Page 53 of Promise Keeper

"Tomorrow is the last day. I think it's been a pretty good show. Hopefully, I'll get some rest when it's over."

"You look worn out."

He turned and took a few steps, looking up at the ceiling. "It should be better soon."

"Steve," I said, "I came to ask you about your great-grandfather. I know the bones don't belong to him. They were DNA tested. We know whose bones they are, and you do too, don't you?"

He whipped his head around to look at me. "Why do you say that?"

"I know the whole story. The Pharaoh's Cursed Mummy, who was Dalton Stokes, a train robber. How your great-grandpa paid his bail money. How Dalton was planning on skipping out on him."

I stopped talking to gauge his reaction. He didn't move a muscle. I wasn't sure he was breathing, so to get a jolt out of him, I added, "Your great-grandfather's ring."

Steve dropped his head and closed his eyes. Then there was a shuffling sound coming from above us, up in the attic.

"It's him," Steve said, in a panicked whisper. "I did all of this for him. The tent, the history, the tours, all of it to appease him and he still won't leave me alone!"

"Who? What are you talking about?" Something was very wrong with Steve. He was acting like a cat on hot bricks.

"Dalton." He reached out and grabbed both of my hands. "He's been haunting me ever since I found him in the attic."

"You're the one who put his bones in Soapy's dumpster?"

His face fell in humiliation. "I had to get rid of him."

There was a bump in the attic. "Listen," He said, his eyes darting back to the ceiling. "He won't leave me alone. He's going to make me pay for what my great-grandfather did to him."

"What did he do?"

"He killed him. He found out Dalton stole his ring to sell for money and he was going to skip town and great-grandfather killed him. Then he kept displaying him as the mummy to earn back the bail money even after Dalton was dead. Over time he became the Pharaoh's Cursed Skeleton."

The idea was gruesome enough, I didn't want to know the details. I'd leave that to Walter and Pamela.

"Steve, when you say he's haunting you, do you mean those noises you hear right now?"

He pointed to the ceiling, his face sallow and jaw clenched. I thought he might be ill.

"That's not Dalton haunting you," I said, easing him over to the sofa to sit. I lowered myself beside him and kept holding his hands. "Those are raccoons. They've been in my attic at night too. How long have you known Dalton's bones were up there?"

"I’d heard stories when I was young." He leaned his head back against the cushions. "It's always made me anxious. I've had the remains of a murdered man in the attic. They were there long before me and I didn't know what to do about them."

"So you heard the scuffle up there and your mind put two and two together and you had to get rid of the bones and do something to make up for what Joseph did, so you put on the spring carnival telling their story."

He shut his eyes and nodded. "I don't think I can keep this business. I've spent my life keeping a tainted history alive."

"You've spent your life sharing amazing relics with everyone who visits our town. You weren't a part of anything that happened a century ago. Now the truth is out and the bones will be buried and you're free of all of it."

A tear rolled down his cheek. "It's been a burden for too long."

"You can rest easy now."

The raccoons chittered their agreement.

"Well, you can rest as much as possible with your uninvited upstairs guests."

I couldn't be annoyed with the raccoons taking over the town. They came and freed the skeleton that had been kept in the attic for way too long.

Fiona and Steve would have to deal with the turmoil that the truth caused, but in the end they were freed too.

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