Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
C’mon baby! Light momma up some gold.
Then her beam landed on the mound of stone he’d mentioned. She stepped toward it. Jane startled when she spotted what lay behind it. Withered remains dressed in men’s clothing. Beside him lay a journal in brown leather, exactly like the one Benjamin had used and an old-fashioned lantern, the inside of the glass darkened with soot.
Still at her side, Conrad groaned. “Negative on gold. Positive on this being a potential crime scene.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
If your heart gets to drumming, my darling, you should get to listening. You might just hear the wedding march.
–Lily Ladling’s Holiday Advice for Ladies Cursed in Love
Jane hated to admit it, but she liked watching Conrad slip into Special Agent mode.
“Don’t touch anything,” he said, sighing as he eased forward. He crouched before the body to study it more closely. The dead man wore pleated trousers and a brown suit jacket with a sharkskin weave and flapped pocket. A flat cap lay on his thigh.
Conrad used the tip of his cell phone to crack open the journal. “If I’m reading the faded handwriting correctly, this belonged to Opal Ladling.”
Great grandmother Opal had kept a journal too?
“Conrad, that body must belong to my great Grandfather Benjamin. The writer of my journal. Well, his journal. He went missing, remember? But how’d he get trapped down here? The door isn’t rigged to close on its own.” Oh! “I bet Elise Dansing stole the gold and shut him in.”
“No. If he were entombed alive, he would have eaten the pages of the journal. Someone put him in here dead or dying.” Conrad continued flipping through the journal. “There’s only one passage. The rest of the pages are blank. Come over here and see if you can decipher the handwriting.”
Jane joined him in front of the body, crouching beside him to scan the page. A story unfolded. Wow, wow, wow. “My dearest Benjamin,” she read. “To put the kibosh on your tomcatting, I found you a new place to live. Since you stole my dignity, I took your gold.”
“So there was a treasure,” Conrad said.
“Mmm hmm. Seems like. Opal went on to say that while Benjamin was trying to decipher the code, she was doing the same.”
Basically, the woman had made it a matter of finders keepers. “She left Benjamin the journal so he’d know he could’ve had an amazing life with her, but he’d earned an agonizing death instead. You’re right. She spiked his whiskey that night and used a wheelbarrow to whisk him to his living tomb. He was alive but dying when she locked him up.”
Wow, wow, wow, Jane thought again.
“Great grandma Opal was hardcore,” Conrad said, ushering her outside. “Do you know what this means? The Ladling curse didn’t kill Benjamin. His wife did.”
Jane’s jaw went slack. That was…it wasn’t…she could…maybe, possibly…?
“Despite the holiday and the timeframe, I’ve got to treat this like any other potential homicide and call it in.” He straightened with a sigh. “GBH will send out agents. They’ll take the body and run tests. After they confirm your ancestor’s identity and year of death, the body will be released to you for burial.”
Jane forced herself to concentrate. “I’m not sure Benjamin will want to claim his spot. It’s next door to Opal.” Although, if two people had ever deserved each other…
Just as the sun peeked above the horizon, a team of GBH agents arrived. She recognized most of them; especially the tall woman with the dark bob. Special Agent Karen Hightower. Annoyance radiated from the woman.
Hightower had never really forgiven Jane for being a mystery solver rather than a murderer.
“I know you’re all eager to get home to your families,” Jane called, remembering the damage done to her beloved bushes last time, “but please be careful not to trample over mine as you traverse the Garden.”
As Conrad predicted, the investigators looked around and asked questions. Jane ventured back and forth from cottage to bridge, passing out cookies and mugs of the marshmallow cream hot chocolate she’d whipped up. At some point, two men wheeled the deceased away. The other agents sectioned off the area with crime scene tape.
“This isn’t how I imagined our first Christmas together,” Conrad told her, slinging his arm around her waist to tuck her into the warmth of his body.
“It’s much better, though, right?” A centuries-old mystery had been solved. Benjamin was no longer trapped with his guilt. And defeat. The presence of gold had been established. Though where Opal had hidden it presented another mystery, didn’t it? Or had she lied simply to crank up her husband’s misery? Because the woman sure as heck never spent it.
The corners of Conrad’s mouth twitched. “Much better.” A pause. Then, “In your complicated mind, what does this mean for the Ladling curse?”
“Honestly? I’m not a hundred percent sure yet. Family legend claims it originated with Silas’s daughter Evangeline. Maybe that’s a mystery we can solve next Christmas.”