“Oh God,” Taryn moaned. She fumbled with the button and took another shot; this time Permelia was even closer, almost close enough to touch Taryn’s hair. Her fingernails were ripped and torn, a profound bruise on her cheek. When Taryn looked up from the camera into the dark room, it was empty. “I can’t do this. I was wrong! I’ve got to get out of here.”
Without turning on her flashlight she raced for the stairs. In the distance she saw a flash of light through the window. Daniel and Willow were here. She thought she could do this alone but she was wrong. She needed help.
“I’m inside,” she hollered, though she knew it was useless. They’d never hear her. “In here!” If she could just make it to the door…
Almost to the bottom of the stairs, her face lit up as she saw her freedom. The door was only a few feet away. But, once again, a powerful force pushed her from behind. With a colossal scream she grabbed onto the bannister and caught herself before she tumbled below. Her feet dangled down the stairs, her wet sneakers sliding on the wood as she tried to stand up again. Then, just as it had before, the little door at the bottom opened. Lightning struck and brightened the interior as Taryn watched in astonishment.
Forgetting her fear for a moment she scrambled to her feet and crawled towards the door. Remembering her flashlight, she turned it back on and shone it inside. It was empty, but…
Giving Miss Dixie another chance Taryn aimed her at the small space and let her go. The image that came back was as suspected: a crumpled mass in trousers and a white shirt buttoned down the front. His hair was dark and matted with blood. But she also saw something else–a loose board sticking up near his feet.
The board was pushed down now, flattened. The room was empty. Trying not to think about the body that had once been there and the spiders that could very well be there now, Taryn crawled inside. Somewhere, off in the distance, she could hear pounding on the front door as someone cried, “Let us in, let us in!” The storm had picked up now. Glass ruptured somewhere upstairs, the house shook, and lightning cracked so close she was certain it would send all of them up in flames. She could faintly hear the sound of a woman screaming, piercing and helpless, and sobs that dug into her soul. Still, she continued crawling to the edge of the room, towards the floorboard.
Using her flashlight for leverage, she pulled at the board with all her might. It didn’t budge. Again she tried to dislodge it. The force sent her sprawling backwards, causing her to hit her head on the wall behind her. “Damn it,” she cried. Daniel was outside, calling her name, but he sounded a million miles away. She would give up, she had to. She couldn’t do this.
“I can’t do this,” she screamed. “I need help.”
As she crawled back towards the door, however, it slammed shut. Now she was alone in the tiny room. Unable to stand she crouched at the door and beat on it, calling for help. “You can’t keep me in here!” she cried, panicked. “You can’t!”
A whisper, so light she might have imagined it, came to her left ear. “Help me,” it pleaded. “Help me.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” she muttered, disgusted with herself. She was terrified but at least she still had her flashlight. The sooner she did this, the better.
Scuttling back over to the board, she dug at it again. This time it sprang loose. Part of her fingernail ripped off in the process and she swore aloud, partly in pain and partly in frustration. She’d done it, though; it was open. Peering into the dark hole she saw what she’d come for. Not just one bag, but many. “Jesus!” she laughed hysterically, her hands shaking. “Holy hell!”
Still unable to believe her eyes she reached into the dampness and pulled out a cloth bag, marveling at the weight in her hands. Laying the bag on the floor beside her, she tried again, pulled out another, and then another, and then her hand touched something else–a silver baby rattle. Hannah’s? Her eyes stung a little through her happiness. But there was a name inscribed on it. Her flashlight illuminated it: Sally. Shrugging, Taryn laid it aside and continued to dig into the hole. The bags just kept coming. Sitting back on her heels she laughed and laughed, grime and dust coating her hands and face. “We did it,” she shouted, looking at the mounds around her, the rattle sparkling even in the dark. “We did it!”
At that moment, the little door sprung open with ease and a face appeared before her.
Now, frantically, she wriggled towards it. Crying and laughing, she fell upon the figure and wrapped her arms around him.
“Matt,” she cried. “Matt.”
Chapter 20
Matt, Joe, Willow, Daniel, and Taryn sat at a table together in the small diner. They were waiting on their food, but none of them had much of an appetite; they were too excited.
“So how much in total?” Taryn asked with pleasure.
“We’re not sure yet but they’re thinking at least half a million dollars’ worth,” Willow replied, laying her hand on top of Daniel’s. ‘The price of gold is high these days.”
“And the owners?” Matt asked.
“Over the moon. They don’t know what to do with themselves. Of course, they won’t sell to the developers now, especially since they learned the fire was started by one of their minions. Maybe the big guys knew about it, maybe it was a rogue thing, but either way they say they’d rather declare bankruptcy then see it go to a development. They’re selling to us, seeing as to how they don’t suffer from a cash shortage,” Joe supplied.
“Ironically, since relaying the story on our campaign we’ve raised the money to buy it outright and start on the improvements,” Daniel disclosed proudly. “More than $200,000.”
Taryn sat back, shocked. “How did you manage that?”
“Well,” Daniel shrugged. “People love the paranormal. Now it won’t just be a museum. We’re going to offer ghost hunting tours, psychic workshops, all kinds of things. We think it’s going to be a paranormal center.”
“The ghost business is good I guess,” Matt muttered, casting a glance at Taryn.
She smiled back in return. She’d been unable to keep her name out of the local paper, or the ghost story aspect of what happened. Both Willow and Daniel had sworn to the press they saw a woman in a long red dress pacing back and forth across the foyer and then guarding the little room. “It’s how we knew where you were,” Willow explained. Once they’d seen the pictures, nothing had kept them quiet. Now Taryn’s email and phone were blowing up from folks wanting her opinion on everything from unsolved disappearances to their sick pets.
“Can we look again?” Daniel pleaded.
Sighing, Taryn pulled out Miss Dixie and turned her on. The pictures of Permelia in her bedroom were one thing; she’d pored over those again and again, fascinated and terrified by Permelia’s closeness and wanting. But she hadn’t looked at the pictures taken in the guest room until the next morning. Those were something of another breed. In this room, her pictures had revealed something nobody was ready for, or expecting. Paneling in the walls covered an opening, a door that was open in her shots. Although it was difficult to see, unless you looked closely, an almost irrational and unbelievable image of an arm, leg, and slumped-over body was positioned inside the wall. Blood trailed from the door to the middle of the floor, the drops becoming fainter as they stretched out across the hardwood.
“So what do you think really happened there?” Willow asked.
They all looked at Taryn expectantly, as though she had all the answers. “Honestly? I’m not completely sure. But I think I have some ideas.” She looked at Matt for support and he placed his hand comfortably on her knee.
“We think the first killing, the man she wrote about, was probably an accident. Or, at the very least, self-defense,” he started. Taryn had already debriefed them on her dreams. They would never have solid evidence as far as that went, but nobody was questioning it as truth, not in light of what they’d discovered.
“They got his money and disposed of his body. I don’t think anything happened after that, at least not for a long
time,” Taryn said. “We looked at the bank records the historical society had and they made a modest living for many years. Probably all the way up to James’ death.”
“With him gone, things got rough again,” Matt continued. “Her family wouldn’t take her back, there was a lot more competition here…Things just weren’t in Permelia’s favor.”
“So she killed again?” Willow interjected.
Taryn nodded. “She was attacked. That had to have soured her against men. And then losing her child, her husband…Deserted by her dad. Let’s face it, Permeliawas probably a little out of sorts. I’m sure she was confused. I think, at first, she hid the body in the wall. There were more than a dozen watches and bags in the hole. I’d say she killed at least that many people. Maybe more.”
“Why the wall?” Daniel asked.
“She was a little woman. A body is deadweight,” Matt explained. “It would’ve been hard for her to take it anywhere else. But a body starts to smell after a time. She couldn’t have hidden it forever.”
“So then we think she dragged them downstairs, kept them in the little room until it was time to get them to the sinkhole.”
Daniel and Willow looked at one another and then both shook in mock horror at the same time. “But how did she get the bodies to the sinkhole? If they were so heavy?”
“I don’t know,” Taryn admitted. “Maybe a wagon. Maybe she paid someone off. But I imagine if you pulled a wagon right up to the porch it would be easy enough to get the body onto it. Then it’s just a matter of kicking it into the hole when you got there.”
“Or she could’ve chopped it up, piece by piece,” Daniel suggested.
They all shuddered at the thought.
“You know, she sounds scary as hell but it’s still hard to think of her as a murderer,” Willow said after awhile. “I mean, I actually kind of admire her. I’m guessing she targeted single men, men with money and without any ties. They wouldn’t be missed. She wasn’t just killing at random, either. She was trying to survive.”
“She killed more than a dozen people,” Daniel exclaimed, taken a little aback at Willow’s words.
“She was a woman in the 19th century who was trying to run a business. Nobody wanted her. She was turned away by her family. Her baby was dead. Her husband was dead. She was just trying to survive the only way she thought she could. And look what she did! She kept the inn running and died a respected lady,” Willow responded. “You have no idea how hard it is for women to be taken seriously, respected, even today.”
“You mean the whole glass ceiling thing?” Daniel asked.
“The glass ceiling, less pay, sexual harassment, rape…” Willow let her words trail off. “She found a way to make it. Albeit, a morbid one.”
Taryn nodded. She’d felt the same way about Delphina.
“You couldn’t get in,” she directed at Daniel. “When you knew I was in there.”
“It was like the door and windows were nailed shut,” he claimed. “Until Matt got there. And he walked right through it like it was nothing.”
“I got your message and came straight from the airport. I knew something was happening. I could feel it. The closer I got, the stronger it was,” he explained. “I thought…well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. You’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” she smiled and took his hand. “I’m okay.”
“And there’s something else,” Willow added. She prodded Daniel with her thumb. “Tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Taryn asked, confused.
“I guess I know something you don’t,” Daniel smirked with pride. “But you’re going to love this.”
Willow reached into her black leather purse and pulled out a Xeroxed sheet of paper. There was old fashioned handwriting on it and Taryn wasn’t sure what it was. As she quickly read over it, however, her confusion only grew.
“What is this?” she asked at last, putting it down on the table.
“It’s a deed,” Willow supplied.
“I see that,” she said. “So Permelia gave someone a house?”
“Property, to be exact,” Daniel offered. “We’re assuming the house was built later.”
“Lydia and Paul…” Taryn mused, reading the names. “That’s the couple who took care of the horses and did the cooking.”
“And her friends,” Daniel added.
“But there’s one more thing,” Willow smiled. “This might make things make more sense.”
Reaching into her purse a second time, she pulled out another sheet of paper. This was a Xeroxed photograph, grimy and faded with age. The baby was around ten months old, chubby and smiling, as it did its best to hold still for the camera. At the bottom was the word “Sally.”
“You don’t think…” Taryn breathed.
“That’s what we think,” Daniel nodded. “We’re thinking Permelia was pregnant when James died and, instead of raising the baby, gave her to her friends.”
“Along with the house,” Willow said. “Or land, as it may be.”
“It’s a stretch, a leap,” Taryn mused.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Daniel shrugged. “We called Miranda and talked to her. Records show that Paul went to work on the railroad about six months after James died. All those years of working for him and then he just quits? And his wife, too. Yet at the same time they get this land?”
“I think she was depressed, maybe guilty, and didn’t know what to do,” Willow said gently. “Remember in her letter to her sister she talked about making hard decisions? She gave her daughter to people she trusted, people who would take care of her. She couldn’t take care of herself, much less a child. Maybe she’d already started killing. We just don’t know.”
“But the address,” Taryn sputtered.
“I know,” Willow smiled. “That wasn’t lost on us, either. Do you think Delphina knew her great-grandmother was the town’s most famous proprietress?”
“And murderer?” Daniel threw in.
Afterword
Taryn sank back into the soft pillows and sighed. “Now this is fancy.”
“I told you I aimed to please,” Matt smiled. “I’m glad you came back to Florida with me.”
“And I’m glad you bought a new couch. That futon had to go. And, besides, I’m not ready to be alone again. I’ve been alone for a long time.”
“You’re never alone, Taryn,” he said adamantly, stroking his finger across her cheek. “Never.”
“They’re talking mental hospital for Delphina,” she sighed. “Maybe because of her advanced age and maybe because nobody can believe that an old woman could actually do the things she did. At least, not one in her right mind.”
“You kind of draw old, psychotic women don’t you?” he teased.
She smiled. “I don’t think Delphina was psychotic, though. Maybe a little misguided. I’m going to keep in touch with her. She helped me. I think she could use a friend about now. I have a feeling that small town isn’t going to be generous to her.”
“Do you feel like you finished this?”
Taryn considered his question before answering. “She wanted my help. Help to save the tavern? Help in understanding her? I think I did both to the best of my ability. But I also think she helped me.”
They sat together in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Matt flipped through some paperwork in his briefcase while Taryn read a page in her Nora Roberts book three times before she realized it.
“I got another job,” she professed at last. “It’s different this time.”
“Yeah, what is it?” He put down his papers and gave her his full attention.
“Teaching. In Georgia. They want me to come down to a community college and lead a month-long workshop on painting. Kind of a historical ‘fill in the gaps’ deal.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. “That’s different. How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know. It’s what I do but I’ve never tried to teach before. The money is good. That burden has been lifted a li
ttle, okay a lot, but I still have to think about it.”
“It sounds like something you might enjoy. Be a good change. Quiet.”
“I know,” she agreed. “Already I’m getting a ton of emails from people wanting me to come solve mysteries for them. And I don’t want to be known as the woman with the magical camera. I enjoy painting, I enjoy my job.”
“Everyone changes, Taryn. Maybe this is just a new phase,” Matt suggested. “Something different.”
“You know they’ve already got people wanting to come stay at Griffith Tavern and it’s not even completed? They’re already taking reservations.”
“Like I said,” he laughed, “the paranormal sells.”
Stretching out, she laid her head in his lap. He stroked her hair, his fingertips brushing her ear.
“Tift Merrit’s ‘Bramble Rose,’” she mumbled.
“What?” Matt asked absently.
“Permelia, me, Delphina. Delphina said we all had skeletons. Okay, so she and Permelia had literal ones. But it’s more than that. We were all women, intrinsically good women I think, who nobody knew. Maybe that’s why I ultimately felt connected to them.”
“I know you,” he stated firmly, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. “And I am here, no matter where you go next. Ghosts or not.”
Special Notes
HERE BE SPOILERS!
The people in this story are entirely fictional. However, there are a few things that inspired the actual story, although I took a great amount of liberty with the actual details.
Griffith Tavern (Taryn's Camera Book 2) Page 20
