Read Morgan James - Promise McNeal 02 - Quiet Killing for Free Online Page B

wisely than her mother. I will remain here to tend the farm, and my rowdy students at Rocky Bottom School .
    Cousin Adeline offers her kind regards and thanks you, again, for your assistance during this time of Lewis’incarceration. Without your guiding hand, she has no doubt her family would be prey to many a roving Yankee bandit. Dear Adeline. She is a brave mother and faithful wife. We all pray the rumors of Governor Hampton beseeching President Arthur to pardon Lewis are true. How grateful we would be to have him home .
    The letter was signed Margaret Connell . Questions collided in my mind. Nola Connell? Cousin to Margaret? An Irish immigrant in service to a household in Baltimore? Her daughter, Reba, born in South Carolina and brought to North Carolina to be raised by other cousins who were Sorleys. Was this the same Daniel Joab Sorley who sold January McNeal the Fire Mountain land? Who were Lewis and Adeline Redmond? Margaret writes Adeline was yet another cousin. My Lord, how many cousins were there? Did the letter say Lewis Redmond was in jail? Was this Margaret person saying Reba Connell McNeal’s grandmother was a slave from the West Indies?
    Mrs. Allen patting my knee, and wind shaking the porch chimes to life brought me back to the room. “It’s a March wind for sure out there today. More winter coming. And somebody needing to be laid to rest.”
    I smiled and nodded, finding it oddly comfortable that this lovely old woman would equate a restless breeze with troubled spirits. “I’ll have to read the letter again. I’m not sure I have all of it straight in my mind. So many cousins I didn’t know about.”
    “Well sure you need to read it again. It’s a lot to take in with one big swallow. I’ve probably read Margaret’s letter a hundred times over the years, so I know it most by heart. I just never knew why I was holding on to thething until today. Ain’t that something? Don’t know why I still get amazed at the power of the spirits to guide our ways. Just like with little Missy…” Mrs. Allen stopped short of finishing her sentence.
    She stood up, arching her back as though to stretch out a kink. I wondered if hoeing down the fire in her backyard was the cause of her stiff back, and took a breath to ask her again about the mysterious little girl. Too late. “Well now, that little Missy is a story for another day. I’ll warm up our tea and you come on out to the kitchen when you’re ready.”
    I read the letter again and let my eyes wander around the small room. Had this room been Reba’s? The bed I sat on was less than single size, but longer than a crib. Maybe an old youth bed with rope, not wood slats, crisscrossing under the mattress for support. The rainbow-hued Texas star quilt smelled of clean, but old, batten. A faded red plastic Etch-a-Sketch toy peeked out from under the foot of the bed. That certainly had not been here in my great grandmother’s time. Was this where the little girl, Missy, slept? Smoothing the quilt and tucking the toy back under the bed to keep it safe, I joined Mrs. Allen in the kitchen.
    “I fixed you some Earl Grey this time. Figured you needed the bergamot to clear your mind a bit.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Allen. Earl Grey is my favorite.”
    “I know. I reckon Susan told me that. Leastwise, somebody did. Now, tell me. What do you make of Margaret Connell’s letter?”
    I sipped the lemony warm tea and mentally organized what I’d learned from the letter. I’m a list maker, so I visualized facts listed down the page. “I guess thefirst thing is: it seems the Reba Connell in the letter is my great grandmother McNeal, because I found a census reference stating her maiden name was Connell. The second thing is: the date of 1882 on the letter matches with about when she was born. So it would make sense that she could have come over here as a baby. Maybe that’s why I don’t find a birth record for her. Do I understand that relatives of your cousins, the