Heart of Evil

“Yeah for Charles!” Justin Binder said, lifting his glass. He was somewhat tipsy—if not drunk—Ashley thought. Good thing he was staying on the property. The others were all still playacting; they were entrenched in the past.



They didn’t want to look for someone they obviously believed was just off enjoying his own star turn. But…



“He would have wanted to be here tonight,” Ashley said stubbornly. “He was so thrilled to be taking the part of Marshall Donegal. I’m going out to see if his car is still here.”



Ramsay lifted a hand. “Sorry, don’t bother, Ashley. He didn’t drive. He came with me. I told him that I couldn’t give him a ride back since I was going to stay at the house out here for a while, but he told me he’d hitch a ride back in with someone. Said he didn’t have to be back to work until Tuesday morning and for me not to worry.”



“Gentlemen, perhaps a search is in order,” Frazier said. “A Civil War parlor game of sorts.”



They all stared at him blankly.



“Exactly,” Ashley said, relief coloring her tone. “Find the lost rebel. Beth will create a five-star private meal for a party of four, payable to the man—or woman—who finds Charles!”



“I will?” Beth said. She looked at Ashley. “Um, it will be—sumptuous!”



“It’s a lot of property to cover,” Ramsay murmured.



“We need to organize, then,” Griffin said. “It will be fun. Yankees take the cemetery side, and rebels search out the bayou side.”



“Is that fair?” Griffin asked. “If he’s still around, old Charlie would be by the cemetery, don’t you think?”



“I pick scouting detail!” Justin said.



“Yes! Let’s find Charles!” Toby said.



“I’ll check out the area around the oaks out front,” Matty Martin offered. She was watching Ashley and seemed to realize that Ashley was seriously worried. “John, you can come with me. It’s mighty dark out there, even with all the lights from the house and the property floodlights.”



“Of course, my dear,” John told her. “They should have let women fight the war,” he muttered, following her out.



Hank laughed. “Yeah, imagine, mud wrestling at its best.”



“Hank!” Cliff admonished. “War is always a serious affair.”



“Well, of course it is,” Griffin said. “War is very serious—but we’re not at war. We’re playing a game. We’re looking for old Charles. Hey, Ashley, if no one wins…”



“Well, at some point, we’ll just all have dinner,” she told them.



“Great!” Beth muttered to her. “Now I get to cook for all of them!”



“It’s good that I’ve got the bayou side!” Toby Keaton said. “Borders my property.”



“I’ll take the cemetery,” Frazier said.



“You will not. It’s dark and dangerous in there,” Ashley told him.



“Not for me, dear. It’s memories for me,” he said softly, and quickly turned away. Neither of them wanted to think about Ashley’s parents, entombed in the majestic family vault.



“Grampa, please—you need to be here as everyone returns,” Ashley said.



“I’ll take the cemetery,” Ben offered. “I’m really familiar with the living and the dead,” he added and winked. “Just give me one of the big old flashlights at the back door. I’ll be fine.”



Ben would be fine. He was a big, strapping man in his mid-forties. Besides, he’d attended funerals for both her parents and knew the cemetery well.



Ashley wanted to take the cemetery herself; that dream had to have been a sign.



No, that would be insane. Ben knew what he was doing. She wasn’t going to let a dream dictate what she did in her life.



“Okay, so where are we going?” Beth asked Ashley.



“The stables?” Ashley suggested.



“I’ll come with you and stand there, but I’m not going near the horses!”



An hour later, they had finished the actual search as best they could in the night.



Ramsay went to speak with the guests who were staying in the rooms that had been the old stables, and the Yankee contingent spoke with those in the other outbuildings. Cliff went to his office, wondering if Charles might have slipped in there to rest.



They all searched, from the river to the road, from the sugar fields to the bayou, but there was no sign of Charles Osgood. By midnight, all the searchers were back at the house.



“Ashley, really, he must be out somewhere else,”



Cliff told her.



She looked at Ben. “You searched everywhere in the cemetery? There are so many paths, little roads between all the vaults.”



Ben sighed. “Ashley, I searched. But we can all take another look.”



She nodded.



“That was actually not a suggestion,” Ben said.



“It’s all right. I’ll go myself,” Ashley said.



“We’ll help,” Ramsay said, tugging at Cliff’s sleeve.



“I’ve still got the key, so I’ll come, too,” Ben said.



Ashley led the way, wondering why she thought that she’d really find Charles in the cemetery, just because she’d had a dream.



But she was determined.



Ben opened the lock on the gate, though, of course, they could have all crawled over the stone wall.



Ashley headed straight for her family tomb. The real Marshall Donegal had died there.



The last interment had been her father’s. The usual little pain in her heart sparked—it always came when she thought about him, and her mother. And tonight, especially, she missed Jake.



There was no sign of Charles there, and no sign that he had been there.



She almost fell, she was so relieved.



The tomb glowed white beneath the gentle touch of the moon, dignified in its decaying majesty. She heard the three men calling to one another from different sections of the graveyard, and she followed a voice to reach Cliff. He looked at her. “Ashley, Charles left. Whether he was spirited away by aliens or not, I don’t know. But he isn’t here. This isn’t any parlor game, is it? You’re really worried.”



“I am. Did you go in the chapel?” she asked.



“You think that Charles is hiding in the chapel? Or kneeling down, still thanking the good Lord for the chance to be Marshall Donegal?” Cliff asked dryly.



“Please, Cliff?”



He groaned. He walked around the ell that would lead them to the chapel, in the far corner near the embankment of the river. The chapel had carved oak double doors, which creaked when he opened them. He fumbled for the light switch, and light flared in the lovely little place with its stained-glass windows, marble altar and old mahogany podium.



The place was empty.



“Happy?” Cliff asked her.



“No. I can’t help it—I’m worried,” she told him.



He just shook his head. “Come on. Let’s just go.”



They walked back to the house, where the others were still milling on the back porch—many of them having retrieved their drinks.



“So, the bastard did get lucky!” Ramsay said, laughing. “Hell, if I had foreseen that, I’d have had him play Marshall Donegal a couple of years ago!”



“I’m going to call the police,” Ashley said, looking at her grandfather.



“He’s been missing just a few hours,” Beth pointed out. “He might have thought that he said good-night to everyone. There’s so much confusion going on when the fighting ends. I mean, I thought it was amazing—it really was living history. But it’s mass confusion. I can only imagine a Gettysburg reenactment.”



Ashley realized that everyone was staring at her—skeptically. They had searched and searched, and grown bored and tired. But she couldn’t help her feelings of unease, even while they all stood silent, just staring at her.



The river breeze brought the chirp of the chickadees—her senses were so attuned to her home area that somewhere, distantly, down the bayou, she thought she could hear an alligator slip into the water. This was her home; she knew these sounds.



They were normal; they were natural. But the sounds of the darkness weren’t reassuring to her now.



“Grampa, I think we need to report this to the police,” she repeated.



“Great. He’s probably at some bar in the big city, bragging about the fact that he got to play Marshall Donegal today,” Ramsay said. “And they’ll drag him out and he’ll act like a two-year-old again.”



Frazier stared at Ashley and nodded. If she wanted to call the police, they would do so.



The parish police were called, and Officer Drew Montague, a nice-enough man whom Ashley had met a few times over the years, took all the information.



“You say you all saw him just a few hours ago?” he asked. Montague had a thick head of dark hair and eyebrows that met in the middle.



“Yes,” she said.



“What makes you think that he’s actually missing? Perhaps there’s a woman involved. Is he married? Look, Miss Donegal, you know that we appreciate everything that you do for the area, but…we’re talking about a grown man who has been gone just a few hours,” the officer said.



“He was proud of the role he was playing. He would have stayed,” Ashley insisted.



Officer Montague shifted his weight. “Look, I’ve taken the report, and I’ll put out a local bulletin to be on the lookout for him, but he’s an adult. An adult really needs to be gone for forty-eight hours before he is officially missing.”



Frazier spoke before Ashley could. “Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated. We’re always proud that the parish is about people, and not just red tape and rules.”



Montague nodded. “Right. Well, I’ll get this moving, then. We’ll all be on the lookout for Mr. Osgood.”



Ashley thanked him. The others had remained behind, politely and patiently waiting. Now it was really late, and once again there were a number of weary men and women—all still in Civil War–era attire—staring at her.