Secrets of the Specter

“But why didn’t you tell me more when I asked the first time?” I tried not to sound as exacerbated as I now felt.

“Before your sudden interest, it had never come up. I really didn’t think you’d care. Then, it seemed like you were almost too interested. I don’t know…” She shifted her gaze, then shrugged. “But yeah, Margaret McAllister was murdered shortly after her brother, Nathan Hale, was hung. The murder remains unsolved to this day, as far as I know.”

“Wow, that’s nuts. What else do we know?” I asked emphatically. “Do we have any inside family information?”

Aunt Linda traced her finger over the family tree absently. “Rumor had it that she was going to retrieve the information her brother had about the British. She was killed for having that information. Or maybe for not giving it up when confronted.” The edges of her mouth turned down in a frown. “I’m not sure which.”

“Do we have any idea what this information revealed?” I asked.

Aunt Linda nodded briefly. “The rumor said it would’ve been extremely damaging to the British at the time. Supposedly, it involved a high profile British officer, General William Howe. And revealed that he’d been selling secrets to the colonists for a hefty sum. In order to maintain his secrecy, Howe had Hale executed after he uncovered those incriminating documents. The documents themselves were never recovered.”

After doing all the research I’d done, I knew the ramifications of that kind of information.

But something about this didn’t add up. “Why kill Hale if they were on the same side? It seems counterproductive.”

“Howe was working with some private businessmen, looking to make a profit on the war. There was no side. It was all business. Results were sold to the highest bidder.”

Wow. Margaret, Sr., had gotten involved with some heavy stuff. I could understand her wanting to help her brother, especially after he was killed in pursuit of revealing the truth. But how did any of this relate to me? Maggie and I were only very distantly related, and so many years had passed since her untimely death. Why seek out help now?

“It’s believed that Maggie took the documents and hid them before Howe could get his hands on them. That’s why she was murdered, at least, so says the family lore.”

“I wonder what happened to those documents,” I mused. “They must have been pretty important, if at least two lives were lost because of them.”

Aunt Linda shrugged. “I don’t know, but over the years, our family has been accused of harboring them away from the public.”

I shook my head. “That’s nuts. Why would we still have them? If someone actually found them, you’d think they would have donated them to a museum or something.”

But the more I thought about it, the more believable this assertion became.

Someone was targeting me, that much was clear. In the absence of any other reason, maybe the lost documents could be the key. I’d been stalked by vehicle. Someone had broken into my home, and our shop had even caught fire.

Could that all be related… to this?

And if neither Aunt Linda nor I had the secret papers, how else could I get my stalker to give up and go home?

Nope, I did not like this. Not one bit.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Aunt Linda left me to flip through the family history book while she showered and got ready for the day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything beyond what she’d already shared. My plan now was to wait for the ghost of Margaret to pay me another visit and then confront her with what I’d learned.

Seriously, couldn’t she have put this all in her original letter to me?

Even though we were still waiting on the insurance inspector to come out and take stock of the fire damage, Aunt Linda and I decided to go into the shop and start making plans for what we would do once we got the all clear.

Returning to the scene of the disaster was just as devastating as being there while it had ensued. Colonial Candles had always been such a happy place for me growing up, and it was still my favorite place now that I was an adult. Seeing it like this hurt me to my very core.

I know Aunt Linda felt the same, because as soon as we’d entered, she raised a hand to her chest and made a strange, strangled noise.

Then Kim had come in for her usual shift and helped us both get back to business. It was strange how she hadn’t called to ask whether she was still needed while the shop was closed, but then again, she may have already spoken with Aunt Linda directly, even though I normally acted as her manager.

Whatever the case, it helped to have her there. It kept both Aunt Linda and me on task, which we sorely needed.

Together the three of us were trying to assess the damage to our inventory.

“We can melt them down again,” my aunt suggested as she lifted to a clump of wax that had once been one of my most beautiful creations. Of course, we kept all our prettiest pieces by the demonstration area, hoping to snag some impulse buyers.

“They have soot in them, which will impact the quality, but there must be some way to salvage them. I’d hate to throw this all out.” She set the deformed candle back onto the shelf and heaved a sigh.

“Maybe we can clean the jars and reuse the ones that didn’t crack in the heat,” Kim added from a few paces away. I was worried about how we’d pay her for her time if the insurance money didn’t come through, but I didn’t voice those concerns. No sense in putting that kind of negativity out in the world.

I could offer to cover the costs from my influencer funds, but whenever I’d offered to cover a cost personally in the past, Aunt Linda had grown angry and refused. I didn’t want to add insult to injury if I could avoid that.

“Hello,” a lyrical voice called from the front door. We’d left it open to help air out the storefront while we worked.

Hey, I knew that voice, and—boy—was I glad to hear it today.

I turned and smiled at Dr. Wes. “Come in. It’s safe.”

He stepped in and swept his eyes over the damage. “Well, it’s not nearly as bad as I feared.”

I wiped my hands on a towel and hurried across the room to him. “What brings you in? We’re not exactly equipped to sell anything right now.”

He ducked his head, but not before I saw the beginnings of a blush. “I was going to see if you were free for dinner?”

Ignoring the embarrassment of being asked out on a date in front of my aunt and our employee, I fixed Dr. Wes with a huge smile. “I should be, yeah.”

He raised his eyes to meet mine. “Can I pick you up?”

Oh, that might not work. “I’m not sure where I’ll be. Can I meet you at the restaurant or at your practice?”

He nodded and stuffed his hands into his front pockets. “Sure thing. If you’d like to park at my practice, I can drive us to dinner. Care to pop in around six?”

“Sounds good,” I mumbled, feeling the heat of our audience’s eye settle on me. “See you tonight.”

Our plan having been made, Dr. Wes said goodbye to Aunt Linda and Kim. To their credit, they waited for him to be fully out the door and down the block before they started to tease me about my date.

After that highlight, the rest of the day passed in a blur. If I wasn’t thinking about Susannah-slash-Maggie, I was worrying about my upcoming date. With so much going on in my world, I still didn’t know whether I was ready for a romantic commitment—and given Wes’s persistence, I’d need to decide that rather soon.

Eventually, Aunt Linda sent me home because I’d become so unfocused. She grabbed my arm and whispered, “Stop by your place and get what you need, then go straight back to my house, please.”

She had her parenting face on, the one that let me know she wouldn’t tolerate any arguments, so even though I was thirty years old, I did as I was told.

I paced around Aunt Linda’s house, a nervous wreck all afternoon. Shouldn’t I feel more excited than scared about going out for a nice dinner with a very nice man?

That’s precisely what I asked myself when he came outside to meet me at six on the dot.

“Italian?” he asked as he guided me across the small parking lot toward his neat luxury sedan.

I nodded enthusiastically. “It’s my favorite.”

His chuckle made me feel all the thrilly little feels. “Mine, too,” he agreed.

We engaged in idle chitchat on the short drive to the restaurant. Once we’d ordered, Wes pulled out the ultimate date question. “So, Mags, what do you like to do in your free time?”

“Well, normally I’m a bit of a homebody. Reading, crafting, all that sort of stuff.” I took a sip of my tea to refresh my throat. “Lately I’ve been doing a lot of Revolutionary War research. Apparently, I had family involved.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Hey, me, too. That’s cool. Maybe our ancestors knew each other.”

We had a bit of a chuckle about that.

“Do you know what your family did in the war?” I asked with great interest as I buttered a breadstick.

He waited for me to finish, then pulled the breadbasket to his side of the table. “Actually, I’m told they were spies for George Washington, if you can believe it.”

My stomach did a somersault.

“Isn’t that cool?” Wes sipped his soda and then grinned at me. “It makes me feel like I’m really connected to the community and country, you know? Knowing my ancestors fought so hard to help America gain its freedom. Spying couldn’t have been easy work.”

I shook my head, my stomach in a knot. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to eat another morsel. His family was involved in the spy rings. That was way, way too much of a coincidence for me.

“What about you?” Wes asked when he realized I hadn’t yet responded. “How was your family involved?”

I sucked in a big breath, then took a huge gulp of my drink to cover myself so I could think. “Um, well, I’m not really sure. I’ve just started doing some research and looking into it.”

He nodded as he scooped up more chicken parmesan. “Well, if you find out more, you’ll have to let me know. I find that sort of thing fascinating.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Me, too.”

When our heaping dishes of pasta arrived, I did my best to focus on that and to steer the conversation anywhere but to talk of the war and its spies.

What were the chances that I would meet Wes now? Could he be tied to the mystery with Maggie? Could he be the one who was trying to break into my house, or who set fire to the shop?

Suddenly, I wished we had driven separately.

But if Wes noticed my change in mood, he didn’t mention it. For the rest of the date, I forced a happy smile on my face and made all the pleasant conversation I could. When it was over, he drove me back to his practice so I could collect my car.

He dropped me off saying he’d had a great time and we should do it again sometime. My stomach clenched at the thought. Could I trust him?

I’d have to figure that out and soon.

I headed straight to Aunt Linda’s place. She wasn’t home yet, so I pulled out my laptop and sat at her kitchen table.

And I lucked out. Wes had a family tree on a popular online ancestry site and had shared the details with me over dinner in case I wanted to check it out. I wasted no time in pulling up the page, scanning the branches of said tree with dread.

And then one very familiar name came up.

William Howe.

The big, bad general himself.

Wes was a direct descendant of William Howe. Some of his children moved to the States after he died, though those that stayed eventually produced Wes, who had obviously come here to uphold the family honor.

There it was, the smoking gun.

I don’t know why Wes would freely share his family’s ties to the war and send me straight to investigate his lineage. Maybe he wanted to make me even more afraid than I already was.

Because now I knew for sure. There was no way in this world Wes wasn’t behind all the new terror that had recently been wrought on my life.

Yes, somehow, I’d inadvertently begun dating the man who was set on taking me out.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next day, Aunt Linda and I decided to work from the comfort of her home. It was more about morale than comfort, though. It hurt us both in the heart to see Colonial Candles in its current state, so we were doing what we could remotely while we waited on insurance.

“No, that’s not right. We had six of the Mountain Breeze,” I said, reading from the list we’d made the day before.

Aunt Linda squinted at her laptop, clicked a few keys, and nodded. “Okay. What’s next?”

I crossed out the Mountain Breeze from our handwritten list. “Next we still have four usable jars of Peony.”

While Aunt Linda typed that in, I pulled up the messages on my phone. I’d texted Dr. Wes that morning letting him know that after we’d talked last night, I’d found some interesting papers in my aunt’s family archives and would love to share them with him.

Not exactly smooth, but…

It was a ploy, of course.

If he really was the one coming after me—and if this was the reason—it would all come to a head the next time we met up. One way or another, it would be over.

“Mags?” Kim tapped me on the shoulder, pulling my attention back to the task at hand. She normally only picked up a couple shifts each week but had insisted on being there to help as much as possible right now.

“Did you say four?” she wanted to know now.

“Oh!” I shoved my phone back into my pocket. Wes hadn’t responded yet, anyway. “Yes, four Peony.”

“We’ve moved on to sandalwood,” Kim said with a chuckle. “You were really lost in your head. Thinking about a certain hot veterinarian, were you?”

She was helping us with list making and ordering. The contractors—cousins of ours, actually—were at the shop now, measuring and… doing whatever contractors did to work up an estimate. We had to get back up and running as soon as possible, even if the insurance adjustor didn’t rule in our favor. He was supposed to be come in tomorrow to assess the scene firsthand.

Once Aunt Linda, Kim, and I finished updating our inventory, we decided to break for grilled cheese sandwiches.

“So,” Aunt Linda said as she dipped her sandwich into a steaming bowl of tomato soup. “Tell me, Mags. What’s your sudden interest in Margaret McAllister?”

Well, crud.

I took a big bite to give me time to think of an answer. Not that it helped.

I chewed slowly, swallowed, then shrugged, trying to appear casual. “I dunno. Just got to researching our family tree and thought she was interesting, given the fact we have the same name. You know… evening project.” Hopefully, that would be enough to make her stop questioning my motives.

“It seems like you started getting interested about the time you got the cat,” Aunt Linda pointed out with a smile.

We all glanced over to Ms. Cat, who was nibbling daintily at her lunch.

Aunt Linda would never admit it, but she’d already fallen head over heels for that little feline. Still, it felt odd for her to make that connection.

“What are you getting at?” I asked with a grimace. “What does Ms. Cat have to do with anything?”

“Well…” Linda poured out some chips on her plate and handed the bag to Kim. “If I recall correctly, Margaret had a cat. And you are her namesake. I thought maybe you were channeling her a bit.”

I chuckled at her choice of words, thinking about the ghostly woman who liked to appear at my bedside and silently chastise me for not finding her killer yet.

“No, nope. Not me. I’m not channeling anyone.”

Then a thought occurred to me. “She lived a long time ago. How would you even know she had a cat?” And what wasn’t she telling me?

Aunt Linda nodded and took a sip of her water. “I didn’t tell you? She kept a journal. I even have a few of them somewhere around here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why does it matter so much?” she challenged back. “When your mother and I were girls, we loved getting into things we weren’t supposed to. We found Margaret’s journals in your grandmother’s attic and dug right in. It was always so much fun to pretend we were part of her story, although I didn’t learn about her bloody end until much, much later.”

“Where does the cat come into it?” I wondered aloud.

Aunt Linda studied me for a moment, as if deciding whether she would share what was on her mind. “She talked about that cat often. Shadow, I think the name was. A few smudged paw prints even made it onto the pages here and there. Your mom and I tried to use that as leverage to get a cat of our own, telling your grandmother it ran in the family, but she wouldn’t budge on her no-pets rule.”

Kim laughed at this. “Me, on the other hand, I was never allowed a cat because we were a dog family. We always had at least five when I was growing up.”

The conversation shifted away from Mags, Sr., then, and I was grateful for it.

We soon finished lunch and returned to work, prepping our next big order from a supplier, and trying to estimate when we may be able to reopen our shop to the public.

Of course, it was hard to know anything for sure, which only frustrated us more. It was hard being stuck in limbo when all we wanted to do was pull up our boots and get to work.

We were all more than ready to call it quits when Aunt Linda received a phone call from our lead contractor. He requested her presence at the shop so they could go over everything, and Kim insisted on tagging along.

I, for one, planned on staying put. I didn’t feel safe venturing out until I heard back from Wes and knew one way or the other whether he was behind my recent trauma.

“I’ll be back soon,” Aunt Linda said as she hoisted her oversized purse over her shoulder. “And, Mags? Those journals I mentioned earlier are in a small dome-top chest in the attic. It’s to the right. Feel free to go snoop around.”

Yes!

That was exactly what I needed to brighten my day. Honestly, I would have snooped with or without my aunt’s permission, but at least now I knew where to look.

As soon as Aunt Linda and Kim pulled out of the driveway, I was up the stairs like a shot. The door to the attic tended to stick, but I gave it a good tug and it immediately fell into line.

“Ha,” I muttered and jogged up the creaky wooden stairs.

The dome-topped trunk was right where Aunt Linda had said it would be. Unfortunately, that was in the darkest corner of an attic that had no overhead lighting. Instead of fishing out my phone to use as a makeshift flashlight, I decided to drag the trunk next to the window on the other side of the space. It didn’t look that heavy, and I wanted to be able to pore over everything inside—not just the journals.