Chapter 19
That night promptly at 6:00, I strolled up the walk of the old Victorian style mansion that housed the Savannah Historical & Genealogical Society and pushed the bell. I did not have to wait long to hear the clatter of feet on hardwood stairs as someone came to answer my summons. The door opened, and a young woman of about thirty answered. She was short, maybe about 5 feet tall with blue eyes, a creamy complexion, a smattering of freckles on her nose, and golden brown curls that framed her face in a short style. She was dressed casually in worn jeans, a red t-shirt, and some ratty sneakers. She was a kindred spirit. I stuck out my hand, “You must be Kelly.”
She just stood there looking at me as if she or I had lost our minds. I waved my hand in front of her face, “Hello. We had a meeting for 6:00.” I held up the bag of Chinese food. “See I even brought the dinner.”
That seemed to break her out of her trance. She shook her head, “Sorry, yes, I’m Kelly. You must be Miranda. Come in.” She stepped back and opened the door wide for me to enter.
I stepped inside and looked over at her. “Are you okay? You seemed shocked when you saw me. Do we know each other? Have we met before?”
Kelly gave me a lopsided self-conscious smile, “I think the answer to that is yes and no.”
I lifted my trademark eyebrow. “Do tell.”
Kelly laughed. “All right, but how about we drop the food in the kitchen and then head up to the research room, and I’ll fill you in on the way.”
I nodded. “Agreed.”
The kitchen was a small tidy updated room off the entrance. It looked to be a room that was rarely used. We left the food on the table and returned to the main hall to climb the staircase to the second floor.
Kelly looked at me as we got to the top of the stairs; she gestured to the right. “The general offices are that way, but we need to go left. The main research library takes up the left side of the second floor. The third floor contains the ballroom, and there are some additional archives up there that we might need.”
We headed left and soon found ourselves in a modern library that would do any historian proud. The walls were covered in floor to ceiling book shelves which were crammed with books. There were many desks with clear surfaces on which to work. There were black leather armchairs in which to relax if you simply wanted to read and not do serious research. In the center of the room sat a bank of five computers hooked up and ready to go.
I was impressed and said so. Kelly laughed, “Yeah, we get that a lot. Most people think the building and our methods should be as historical as the history we preserve. What we try to teach people is that the past has a place in the present and in the future.”
I cocked my head to the side, “As I said earlier on the phone, I’ve never spent much time living in the past until recently, so you might have to educate me too.”
Kelly laughed and waved me over to one of the large black chairs. “That’s no problem, I love my work and the challenges that sometimes come with it. I have a passion for it. Come on over here and have a seat.”
We sat in two of the leather armchairs near the computers. “Okay. Before we start, I should explain why I was freaked out when I met you,” Kelly began.
I leaned forward expectantly. Kelly cleared her throat and continued nervously, “Well, do you remember when I told you on the phone that I dreamed of Jacob and a woman he called Cara?”
I nodded. “Yes, but what does that have to do with me?”
“Well, I have to tell you that I have never really had dreams that were so clear like I could just reach out and touch the people in it. I could see Jacob so clearly. He was so handsome. He was tall and willowy, but still incredibly strong. I could see the muscles in his arms bulging as he lifted a trunk around in a room. His hair was blond, but it had some red in it when the light caught it just right.
Then suddenly for a reason, I can’t explain, he turned in my dream and looked right at me….right into what seemed to be my eyes, but I wasn’t in the dream. I remember his eyes; they were a pale blue. I felt like I stopped breathing the way that you do in real life when you meet someone important.”
Kelly paused as if waiting for confirmation from me that I knew what she was talking about, so I nodded my head yes and she continued. “Well, I was just there, and he was just there, and it was as if we were hypnotized staring into each other’s eyes like in some corny old movie. Then a woman called his name, Jacob, and he turned away almost reluctantly to look at her. He called her Cara, and then I saw her as if through his eyes. She had long red hair, though it was a deeper red like auburn, and her skin was pale white like she was sick. But what struck me when I saw you was that you look just like her! Your face is the same face from my dream; even your eyes are the same shade of green!”
I sputtered because that was how Cara had looked in my dream as well, but did that mean that Douglas really looked like Heath, and if so, could that be a coincidence?
Somehow with the way things were going, I was beginning to seriously doubt coincidence. Kelly was waiting literally on the edge of her seat for my reaction. But I think she was more blown away when I matched her dream for dream with my description of Douglas and Cara.
Kelly flopped back into her chair, “Oh, man, I think we fell down the rabbit hole, Alice.”
I slouched in my chair and threw my legs over the arm. “You’re speaking the truth, but I think I’m more the mad hatter than Alice. How can this be happening? I mean, what exactly is happening?”
Kelly shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea, but we could not have just made up the same image of Cara. We have no idea if Jacob looks the way I saw him or if Douglas looks the way that you saw him in your dream. Even Cara may not look the way that we imagined that she did, but how did we dream her with the same face – your face?”
I breathed deep and let it out slowly hoping to calm my galloping pulse. “I don’t know. This whole situation is strange. I need to solve this puzzle. Who was Cara, and what happened to her? And more to the immediate point, what’s happening to us?”
Kelly sighed, “I agree with you, Miranda, so I guess we had best get started. Let’s look at the letters and see what information we can get out of them. That will give us somewhere to start.”
I nodded my agreement and took the box of letters out of my bag. Kelly took the carved wooden box out of my hands with a reverence that spoke of a true dedication to history. I could see the way her eyes lit up as she took the box in her hands. She leaned in as if to take a whiff of its scent the way a man leans in to catch a whiff of his lover’s perfume. It was so deeply personal and visceral to her that I knew somehow this woman was as connected to this story as I. We were sisters of a story that ended decades ago. She looked up and met my eyes with the same knowledge and then gently opened the box to explore its secrets.
An hour later, we both stood up and headed for the stairs and our now cold Chinese dinner in the kitchen. The letters were safely tucked back into their box, and the box was snuggled back into my bag. Kelly was carrying a pen and her notepad where she had copied the letters word for word, and she had made a copious list of notes on dates and names and possible connections and sources in which to begin our search for Cara.
Over Mhu shu pork and teriyaki chicken, we shared stories of our lives hoping that somewhere we would find some thread of connection that would explain our crazed dreams and these damn letters. But after the food was eaten and the plates clean, we had no common lines. We shared no family, no friends, no hobbies, no favorite places or vacations. There was nothing to tie us together but a dream and a stack of old letters from Cara to Douglas.
It was almost 8:00 when I called a halt to our search for the night. “Look, Kelly, I have to go. I need to pick up my son, Sam. He had a friend over last night, and now tonight I’m here looking for ghosts. I need to spend some time with my real live family.”
Kelly chuckled, “I totally underst
and. I think my brain is too muddled to think clearly anymore tonight. I’ll take my notes home, and because I have no life, I’ll start looking into this stuff tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Kelly. Call me if you need some help or if you find something important?’
Kelly waved me off from the door as she locked up. “You’ve got it. I’ll call you in a couple of days, no matter what I find or don’t find, just to check in.”
I smiled and returned her wave, “See you later, Kel.” It did not seem strange to have so suddenly included Kelly into my inner circle of friends and family. I was sure that I was in hers as well. We might have just met a few hours ago, but somehow we had known each other much longer.
It was a short drive to Missy’s house, and I soon found myself wrapped up in hugs and the familiarity of family. I had not planned to stay long, but Mitchell and Sam were watching a baseball game on TV that was too important to leave now, or at least those had been Sam’s words when I had shown up about ten minutes ago. So now I found myself in Missy’s kitchen drinking chamomile tea and spilling my guts about the disaster that was my life. It had all started so innocently when Missy had asked, “So spill, Miranda! What’s been going on with Mr. Hunky Heath?”
The smile that had been on my face fell off, and broke like china on the floor. Missy reached out and grabbed my hand. Her eyes sought mine with concern, “What happened? What’s wrong? I put my foot in it, didn’t I?”
I patted her hand much like a mother does to her child. “It’s fine, really. How could you know? I’ve been so angry and hurt, and damn I guess I can admit it to you, embarrassed about the situation that I haven’t wanted to bring it up.”
Missy looked on with so much sympathy that I thought I would lose it. I can take the weight of the world as long as someone isn’t kind to me. Kindness will bring me to my knees and tears every time I am in pain. “I heard some news from Dana. She stumbled on some information about Heath that….has me concerned.”
Missy looked truly confused now. “What? Did she see him on the street with someone or something?”
I shook my head, no. “It’s worse than that.”
“Just tell me! I’m already on the edge of my seat; I can’t stand any more suspense!”
I laughed in spite of myself because Missy is the queen of drama and intrigue. I sighed. At least this was normal and real. “Do you know anything about the case that Dana is working on?”
Missy nodded. “Yeah, she is looking into that teenage girl’s disappearance from the Rave.”
“That’s right, well the information that she happened on about Heath is connected to that rave.”
“What?!,” Missy erupted.
“I know I found out after our wonderful date, the date on which I introduced him to Sam. What kind of a mother am I?!”
Missy looked ready to do battle now. “Don’t you dare talk like that! You are a wonderful mother.”
“Generally I would agree with you, but I let a man who may be involved in the drug trade and the disappearance of a child, become a welcome visitor in my home.” I moaned out.
“Ok, get a hold of yourself. What exactly did you find out about Heath?”
I steeled myself for it and then just let it rush out. “Heath is no longer a cop. I didn’t know what he was doing for a living now. When I asked, he evaded my questions. I thought that maybe he wasn’t working and was embarrassed. But after his name came up in her investigation, Dana checked out his former prescient.”
I paused hoping for relief, but Missy rushed in to fill the silence, “What did she find out?!”
“Heath left his job under suspicion of stealing drugs from the evidence locker. The drugs were seized from a sting operation against the same gang that is running the illegal raves, the same raves from which children are disappearing.”
Missy’s hand flew to her mouth, “Hell, that’s not good.”
I chuckled. Leave it to Missy to make such an understatement. “You think, little sister?”
Missy looked at me with such love and sympathy in her eyes, that I could not hold back the tears. They flowed down my cheeks unabated, and I did not even bother to wipe them away. “Oh, honey,” Missy soothed as she pulled me into her embrace. She rocked me gently and just let me cry.
Later that night when I lay down to sleep in my bed, the hollowness in my heart consumed me, and tears once again leaked out, this time falling in silence on my pillow. I had not cried myself to sleep in such a long time, but that was exactly what happened.
And then, I was in Ireland at a small stone cottage and for the first time, I saw Kelly and Cara’s Jacob. He was just how Kelly had described him. But this time he was holding a child in his arms, a little girl with long dark hair. Then they looked up almost as if they were seeing me, and my soul knew them…Jacob and Claire.
As I watched them, blood bloomed on their chest. Panic seized me. I tried to call out to them, to go to them, but I could not. I was rooted in my dream forced to watch as the blood soaked through their clothes. The memories of Jacob and Claire did not seem to be fazed by the blood. It simply was, of course, they could not die again. They were already dead.
Again the focus of my dream changed. Gone were the hills of Ireland. Gone were Jacob and Claire. In their place was a dark dank building. My eyes adjusted to the low light in the structure. I could finally make out the shape of a man.
Unlike during the first dream, my feet began to move toward the shadowed figure. However, my heart increased its staccato rhythm because this time, I was afraid of what I would find in the shadows.
When I was only a few feet away from the figure, he turned. My eyes widened in shock. Heath Brandon stood before me, but not as the man I knew. He looked cold and ruthless. His stormy kind eyes looked menacing. I was afraid.
This Heath turned back to look at something that was cast aside on the floor. I leaned over as I tried to get a better look through the darkness.
An overhead light flicked on as it bathed the area in harsh bright light. Momentarily I was blinded by that light. I wish I had stayed that way. For when I opened my eyes, I could see clearly what had lain on the floor at Heath’s feet. It was I. Blood bloomed on my chest soaking the fabric through. My open eyes stared sightless up at the rusted metal ceiling of the building.
My beating heart shuddered, and then I was awake breathing raggedly as the nightmare faded from my eyes, but not from my mind. Sobs of despair shook my body. I was unable to stop them. I knew only that I might die and that I might die at the hands of the man I believed I loved.