The Spirit of Grace Read online

  Sarah Bennett doesn’t remember the night her mother tumbled down the stairs at Bennett House, despite allegedly witnessing the fatal fall. There was talk of foul play, dark whispers, and sidelong glances, all aimed at Sarah, prompting her family to send her to The Laurels, an exclusive asylum in San Francisco, under a cloud of suspicion.

  Now, on the one-year anniversary of her mother’s murder, Sarah has been summoned home. Convinced of her innocence, she returns to Bennett House, hoping to put the broken pieces of her life back together. But when another murder occurs shortly after her arrival, Sarah once again finds herself a suspect, as she is drawn into a web of suspicion and lies.

  In order to clear her name, Sarah must remember what happened the fateful night her mother died. But as she works to regain her memory, the real murderer watches, ready to kill again to protect a dark family secret.

  KUDOS FOR THE SPIRIT OF GRACE

  In The Spirit of Grace by Terry Lynn Thomas, Sarah Bennett has just come home from an asylum where she was sent after her mother, Jessica Bennett, died from a fall down the stairs. Although Sarah was found at the base of the stairs, cradling her dead mother in her arms, she can’t remember what happened that night. So everyone thinks that she murdered her mother. A year later, in 1942, Sarah is summoned home by her father and she returns to Bennett House, in the small town of Bennett’s Cove, just north of San Francisco. When she gets there, she finds to her dismay that her father has published a book, remarried, and taken on an assistant, Zeke, whom Sarah suspects is a spy. As the tension mounts in the household, Sarah struggles to remember what happened the night her mother died, while trying to fight her growing feelings for Zeke and her growing animosity for her young stepmother, who is about the same age as Sarah. The story has a strong plot, filled with many twists and turns, and takes you back to the time of the World War II, when anyone who was a stranger was suspected of being a spy. The author’s voice is fresh and unique and the story will grab your interest from the very first page. ~ Taylor Jones, Reviewer

  The Spirit of Grace by Terry Lynn Thomas is a World War II drama, rife with murder, spies, suspense, deceit, betrayal, and page-turning excitement. Our heroine, Sarah, has temporary amnesia about the night her mother died. Suspected of pushing her mother down the stairs to her death, Sarah leaves her home in Bennett Cove, California, under a cloud of suspicion, and spends a year in an asylum, in hopes her memory will return. Our story opens in October 1942, when Sarah has been called home by her father after a year of being away at the asylum. When she arrives at her home, Bennett House, she discovers that her father has remarried a woman named Grace, who is nearly the same age as Sarah. Although she tries to like the woman and wants her father to be happy, Sarah feels an immediate animosity toward Grace. She also feels an immediate attraction to Zeke, her father’s new assistant. But this is a time of war, and people are not what they seem. When another murder occurs, Sarah is the prime suspect, but this time her memory is unaffected and she knows she is innocent. Now she just has to clear her name. If she lives that long. The Spirit of Grace is a combination mystery/thriller of the first order. Thomas has done an excellent job of both crafting a believable world in the middle of World War II and creating realistic and endearing characters. This one will catch your interest from the very first word and hold it straight through to the end. ~ Regan Murphy, Reviewer

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The Spirit of Grace was a long time in the making, from idea to final publication. Many hands touched this book, each making it better in the process. Humble gratitude to my beta readers, Diane Greer and Lynn Petersen, whose expertise in the ways of the human mind helped me to make my characters deeper. Lara Long, Stanly Brown, John Harper, Diane Godwin, and Elizabeth Thomas, your feedback helped so much, your support and encouragement kept me going.

  A heartfelt thanks to Lauri Wellington, acquisitions editor at Black Opal Books, for giving The Spirit of Grace a home and to the editors at Black Opal Books who helped polish this book to perfection.

  My fabulous critique partner, Lisa Ricard Claro, whose editing and storytelling expertise never ceases to amaze. Lisa, thanks for being there through the laughter, the tears, and the emergency plotting issues and character crises. How lucky I was to find you at a writing conference so long ago!

  And, finally, thanks and love to my husband, Doug, who believed in me from the beginning.

  The Spirit of Grace

  TERRY LYNN THOMAS

  A Black Opal Books Publication

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2016 by Terry Lynn Thomas

  Cover Design by Melissa Stevens

  All cover art copyright © 2016

  All Rights Reserved

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-626943-95-7

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  EXCERPT

  I had been summoned home from the asylum, and given a chance to prove once and for all that I did not kill my mother. My journey of redemption did not bode well for the real killer, who watched from the shadows, waiting--

  A knot formed in my stomach. It started out as fear, but blossomed into rage when I saw the knife embedded in the tree not three inches from where I had just been leaning. Had I not moved, it would have landed in my neck. Now it was wedged up to its hilt in the trunk of the tree that I had leaned against.

  Grabbing the slick, colorful handle, I wrenched the embedded knife out of the tree and studied it. It was exactly like the one I had found in my father’s desk drawer, like the knife that had killed Gran. Bright stripes of yellow, red, purple, and green decorated the handle. I ran my finger along the shiny steel blade. It sliced through my skin. A tiny trickle of my blood seeped out of the small wound.

  I took the handkerchief that I had used to wipe my mouth and wrapped the knife in it then tucked the bundle in my pocket. I applied pressure to the small cut I had made, until it stopped bleeding. Then I continued on the path toward safety, moving as quickly as I could without tumbling. Vivian Mason had just tried to kill me.

  In loving memory of Dorothy Kelly Fenstermaker.

  Chapter 1

  San Francisco, October 1942:

  The sun shone the day I left the asylum. I fled the protection of the big house on the hill, with its magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean, its competent nurses, and mind-numbing routine, and entered a world at war and a city preparing for invasion. When Gran and my father had swept me away to The Laurels, the war that raged in Europe was a distant threat. When I got out of the taxi cab on Van Ness Avenue in front of Zim’s--hatless, gloveless, and dressed in the street clothes that I hadn’t worn in a very long time--reminders of America’s entry into the war were everywhere, from the staccato bulletins read non-stop over radios that blared out of the shops on Van Ness Avenue, to the glaring headlines pronouncing the grim facts of the fighting.

  My trek along the short block to the front door of the restaurant resembled a running of the gauntlet. With my valise in tow, I wove between throngs of uniformed soldiers who spilled out of the entrances of shops, restaurants, and bars. When I finally wrestled my way to the hostess at Zim’s, I was out of breath and sweating, despite the chilly San Francisco air.

  “Miss Bennett,” she said, “It’s been a long time.” When she realized why she hadn’t seen me--information she had gleaned from the newspaper headlines--she stammered. “I’m sorry
--I didn’t realize--”

  “It’s okay, really.” I smiled at her. “I’ve been craving a burger for a while.”

  She nodded and beckoned me to follow her to a secluded table in the back of the restaurant.

  “Do you have a newspaper?”

  “Of course,” she said. She soon came back with a San Francisco Chronicle and a New York Times. When the waitress came, I ordered the Zim’s burger with extra fries and a strawberry shake without looking at the menu.

  “We’re out of hamburger meat,” the waitress said.

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Meat shortage. We just sold out for the day. Sorry.” She looked around at her other tables as she tapped her pencil on her order pad.

  “Just the fries and shake.”

  She nodded and hurried away, stopping to flirt with a table of soldiers who were seated in the booth next to mine.

  While I ate, I read about the relentless aerial bombing in England. My heart broke as I read about the children who were being sent to the countryside to live with strangers, while their parents stayed in the city to face those bombs alone. This war had wound its tentacles around everyone. We were a nation united in the pursuit of a single enemy. We were encouraged to grow our victory gardens, donate all scrap metal, and keep our mouths shut. “Loose lips sink ships” was the catch phrase plastered on billboards and written on posters that were taped to telephone poles and hung in shop windows.

  California was home to more than its share of air bases, naval bases, naval shipyards, and repair facilities, but I was surprised that so many soldiers were queued up for the bus ride to Bennett Cove, a small town nestled just north of San Francisco--on the other side of a breathtaking mountain with trails winding through lush ferns--abutting the Pacific Ocean. Our coastline boasted riptides and black seals whose heads bobbed just offshore in the evening, staring at the beachgoers with sweet faces that resembled those of devoted dogs.

  The only other female passenger on the bus was Mrs. Tolliver, Bennett Cove’s resident witch. Lovelorn women visited her in secret, careful to stay unseen by friends and neighbors, as they navigated the footpath concealed in the redwoods that led to Mrs. Tolliver’s cottage. She would tell their fortunes in exchange for food, hand-me-down clothes, and the occasional coin. When Mrs. Tolliver fixed her attention upon you, her gaze penetrated right through to the soulful spot where the secret truths lay hidden.

  I opened my newspaper and stared at it, hoping that she wouldn’t see me. No such luck.

  “Sarah Bennett,” she cried out. “I’m so pleased that you’ve come home.” She wriggled her ample hips as she squeezed into the seat next to me. “Your father must have summoned you?”

  I opened my mouth to say yes, but Mrs. Tolliver continued to speak.

  “He’s a saint, that man. He paid off the bank note on my house after the husband passed. He would have paid for electricity too, but I don’t believe in electricity. No. The vapors will make a body sick.”

  She scrutinized me head to toe, judging me like a piece of meat at the butcher’s. She carried a burlap shopping bag with leather handles worn slick by decades of use. Now she placed it on the floor underneath her seat, careful with its breakable contents. She smelled of garlic and sweat and the homemade lye soap she used to wash her clothes. She wore her long gray hair in a bun, revealing thick dark streaks of grit and dirt along the back of her sun-burnt neck. She smelled as though she hadn’t had her bath this week.

  I wondered if I could crack my window without giving offense.

  “Anyone worth their salt knows you didn’t kill your mother,” she said. “You haven’t got the stomach for it. It’s been one year today, hasn’t it?”

  Unable to speak, I nodded. I didn’t remember anything of the night my mother fell down the stairs at Bennett House and broke her neck. My father and grandmother had found me huddled over my mother’s body, shivering in my nightgown and mumbling incoherently. They thought I had killed her. Everyone in Bennett Cove thought I had pushed her down the stairs to her death. I didn’t know one way or another. I didn’t remember a thing about that night.

  The psychiatrist, whom my father hired to care for me, diagnosed chronic amnesia and had suggested I stay at his asylum for a rest, in hopes that my memory would come back. I had done my part, participated in the tests and therapy groups, but my memory hadn’t returned. That part of my life, the time when my mother died, was a yawing chasm in my psyche.

  Out of the blue, my father had summoned me home. The time had come for me to try to remember what happened the night my mother died, to exonerate the cloud of suspicion that hung over my head. The time had come for me to slay my demons.

  Mrs. Tolliver jabbed my ribs with her elbow. “You listening?” She looked at me with squinty eyes.

  I smiled at her. “Are all these soldiers going to Bennett Cove?”

  “That they are,” she said. “Bennett Cove is billeting troops before they ship out. There’s no room for them in the city, so they’ve set up an encampment. The place is swarming with soldiers. A body can hardly get to the post office anymore, I tell you, and I’ll be glad when this war is over. I only hope that we don’t get invaded.” Mrs. Tolliver pushed her sweater aside to show a gun holstered underneath the waistband of her skirt.

  I gasped.

  “Don’t look so surprised. Things aren’t what they used to be. A body’s got to be protected.”

  The bus drove down Lombard Street and soon passed a billboard depicting a larger than life-size picture of my father holding his book, The Arms of the Enemy. He grinned, the smile of a man who hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Have you read his book yet?” Mrs. Tolliver asked.

  “No,” I said. “They didn’t allow books involving crime at--where I stayed.”

  “It’s very good,” Mrs. Tolliver said. “Elegant writing for a man. And don’t look at me with surprise. Just because I’m simple doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I read all the time.” She leaned back and crossed her arms over her ample bosom.

  The bus chugged down Lombard Street, toward the Golden Gate Bridge, past the area where the Palace of Fine Arts should have been. Designed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition, the Palace of Fine Arts with its Greek-inspired architecture was a sight to behold. I felt an affinity with the weeping ladies that graced the circumference. I looked for the female statues that topped the Palace’s Corinthian columns, but I couldn’t see them through the camouflage netting that now covered them.

  “They’ve requisitioned the Palace to use as the motorpool. Can you believe that? It’s a disgrace. At least they had the good sense to put camouflage on the weeping ladies.” Mrs. Tolliver leaned over my lap and looked out the window, craning to see the tops of the statues, giving me a whiff of her unwashed hair in the process. They were invisible under their camouflage. “That way the Japs can’t see them when they fly over. We don’t want our fine buildings demolished by enemy bombs, like them in London.”

  As the bus headed over the Golden Gate Bridge, I watched injured ships, twisted-metal casualties of the war waged at sea, being pulled into the San Francisco Bay by tugboats.

  Mrs. Tolliver explained that the wrecked ships would be dry-docked, where they would be repaired or scrapped for the valuable steel, a much needed resource during this time of war.

  “Times have changed, missy,” the old woman said. She leaned back into her seat and crossed her arms in front of her. “Bennett Cove ain’t what it was when you left. Neither is Bennett House, but you’ll see that for yourself.”

  We rode along in silence. Soon Mrs. Tolliver fell asleep, her head lolled to one side, her mouth open. She didn’t wake up when the bus rolled into Sausalito, the last stop before the road that led over the hill and down to Bennett Cove. If San Francisco’s population had increased during my time away, Sausalito had burgeoned. Scores of houses had been demolished at Pine Point in order to accommodate the huge shipyard which had changed the city’s landscape and--b
y the looks of the crowd at the bus stop--increased its population. When the bus pulled to a stop along the main street, I pressed my face against the window, but couldn’t see anything except masses of men, some in uniform and some dressed for manual labor.

  A handful of soldiers got off the bus. One man, a civilian, trailed behind them, getting on. He took off his hat, smiled, and nodded as he handed the driver his fare. His eyes were the most intense shade of green I had ever seen, their vivid color accentuating the dark circles beneath them. Although his suit and tie were of the same fine wool gabardine that my father favored, his face had the pallor of someone who had not seen natural light in quite a long time. I recognized that pale skin. I suffered from it as well. He caught me staring at him as he passed by on the way to an empty seat. I turned around and peered between the seats as he stowed his bag in the rack above. When he sensed my eyes on him, he looked right at me. Our eyes met. He smiled, his green eyes crinkling at the corners. I smiled back before turning around in my seat.

  Soon the bus pulled away, and my thoughts turned to other matters, like Gran and how she would react to my father’s summoning me home. I shook off this worry. I had come home at my father’s suggestion. He would welcome me to Bennett House. Gran could do as she pleased. I wasn’t leaving until I discovered what happened on the night of my mother’s birthday--and death.

  When the bus turned onto the two-lane road that led up the mountain, the chatter stopped. The road to Bennett Cove was narrow and twisty, a rocky wall on one side and a precipitous drop to the ocean on the other. There were no guard rails. A group tension, a collective hush, fell over the passengers. The only sound on the bus was the gentle susurration of Mrs. Tolliver’s snoring. When the bus pulled into Bennett Cove and came to a stop in front of the old post office, I heard a collective sigh of relief among all the bus riders, except Mrs. Tolliver, who snorted a couple of times as she woke up.