“Wow,” I cried.“Hi.So cool to see you.”
She smiled and headed my way, having a look around.
“You okay with dogs?”I asked as Tonks made a play for her hand.
“Love them,” she replied, patting her as she moved.When she stopped across from me, she said, “And wow is right.I keep passing by and reminding myself I need to step in.I really should have stepped in.”Her head turned, her eyes fell on the leather chair, that illusive thing called hope sprang in my breast, and she came back to me.“I’m definitely coming back when I start Christmas shopping.”
So she wasn’t going to drag the chair out my front door with her.
And that’s what you got from hope.
“That’d be great,” I replied.
“Guess what?”she asked, rummaging through her bag.
Before I could make a guess, she put a book on the counter between us, went back to her bag and put a file folder on top of that.
“I did some digging.Went to the library,” she said.“I own that book, but I checked another copy out of the library for you.If you could return it before its due date, that’d be great.Or go back and check it out yourself.”
I didn’t have a library card.
I’d be getting one.
“That’s no problem,” I promised.“Is it about the history of Misted Pines?”
She nodded.“The one and only in existence.The library has some journals, notes, letters, old deeds, and maps and stuff.And there are the old newspapers, seeing as theChroniclehas been around for ages.But no one has written a book about this place, which I think is crazy, except that one, and heads up, it’s not very comprehensive.So much happened here.”She wrinkled her nose.“Way before all the gross stuff started happening when Ray Andrews did his thing.”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Anyway, look,” she urged, turning the file folder my way and opening it up.
“Oh God, you found her,” I said, staring down at an old-timey picture in a plastic sleeve of a woman in an old-fashioned dress, a straw hat on her head, standing in front of a house made of wood.
The picture was overexposed and very old, but you could make her out.
“Then,” Jill said, and reached to the thin stack in the file folder to turn that pic over and expose the one under it.“I found this.”
And there I saw another old, this time posed and formal portrait of that same woman, seated.A baby in a lacy baby dress sat on her lap.Two older children stood by her, one on each side.And a man stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder.
I peered closer, stunned.
I’d seen a lot of old pictures, everyone had, and normally, no one seemed what was now considered conventionally attractive.
In fact, before he became infamous, John Wilkes Booth was a famous actor and considered one of the most handsome men of the day.
I didn’t see it.
But this guy.
Chisolm Beckwith.
Clementine was in a button-to-the-neck dress, her hair nicely arranged, and she was pretty.The kids were cleaned up and wearing their Sunday best.
But he was in hide pants with the fringe down the sides, a jacket-type thing with more fringe that hung to his upper thighs (the jacket, not the fringe) and was belted closed, with a knife and a pouch attached to the belt.And he was wearing a wide-brimmed hat.Even so, you could see his hair was dark and long, because it went down past his shoulders.He also had a full, but kept beard.
Further, he was gorgeous.
“And this,” Jill said as she flipped to the next pic.
