still in her arms, she turned and unlocked the door. There was half of a roast beef sandwich in the mini refrigerator she’d recently purchased so she could eat at her desk when she worked alone at the visitor center. Maybe the cat could eat the meat.
As she bent to retrieve the beef, Emma spotted the file she’d come for. Beside it, the landline blinked with a message. She would feed the cat first, then listen to the voicemail. Emma shredded the meat and set it on the floor. The cat sniffed the food, then tore into it, making little growling noises as it ate. When it finished, the cat sat down and looked up at Emma as if to say, “Where’s the rest?”
“That’s all I have,” she said. Funny how having another living thing with her made the place seem less scary. “I’ll bring you something in the morning—how about that?” she asked and punched the play button on the phone. “Or maybe I’ll take you home with me tonight.”
The cat wound around her ankles as a voice that belonged on the radio echoed in the empty room.
“Emma, where are you? You’re not answering your cell phone. Give me a call before you begin your excavation.”
She groaned. Corey Chandler would be the death of her. Not the attorney exactly, but his client, whoever that might be. Corey wouldn’t tell who objected to the excavation of the slave quarters and the survey of the cemetery. Emma straightened her shoulders. It would take more than a phone call to stop the project. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to dig up the cemetery. That was the purpose of the GPR machine—to locate and determine once and for all the number of graves there.
Conflicting reports had abounded for years that bodies had been missed in the research project conducted in 2000, and that bothered Emma. Her goal was to find every grave and make sure each person received the dignity and recognition that had eluded them in life.
It was hard to understand why anyone objected to the research project anyway, but she didn’t have time to worry about Corey’s client tonight. “Come on, Suzy,” she said, deciding the tabby was female, and then grabbed the folder and stuffed it in her backpack.
Suzy shot out the door, and Emma followed suit, locking it behind her. A screeching sound jerked her attention to her right, and she fisted her hands. Another gust of wind whistled through the trees, followed by the screeching sound again, and she identified the source. A branch scraping against the window on the side of the building. Adrenaline left as fast as it had come.
What was wrong with her tonight? If Brooke Danvers were here, she would have a ball teasing Emma. But Emma was the first to admit she wasn’t as brave as her best friend. A tree frog seemed to agree as he serenaded her with his song and then was joined with a chorus of other males, each one vying to outdo the other. Poor things were singing for nothing. The last two weeks of warm weather had them confused and singing to the female frogs who were not in the mood to answer them in the middle of January.
Another sound overrode the frogs, and Emma cocked her head toward it. Someone was operating machinery. Had the maintenance supervisor come back after supper and started some of the road equipment? She doubted it, since the noise appeared to come from the inn area, not the tractor shed or the maintenance building.
Maybe it was those kids she’d run off earlier. Just before closing time, she’d caught three teenage boys pulling up the flags she’d staked out where the slave cabins used to be. Had they come back and hot-wired one of the backhoes?
“Stay here,” she said, as if the cat would. After she set the backpack beside the door, she flipped on her flashlight and walked up the brick path that led to the inn, which was really just a four-room log cabin with a dogtrot in the middle for ventilation in the summer. If it was the teenagers, this time she would get names and call the parents.
Instead of remaining behind, Suzy followed her to the deserted log structure, and they climbed the steps together. Emma walked through the dogtrot to the back porch and cocked her ear again. The sound had quit. She swept the light toward the maintenance building. The equipment looked untouched. Then