“While you’re at it, draw me a map of the area and show me where the woman came from, and where you think she walked off to,” Caleb said.
Nigel did as asked, then looked Caleb straight in the eye and asked, “Do you think you’ll find Winona?” he asked. “Alive?” He looked a little sick, as if he were afraid of the answer.
“We’re all trying.”
When he left Nigel, Caleb headed back for his car. Mindy Marshall was next on his list of people to question, but before he talked to her, he wanted to walk on the beach where Winona Hart had last been seen.
He had just found another connection between the two missing women.
Both of them had wanted to be frightened.
Frightened—to death?
Vicky Hind was pleased when Sarah returned. “This is so exciting,” she said. “Well, sad, too, but not that sad. I mean, Mrs. Abrams was ninety-two, and she died in her sleep.”
“Pardon?” Sarah said.
“Not ten minutes ago, we received a donation from Ethel Abrams. Well, from her estate. She lived in the old Pickens-Aubrey house down the street. You must remember her,” Vicky said. “She was always trying to do something good for the city.”
“Mrs. Abrams…” Sarah mused. “Oh, yes, I do remember her. She seemed old even when I was young, but she was always dressed up, wearing a hat and gloves.”
“That’s her. Was her,” Vicky corrected herself. “She passed away about a week ago. Anyway, she left us some old boxes of papers from her attic, and I thought that you might enjoy looking through them. Her husband inherited the house from his grandmother, and she was here during the Civil War. I found a journal I thought might help you, and you can help us, too. You’re a historian, so you can catalogue the contents.”
“That’s wonderful. I’d love to read it,” Sarah said. “Would you mind, though, if I logged onto the computer for a few minutes first?”
“Help yourself,” Vicky told her.
Sarah was familiar with all the genealogy Web sites and immediately signed onto her favorite—and entered Caleb’s name.
Then she paused. Where was he originally from? Virginia? Worth a try.
She filled in the state, without a clue as to the city, then paused again. She didn’t have his date of birth or a current address.
Giving up on that approach, she filled in Cato MacTavish’s name instead. Birthplace, St. Augustine, Florida. Year of birth? She gave a range in the 1830s. He’d served in the Confederate Army, so she entered that information, too, along with the address of the house that was now hers, then clicked on Search.
Thirty seconds later, she had her results.
A death certificate had been filed for a Cato MacTavish in 1901, in Fairfax, Virginia. He’d left behind one son. There was no mention of a wife, just a son, Magnus, who in turn had died in 1919.
Magnus had been survived by his three daughters, Emily, Elisabeth and Edna.
Sarah kept filling in information and refining her search.
In 1901, Emily MacTavish had been granted a marriage license and wed a Mr. John Anderson of Colonial Beach, Virginia.
For a moment, Sarah stared at the screen, amazed that she’d found the proof she was looking for so easily.
Then she started searching again.
John Anderson and Emily MacTavish had one son in 1903, Ellsworth. Ellsworth married a woman named Dorothy Sweeney in 1926. They produced two daughters, Michaela and Genevieve, and one son, another John. In 1950, John’s son, Andrew, was born, and then…
Andrew and his wife, Cynthia, had their first child, a son named Caleb.
Caleb Anderson.
The beach was exquisite. Off the beaten path, it was surrounded by pine trees and washed by gentle waves.
Caleb found the place where the kids had built their bonfire. Though they had conscientiously doused the flames and broken down the remains, the evidence was clear in the scraps of burned wood. They had picked up all their beer bottles, cans and leftovers, though. The place was amazingly clean. It was also the kind of place a person had to know about to arrive at, secluded from view and at least a third of a mile off the road.
Caleb had followed the single path from the road to the beach, found the darkened pit in the sand and done a cursory visual search. Pine and bracken to the left, pine and bracken to the right, and pines and oaks behind him, many draped with the Spanish moss so common in the area.
Winona Hart had been here with her friends. She had met a woman coming from the northern side of the beach area—a hippie who had told them she was a medium, and that they needed to be careful because of the moon. The woman had left via a path that led back to the road.
There was no other access to the beach, unless you came by boat. It was possible that Winona might have been taken by boat, but none of the kids had mentioned seeing one. The file had told him that the last kids on the beach had been Nigel and Mindy. They had made sure that the fire was dead—and the garbage had all been cleaned up.