Seizure(21)

“Thank you so much for letting us steal a peek at the collection,” I said quickly. “We really appreciate it.”

“My pleasure.” Chris pulled back the curtain and waved us through. “But let’s not mention this visit in the comment box.” He fired a shooter at Hi. “And nice going on that pants zipping. That’s sophisticated work.”

Hi snorted, shot him a thumbs-up.

Eyes rolling, I slipped through the drapes into darkness.





I HEARD CHRIS pass me on the right.

Fiddling sounds. Then a floor lamp ignited, followed by another. Chris moved to the opposite side of the room and powered a third.

“Sorry for the gloom.” He foot-shoved an extension cord toward the wall. “The power is disconnected in this area. We’re re-jiggering the wiring.”

The lighting was soft and yellow, perhaps fifty percent of normal. The room’s corners remained deep in shadow. I wished I could flare to see better, but I wasn’t crazy.

We were standing in a windowless chamber about thirty feet square. Display cases lined the walls, each stuffed with antique pirate paraphernalia. Tattered banners. Replica ships. Gold coins. Daggers.

Beside each cabinet, a sign explained the contents in flowing, antiquated script. The room had a jumbled, eclectic feel.

I was captivated. Pirate gear is just too cool for words.

The room’s center held a small assemblage of dummies, each costumed in authentic pirate regalia. Foremost among them was a woman wearing a white linen shirt, a red and purple velvet vest, men’s breeches, wool stockings, and a mottled waistcoat. Gold hoop earrings, a silver pendant, a pearl necklace, a wide leather belt, ribbons, brass buckles, and sturdy black boots completed the ensemble.

The lady had flair.

She also had a wicked iron cutlass, three knives in leather sheaths, and a pair of pistols strapped to her chest.

“Meet Anne.” Chris gestured to the lady buccaneer.

“Amazing.” I crossed to study the mannequin. “Where was she from, exactly?”

“Her early history is hard to pin down,” Chris said. “The most widely accepted story places her birth in County Cork, Ireland, sometime before 1700.”

“Her father was a Kinsale lawyer named William Cormac.” Sallie had been so quiet I’d forgotten she was there. “He was quite prominent, but had an affair with his serving woman and got caught.”

“Playa’s gotta play,” Hi muttered under his breath. “Oof!”

My elbow, his gut.

Chris picked up the story. “When his wife exposed the adultery, Cormac was publically shamed and driven out of business. His reputation was shattered, so he fled to the New World with his mistress and their newborn daughter. That would be Anne.”

“Where’d they end up?” Shelton asked, voice neutral. I suspected he knew the answer and was testing.

“Right here in Charles Town,” Chris replied. “Cormac soon had a thriving legal practice, and he and his family became part of the city’s upper crust. Anne grew up rich on a Lowcountry plantation.”

“So why’d she turn pirate?” This time, Shelton’s curiosity sounded genuine.

“By all accounts, Anne was a wild child,” Sallie answered. “Her father constantly griped about her tomboy ways, but she was stubborn. And he worked too much to keep close watch over her.”

“Anne’s mother died when she was a teenager,” Chris added. “Having no siblings, Anne spent a lot of time alone, and eventually fell in with the ‘wrong crowd.’”

My breath caught. My eyelids burned.

Oh God. Don’t fall apart.

Sometimes it happened like that. The slightest connection to my mother and, without warning, I’d go to pieces. I always tried to hide my sadness. Mostly, I succeeded.

It’d been less than a year since the accident. Though duller now, at times the pain still cut like a knife.

Anne lost her mother. You lost your mother. Shake it off.

I refocused on Sallie’s words.

“—stabbed him with her dagger! Young Mr. Grabby-Hands was hospitalized for weeks. After that, nobody made unwanted passes at Anne. And she was only fourteen!”

Like ping-pong, the tale bounced back to Chris. “At sixteen, Anne fell for a drifter named James Bonny. Most think he was simply after her inheritance. When they married, her father was furious.”

Ping. Sallie’s turn.

“Cormac had always wanted Anne to be a lady of importance,” she said. “He planned to marry his daughter into a respectable Charles Town family, through a man of his choosing. She was supposed to be an aristocrat. A plantation owner’s wife.”

Pong. Chris took over.

“When Anne refused to renounce her no-account, sea captain husband, Daddy Cormac gave her the boot. So the couple moved to New Providence, a pirate hotbed in the Bahamas.”

“She was married?” That surprised me. “Even as an outlaw?”

“Not for long,” Sallie said. “Anne got cozy with the local pirates, then found out James had turned informant. She left him for a flashy swashbuckler named Calico Jack Rackham.”

“This part I know,” Shelton said. “Calico Jack offered to buy Anne, but her husband wouldn’t have it. So they ran off together.”