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

whatever.” The truth of the matter was, Taryn was a little embarrassed to have maid service where she was staying. At a hotel it would’ve been different but at the house it just felt lazy.
    “You know, I don’t mind if I do take a little rest,” Carla laughed. "I'm trying to break in new shoes and they’re killing me.”
    She took a seat in a chair across from Taryn and stretched her legs out in front of her. Her strappy sandals were cute but didn’t look comfortable to work in.
    “Gotta big date tomorrow night and wanted these all ready,” she explained. “I usually wear tennis shoes but this is the only way I could get ‘em turned in good.”
    Taryn nodded. “I understand. I collect cowboy boots. I love them but until I’ve worn them for a few weeks they’re not the best to walk around in, especially if the heel is tall.”
    “So I see you’re an artist,” Carla said. “I saw your paint stuff.”
    Taryn nodded. “Yes, I am here to paint a couple of the cottages for the hotel.”
    “I’ve never met a real artist before. I mean, we get a lot of photographers in here who call themselves artists but I don’t know about that,” Carla said. “Seems like these days if you can afford yourself an expensive camera and editing software anyone can call themselves an artist.”
    Taryn knew what she meant. There were quite a few people she’d graduated from college with who were trained photographers and complained about the same thing. It was getting harder for them to make a living now since so many people were able to take their own pictures these days and make them look good.
    “Some people don’t exactly call me an artist either,” Taryn explained. “They say my paintings are too literal, which is a nice way of saying I don’t use my imagination and just paint things the way they are.”
    “Can those people paint?” Carla countered.
    Taryn laughed. “Sometimes not.”
    The irony was that while Taryn might paint what was in front of her, rather than draw from inspiration, she did have to use her imagination for the majority of her work. She reconstructed things that were no longer there. But that was another can of worms.
    “So do you live here on the island or do you commute?” Taryn asked.
    Carla snorted and smoothed down her khaki shorts. Taryn envied her long, brown legs and decided then and there that she was going to make a better effort to get back to the beach.
    “I can’t afford to live here. I live over in Brunswick.”
    “Is it expensive here then? It’s hard for me to judge since I am just a visitor.”
    “Housing is high,” Carla said. “High here and high on St. Simon’s next door. Didn’t use to be. Used to be you could live in a pretty nice house with a yard for not much more than what things were going for in Brunswick. Now you pay twice, maybe three times as much.”
    “Who’s living in these expensive homes?”
    Carla grimaced and rolled her eyes. “Mostly people from out of the area. They come in and build these new developments over on St. Simon’s. Put in their half million dollar homes, call them ‘vacation’ homes because they want to be a part of the island life, and then throw up big gates around them and close themselves off. They’d do it here, too, except they can’t.”
    “Because it’s protected?” Taryn asked.
    Carla nodded. “Yeah, but they find ways around that. Did you see that big new hotel they’re putting up by the water?”
    Taryn said she had noticed it.
    “Well, don’t even let me get started on all the drama that’s caused.”
    Long after Carla left, and as Taryn was going back through her pictures, she let her words replay themselves in her mind. It was interesting that the rich people were coming to the islands and buying things up. It seemed like someone was always after Jekyll and St. Simon’s. The Native Americans had been there first and then they’d been run off by the first settlers. That first group had been run off by a