"This contemporary mystery is drenched with Florida history and with gothic elements that should appeal to a broad range of readers." — Booklist Faye Longchamp and husband Joe Wolf Mantooth have founded an archaeological consulting firm—just in time for the economy to tank. But a meeting with a couple who run an elegant B&B in a historic home in St. Augustine, Florida, lands the firm's first big project. Within a day of their arrival at Dunkirk Manor, a lovely young employee disappears, leaving behind a sinister smear of blood in her car, a collection of priceless artifacts, and a note asking for Faye's help. Two days later, the missing woman's boyfriend is found floating in the Matanzas River, his throat slashed. The detective in charge of the case believes that the artifacts are key to the crime and hires Faye to track down their origin. The artifacts Faye and Joe excavate at their work site date from every era of St. Augustine history, and the discovery of a buried cache of children's toys from the 1920s hits eight-months-pregnant Faye particularly hard. Dunkirk Manor seems haunted in a way that Faye can't explain. Then a stunning discovery is made: the diary of a priest who left Spain in 1565 and was present at the city's birth. Faye is driven to translate the manuscript. In what could be an unfolding tale by the Brothers Grimm, Faye and Joe uncover some terrible secrets.... Mary Anna Evans is the author of the Faye Longchamp archaeological mysteries, which have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Mississippi Author Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. She is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing. Check out her website , enewsletter , facebook author page , and twitter . Winner of the 2018 Sisters in Crime (SinC) Academic Research Grant Strangers A Faye Longchamp Mystery By Mary Anna Evans Poisoned Pen Press Copyright © 2010 Mary Anna Evans All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-59058-742-3 Chapter One Faye Longchamp-Mantooth was capable of lust. Her handsome husband Joe could turn her head without even trying, just by stooping down to tie his moccasins. Since Faye was an archaeologist, sometimes the things that inflamed her passion weren't even alive. She had a specific fetish for handcrafted homes that bristled with wretched excess. She lived in just such a home. Joyeuse, the two-hundred-year-old plantation house that had been handed down through her family for generations, was in the midst of an extensive restoration. It would always be in the midst of an extensive restoration. Quite frankly, it was a money pit. But she loved its finely restored spiral staircase because she and Joe had restored it themselves, and she adored the frothy perfection of the murals on its bedroom walls. Her home had been built by slaves who were her ancestors. It had been built for those slaves' masters, who were also her ancestors. Joyeuse and its complicated history were as much a part of her family as her mother and her grandmother had been. As Faye walked through the grand doorway of Dunkirk Manor, she felt a familiar quickening of her pulse. This, too, was a house worthy of lust. The heavy door swung wide, and Faye walked in. The high-ceilinged entry hall functioned as a library and art gallery. Its ornate wooden staircase climbed past a fine collection of early-twentieth-century oils so vibrant that Faye made plans to come back and enjoy them more closely. The staircase rose a balcony that circled the room and provided access to thousands of old books. Burgundy, navy, black, cocoa, crimson—their faded leather bindings were as colorful as the paintings on the walls below. The gilt lettering on their spines was worn, but it still sparkled. Faye didn't just lust after old houses. She also lusted after books. Joe didn't mind. He knew she lusted after him, too. He walked beside her through this living museum. His handmade moccasins didn't make a sound on the burnished oak floor. Faye and the rest of her work crew—Magda Stockard-McKenzie, Kirk Graham, and Levon Broome—clattered carefully across the gleaming floorboards in their work boots. Magda clutched her daughter Rachel's hand as if she were afraid the child would leave behind a trail of little-girl-shaped smudges. There wasn't a speck of dust on those shiny oak floors. There wasn't a mote of dust in the cool quiet air. The wood-paneled walls gleamed behind gilt-framed paintings, and the leaded glass windows on either side of the enormous front door were surrounded by flawless velvet hangings in an unexpected but perfect shade of burnt orange. It was as if the Gilded Age had never ended, and an army of chambermaids prowled the house constantly, armed with feather dusters and lemon oil. It was as if the phrase "minimum wage" had never been coined. Glynis Smithson ushered them through all this perfection. She was the pe