Ghost in the Gallery

by Kathi Daley

  I looked more closely at the photo. “In a way, it does look as if this house and bluff could be the same house and bluff captured in the photo.”

  “I wasn’t sure the house would even be old enough at first. The modern image you present now didn’t seem congruent with the much older house in the photo, but I did some research and found out that this house was originally built in the late eighteen hundreds and had been remodeled when you decided to open the inn. I’d hoped that the remodel would explain the difference between the two buildings, but I got a good look at the coastline from my balcony, and I can see that the coastline itself is different.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sure you’re disappointed that you came all this way for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing.” She grinned. “I love the inn, and I’ve wanted to meet Georgia ever since the first time I saw her on cable TV.”

  “Do you cook?” Georgia asked.

  “Not at all, but I enjoy watching others cook. I grew up on TV dinners and boxed mac and cheese, but I always wondered about families who sat down together to a full meal with all the sides.”

  “Your mom didn’t like to cook?” I asked.

  “It was just my dad and me,” she explained. “He was a cop. A very busy cop. A lot of nights, it was just me, and I’d make do with a peanut butter sandwich.” Her smile faded. “Not that I’m complaining. I loved my dad. He was a kind and caring man who would give away the shirt off his back if he came across someone in need. But he had a full life, and cooking just wasn’t a priority.”

  “So, he’s passed?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Eight months ago.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, placing my hand over hers, which was resting on the counter.

  “Did he die in the line of duty?” Georgia asked.

  I’m not sure I would have been so bold to ask something so personal, but Georgia was bold if she was anything.

  “No,” Ainsley answered. “At least not directly.”

  Georgia shot her a curious glance.

  “My father was shot in the line of duty seven years ago. He almost died at the time, but being the stubborn man that he was, he managed to pull through. The problem was that he came away from the encounter with permanent damage to his heart, which made him ineligible for active duty. He was offered a desk job, but he turned it down and opened his own detective agency. He died eight months ago as the result of a heart attack from that damaged heart.” She swiped at a tear that had escaped down her cheek. “I tried to get him to slow down. I even quit my job as a journalist three years ago and moved home to take care of him. Not that he wanted to be taken care of. But I knew he needed help with his investigations, and if I wasn’t around to cook for, he normally skipped even the TV dinners. In the end, I made a decision and packed up my life in New York to move home to Georgia. Not that I regret it. I wouldn’t change anything about that decision except maybe to have moved home sooner. But in the end, my being there didn’t stop the inevitable from happening.”

  Georgia slipped another cookie onto Ainsley’s plate. “I think you might need a bit more sugar.”

  Ainsley smiled. “I’m sorry. I have no idea why I said all of that. I just met you, and I’m normally not the sort to overshare. Having worked as a PI for the past three years, I find myself suspicious of everyone and tend to be closed-mouthed about most things.”

  “My husband was a cop before he died,” I said. “I think being suspicious goes along with the job description, but I also think that if you’re around a variety of people enough, you learn how to read others after a very brief conversation.”

  “I guess that’s true. I’m sorry about your husband,” she said. “Line of duty?”

  “Car accident.” I decided not to elaborate. This conversation had me on the verge of tears as it was.

  “So tell us about the photo,” Georgia said while mixing up another batch of cookie dough.

  Ainsley took a sip of her coffee before she began. “After my father died, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to go back to New York and my life there. I’d changed too much to fit back in the way I once had, but continuing with the detective agency without him didn’t seem right either. After quite a bit of thought, I decided to sell my dad’s house, put everything into storage, and maybe travel a bit. While I was clearing out his attic, I came across an old diary. I found the photo I showed you inside the diary.”

  “That’s so odd,” Georgia said. “Our other guest, Alaric Banning, is in Holiday Bay to do research based on a diary he’d found after his father died.”

  “Small world,” Ainsley smiled.

  “I guess it really is,” Georgia agreed. “So about the photo. I can see that it has captivated you. Why is that?”

  “When I saw the photo, something just seemed to click. It was as if a door in my mind that had previously been closed was suddenly opened, and somehow I knew that the older child in the photo was me.”

  “You?” Georgia frowned. “I don’t understand. I thought you didn’t know where the photo had been taken.”

  “I don’t,” she confirmed. “Perhaps I should back up a bit.” She took a bite of her cookie, washed it down with the coffee, and then continued. “My dad, the man who raised me, adopted me when I was young.” She frowned. “At least I think he adopted me. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that’s true.”

  Okay, now I was confused. I could tell by the look on Georgia’s face that she was confused as well. Thankfully, Ainsley explained.

  “On Christmas Eve twenty-five years ago this coming Christmas, my dad was a young homicide detective who’d been working one of the first cases he’d been assigned since his promotion to detective. He’d picked up a lead about a suspect who’d been seen near an old abandoned warehouse down by the river. His lead was the sort that was more hearsay than fact, but he wanted to do a good job and make a name for himself, so he decided to just casually go by and check it out. The department’s protocol would have required him to call his partner and have backup when tracking down a lead, but it was Christmas Eve, and his partner had a wife and children while he just had himself to worry about, so he convinced himself that no harm would come from a casual drive-by. When he arrived at the warehouse, he found it to be on fire. I’m not sure why he didn’t just call the fire department and wait outside. It would have made the most sense to do just that since the place was known to be abandoned, but for some reason, he went inside, and he found me standing in the middle of a ring of fire, screaming my heart out. He pulled off his jacket, draped it over his head, and then ran through that ring of fire, grabbed me, and carried me outside.”

  “Oh my,” Georgia gasped. “Was he injured?”

  “He had a few burns on his hands and feet, but nothing serious. I seemed to be fine as well. I have no idea why I was fine. At the very least, it seems like I would have suffered from smoke inhalation. I don’t remember anything about that night, but my father assured me I was perfectly fine once he’d carried me to safety.”

  “Wow. That’s some story,” I said. “What happened next?

  “My dad told me he took me to the emergency room to be checked out and then called a friend of his who worked for social services. Because it was late in the evening on Christmas Eve, my dad’s friend told him I would have to go to a group home until either my family could be found or I could be placed with a foster family. She also told him that most likely wouldn’t occur until after the holiday season. My dad somehow managed to talk his friend into letting him take me home with him until other arrangements could be made.”

  “How old were you?” I asked.

  “They think I was around three. They never did figure out who I was or how I came to be in that burning building. At some point, I was assigned a name and birthdate for purposes of identification and such. My driver’s license says I’m twenty-eight. I guess I feel twenty-eight.”

  “So you stayed with the man who rescued you,” Georgia conf
irmed.

  Ainsley nodded. “Yes. The cop who rescued me raised me. He told me he’d adopted me, and I had no reason to doubt that, but after he died, I decided to look around a bit, and I can’t find a single reference to my adoption. I went to school. I have documentation that has allowed me to get a driver’s license. But I never found anything that officially gave my dad custody of me. I don’t want to taint my dad’s name if he decided to skirt the system, so I haven’t dug too deeply, but something feels off to me.”

  “What do you mean off?” I asked.

  “The man who raised me, the man who told me the story of rescuing me from a fire on Christmas Eve, was a single cop who worked a lot of hours. I find it hard to believe that social services would assign custody of a female child to a cop when no wife was in the picture. I find it odd that in all the years I lived with this man, no one from the county ever came by to check on me. My dad told me he’d adopted me, which I suppose could explain why there wasn’t a social worker in the picture, but surely he would have documents to prove my adoption. While he was alive, it all seemed perfectly normal to me. I had no reason to suspect that the man I loved with my whole heart was lying to me, but now? Now, I’m not so sure.”

  “The photo ignited something,” Georgia said, leaning her elbows on the counter. “Perhaps a memory.”

  Ainsley nodded. “After I found the photo, I began having dreams. Vivid dreams of being inside a house I’m certain is this house.” She held up the photo. “I can picture everything about the dwelling right down to the stone entry that echoed with voices from the rooms beyond when everyone was home. In my dreams, I can see narrow windows along the back of the house that had been arched to frame the sea, and I can feel the warmth from the sunny porch with the trickling fountain where I liked to pretend the rocks from the garden were baby birds who’d come to play. I suppose it’s possible my dream is just a dream, but it seems so real.”

  “Do you think you’ve been having memories of your life before the fire?” Georgia asked.

  She nodded. “I think that’s a possibility.”

  “So begins your journey to find the house, and in doing so, hopefully, find your answers,” I said.

  “Exactly. I think the woman in the photo is my biological mother. I don’t remember her, not really, but, as I said, since the dreams have started, I’ve begun to have memories. At least I think they’re memories. I guess at this point, all I can say for certain is that there are images in my head that seem real, and those images all involve this woman and this house.”

  “Do you remember the baby?” Georgia asked. “Assuming you’re the adorable blond-haired child standing next to the woman, it stands to reason the baby in her arms might be your sister.”

  She furrowed her brow as she appeared to be working things out in her mind. “I’m not sure. As I said, I have these voices in my head that feel like echos of voices from the past, and while I really don’t know anything for certain, I think the baby is named Avery.”

  “Wow. It must be so weird to have a memory of people who were once connected to you but to have no idea if they are still alive, or where they might be if they are, or how you even came to live a life separate from them.”

  “It is a bit haunting.”

  “Do you have any other clues besides the photo?” I asked. “You mentioned a diary. Did the diary provide any answers to what might have been going on?”

  She slowly shook her head. “Not really. There are things in the diary that seem like they might be important. Names, mention of events, those sorts of things, but at this point, finding the house seems to be my best bet. I figure if I find the house, then maybe I can find someone who remembers the people in the photo.”

  “You know,” I said, “the bluff in the photo looks a lot like the bluffs that can be found in Washington. I used to live in San Francisco, and my husband, Ben, and I often headed up to the peninsula for a romantic getaway.” I paused as I tugged at a memory. “The harbor there in the distance,” I pointed to the photo, “looks like it might be Mystic Harbor. If it is, then the bluff you’re looking for might very well be found in Gooseberry Bay.” I stared at the photo again. “Gooseberry Bay is a long bay with a small town located at the southern end. I can show you on a map.”

  “That would be helpful. I guess the next step might be to take a trip there and see if I can find this house on that bluff.”

  “Washington is about as far away from Holiday Bay as one can get and still be in the contiguous forty-eight,” Georgia pointed out. “You could try contacting someone in the area — maybe the sheriff or someone at the local library, or perhaps the chamber of commerce. You can send them the photo and ask if they recognize the location where the photo was taken before making the trip.”

  “I could do that,” Ainsley agreed. “But my plan was to travel, and I really want to find the house on my own. I think once my stay here is over, I’ll head home and pick up my dogs who are staying with a friend and then head west. Who knows, maybe I’ll figure out who I really am.”

  “Are you sure you want to know?” Georgia asked.

  Ainsley frowned.

  “You did end up alone in the middle of a burning building,” she pointed out. “That doesn’t sound like a story that is going to end with a happily ever after. It sounds like a story fraught with tragedy and heartache.”

  “Yes, I have considered that I might discover something horrific,” Ainsley admitted. “Maybe my family was murdered, and I was kidnapped. That explanation leads to a child standing in the middle of a burning warehouse on Christmas Eve. Or maybe the person not in the photo, my biological father, was really a monster who abandoned me for some reason. I’ve also considered that the man who I’ve always called Dad really did know where I’d come from and had been lying to me for my entire life. I mean, he did have the photo. If he really had found me in the fire and had no idea where I had come from or how I had come to be in that building, where did he get the photo?”

  “I suppose the photo might be of someone else,” I suggested. “I know you feel connected to the people in the photo, but maybe that’s because they remind you of someone. Maybe the woman in the photo is a cousin or family friend your dad knew a long time ago and never introduced you to.”

  “Maybe.” she agreed. “I guess at this point all I can really do is follow the leads where they take me and then wait to see where this all ends up.”

  Chapter 6

  After Ainsley finished her cookies and coffee, she announced that she was going to take a run before dinner. Georgia, who’d completed her baking project and had some time before dinner prep, volunteered to go with her and show her Tanner’s most recent litter of puppies. Ainsley, who loved dogs, was excited about the suggestion and headed upstairs to change. Georgia headed to the cottage to do the same. Twenty minutes later, Ainsley came down wearing black running shorts, black running shoes, a white tank top over a black sports bra, and a black and white lightweight running jacket. With her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, she looked to be about sixteen. When Georgia showed up in a similar outfit of dark and light blue rather than black and white, I found myself feeling old. When they jogged off down the bluff trail toward Tanner’s place with their long blond ponytails flying behind them, I began to feel downright ancient. Not that thirty-seven was old per se, but today I felt a lot older than the twenty-something-year-old women who were jogging off into the distance.

  After returning to the cottage, I looked into the bathroom mirror and considered my reflection. I had to admit that I’d done little to tame the few gray hairs that had begun to show up, and the smile lines around my eyes were beginning to look more like smile craters. It was true that life had been hard on me the past few years, which I’d read could lead to premature aging, but when I looked at the reflection staring back at me, I realized I looked a lot older than I felt. Most days, that was okay, but today, I felt as old as I looked.

  Deciding a trip to the salon would need to make i
t into my schedule as soon as I could score an appointment, I picked up my phone and made the call. Unfortunately, they were booking three weeks out, but I went ahead and made an appointment for highlights and a cut when they had an opening. I then called Colt for an update on the murder of Nikki’s friend, Damian. I always enjoyed spending time with Colt, but somehow with Georgia and Ainsley making me feel old, I found I craved his company even more. We only had a small group for dinner this evening — Georgia, Ainsley, Alaric, and me. Jeremy and Annabelle were having dinner with Mylie, Christy, Noah, and Haley, so maybe I’d invite Colt to join us. I realized he had a murder to investigate, but he did need to eat.

  As luck would have it, Colt was unable to talk when I called, but he thought he’d be free in time to join us for dinner. Suddenly my day was looking up. Deciding to jump in the shower and change into fresh clothes before Georgia came back from her run looking for a shower, I headed in that direction.

  Once the five of us had settled around the dinner table, I asked Alaric about his day. I was curious as to Colt’s progress with his murder investigation, but it seemed rude not to focus the conversation on our paying guests. After Alaric told Ainsley and Colt about the diary he’d found, which was the basis of his research, he shared the conversation he’d had with Naya, the granddaughter of Jasmine, his great-grandfather’s business partner at the time of his death, with the group.

  “Actually, Naya was very helpful,” Alaric said. “She was born in nineteen forty-five when her mother, Irene, was twenty-five and her grandmother, Jasmine, was fifty-five. I guess Irene was married briefly to a man named Joseph Logan, but Joseph was no longer in the picture by the time Naya was born. Both Naya and Irene lived with Jasmine, who ran the newspaper until nineteen fifty-five. Naya was still a child when Jasmine sold the newspaper to a man named Albert Brown, but she did have many fond memories of sitting on a stool in her grandmother’s office as she prepared the weekly newspaper for distribution.”