. Dim, except for the lights in the cases. The glass had been replaced in the one that had been smashed. The one that had held the dagger. But no artifact sat under the pinpoint of light.
Ingrid stepped into the hushed room and pulled the doors closed behind her.
She crept across the room, glancing once at Rill’s desk, now cleared of his papers.
There was a lamp. A framed picture of Cas and Sailor.
The beaker of volcanic ash. And an old book with a blue cover, faded and frayed at the corners, sat before the chair.
She walked behind the desk and touched the gilded lettering.
A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. She opened the book to a page with an illustration of a small ship following a larger one. The caption read, A pirate brigantine flies the King’s Colour, the flag of Great Britain, to disguise its dastardly mission.
She closed the book and walked away from the desk, over to the end of the sofa. She stopped there, reflexively looking down. The rug under her feet was new—a modern shag in a muted, beige shade Scoot would hate. Clenching her fists, she held her breath and peered behind the sofa.
There was nothing to see. Just the empty space between the sofa and the window.
She didn’t know what she’d expected. To see an apparition of the bloody X of Cas and Rill? Some sort of clue the police had overlooked?
She was a fool to come back here.
She left the room.
Ingrid slipped through the crowd, weaving around more costumed guests.
She climbed the massive staircase to the second floor and wandered down the hall.
There were scattered knots of guests, these mostly surreptitiously snooping in the Loefflers’ bedrooms. Ingrid skirted one such group, entered Cas’s room, and shut the door behind her.
Like Rill’s study, the room had not been changed. At least there was that. It looked the same as the first time she’d gotten a glimpse into it—at Sailor’s party when Cas was kneeling in prayer before the old wingback chair.
She walked to the chair now and ran her fingers over the back. What an oddball she had thought he was then. At a party, with his bedroom door wide open, praying. What had he been asking God for that night? For guidance? For help? She’d never asked him. She would never know.
“Champagne?”
She turned to see Miles standing in the doorway, holding a flute of fizzing gold out to her like a peace offering.