by B J Richards
"It's nothing to worry about,” Dr. Stiles explained. “You’ve got some seriously bruised ribs. And the impact to your head may have caused some temporary memory loss. You may or you may not get it back, but I wouldn't worry. I’ll be back later to check on you. In the meantime, if you need anything, use your call button and the nurse will be right in.”
His smile was warm and soothing and Sandra could tell he genuinely cared about his patients. Feeling the reassurance from his deep blue eyes, she nodded and relaxed as he left the room to tend to his other duties.
Just then, Nathaniel walked in, giving Josephine a quick kiss and hug. Looking around Sandra’s hospital room, he laughed. Sandra’s hospital room looked like a florist shop.
“Well, I had to do something,” Josephine said defending herself. “Besides, flowers make people feel better.”
Shaking his head, Nathaniel went over to Sandra’s bed. Bending his huge frame, he gave her a hug, forgetting about her bruised ribs. “Good to have you back, Peterson. You scared me to death."
"And you're about to crush my ribs, pal." Sandra laughed and coughed, putting her hands around her ribs.
Nathaniel quickly released her. "Sorry, kiddo.”
“So, what happened? This one won't give me any details." Sandra looked directly at Josephine.
"You don't remember?" Nathaniel asked raising a brow.
Sandra shook her head. "Apparently, I'm experiencing some memory loss."
Nathaniel sat down in the chair beside her bed and took her hand. "You were supposed to go see a movie with Josephine two nights ago, but you didn't show up. So, we tracked you to the museum and found you’d gone into a passageway. You accessed it from the hallway you found Annabel’s painting in."
Sandra's brows furrowed in confusion, "Passageway?"
"Yeah, there's a passageway further down that hall. Evidently you triggered some sort of lever and a wall panel opened up that leads to a tunnel beneath the museum." As Nathaniel explained, Sandra's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Yeah, too many secrets in that museum," Josephine said, echoing Sandra's thoughts.
"So, did I fall in the tunnel or something? How did I get injured?"
"You’d walked some distance into the tunnel before someone knocked you out and dragged you into another section."
The severity of the situation was starting to register with Sandra, and she tried to sit up straight, but fell back onto her pillow. There was pure dread in her voice now. "Did I... was I..." She looked pleadingly at Nathaniel, hoping he wouldn’t say what she was fearing.
Nathaniel shook his head, and squeezed her hand reassuringly. "No, there was no sign of rape. But someone kicked you hard in the ribs… probably more than once."
She calmed down, grateful nothing else had taken place. "So, what were they doing down there?"
"Digging. It appears they’re looking for something, but we don’t know what. Are you sure you don't remember anything? The sound of a voice, any conversations… did you see them? Can you recall anything at all before they chloroformed you."
Sandra shook her head. She hated this. She didn't even know she’d been attacked and chloroformed until just now. Looking at Nathaniel, she could see from his eyes he desperately needed her to remember, but she couldn't. Her body ached, even with all the morphine the doctor had given her. There was nothing she wanted more than to catch whoever did this to her.
"Grandmum... does she know I was attacked?"
"No," Josephine said, "she’s still out of town and we decided it was for the best to wait until she got back."
Sandra smiled in appreciation and squeezed Josephine’s hand. She'd rather keep her grandmother out of this. She remembered what a fit her grandmother had when she found out Sandra’s townhouse was burgled and someone tried to run her off into the ravine.
Sandra’s voice was getting weaker the longer she talked and it was getting harder to keep her eyes open.
“We’re going to go and let you rest, okay Sandy? You can barely keep your eyes open. But we’ll be back later,” Josephine said giving her a peck on the cheek. Nathaniel gave Sandra’s shoulder a tap with his fist, then turned and grabbed Josephine’s hand, closing the door behind them.
Sandra’s eyes closed almost immediately, and she drifted off. Hearing someone in her room some time later, she awakened. It was Dr. Stiles. Being more rested and her senses coming back online now, she noticed he was probably in his 30s, and not too bad to look at, either.
She looked up at him and half grinned in jest. "Dr. Stiles… is there anything you can give me to help me remember?"
He paused and smiled. "Memory is a tricky thing. You may see something that will trigger it and everything will come rushing back. Or you may never be able to remember what happened. But, however it turns out, you need to take it easy. I know you’re feeling helpless right now, but that will pass. And I’m recommending a psychiatrist to help you deal with this."
He patted her hand and Sandra nodded. There was nothing she hated more than being helpless. She needed to know exactly what happened… out of control was not her thing. And the minute she got out of that hospital gown, she was going to find out everything.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Finally… I can’t believe how much I missed this place. It had been ten days since the attack and Sandra was delighted to be back at work. She even found the routine of inventory logs and paperwork consoling.
Everything seemed normal. The incident had in no way affected the number of visitors they were getting, and the assistant the museum board hired in her absence, appeared to be professional and capable. That much was actually a relief.
Josephine, however, was still worried sick about Sandra. Her calls had been incessant, until Sandra insisted she was fine and Josephine needed to stop calling all time. Refusing to be deterred, Josephine then used the excuse of needing help with wedding details. Sandra smiled just thinking how she’d become Josephine’s latest obsession. It was adorable and irritating at the same time.
Nathaniel, on the other hand, merely informed her he would be her ride to and from work for the time being. Case closed. "They could be back," he’d argued. She knew he was right, but refused to dwell on it. She had museum business to attend to. So, for now, she graciously accepted the coddling.
Her mind kept wandering back to the whole tunnel business. What were they looking for down there? It must’ve been pretty important to take the risk they’d taken. And was that why the other curators were murdered? Questions kept dancing in her mind ever since Nathaniel told her how she’d been found.
I need to go down there. It was a mantra she kept in her head now The doctor said it was possible to get my memory back if I saw something familiar. Besides, she hated not knowing. But Nathaniel had forbidden it, reminding her the area was a crime scene now, and strictly police only. However, he did promised to fill her in on anything they found. So far, that only amounted to some debris on the tunnel floor and that its walls were a mixture of brick, stone and concrete.
Sandra tapped her pen against the document she was supposed to sign. A painting had been shipped in and the receiving document required her signature. Signing, her mind wandered back to the tunnel. It had become an obsession now… trying to remember anything at all about that night.
Sighing in frustration, she pulled her mind back to her work. She jumped a little when her phone rang, startling her slightly. It was an unknown number. Still a little rattled from the tunnel incident, she answered it with some hesitation. "Hello.”
"Hi, Sandra?" A vibrant male voice was on the other end of the line. It sounded familiar but she couldn't pinpoint who it was.
"Who is this?"
"It's Josh."
"Josh?"
"Oh sorry, I mean Dr. Stiles. But Josh is fine."
"Oh. Did I miss an appointment?" She was sure she hadn’t missed any of her psych appointments. The psychiatrist Dr. Stiles had referred her to was convinced she was suffering from post-traumati
c stress because she had trouble sleeping. But Sandra just dismissed it. How could she have PTSD if she didn't even remember the event.
"Oh, no. I was just calling to check on you. Has the sleeping gotten any better?"
Sandra shrugged. "The pills are helping," she lied. She'd stopped taking them because they made her groggy.
"Good..." Josh said and trailed off.
"Um, is there anything else doctor?" Sandra asked after neither of them was speaking and she could hear his breathing.
"No, no. And it’s Josh. You know, like Joshua. Joshua in the Bible or the Torah.... now I'm babbling like an idiot."
Sandra found herself genuinely smiling for the first time in days. Not the forced ones she’d kept on her face to make Nathaniel and Josephine feel comfortable.
"No, you went to med school and I doubt they allow idiots there."
"Well, I must’ve fooled them, because they even let me be a neurosurgeon." They both laughed.
"Look, I know it can be hard losing your memory. Try to find something that challenges you and really makes you focus, so your mind can’t wander. Or read about others with a similar experience of memory loss and how they coped with it. That has a tendency to make you feel more understood and less discouraged."
Sandra nodded in appreciation. It was the only advice she’d gotten that made sense to her. "That was good advice, Josh. Thanks." Smiling and feeling a bit relieved for some odd reason, she hung up the phone.
Then it dawned on her. She knew the exact book she wanted to read. The woman who wrote it was down the hall from her, smiling. She needed Annabel’s diary. She’d never read it all the way through herself. Josephine had read her the important parts, since she’d been too busy getting the Hall reopened.
Her mind started whirling. This is the Billamore Hall. And Annabel was married to Philip Billamore. So maybe there’s something there Josephine missed about Jonas and the tunnel. Sandra knew she was grasping at straws since Josephine would’ve told her if she’d read anything remotely similar, but it was a place to start. And it did help her to feel like she was doing more than just sitting around, waiting for some unknown miracle to happen so she would remember again.
She needed to know why… why had the museum been subjected to burglary, murder and theft, all in the past 18 months. She felt certain it wasn’t random. This was planned, and planned by the same person. It was someone who wanted something specific, and now the person was using the tunnel as a route to get it.
Excited for the first time in what seemed like forever, she called Josephine. "Hey, do you still have Annabel’s diary with you?"
"Yeah, why?" Josephine asked, curious and concerned at the same time. Ever since the attack, Josephine had been extra protective of her best friend.
"Nothing, I just want to read through it again and see if there's anything we missed that might help to explain what’s going on."
"Come on Sandra. You think Annabel, who died over a century ago, would know about a tunnel attack this last month?"
Sandra sighed. "I seemed to recall someone being dead certain ghosts were real."
"I was wrong okay, I was wrong. Just drop it and hope that Nathaniel will catch these guys. They’re bound to slip up sometime."
"I can't wait for that, Jo. I can't. Besides, this would keep my mind busy… and maybe reading it again will help me to remember."
Josephine sighed into the phone, "You make a valid point. I’ll bring it with me at lunch."
Sandra couldn't stop thinking about what Josephine had said about not believing in ghosts anymore. She’d tried hard for years to get those weird theories out of Josephine. And now Josephine was dumping her beliefs in a matter of days because she’d gotten hurt. The thought her attack had changed her best friend’s life so dramatically made her feel guilty and angry. Now she was even more determined to find out who this mastermind was and see he was put away.
She walked down the hall and looked at Annabel's painting. "I hope you still have some tricks up your diary sleeves for us,” she said softly. So softly, it almost sounded like a prayer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sandra lay on her sofa. It was Saturday and she could hear birds chirping outside her window as she munched on her favorite potato chips.
She’d finished reading the diary again from front to back… well at least until where Annabel had stopped writing. Then it was just blank pages. Still flipping through page after blank page, she finally sighed and closed it, back side up. Still, maybe I didn’t interpret what she wrote correctly.
Picking it up absentmindedly and opening it up from the back, she saw more entries. Entries she and Josephine hadn’t noticed before because these were at the end and written forward from the back, like Arabic writings.
They appeared to be random details. Some seemed out of character and unnecessary for a diary entry.
“February 4, 1877.
I see the dogs trailing the streets outside of the Billamore mansion, but Philip said not to worry.
March 28, 1877.
For the first time ever, I saw Elinore Billamore wave at me. I find that suspicious.”
Sandra sighed. Come on Anabelle, how did you find a wave suspicious?
She closed the diary and set it aside. This wasn't useful. Maybe Josephine was right. I’m busy chasing ghosts, and ghosts have nothing to offer the living. What am I going to read next? She saw someone spill some milk?
Guilt flooded her the moment she thought it. She’d spent valuable time proving Annabel wasn't crazy. Her writings had made sense and Professor Montgomery had corroborated some of them. Annabel was wrongfully treated by the Billamores, and maybe that had earned her the right to be paranoid about them.
Elinore and Drake Billamore did everything they could to erase Annabel’s existence. Her diary entries and portrait were all that remained as proof of her existence. Sandra smiled, encouraged. Annabel Carson Billamore wasn't a woman to be pitied or thought of as crazy; she was a woman to be admired. She’d refused to be forgotten, even in death.
Sandra picked up Annabel’s diary and continued to read every entry, regardless how small. Some were about the port and in some she was concerned about Philip's relationship with his family.
“April 22, 1877
I'm afraid Philip is going to alienate his family because of me. They don't want me, but he does. It's beginning to form into a conundrum that is leaving him distressed. His love for me or for his family. Yesterday, he spoke of how greed consumed Drake and Elinore. I've never heard him talk about them in that manner. Is his love for me clouding his judgment? Am I causing him to resent his family? I do not want this and have asked him to stop. We all have to be cordial with one another.”
Sandra sighed and flipped to the next entry.
“April 24, 1877
Philip has been very quiet and is spending a great deal of time at the Hall. I know something has happened. He speaks often of his ancestor Jonas, now. I know not why.
April 27, 1877
Today Philip took my hand and asked me to remain silent. He found something that must remain a secret, and I must not ask what. As his future wife, it is my duty to obey him. I do trust my Philip and will remain silent.
April 28, 1877
Philip and Drake had a terrible row in the garden today. What little I heard disturbed me greatly. Drake wishes to spend a great deal of money that Philip refuses to allow. Drake accused me of influence over Philip which resulted in fisticuffs. I do not want to come between two brothers.
April 29, 1877
I confronted Philip about how he was treating his family today. At first, he dismissed me and insisted there was nothing of the sort. As his betrothed, I persisted. It's ridiculous, but my Philip now speaks in parables. I don't know how to deal with this information. He says it is too much to have, and Philip refuses to let Drake and Elinore have it. He says he will make sure the chest is locked and kept away from them forever, and only something he holds dear will open it. Whatever he
is locking away once belonged to his ancestor, Master Jonas, and was of great importance to him. My Philip is a man of honor and responsibility. I think if there is anyone now in the Billamore family Master Jonas would have wanted to have access to his treasure, it would be my Philip. He is the best of them all.”
Sandra jumped up and almost screamed! A treasure chest? But where? Annabel didn't say where!
Her mind raced to the tunnel. It seemed like a perfect place to hide something if you owned the building above it. Jonas Billamore himself had built the gallery for his private collection, then opened it to the public. He was probably stashing God-knows-what, beneath it. Philip Billamore was the eldest of the sons of his day and a sound businessman. His father would’ve passed on any knowledge directly to him, especially with family rivalries being what they were.
Sandra went through the diary again, searching for any kind of clue about the location of the chest. Finally, she gave up and called Josephine for help. "So, I found something in the diary, Jo."
"What did you find?" Sandra could hear the misgiving in Josephine’s voice. Josephine was reluctant to discuss the diary any more. She wanted Sandra to go to therapy, take her drugs and heal from the incident.
But Sandra needed answers. Only the answers could make her better, not drugs. She wished Josephine would understand that.
"Jonas Billamore had a treasure. Phillip was spending a lot of time here at the Hall and found it and put it in a chest. He put a special lock on it and hid it to keep it from Drake and Elinore because they were so greedy. It’s possible that other Billamores also knew about the treasure. What if that’s what my attackers were after that night in the tunnel?" Sandra explained, hoping Josephine would take up the cause with her.
"How can you be sure Jonas or Philip kept anything at all in the tunnel? Nathaniel followed the tunnel to its end, where it dumps out onto an obscure harbor. He thinks the tunnel was used primarily in the 18th and 19th century for bringing in merchandise from the port without anyone knowing about it. Maybe that's all there is to it. An old tunnel. Besides, if Jonas Billamore had some kind of treasure, wouldn't it make sense for him to hide it in a secret basement at his home or something?”