“Super!” she said, as he set her down.
Aidan watched the two of them. They were close. Brother and sister close. Was it possible that Vinnie could be a sadistic killer and Kendall truly have no idea?
“What was that you were saying when you ran out here?” Aidan asked her.
She looked at him, then Jeremy and Zach. “I found out the truth about Sloan and Brendan,” she said, smiling again.
“Are you talking about that old story again?” Vinnie asked.
She nodded, obviously feeling triumphant. “They didn’t kill each other. Not the way we always heard it.”
“Kendall, stop. You’re about to ruin the one good ghost story that goes with this place,” Vinnie objected.
“No, actually, it makes it an even sadder ghost story.” She lifted the book she’d been holding. “This starts out as Fiona’s diary, and it’s charming. She talks about her secret wedding to Sloan. Brendan was there, so he knew they were married. Then Sloan rode off to fight again. Almost a year later, Sloan went AWOL when he was on a mission close to home. Meantime, a couple of Union soldiers came out from the city. But here’s the thing—they weren’t just a couple of greedy bastards, out to see what they could steal. One of them was a killer. He used his position with the military to “interrogate” women, and then he killed them. He’d been using this property to kill them and hide their bodies for a while. Fiona heard something one night, so she slipped out to see what was going on and saw him leaving, and that was when she looked around and saw what he’d done. What he’d been doing for a while. But he saw her, and after that, she was afraid every day. She wrote everything down in her diary, but she knew no Union officer was going to listen to her, so she was waiting for Brendan to get back, so she could tell him and he could report what was going on. But he didn’t come back in time. The killer, a man named Victor Grebbe, didn’t come just to harass her and to steal from her, but to kill her. She knew when she saw him ride up that she was going to die, so she gave the diary to Henry, the caretaker, who had stayed on to help her. She didn’t want him to die, too, so she told him to take the diary and the baby Sloan never even got to see and hide.
“Grebbe found her, then, and Sloan rode up just in time to see her die when Grebbe chased her onto the balcony and she threw herself off to get away from him. He shot and wounded Grebbe, and then Brendan showed up. He didn’t recognize Sloan, probably thought he was a deserter from the Confederate army, attacking a Union officer. So they did shoot each other, but they never intended to. And they weren’t fighting over Fiona.”
“How on earth can you know all that from Fiona’s diary?” Aidan asked. “She was dead once she went off the balcony.”
Kendall opened the book to a page near the end. “See where the writing changes? This was written by Henry, the free black man who had stayed on the property to be with Fiona. When it was all over, he finished the story just before he took the baby—Sloan and Fiona’s baby—with him to hide out until the war was over. The baby was named Declan Flynn, and when he was about ten, Henry brought him back to New Orleans, where he put in a claim for the property, and somehow, they won it back.”
“Cool,” Mason said.
“Wow, that will really help you publicize the event,” Vinnie said.
“I’m not so sure we need that much publicity,” Jeremy said. “We have to limit attendance to a couple hundred people, and I think we can guarantee that many tickets already. Then again, this is a matter of history, so it’s important for people to know the truth, and good publicity can’t hurt, right?”
“Well, I think it’s wonderful to know that the cousins never meant to kill one another, war or no war—publicity or no publicity,” Kendall said. “And at least Brendan managed to shoot Grebbe before he died.” She smiled grimly. “Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I want to go back and read this over again.” She turned to her friends. “Congrats, guys. And hey, Gary, here’s your new beginning.” She waved and went running happily back toward the house.
Aidan caught Vinnie and Mason looking at him speculatively after she left.
The house was full of workmen, but that didn’t bother Kendall.
She didn’t want to stay in the house. She wanted to head out to the cemetery, but she didn’t want to be seen. She didn’t want anyone stopping her, and she didn’t want to have to explain why she was sure there was some kind of a clue out in the cemetery. And she certainly didn’t want to try explaining to Aidan that she was convinced Fiona was trying to communicate with her in dreams, much less that she had seen Henry—several times.