Jekyll Island: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 5) (16 page)

“
So
what are we looking for?”

Matt held up a bulging file folder and flipped through the loose papers inside. “It’s a little hard to know where to start.”

Taryn, sitting crossed-legged in the middle of the dusty room, held up her folder. “We’re looking for records on William and Rachel,” she replied. “Back then they would’ve kept records of when they stayed, what they did while they were here, and maybe even more detailed information about who they were. You know, so that they could provide the best service.”

“And you think that will help?” Matt mused, settling in beside her so that their shoulders were touching.

“It can’t hurt. There’s been almost nothing about either one of them online. It seems that except for the fact they were rich and lived in New York City with some of these other guys there wasn’t anything notable about either one of them. He didn’t invent anything, she was an heiress but not, like, an important one.”

Matt grunted, his concentration keen on the files.

“And I promise, Matt, that tonight we’ll do something fun,” Taryn promised. “I swear.”

“Oh yeah, we will,” he agreed. “Why else you think I follow you around in dirty rooms and spend hours digging my nose into the lives of people who have been dead for a hundred years?”

Taryn swatted him with a century-old hotel receipt and smiled.

Ellen hadn’t been surprised when Taryn asked to see the records. She let her assume that the more she knew about the place, the easier it was to work. “Now it’s hot and stuffy up here,” Ellen’s assistant, Amy, had warned them as they climbed the stairs in the back of the hotel, “so you might want to crack those windows.”

She was right. It
was
hot and stuffy. And the lone light bulb that dangled from the ceiling did very little to brighten it up. Still, once she’d gotten into the work Taryn forgot about those things.

Taryn was fascinated with the history of the hotel and turn of the century period in general. She could’ve spent hours poring over the records, letters, and newspaper clippings. She spent about ten minutes reading in detail all the items someone had ordered from the mainland, from flour to shoe polish, for instance. It had nothing to do with what she was looking for but even the smallest of details gave her insight on the inner workings of the island.

Matt, who looked up on occasion and shook his head at her rapturous attention to such things, claimed she missed her calling as an anthropologist.

“Okay, got one,” Matt said after about an hour. “Right here. They checked in here for the first time. There’s a note by their names.”

Taryn took the piece of paper and studied it. “Hmmm…so this is dated more than a year before the fire burned everything. So I guess that tells us that they weren’t newcomers. People obviously knew who they were.”

Matt went back to his folder and continued making a neat stack of everything he’d looked at already. Just a few seconds went by before he spoke again. “Okay, here’s something else. Very interesting.”

“Huh?” Taryn was lost again, this time in notes on the construction of Adena Cottage.

“Look here. It says that they were moved. They apparently spent two nights in this room,” Matt pointed to the first location in the note, “and then requested to move to another one for the rest of their stay.”

“Does it give a reason?” Taryn asked, peering over his arm.

“Yeah. It says they wanted something that caught the morning light. Kind of strange,” Matt said.

“Maybe not. Some people like the sunrise,” Taryn shrugged. “It’s the best light to paint in. I just never get up that early. Maybe Rachel was a painter herself.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Matt continued, “because it also makes a note to say that they’ve requested extra lamps.”

Taryn placed her folder on the floor and rose to her feet. The small window they’d opened to ease the stuffiness was at the other end of the room. She faced it now. It was afternoon, and although the sun was high in the sky, long dark shadows raced across the floor.

“Were they in this building at first?” she asked as she walked towards the window.

Matt nodded and told her the room number.

When she reached the window she gazed outside. The grounds on this side of the hotel were darker, full of trees that had been there for centuries. This entire part of the hotel was cast in shadows and somehow gloomier than the rest. William and Rachel’s room would’ve faced that direction.

“That explains that, then,” Taryn nodded.

“What?”

She looked back and pursed her lips. “I think one of them was afraid of the dark…”

Steve
and the other valets were standing on the steps, heads bent together, when Matt and Taryn walked out.

“You guys planning a heist or something?” Taryn teased them.

The four men looked up with sheepish grins and laughed. “Naw, there’s a race going on,” Steve explained. “We’ve all got bets going. The pot’s big this time.”

“Hey, I heard you found a baby turtle last night,” one of the guys said to Taryn. She’d seen him around but didn’t know his name. They hadn’t actually spoken to one another yet.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

The man, who could’ve been anything from twenty to fifty, shrugged. “My uncle was the one on call. When he said your name I knew who you were.”

“Do you know anything about the turtle? We were getting ready to go over there and check on him.”

“Sorry,” the man shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“Where’d you find him at?” Steve asked, leaning back against his wooden stand.

“On the beach by where the new hotel is going up,” Taryn replied.

“Huh. It’s good you found him instead of some kid,” Steve said.

“Well, it was late at night,” Taryn explained. “I was the only one out there.”

She hadn’t meant to share that with anyone but felt put on the spot.

“My uncle said it was wound up in some garbage, so it’s a good thing you were out there that late. It wouldn’t have survived at all if you hadn’t seen him and called,” the other valet spoke up.

Taryn nodded and started on down to the sidewalk, Matt beside her. “Well, I think we’ll go over there and see how he’s doing,” she said. “See you guys later!”

Once they were out of earshot Taryn sighed. “Damn it, I wasn’t going to announce to the world that I was out on the beach alone like that.”

“I think you’re fine with that group,” Matt chuckled and reached for her hand.

“
See
, I told you I’d take you out and treat you right,” Taryn said, lightly punching Matt on the arm.

Nodding in agreement, Matt leaned back on the park bench and took a bite of his frozen yogurt concoction. “This is wonderful.”

“Yeah, well, nothing’s too good for my baby. I can buy you the best fro-yo money can get,” Taryn grinned.

It was nice, though; he was right.

After a dinner of crab cakes and rolls at Barbara Jean’s they were sitting in the park, simultaneously people watching and gazing at the water as the sun set. St. Simon’s Island was vastly different from Jekyll Island. Where Jekyll was quiet and laid back and moved at a serene pace, St. Simon’s was vibrant and full of life.

The pier was full of teenagers showing off to one another, couples strolling hand in hand eating ice cream, and families barking orders at their children to not “get too close to the edge.” Grizzled fishermen cast lines into the ocean, buckets beside them full of their catches. The scent from the fish washing station drifted through the air and mixed with the heat of the day and the salt of the ocean.

Clothing boutiques, small restaurants, ice cream stores, and toy shops peppered the small village. There were surprisingly few souvenir places and Taryn appreciated that. It was still a tourist destination; that much was obvious, yet managed to look like a quaint seaside town.

Of course, Taryn had driven around the roundabout twice before she figured out how to get off. It annoyed her that a traffic circle had beaten her but she was up and ready for round two on the way back.

“I think I’d like to live here,” Taryn said suddenly.

Matt turned and looked at her, surprise etching his face. “Really? It’s not too crowded?”

“Kind of the right kind of crowded, I think,” she answered, watching a group of toddlers playing on a live oak. Its limbs reached all the way to the ground, and the little ones were riding one of the limbs like a horse, giggling and shouting with glee. Taryn thought she felt her uterus jump a little.

“You’d move here, without there being any historical homes or big abandoned place to buy and fix up?” he teased her.

She’d thought about that already.

“I thought you didn’t do ranch houses,” Matt added.

Well, that was true enough and St. Simon’s seemed to have something against two story homes. And gutters. There were no gutters. What was up with that?

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. The quiet tree-lined streets we saw, the kids playing out on their bikes, the clean beaches, the nice restaurants, the history…Maybe I could give up my old houses for all those things.”

“And me?” He asked it teasingly, but his soft tone had Taryn looking at him. For a moment she thought he looked sad but then his eyes softened and she figured it must have been a trick of the moonlight that was taking over.

“You’d be welcome to visit anytime you wanted,” she assured him.

“Every night?”

Used to feeling cold chills when something supernatural was about to happen, now Taryn felt cold chills of another kind creep across her neck. “Sure.
Any
time.”

“Will you marry me?” Matt asked abruptly.

Taryn, who was mid-bite, found her spoon flying from her hand and landing in the dirt. “Uh…are you proposing?”

Matt laughed and patted her on the knee. “No, not yet. You’ll know when I am. I am just asking
will
you, when the time comes?”

Taryn put her cup of chocolate yogurt down beside her and snuggled into Matt’s arm. “I couldn’t imagine life without you,” she answered with total honesty.

The ride back to Jekyll Island only took them fifteen minutes and Taryn was pleased with herself for not letting the roundabout get the best of her again.

In contrast to St. Simon’s light and activity, Jekyll was dark and quiet. An oppressive mood settled over Taryn as they got out of the car and started into the house. She’d felt so much lighter on the other island. Now she felt depressed.

“The ghosts must be getting to me,” she mumbled, as she started towards the bedroom.

“What?” Matt called from the kitchen where he was bringing down a pitcher of tea he’d left sunning in the window all day.

“Nothing. Just talking to myself,” Taryn hollered back.

Feeling grimy and sweaty she considered hopping in the shower but decided she was too tired. Instead, she slipped on her nightgown, brushed her hair, and scrubbed her face. Matt’s toiletries took up almost as much space as her own on the bathroom sink and this made her smile. She also grinned at the sight of his bathrobe hanging on the back of the bathroom door and his towel folded neatly on the edge of the bathtub. Matt always traveled with his own bath towel, even to five-star hotels.

When she finished she returned to the bedroom. While Matt puttered around in the kitchen Taryn busied herself in the bedroom. She turned on the lamp on the nightstand, stacked the throw pillows neatly on the floor, and removed the afghan at the bottom of the bed. When she reached for the blankets to pull them down, however, something extraordinarily red under the snowy white duvet caught her eye.

Not altogether comprehending what was before her, Taryn flung the covers back with gusto. The angry and frightened snake that slithered towards her at a lightning-fast speed might not have been very long at only two feet but when its tiny tongue flew out in a livid “hisssss” Taryn dropped straight to the ground in a dead faint.