Chapter 1 #3
Mudroom. Or little entry. She believed that he had gotten that far. Okay. So he would have been tired but had been glad that he was home.
Of course, it was common knowledge that he was engaged.
He’d talked about good and cheerful things, too.
His love for his home, for the history of St. Augustine.
And his love for Ainsley Drake and his dream that they would raise their children in his home, where their children would know the rich history of their city—and their country.
She had the strange feeling, though, that as he’d walked up to his house, he’d seen something.
The “something” hadn’t scared him.
It had annoyed him. It had seemed like some kind of a silly prank to him, and yet it had reminded him of why he was careful to keep his beloved fiancée at a distance during this time when he was striking hard at a huge conglomerate.
“What did you see?” Shelly murmured aloud.
She walked up to the house. It really was a wonderful house, not in terms of being incredibly elegant, but rather in handsome architecture that allowed the structure to really be a home.
The surrounding yard and trees were typical of Florida, but they were all also close to Old Town St. Augustine, the area with some structures that dated back centuries
She closed her eyes for a minute and thought about the man.
He hadn’t been a man to provoke a fight, but he’d never been afraid to take up a fight.
He always stated what he saw as right, fair, and just. But in that, he hadn’t wanted to change anything about his life; he’d wanted to be a normal man, just living, working, going to the store, cleaning up, falling in love …
Maybe he’d have been smarter if he had worried about his life and his safety now and then.
And maybe the man found as a pile of ash near the house wasn’t even George Maynard.
They had no guarantee that someone hadn’t kidnapped George and left the body of another behind as proof of his death.
But why kidnap the man? To sway him? To make him go back out before the public and passionately declare he had been mistaken? About Gen-Zec or another person, corporation, or entity of some kind that he had investigated?
She walked closer to the porch, and then she looked to the side of the steps.
There was a stone lying by the steps. A large, pale gray stone. One that appeared to be out of place—as though it didn’t belong there, but rather was like something ancient and weathered.
She walked over to it and picked it up.
The stone had writing etched into it. The words were carefully etched in, clear and easy to read.
She stared at the stone and softly read the words aloud.
“May the flame of your words ignite the human soul as you have wished, and may the flames you have thus created consume you, body and soul!”
As she did so, Grant Markham came out of the front door.
He looked at her as she held the stone and gave him a grimace.
“Hey. If you don’t want to work with me, just say so,” he said lightly. “Or hmm, were you about to throw that stone at someone else?”
She looked at him, shaking her head, not certain if she should be amused or aggravated.
“I found something,” she said softly.
He frowned and hurried down the steps to stand by her side, staring at the stone.
As she had done, he read aloud.
“‘May the flame of your words ignite the human soul as you have wished, and may the flames you have thus created consume you, body and soul!’ My God,” he murmured, “flames, body, soul.”
“Threatened and killed all in one. But the stone—”
“The stone is a play on ancient curse tablets,” Grant told her.
She stared at him. “It seems crazy. Why leave something like this? The killer was so careful about evidence.” She looked at him, seeing the tenseness in him as he studied the object,
“Have you—”
“Seen something like this before? Yes,” he said flatly.
“I was late because I just got back from Europe at the crack of dawn this morning. I had consulted with Jackson’s Blackbird group over there.
A politician in Rome had been murdered, and something very similar to this was found in a drawer in his office. ”
“Strange, very strange. Okay, so, do you think it’s the same killer?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No … I could come back because the killer in that case was half crazy, confessed, and then managed to hang himself while in holding. But …” He paused, looking at her, obviously disturbed by her discovery.
“But there must be a connection. Thousands of miles apart, yes. I don’t know how or why, and our agents are still working with law enforcement over there because …
because the man who confessed didn’t do it. ”
“You know it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He winced, looking away for a minute before turning back to her. “I just know it. Anyway … this: ‘May the flame of your words ignite the human soul as you have wished, and may the flames you have thus created consume you, body and soul!’ And then the other …”
“Which read?”
“May the steel of the strength you think you wield tear into your heart and soul and cleanse all that is human within you with the pureness of a bath of blood.”
“The man was … stabbed?”
“Five times, and his neck slit,” Grant told her.
“And a man confessed, but you know that he was lying?” Shelly repeated.
Grant nodded gravely. “Yes,” he said simply.
Jackson came around to the front of the house and the two quickly showed him Shelly’s strange find, and Grant went on to explain that he felt he had a theory.
“An interesting discovery—and, indeed, theory!” Jackson agreed gravely.
“A clue for our forensic teams. And time for the three of us to grab some coffee while our local people and those at headquarters get moving on where we should start questioning people. And we could use a meal—and a chance to get to know one another and understand just what’s going on. ”
Shelly looked at Grant Markham.
And he looked at her.
She thought then that Jackson might well understand what she had carefully kept hidden all her life.
And then there was her new “partner.”
So, what was different from the customary man and this linebacker of an investigator, Mr. Grant Markham?
They were about to find out about one another.
And as she’d been asking herself all day …
She would discover just what it was that Jackson Crow was able to surmise about agents across the country just by watching their work.