Jekyll Island: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 5) (23 page)

Gerald P. Evans was a short, stocky, and nervous-looking man
with a facial tick and pants that stopped a few inches too short, revealing his burgundy socks.

Taryn could smell the lawyer on him as soon as he entered the cramped, cheesy hotel bar. She’d spent a lot of time with attorneys over the years. First there had been the ones who’d overseen her parents’ estate and then the one who’d been in charge of her grandmother’s and then, the last one, the woman with Andrew’s estate. Since Taryn and Andrew were engaged but not married she hadn’t been entitled to much, other than the house and property they’d owned together. His parents had allowed her to keep whatever she’d wanted of his, though, and she’d kept most of it. They lived in a small condo in St. Petersburg, Florida and simply didn’t have the room.

“So you saw the house,” he began in a voice that was more feminine than it should’ve been.

“Yes,” she agreed, taking a sip of her whiskey and Coke. She thought the situation called for alcohol. “It’s not as bad as I’d thought, but worse than I can afford to handle.”

“Unfortunately these things tend to happen when a home goes empty for an extended period,” he replied prissily.

Taryn bristled at the remark. “Well, I am unable to live here full time. I have a home in Nashville, and I’ve signed a lease.”

Of course, that lease was up now and had been as of last month. But that wasn’t any of his business.

“Of course, of course,” he replied, his cheeks turning pink. “I didn’t mean to imply that–“

“It doesn’t matter,” Taryn cut him off. “You’re right. I’m just not sure what to do at this point. Can you lay out everything that needs to be done to it to make it livable?”

Taryn listened in earnestness. Heart continued to sink lower and lower as he went over the costs for the new roof, central heat and air (it only existed in part of the house), new wiring for the electrical system, plumbing updates, new insulation, and a better drainage system. “As it is, the cellar floods every time it rains, both from problems with the gutters that need replacing and orthostatic pressure from an underground water source,” he explained.

“Good Lord,” Taryn sighed. “How in the world did Aunt Sarah even
live
there?”

Gerald shrugged. “She was a stubborn woman. She used all three of her wood stoves in the winter and constantly had wood delivered up there. Didn’t care for air conditioning from what I heard. And only one of the bathrooms is usable. She kept it in order and just let the others go.”

Taryn shuddered. “And wood delivery? How were people even able to get up there in the winter to bring it to her? How did she get out?”

Taryn could only imagine trying to get down that driveway with three feet of snow on the ground.

“Well, she didn’t get out much there in the end. She had a snowmobile, however, and used it when she needed to. Road department felt bad for her and cleaned the drive when they could. Like many folks around here, she started collecting her wood back in the summer to let it dry out properly. There are good folks around here. They helped her out,” he added with pride.

“Listen, I’m going to have to think about this and figure out what I want to do,” Taryn said, feeling like she’d been punched in the stomach. “I don’t want to make any hasty decisions right away.”

“If you want my advice,” he leaned in towards her, his tiny little eyes shifting nervously behind his glasses, “I’d sell. You’d get a fair price for the land alone. Too much house and too much work to fix it yourself. You’re looking at a money pit. Just take what mementos you want and leave the rest of the trouble for someone else. Start yourself a nice little nest egg.”

With that, the attorney, who Taryn was disliking more and more by the minute, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms with smugness. She wished she’d met the other attorney, the one who’d been keeping in touch with her up until now. She’d liked him. This guy was a tool.

“I don’t know about that yet,” she said politely, forcing a smile on her face through pursed lips.

“Well, it would be nearly impossible for you to secure a construction loan of that magnitude. You, a young woman like yourself who’s not gainfully employed,” he added, narrowing his eyes at her.

For the second time since he sat down, Taryn bristled at his words. “Well, thank you, but I am employed. I am just self-employed. I actually run a successful business.” There was no reason for him to know that she’d bought the underwear she was wearing seven years ago. And that they had come from a package of five, on sale at Walmart. And that she’d been overdrawn so many times in the past year that her bank had simply stopped sending her the notices, probably figuring that they were wasting too much paper.

“I just meant that you would be in far over your head with this,” he insisted. “It’s too much!”

If there was one thing Taryn hated more than anything else, it was someone telling her what to do. Likewise, she couldn’t stand it when someone told her what she couldn’t do. Like it was any of their business. If she wanted to do something, then by God she’d find a way to get it done.

Rising to her feet, Taryn smiled sweetly down at the portly man, masking her irritation behind southern charm. “Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. I’ll be in touch.”

After paying at the bar, Taryn stalked to the elevator and muttered angrily to herself on the whole ride up to the tenth floor.

She’d be damned if she was going to let someone she didn’t even know boss her around. If she wanted to live in Aunt Sarah’s house and pay to fix it up, she’d do it. She
would
do it.

The air was thick, almost chewy. Gasping for breath, she felt the weight of a thousand pounds on her chest and wanted to scream for air. When she opened her mouth to gulp what she craved, she found her lungs filled with dense smoke that burned her throat and stomach as it slid down the narrow passage.

She couldn’t see. The room was dark, and a thin film covered her eyes, distorting the world around her.

Taryn wasn’t herself again. She could feel her bare legs under the long nightgown and felt it scrape the floor as she crawled on her hands and knees, coughing and sputtering.

When her head touched something hard, and a dull pain traveled down her neck and spine, she rose to her feet and flattened her breasts against a wall. Closing her eyes now, she inched along, arms outstretched, searching for a way out. She couldn’t see the fire, but she could hear it. She never knew flames could be so
loud
. These were thunderous, though, and in their roaring drowned out everything else.

She didn’t know where she was or how she got there; she just knew she needed to get out.

She knew she was dying, knew her lungs and heart couldn’t take much more. When her left hand touched another wall and she realized she’d hit a corner she crumpled to the floor in defeat, her eyes stinging from tears and smoke. Sobbing now, she raised her arms over her head and scratched weakly on the wall above her.

“Help me,” she whispered hoarsely, knowing the flames were growing closer and would surely drown her out. “Help me.”

Her last thought, before fading into total darkness was,

Why didn’t he…

“
So
how was your visit to the mountains?” Amy asked cheerfully.

Taryn closed her eyes, too chicken to watch the scene on the interstate unfold a second time. “Not as good as I’d hoped,” she answered, praying the ride would be mercifully short, but not so short that Amy put anyone’s life at risk.

“Shame,” Amy replied with what sounded like genuine regret. “Well, you didn’t miss much. Actually, I don’t know. I didn’t go back to work yesterday, so I don’t know if anything happened or not.”

Taryn smiled but kept her eyes closed.

“Hey, you okay?” Taryn could feel Amy turn and study her from the driver’s seat. For a moment the car swerved dangerously to the right and Taryn grabbed ahold of the arm rest in fear.

“Just tired,” she replied as Amy straightened the vehicle and almost overcorrected. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Trouble sleeping in a new place?”

“Nightmares,” Taryn answered shortly.

“Yeah. I get them a lot too. Steve says that they’re a product of working around so many ghosts,” Amy cackled.

“Your boyfriend, Steve? Is that the same guy who’s a valet?” Taryn asked with interest.

“Yep, same dude. We’ve been dating for two years now. He’s pretty cool. He’s an artist you know,” Amy declared with pride. “Kind of a starving artist if you know what I mean. He took the valet gig to pay the bills. His real love is art.”

“I didn’t know that,” Taryn said. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t plan on making the hotel our full-time gig forever,” Amy swore. “We’re starting a kind of artists’ colony over in Brunswick. They’ve put some work in the downtown. I mean, it’s still a little ghetto in some places, but the town’s shaping up. I think one day it will be as awesome as Savannah. I’m kinda glad of being in on it from the ground floor if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I think that’s pretty awesome,” Taryn replied truthfully. “So what do you guys do?”

“Well, Steve lives with five other guys in this big old Victorian house they’re trying to renovate. His roommate bought it dirt cheap a year ago, and they’re making the downstairs a studio and gallery. They all live upstairs.”

Taryn could hear the pride in Amy’s voice. She loved the fact that young people were getting together to make changes in their city. It was an exciting time to be young these days, and she’d started noticing a lot of kids trying to rehab, restore, and save their history and culture. She respected that.

“You should come chill with us some night. Hang out with us in Savannah,” Amy suggested as she took the Brunswick exit at top speed. “There’s some awesome clubs and cafes up there. Live music if you’re into that.”

“Yeah,” Taryn agreed. “Sounds nice.”

As they sailed over the soaring bridge at breakneck speed, Amy turned up Sturgill Simpson and sang along at the top of her lungs. In spite of Taryn’s fear of plunging into the water below, with the windows down and the summer breeze pouring through the car she couldn’t help but smile. She was starting to get used to, and
like
, the companionship.

She hadn’t thought she’d be that happy to return to Jekyll Island, considering everything that had happened. As it turned out, she felt a little bit like she was going home.