Page 40 of One Last Breath

But Elizabeth?

She knows. And she’s been visiting her garden to ask the ghost of Lila Benson where it is.

I put the document back and close the cabinet. There is still much more I must learn before I can become certain of exactly what happened to Lila, but I am certain of one thing now.

She was murdered, and her murder was almost certainly committed by someone who knows of this document.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

As I complete my chores, I think about what I discover the day in the Greenwoods’ bedroom.

I am no longer sure if this has anything to do with Lila. Surely, the family is in dire financial straits, but the earlier certainty I feel has faded. There’s not enough evidence to suggest that Lila was concerned with any artifacts. If anything, she was more concerned with Violet’s past than with any Civil War documents, and that concern would be more than enough reason for the family to murder her.

And there’s no way that document is worth eighty thousand dollars. That auction house can’t be reputable. I research the Second Battle of Fort McAllister, and it’s barely a footnote. Who would pay the equivalent of my annual salary to own a scrap of paper where a garrison commander of a minor fort surrenders to the Union Army? If it were Lee’s surrender to Grant, I might believe it, but Major… I can’t even remember his name. Anderson? Andrews? It’s preposterous.

Either way, the fact that she catches me snooping in her garden puts me in danger. James cares about appearances, and no doubt he doesn’t want the world to know that his wife is one bad day away from being committed. If it gets back to him that I’m aware of his wife’s condition, then I’m in serious trouble.

Could that be what led to Lila’s demise? Annabelle thinks it was because of her snooping into the family’s past, but maybe it’s simpler than that. What if, like me, she caught Elizabeth having an episode in the middle of her snooping?

I need to be careful. More so than I have been. No more snooping through the gardens. No more rifling through papers. No more digging for information on Elizabeth.

But what do I do then? If I can’t talk to Elizabeth, who do I turn to for information? Annabelle’s given me all she has. Christopher is protective of his mother, and James is obviously not someone I can probe for knowledge. Nathaniel is likely avoiding me, and if I find him again, his anxiety might cause him to tell on me after all, and that could prove fatal.

I think it might be time for me to talk to Clara Beaumont again. I don’t know that I trust her, but she seems to have an idea of what happened to Deirdre McCoy if nothing else.

That might be my path to an answer. The avenues to information Lila Benson’s murder are closing fast, but maybe I can sneak around the back, so to speak. If I can learn exactly what happened to Deirdre, then I might be able to put pressure on the Greenwoods. If I can generate official interest in Deirdre’s case, then maybe someone will reveal something I can use to find an answer for Lila.

Maybe.

It’s so frustrating to have to walk on my tiptoes. It’s like the answer is on an island in the middle of a lake that’s filled with crocodiles. It’s there. It’s within reach, but the only way to it is to risk being eaten alive.

I wonder if Lila felt a similar frustration. Was she close to her own answer only to find that the path to knowledge was lined with pitfalls and traps?

I finish my chores and decide to pay Clara a visit before the day ends. The family will be home soon, but if I’m questioned, I see no reason to be dishonest. So far as I know, they have no reason to think that Clara could be working against them. If anything, I can profess ignorance and simply say we met in the park one day and she asked me to dinner.

I wash up and dress to go out and head downstairs.

Where I walk right into a fight between the Greenwoods and George Baumann.

“That document belongs to posterity!” he thunders. “You have no right to save it for monetary gain!”

“What document?” Elizabeth shouts. “If it even exists, I haven’t found it. And if I find it in my own house, I am welcome to do what I please with it.”

“Even if it means denying our descendants a piece of history?”

Well, so much for all of my hypotheses. Evidently, that document is valuable. And Elizabeth might not be crazy. And Lila might have even been killed because she was trying to steal the document for herself. Or maybe she wasn’t even killed at all, and she was simply fired and whisked away on the threat of being charged with theft.

Hell, maybe she even has the document and is now enjoying the last laugh somewhere far away.

“The history will exist with or without a piece of paper, George,” Christopher scoffs.

“Oh, sure,” George says, rolling his eyes. “So let’s just shrug our shoulders and bite our thumbs at every item of historical consequence. Forget about the pyramids, we’ll just turn them into a resort hotel, right?”

“They’d make money that way,” James says with a trace of amusement.

“Because that’s what matters,” George thunders. “Money.”

“No one’s ever paid their tuition with trinkets,” Annabelle says.

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