A Ghost of a Clue

by Debra Doggett

  “Daryl Johnson had a picture of her…of the ghost we’d seen, in his files.”

  Rory breathed a sigh of relief when Travis took over the story. Surely the sheriff would listen to him more than her. He was the scientist, after all.

  “Daryl had a picture of a ghost.” The sheriff still seemed skeptical.

  “It was an old newspaper clipping about how she’d run away that summer and been seen in Lobster Cove.”

  “So you came down here to check it out?”

  “We saw her again tonight.”

  “You and Ms. DuMont.”

  “And Margaret, too. Margaret Vincent.”

  Sheriff Lawton-Mackenzie glanced over at Margaret, who sat on a large rock, staring out at the ocean. Though both Rory and Travis tried asking her a number of questions, she hadn’t said a word since she came out of the faint. She’d moved over to a boulder near the front of the overhang, sat down, and stared out at the ocean.

  “Okay.” The sheriff closed her notebook and tucked the pencil into her dark hair. “Let’s see what you found. We’ll talk more about how you found it later.”

  And won’t that be fun, thought Rory as she followed Travis and the sheriff into the rocky shelter.

  Her bones lay against the back wall, as if she had fallen asleep as far from the opening as she could. The spot was just barely out of reach of the tide’s movements. Her hiding spot was hardly big enough to have kept her sheltered at all. Rory wondered why she would have chosen such a spot, hidden but not really safe. Or was it chosen for her by whoever left her here? She thought of Margaret, sitting outside the shelter like a sentinel. In spite of all they’d done this evening, it seemed there were still a great many unanswered questions.

  The sheriff’s practiced eye quickly scanned the scene then she ordered them all out.

  “I don’t want anyone else coming in here until I get a forensics team out here.”

  ****

  Rory brought the steaming cup to the table and handed it to Margaret. She and Travis had talked Margaret into coming inside though it had taken the persuasive powers of both and the arrival of the forensics team to convince her. She had watched the team set up their equipment for a moment before letting out a low sob and turning to walk back up the slope.

  “Here you go.” Rory wrapped Margaret’s hand around the warm cup. “This will warm you up in no time.”

  Since she’d come inside, Margaret had stopped crying. Now she just looked lost. Travis was sitting beside her, holding one of her hands in his. She looked from him to Rory and back.

  “I guess I should explain.”

  Rory sat down on the other side of her. “Talk if you want to but you don’t have to.”

  Margaret sighed. “I’ll have to explain it to the sheriff anyway. I might as well explain it to both of you, too. It’ll help me clear my thoughts for later.”

  She lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip. After placing it back on the table she looked over at Rory.

  “First I want to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  “For finding her. For finding Laurel.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You did something I’ve been trying to do for a lot of years.”

  “She was your sister, wasn’t she? You’re Meg.”

  Margaret nodded, and Rory saw the tears gathering in her eyes again.

  “I moved to Lobster Cove more than twenty-five years ago, but it wasn’t the first time I’d been here.”

  “The first time was in 1971, when you and your parents came to look for Laurel.”

  “Yes. It had been nearly a month since she’d run away, and my parents had lost hope. When they heard she’d been spotted in Lobster Cove, they were so excited. We came down right away, but it was too late. She’d gone, or so we thought.”

  “But you came back.”

  “After Lobster Cove there were no more sightings of Laurel. It was like she’d dropped off the face of the earth. We never heard from her again. My parents were devastated. They never recovered from losing her.”

  “That must have made it hard for you.

  Margaret gave Travis a weak smile. “Harder to live with the fact that I was the reason she left.” She shook her head. “We had argued, we always did. I was eighteen, and she was fifteen. It doesn’t sound like much difference, but in temperament we were worlds apart. But this time it was so much worse. She was…wild. My parents were older, had been in their forties when Laurel and I were born. By the time she reached her teens they had little control over her.”

  “And it was the 70s.”

  “And it was the 70s. The whole world had gone wild, I guess. Laurel had friends, lots of them, and she liked to party. That night she’d come creeping in from another party she had snuck out to. I knew Mom and Dad were at their wits end. When she came stumbling into the house that night she knocked over a vase, one that had belonged to Grandma Rosen. I knew Mom treasured it and seeing it lying there in pieces on the floor, I just snapped. I don’t even remember what all I said to her.” She gave a bitter laugh as she pointed to the faded note lying on the table. “I guess I called her clumsy. She was drunk or high or maybe both, I don’t know. As usual she called me a few choice names and went to her room and slammed the door. I cleaned up the vase and tried not to think about the scene that would come in the morning. But by morning she was gone.”

  “And you never saw her again.”

  Travis’ voice was gentle, but Margaret started to shake as the tears rolled freely down her cheeks.

  “No. Yes. I did see her again, just not in the way I expected.”

  “You saw her ghost.”

  She nodded at Rory. “Yes. After we got back to Augusta, I tried the best I could to take care of Mom and Dad. But neither of them ever recovered. They died within two years of each other. I’d married by then, but my marriage fell apart after a couple of years.” Margaret looked down at her hands. “Fell apart isn’t really right. Tonight is a night for hard truths. My husband left me because of my drinking. I don’t know how it started. Maybe it was taking care of my parents, maybe it was wondering what I could have done differently. A little drink here and there seemed to help make it all easier. I don’t think I realized how my little drinks had become more and more often until James left.”

  “So you came to Lobster Cove?”

  “I was driving through the summer after my divorce was final. Before I headed out of town, I stopped my car down by the lighthouse, to walk along the shore. I don’t know if something drew me there or not, but I found myself thinking about Laurel. All the memories flooded over me, and when I looked up, she was standing there, dressed just like she was tonight. She didn’t say anything, just stared at me. But I knew, I knew she was here, somewhere, still in Lobster Cove.” She sighed. “I went back home, packed up my things, and moved down here.”

  “And you searched for her. That day I saw you, you were looking for her, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. It was like I wanted to stay away, but I couldn’t. I’d look for her then I’d try and stay away from the ocean, away from where I knew she was. If I found her, I knew she’d be…”

  “You knew she was dead.” Rory took Margaret’s hand and held on as the grief rode her.

  “Wondering what happened to her just made it worse.” Margaret sighed. “It would be good to know.”

  “I might be able to help you with that.”

  None of them had heard the sheriff come in until she spoke. Margaret stared up at her.

  “The forensics team is finishing up. They’ll take…the remains to the lab in Bar Harbor. We don’t have the facilities here to confirm things like identity and cause of death.”

  “How long before they know something?” Travis asked.

  “Well, first we have to make sure this is Laurel Gardner. We’ll need dental records to confirm.”

  Margaret nodded. “I can get you what you need.”

  “But the letter does seem to point t
o it being Laurel, right?” Rory fingered the yellowed paper. Everyone involved needed closure and her hope was the forensics would give it to them.

  Sheriff Lawton-Mackenzie nodded. “It’s a start. We have to have official confirmation though, and we need to know what happened to her.”

  “You said something about maybe being able to answer that.” Travis gave the sheriff a quizzical look.

  “The head of the team did say that although he couldn’t give an official finding, it looked to him like whoever it was broke their leg.”

  “She broke her leg?”

  “Yes. It could have happened out there on the shore and for whatever reason, the person didn’t have a way to get to help.”

  “My aunt did a lot of traveling. She may have been gone. I’ve wondered why Laurel never connected with her, but I found no mention of her in any of my aunt’s journals.”

  “Back in those days there weren’t things like cell phones either. So injured, hurting, whoever it was likely found a place to hole up and wasn’t able to get out again.” Sheriff Lawton’s gaze shifted to Margaret and Rory saw kindness in it. “Like I said, it’s not official yet.”

  Margaret nodded to her. “Thank you, Lynn. If it turns out to…be Laurel, I’ll take care of things from there.”

  “Okay. Like I said, the team is loading up now. They should be out of here in another half hour or so.”

  Rory looked at Margaret. “You’re welcome to stay here, Margaret. The other bedroom is comfy.”

  She shook her head. “I think I’d like to go home. It’s been a long night.”

  Travis rose from the table. “I can give you a ride home then. We can bring you back tomorrow for your car.”

  Margaret nodded, still lost in her grief as she followed the sheriff out the door. Travis pulled Rory to him and gave her a kiss.

  “It’s been a long night for all of us.”

  “Yes.” Rory buried her face in his shirt, inhaling the scent of him. “Yes, it has.”

  Travis tilted her face up and smiled down at her. “I’ll be back. I’m not leaving you alone tonight. So if you have a problem with that you’d better speak up now.”

  “No problem.” As she gazed up at him a slow smile spread across her face. “You stayed. You’ve seen a ghost, did a ritual and you stayed.”

  He cupped her face in his hands before lowering his mouth to hers. Rory let herself sink into the kiss, let it soothe and stir her, enjoying the taste of him, the feel of him. His arms slid around her and a feeling of safety that she had never known before welled up in her. For a moment she let herself rest in it. When he finally stepped back from her, Rory found there were tears in her eyes. Travis wiped her cheeks and smiled.

  “That’s the wonderful thing about science. Sometimes the results you get are the ones you least expect.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Ready?”

  Travis stuck his head into the bathroom for the tenth time.

  “Almost.”

  Rory finished putting on the earrings and stepped back. She’d almost dropped the pretty diamond teardrops down the sink, her hands shook so badly. Why in the world had she agreed to let Willa host a reception to introduce her work? And how in the world was she going to get through three hours of talking to strangers? She turned to Travis, who smiled at her from the doorway. He looked amazing in the charcoal gray suit. He’d even splurged and worn a tie. No matter how bad the evening turned out for her, she knew at least she was going home with the hottest man there.

  “How do I look?” She twirled in front of him. The silver and black silk dress hit her knees with a half-train further down in the back. It made her feel like a princess.

  “You really need to ask me that? You can’t tell from the fact that I’m drooling here?”

  “It’s more that I really need to hear it from you in words. Drool can be discounted as other things.” Rory placed a hand on her stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “No, you’re not. What you’re going to be is lavished with praise, adored and admired, talked about for years to come.”

  “Now you’re making me more nervous. I’ve been trying to get people to stop talking about me.”

  “Ah, but this time it won’t be gossip. They’ll be telling you to your face how amazing you are and how much they love your work.”

  “Enough to buy it?”

  “They’ll be buying it like crazy. Willa won’t be able to keep it on the shelves.” Travis looked at his watch. “But if we don’t leave now, you’ll be making your grand entrance late. We’ve still got to stop and pick up Margaret.”

  “It was nice of you to offer to pick her up.”

  “You’re the one who made sure she got an invitation and hounded her until she said yes.” Travis leaned down and kissed her on the nose. “I think you picked up my persuasion techniques very well.”

  “I don’t want her to feel like she’s alone anymore. Now that the sheriff got the forensics report back and she knows once and for all that Laurel’s dead, I’m hoping she can put the past in the past and not let it haunt her anymore.”

  “Speaking of hauntings, the Paranormal Posse wants another night out here. They were more than a bit disappointed to miss out on finding their ghost girl.”

  “I figured they might have been.” Rory sighed. “Guess I’ll have to let them set up in the bedroom this time to make up for it, huh?”

  “I’m still not sure you should encourage them.”

  “Hey, you should be the one encouraging them. You’re the head ghost hunter now.”

  Travis groaned. “Don’t say things like that. I’m already having to hide from Jane Harvitz.”

  “Really?”

  “Word got around about the whole thing. Now she’s after me to talk at another meeting about what it’s like to be a reformed skeptic.”

  “And is that what you are?’

  He stared down at her with a look Rory had been waiting her whole life to see in someone’s eyes.

  “What I am is the man who’s going to walk into that reception tonight knowing I have the most beautiful woman in the world beside me. Ghosts, goblins, hell, fairy queens can come along if they want. So long as you’re there with me I can tackle the natural, the supernatural, the dead, and the undead. I’m not going anywhere without you, Ms. DuMont, so bring it on. I can take it.”

  Rory wrapped her arms around him, loving the feel of having him close to her. She stood on tiptoes and planted a long hot kiss on his lips. It might have been a mistake because she had to resist the urge to slip her hands under his jacket and touch his skin. She wanted to touch him all over and have him return the favor. By the time she stepped back from the kiss they were both out of breath. She gazed up at him with a twinkle in her eyes.

  “That’s all good to hear. Cause you’re gonna love what I’ve got planned for Beltane.”

  A word from the author...

  I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. Being a writer is more than something I do. It is the way I see the world, the way I process it. I believe in the power of stories. They make us smile, make us think, and give us untold moments of enjoyment. My stories come from the landscape around me and the worlds I build in my head. I am proud to be a storyteller, and I hope my work leaves you both satisfied and entertained.

  Thank you for purchasing

  this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.