by Jessa Archer
A Séance in Franklin Gothic
Thistlewood Star Mystery #3
Jessa Archer
Archer Mysteries
Contents
✰ Chapter One ✰
✰ Chapter Two ✰
✰ Chapter Three ✰
✰ Chapter Four ✰
✰ Chapter Five ✰
✰ Chapter Six ✰
✰ Chapter Seven ✰
✰ Chapter Eight ✰
✰ Chapter Nine ✰
✰ Chapter Ten ✰
✰ Chapter Eleven ✰
✰ Chapter Twelve ✰
✰ Chapter Thirteen ✰
✰ Chapter Fourteen ✰
✰ Chapter Fifteen ✰
✰ Chapter Sixteen ✰
✰ Chapter Seventeen ✰
✰ Chapter Eighteen ✰
✰ Chapter Nineteen ✰
✰ Chapter Twenty ✰
More Cozies from Jessa Archer
Sneak Peek: Scales of Justice (Legal Beagle Mysteries #1)
About the Author
A Séance in Franklin Gothic
Now you see her...now you don’t.
When Ruth Townsend discovers Tessa Martin’s body in an abandoned factory, sprawled across a Ouija board, she does the responsible thing and calls 911. But by the time Sheriff Blevins arrives, the body has vanished.
Blevins is convinced that Tessa is playing a hoax. But Ruth and her daughter, Cassie, both saw the body.
It all seems connected to an odd cult up in the mountains. Will Ruth figure out what happened to Tessa, or will the killer slither away?
✰✰✰
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✰ Chapter One ✰
The man smiled as the woman leaned in, her eyes bright and shining. She knew exactly what she wanted, and he was more than happy to comply.
I leaned over the railing and positioned my Nikon to catch a few more shots. These were exactly what I needed for the front page of this week’s Thistlewood Star.
He knew they needed to hurry, though, so he didn’t waste time with chitchat. The man simply asked the woman’s name and jotted a brief message across the blank page. Then he scrawled his signature below and smiled again before moving on to the next person in line.
It was a very impressive line, too, especially for a small town like Thistlewood, Tennessee. The Buzz, Thistlewood’s newest business, had been open for three weeks, but this was the official grand opening. It was also the release party for Ed Shelton’s latest mystery, Even in Death. Most of Thistlewood had turned out for the event, along with a smattering of tourists and people from neighboring towns. I recognized a lot of their faces, including a few that I’d pretty much guarantee hadn’t read a book in years. Most of them knew Ed from his years as sheriff of Woodward County. That was before I moved back to Thistlewood, but by all accounts, he’d been a very good sheriff. When an accident had forced his retirement seven years ago, he’d simply shifted to solving fictional crimes instead.
I’d already gotten one of the shots that I’d use for my article—Ed leaning back against the brick wall, next to a table stacked with copies of his two books. He looked darn good for sixty-one, and I felt a warm flush of pride. He’d worked hard and deserved this more than anyone I knew. And, yes, I would have thought that even if he wasn’t, as many of his fictional characters would no doubt put it, my main squeeze.
Wren Lawson, my best friend and proprietor of the local funeral home, joined me at the railing that looked down over the main floor of the bookstore. She was carrying a mug of something that smelled like coffee but was barely even beige. A milky white dot that almost looked like a flower decorated the center.
“What is this?” I asked as she handed me the cup.
“That is a white chocolate flat white. Your daughter swears it’s coffee. And she says she made it especially for you, so you have to drink it.”
I glanced toward the counter near the center of the mezzanine where my daughter, Cassie, was serving coffee and slinging pastries like a pro. Dean Jacobs, the local mailman and the owner of the shop, was also behind the counter, but there was no question who was running things. He might be the boss on paper, but he was only around in the evenings and on weekends. He’d hired Cassie to take charge, and she had…with a vengeance.
“Oh, the perils of motherhood,” I said before taking an experimental sip of the brew. “It’s not bad. But it’s also not coffee. More like coffee-scented hot chocolate.”
“Dean was onto something with all this,” Wren said, looking around. “Especially upstairs. I had no idea esports was even a thing.”
“Neither did I.” To be honest, I was amazed that the idea had worked. Not the bookstore, which Thistlewood had needed. The Buzz carried mostly used books, something that’s always welcome in a tourist town. People have plenty to do when the sun is shining, with the Freedom River just a few miles away and a slew of tourist attractions within easy driving distance. Evenings and rainy days, however, generally found people crowding into the diner, just down the street, rather than being holed up in their rental cabins. Escaping into a book was a welcome relief from trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that was missing five pieces or from listening to the kids whine about the cabin’s lack of Wi-Fi and the cell coverage up here in the mountains, which is spotty at best and often downright abysmal.
The coffee shop was clearly needed, too. Pat’s Diner was generally packed, and even the takeout line was intimidating in mid-summer. Once you got in, Patsy was quick to tell you that she only served real coffee, not the lattes, espressos, and cappuccino concoctions that so many vacationers seemed addicted to. And the one food truck in the park that had coffee on the menu served up a brew so strong that it could deadlift a horse.
But the idea of adding an esports area upstairs had been sheer genius. Dean had a contractor soundproof the upper floor and put in twenty top-of-the-line gaming computers. Parents were happy to cough up the cash for their kids—and often, for themselves—to spend a few hours playing their favorite multiplayer games online. And the non-gamers could hang out downstairs, drinking coffee and reading, while they waited.
In retrospect, Dean probably hadn’t even needed the soundproofing he’d put in upstairs. On the few occasions I’d ventured up to eBuzz to check things out, the large room was nearly as quiet as the bookstore, with each of the gamers wearing headphones. Aside from an occasional whoop of victory, the loudest noise was the hum of the computers.
Wren finished the last of her own not-quite-coffee and said, “Tell Ed I said congratulations. I’ll just get him to sign my copy next time I see him. I still need to bake some cookies and get some things together for the yard sale. You’re still coming early to help me get things set up, right?”
“Absolutely. Can’t wait.”
Wren laughed. “Now you’re just lying. But I do appreciate the help.” She gave me a quick hug and began winding her way toward the door.
Crowds really aren’t my thing, and now that Wren was gone, my inner introvert was pushing me to find a secluded corner where I could hide out. I’d already gotten all of the information and photos I needed for my story. Normally, I’d go hang with either Cassie or Ed, but they were both working. I scanned the room and noticed Ed’s sister Sherry at a small table in the closest thing to a secluded corner I was likely to find.
As the youngest of the Shelton clan, Sherry had been a few years behind me in school, so I hadn’t really known her all that well. Ed’s other sister, Kim, had been closer to my age. She was living with her husband out in Texas, where they bought old ho
mes, fixed them up, and flipped them. Made a pretty good living, too, from what I’d heard. Unlike Kim, Sherry had stayed in Thistlewood. She’d married a long-haul trucker, Jason Hanson, who had died of a heart attack a few months before I moved back to Thistlewood.
You’d never know Sherry had experienced a fairly recent loss to look at her. There was always a smile on her cheerful, round face. She’d simply thrown herself into her work—she ran an online tourism agency—and focused on their daughter, Kate, who had just started her senior year at Thistlewood High.
Sherry looked up and waved as I approached the table. “Ruth! Will you just look at Ed? I’m so proud of him.”
“So am I.” I motioned to the empty chair across from her. “Mind if I join you?”
“Of course. You don’t even have to ask. You know that.”
I pulled the chair out and sat down. “Where’s Ms. Kate tonight?”
“Out with friends.” Sherry rolled her eyes. “I told her she should come out and support her uncle, but looking at the crowd, I guess that wasn’t really necessary, was it? And she had an activity with this Thistlewood Hands club. They always seem to be doing something.”
“Thistlewood Hands? Did they even have that when we were in school?”
She shook her head. “It’s fairly new, I guess. A service club. They clean up the highways and the park. Hold fundraisers. That sort of stuff.”
“How’s she doing?” I asked. “I haven’t seen either of you in ages.”
“Oh, we’re both doing fine. Kate’s diving straight into her senior year, although it really doesn’t seem like they should start school at the end of July like they do. Back in the day, we used to get the whole summer. Anyway, she’s getting ready to apply to the University of Tennessee. Hard to believe she’s almost grown.”
“I’m glad to hear she’s planning to stay close to home,” I said. “Has she decided on a major?”
Sherry laughed. “Yes. Four or five different majors, and that was just over the summer. But I guess most people change their majors at least a few times after they start college.”
“True. Not me, though. I knew I was going to be a journalist after my first week working at the Star.”
“Mr. Dealey was so proud of you, too. A friend of mine worked with him during our senior year and she said he bragged all the time about how you went on to work at the biggest paper in the state.”
“And here I am, right back where I started,” I said, laughing.
Prior to my move back to Thistlewood, I’d spent nearly twenty-five years, first as a reporter and then as an editor, with the Nashville News-Journal. When they were bought out by one of those large national newspaper chains and began downsizing, they’d offered me an early retirement package. After some hesitation, I’d decided to take it. That was about the same time that my husband, the man I’d been with even longer than I had with the News-Journal, decided he also wanted to downsize. When I’d left for college at age seventeen, I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that I would never, ever move back to this tiny town. But I’d never sold the house just outside of town that my parents left to me. My best friend, Wren, had already moved back to Thistlewood to run the funeral home. And five years after Jim Dealey’s death, the Thistlewood Star had still been looking for a new owner.
It was almost as if someone had painted a giant arrow in the sky pointing toward Thistlewood. This Way to Ruth Townsend’s Second Act.
And so, I’d piled my things into the Jeep and headed back to the mountains. The only thing I’d really missed in Nashville, aside from decent cell phone coverage, was my daughter. A few months later, Cassie had decided to make the move as well.
Sherry was looking over at the table where Ed was chatting with readers. “In some ways, I think Ed was destined for this. He loved law enforcement, and he was a really good sheriff. Unlike that snake Blevins who replaced him. But Ed has always been a storyteller. When I was a little girl, I looked forward to the nights when he was home. Whatever book Mama or Daddy was reading to me, it didn’t matter. It got pushed aside. I liked the stories Ed made up for me so much better.”
I motioned toward the long line of people waiting to have their book signed and smiled. “Looks like you’re not the only one who likes his stories.”
She nodded, and then leaned forward, whispering across the table like she was sharing some deep secret. “I have to be honest, though. Ed really does have a gift for words, but his imagination can be a little dark sometimes. I prefer the stories he told me as a little girl. They usually had a princess and a dragon. Maybe even a unicorn. He’d always make them a little bit scary, but not so much that I’d have nightmares. His last book was too intense for me. So much death and murder. There’s enough of that in real life. I’d really rather read a nice romance, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A little romance in the mix is fine. But mysteries have always been more my thing.”
“And that’s why the two of you are perfect for each other.” Sherry’s eyes traveled behind me to the front door. “Speaking of mysteries, that woman looks like one of those femme fatales from Ed’s books, doesn’t she? All she needs is a trench coat and a pistol.”
I turned to look and saw a tall young woman with hair the color of a copper penny in the doorway. She was beautiful, as pale and thin as a runway model. The door closed behind her with a little hiss, blowing her long tresses aside to expose a long, graceful neck.
“She’s definitely not from here,” Sherry said.
I managed to fight back a chuckle, which was good since I’d probably have had to explain it. Wren and I often laughed about the Thistlewood hierarchy. There was from-here, which— depending entirely on who was doing the assessment—could mean anything from starting kindergarten in Thistlewood to having a pedigree that went back three generations. Everyone else was not-from-here. Wren and I had both fallen into that latter category, since we didn’t arrive in Thistlewood until our early teens. We’d both had a bit of a tough time due to our not-from-here status until Tanya Blackburn, who was sort of the queen bee of our class, took us under her wing. Wren’s situation had been worse than mine, truthfully, since Woodward County is about as undiverse as you can get.
Sherry’s eyes widened. “Ruth. She’s coming this way.”
I turned sideways in my chair just as the young woman came to a stop next to our table. She didn’t look at me, not at first, anyway. Her bright green eyes were locked on Sherry.
“Are you Sherry Hanson?”
Sherry nodded, giving the newcomer a confused smile. “Yes. I’m sorry. Have we met?”
“Actually, we haven’t met. I’m Mindy Tucker. Your niece.”
“My niece?” Sherry said with a nervous little laugh. “I’m sorry. There must be some mistake.”
The girl sighed. “I hate springing this on you so suddenly, but I thought it might be best to talk to you first. I’m afraid this will be a bit of a shock for your brother, and…I thought it might help if there was someone else with him when he and I speak for the first time. I considered sending a message, but…some things really do need to be handled in person, don’t you think?”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you saying you’re Ed’s…daughter?” Even as my mind dismissed the words, my eyes searched her face for any resemblance to Ed. I couldn’t see any. Of course, that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
Sherry looked a bit like she’d swallowed a lemon. Was she angry or embarrassed? “Ed doesn’t have a daughter.”
The smile vanished from Mindy’s face. “Apparently, that’s not true. My mother didn’t tell me until recently. I haven’t been able to screw up the courage to contact him, but we’re in town for a gig and I was walking by and I saw the poster.”
A gig? Did she mean a temp job? That made no sense. Much of Thistlewood’s economy is seasonal, dependent on tourism, and the current drought had cut deeply into the number of visitors. Businesses were laying people off early, not hiring new temps.
“It was sort of like…fate,” the girl continued. “Like this was meant to be our first meeting.”
I opened my mouth to point out that the launch party for Ed’s book would, in fact, be a very bad time for their first meeting. But I never got the words out. The front door banged open. All three of us jumped and turned toward the entrance.
Ed’s niece stood framed in the doorway. Her long blonde hair was a tangled mess, plastered to her face by sweat.
“Kate?” Sherry leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
The girl looked around wildly, clutching the doorway to keep her balance. Sherry stood up so quickly that her chair toppled to the ground, and she ran toward her daughter. I glanced over at the signing table and saw Ed excusing himself to the people in line as he pushed himself to his feet.
Sherry reached Kate within seconds, pulling her away from the open door and guiding her toward a chair. Kate moved like she was on autopilot, her eyes wide and vacant.
“Katie,” Sherry said, kneeling down next to the girl. “What’s wrong, honey? Talk to me.”
Kate blinked and looked around. She seemed a little startled, almost as if she was seeing her surroundings for the first time. Then she said something in a jagged whisper that I couldn’t make out, aside from the single word: Tessa.
Sherry couldn’t decipher it either. “What is it, baby? I can’t understand you. You’re scaring me.”
Ed touched my shoulder. “What happened?”
“Something with Tessa Martin,” Sherry said in a low voice.
