Aching for Always (3 page)

“Is it?” Brand said with a sneer. “I couldn't have guessed.”

“Mr. Brand,” Granite called. “How much longer? The weather is turning.”

“Ten minutes, no more,” Brand answered, then in a lower voice said, “We shall travel in turns. My wife, child and I, and then you two.”

“No,” Collingswood said fiercely. “No. I was the one who found the old woman. If anything, I should go first.”

“You fools,” Spears spat. “We have no guarantee this will work more than once. Hell, we have no guarantee it will work at all.”

“The old woman—”

“Bugger the old woman! I for one won't believe any of it until we're home. Let me step into the twentieth century and find my Ford changed into a chauffeured limousine. That's when I'll believe it.”

“Nothing will change until this map is transported away from 1684. Then it will be as if it never existed.”

“You're right,” Brand said. “Let's get the hell out. Darling,” he called, “come.”

Mrs. Brand lifted the girl to her arms and crossed the uneven space uncertainly. Brand directed her into the seam and followed her inside. The peak began its terrible rumbling again, and Monk clutched the ground. Spears stepped forward next, but no matter how he tried—shoulder first, arm or leg—he could not seem to get the smallest portion of himself into the entrance.

“There's room,” Brand said angrily.

“I cannot enter.”

Brand stepped out. The rumbling stopped.

“It's no good. 'Twill only hold three,” Spears said.

Mrs. Brand emerged, white-faced. “Alfred, what was—”

“Quiet.” Brand glared at Granite. “Say nothing, my dear. Return to the edge until I call you.”

Mrs. Brand carried the girl to the peak's base and set her down again. Monk saw Granite's pained look in Mrs. Brand's direction.

“What are we going to do?” Collingswood demanded.

“I know what we're going to do,” Spears said, addressing Brand. “We're going to leave your wife.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Collingswood asked. “The captain will surely see to her. If it works, you can come back for her another time.”

“I said no.”

“She was not part of the agreement,” Spears said. “Just because you chose to take a wife here—”

“Quiet,” Brand said, cheeks flushed. “We're not leaving anybody here who knows about this place or the map.”

“There's no room,” Collingswood said. “And I'm not staying. You're a fool. She's bad luck.”

“Shut your mouth.”

Spears smacked his thigh and barked a quick, foul laugh. “Now I understand. Don't you see, Colly? He won't leave her because he's afraid of what she might do. With
him.
” He jerked his thumb toward Granite.

“Shut up.”

“If you can't control your wife, that's your problem, but she's not taking
my
place.”

Monk saw the glint of steel in the lantern light as Brand removed something from his cloak. The air exploded with a white-hot bang that lit the night for one terrifying instant—long enough to see the shock on Spears's face before he crumpled to the ground, map still in hand.

Granite jumped to action, but Brand swung round, pointing a second pistol at him. “Stay where you are. This is none of your business. Keep to yourself, and you and your crew may leave safely.”

“Alfred, for God's sake!” cried Mrs. Brand in horror. “What have you done?”

“Hold your tongue, woman.”

The little girl began to cry. Granite's eyes met Monk's. The look on his face urged caution and preparedness.

Brand swung the pistol back to Collingswood. “Anything you'd like to say?”

The man held up his hands. “No.”

“Then get the map.” Brand turned the barrel again toward Granite.

Collingswood reached for the paper in Spears's hand and rolled it quickly. When he handed it to Brand he whispered, “What about him?” He inclined his head toward Granite.

Monk felt the hairs on his neck stiffen.

“What do you mean?” Brand asked, so low nobody but Monk could hear.

“I mean, if we mean to keep the map safe, no one must ever be able to find this cave. You said so yourself.”

“The crew—”

“The crew will never make it out of here without him. He's the only capable seaman on board. If we kill him, our secret is safe.”

Monk's stomach tightened into a sickening knot. He had to get to Granite and let him know he was in danger. He began to belly-crawl down the far side of the peak, hoping to alert Granite with a signal when he got to the bottom without the men noticing. He reached backward with his foot and lost his hold, sliding six feet and hitting his backside on an outstretched rock with a comical plop. He stifled a groan, though the landing had rattled his teeth. He made an urgent gesture in Granite's direction.

“Mama, Mama.”

The little girl was smiling now, pointing at Monk. Mrs. Brand stepped forward, blocking the men's view of both her daughter and Granite, who turned seaward and edged casually toward Monk.

“What?” Granite mouthed.

“They lied. They're planning going to kill you.”

Granite turned away. Monk wasn't even sure he'd heard. He didn't know what else to do. He peered around the side to where Brand was placing the spent pistol in his cloak.

“Now,” Brand said to his wife. “'Tis time.”

“It won't
work
,” Collingswood said, this time loud enough for all to hear. He pulled his own pistol out. “The cave won't fit four. One of us has to stay.”

The little girl, busily playing, said “Night, night” and patted the doll.

Brand looked at his daughter and then his wife. The
second pistol wavered in his hand. “Come here,” he repeated to his wife.

She bent to gather her daughter.

“Not her,” Brand said. “You.”

Mrs. Brand made a terrified, choking noise. “Alfred, what are you saying?”

Granite met Monk's eye and cut his gaze first to the sea and then to the ship. He made the subtle motion of a fish with his hand, and Monk understood. He peered into the darkness, nodding. It was a terrible risk, but they had no other choice.

“Come,” Brand said.

“Gather your child as tight as you can,” Granite said under his breath to Mrs. Brand as he passed.

Shaking, Mrs. Brand lifted her daughter into her arms.

Brand ran toward his wife and tore the child away. Then he grabbed his wife and yanked.

Granite charged and swung. He connected with Brand's jaw and pulled Mrs. Brand back to him. The pistol spun toward the seam. Collingswood dived for it.

“Now!” Granite yelled, and Monk grabbed the girl. Granite shoved Mrs. Brand hard and jumped, and Monk flew out after them, headfirst, clutching the child, whose cry exploded in his ear.

He hit the water, as hard as rock, and the cold battered his lungs.

Hold the girl. Hold the girl.

He crushed her to his side, kicking hard to bring himself upward. Nothing in his life had ever seemed so important or so hard. It was like he was swimming in molasses, and there was nothing but heavy, smothering cold.

A lighter dark hovered above him. He pumped harder and harder. At last he popped above the surface, gulping air like it was grog. The girl cried. She lived!

A shot lit the night, sizzling past his ear before the water swallowed it in a gurgle. He jerked to the side, and Brand called, “You will pay for this, Captain! I will hunt you till my dying day, and you will pay!”

The night was pitch. Monk had a vague sense of the ship in the distance but nothing more. He saw nothing and could hear only the roar of the sea and the girl's terrified cries. He tucked her tightly under his arm and began to swim.

C
HAPTER
O
NE
 

Once upon a time there was a beautiful mapmaker. She made maps for kings and travelers and landowners. She loved her work because making maps made her dream of the world outside her shop. Many men courted her, but none won her hand, for they loved her for her beauty, not her maps.

—The Tale of the Beautiful Mapmaker

B
RAND
O'
MALLEY
M
AP
C
OMPANY
B
OARDROOM
,
P
ITTSBURGH
, P
RESENT
D
AY

“What is it men see in maps?” Joss O'Malley asked fondly as she watched her friend's four-year-old son, Peter, staring intently at a framed antique map from his not-quite-steady perch on the top of the credenza.

Diane Daltrey, the former chief financial officer of Brand O'Malley Map Company and Peter's mom, lifted her eyes for a moment from the quarterly cash flow statement over which she was poring. “Key to the past?”

Joss thought of her own fascination. “Hints of the unknown?”

“Does this have a Skull Island?” Peter said enthusiasti
cally, scanning the hand-colored paper. “I want to fight Hook to the death!” He growled and thrust his light saber in the direction of the conference table. Marty, the map tech, who had just unfolded himself from plugging in two laptop projectors, ducked to avoid being skewered.

“Or perhaps something slightly less poetic. Speaking of which”—Di let her fingers come to rest on the calculator—“things aren't looking so good here.”

“I know we're a little strapped for cash,” Joss said, biting a nail, “but that's not so bad, right?”

“Right. How important is money?”

“I'm heading up to see Rogan. I need a number.”

“
Another
loan?”

“It's not a loan exactly.”

“Honey,” Di said, “when a man's already agreed to the price for the company and you're going back to ask for more, that's either a loan or insanity. Peter, please take the highlighter out of your mouth. Your little brother was playing with it.”

Peter, who had jumped off the credenza, sighed and, with a Day-Glo green pout, handed the marker to his toddler brother, coincidentally named Todd.

Joss frowned. “Should we—”

“Not poisonous,” Diane said without looking up. “Well, not too poisonous.”

Marty extracted the projector's power cord from the grip of the third Daltrey brother, a baby in a portable car seat at Diane's feet.

“Do you know if this next one's a boy, too?” Joss gestured to the Epcot Center–sized ball under Diane's sweater.

“I told my obstetrician I'd kill him if it was.”

“I wasn't great at college biology, but I'm pretty sure he's not the one who decides.”

Peter tugged Marty's pant leg. “Did you know if you suck enough highlighter your pee turns green?”

Marty pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Actually, I didn't know that.”

“It's true. Green works best.”

Di flipped the page of the report and, without looking up from the paper, deftly dropped a Tory Burch–clad foot on the leash attached to the two-year-old's ankle, bringing him to a dead halt just out of reach of the stapler on the table.

Joss, who had long ago decided running a barely surviving company was nothing compared to raising three boys under the age of five, said, “I really appreciate you coming in.”

“Oh, please. If I didn't get out of the house sometimes, I'd go nuts.”

“I can see where trips like this would be pretty relaxing.”

“I'm almost ready,” Marty said to Joss.

“Go ahead. Di can work the numbers while I take a look.”

He flipped a switch and one of the projectors filled the far wall with a huge gray map of straight and curving streets, some blue, some yellow, some white, each with its own name printed in tiny Helvetica caps.

“Cool.” Peter let the saber fall to his side.

“City?” Joss asked Marty. If she'd had more time, she'd be able to figure it out on her own. One of the benefits of
owning one of the world's largest printed map companies was that every city felt like home.

“Philly.”

“Ah. City of Brotherly Love.”

Marty grimaced. “Yeah, well, unless brotherly love includes free use of intellectual property, we got a problem. Here's the map from our favorite competitor, Duncan Limited.”

Marty clicked the On button on the adjoining projector. A second map, light blue instead of gray, and with a Garamond typeface, was projected directly over the first. It, too, was a map of Philly, and when he adjusted the width, height and area of the display, the streets lined up exactly with the first. Not a problem in itself, Joss thought. Street maps, after all, were supposed to give you a nearly accurate representation of the area in question, and even a competitor like Duncan Limited could be counted on to represent the area correctly. The problem occurred when a competitor didn't bother to do the survey work to identify the streets themselves, and there was one sure way to find that out.