Page 81 of Rags's Awakening
Raven sighed. “Oh, to be young again.” She waved a hand dramatically in the air. “Don’t you wish you could go back in time knowing what you know now?”
Casey shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d do anything differently except not getting married to the first man who made me feel loved.”
“I would’ve moved to New York and pushed my way onto Broadway instead of marrying so young. I mean, Curtis is good to me, but I regret that I didn’t give my career a real chance.”
“I guess everybody would do something different if they could change things,” Casey said as she picked up her briefcase and set it on the floor.
A cloth-covered book sat on the corner of her desk. “What’s this?” she asked out loud.
Raven leaned closer. “The book?”
“Yeah. I wonder where it came from,” she said, opening the cover and thumbing through the pages. “There’s no inscription. That’s strange.”
“What’s it about?” Raven asked.
“Unsolved murders of the early twentieth century,” Casey replied, looking at the inside cover.
“That’s gruesome, especially with the killings that have been happening in town.” Raven visibly shuddered.
“Isn’t it? I also read about murders in that book you gave me,Ghosts of the High Country. A large portion of the book is devoted to a string of murders in 1903. The victims were all dark-haired women who were strangled and then posed in certain ways. When I read about it, it eerily fit the profile of the women who’ve been murdered here in the last couple of months.”
“That’s strange as hell. The murders were in that book I gave you? I thought the book was about ghosts. So, the victims are haunting the area?”
“The narrative tied in some ghostly apparitions with the victims, but what struck me was how similar the murders were to the current ones. It couldn’t be the same person. Those killings were over a hundred years ago, but maybe it’s someone who read about them and got the idea?”
“Or a crazed descendant of the murderer,” Raven said. “But who gave you this book?”
“I don’t know. I wonder if Devin found it and brought it over.” Casey flipped through the first few pages but didn’t see a museum stamp. “I mentioned it to him when we had dinner at Ruthie’s one night. He said he never heard of it. But when we went for coffee last week, he told me he looked up the newspaper coverage of the killings in the archives. I haven’t had a chance to check those yet, but maybe he found a book, too.”
“It could be, because he knows you’re a history buff like he is, but why wouldn’t he leave a note?”
“I don’t know, but it has to be him. Who else would give me the book?” Curtis’s face ran through her mind. “Anyway, I’ll ask Devin when I see him.”
“Sounds like you two are getting pretty friendly,” Raven teased.
“We’re just friends who like history, café lattes, and diners.” Casey laughed.
“What about Jacob? Are you just friends with him, too?”
“Of course. We go back several years. I met him when I first started with the Denver theatre company.”
“I don’t think he regards you as much as a friend as you do. He’s interested in you. You must know that.”
“I do. I guess I always knew it, but I kept our friendship at a bit of an arm’s distance. Since I started working here, we see each other all the time, and I think he’s grown more enamored. I wish he’d find a nice woman. He’s a good guy, but I just don’t have those feelings for him.”
“Only for the biker?” A sly smile spread across Raven’s face.
“Biker?”
“Don’t play innocent with me. Curtis told me you and one of the outlaw guys were pretty chummy.” She laughed.
“Curtis? How would he know?”
“He had a booth at the festival.”
“I know. Zoe and I went over to see if you were helping out. It looked like he was on his own.”
“He was.”
