Sudden Recall Page 18

  “Whatever it was,” he tried to reassure her, “I wouldn’t have just abandoned him in the airport. I must have made certain he was absolutely safe, out of harm’s way.”

  Eden tried to believe that, but she was afraid. If Beth had been right and the Jamisons were a threat to Nathanial, her son could be in danger wherever he was. They had to find him before the Jamisons did! “What are we going to do, Shane?” she pleaded with him. “What can we do?”

  He was silent for a moment, his gaze fixed again on the marble angel atop the vault. There was something intense about the way he looked at the figure.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “Have you remembered what you did with—”

  “Not that. I was thinking about stone sculptures.”

  “Shane, what are you talking about?”

  “The newspaper reports on the microfilm reader. One of those stories I came across was about a tribute to the late Sebastian Jamison. A sculpture honoring him for his public work is going to be unveiled this afternoon at a memorial ceremony in the Savannah Art Museum. All of the Jamisons are scheduled to attend.”

  Eden recalled scanning a similar account on her own microfilm reader. “All right, I saw the story, too, but what’s that got to do with us and finding Nathanial?”

  “I say it’s time we had a look at that family, and this would be the opportunity for it.”

  “Why? What good will it do?”

  “For one thing, it will give me the time I need to dig into my mind for the last missing piece of my memory. But I also think the Jamisons could still be our key to Nathanial. Research, remember? You said it yourself.”

  Eden couldn’t deny it. Information from as many sources as possible was vital to any investigation. It was also valuable to know your enemy, especially when that enemy was so desperate to have Nathanial returned to them they hired thugs to locate him. Who were these people, and just why did they want her son?

  Yes, Shane was right. It was time to look at the Jamisons. She prayed that view would produce a result. It wouldn’t be easy, though, when her need to reach Nathanial demanded action, not a visit to the local art museum.

  “It’s a plan,” she agreed. “But there’s a problem. The paper said this ceremony was to be by invitation only, and those invitations were being issued mainly to representatives of prominent organizations Sebastian supported.”

  “Then there’s sure to be a crowd. We’ll manage to slip in somehow.”

  Eden shook her head. “Not without those invitations. The security will be tight, because there’s also a Vermeer collection on loan from the Netherlands, and they won’t be taking any chances with that.”

  “There must be a way.”

  “Maybe there is.” She had remembered something. “Let’s go back to the library for a minute. There’s something I want to check out on that microfilm reader.”

  WHATEVER HER mysterious errand, Eden was in too much of a hurry to stop long enough to explain it to him. Shane was willing to wait. He needed the opportunity, anyway, to tackle his thoughts as he accompanied her out of the cemetery and across the street to the library.

  Some of them were wild thoughts, and they could use taming. Not surprising after the emotional upheaval of having his identity back along with most of his memory. That was good, especially the relief he’d felt when he’d been able to tell Eden without hesitation that there was no other woman waiting for him.

  He sure as hell never wanted to repeat the kind of restraint he’d had to exercise last night in the motel. Though he had respected her need for them not to make love until they could be certain he wasn’t already married, it had nearly killed him to withhold himself when he’d ached to bury himself inside her sweet softness. He longed for that ultimate joining even now.

  There was something else he yearned to do. He wanted to tell Eden what she had come to mean to him in these last couple of days. That he had fallen in love with her. But this was neither the time nor the place for such a declaration, not when their energies had to be focused on the urgent matter of Nathanial.

  Anyway, Shane was afraid to open his mouth. Eden might not feel that way now, but when she had time to think about it, maybe she wouldn’t be able to get past the knowledge he was the brother of the woman who had taken her son away from her. And if she was unable to forget that, if it threatened always to be there between them, then this marriage of theirs could never be more than what it currently was—a masquerade.

  That worry, along with his frustrated inability to restore the last essential piece of his memory, was still with him several minutes later as he stood behind Eden at the microfilm reader and watched her scroll through the microfilm.

  “There!” she said, finding what she’d been searching for. “I wasn’t wrong. It is one of the organizations invited to the ceremony.”

  “Which one?” he asked, peering over her shoulder at the list on the screen.

  “The African-American Society.” He must have looked thoroughly mystified, because she added a quick, “Never mind, I’ll explain as we go.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside. I need to use my cell phone.”

  A moment later they stood beside the Toyota while Eden dialed a number in New Orleans. Shane had learned by then she was calling her sister, Christy, who was also a private investigator. Her motive remained a mystery to him.

  “Chris? Yes, it’s me. I know, we haven’t talked in ages, and I can’t talk now. I’m in Savannah, and I need a favor. It’s important. Didn’t you tell me Denise took a job with the African-American Society here? So she still works for them? Great. Look, this is what I need you to do…”

  Seconds later, the phone still to her ear, Eden spoke to Shane. “I’m holding while she calls Denise.”

  “Uh, I don’t suppose it matters, but who exactly is Denise?”

  “She was Christy’s assistant at her office in New Orleans. Chris lost her when Denise married a man from Georgia and they moved here to Savannah, but they’ve remained friends. I just hope—” She interrupted her explanation as her sister came back on the line. “She will? Wonderful! Bless you and Denise. Yes, I’ve got it. Washington Square in half an hour.”

  Eden rang off and turned triumphantly to Shane.

  “We’re in! Denise has agreed to meet us on her lunch hour. They received three invitations, but only one of them is being used. We can have the other two, but we have to be careful her boss doesn’t find out about it.”

  Which could be a problem, Shane thought, since he and Eden were obviously not African-American. But Eden was so excited by now over the potential of this undertaking that he didn’t point that out to her.

  There was something else she’d failed to remember, which was understandable considering this morning’s rapid events with its storm of emotions. Nor did he choose to remind her. She was already frantic enough about Nathanial. But Shane wasn’t forgetting. Harriet Krause had been murdered, and with what they now knew about the Jamisons, it was possible her killer was a member of that family.

  THE SAVANNAH ART MUSEUM was an immense, classic building that sprawled along the bluff above the Savannah River. Visitors were streaming through its front doors when Eden and Shane arrived on the scene.

  They joined the noisy throng in the vast entrance hall, many of whom were interested only in the Vermeer collection. But most of the crowd was queuing up in front of the two gates that would admit them into the setting for the memorial ceremony.

  “You were right,” Shane observed. “The security is tight.”

  Eden nervously eyed the uniformed guards carefully checking each visitor through the post-and-rail barriers. Their invitations were genuine, so there was no reason that she and Shane should be challenged, but she’d feel a whole lot better once they were beyond those gates.

  “Stick close,” Shane had instructed her.

  It was good advice, except they were unable to manage it in the crush. She found herself soon separated from him and being squeeze
d toward one gate with Shane headed in the direction of its neighbor. It didn’t matter. Each of them had an invitation in hand, bearing the name of the organization to which it had been issued.

  Maybe what happened was because of that, since Eden hardly qualified as African-American. Or maybe it was because she was dressed too casually for the occasion in a cotton sweater and a pair of slacks that hadn’t traveled well. Whatever the explanation, the guard, when she reached him, wasn’t content with a mere glance at her invitation.

  “Open your purse, please.”

  Eden complied and was thankful for the first time that her pistol had been lost aboard the Yorktown. The guard poked through the contents of her bag with his pencil and was satisfied. “Thank you. Enjoy the ceremony.”

  Eden passed through the gate. Her relief was short-lived. When she turned around to look for Shane, she found him faced with a more alarming problem at his own gate.

  “May I see some identification, sir?”

  Shane had no identification, only the invitation! They hadn’t anticipated this.

  “Look, I’m sorry, but I went and left my wallet at home.”

  Eden acted swiftly, placing herself in front of the suspicious guard with her own wallet open to her driver’s license. This time she was ready with a credible lie. “It’s all right. He’s my husband. We both work in promotion on behalf of organizations like the African-American Society.”

  The guard, a petite woman, hesitated, looking uncertain.

  “No, really, I am his wife,” Eden insisted. She grabbed Shane’s hand and held it out together with her own hand. “See, matching bands.”

  Glancing first at the wedding rings and then at the line waiting impatiently for their own turns at the gate, the guard nodded. “Okay, pass.”

  Shane joined Eden on the other side of the barricade. “Fast thinking,” he congratulated her in an undertone. And then he grinned at her. “Comes in handy, doesn’t it?”

  She knew he was referring to their pretend marriage. Once again it had saved them. But there was no time to dwell on the possibility of that arrangement being anything more than a fantasy.

  “Looks like we go this way,” she said.

  Following the crowd along one of the exhibition halls, they reached the open setting for the ceremony. Most of those in front of them poured through French doors into a spacious courtyard situated at the heart of the museum. Eden and Shane didn’t join them.

  “My boss is gonna be seated down front,” Denise had cautioned them when she’d given them the invitations, “so you’d better find a spot on the upper level.”

  Her suggestion suited Eden and Shane, who needed to see without being seen. They climbed a stairway on their right to an arcaded gallery that framed the courtyard below on all four sides. The gallery was already filled with standing spectators, which was also to their advantage. Able to blend in with the crowd, they found places for themselves next to a column in the dimness under an arch.

  Aisles of folding chairs had been placed in the flagged courtyard beneath them, nearly all of them occupied. Sebastian Jamison must have been a much admired benefactor to draw an audience of this size, Eden thought.

  A harpist played softly at one end of the sunlit courtyard where pots of flowers rimmed a fountain. A low stage had been erected at the other end. Down in front of it was the tall memorial sculpture shrouded under a cloth cover.

  “Reserved for the family, I imagine,” Shane said, indicating a row of chairs on the platform.

  That family hadn’t appeared yet. The chairs were empty.

  “Here we go,” Shane murmured as a tall, silver-haired man with the bearing of a senior statesman mounted the platform. The harpist fell silent, the audience hushed.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.” He introduced himself as Edward Harris, director of the Savannah Art Museum, then went on in a more solemn tone. “We’re here today to pay tribute to one of Georgia’s extraordinary citizens. Joining us are our five honored guests. Please welcome the family of the late Sebastian Jamison.”

  The audience applauded politely as two women, followed by three men, stepped through a doorway on the left and filed across the stage to the chairs that waited for them.

  Eden gasped and clutched Shane’s arm. From the tenseness of his muscles under her hand, she could tell he was as shocked as she was. The two women had yet to have identities for them. But the three men were all too familiar.

  “No wonder they came out of that house and have been driving around in a Mercedes-Benz,” Shane muttered at her ear.

  And no wonder those two thugs are here in Savannah, Eden thought. They must have come back for the ceremony. And if they’d managed to learn Shane had left Charleston, there would have been no point in their hanging on there, anyway. But members of the Jamison family? That was surprising enough. Even more startling was the presence of Charlie Moses on that same stage.

  “For those of you who may not already know them,” Edward Harris said, “let me introduce our guests. Sebastian’s wife, the much respected Dr. Claire Jamison.”

  She was slender and elegant, with ash-blond hair. Probably somewhere in her early fifties, Eden judged, but carefully preserved. She smiled and nodded to the audience.

  “Sebastian’s daughter, Irene Jamison Moses.”

  Charlie’s wife? That explained his connection to the family. Charlie had done all right for himself. Irene had the same stunning, red-gold hair as her late brother, Simon. Nathanial’s hair, Eden thought with a pang.

  Irene sketched a little wave. The director moved on to the three men. “Irene’s husband, Charles Moses. Sebastian’s stepsons, Bryant and Hugh Dennis.” He indicated first the darker of the two blond brothers, then the lighter.

  Claire’s sons from a first marriage, Eden assumed. For, of course, she must have been Sebastian’s second wife and not the mother of Simon and Irene. Had the old man cared for any of them? Even Claire? He must have had a good reason for deciding to make Nathanial his chief heir. And just how much would those five people down there have resented that? Enough to kill?

  The family had seated themselves on the five chairs. The director began to extol the virtues of Sebastian Jamison. Claire sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap. Irene looked bored. She toyed with a pair of designer sunglasses. Charlie and the two brothers looked equally restless. Eden was prepared to duck behind the wide column, and guessed Shane was ready to join her if any of them started to cast a gaze in their direction. But none of them glanced up at the packed gallery.

  “And now I’d like to ask Dr. Jamison to join me on the floor, where she’ll unveil the sculpture dedicated to Sebastian Jamison.”

  Offering his arm, Edward Harris conducted Claire from the platform and down to the waiting sculpture.

  “To the memory of my husband,” she announced in a proud, cultured voice, tugging at the cord her escort indicated.

  The cloth covering dropped away, collapsing the flags to the applause of the audience. Beneath it was an obelisk mounted on a temporary carousel. The shaft began to revolve slowly, revealing on each of its four sides a series of reliefs carved into the stone.

  Claire returned to her chair on the platform. The director addressed the gathering again.

  “The reliefs you are admiring, ladies and gentlemen, depict the projects here in Savannah, as well as elsewhere in Georgia, that Sebastian Jamison helped to endow. This museum is among them, which is why it is so fitting that the obelisk should be installed permanently tomorrow here in the courtyard.”

  Other speakers from the various charities Sebastian had funded in his lifetime followed, all of them praising his support.

  At some point in the dry proceedings, Eden became aware of Shane’s long silence. Looking at him, she saw that he was no longer paying any attention to the ceremony. His gaze was fastened on the obelisk that continued to turn in the sunlight.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “I’m not s
ure. There’s something…”

  He fell silent again and went on staring at the tall shaft. She had seen that same little frown on his face before, that same transfixed look in his eyes. Hadn’t they always preceded an awakening of another memory? Her heart began to beat rapidly in anticipation.

  Chapter Twelve

  A few minutes later the ceremony ended. The crowd began to depart from the courtyard. A photographer asked the Jamison family to pose around the obelisk for a few shots, and then they, too, left the scene. The gallery was also emptying, but Eden and Shane remained back in the shadows behind the arch.

  “Something on that thing has jarred your memory, hasn’t it?” she asked him hopefully.

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “Except I can’t imagine how anything Jamison was connected with could be familiar to me.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I need a closer look,” he decided.

  That might present a risk, Eden thought, but they couldn’t afford to overlook any possibility. They waited until the gallery was clear, and then they descended to the lower level and checked the courtyard from one of the open French doors. It was deserted now except for two workmen who were taking down the folding chairs and loading them into a cart. The obelisk was no longer revolving on the carousel.

  “Why don’t I wait for you out here in the hall,” Eden said. “It wouldn’t hurt for me to keep a lookout.”

  Shane considered her suggestion. “I don’t know that I like the idea of us being separated with those Dennis brothers somewhere out there on the loose.”

  “We were careful not to be spotted. They don’t have any reason to be hanging around, not when they have no idea we’re in Savannah.”

  “Then why do you have to keep watch?”

  “It’s just a precaution.”

  She could see Shane still wasn’t satisfied by her answers, but they were wasting time. “All right,” he agreed, “but you holler if you need me. This should only take a couple of minutes.”