Prologue
He wasn’t dead when he was stuffed into the closet, but he knew he was dying. The incessant ringing in his ears, the blurriness of his vision that wasn’t blocked by the blood dripping down his face and catching in his beard, the resounding waves of pain that crashed into the sides of his skull—all were signs of his impending fate. What little breath he could catch was stifled by the closeness of the closet and the sack that surrounded him. There was a strange calmness that wove itself in between the spasms of survival, forcing his brain to focus on how to untie the sack, push his body toward the shaft of light that crept under the door, overcome the pain, and finally, simply endure it.
In the end, his mental strength zapped long after his physical stamina had surrendered. His thoughts wandered as his life ebbed. All the things he wanted to do flashed through his mind—climbing Kilimanjaro and seeing the Great Migration across the Maasai Mara, taking a boat trip along the Nile, following the path of his ancestors to Charleston, painting the upstairs bathroom, and fixing the crumbling stacked stone back wall in his garden. The to-do list faded into his bucket list. Why do they call it a bucket list? he wondered. Things to do before you kicked the bucket? He would have laughed if half his spirit hadn’t already left his body. The lists didn’t matter. Neither one would ever get done.
So, this is what it feels like when you die, he thought. He succumbed to the thought before his body fully yielded to the reality of dying. His eyes fixed on the pattern at the edge of the curtain, all that he could see through the crack under the door. If he could only reach it, be sure that it was real, he might survive. His arm jutted upward in a final defiance. Touch it. You’re not gone yet. If you can feel it, you’re not gone. Yet he knew he was going. His final thought was that he should have gone home. If he had just gone home . . .
Chapter 1
Home. The notion of “home” had never struck her like it did when Max said it. Maybe it was the newness of him back in her life. Maybe it was the fear that what he called “home” might be different from what she had in mind. Whatever it was, Finley Blake paused when Max asked if she was excited to be heading home.
“What is the first thing you’ll do when you get home?” asked Max Davies, her partner in life for the last ten months and for the next hundred years, as they talked about the plans for her sister’s wedding in Charleston that was only four weeks away.
They were sitting in their mews house in Chelsea on a raw April morning. It had taken Finley a little while to get used to calling it “their” house. In her mind, it had always been “Max’s” house. He had owned it when they’d been together seven years ago in Tangier and when they’d split some two years later. He had still owned it when they’d reconnected in Tangier, almost two years ago to the day.
It hadn’t become “theirs” until several months ago, when he had stood in the study just down the hall from where they now sat, during Whitt’s engagement party, and slipped the spectacular diamond, yellow and white gold band on her finger. He had pledged his everlasting love and asked her to join him on an endless journey through life. It hadn’t been a marriage, but rather a life commitment. Max had a thing about marriage. When he had explained his aversion to the institution, Finley had understood. She wasn’t in love with marriage. She was desperately, and forever, in love with him. So, they had settled into blissful cohabitation in “committed permanence without marriage.”
Max brought her mental wanderings back to the present. “When I was traveling and would finally get back here—home—my first thing was a whiskey in the back garden. I’d drop my bag at the stairs, grab my mail, select a single malt, and head to the garden—even in the rain. The mist was never heavy with the cover of the trees.”
His voice trailed off, and Finley looked at him, deep in his reminiscence of that first taste of home. Finley had to think about what she did first when she walked through the door, back from a trip. To a degree, it depended on where she had landed at the end of the voyage. When she was in New York, before she and Max had firmly taken root together and she had transplanted herself in London, she would order Thai or Lebanese from her favorite take-out place on Amsterdam, even before her shoes were off. Then she would pour herself a glass of wine and flip through the mound of mail that had accumulated in the weeks she’d been gone.
If she was in Chevy Chase, camping at Mama and Daddy’s on the return leg, she would get deposited at the kitchen island on a stool, with an elegant flute of champagne or prosecco in front of her, while Daddy took her bag upstairs to her room and Mama finished putting dinner together. Since she had been in London with Max, she had followed his patterns, not yet establishing a “welcome home” rhythm that was uniquely her own.
“I don’t know. I guess it depends,” Finley finally responded. Max stood to refill her mug with the Ugandan blend she’d brought back from a reconnaissance trip to East and Central Africa a few weeks before. “Coffee or wine figures significantly into the equation wherever home is at the time and whenever I get there.”
“But isn’t there something that you miss? That you think about the longer you’re away, as you get more homesick? That shows up in your dreams, that you can taste on your tongue?” Max got more animated as he threw out each question, as if to provoke her mind into remembering something. Anything.
Finley watched him warm to the subject. His eyes widened as he spoke, and his lips met, as if tasting something memorable, something evocative of the tastes and smells that assured him he was finally home. She smiled, enjoying his excitement. Yet, she still shook her head. “Nope. Nothing comes to mind. Nothing that happens every time I get back from a trip. Heck, most of the time, I don’t even know where home is. Sometimes New York, sometimes with you in Delhi or here in London, sometimes in DC, sometimes in Charleston. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Interesting,” was all Max said, as he scanned her face. After a minute, he leaned down and brushed his lips on hers before returning to kiss her fully. “Home is where the heart is, so they say. Where is your heart, darling?”
“Wherever you are,” she murmured quietly, tilting her head to look up at him and catching the chiseled angle of his jaw in the filtered light. “And therein lies the trouble. Since you—we—are everywhere.” She took his face in her hands and traveled its plains and valleys with her eyes. She traced her thumbs along the laugh lines that framed his mouth before embracing his lips with hers.
When they parted, Max studied her eyes in return. Eventually he spoke. “So, what’s the plan for next month? I know your mother has an agenda that we are to follow. I also know that you have work to do before we head to Charleston, so fill me in.”
“The most important thing for me right now is prepping for this trip to Tanzania. I’m so glad they brought me back in to do the follow-up on the story we did last year.”
Finley reached over and tore off the end of the almond croissant Max had just put on his plate. She put one crusty horn on the edge of her napkin and then leaned over to tear off the other end. Max sipped his coffee as he watched her work. They had long ago agreed to this division of eating labor, since Max liked the soft innards of most foods and Finley liked the crispy outsides. It worked for most things they ate. They had yet to come across anything where they both reached for the same portion. She popped a sliced almond into her mouth. “The backstory on the shift in the great migration cycles because of climate change is a nice angle for the piece that Traveler’s Tales is doing. And a documentary, too. A nice departure.”
“Where are you going to be?” Max munched on his piece of the croissant. “And when do you leave again?”
“I leave at the end of next week and will only be gone for a couple of weeks,” Finley relayed. “I’ll be flying into Arusha but then taking a prop into Serengeti National Park. I may head over to the crater,” she said, referring to the Ngorongoro Crater, an ancient caldera that was home to leopards, black rhinos, and lions.
She continued, “I’ll come back here, though, before we go. We’ll have a few days before we head to South Carolina. I’ll need to repack. My mother would not appreciate me showing up for a wedding—a Southern wedding no less—with only boots and khakis in my bag!”
Max chortled at the imaginary look of disgust and dismay on Mama’s face if field gear had been Finley’s only attire. “Are all the women in your family as persnickety as your mother?”
“Well, I’m not, and Whitt isn’t.”
“You, no. But Whitt can be a little high-maintenance, you have to admit,” Max reminded her gently. He waited for her reaction.
Finley grinned. “Yes. The girl can be a handful at times.” She thought for a moment. “Quite honestly, the Blake and Montgomery women—and you’ll get to meet both sides—run the gamut. Some are easygoing, others are prickly. And others can be downright rude in that subtle, Southern way. Most all of us are obstinate and opinionated, even the ones that look like shrinking violets. Don’t let that facade fool you. The term ‘steel magnolias’ was created for a reason—to describe Southern women.”
Max slipped behind her and draped his arms around her shoulders. “Is my darling girl admitting to being a little bullheaded at times?”
“Only when necessary.” She turned and planted a kiss on his chin. “Only when wholly necessary.”
Max returned to his side of the island and began clearing away the dishes. “So, what do you have planned for the rest of the day? I have some project RFPs I need to review. My year of following after you will be over before we know it, and I need to have some consulting work to go back to.”
“I need to look at the Serengeti contact sheets from last year to see which of those photos I can use, and then I need to scope out the storyline I want to try. That should take me until next week!” Finley rose and moved her mug to the dishwasher. “Or at least until dinner.”
Max chuckled. “It won’t be that bad if you focus.”
“That’s a big if.”
“So we don’t have to worry about dinner, let’s go out. And I’ll find a place, so you don’t even have to think of that.”
Finley went to Max and wrapped her arms around him. “You are just too good to me!” She released him with a peck on his cheek before heading upstairs to her study.
When she had moved in, Max had wanted to give up a portion of his downstairs study for her so they could work in proximity to each other. After a few days, in which his conference calls had disrupted her concentration while writing, she had quietly moved her things to the smaller of the spare bedrooms upstairs. He hadn’t said anything. Rather, he made periodic trips up the stairs to check on her, often saying nothing during his passage down the hall, but always sticking his head in to glance at her as she worked.
Finley opened her computer and started scrolling through the contact sheets. Page upon page of the animals, people, and scenery that the earlier camera crew had shot almost seven months earlier came to life on the screen. She hadn’t been in Tanzania to see the migration, having been called in at the last minute as backup to cover the Zanzibar leg after the principal team had been pulled to film a tiger trek in India. She and Max had used it as a minihoneymoon, since the Zanzibar trip had come shortly after they’d committed to each other.
Finley took the opportunity now to carefully examine each frame on the sheet and take in the powerful stories that had been frozen in time. Sam, the principal photographer for the shoot, had marked the frames that she liked best, providing a caption for most of them in addition to the date and location. As Finley located a preferred shot among the numerous photos on a page, she would glance at the ten or so shots before and after to see whether she agreed with Sam’s assessment. Sam’s eye was so attuned to light and color that there were often as many as three or four great shots to choose from. In that instance, Finley went for either the one that had the greatest action or the one that told the most compelling story.
Even though the timing of her trip would be too early to catch the wildebeest crossing of the Mara River that most associate with the great migration, Finley was looking forward to spending the latter part of the calving season in Serengeti National Park with the park staff—the rangers, vets, trackers, and guides who balanced the preferences of the tourists, who were the financial fuel of the park, with the needs of the animals and terrain that were its lifeblood.
Traveler’s Tales had decided that the time was right for a conversation around climate change and its impact on tourism. Dan Burton, her editor at the magazine and a former law school classmate, had selected Finley to capture the story at both Serengeti and Maasai Mara. Other teams were being dispatched to Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Yala National Park in Sri Lanka, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and several other locations around the world to film portions of a documentary the magazine was compiling. It was new territory for the magazine, a departure from its print format, but no less hard-hitting than some of its other stories on identity theft and human trafficking. Finley had contributed significantly to the latter story.
Her concentration was broken by the ringing of her cellphone and the picture of her sister Whitt’s face popping up on her screen.
“Hey, kid. What’s up?” Finley asked. “Where are you?”
“Mumbai still. The project is delayed a few weeks, but I should be able to make it to Charleston without too much hassle. David is flying into Doha from Tbilisi, and we’ll meet there. We’ll see you at home at the end of the month.”
“You sound pretty casual about making it home for the wedding. You sure the delays won’t trip you up? You and David are pretty important players.” Finley surveyed her sister’s face on the screen. She seemed calm and normal, but with Whitt, it was hard to tell. The hotel could be on fire and Whitt would continue the conversation as if nothing were amiss. “Everything all right? You guys aren’t getting cold feet, are you?”
“No, we’re okay. David is a little nervous about meeting the whole clan, but I told him if it gets too much, we’ll just grab you and Max and head off to the justice of the peace.” Whitt paused for effect. “Or Vegas! We never wanted a big wedding anyway.”
“Mama would kill you! She’s been working her tuchus off for this wedding. And whether you want it or not, she’s going to have it, even if she has to kidnap you two to get you there!” Finley laughed at the thought of Whitt and David being carried down the aisle with gunnysacks over their heads and dropped at the altar. Don’t mess with Mama, girl. It’ll get ugly, and there is no way you’re going to win!
“I know. But I refuse to stress over this project or my wedding. So, the Reserve Bank of India’s delays are not going to ruffle me. Nor is David’s request to add more fraternity brothers to the guest list. Even Mama questioning my decision not to wear a veil isn’t going to get a reaction.”
“That’s the attitude. This is your wedding, and you call the shots.” Finley knew how it would go down. Whitt would state her preferences. Mama would purse her lips before giving a radiant smile, nodding her head in agreement—and then she would go off and do whatever she darn well pleased.
“When do you and Max get in? And thank you so much for suggesting and arranging the Airbnb in town, instead of us staying on Sullivan’s Island.” Whitt sighed. “I love what Mama and all are doing for us, but that house is going to be crazy and all the questions and suggestions and such would just send me around the bend. If I’m not there already.”
“It will give us a little time together, too. Max and I will run interference with Mama, so don’t worry. She’s just excited. This is the only chance she’s going to get to do this wedding thing.”
“You and Max still aren’t ever going to jump the broom?”
“Nope. We’re happy with the way things are. I understand how the trauma from his parents’ divorce soured him on marriage. But it didn’t sour him on commitment. We’re no less married than if we had gone to the courthouse.”
“I know and Mama and Daddy understand, but be prepared for whispering at the house.” Whitt shook her head. “Tongues’ll be wagging.”
“And I’ll just redirect them back your way. This is your day, and nothing is going to mar that!” Finley beamed at her sister. “In only a month, you and David will be married! Who’d have thunk it, kid!”
“Not me. I figured I’d be the last one to walk down the aisle and that you surely would’ve. You can never tell!"
“Speaking of not telling . . . Mama still hasn’t figured out that you switched the guest list she sent to the calligrapher?” Finley stared at Whitt through the screen, her eyes wide. “How the heck did you pull that off? More importantly, what are you going to say when she discovers it?”
“‘Sorry, I must have pulled the wrong file?’” Whitt snickered under her breath before letting loose her indignation. “She had fifth cousins twice removed on there who we haven’t seen in a month of Sundays! It’s bad enough I have to put up with having Cousin Tommy and Lael there, plus all of the cousins on Daddy’s side. I told her I wanted a small wedding, and that is something I won’t surrender on.”
“Well, you may win on this one. It would be inappropriate to send out invitations this late. Mama will just have to suck it up.”
Whitt chuckled again. “Yep, that she will. Look, before I forget what I called you for . . . it’s about Evans. Is there space in the house for him to stay a couple of nights? He will be coming in the night of the rehearsal dinner and leaving on Sunday, so it literally is just a couple of nights. I’d like to accommodate him if we can.”
Chief Inspector Gareth Evans, an Interpol agent who had recently been promoted, had on more than one occasion saved the sisters’ necks. That said, they had returned the favor in Sri Lanka, rescuing him from certain death. After all they had been through together, it seemed wrong not to invite him to the wedding.
“The house has seven bedrooms and a study, so even with Charlie, Kirsten and Reid, Logan and Hema, and Mooney and her new beau, there is more than enough room.” Finley enumerated. “And then we rented the other house on Montagu, too, and that one has five rooms and a sleeping porch. I don’t think it’s booked up with the Blake cousins yet. There is more than enough space.”
“What about Max?”
“What about him? He’ll be fine with it,” Finley smirked. “And, if he’s not, he can sleep on the couch! It was crazy in the first place that he ever thought there was anything between Evans and me. If he is still jealous after all this time, he needs to check himself.”
“Easier said than done with Max. That man guards you like Fort Knox. I’m just trying to head off potential issues before they happen. I’d hate for guests to come to blows at my wedding.”
Finley snorted with laughter. “That would never happen with those two. Evans is too buttoned-up British, and Max would never allow himself to lose control like that. Nah, they might glare at each other, but they’d never duke it out. And over what? That storm passed long ago.”
“I hope so. Then it’s settled. Evans is in the Rutledge house with all of us. I’d better get going. Got a list a mile long of things I need to take care of. Thanks loads. Love you. And love to Max.”
“Back at you. Love to David. See you in a few weeks!”
When Finley put the phone down, Max was standing at the door, smiling. “I knew it sounded like too much fun up here for you to be working! How’s Whitt doing? Got a case of nerves?”
“No, she’s really calm, which I should’ve expected. She may toss her cookies before she walks down the aisle, but nary a guest will ever know.” Finley decided to lob the Evans grenade and see how it landed. “She wanted to know if there was room in our house for Evans to stay a few nights. I told her I thought we could fit him in.”
Max stood next to her, his eyes on the shot she had just pulled up of a lion bringing down a wildebeest. He tapped the screen. “Nice shot! On Evans, sure. If there’s room. Goodness knows you two owe the man your lives. And on more than one occasion!”
“Thanks, babe! That’s one thing off my chest.” Finley exhaled.
“What? You thought I would object? Why?”
“Well, the two of you have never exactly been BFFs!”
“Acknowledged, but hey, I won the girl, so no hard feelings.” He claimed his prize with a thorough kiss that left her a little lightheaded. “You ready for dinner? We have reservations in an hour, but if now isn’t a good time for you to stop, I can move them.”
“Nope, this is perfect timing. I just finished creating my final card. I’ll take a few clean memory cards just in case I want a different mix, but this will get me started.” Finley turned off the computer and closed it. “Where are we heading?”
“A surprise!”
The surprise turned out to be Le Colombier, one of her favorite restaurants, a modern bistro on the edge of their neighborhood. For reasons she couldn’t remember, they hadn’t visited it since they’d returned from Delhi. Max beamed as she recognized the direction they were walking and squeezed his hand in anticipation.
“Thank you! I had almost forgotten about this little place.”
“I’m glad you still like it.” Max kissed her forehead as they neared the entrance. “Maybe this can be our ‘welcome home’ routine. We’ll drop the bags and head here, to a table in the back corner, and decompress. I’ll have my single malt here with you, in the back garden if it’s warm or at the back table if it’s too cold.”
“Done. What a lovely new tradition!” Finley grinned as she settled into her seat. They were seated at a table inside since the April evening had turned chilly. She’d thrown on a black, midi-length ribbed-knit dress, with a blush blazer and strappy, black kitten heels, not knowing exactly how upscale they were going. Max hadn’t given her any clues when he’d pulled on a pair of charcoal trousers, his signature marine-blue shirt, and a blue-and-green houndstooth jacket. He wasn’t in jeans, but with what he had on, he could have been going to an afternoon gallery opening, with the addition of a tie and pocket square, or down the street to his favorite wine shop to place another order. Men’s clothing is so ambiguous! At times like this, I need Mooney to help style me, Finley had thought as she’d gotten dressed.
Sitting there now, though, it didn’t matter. Max, looking at her like she hung the moon, made her feel regal, whether she had on a tiara or cutoffs. She marveled at how close they had come to walking away from each other forever. How this creating of their special traditions might never have happened.
“What are you thinking?” Max reached across the table and took her hand in his. “You look awfully pensive. That scares me!”
“Does it? Why? What do you think I’m going to say? If I’m unhappy or puzzled, I’ve learned to put the issue on the table rather than pocket it.” A realization that might have saved a lot of heartache if it had come earlier, eh, girlfriend? “And right now, I’m deliriously happy!”
“Are you?” Max sat back in his chair and watched her face break into a grin that had the corners of her eyes dancing. “What are you so happy about?”
“Everything! Being here with you, heading to Tanzania, Whitt and David getting married, seeing my family.”
“Tell me about this family of yours. I’ve met your parents and heard a bit about your cousin, Odessa, but tell me about some of the others.”
Finley took a slow sip of her Riesling. It was dry and surprisingly full-bodied, with the aromatic fruitiness she liked. If she had wine at any of her family’s houses, except Mama and Daddy’s, it was likely to be sweet like the iced tea. She would have to warn Max to stick to beer or bourbon.
What could she tell him about her family that wouldn’t overwhelm him or scare him off? There would be a lot of them, that was for sure, since both sides would be coming, and that meant extended as well as immediate family. She thought back on all the times the Sullivan’s Island house had been overrun with family, usually for weddings or funerals. Those were the times everyone felt compelled to make a showing. While the adults talked or cooked, or talked while they cooked, the kids, all cousins by blood or friendship, would play tag or red-light-green-light in the expansive backyard, which would soon be decorated for Whitt’s wedding.
Her mind wandered back to one of those summers. Finley had been about twelve or thirteen, and Whitt six or so. They had slipped away from the rest of the pack and headed up the stairs that led to the widow’s walk circling the uppermost level of the house. They had wanted to see the water that was visible from both the front and the back of that level—the ocean on the front side and the marshes on the back. They had only been on the deck for a few minutes when they heard snickering and saw the hatch door drop. Before they could reach it, the door slammed shut. They heard the bolt engage and knew they were locked out. The noise of all the people on the porch and in the yard muffled their cries for help, and after a few minutes, they sat and watched as the sun slipped below the horizon and night started to creep in. When Daddy found them some time later, Finley had used the skirt of her dress to cover her sister and was singing her to sleep.
Daddy was merciless in his punishment of the perpetrators. He never said a word, but when dessert—a humungous chocolate layer cake and homemade vanilla bean ice cream—was passed around that evening, Daddy made sure that the miscreants were skipped. His glare dared them to protest. Finley never did forgive Lael and Tommy for that prank. She wasn’t sure she ever would.
