Chapter Twenty-Nine
Catherine’s text came less than an hour later. We need to talk; emergency crime-solvers meeting. Can you come back to the café?
Be there in fifteen, was Willow’s response.
God, she was tired. The predawn visit to Cameron House, the intruder, the discovery of Annabel’s bedroom, and then having to fence with Nick Bloody Tyler—she didn’t know how much she had left in her.
The village looked different today; the anachronistically out-of-place people she had gotten used to seeing were conspicuous in their absence, and the green looked bereft without them.
As she walked, she almost thought she caught an occasional flash in her peripheral vision—a white apron, a newsboy cap, a leather boot, a black bonnet—but when she turned her head to see, the elusive flickers were gone.
It was true, then, what Joel had said—the ghosts were fading. Or gone.
She was so intent on searching the green for long-lost Camerons that she didn’t notice the lumbering figure of Hank Ramsey until it was too late to escape him.
“Miss Stone! Miss Stone,” he called out.
His comb-over flapped up and down in the breeze in a single sheet as though he had applied hair spray to it.
She turned, putting a polite smile on her face as he hastened over, breathless. “Mr. Ramsey, how nice to see you.” The convenient social lie came out smoothly; duplicity, never one of Willow’s strong suits, seemed to be getting easier with time.
“Miss Stone—Willow—” Hank reached over and grasped her shoulder; he was panting a little, and she wasn’t sure if the physical contact was intended to be friendly or if he needed someone to hold him up so he didn’t faint; either way, she wished he would stop.
Hank’s grandiose manner was dialed back today, though; something was different, something that went beyond the blotchy face and out-of-breath gasps. He seems almost human, Willow thought.
When he regained his breath, he said with uncharacteristic earnestness, “The other night, when my dear bride had her horrible mishap—I wanted to thank you for being there for her, for staying with her and getting her the help she needed.” For a moment, Hank looked forlornly out at the bay, toward the mainland and the hospital.
“I can’t even imagine … Thank God she is all right.
If anything had happened to her, I don’t know what I’d…
” He trailed off, looking a little embarrassed.
Hank cleared his throat gruffly, releasing Willow’s shoulder and pulling himself upright.
He cares, Willow thought. He genuinely cares for her.
“Do the police know what happened?” she asked, watching his face for his reaction.
He shrugged. “The police are looking into this dreadful attack, though I will insist upon a mechanic’s confirmation that the damage was deliberate; as good as our police force is, I’m not sure I have much faith in their automotive knowledge.
” Hank’s voice reclaimed its familiar pompous, rolling tones.
And just like that, the old Hank is back, Willow thought wryly.
“And given what my dear Patricia had been working on,” the man continued, “it’s clear that some on the island would like to silence or frighten her.
” At Willow’s puzzled expression, he gave a satisfied smile and said, “Ah, you haven’t seen today’s paper yet, have you?
” He pulled a folded newspaper out of a pocket of his sport coat and handed it to her.
“Here you go—I’m off to visit my bride at her bedside; they are discharging her this afternoon!
” He leaned in and murmured, “Front page below the fold,” gave her shoulder another unctuous squeeze, and headed off in the direction of the dock.
Curious, Willow opened the paper. Accounts of Geralt Talbot’s death and Rina’s arrest filled most of the front page, but at the bottom, an unexpected headline halted her in her tracks.
In large, bold type, it proclaimed, NEW CONNECTION DISCOVERED BETWEEN RAMSEY AND CAMERON FAMILIES.
A photograph of Hank and Patricia Ramsey, below, was captioned “Prominent citizen and amateur genealogist Patricia MacFarlane Ramsey discovers that her husband, Henry Ramsey Jr., is a direct descendant of the Cameron family.”
When Willow arrived at the café, two copies of the same newspaper sat in the center of the round table. Mac and Catherine sat glaring at them balefully as Diana got coffee and sandwiches for a couple of visitors. Willow added the paper Hank had given her to the pile.
“So, is this for real?” she asked incredulously.
Mac snorted. “For real? It’s from Hank; I have to conclude it’s a load of steaming poo.”
Willow collapsed into one of the chairs. God, she was tired; she tried to make her exhausted eyes skim the article, but the tiny letters blurred in her vision. “Okay, I don’t have the energy. Can someone please tell me what this is all about? What’s going on?”
Catherine said, “The Ramseys are claiming Hank’s great-grandfather was married to a Cameron. That part’s true, by the way; Effie’s aunt—her name was Annabel—was married to Bruce Ramsey and had a son with him before he died.”
The name pierced Willow’s exhaustion. Annabel? Her Annabel?
Catherine continued, “The son was killed during the Second World War, no wife or kids. But now Hank and Patricia say they have proof he got married overseas before he was killed, at a military hospital where he was sent after he was wounded.”
Willow’s eyebrows shot up. “Um … wow.”
Catherine held up a finger. “It gets better. The hospital where he was treated was apparently destroyed during the fighting, along with all its paperwork. Which means there is no official record certifying the wedding.”
Diana murmured, “Convenient,” as she set down a giant mug of coffee in front of Willow, who took it gratefully.
Catherine continued, “According to Hank and Patricia, there was a child from their brief marriage, and the baby was Hank’s grandfather.”
Willow looked up from the article and frowned. “That’s … Could it be true?”
Mac scoffed, “Please. It reads like a subpar historical novel or a bad movie of the week.”
Diana nodded and sat down. “I agree. But they say they have proof.”
“Show me the proof, then I’ll believe it,” Mac retorted.
“I agree,” Diana said. “I want to see proof. Especially given the timing of this grand revelation—I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that he waited till Geralt was beyond challenging him, which makes me wonder if Hank knows this would fall apart if someone with the resources to do it examined it too hard. ”
“Yeah,” Mac said bitterly. “Someone like Effie or Sue or Geralt, who are now—again we have that word conveniently—unable to push back on this.”
“It’s up to us, then,” Willow said. Then, carefully, “What do we know about this Annabel?”
“She’s kind of the forgotten Cameron,” Catherine said.
“No one talks about her on the island much. After her husband died, she seems to have quietly lived out her life in Cameron House as a recluse. She’s virtually unmentioned in any news articles, which is strange, given the fascination with the Cameron family around here.
I can’t find a single public photograph of her, even from her wedding. ”
Forgotten, she might be, Willow thought, but definitely not gone.
Taking a deep breath, she made her decision. “Um … guys? I need to tell you something.”
The three women turned to her expectantly.
Willow cleared her throat and ducked her head in embarrassment.
“Okay, before I even start—I know what you’ll say, and I know it was a really bad idea, so please let me get through it before you tell me how stupid I was.
I don’t know if you’ll even believe me, but please try to keep an open mind. ”
Willow hesitantly related her experience in Cameron House the night before, carefully editing out the obviously supernatural elements—shadows opening secret doors, unseen hands putting lockets around her neck, and so on. But it was quite a story even without them.
“I don’t know for sure, but I think the little room I found was Annabel’s,” Willow finished.
“It was sort of secluded, hidden away from the rest of the bedrooms, but it was stately and beautiful and just felt like a place belonging to family, rather than staff or something like that. And if she really was a recluse, its location makes sense.” She reached inside her hoodie and pulled out the locket.
She took it off and set it on the table in front of the other three.
Diana gave Willow a searching look. She opened her mouth as though to speak, closed it, then reached over to pick up the locket, cradling it in her hand. “Beautiful,” she said almost reluctantly.
Mac lightly brushed the outside of the locket with an envious finger. “It’s gorgeous. You’re the antiques person, Mom—do you know when this is from?”
Diana pulled her red-framed reading glasses from her pocket and slipped them on her face, bringing the pendant in a little closer.
“A monogram locket in the Victorian style. It might date back to the nineteenth century, but it’s more likely a newer replica; monogram lockets never really went out of fashion, and sales surged around wartimes.
Jewelry isn’t my specialty area; I’m better with furniture and textiles.
” She tilted the locket toward the light, examining the initials on the monogram.
“The center initial is an R, and it looks like an A and a D on either side.”
Mac nodded and gazed down at the locket. “R for Ramsey? And is the A for Annabel, then?”
Catherine’s expression was doubtful. “Maybe. But the other initial would be a C if it was Annabel. Annabel Cameron Ramsey. What does the D stand for?”
It was a good question, Willow realized. She was sure it had been Annabel who gave her the locket, but was it actually hers?
Diana carefully opened the locket, revealing the photos of the young man and the sad-faced woman holding her baby.
“Oh, how lovely.” She gave a little sigh.
“I wonder who they are.” She looked up at Willow, eyebrows drawn.
“You found this in a hidden room in Cameron House? Which you found trying to avoid an intruder—another intruder, besides yourself—in the house last night?”
Willow nodded. “I know it wasn’t the smartest thing going over there—”
Mac snorted. “Not the smartest? Yeah, you could say that. What were you thinking? You could have at least called us to come too.”
“Which would have been equally not smart,” Diana said firmly.
“What you should have done was call the police the second you saw the person go in. It was incredibly foolish, not to mention illegal. For God’s sake, Willow, three people have died; you could have been the fourth. It was completely irresponsible.”
“I know it was,” Willow said. “I’d yell at me too.
But I did go in, I wasn’t killed, and it’s a little late now to say anything to the police.
Anyway, I found this too.” Willow pulled out the photo album and opened it to a page near the front, sliding it across the table to the other three.
The photo showed the uniformed young man from the locket, arm wrapped affectionately around a young woman at his side.
Diana looked up at Willow questioningly.
“Look on the back of the photo,” Willow said.
Diana gave Willow one more stern look. “You realize, on top of everything else, that you’ve technically stolen both of these items from the house, a house you had no business being in to begin with.
” Finally she relented and turned her attention back to the album.
She delicately removed the photo from its corner pockets and turned it over. The three bent over it.
“Douglas and Effie, May 1942,” Mac said, her voice hushed.
Willow nodded. “I’m guessing that’s Annabel’s son; 1942 was about when the US started sending pilots over. This was probably from the day he left home for the last time.”
“The timing fits.” Diana gently replaced the photo into the album and looked back up at Willow. “Are there any photos of the woman and baby in here?”
Willow shook her head.
Catherine frowned. “So, we have Douglas—Ramsey or Cameron, we don’t really know—who went off to war and never came home. And a locket with a photo of him on one side and an unidentified woman with a baby on the other.”
She looked around the room, brows furrowed. “Is it possible? Could Hank be telling the truth?”