Jekyll Island: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 5) (29 page)

Rachel, though a sweeter soul never lived, was my rival in every sense. Her pliancy and vulnerability angered me at times. I often found myself wanting to lash out at her. I envisioned myself pulling her hair, ripping her dresses to shreds, even throwing her into the icy waters. The thought of her with my beloved was more than I could bear.

And yet…she never did a moment of harm to me. I am a terrible, dreadful person.

I feigned illness at the ball and retired early, much like his wife. I then sent for William under the pretense of sending Rachel another lantern. After all, the one I’d intentionally given her was not working well. I knew this when I sent it to her, thinking that its failure would bring him back to me, if only for one more visit. I did not know he’d find other means of bringing lightness to her.

We were alone in the house when he entered my rooms. I know it was improper, but I’d waited so long to tell him how I felt. I hoped he would return the feelings. I thought he would. I thought I’d seen signs from him, signs that he felt the same way. Surely the way he smiled at mem, touched me in passing, called my name–surely those were indications that he harbored desire for me as well?

I was wrong.

William, though ever loving and considerate, did not return my advances.

“I’m sorry Georgie,” he said sadly. “I love you dearly, but my wife is my world. I won’t betray her trust. I lost one love and I won’t do it again.”

I was ashamed. Not only had I acted in a most appalling and indecent manner, I was deeply embarrassed at being rejected. I handed him my lantern then, hiding my tears, and asked him to take it to her. My hand slipped, however, and it broke, sending oil all over his pants. Horrified, the two of us went downstairs together to find something in which to clean them.

We hadn’t heard Papa and his friends enter the house. They were in the parlor then, he and his bankers, and talking. I knew that our country was facing a crisis but to hear them speak of it petrified me. Their voices were raised and they were shaking in anger.

“Something has to be done!” Papa shouted. “We must protect ourselves.”

As William and I remained hidden in the doorway, we listened to them plot and plan, ideas that would be detrimental to many and beneficial to only a few. I was saddened by the selfishness and could see that William was as well.

The oil on William’s trousers must have been thick because someone noticed the scent then. They discovered us and were horribly angry. They accused William of spying and threatened him repeatedly. He swore he would talk of nothing and made to leave.

That was when we saw the fire at the hotel.

William
did
try to get inside and save his wife, but it was too late. The hotel was a towering inferno. By the time we arrived the grass was littered with bodies, our very friends whom we had just seen hours earlier.

I fear that it was the very lantern I gave her that started the fire in Rachel’s room. I will forever feel responsible for her tragic death, and for what transpired to William, although for a brief moment I felt a small spark of elation–if she were to die that would leave him to me at last!

I had only to look at William’s face to know that he would never truly love again, not even me.

Another meeting was held, this time with William in attendance. He had heard too much, he knew too much. “If you speak of this then we will find your daughter and she will pay, not you.”

“I’m innocent of the fire,” William exclaimed. “I didn’t kill my wife! If I don’t defend myself I’ll hang. At least let me say I was here. I don’t have to talk about what was said.”

“Too risky,” another gentleman, whose name I don’t wish to speak of, interjected. “We can’t take that chance.”

“Keep quiet about our meeting and we shall see that your daughter and her family are forever taken care of,” Papa promised.

I was sickened.

William went to the gallows protecting his family.

I will never,
ever
forgive my father.

I will never,
ever
forgive myself.

Taryn’s eyes widened as she sat back against her pillow, the diary clutched to her chest. He hadn’t started the fire. He hadn’t cheated on his wife. William Hawkins had done nothing wrong,
nothing
.

The injustice of it made Taryn want to scream.

And the secret meeting that came later? They must have ironed out some of the details because the Federal Reserve wasn’t a bad thing. Had Georgiana talked them into making changes for the good of the whole? Or had their guilt about what happened to William had an effect on them?

One thing was for sure: William and Rachel Hawkins were innocent in the whole mess.

They’d both paid with their lives for things that other people had done to them.

The smoke filled the room and squeezed Taryn’s throat.

She coughed into her pillow and then turned over in her sleep, trying to get away from the putrid stench. It followed her, however, and slid into her lungs and up her nose, sending her into another coughing fit that had her almost waking up. In her sleep, she could feel the heat and kicked off her blankets when her feet grew uncomfortably warm. The dark room in her dream was closing in on her again, the walls slowly crushing her as she reached out and tried to push them back.

Taryn moaned and cried out in fear of the tiny dark space but then the smoke came again and her cries were drowned out by another coughing fit.

Her feet and legs were burning and now the heat was rising to her face. In a twilight daze, Taryn swiped at her shoulders and forehead and tried to push the rest of the covers off. What’s wrong with the air, she thought groggily, still lost in her dream and unable to focus. When did it start getting so hot in here?

Something crashed then, the sound of glass breaking into tiny little pieces. Taryn shot up fully alert now, her ears peeled for the sounds of an intruder.

She was met by a wall of dirty gray, with just the faint hint of orange behind it.

As the smoke pressed into her, finding its way inside, Taryn gagged. “Oh my God,” she cried, her eyes filling with water, blinding her. “Oh my God!”

This was no dream.

With her bedroom door open she could see the flames in the living room, engulfing the chairs and leaving a burning trail into the dining room. The flames licked the ceiling in there, the black smoke rising and spreading into her bedroom.

Taryn jumped from her bed and ran to the door, the thick smoke blinding her. The front door was ablaze, and as she looked towards the kitchen she saw in horror that the back exit was blocked as well. “Shit,
shit
!”

Trying to remember everything she’d learned in her fire safety class in elementary school Taryn dropped to her knees and crawled back to her bed. She tried putting as much distance between herself and the smoke that would surely kill her before the flames. Quickly pulling a pillowcase from her pillow, Taryn tied it around her head, covering her nose and mouth. She found her sandals by the bed and slipped them on. Somewhere along the way she’d read that one should wear closed-toed shoes when they were flying so that, if there were a crash, they wouldn’t get cut on the debris. That felt relevant now, somehow.

The nearest window was just a few feet away and Taryn crawled to it now. When she tried raising it, however, she found it wouldn’t budge.

The first real waves of panic sank in and she was nearly blinded by fear as she dropped back to the ground and cried. The flames from the other room were getting closer now and she heard the sound of more glass breaking. She had to get out of there. Through the murkiness her grandmother’s ring sparkled, and Taryn suddenly felt a new burst of energy.

She could do this.

With new determination she crawled to the second window and tried it. It was also stuck. The lamp on her nightstand was heavy, so she pulled on the cord and yanked it from the wall. Using all her strength, she slammed it into the glass, yelling like a mad woman.

Nothing happened.

Something happened in the air just then, a shimmering that wasn’t caused by the fire. The air around her seemed to part for just a second and in the clearing the figure of a woman appeared. It was so brief that Taryn couldn’t be sure it was even real, but when the ethereal arm pointed towards the bathroom Taryn understood. As she stood to run from her bedroom the diary, still on the bed where she’d left it upon falling asleep, caught her eye. She grabbed it, stuffed it into the back of her pajama pants, and ran into the bathroom just as a cloud of flames burst into the bedroom behind her.

The tiny window over the toilet was only about fourteen inches tall and twenty inches wide, but it was all she had. Balancing on the back of the toilet, Taryn pushed at the glass and screamed with relief when it opened, the cool night air rushing to her face. She thought she could hear someone calling her name from the outside, but she ignored it and focused on pulling herself up by her arms. Her bedroom was engulfed in flames now, the heat licking at her feet and legs. She kicked at it by instinct as she wiggled through the small opening, straining against the tight sides. When half of her body was out in the open, strong arms came from out of nowhere and grabbed hers. For a horrible instant she thought she’d be stuck but then the other arms pulled again and she was free.

David caught her in his arms and began to run with her, his long hair wrapping around her shoulders. She continued to cough and cry as he hurried to the road. There were others there with him, faces she didn’t recognize. In Taryn’s confusion, she wouldn’t understand until much later that they were firefighters and that the second sound of shattering glass had been them breaking through the front door to get to her.

“It’s okay,” David murmured, gently removing the pillowcase from her face. It was covered in black. “It’s okay.”

In a wild panic, Taryn struck at him and pushed him away. “What are you doing here? Did you do this!? Did you try to kill me!?”

David looked at her, hurt in his eyes. “No. No! I thought, I knew. I–“

“Did you set the fire?!” Taryn screamed again.

A man in a cumbersome hat and uniform walked up to her then. His face was streaked with black, his eyes red and watery. “Ma’am,” he spoke softly, tapping her on the shoulder. “Ma’am, your friend here saved you. He’s the one who called us. The police have the one who did this. He’s in the car over there.”

Taryn turned and looked at the police cruiser parked in the middle of the road. Other people had filed out of the houses, watching her house go up in flames while the firefighter attacked it with the force of water, unlike anything she’d ever seen. Some were gathered around the cruiser, not hiding their curiosity as they looked inside.

Taryn stepped away from David then and walked towards it, the diary still stuffed in her pajama bottoms. The people around her stepped aside as she neared them, some reaching out to touch her as she passed, offering their sympathy in quiet tones. When she reached the window she bent down and looked in.

It wasn’t anger, but sheer disappointment and sadness that filled her when the familiar eyes gazed back at her.

“Oh,” she said sadly, backing away.

David strolled over to her and herded her back to where the detective and fire marshal were standing.

“He works at the hotel, right?” the detective asked.

When Taryn couldn’t answer, David nodded. “Yes,” he replied. “He’s the head valet. Steve Parkinson is his name.”

Taryn burst into tears then, grief swelling inside of her.

“Taryn? It’s okay,” David said, giving her a squeeze. “You got out. It’s okay.”

“Not it’s not,” she sobbed, crying as if her heart would break. It would never be okay again.

“Is it Steve?” he asked.

“NO,” Taryn wailed. Lifting a shaking finger, she pointed at the smoldering inferno. “It’s my camera. Miss Dixie’s still in there. She’s gone. I’ve lost my best friend, David. I’ve just lost my best friend.”

“
It’s
my
fault,” Amy cried again. Taryn sat up in the hotel’s comfortable bed and hugged a pillow to her stomach. Amy had been with her for almost an hour and had, so far, done nothing but apologize. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know; I
swear
I didn’t know.”

“It’s not your fault,” Taryn replied.

Amy looked miserable. Her bloodshot eyes were glassy from crying and her pixie hair was disheveled, sticking up every which way. The day before, when Carla had visited her, she’d informed Taryn that Amy had apparently made a scene at the police station. She’d screamed at Steve and went so far as to picking up a stapler from a nearby desk and hurling it at him.

They’d restrained her for his safety.

“He knew where the spare key was to your house. He got in through the front door,” she spat in disgust.

“Was it him–“

“With the snake?” Amy finished.

“And the alligator?” Taryn asked.

Amy looked down at her feet, ashamed. “Yes,” she whispered.

But it hadn’t been him who stole the memory card. That had been Carla’s brother. He’d been in the house with them when it went missing. Carla hadn’t expected Taryn back so soon and had made him hide, afraid she’d lose her job since he had a criminal record. When Taryn left the room he’d slipped out, but not without grabbing the card first.

“I’m sorry Taryn,” Carla said the day before when she’d visited Taryn and returned it. “He saw the card on his way out. He thought you might have taken pictures that night on the beach when you found the sea turtle.”

Like Amy, she’d been ashamed of her loved one’s part in it. Like Amy, she had also thrown a fit at the police station.

“And for what?” Taryn asked bitterly. “For what? For a hotel?”

“I know,” Amy nodded. “It’s ridiculous. When they found those pirates’ graves, though, and all of those artifacts the project manager knew they’d be held up for weeks, maybe months. He’d lose his bonus, the general manager was upset. You know how people get over money.”

“So they paid their own crew to go in at night and remove what they could?” Taryn pressed.

“Yes. And Steve had been promised a good position there. Head of Guest Services. It was going to pay real well,” Amy dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips. “When they saw you there on the beach they thought you’d talk. He just meant to scare you. He wanted to impress his new boss.”

“Um Amy, that’s more than just fetching coffee. That’s psychotic.” Taryn tried to be diplomatic in the way she pointed this out but failed.

“He’s always been obsessed with money,” Amy agreed. “And sometimes he could be hateful. He, he was arrested for assault on his ex. But I just thought she was crazy. I guess she wasn’t. I guess this is him.”

“I’m sorry,” Taryn said and did feel sorry for her. Amy had certainly dodged a bullet there. “But why did he come back last night? I was getting ready to leave.”

“It wasn’t you; it was your friend.”

“David?”

“Yeah. That was my fault, too. I told him about the stuff David found. He went to his house to look for it and couldn’t. He thought maybe David had taken it to your house and might still be there. He was just going to scare you, he said. Get you to tell him where those things were. But he used too much gasoline and the fire got out of hand. He just ran.”

Taryn shook her head in disgust. She thought she could come up with at
least
a dozen ways of getting someone to talk that were better than trying to smoke them out. It didn’t seem like the appropriate time to bring them up, though.

“I’m real sorry about your camera, too,” Amy said, her eyes filling with tears again.

Taryn hung her head and stared at her pillow. She couldn’t think about Miss Dixie. Every time she tried she broke out into sobs. It was crazy to think about an inanimate object that way, but they’d been through so much together. The thought of her beloved camera, charred and broken, unloved. The firemen hadn’t been able to find her yet. When they did, she wanted to give her a proper burial.

Sometimes life was too hard.