Gatekeeper (14 page)

Somewhat faded but clearly visible was her mother’s spirit, dressed in the clothes Jillian had seen on her in the coffin earlier that day. Fear rendered her immobile. But there was something else. Some strange joy filled her. “Momma!” She gathered the courage to move, to reach out and touch her mother.

But when her hand moved through her Jillian panicked and began screaming.

“No, Jill! It’s our momma. Don’t you see? She’s come to tell us goodbye,” Amy explained, trying to reason with her.

Finally Jillian grew still. Dread flooded her. What did Amy mean, “goodbye”? “But…I don’t want Momma to go.” Her voice was filled with pleading.

Amy swallowed. “But she has to go into the Light. Don’t you want her to go to Heaven?”

“No. no! I want her to stay here with us!”

“Jill, are you okay?” Amy’s voice brought her out of her gloomy reverie.

Jillian swallowed. “Yes, I’m fine.” She stood and brushed her clothes off in a businesslike manner. “I’ve got to meet Theo somewhere. I’ve got my phone. You call me if you need anything.”

Amy nodded.

Jillian turned and started to open the door.

“Don’t let him manifest to you again,” Amy said behind her. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”

Jillian hesitated but she didn’t look back.

“And Jill, always remember that love is the strongest power in the Universe.”

Jillian’s brow furrowed. Typical Amy, spouting some crazy New Age philosophy when a life or death matter hung in the balance. “I will,” she said and then left.

* * * * *

Jillian had seen dead bodies before but she had never become accustomed to it.

Matt Gregory lay on his back in a pool of his own blood. His throat gaped where someone had slashed it open from one side to the other. His hands were covered in blood from long, deep defensive wounds. Jillian suppressed a gag. She knew he’d fought back. Hard.

Whoever did this hadn’t left here without a few bruises of his own.

A shudder swept up her spine. Someone had followed her here yesterday. Were they here now? Waiting? Watching? The idea gave her the creeps. She shut her eyes for a moment, wishing Benton’s strong arms were around her.

“I don’t understand it,” Theo said. “No money was taken. None of the merchandise. It doesn’t make sense.”

Jillian watched the crime scene investigator take skin sample scrapes from under Matt’s bloody fingernails. Hopefully, this time they would get some conclusive DNA evidence.

Theo’s hands found his hips. He shook his head. “The only things moved at all were these old books. What would a killer want with a dusty old history book?”

Comprehension flooded Jillian.
The book! Yes, that was the key. The suspect stole the bio I copied.
She darted behind the counter and began a frantic search for the book with the information about Benton. Her investigation turned up nothing. It was just as she had suspected. Someone had taken it. What was in Benton’s history they didn’t want her to know?

She wasn’t sure. But what she
did
know was that book was a direct clue to who had abducted her sister.

“What are you looking for?” Theo asked.

She couldn’t just confess that she’d been here yesterday. Not only would it raise Theo’s suspicions, it would implicate her in a murder investigation—again. “I’m not sure. It’s just a hunch.”

“Does it have anything to do with that Gatekeeper ghost?” He asked the question as if he didn’t really want to know the answer to it.

Jillian turned and looked into Theo’s brown eyes. “I’m certain of that much.”

* * * * *

Finding a good parking place in downtown Nashville on a weekday was hell. Jillian counted herself lucky when she squeezed the Jag into a parallel spot between the capitol building and the Tennessee State Library.

Stepping out of the car, she took in one of the best views of Nashville. The Tennessee state capitol building sat on the highest hill in the city and the panorama of the Cumberland River flowing around the amalgamation of weathered old buildings and modern skyscrapers was a breathtaking sight. She hadn’t been here since her college days at MTSU but if there was any information about Benton, it was sure to be on some ancient roll of microfilm.

Impatiently, she dashed inside and presented her driver’s license to the volunteer at the front desk. After filling out a short form, she was issued a library card and admitted. At once, the musty smell of old books, wood polish and copier ink filled her nostrils.

She sailed past the reference section into the dark microfilm room and straight toward a birdlike little woman at the information desk. Her name tag read “Edith”.

She looked up from a snack of cheese crackers and grapefruit juice. “May I help you?”

“Please. I need information on a Civil War soldier. Thomas Benton Smith. Where do I start?”

The lady stood with deliberate slowness but Jillian could tell the wheels inside her head were turning. She put on the reading glasses that were suspended from a silver chain around her neck. “You could pull up his service records. Do you know his rank?” Her voice was birdlike too. It warbled when she spoke.

“Brigadier general. Confederate Army.” Jillian followed Edith around the corner to where microfilm was stored in row upon row of wide, bone-colored filing cabinets. She had forgotten how daunting a place this was.

Edith ran a scrawny index finger along the drawers until she came to the one labeled Smi-T. “Smith. Here it is.” She pulled it open. “I will warn you. A man of his rank will have a lot of information for you to go through. Forage requests, correspondence and the like. I would suggest printing it and reading it later.” Edith pulled a little white box out of the drawer and Jillian tagged along behind her like an eager puppy as she moved to a viewer with a printer.

“I’ll show you how to get this started and then you can just scroll through until you find him.” She expertly loaded the microfilm onto a viewer and switched on a light. Immediately, old handwritten pages projected onto the screen. “He should be at the beginning of the roll. Let me know if you need any help printing but it should be self-explanatory.”

Jillian scrolled through the roll. Her heart leapt when she found a Thomas Smith but this one’s rank was listed as private. This was not
her
Benton. A further search of the several other Thomas Smiths also turned up nothing. Discouraged, she sat back in the chair and shook her head.

A bald man next to her gave her a wink. “Frustrating, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

“I’ve been working on my family’s genealogy for three years and I hate to tell you, it never gets any easier.”

Jillian gave him an indulgent smile and then she turned a frown on the viewer.

Manually she spun the scroll knob again. A thrill raced through her as finally, page after page of information on Benton Smith rolled into view.

Jillian leaned forward and studied the pages. The handwriting was difficult to read but it was there. Some strange little twinge of excitement passed through her that Benton
had
existed.
He was real. He’d lived in another time.
The idea of his life in that era, complete with family and friends, sent a shiver through her—and also a pang of jealousy. A part of her wished she’d known him then. She sighed. The memory of making love to him the night before only enhanced her curiosity—and her trepidation.

For hours, she skimmed letters of promotion written by names she recalled from high-school and college history. John Bell Hood. William Hardee. Jefferson Davis.

The letters in his own handwriting were of particular interest to her. It was a fluid and confident style. He seemed like a man who knew exactly what he wanted. And at the bottom of each letter was a big, bold, distinctive signature—T. B. Smith.

And then she found a letter that began…

Dear Sir,

I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of your kind letter requesting we terminate our long engagement by an early marriage. I have no objection to complying with your request.

Jillian felt a hot, uncomfortable, unwelcome wave of jealousy well inside her. She scanned the letter to the end.

I remain yours.

Affectionately,

Harriet Cooke.

“Affectionately,” she said aloud through gritted teeth, surprised at the venom in her own voice.

“Whoa!” the bald man said as he leaned over to peer at her screen. Jillian was annoyed but she tried to contain it. The man continued. “No respectable woman would have used a term like that in a letter back then—unless she’d been
had
.” He winked again.

Jillian’s annoyance rose even higher. She’d known Benton was engaged but she had not suspected he’d been intimate with the woman—until now. Heat settled in the back of her neck. He had certainly seemed
experienced
last night. Had she been foolish enough to think all that expertise came without a history?

She drew in a sharp breath. Had Benton—to use the term he, himself had used—
compromised
Hattie Cooke and then broken off their engagement? Matt Gregory had told her something about Benton breaking off the engagement after Hattie had a psychic premonition of his death.

Curious, she scrolled to the next letter. A quick check of the signature told her this one was also from Hattie, although the handwriting looked somewhat more rushed.

Dear Sir,

As you deem it necessary to terminate our engagement based on my presentiment, I will return your ring to your brother’s widow. I do not expect to ever see you again.

With regret,

Harriet Cooke.

Jillian stared at the letter. What had she meant by “my presentiment”? Was that another word for premonition? The letter was short, angry and to the point. Hattie Cooke had left him with no doubt she truly believed he was about to die.

She took a deep breath. Scrolling the microfilm and straining to read the letters was making her nauseous. Yet she had to continue. Somehow she knew she would find a clue to the identity of the suspect who had abducted Amy. A chill swept over her, reminding her that the suspect was now a killer.

She scrolled the next letter into view. It appeared to be a request for leave for one of his men. “Not important,” she muttered under her breath—and then a cold shiver shook her to the core. Lightning-charged energy bristled behind her and she became keenly aware of Benton’s presence at her back. Maybe she’d better read this one after all. She swallowed and twisted the knobs until the blurred leave request was in crystal clear focus.

Dear Sir,

I enclose a letter from my fiancée, Miss Harriet Cooke, with whom you are also acquainted. It is imperative that I receive an extended leave from service so that Miss Cooke and I may wed within the month.

Sincerely,

Bruce K. Bowers, Private Co. B., 20th Tennessee

Jillian reread the letter. Bruce Bowers. Why was that name so familiar? “Bowers,” she said aloud.

And then it was obvious.

Chapter Ten

Comprehension flooded Jillian. Matt Gregory’s words echoed in her head.
The private’s life he died saving was the man Smith’s former fiancée married. Her family still lives around here somewhere.

Jillian gasped. Bowers. That was it! Lynn Bowers was a descendant of Harriet Cooke and Bruce Bowers. It all made sense. That was how the suspect had known that she had gone to the relic shop. That was how the suspect had known Jillian had worn a blue sweater yesterday. Lynn had gotten Boo out of her Jag. Stark clarity sank straight to her toes. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “That must have been when she took the pages I copied.” Jillian knew the bald man was staring at her, thinking she was talking to herself but she didn’t care. She had asked Theo to bring Lynn in on the case. Lynn had seen Theo hand her the button.

Did Lynn know she still had it?

Jillian stared at the letter. Her mind formed a mental picture of Benton stepping between the Federal colonel and Bowers. While the colonel hit Benton on the head, Bowers must have stuck a knife between his ribs. She shuddered violently as she felt Benton’s presence looming behind her. It was static and strong and Jillian did not doubt if she looked over her shoulder she’d see Benton’s ghost standing there. She tensed. “Bruce Bowers killed you,” she whispered under her breath.

The energy behind her turned ice cold and then spiked. The hair on the back of her neck rose. Benton had not known. He truly had not known he’d been betrayed by the man whose life he had risked his own to save. Who would have? He’d probably been too stunned by the Yankee who attacked him to realize Bruce Bowers was killing him. Jillian’s heart tightened and just as she was about to turn to offer him some sort of comfort, there was a pop and a flash and the whole Tennessee State Library was left in darkness. The patrons gasped in unison.