Heart of Evil

Page 41

“They are illusions,” Will said quietly, “but illusions of the mind. That is the place where we know another sense: of the living, and of the dead.”
As she sat there, Marshall Donegal appeared as well. She tensed, thinking that there would be some kind of a confrontation.
But though they recognized one another, acknowledged one another, it was merely with sorrow.
“Talk to them,” Jenna said. “They will hear you.”
“I need help,” she said. “Please.”
Marshall walked to one. “We were sad enemies. No more. We are united in death, and the country is united now, through our deaths. We have made peace. Help my girl, please. Help her.”
The one who seemed to be a captain turned from Marshall to Ashley.
“I would help you, if I could. What do you need?”
“I need to know…Emma came to her husband as he lay dying. She was dragged away, taken to the house. Who took her? Which soldier? Please, it’s so important to know.”
“I was dying then,” he said. “I was dying then myself. But, I saw her. I saw her tears. I saw the uniform. I saw…the man was blond. He had blond curls.
I didn’t know his name.”
“Can anyone help?” Marshall called out.
One of them stopped by him, setting a hand on his shoulder. “I was gone, Marshall. I was gone when she came to the cemetery. We were hotheaded as were you—we’d never have hurt your wife or your children. What man would do so?”
Not a man, a monster, Ashley thought. She wasn’t afraid of ghosts, she realized. She had learned to fear monsters instead.
The captain spoke softly. “One will know,” he said.
“Who?” Marshall asked.
“Emma,” the captain said.
Marshall shook his head. “She is gone,” he said softly.
“No,” the captain said. “I see her at the attic window.”
The ghost of Marshall Donegal fell to his knees in the cemetery and wept.
“Why, hey, you!” Beth said, surprised to see the man who was looking into the shop window along with her.
“Beth!” he said, equally surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“Leaving,” she admitted. “I’ve got to get away for a while.”
“Donegal Plantation will be missing the world’s finest chef,” he said gallantly.
“I’ll be back,” she said.
“I’m sure you will.”
“So…”
“So, I’ve got some time. Do you need a ride to the airport?”
“Well, that would be great. But I can just take a cab—”
“Don’t be silly. I’ve got a car.”
“My things are at the hotel—”
“We’ll stop and get them. Come on, no big deal, I promise.”
“It’s a half hour drive there, and back.”
“Worth it, if I can imagine you’ll return and cook again!”
As the breeze moved her hair and she pulled a strand from her face, she remembered that he had been on the original suspect list. But that had been before.
“Sure, thanks.”
They were going to get in a car; they were going to get coffee. No danger in that. Besides, she didn’t believe it. She just didn’t believe it.
They walked to his car. She noted, as she started to get in, that he had a little case, like the kind kept by a diabetic. Was he diabetic? She couldn’t remember.
He shut the door as she sat.
He came around and got in beside her.
And then, of course, she realized.
She put her hand on the door; she opened her mouth to scream.
He slammed her head against the car window as he picked up a needle; she felt it piercing through her skin, and then she felt no more.
13
Jackson and Jake walked the square over and over looking for Ramsay Clayton.
He wasn’t to be found.
“Strange. The bastard answered me this morning when I called him and said we’d find him at his hotel,” Jackson said.
Jake stopped to ask a young woman selling paintings of the square if she had seen Ramsay Clayton that morning.
“Oh, yes, he was here for a while,” she said. “He said that he had to get back to his hotel room to meet some friends. I haven’t seen him since, but he is usually right here. Says lately he likes to be where there are lots and lots of people! The guy is as nice as can be, and darned good-looking, too, but he’s sure gotten strange, always looking as if he’s about to run! Such a scaredy-cat.”
Jake thanked her for the information.
“He’s either scared—or guilty,” Jake said.
“We’ll head to the hotel again,” Jackson said. “But first I’m going to buy a couple of Lucky Dogs and some sodas. I’m starving. We’ll get the car and head to the hotel. I have a feeling we’re not going to find Ramsay, though. Where the hell did he go? If he’s such a damned scaredy-cat?”
“Maybe he’s not—maybe it’s all an act, down to his kindness,” Jake suggested.
“Justin said that Ramsay was with him, and that Ramsay said that he had fun playing a Yankee,” Jackson reminded him.
“But he’s not here,” Jake said. He walked back to the woman. “I’m sorry to bother you again,” he told her. “Did you see Ramsay Clayton here the day before yesterday?”
She frowned, going into deep thought. He thought she might have smoked a little bit too much weed in her teen years. Her mind seemed a little misty.
“The day before yesterday… Oh, yes! He was here. He was here. In fact, we were both here until dusk.”
“And then you both left?”
“Well, I left. I think he left soon after.”
“Why do you think that?”
She smiled. “Because I was gone. I told you—he likes to be around people. Some of the artists stay out late in the night, but by then people really want music and tarot readings. So he must have left. He’s not like you.”
“Pardon?”
He hadn’t realized that his Glock, a standard FBI issue—he knew how to shoot, but he wasn’t fond of guns—was visible since his hand was on his hip, pushing his jacket back and exposing the belt holster.
“Maybe he should carry a gun, too. Are you a cop? Is he in trouble?”
He smiled. “I just need to speak with him, that’s all.”
“Maybe you can give him some courage!” she said cheerfully.
“Well, thank you,” Jake said, striding back to Jackson, frustrated. “He was here until dusk the day that Marty and Toby died. I think.”
“You think?”
“I’m not sure she knows what day it is today,” Jake said.
Jackson nodded. “Okay, let’s get food and try the hotel. Then we can head back. I’ll get the dogs, you get the car.”
Jackson stopped at a cart and bought them both a soda and a couple of hot dogs while Jake walked down to the car. He had just eased it out of their parking spot when Jackson caught up with him. He reached for the food; Jackson slid into his seat, a Lucky Dog halfway in his mouth. “Sorry—I’m really hungry. We’re all going to miss Beth.”
“Yes, but she wanted to be away—maybe needed to be away,” Jake said. He found that he felt oddly uncomfortable once he had spoken.
“What’s wrong?” Jackson asked him.
“I don’t know. I think we should have taken her straight to the airport in the morning.”
“Call her.”
Jake did. He got her voice mail right away.
“She’s probably on an airplane,” Jackson said.
“Probably,” Jake agreed.
A feeling of unease had begun in him; it wasn’t lessened any when they reached the hotel and found no sign of Ramsay Clayton.
They sat around in the roadside parlor. Ashley was on the registration-desk computer, and Will was working with her. Angela and Whitney were poring through content files on Whitney’s laptop.
Jenna was in the attic, hoping that she could reach Emma Donegal.
“Okay, Confederates,” Ashley said. “Marshall Donegal, of course. O’Reilly, Charles’s stepfather’s ancestor. We know that he survived the war—he came back and saw Emma. He probably had a guilt complex about causing the whole skirmish.”
“That’s two down. Now the rest?”
“One was actually a Clayton; I know that,” Ashley said. “Ramsay is a direct descendant.”
“Find out what happened to his ancestor,” Angela said, looking up. “We’re trying to trace a fellow named Pierre Lamont—one of the Confederates.”
“He was Toby Keaton’s great-great-whatever,” Ashley said. “Toby comes down through the maternal line. It’s a good thing they named it Beaumont, Beaumont—beautiful mountain,” she said with a grimace. “Not that it’s exactly on a mountain, but there is a little rise in the terrain. The family name changed many times.”
“Yes, but we can let Toby go on this one,” Angela said softly. “He’s dead.”
“I guess so,” Ashley agreed.
“What about Griffin Grant?” Whitney asked.
“Family name change, too. His ancestor was… Hilton. Henry James Hilton. And he was killed in the war—1862, the Second Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas. We can do more research on Hilton.”
Ashley stared at the screen, searching site after site for the Ramsay Clayton who had fought in the Confederate cavalry during the Civil War. She found him at last and turned to look at the two of them. “Ramsay Clayton—the one our Ramsay is named for—was killed at Gettysburg,” she said. “Obviously, he was already a father.”
“Okay, so…nothing dastardly happened to him?” Whitney said.
“Not other than a grisly death on a battlefield,” Ashley said. “And that would mean a half a million men who died might be vengeful.”