Someone had been sweeping.
And, she discovered in the kitchen, someone had been using her coffeepot—and her coffee. There was even a half-full cup still sitting out on the counter. All of which was fine, of course. She just felt a bit like one of the three bears, trying to figure out who Goldilocks might be, and whether Goldilocks was still in the house somewhere.
No. She could feel the emptiness.
She walked into the back, where the library was—or would be. The walls were still knocked out, but someone had tried to sweep up in here, too, though despite their best efforts the plaster dust was still ubiquitous.
Floby hadn’t left her a note that day. She wondered idly whether the medical examiner had been the one making coffee.
It suddenly occurred to her that she might have made the same mistake she’d made the other day: forgetting to lock the front door behind her. She raced back to the front door and was relieved to discover that she had locked it. But as she stood there, awash in relief, the emptiness suddenly seemed to be overwhelming.
She turned and found herself studying the beautiful entryway, the double doors leading to the two parlors, and the hallway that led deeper into the house. If she closed her eyes, she could picture herself in the house as it must have been before the Civil War. It would have been beautiful then. Cato MacTavish would have been handsome, dashing and young, with an affectionately teasing light in his eyes as he flirted with his beautiful Eleanora. He wouldn’t have been scarred yet by the horror of the war, by seeing his fellow soldiers and friends fall. Eleanora wouldn’t yet have disappeared. His father would have been alive, and Eleanora might have come over to play and sing for both the elder MacTavish and the younger, the man she loved. The swish of taffeta would have accompanied the sound of laughter. Sarah could almost see them….
But that had been long ago.
I didn’t do it. I loved her.
Sarah wasn’t afraid of ghosts, didn’t even believe in them. Still, she didn’t want to be alone. The silence and emptiness were unnerving.
She went outside, conscientiously locked the door and headed for Hunky Harry’s.
“Anderson’s a corpse magnet, I’m telling you.”
Will’s back was to the front door, and Caleb knew the other man had no idea he’d just walked into Hunky Harry’s.
Caroline, Renee, Barry and Sarah were all there, and they all saw Caleb and looked up at him in mortified silence.
Will spun around, realized he’d been overheard and blushed. “Sorry, buddy,” he said, “but you have to admit it’s true.”
Caleb was glad to see that the chair next to Sarah was open, and he didn’t hesitate to take it.
He wondered if he looked as drained as he felt. He’d spent the last few hours on the beach as Tim Jamison and his crew barricaded the area with yellow tape, then the crime scene unit had arrived, quickly followed by Floby.
“Was it…do they think it was Winona Hart?” Sarah asked him.
Apparently the news of his find had preceded him. Will knew a lot of cops, and even with Lieutenant Jamison putting a gag order on the information, Caleb wasn’t surprised that it had traveled.
“No,” he said.
“No?” Caroline said, surprised.
“It was a young woman, though, right?” Renee asked, hesitant and yet intrigued.
“Yes,” Caleb told them. There was no reason to lie. No matter how much Tim might have wanted to keep it quiet, word was going to spread.
“So who was it?” Sarah asked.
“We don’t know yet. The body was in pretty bad shape. The fingers were missing, so they won’t get any prints. They’ll have to use dental records for an ID.” He turned away, motioning to the waitress for a beer, the same young woman who seemed to wait on them every night. She saw him and nodded, but the smile she gave him was no-nonsense. The waitresses at Hunky Harry’s were there to work. They didn’t wear short-shorts and skimpy tank tops. Jeans and T-shirts that advertised Hunky Harry’s were the uniform here.
“This is going to be terrible for business. The whole city will start to empty out,” Caroline said. “And of course those poor, poor women…”
“My God. We have a serial killer right here in St. Augustine,” Renee said.
Barry put his arm around her. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you out of my sight,” he told her.
“I think you should dye your hair,” Will told Caroline.
The waitress set Caleb’s beer down, and he waited for her to leave before speaking.