The staircase was only wide enough to accommodate one person, so Danny stepped back and gestured for Elizabeth and Camille to take the lead. “Ladies first,” he said as he handed the cell phone to Elizabeth as she passed. She doubted the act was meant to be gallant. Elizabeth cautiously navigated the small passage, testing each wooden step before placing her full weight upon it, with some stairs protesting louder than others. Camille followed gripping the back of her T-shirt to ensure that she didn’t get separated. The atmosphere was stale and heavy, and Elizabeth felt as though they were breathing the same air that had been trapped in the confined space since the 1840s. The stairs wound down a circular path, and she imagined the three of them as a train set, with her as the engine, Camille the middle, and Danny the caboose.
When they reached the bottom, a single door stood between them and their way out. The thought of having to turn around and traverse back up the stairs was more than she thought Danny would be willing to do, and expected him to push his way forward and kick the door in if necessary. Fortunately, a simple turn of the handle and the door easily gave up its hold, and they piled out into another small room. This one was considerably cooler and more refreshing. She saw multiple canned goods and boxed items with expiration dates well past their prime.
“It’s a food pantry,” Danny said in case she and Camille hadn’t figured that out for themselves.
She closed the door to the stairs to make their presence less noticeable, not that she expected the kitchen pantry to have any visitors, but she was being mindful of Samuel’s graciousness. Once closed, the door was no longer noticeable, as there was no handle to reopen it. It merely looked like another wall of shelves. She had to admit it was a clever escape route.
Danny pushed open two slatted doors, and they exited into the kitchen. Since she’d made a cursory pass through the room earlier and discovered nothing of note, they didn’t linger and instead tried to make their way back to the front door.
Danny took the cell phone from her and assumed the lead, as they snaked through a few rooms continuing the train formation, but with Elizabeth now in the middle and Camille on the end. When the caboose stumbled after running a bit off course and hitting a chair, Elizabeth turned and helped balance her, and they resumed their course with Camille reattaching herself to Elizabeth’s shirt for extra security. The return trek seemed to be taking far longer than the inbound one, but Danny refused to admit that navigating the first floor seemed much easier the first time through when they still had daylight.
“You’re going the wrong way. We need to go back through that door and turn left,” Elizabeth said.
“This coming from a woman who thinks north is down.”
Before Elizabeth could respond or Camille could intervene in their bickering, an accusing voice came from behind a bright flashlight. “What are you doing in here?”
They stood frozen like the proverbial deer in headlights; all they needed were antlers.
Elizabeth stepped forward and shielded her eyes from the light. “Do you mind?” She gestured to the flashlight, which was lowered to allow her to approach.
“You shouldn’t be here. I could arrest you for trespassing.”
Elizabeth smirked at the empty threat. “The caretaker gave us permission to be here.” She approached Grace and reached out to lower the light, which was once again in her face.
“What caretaker?”
“Samuel. I ran into him outside earlier, and he said we could look around, as long as we closed the place up tight. What are you doing here?”
Grace wasn’t in the mood to entertain questions, and turned to the other two. “Come on, you need to leave.”
Elizabeth was visibly incensed at the order. “We have permission to be here.”
“Right, the caretaker.” With Elizabeth standing within arm’s reach, Grace trailed the light down and admired the black workout pants before returning back to her shirt. “What are you wearing? Does your shirt say ‘Homie’?”
“Why yes, yes it does.” Elizabeth crossed her arms in defiance.
Grace kept her eyes trained on her and showed no emotion when Camille stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with Elizabeth, as though prepared to defend her if necessary. She would have laughed at the absurdity if it weren’t for the jealous streak that ripped through her. “Let’s go,” Grace barked with more force than she intended.
Elizabeth hesitated at the command, and Grace recognized the look and decided to defuse the situation by turning and walking away first. The trio followed, and Grace waited outside the front door and securely closed it behind them, ensuring it was locked.
“How did you get in here?” she asked as Elizabeth walked past.
“It was unlocked,” she responded without turning back.
“Unlocked,” Grace said to herself. She remembered the “unlocked” boys school in the Raymond Miller case, where the locks were cut and doors pried open. Seems she’s getting better at it.
Elizabeth continued to Camille’s car and pulled open the door but hesitated before entering, and Grace watched every subtle move she made from the slight caressing of her thumb on the door handle to the faint twitch of her foot.
Come on turn around. Look at me.
Without turning back, Elizabeth settled herself into the car and closed the door, keeping her eyes trained ahead, and Grace closed her eyes and inwardly sighed. Why did it have to be so hard?
When she drew her eyes back to the car, her breath hitched as a set of beautiful blue eyes were staring back at her. That was all she needed.
Chapter Eight
Elizabeth sat at the outside café table in the warm air and enjoyed the uptick in the late autumn temperature. With her palm holding up her chin, she poised over an open manila folder that held the pages she appropriated from the secret room. Stealing was too harsh a word in her mind because they were discarded, as best she could tell. She flipped through the six nonstandard sized sheets that measured six inches by three and a half. Each page bore a jagged edge indicative of being torn out of a book, a date book she guessed, because each page contained days of the week printed out with the date next to it. It would seem innocuous enough, but for the fact that it was a date book from 1864.
However, it seemed that the preprinted dates didn’t suit its author, as the day and year were crossed out on each page and new dates for April 1865 were written in their place. Writing was scribbled on each page, and it appeared to serve as a journal. The problem was the script was difficult to decipher, in part because of the faded ink, but more to the fact that the words made no sense. She recognized the individual letters, but they were illogical, forming no words, as though it were code. She truly wished that she could piece together the story for no other reason than it was a century-and-a-half-old piece of history. There was one page that she could make out and that was a sketch of a home with a caption below, but it was as nonsensical as the rest of the pages, and if she had to guess, the drawing was of the White Horse Plantation home.
She wanted nothing more than to call Grace and tell her everything from the stash of weapons in the home to the haunting pages in front of her, but she didn’t for both professional and personal reasons. Not quite ready to unpack the complexity of their budding relationship, instead she called Rich, who already seemed knee-deep in the case. She thought of meeting him at his office, however she always did that bringing his favorite vice, jelly beans, as payment for his help, and she felt she owed him more and invited him to lunch. She wasn’t sure he would accept because she had never seen him outside the gray government office where he worked. She simply associated the county recorder’s office with Rich, as if that was the only place he existed, like a child who was surprised to learn that her teacher didn’t live at school. However, Rich did accept her invitation, with quite a bit of enthusiasm, and she’d been sitting and waiting ten minutes past their scheduled time to meet.
She smiled when she saw him approach; his freshly combed strands
of hair sat neatly across his balding head. He straightened his shirt as he approached, then jammed his hands in his pockets when he saw her.
“Hi, Rich.” Elizabeth stood and gave him a warm hug. She could almost feel him blushing at the contact.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he fumbled. “There was an issue in the office. A file was misplaced. It should have been under ‘p’ for permit, but it was under ‘l’ for license.” He shook his head in disgust at the unforgivable lapse, and Elizabeth nodded along trying to show her appreciation for the gravity of the mishap.
“No problem. Thank you for meeting me.”
A waiter approached for their orders and as soon as he left, she pushed the manila folder to his side of the table. She had already described her adventure the day before in detail on the phone, and even sent him photos from her phone of the pages, but it didn’t do the document justice.
He gingerly flipped through the pages with a distressed look on his face. “These pages are a small piece of history and deserve better care than being carried around in a folder. They need better protection. You should probably photocopy them and keep the originals in a plastic cover somewhere safe.”
Appropriately reprimanded, Elizabeth promised she would do just that as soon as their meeting was over, and he continued to inspect the writing. He spent several minutes carefully scanning each page. Their lunch arrived, but it was ignored. Rich was too absorbed in the papers, and Elizabeth was too absorbed in watching him.
When he finally lifted his head, she breathed out, “Well?”
Much to her disappointment, he wasn’t able to decipher any more meaning than she did.
“What is the interest with the papers anyway? I understand that they’re intriguing, given the age and all, but what relevance does this have to your client?”
Elizabeth knew that was a fair question because both Danny and Camille asked the same, and she had lain awake at night asking the very thing. Instead of arguing that her gut told her it meant something, she provided the only logical answer that she could. “Samuel—” she started, but was interrupted.
“Samuel?”
“He is the caretaker of the White Horse Plantation. I ran into him before I went into the home,” she explained. “He said the walls hold many secrets. At first I thought he was speaking figuratively, but then I found these pages shoved in a crevice of a wall.”
He smiled, and she wasn’t sure if he was placating her or thinking of ways to have her committed. Nonetheless, he offered to reach out to his old college roommate, a historian with the local Civil War museum, who would have better insight into the context of the writings.
Chapter Nine
With a designer coffee warming her hands, Elizabeth leaned against her car parked outside an overpriced coffee house, uncertain whether she should leave another message. At first, she battled with herself on whether to call Grace. What would she say? Would Grace want to hear from her? When she ran into her at the White Horse Plantation, Grace seemed distant and annoyed, and that troubled Elizabeth more than she realized at the time. A quick check-in call would allay her fears. Fear of what, she asked herself repeatedly, but she didn’t want to answer her own question. What if Grace found whatever they started to be too much trouble? So she called Grace, not once or twice, but nearly a dozen times since the morning, and each time it went to voice mail. Grace was now avoiding her.
She set the coffee on the top of her car, reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out her phone. She had come to memorize the pattern of rings and Grace’s outgoing message and waited impatiently for the beep. She wasn’t sure what she would say, but she was going to give her a piece of her mind. “Hi, Grace, it’s Elizabeth. Call me back please.” Okay, maybe that was a little mellower than initially planned.
However, that did little to settle the unrest mounting within her. She needed to see her, but realized that she didn’t even know where Grace lived, and now she was angry. Grace knew where she lived. Grace knew her friends. What did Elizabeth know? She knew where Grace worked.
Elizabeth yanked open her car door and brought her engine to a roar. She hastily pulled out of the parking spot, and her forgotten coffee cup tipped over and spilled down her windshield. This pissed her off even more because somehow that was Grace’s fault too, as was the speeding ticket she earned on her drive to the police station.
By the time she pulled into the station parking lot, she was nearly boiling over. She slammed her car door and marched to the front entrance and took her place in line. Fortunately for her, and possibly for those in front of her, the line was short because with each passing moment, her temperature gauge rose. When her turn came, she spoke to the desk officer through gritted teeth. “I am here to see Detective Grace Donovan.”
“What?” the officer asked, forcing Elizabeth to repeat herself, and she overly articulated each word.
“Is she expecting you?”
“Yes.” A lie, she knew, but she was far beyond caring.
After writing down Elizabeth’s name, the uniformed officer disappeared through a side door, and she looked around the lobby and spotted the chair where she sat on her first visit to the station. Instead of meeting the rumpled detective that she created in her mind, she met the sleek, beautiful woman who was the epitome of her name. She remembered how uncharacteristically flustered she was at their first meeting, and a crack in Elizabeth’s cranky demeanor formed.
When the desk officer returned, Elizabeth’s steam began to whither, and she met him with a more cordial demeanor.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, there was an emergency. Detective Donovan went to the hospital.”
“Oh my God, where?” she asked, reaching out and grabbing his arm.
“Memorial,” he answered as he pulled his arm away.
Elizabeth ran to her car, her mind frantically racing, all prior thoughts abandoned. She chastised herself for her earlier pettiness. What if Grace was seriously hurt or worse?
She pulled into the emergency room parking area and ran through the automatic glass doors, dodging an exiting wheelchair.
“Grace Donovan,” she barked to the attendant at the front desk.
“What is the last name?” the elderly woman asked in a calm voice.
“D-O-N-O-V-A-N,” she spelled out to ensure that there were no additional delays.
“Donovan, G has been admitted to room 426, fourth floor.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth yelled behind her, as she was already on her way down the hall before the woman finished her sentence.
As she jabbed at the elevator button in an attempt to make it come faster, she searched the area for the stairs as Plan B. Before she needed to put the alternative plan into action, the elevator doors opened, and she rushed inside.
When the elevator finally reached the fourth floor, she darted out, counting the room numbers as she passed. She reached room 426, pushed open the door, and slid to an abrupt halt on the linoleum, startling the sole occupant, who stared at her more in amusement than fear.
“Uh, sorry,” Elizabeth uttered and stuck her head out the door to verify the room number. She turned to face the man in the bed who continued to watch her, and she looked to the white board on the side wall that listed the patient’s statistics and the name “Donovan, G” at the top.
“I’m so sorry. I must have the wrong room,” she said and bowed in apology, as she began to back out. Just when she thought she made her escape, the door was pushed open, slamming into the back of her, nearly sending her to the ground.
“Are you all right? I didn’t expect anyone behind the door.”
Elizabeth turned to see the most beautiful eyes she could hope for. They were bluer than she even remembered.
“Grace!” She threw herself at her and held on, afraid to let go.
Grace returned the hug. “Honey, what are you doing here?” she whispered.
Elizabeth pulled back slightly, not ready to let go, and pointed to the name on the board. “I went to the st
ation, and they said you were in the hospital. I thought…” But she couldn’t finish the thought.
Grace squeezed her arms in a show of compassion before breaking contact. She guided her to the bed. “Elizabeth, this is my father, George Donovan. He was admitted early this morning with chest pains, but it turned out to be indigestion from all the greasy food that he’s been eating, and his diet is going to substantially change.” Grace seemed to be talking more for her father’s benefit than for Elizabeth’s.
Elizabeth did all that she could not to cry with the black, heavy weight that seemed to pin her down lifted, allowing her to breathe. Although the appropriate greeting would have been a hello or handshake, she reached forward and embraced him. “I am so glad you are all right.”
He patted her on the back. “There, there, sweetie, I’m going to be just fine,” George said.
Elizabeth pulled back to look at him and wiped an errant tear from her eye. There was no mistaking that this man was Grace’s father. They shared the same eyes.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” she said, suddenly feeling foolish.
“You don’t need to leave. The more the merrier.” The large grin on his face told Elizabeth that he meant what he said. “Not a whole lot to do here,” he said, pointing to the snow on the television that hung from the ceiling. “Stay and keep us company.”
Elizabeth appreciated the offer because she wasn’t ready to leave just yet. She was still trying to gain her sea legs after the ordeal.
“So, how do you know my daughter?”
“We worked together,” Grace interjected.
“So, you’re the stubborn one,” he said and beamed at Grace.
Elizabeth cocked her head to the side and eyed both father and daughter, as Grace stared at him. She wasn’t sure what she was missing, but she knew it was significant. A warm look passed between them, and Grace gave him a nod before turning to Elizabeth. “I’m glad you came. There are some things we need to talk about. The Francis case, that is.”
Secrets of the Last Castle Page 8
