Jekyll Island: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 5) (27 page)

“
My my,” Steve drawled as Taryn stepped out of her car
. “Someone done beat you with a purty stick!”

“Oh please,” Taryn laughed but still smoothed down her dress with pleasure.

It wasn’t often she got the chance to dress up and go someplace nice. She hadn’t had much time to shower and change after her adventure at Adena Cottage. Still, she’d managed to smudge on some makeup, braid her long red hair (still damp from the shower) so that it hung neatly down her back, and throw on a forest green dress that swept the floor but was still anything but conservative with its deep plunge and jersey knit that clung to her curves.

She thought she looked nice.

Steve was also looking dashing in his pressed uniform, slicked back hair, and sparkling eyes. When he leaned in to take her car keys from her she sniffed at him appreciatively. “You smell nice,” she flirted companionably.

“Yeah, well. I try,” he winked. “You here alone? Where’s your man?”

“He had to go back to Florida,” she replied. She’d tried to find David again to extend an invitation, but he still wasn’t answering his door or phone. His voicemail was full. She was getting worried.

“Well, Amy’s in there alone and I’m sure she’ll be glad to have someone to sit with,” he informed her. “She’s got that table to herself. I would’ve gone with her but they offered me over time and I couldn’t turn that down. Bills to pay and all that.”

“Yeah, I hear that,” Taryn agreed. When she got to the top of the stairs, picking up her dress as she walked so as not to trip over the ends, she stopped and turned. “Thanks for parking my car. Don’t mind the mess!”

“Sure thing sugar,” he called and threw a kiss up at her.

Taryn pretended to catch it and laughed.

She was looking forward to the evening.

“
If
I eat one more thing I’m gonna die,” Taryn moaned.

Amy nodded in agreement. “I’m getting fat,” she complained, patting her flat stomach as she leaned back in her chair.

“Oh please,” Taryn scoffed. “Look at you.”

The other woman looked fetching in her deep blue miniskirt that matched her eyes, peasant blouse, and stiletto heels. Taryn wished she could wear stilettos. They made the legs look so much better. Taryn knew she’d trip over them and break her neck.

They’d eaten their fill of shrimp and grits, scampi, catfish, tilapia, buttered rolls, baked potatoes, and a summer salad with strawberries and walnuts. Now both women were miserable but happy.

“Hey, is that key lime pie they’re bringing around?” Taryn asked, straightening in her seat and craning her neck as a server passed.

“You can’t be serious,” Amy said, raising her eyebrows.

“I am always serious when it comes to dessert,” Taryn said.

When the pie was placed in front of them, Amy slid hers over to Taryn. “There you go. Knock yourself out.”

Taryn did a little happy dance in her chair and dug in. There was always room for pie.

“So you haven’t heard from this guy at all in a few days? Not since he showed up at your house?” Amy asked.

Taryn, with a mouth full of pie, nodded. She hadn’t given Amy the whole story but had shared enough. “Yeah. He came over with some things he’d found on the beach. All excited, you know? Left about an hour later and I haven’t seen him since.”

Amy frowned. “Where did he find it?”

Taryn had never been much a liar. She tried to keep as close to the truth as possible. “Near the place where that hotel is going up.”

“I’ve heard that project manager is a real jackass,” Amy confessed. She picked up her fork and speared an edge off of the slice of pie Taryn was nibbling on.

“You want?” Taryn asked, starting to slide it back over.

“No, just a taste.” But Taryn noticed that while Amy talked she continued to eat. “Steve’s mentioned him a time or two.”

“How does Steve know him?”

“I don’t know,” Amy shrugged. “I think they met in a bar one night. Sometimes Steve goes out for drinks after work. I don’t go unless I’m staying with him for the night. I don’t like to be out on the road, even after one drink. That interstate’s dangerous you know. Crazy-assed drivers.”

Taryn nearly choked on her pie.

A Celtic group had been hired to sing and play for the evening, and they were coming back on again after taking a break. The female singer was a young woman with a deep powerful voice that reminded Taryn of Allison Moorer’s. She began drifting into a slow rendition of “Carrickfergus” that had the diners lowering their voices and turning to face the stage, mesmerized.

Although Taryn was generally someone who would’ve dropped everything to hone in on good music, she was antsy, ready to take the next step with what she’d unearthed that evening. “Hey,” she whispered to Amy. It seemed rude to talk at a normal level now, what with everyone entranced in the song. “I want to tell you something.”

Amy moved her chair in closer and leaned her head down to Taryn. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“Please don’t tell Ellen but I went inside Adena Cottage today.”

Amy’s eyes grew wide. “No kidding? And you’re still alive? Damn! What happened?”

Taryn quickly gave her the abridged version of what had been happening since she’d been on the island. She told her about the bad dreams, the voice telling her to “look,” her camera revealing the deaths at the hotel and the reconstruction of Adena Cottage, and the image appearing in the window.

“And you didn’t paint that?” Amy asked, shivering dramatically in the warm room.

“No, I didn’t. It appeared there all by itself. Listen,” Taryn added, “I’m only telling you these things because Ellen said that it was you who found me and that you already knew about my…stuff.”

Amy nodded. “It’s okay. I think it’s cool. So how can I help? What can we do from here?”

“I don’t know,” Taryn replied, her face burning in frustration. “I’ve done everything I possibly could. I thought for sure that since Georgiana appeared in the window there was a clue for me in the bedroom and that since she was holding the book I was meant to–“

“You mean the Bible?” Amy interjected.

“You think it’s a Bible too?” Taryn asked. “I looked all over the room and inside the wardrobe. I couldn’t find a book of any kind. It’s possible that it’s someplace else in the house, but I didn’t have time to look anywhere else.”

Amy pursed her lips and tapped her fingers on the table. Taryn noticed that they were perfectly manicured with little designs on them–butterflies. She felt the urge to hide her own broken nails, nails that were stained with paint and Linseed oil.

At last Amy stopped her tapping and exhaled slowly. “Okay, I don’t think we have anything of Georgiana’s here,” she said. “Not a book anyway, or a box or any secret treasure. We do have something else, though, that might be useful.”

“What’s that?”

Amy stood, removed the napkin from her lap, and motioned for Taryn to follow her. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

The music had changed by the time the women left the dining room. All five musicians were engaged in an upbeat jig, a song about war. The Irish sure were happy enough to engage in battle, Taryn thought as they waved goodbye to Ellen and the hostess and started down the hallway.

Taryn followed Amy past the beautiful bar and down a flight of stairs. It was quieter there, almost still. Everyone else was either in the dining room, in their rooms, or out at one of the other restaurants. The only thing Taryn saw at first were restrooms, but then she noticed a long glass case against one of the walls, directly below a picture taken of the original hotel. Amy was standing by it.

“A few years ago we bought these cases and started trying to put up displays of our history,” she explained. “You can find these all throughout the historic district. There’s only two left in the hotel. This is one of them. Let’s see if this helps.”

Taryn glanced down and studied the objects enclosed in the case. There were skeleton keys that fit rooms from the original hotel, a lantern, brass doorknobs, and crystals from the chandelier that once hung in the ballroom. Lastly was a black book, charred and in bad shape. The letters were difficult to make out on the cover, but by using her imagination Taryn could just about make out the words “Holy.”

“It’s a Bible,” Amy offered. “Some people thought it was in poor taste. I think it’s kind of cool. I mean, why not? It is a part of our history.”

“Is this Georgiana’s?” Taryn asked hopefully, tracing her finger around the book through the glass.

“Nope, afraid not. But it’s close. It’s Rachel’s.”

“Rachel?”

“Yeah. The only thing that survived their room.”

Taryn suddenly remembered the newspaper article and how William had only asked for two things–his family Bible and to visit his wife’s grave. “Is this the Bible he had in jail?”

“This is the one,” she nodded.

“How did it get back here?” Taryn wondered aloud.

“I guess someone brought it back after he died,” Amy shrugged. “You want to take a look?”

Taryn nodded with excitement. “Hell yeah!”

Amy dug around in her tiny purse until she produced a key and then gently unlocked the case. Taryn reached in and carefully removed the fragile book, taking care not to damage it. She started to open the stiff cover, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Huh,” Taryn said, puzzled. Was it too old? Had the fire fused the pages together?

“It’s locked,” Amy supplied helpfully, pointing at the side.

Taryn turned it over and looked. Sure enough, there was a small lock keeping it bound. “Well that’s weird,” Taryn said. “Why would you lock a Bible?”

The light that flashed through her took a second to hit her but when she did she laughed.

“Don’t know,” Amy replied. “We tried opening it once before but didn’t want to break it out–“

“Allow me,” Taryn said. With her fingers mentally crossed for luck she opened the small purse she carried for the evening and searched for the tiny key she’d found at the cottage. Amy’s eyes widened when Taryn brought it out. “Ready?”

Amy nodded and both women leaned in to watch as Taryn put it in the lock and turned. It stuck at first and she thought it wasn’t going to work. She was afraid to force it and was just about to give up when the small clasp finally gave and the pages popped open in her hand.

As Taryn and Amy stared at the thin pages, spidery handwriting, and ink blots Amy shook her head and swore. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“It’s not a Bible after all,” Taryn mused. “It’s a diary.”

The scent of smoke surrounded them then, so light it was almost imperceptible. Neither one could be absolutely certain whether it was real or not.

Taryn locked the doors and drew the curtains.
Then she double-checked all the rooms, going so far as to look under the bed and in the closets.

There was no good reason for her to feel as unsettled as she did, but she’d been uneasy on the whole drive home.

“It’s because you’ve snuck a historical artifact out of a majorly important hotel and could get arrested,” she told herself, trying to lighten the mood.

She’d promised Amy that she would get the diary back in the morning, or maybe even later that night, before anyone noticed it was missing. Amy had left the case unlocked for her. That might have been the other reason Taryn was paranoid. If anyone stole anything from the case, it would be on her head.

She could’ve waited until the next day, gone to Ellen and explained what she’d found and how she needed to look at the diary, but she couldn’t wait. Her attempts at locating Ellen in the dining room failed.

“I’ll read it, put it in a safe place, and take it back first thing in the morning,” she said to the room.

Turning the lamp on in her bedroom, Taryn fluffed her pillows, grabbed her a drink, and settled into the bed with the book in her hands. She was finally going to get to the bottom of things…