The Sea of Aaron (2 page)

“Val, tell me.”

“Okay. Okay. I had to talk to Mr. Allard's lawyer about that will…I think I mentioned this whole thing to you a while back.”

Jasmine nodded. “And did…”

“Wait a sec.” Valerie interrupted, starting to get up as she suddenly remembered that her handbag had been the one casualty of the subway.

Jasmine attempted to hold her back. “What are you doing? Maybe you shouldn't get up right now.”

“You're probably right,” Valerie said as a wave of dizziness swept over her. “Could you look in that closet and get my coat?”

“Sure.” Jasmine opened the tacky but functional metallic wardrobe and retrieved the coat, handing it to her.

With bated breath, Valerie reached into the pocket and pulled out two keys. “I still have them, thank God.” She nearly laughed at the irony and at Jasmine's exasperated questioning expression. “My bag was lost.” she rambled. “Not much money, but I'll have to replace my license, credit card, and my own keys, but the keys to Mr. Allard's house were in my pocket, so I still have them. I can't believe this, Jas. It's so odd. I never keep valuable things in my pockets.”

Jasmine sat back down abruptly. “Obviously you're losing it, Val. Mind telling me what you're doing with Mr. Allard's keys in the first place?”

“Sorry.” She shook her head as if to clear it. Her unusual behavior probably had everything to do with the obsessive fantasizing about Aaron she'd been indulging in before the incident. She went on to explain to Jasmine the details of the will. When she was finished, Jasmine remained silent.

“Well, aren't you going to say it?”

“Say what?”

“That I went through this horrible nightmare all on account of some books.”

“No, I'm not.” Jasmine ended her silence. “You always said that Mr. Allard was special, and the books are Bibles…I would assume you'd like something to remember him by.”

Valerie smiled. “There you go. And that's why you're my best friend.”

Jasmine stood up for the last time that night. “And the reason for that is, we're both insane. Okay, it's settled, I'm coming back for you in the morning, and if you want to pick up those books I'll be free to help you out on Saturday.”

With anyone else, Valerie would have argued or protested that she could take care of everything fine by herself, but this was Jasmine she was talking to and Jasmine would never take no for an answer.

The towering masts from the numerous sailing vessels that dotted the harbor were thwarted in their vain attempt to touch the sky. Anchored and devoid of their billowing sails, the ships appeared naked and fragile. Aaron considered this a metaphor for his temporary vulnerability as he slouched in a deck chair with his feet propped up on the railing of his own tall-masted forty-five-foot schooner. Staring out at the sea around him, he heard and felt the rise and creaking inhalations of the boat on the gentle swells.

Her name was
Saniyah II
, and for him she was close to human—maybe even more so. She had sailed the Caribbean numerous times, but somehow she always ended up here off the coast of Belize, not far from the tiny island of Caye Caulker. It was here that both man and boat found respite.

As at home in the air as on the sea, Aaron, who co-owned Avian International, a rapidly expanding air freight company, was recovering from a nearly fatal injury he'd received a few weeks before on a clandestine mission. A former government intelligence operative, these days he also headed his own security group, Global Defense Force, known only to a few. Aaron realized that it was probably time to stop rolling the dice and get out of the game. The GDF no longer needed him as a special agent anyway since their ranks had swelled to form an elite army, all of its members being highly skilled former ex-U.S. Navy Seals, U.S. Army, FBI, and CIA operatives.

His associate, Ben Cassidy, a decorated ex-marine and co-founder of Global Defenses, had long since retired from active and managerial duty, handing over the reins to his equally skilled oldest son. Aaron was more than twenty years younger than Ben and he definitely wasn't ready for fishing all day and watching the sunset over Bora Bora, but he had to admit that the thrill of saving the world—a world that half the time didn't even realize it was in trouble—was gone. The savannas of Africa and the narrow twisting alleyways of Cairo no longer intrigued him, nor did the echoes in the mosques or the sun setting over the vast Persian Gulf.

The long years of espionage had left him a steely cold man who feared little and felt even less, an attitude that was surprisingly more of a flaw than an asset in the espionage business. Fear was the thing that kept one alive—kept one from being careless—but lately he did not care. If he remained active, his stellar record was in jeopardy. Aaron had never bungled an assignment, even if he'd been physically damaged in the fallout, and the most amazing thing was that his numerous aliases had never been compromised—not even once.

After many years, only a handful of trustworthy individuals knew that Aaron Weiss was more than just the private citizen co-owner of a billion-dollar air-courier service.

What bothered him as he stared restlessly at the waves, the smoke from his cigarette curling into the atmosphere, was the fear he instilled in others. Most children trembled in his presence, men gave him a wide berth, and despite some intimate dalliances with women, only three had ever looked him directly in the eye. And two of those three were long dead.

The third was named Valerie Redmond. And who would ever imagine that a nurse, a Christian no less, from Englewood, New Jersey, whom he'd first met at his business partner and friend Noah's wedding reception, would be among those exceptional women who dared to have a conversation with him, and did so without showing any sign of apprehension. She hadn't even trembled during their brief dance together. Well, that wasn't quite true. She had trembled. But it definitely wasn't the kind of trembling that came from fear.

He'd coincidentally come in contact with her again, shortly before embarking on his last nearly disastrous mission. She'd been at Noah and Jasmine's home, temporarily babysitting the couple's two children, when he'd stopped by to drop off an important package. They had exchanged very few words beyond the usual civilities people express while in a hurry, but the brief meeting had confirmed what he'd felt about her initially.

Taller than the average woman and stunningly curvaceous, Valerie had smooth coppery-colored skin—a complexion one might concoct from a mixture of cinnamon and orange cayenne pepper—thick, black, shoulder-length hair, and the assertive posturing of a Nubian queen. She was not an outrageous stop-dead-in-your-tracks beauty; he'd encountered those types—usually femme fatales—in all locales of the world, but she was the sort of woman whose attractiveness grew the longer he looked at her and the more time he spent with her.

So what was he planning to do about the mutual attraction? And he was positive it was mutual. Nothing. In the event he decided not to retire, it was best that way. Lovers and close family ties were a liability, an Achilles' heel.

***

On Saturday afternoon, when Valerie and Jasmine pulled up in the circular driveway of the Allard estate, the temperature was hovering in the low teens with clouds threatening snow. A dirt-streaked white van was parked to the side of the house a few feet away from them.

“Looks like someone's here,” Jasmine said.

Valerie frowned. “Probably just a caretaker. I hope I can talk my way in.”

The Long Island home, a modest brick mansion with withered brown ivy snaking up its foundations like arteries, greeted them half-heartedly. The house boasted a pillar-supported entrance portico with weathered, peeling paint. Icicles fringed the edges of the roof.

“A typical Colonial Georgian, very nice but badly in need of restoration,” Jasmine said, looking around, noting the two chimneys on opposite sides of the house. “Looks as if it were originally built in the early 1800s.”

Valerie smiled, bemused. Her friend was seeing the once stately home from an architect's perspective. “You're right. This place is not only old, but it's got history. Mr. Allard told me that the original owners were rumored to have used it as part of the underground slave railroad.”

“For real? If that's true, maybe it could be recognized by the historical society. Too bad the place has gotten so run down.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Allard didn't have much in the way of family to help him out,” Valerie said. “He did have a granddaughter, one he raised, but she turned out to be a wild one. So wild that he disowned her.”

Jasmine shook her head. “What a shame. Who's getting the house? Even in the state it's in, it's still worth a lot of money.”

“Nephew from England. He's supposed to be coming up this week.”

“England, huh? He'll sell it, no doubt. Probably take a while in this economy, though.”

Valerie banged at the door using a brass knocker that could have awakened the dead. No one answered. She repeated the performance. The van, which they'd both assumed to be unoccupied, suddenly rumbled to life and moved out of the driveway.

“Weird,” Jasmine said. “Whoever it was could have acknowledged us.”

Valerie frowned again. “Let's just get what we came for.”

She unlocked the door and they entered the dark, musty-smelling foyer. “Is anyone here!” she yelled loudly. No response. She automatically reached for the light switch, which of course yielded no illumination because the electricity had been turned off. Heading into the frigid living room, she drew the curtains, bringing in some gray mid-winter light.

Being in the house without Mr. Allard was eerie. Any moment she expected him to come rolling up in his creaky wheelchair to greet her with a British-tinged “Good afternoon, Valerie, my dear.” For a brief second, as she vividly remembered the hours they'd spent debating politics, discussing novels, reading passages from the Bible, and playing chess, she almost forgot why she was there.

“The books,” Jasmine reminded her. “I'm not too crazy about hanging around here long.”

Valerie didn't comment because she was feeling a bit unsettled as well, and it had nothing to do with the injury she'd received from the subway platform fall. She led the way up a flight of long, winding stairs where an abandoned chairlift waited for a rider.

When Valerie parted the heavy drapes and feeble light poured in, Jasmine gasped to see that the entire second story had no individual rooms at all. Instead it was a private library boasting aisles of shelves loaded with books. In the center square of the room was an open area that was dominated by a long oaken table and several matching chairs. The hardwood floor was partially covered by a heavy Persian rug.

“Here we go,” Valerie said, getting down on her knees and peeling back part of the rug.

“What
are
you doing?” Jasmine asked.

“You'll see.” She removed several loose planks and stuck a key into a locked panel in the floor. At this point, Jasmine tried not to laugh.

“Hidden floor panels? Get outa here.”

“Mr. Allard told me that I'm the only one who knows about this space.”

“Okaaaay…so why would he hide Bibles? Other than being God's word, are you sure they're not worth money?”

“Well, they
are
worth something, but nothing to get excited about. He had the oldest one appraised by a collector and was told that the most he'd get for it was two thousand dollars, and that would be pushing it.” Valerie wiped her hands off on her jeans. “Plus, I did warn you that Mr. Allard was eccentric. He was obsessed with the prophecies in the book of Revelation, and he believed that soon the world's political systems would turn totally against Christianity and it would become a crime to own a Bible. He said that Bibles would be burned and no one would be allowed to own any.” She hesitated, coughing from the dust that had been released into the air. “It became his mission to preserve as many as he could.”

“That's quite a theory,” Jasmine said with a touch of awe. “Imagine the world actually getting to that point.”

Valerie chuckled nervously. “I'm sure if it does, you and I won't have to worry about it. We'll be long dead.”

The two large cartons full of dusty books were impossible to lift from the concealed space, so they had to remove a few books at a time and take them out to the SUV. The process was awkward and took longer than either of them desired, but after several trips up and down the stairs, the mission was accomplished.

“Wait. What about this?” Jasmine pointed to an attaché case that was also hidden in the panel.

“Leave it,” Valerie said, stifling another cough. “I don't know what's in there.”

“Probably more books. It's kind of heavy,” Jasmine said.

Shrugging, Valerie hauled the briefcase up to the surface and, since it wasn't locked, opened it and glanced quickly inside. Jasmine was right, it contained more Bibles, smaller, more modern copies. They added them to the collection already in the car.

Mission completed, Valerie locked the compartment, replaced the planks and pulled the rug back into its original position. Her unsettled feelings lingered even after they'd secured the house, double-checked everything and were in the SUV, pulling back onto the road.

“Think we'll make it home before the storm?” Jasmine asked idly.

“Doesn't matter to me. You know I love driving in snow.”

“You love driving, period. Wish I felt that way.”

Valerie relaxed and pulled onto the expressway. The sky had gotten gloomier and the air was cold and slightly moist. She kept her eyes on the traffic ahead, but took note of Jasmine in her peripheral vision. “Jas, is Aaron in Cielo Vista, too?”

Jasmine, who had been fiddling with the radio, looked up, exasperated. “I knew it. I just knew you were going to ask about him.”

“C'mon. Humor me.”

“No. He's not there.”

“Does Noah know where he is?”

“Probably.”

“And that's all you have to say?”

“Yes.”

“You twit.”

“Bite me.”

Valerie mimicked a snarl and they both laughed like high school kids.

The car filled with the emotive sounds of the legendary Miles Davis, and the traffic sailed at a good clip around them. Valerie eyed the rearview mirror and noticed with sudden irritation that a weaving box truck was practically on her bumper, and she wasn't creeping. Annoyed, she checked the side mirror and swung into the center lane. She accelerated, passed a string of cars until she gained a good distance, and then pulled back into the right lane.

“I've got something to tell you,” Jasmine said.

“Something good, I hope.”

“Oh, it's definitely good. The timings a little off, but that's not a problem.” Jasmine leaned back in the seat and studied the first drops of snow starting to hit the windshield. “Just last week I found out that I'm pregnant.”

Valerie felt her own heart lilt. “Wow! That's great and…” She stopped. “You idiot! Why didn't you tell me that before? You had no business carrying those books.”

Jasmine laughed. “No problem. You did most of the lifting.”

“Is Noah pleased?”

“Ecstatic.”

Valerie was happy for her friend. The new baby would be a biological first for Noah and Jasmine. He had a young son from a previous marriage and they had an adopted daughter.

Unfortunately, having a baby was something she'd never experience. During the fiasco of her short-lived marriage, Valerie had learned that, due to health issues, she'd probably never conceive. Although she loved children, the dire pronouncement from a doctor had long since stopped bothering her. She knew she could be tested again because there were medical advances in fertility treatments, but she'd had enough of being prodded, poked, and subjected to false hope, and she accepted her fate. After all, she was the favorite aunt to Jasmine's kids and since there was no hint of marriage on the horizon, she might one day consider adopting as a single parent.

The box truck had caught up with them again. “Darn!”

“What?” Jasmine asked.

“That truck is following me.”

Jasmine glanced back. “You're imagining it. Get in the other lane.”