The lockpicking tool fell with a metallic clatter to the concrete floor. Startled, Taylor Brannon froze in her kneeling position by the old trunk.

Turning only her eyes at first, then her head, then at last her shoulders, she looked around the museum’s storeroom to assure herself she was alone.

On a ragged sigh, she sat back on her heels, jammed her fists between her knees, closed her eyes and willfully refused to acknowledge the familiar tingling vibrations running through her body.

She didn’t like this feeling, like a door opening and cold air rushing in. The feeling of . . . exposure.

Opening her eyes, she rubbed her arms, retrieved the tool and once again bent over the ancient trunk’s rusty lock. The trunk was a donation, a leftover from some estate auction. It was so scarred and battered that no one, not even the most avid antique hunter, had bid on it.

But you never knew what treasures lurked inside drab packages. And that knowledge had kept Taylor working at the lock through her lunch hour.

Tucking arrow-straight, wheat-blonde hair behind her ears, she guided the pick into the keyhole.

“One last try, my friend, and then it’s Mr. Crowbar for you . . .” Like magic, the lock fell open into her hands.

Her heart beat a little faster in anticipation, yet she steeled herself for disappointment. Taylor set the heels of her hands on the front lip of the lid and pushed. The hinges creaked and the trunk coughed up a gray puff of dust that set her to sneezing and waving her hands in front of her face.

As the cloud cleared, Taylor pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves. She told herself that she needed the gloves to protect the artifacts she might find inside—not because she needed protection herself.

Carefully, her tongue catching at her upper lip in concentration, she peeled back layers of white tissue paper. The scents of cedar, lavender and years wafted up to her nose.

A Civil War-era, Union-blue uniform coat lay on top, neatly folded. Sergeant, from the insignia on the sleeve, with several carefully mended rips in the cloth. Eagerly she slid her hands under the folded garment and looked underneath, hoping to find the rest of the uniform intact. She found more fabric, mostly baby clothes and embroidered linens, but no more uniform pieces. No trousers, hat or sword.

Nothing. Just the coat.

She frowned in disappointment and wondered why someone had taken such great pains to repair and store that one piece, but not the rest. She chose, for the moment, not to think about what kind of injuries could have destroyed the remaining pieces of the soldier’s uniform.

Taylor unfolded the coat and spread it out on the clean, hard floor. Telltale signs told her someone had altered it to fit unusually broad shoulders and a trim waist. She smoothed her gloved hands over the fabric and smiled as she imagined this soldier’s mother doing much the same while fitting the coat to her son’s body. For a moment, voices echoed in her imagination.

“Stand still, boy, or I’ll never get this done in time.”

“Aw, Ma, nobody’s gonna care how I look when we’re routing those Rebs.”

“No son of mine is going off to war wearing something that fits like a potato sack. Now hold still.”

The imagined voices in her head faded as she turned the garment over to examine the front. Her breath caught when she saw the reason the coat had been folded backside up. A large, jagged hole told her how the man had died—from a gunshot wound fired at close range. Dark stains embedded in the blue cloth could have been powder burns or blood, had she cared to look that close. Other faint stains on one sleeve and around the collar bore the marks of a sincere effort to remove them.

Taylor shuddered, quickly flipped the coat back over and refolded it, but as she worked, something within the garment crinkled. Not finding any outside pockets, she slid the front buttons free and found one inside. A corner of yellowed paper protruded an inch, showing the edge of a postmark.

The unwanted tuning-fork sensation started up again as she unfolded the paper, but Taylor firmly quelled it. She’s couldn’t remember when she’d had impressions this strong from touching an object, and the fact that they zinged right through her thick cotton gloves struck a note of concern.

She couldn’t stop now, though, not when there could me more treasures to find in this trunk. Shutting out the warning bells in her head, she focused instead on the letter, and smiled at the writer’s clumsy attempts at decorum and spelling.

June 15, 1871
Mrs. Elizabeth B. Garrison
Little Hocking, Ohio

Dear Mrs. Garrison,

I pray I have found the right person to send this parcel to. It took some doing to find you, seeing as you have remarryed since the war.

I believe this uniform belonged to your son. With shame I admit I relieved him of it after his death. I, along with many of my companions, often collected such trophys during our service under Jefferson Davis. The posession of this prize, however, has become a weight on my soul through the years, and I am compelled to relieve my conscience of the burden.

Your son was captured in February 1862, during the Roanoke Island skirmish. He was taken on Bodie Island while scouting a rebel camp, and was killed many miles south on Cape Hatteras.

It was I, through sheer accident, who came upon him and brought him with some cheer to my commanding officer. Had I known what awaited him, I would have been more inclined to let him go without a word to anyone, and gladly have taken whatever punishment I earned.

The events between his capture and murder I will not repeat, as I have no wish to cause anyone more distress. I will tell you that he suffered mightily at the hands of my commanding oficer, but be assured that your son died bravely and well.

With deep regret I cannot say where his remains lie. Hard storms have changed the lay of the island, making it impossible to find landmarks or any markers we might have left behind.

Perhaps knowing he is at peace will bring you some small comfort. I have not sent his boots, as I wore them to keep my feet warm during that winter. They served me well and lasted nigh a year.

I must close here, as I have many days journey home after posting this parcel to you. I beg you do not attempt to find me, as there is little more I can tell you and it is my wish to lay the whole sorry event to rest.

But I will never forget your son’s courage. For you see, it is the curse of those of us who have no courage, to spend our lives haunted by men such as him.

The letter was postmarked Richmond, Virginia. The handwriting was round and childlike, as if the writer was unaccustomed to laboring over so many words and so many memories.

She turned the page over, hoping for some clue to the writer’s identity, but it was blank.

Murder. Murder? She shook her head. Some people might think him a victim of murder, others just a casualty of war.

Refolding the letter, she reached for the garment. Her gloved fingers accidentally touched the hole in the uniform. An odd sensation shot up her arm, raised the hairs on the back, then settled in a hollow ball in the pit of her stomach.

“Help me.”

She didn’t hear a voice. Not exactly. Just an incredibly strong impression of crushing fatigue, confusion and . . . and . . . she touched the hole again in spite of herself, for once leaving her inner door slightly ajar.

Pain. Terror.

Taylor gasped, dropped the coat and scrambled backward, her frantic breathing echoing in the cavernous room. Her eyes stayed glued to the untidy pile of blue cloth as she shakily regained her feet, fighting the childish notion that it might jump up and come after her. Then, leaving the coat untouched, she backed away and ran.

he knew better than to fall asleep while on guard duty, but the emotional day she’d endured gradually took its final toll. Her rear end settled onto the sand. The butt of her musket joined it, but she was too tired to care.

Moments later, hoofbeats drummed her awake. Taylor found herself standing on the dune, watching a horse and rider approach in full gallop.

Wherever that horse had come from, it had been running a long time. Steam trailed off the animal’s body, and the low-riding moon set it to silver fire. That horse was flying. Its rider leaned low and listed slightly to one side, as if favoring an injured limb.

The messenger? He was early. And if he didn’t turn aside very soon, he would run his horse right into the giant oak ribs of a shipwreck beached on the shore.

Taylor absently fingered the back of a newly shorn haircut and frowned. The messenger was coming down the beach from the north.

“But . . . he’s coming from the wrong direction . . . ”

She realized she’d spoken aloud when the approaching rider’s body jerked. With a low moan, he pulled the horse to a rearing stop directly opposite her on the beach. The horse, clearly not happy about being made to stand, pranced in the ankle-deep tidal pool.

Taylor strained to see if the rider wore a uniform. She observed the slumped posture of the rider and thought maybe he and the horse weren’t part of this re-enactment of the Civil War’s Battle of Roanoke.

“Hey! Are you hurt? Do you need help?”

With a herculean effort, the rider straightened, turned the trembling, sweaty horse in her direction and approached at a walk. As they closed in on her, she heard the horse’s labored snorts and something else . . .

With each breath, the rider’s emitted a gurgling, inarticulate grunt. The sound carried with it the weight of a weariness she could sense but not fathom.

The offshore wind grew louder in her ears, and Taylor reached up to grab her hat before it flew off. At that moment she realized the physical wind remained steady.

But a force pushed at the door to her soul.

Taylor’s fingers alternately tightened and loosened on the musket she held, a faintly caressing gesture as if she rubbed a magic lamp. Conjuring up someone. Or something. Like courage.

The horse caught her scent. It reared and spun, and in the rising moonlight, Taylor finally caught a clear glimpse of the rider.

He wore a blue uniform. And he was . . .

“Dear God.”

Her chest muscles spasmed, leaving no space for her to draw air. Sheer reflex brought her musket to her shoulder and she aimed . . . at what? A figure whose bound stump of a left arm oozed blood. He held it tightly to his side while he fought the horse with his right. Soaked rags acted as a tourniquet to what was left of his right leg, but his every effort to stay in the saddle forced out more and more blood.

And the man . . . she guessed it was a man . . . had no head.

She was aiming at a dead man, her musket loaded with a useless blank. Fired, it would make a grand noise, and that was about all.

And they say Beaudry’s ghost roams the Outer Banks to this day, headless, legless, armless, looking for his lost body parts . . . and for revenge . . .