“I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
Mr. Griffin rolled his eyes impatiently. “Here’s what I’m trying to explain,” he said. “Soon after Cato MacTavish left St. Augustine, there was a tragedy at the house. Brennan’s daughter, Nellie, fell from her bedroom window and died on the stone walkway in front of the house. And soon after that, the townspeople marched on the place. You won’t find this written in any book—it’s a story my father told me. They dragged the housekeeper out of the house, and they took her out to the unhallowed ground behind the cemetery wall, where they hanged her. Before she died, she cursed the house. She said that others would find her ‘book.’ And when they did, she would come back, and all the beautiful young girls would die. I didn’t believe any of it. I thought it was nothing but fodder for the tourists. But there was a different Brennan—old man Brennan’s grandson, the son of the son who’d been fighting up north during the war—who was running the old mortuary then. He had a daughter, and she had friends, including my Clara. Two of them supposedly ran off with boys their folks wouldn’t approve of, while my Clara just went out to visit her one day and never came home.” He looked toward the door, as if assuring himself that no one else was there—including Cary—then leaned closer and whispered heatedly, “The housekeeper’s book exists, and someone has it, and that’s why girls are disappearing again. Find whoever has the book, and you’ll solve the murders.”
Cary Hagan came back in then, walking as smoothly and gracefully as a southern breeze, her smile as brilliant as the sun. She was carrying a silver tray with a coffee service, a cup of tea and a plate of fresh baked muffins. “Here we are. Mr. Griffin, I have your tea right here. Oh…! I should have asked. Would either of you prefer tea?” she asked Sarah and Will.
“Coffee is great, thank you,” Sarah said.
“Anything you have is just fine for me,” Will told her.
Sarah wanted to smack him. He was fawning again.
As Cary started serving, Mr. Griffin pointed to a painting on the wall. “That’s the old Castillo, done at the turn of century. Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked. He clearly wasn’t going to say anything more about the murders. Will might be too smitten to see it, but Sarah was very aware that Mr. Griffin didn’t want to speak in front of his own nurse.
As soon as she politely could, Sarah made their excuses and dragged Will out.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked the minute they were back on the sidewalk. “Don’t you see? Mr. Griffin doesn’t trust Cary.”
“Oh, come on,” he protested, looking back toward the house. “You’re just jealous because she’s so gorgeous, so you don’t want to trust her.”
“Will! I am not jealous. I’m…suspicious.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Sarah. Some sicko is doing this. How can you possibly think that it’s Cary Hagan?”
She shook her head and started walking more quickly.
“It’s pretty obvious that she’s having an affair with Tim Jamison,” Will said, hurrying to catch up with her. “So what do you think? She ditches Mr. Griffin, lures young women with some kind of drugs, kills them, bathes in their blood or whatever—and then sleeps with the cop in charge of the case?”
“Look, I didn’t say she was guilty of anything, I just said that she was suspicious,” Sarah told him. Her cell phone started ringing and she quickly pulled it out of her pocket, expecting it to be Caleb calling to say that he and Floby were at her house.
But it wasn’t Caleb. It was Caroline.
“Sarah, can you get over to the museum quickly? Please?”
“Okay,” Sarah said slowly, wondering why Caroline sounded so upset. Caroline wasn’t a fool; if there were a real emergency, she would have called 911. “Why?” Sarah asked.
“Just hurry, please,” Caroline said. “Oh, Sarah, it’s so awful!”
“What’s so awful?” Sarah asked.
Will was staring at her tensely. “Awful?” he echoed. “What’s so awful?”
Sarah frowned and waved a hand in the air, trying to shush him until she understood herself.
“Last night…last night Barry and Renee got into a fight. Barry left, Renee decided to go bar-hopping and…oh, Sarah! She was attacked.”
Floby looked at the body in the trunk and shook his head sadly. “Poor woman.”
“Well?”
“Well what? She’s practically mummified,” Floby said. “What do you want from me? Time of death?”
“Any opinions?” Caleb asked.
“Not at this moment,” Floby said slowly. “I’ll tell you, though, I would love to do the autopsy on this one. For the body to be as well-preserved as this one is…I’m thinking that she might have been drained of blood, like our Jane Doe from the beach.” He sighed. “Thing is, Caleb, this is another case for the university guys.”