Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

done.
    Adrenaline pumping, she was ready to dig right away, but she had to wait for daylight. She dug through her photocopied newspaper articles and yearbook pages instead. They yielded nothing. Where else could she look? She wasn’t a detective, just a black-market archaeologist; she delved into the lives of the long-ago dead and Abby had been gone a mere forty years.
    The high-school yearbook gave her a handy list of people who had known Abby at the time of her death. The thought of cold-calling strangers to discuss murder made her introverted soul shiver, but perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary.
    Douglass Everett would talk to her about Abby. The nature of their business relationship gave them a camaraderie beyond the ordinary shallow salesperson/client link. Their every transaction breached one law or another, but they took the risk, time and again, out of passion for the artifacts. Shared risk fosters trust. Yes, Douglass would tell her what he knew about Abby.
    Having decided to speak with Douglass, she didn’t want to think about Abby any more, and she didn’t want to think about Cyril and, God, she didn’t want to think about money. She crawled into her bed, a simple but exquisitely wrought antique convent piece bought in Saint Augustine by her grandmother when the sisters’ dwindling numbers forced them to divest themselves of excess earthly possessions. God only knew how many of them had died in Faye’s bed. It was a good place to be haunted.
    She thought of Sam and Krista. They’d been gone a week. What in the world was she thinking of, sleeping alone in this big empty house when there was a killer on the loose? And was Joe safe from the man who’d tried to lure him away that very morning?
    Something, probably a squirrel, scampered over her roof. The house creaked around her, responding to the falling temperature.
    Faye couldn’t stand it any more. She gathered the journal, her pillow, her sleeping bag, and the lantern and hurried outside. With the lantern’s help, she found her way down the lightly worn path to Joe’s shelter.
    Joe wasn’t asleep. He was sitting on the ground watching the dying embers of his campfire hiss and collapse. He didn’t ask her why she’d come, but fear made her babble.
    “I got to thinking about the murders and all, and I got scared. Can I just put my sleeping bag right here on the other side of your fire?”
    Joe nodded.
    “And look what I brought. I found this old journal hidden in the cupola and the stories are fascinating. Can I read some of them to you?”
    Joe smiled and said, “Yeah.”
    Faye knew that a killer with a gun could take them both out as easily as he had murdered Sam and Krista. There was no safety in numbers—not really. Still she felt safer here with Joe.
    She opened the journal and carefully slid its ribbon bookmark from between the sheets. Turning the page, she was surprised to find that William Whitehall had put the journal aside without finishing his story. Someone else, with finer and more delicate penmanship, was reaching out to her across time.
    William Whitehall had been dead more than a century when she began reading his journal. He was still dead, yet the fact that he had no more to say made her want to mourn him. First, though, she would see what his daughter had to say.

    Joe watched Faye make herself comfortable. He was happy to watch over her tonight, just as he had every night since her friends had been killed. Tonight, though, she’d be in plain sight and his job would be easier.
    ***
    Excerpt from the journal of Mariah Whitehall Lafourche, 27 April, 1824
    I should not have given my son LaFourche’s name and I should not have assumed it myself. I most assuredly should never have created him a noble French father in exile from the post-Revolution Terror. I have made him arrogant.
    My deepest regret is a sin of omission. My dear mother died when my son Andrew was but three. Neither I nor my father, also now departed, ever told Andrew of her Creek ancestry. It is incredible to me now, but I was ashamed of my mixed blood just as I was ashamed of Andrew’s bastardy. Now I am too much the coward to remedy my error. I fear nothing so much as losing my son’s love.
    My pride has been my undoing, and my son’s. I can accept that. Our lives are our own to ruin. I cannot accept the misery of others.
    My son has begun to buy people. People! He bought four families of Africans to help with this year’s planting. With their labor