by Debra Glass
Amy winced. She glanced at her hands and then back into Jillian’s eyes. “There’s more to this than you’re telling me.”
Jillian debated. Should she tell her? She growled her frustration through her teeth. “It’s so unfair that you can do that.” She’d never been able to keep a secret from her psychic sister. “But you’re right, Amy. We’ve got to find this person. We’ve got to find them now. I hate to do this to you, to put you through this, but is there anything, anything at all you can tell me that would help us catch this person?”
Amy chewed her bottom lip. Her eyes darkened. “I…I don’t know. I thought about it the whole time I was in that…that grave. I don’t know who would do something like that to me. I can’t imagine why…” Tears began to pour.
It broke Jillian’s heart to see her sister this way. She swiped at her own tears with the back of her hand. There was one thing she had to tell Amy. “I got a phone call last night.”
“From the person who…”
Jillian nodded. “From the suspect. And now, I’m afraid I’ve put…I’ve put Benton in danger. You have to think Amy. This person knows about him, about you calling him my Gatekeeper.”
Amy stared.
Jillian continued. “We found you in Benton’s grave.”
Amy’s blue eyes grew wide.
“Amy, what is the connection? What do you know about Benton that someone would kill to keep secret? Our lives depend on it. His soul depends on it.” She took the button from Amy’s palm. “He told me you knew something about this.”
Realization flooded Amy’s pale features. “Yes. It’s why he’s earthbound. He was—”
Her explanation was cut short when Jillian’s cell phone rang.
It was Theo. She flipped it open. “Yes?”
“Talk about synchronicity,” he said. “I’m with the crime team on my way to a murder scene. Apparently somebody robbed a Civil War relic store and killed the clerk.”
Jillian’s stomach tightened into a hard knot. Her heart sank like a stone. There was a connection to Amy’s abduction and this murder. She knew it. She hesitated for a moment and then asked in a trembling voice, “Is…is the victim’s name Matt Gregory?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I think this murder is connected to Amy’s abduction. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She flipped the phone closed, her thoughts racing rampantly over the details. Why would someone kill Matt Gregory? She recalled his black eye. Maybe it was just a coincidence. He’d looked like the kind of person who liked trouble and actively sought it out but she had the indefinable feeling that his murder had everything to do with what he knew about Benton.
She took a deep breath and let it out before turning to Amy once more. “I need you to tell me why Benton is attached to this button.”
Chapter Nine
“Benton was murdered.”
“I know. He was hit on the head with his own sword after he surrendered.”
“No,” Amy said. “This is something not even he knows. He was hit on the head, yes. But that isn’t what killed him.”
Jillian’s brow creased. “I don’t understand.”
“I picked this up psychically. But I feel that Benton was betrayed by someone he knew. Someone stabbed him in the back. At first I thought it was symbolic information but now I believe that it really happened. Someone literally stabbed him in the back.”
Realization flooded Jillian. She recalled the scar on his shoulder and then how she discovered the one on his back while he’d made love to her. Her whole body began to tingle. Was he here now, listening, watching? “Amy, you’re right. He was stabbed in the back. I found the scar there last night.”
Amy raised an eyebrow and Jillian knew she’d said too much. Her secret was now exposed. “You found a what? Where?” Amy’s strong intuition would definitely hit on what happened last night now.
Amy gasped and covered her mouth as if she’d just learned some horrible truth. Her eyes grew impossibly wide. “Jillian, tell me you did not…oh my God. You didn’t have…sex…with him, did you?”
Jillian’s cheeks flamed. She knew she was blushing. She looked away.
Amy continued. “Did he…manifest to you?”
“Manifest?” Jillian asked but she knew full well what the word meant.
“Yes. Manifest. It means to become solid—human?”
Jillian swallowed.
Amy sat up straighter. “Did he manifest to you? Could you feel him? Was he solid?” Her voice was stronger. Urgent.
Jillian was mortified. “Yes to all three,” she confessed through clenched teeth. An image of his body hovering over hers, the sight of his hard, thick cock disappearing into her pussy ignited white-hot heat between her thighs. Her stomach tightened into a guilt-ridden knot.
Amy didn’t seem at all astonished. She went on as if it were a matter of fact that someone could have sex with a ghost. “No wonder his energy is sapped. Listen to me. You mustn’t allow it to happen again. Manifesting to you—in that way—weakens his energy. The soul collectors could easily—”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Jillian’s voice was sharper than she’d intended. In a more civil tone she added, “Now?” Guilt gnawed at her insides. “I was so stupid—but he was so…tender and…hot. I was scared…” Her gaze found Amy’s. “Will he be okay?”
Amy reached across the bed and took Jillian’s hand in hers. “Yes. He will. He’ll be fine.” But somehow, she didn’t sound convincing. Her words didn’t have the same conviction as those she spoke straight from her intuition.
Jillian breathed a sigh.
Amy’s stare turned starry, the way it always did when she got a psychic hit. Some new insight shone on her face. Her forehead furrowed. She looked worried. “Oh no, Jillian. You’re in love with him aren’t you?”
Jillian snatched her hand out of Amy’s. She turned away. “That’s ridiculous. I was…I was vulnerable and scared after what happened yesterday. It just…it just happened.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Jillian saw Amy flash a wistful smile. “You should know by now that nothing in this Universe ever just happens.”
Jillian tried in vain to tamp down the memories of Benton’s hard body moving rhythmically over hers. Fervent warmth rushed up her spine and settled uncomfortably in her heart.
“Jill, you do understand that sooner or later he has to go into the Light, don’t you? Sooner being better than later in this case.”
“Yes, I know.” This was fast becoming too awkward. She needed to get to the relic shop. The quicker she got Benton on his way the better. Sitting here wasn’t solving anything. It was only making it worse. It was only reminding her of her mother’s death all those years ago…
Elevenyearold Jillian understood her mother was dead. What she couldn’t understand was her older sister Amy’s joy. They’d just come home from the funeral and gotten ready for bed. How could Amy be smiling when Jillian felt as if someone had reached inside her and ripped out her heart?
Silently, she brushed her teeth and padded to the bed. Amy was already sitting there with her Ouija board in her lap. Her hands moved at lightning speed, the planchette sliding and scraping across the board.
Jillian crawled under the covers and turned her back on her sister. She tried to shut out the sounds but then Amy gasped.
“Jillian!” she called excitedly.
She turned over and looked at Amy. But she hardly expected to see what her eyes beheld.
Somewhat faded but clearly visible was her mother’s spirit, dressed in the clothes Jillian had seen on her in the coffin earlier that day. Fear rendered her immobile. But there was something else. Some strange joy filled her. “Momma!” She gathered the courage to move, to reach out and touch her mother.
But when her hand moved through her Jillian panicked and began screaming.
“No, Jill! It’s our momma. Don’t you see? She’s come to tell us goodbye,” Amy explained, trying to reason wit
h her.
Finally Jillian grew still. Dread flooded her. What did Amy mean, “goodbye”? “But…I don’t want Momma to go.” Her voice was filled with pleading.
Amy swallowed. “But she has to go into the Light. Don’t you want her to go to Heaven?”
“No. no! I want her to stay here with us!”
“Jill, are you okay?” Amy’s voice brought her out of her gloomy reverie.
Jillian swallowed. “Yes, I’m fine.” She stood and brushed her clothes off in a businesslike manner. “I’ve got to meet Theo somewhere. I’ve got my phone. You call me if you need anything.”
Amy nodded.
Jillian turned and started to open the door.
“Don’t let him manifest to you again,” Amy said behind her. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”
Jillian hesitated but she didn’t look back.
“And Jill, always remember that love is the strongest power in the Universe.”
Jillian’s brow furrowed. Typical Amy, spouting some crazy New Age philosophy when a life or death matter hung in the balance. “I will,” she said and then left.
* * * * *
Jillian had seen dead bodies before but she had never become accustomed to it.
Matt Gregory lay on his back in a pool of his own blood. His throat gaped where someone had slashed it open from one side to the other. His hands were covered in blood from long, deep defensive wounds. Jillian suppressed a gag. She knew he’d fought back. Hard.
Whoever did this hadn’t left here without a few bruises of his own.
A shudder swept up her spine. Someone had followed her here yesterday. Were they here now? Waiting? Watching? The idea gave her the creeps. She shut her eyes for a moment, wishing Benton’s strong arms were around her.
“I don’t understand it,” Theo said. “No money was taken. None of the merchandise. It doesn’t make sense.”
Jillian watched the crime scene investigator take skin sample scrapes from under Matt’s bloody fingernails. Hopefully, this time they would get some conclusive DNA evidence.
Theo’s hands found his hips. He shook his head. “The only things moved at all were these old books. What would a killer want with a dusty old history book?”
Comprehension flooded Jillian. The book! Yes, that was the key. The suspect stole the bio I copied. She darted behind the counter and began a frantic search for the book with the information about Benton. Her investigation turned up nothing. It was just as she had suspected. Someone had taken it. What was in Benton’s history they didn’t want her to know?
She wasn’t sure. But what she did know was that book was a direct clue to who had abducted her sister.
“What are you looking for?” Theo asked.
She couldn’t just confess that she’d been here yesterday. Not only would it raise Theo’s suspicions, it would implicate her in a murder investigation—again. “I’m not sure. It’s just a hunch.”
“Does it have anything to do with that Gatekeeper ghost?” He asked the question as if he didn’t really want to know the answer to it.
Jillian turned and looked into Theo’s brown eyes. “I’m certain of that much.”
* * * * *
Finding a good parking place in downtown Nashville on a weekday was hell. Jillian counted herself lucky when she squeezed the Jag into a parallel spot between the capitol building and the Tennessee State Library.
Stepping out of the car, she took in one of the best views of Nashville. The Tennessee state capitol building sat on the highest hill in the city and the panorama of the Cumberland River flowing around the amalgamation of weathered old buildings and modern skyscrapers was a breathtaking sight. She hadn’t been here since her college days at MTSU but if there was any information about Benton, it was sure to be on some ancient roll of microfilm.
Impatiently, she dashed inside and presented her driver’s license to the volunteer at the front desk. After filling out a short form, she was issued a library card and admitted. At once, the musty smell of old books, wood polish and copier ink filled her nostrils.
She sailed past the reference section into the dark microfilm room and straight toward a birdlike little woman at the information desk. Her name tag read “Edith”.
She looked up from a snack of cheese crackers and grapefruit juice. “May I help you?”
“Please. I need information on a Civil War soldier. Thomas Benton Smith. Where do I start?”
The lady stood with deliberate slowness but Jillian could tell the wheels inside her head were turning. She put on the reading glasses that were suspended from a silver chain around her neck. “You could pull up his service records. Do you know his rank?” Her voice was birdlike too. It warbled when she spoke.
“Brigadier general. Confederate Army.” Jillian followed Edith around the corner to where microfilm was stored in row upon row of wide, bone-colored filing cabinets. She had forgotten how daunting a place this was.
Edith ran a scrawny index finger along the drawers until she came to the one labeled Smi-T. “Smith. Here it is.” She pulled it open. “I will warn you. A man of his rank will have a lot of information for you to go through. Forage requests, correspondence and the like. I would suggest printing it and reading it later.” Edith pulled a little white box out of the drawer and Jillian tagged along behind her like an eager puppy as she moved to a viewer with a printer.
“I’ll show you how to get this started and then you can just scroll through until you find him.” She expertly loaded the microfilm onto a viewer and switched on a light. Immediately, old handwritten pages projected onto the screen. “He should be at the beginning of the roll. Let me know if you need any help printing but it should be self-explanatory.”
Jillian scrolled through the roll. Her heart leapt when she found a Thomas Smith but this one’s rank was listed as private. This was not her Benton. A further search of the several other Thomas Smiths also turned up nothing. Discouraged, she sat back in the chair and shook her head.
A bald man next to her gave her a wink. “Frustrating, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
“I’ve been working on my family’s genealogy for three years and I hate to tell you, it never gets any easier.”
Jillian gave him an indulgent smile and then she turned a frown on the viewer.
Manually she spun the scroll knob again. A thrill raced through her as finally, page after page of information on Benton Smith rolled into view.
Jillian leaned forward and studied the pages. The handwriting was difficult to read but it was there. Some strange little twinge of excitement passed through her that Benton had existed. He was real. He’d lived in another time. The idea of his life in that era, complete with family and friends, sent a shiver through her—and also a pang of jealousy. A part of her wished she’d known him then. She sighed. The memory of making love to him the night before only enhanced her curiosity—and her trepidation.
For hours, she skimmed letters of promotion written by names she recalled from high-school and college history. John Bell Hood. William Hardee. Jefferson Davis.
The letters in his own handwriting were of particular interest to her. It was a fluid and confident style. He seemed like a man who knew exactly what he wanted. And at the bottom of each letter was a big, bold, distinctive signature—T. B. Smith.
And then she found a letter that began…
Dear Sir,
I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of your kind letter requesting we terminate our long engagement by an early marriage. I have no objection to complying with your request.
Jillian felt a hot, uncomfortable, unwelcome wave of jealousy well inside her. She scanned the letter to the end.
I remain yours.
Affectionately,
Harriet Cooke.
“Affectionately,” she said aloud through gritted teeth, surprised at the venom in her own voice.
“Whoa!” the bald man said as he leaned over to peer at her screen. Jillian was an
noyed but she tried to contain it. The man continued. “No respectable woman would have used a term like that in a letter back then—unless she’d been had.” He winked again.
Jillian’s annoyance rose even higher. She’d known Benton was engaged but she had not suspected he’d been intimate with the woman—until now. Heat settled in the back of her neck. He had certainly seemed experienced last night. Had she been foolish enough to think all that expertise came without a history?
She drew in a sharp breath. Had Benton—to use the term he, himself had used—compromised Hattie Cooke and then broken off their engagement? Matt Gregory had told her something about Benton breaking off the engagement after Hattie had a psychic premonition of his death.
Curious, she scrolled to the next letter. A quick check of the signature told her this one was also from Hattie, although the handwriting looked somewhat more rushed.
Dear Sir,
As you deem it necessary to terminate our engagement based on my presentiment, I will return your ring to your brother’s widow. I do not expect to ever see you again.
With regret,
Harriet Cooke.
Jillian stared at the letter. What had she meant by “my presentiment”? Was that another word for premonition? The letter was short, angry and to the point. Hattie Cooke had left him with no doubt she truly believed he was about to die.
She took a deep breath. Scrolling the microfilm and straining to read the letters was making her nauseous. Yet she had to continue. Somehow she knew she would find a clue to the identity of the suspect who had abducted Amy. A chill swept over her, reminding her that the suspect was now a killer.
She scrolled the next letter into view. It appeared to be a request for leave for one of his men. “Not important,” she muttered under her breath—and then a cold shiver shook her to the core. Lightning-charged energy bristled behind her and she became keenly aware of Benton’s presence at her back. Maybe she’d better read this one after all. She swallowed and twisted the knobs until the blurred leave request was in crystal clear focus.
