Jekyll Island: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 5) by Rebecca Patrick-Howard Page A

it?”
    “I don’t know,” Taryn said. “That’s what I am trying to figure out.”
    David turned away from her and faced the water. She watched the sunlight touch his face and seem to glide over him, wrapping itself around his body. She wished she could feel as peaceful as he looked. Finally, he turned back to Taryn. “There are many things on this island, many lives and histories. It is possible that one of those histories has found you and is reaching out to a kindred spirit.”
    “It’s happened before,” Taryn admitted. “Several times actually.”
    “It’s not a bad thing, not when you can learn how to control your doorway. It’s letting everyone in that can be the problem.”
    Taryn smiled wryly and took a long drink of water. “But if you open the door for the good, aren’t you also letting in the bad?”
    Placing a friendly hand on her shoulder David leaned in and looked her in the eye. Their faces were only a few inches apart, and Taryn could feel something snap in the air between them. “Be careful with this,” he said softly. “Not all histories are meant to be remembered or brought back.”
    Taryn bit her lip and nodded. But what happened when they just wouldn’t let you go? What were you supposed to do then?

Since her first experience with Miss Dixie’s knack for the past at Windwood Farm, Taryn had faced an extreme amount of confusion in regards to what she was supposed to do about the things she saw. Even more confusing was IF she was even meant to do anything at all.
    She’d talked extensively to Matt about this, as well as their mutual friend Rob who owned New Age Gifts and More in Lexington, Kentucky. She’d learned along the way that just because she saw ghosts and occasionally took a walk through the virtual past didn’t necessarily mean that she needed to do anything about them. She had to learn to control her emotions and feelings.
    That was not easy.
    Taryn didn’t have much control over anything she did, from gorging on ice cream or watching multiple episodes of Designing Women and The Golden Girls when she was meant to be working.
    So far she’d been pretty proud of herself for not going off the deep end with what she’d seen and felt at the cottages.
    “It’s okay,” she muttered to herself as she walked along the path to the bookstore. “Just because I see a ghost, and the ghost knows I am there too, doesn’t mean there’s a big mystery to solve or that it needs my help…”
    She was talking to herself more and more these days. She really did need to make some friends. It was hard making friends, though, when she was almost constantly on the road.
    The bookstore had been many things in the past, but now the circular historical building held lots of goodies, from new releases to photographic and historical collections of the Golden Isles. Taryn might have been able to brush off what she’d experienced at the cottage, and even chalked up what happened at the hotel as another aspect of her ability, but she couldn’t ignore the dream.
    The hanging had felt real. She’d seen it as clearly as if she’d actually been there herself. The fact that she saw it through a ghost’s eyes was unnerving, but she was now convinced that she was meant to do something about it.
    “The hanging has to have something to do with one of the cottages,” she whispered as she slipped through the door.
    It didn’t take her long to find the “local” section of the shop. Soon, she was sitting on the floor, her back against a shelf, with a stack of books at her side. She’d purchase the ones that were most useful but for the moment she needed to check things out and see what they offered. Around her were the sounds of quiet shoppers, silently removing books and flipping through their pages, the only real sound being the cash register and fluttering of paper. She enjoyed the fact that some people treated bookstores as reverently as they did places of worship.
    The first few books were