“Are you Gray Delacroix?” the boy asked.
Gray nodded, and the boy handed over the card.
20 nautical miles east. Next stop Bermuda.
Gray sagged in relief, feeling every one of the last thirty-six hours. Too many emotions swirled inside for him to make sense of them. Fatigue, relief, exhilaration. He wished he had someone to share this moment with.
Once home, he drew the curtains in his bedroom, collapsed onto the mattress, and stared at the ceiling. The house was so quiet. Lonely. He wanted to sleep for a solid week but didn’t have that luxury.
He needed to go to Cuba and get the truth out of Luke.
It took three days to reach Cuba. Gray went well-armed with cash and two pistols. Rebuilding projects were underway all over the island, but years of warfare couldn’t be patched over in a few months. Agricultural fields had been devastated, bridges destroyed, and people were hungry.
It was part of the reason Gray didn’t mind paying bribes, for the money would go to feed the guards’ families. He would have preferred to meet Luke out in the prison yard like the last time he was here, but shortly after Gray arrived, the sky opened, releasing sheets of rain. Holding his coat over his head, he darted around rapidly forming puddles in the prison yard as he made his way through the gates.
Once in the foyer, he shook water from his coat and dried off as best he could with his handkerchief, but everything still felt damp. It smelled like wet brick in here. The officer in charge of the jail remembered him from his last visit, and after accepting the perfunctory bribe, the officer noticed a bag of food Gray intended to give to Luke. It required yet another bribe, but soon the guard led him down the hallway to Luke’s cell. While the guard rattled through the keys, Gray braced himself for what he would see on the other side of this door. It had been four months since Luke’s arrest. The heat and deprivation were bound to be getting to him.
Luke was asleep on the cot, his mouth slack and an open book splayed on his chest. His skin was pasty white, making the bruise darkening one eye and a cut on his lip look even worse. A fight with the guards? Other prisoners? Either way it was sickening, and Gray lowered his head to pray.
Dear Lord, what am I supposed to do? This can’t be your will.
No answers came. The cut on Luke’s lip was healing and the bruise looked old, so this couldn’t be a daily thing, but it still made Gray ill. He struggled to compose himself, then gently kicked the foot of the cot to wake his brother. It took a fewnudges before Luke blearily awakened. A smile cracked across his face, but he made no effort to rise.
“Gray?”
Gray stepped forward into the cell. “Just off the boat.”
Luke braced a hand on the thin cot to push himself up. Sitting made him look even thinner, his shirt hanging open to expose a bony ribcage. Gray tossed a sack of beef jerky, chocolate, and almonds on the cot. He’d had to pay a fortune to get it past the guard, but the expression on Luke’s face was worth it as he tore into a chocolate bar, taking a small bite from the end. He extended it to Gray.
“Want some?”
Even starving, Luke instinctively offered him a bite of chocolate. Gray shook his head and asked the questions that were impossible to hold back.
“Fight with the guards?” He gestured to Luke’s eye.
Luke shrugged. “I’m not the most popular guy in here.”
That certainly had to be true. The soldiers staffing the jail were working in conjunction with the Americans, and anyone suspected of siding with the insurgency and potentially setting back the island’s reconstruction was in for a rough time.
“Is there anything I can do?” Gray asked, knowing it was probably a pointless question.
Luke batted his concern away. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. There are a couple of guards who sometimes pull weekend duty who really don’t like me, but they hardly ever get assigned to this ward.”
“What are their names?”
“Forget it. Trying to interfere will only make it worse.”
Gray’s stomach clenched, because it was probably true.
Luke eagerly absorbed all the news from home, leaning forward with delight on his face as Gray spoke of Caroline’s work at the White House and of how Otis had just set off on his first voyage with Captain Haig.
Luke only ate half the chocolate bar, carefully wrapping the foil around the rest. He stood to put the entire parcel of food into a rope sack dangling above his cot. “Mice,” he explained with a reluctant smile. “Nothing gets left on the floor unless I want to share it with them.”
Gray nodded, looking around the miserable cell, noting that it wasn’t quite so barren as the last time he was here. A jug of water rested on a crate that doubled as a table. Luke had writing implements and a few books. The book that had been lying on his chest when Gray entered still rested on the cot. He tilted it to see the spine and raised a curious brow.
“A Bible?”
Luke shrugged. “I’m working on saving my soul. Heaven knows I’ve got the time. I’ve read it three times since I’ve been in here. Go on—open it to any page and test me.”
