Table of Contents
Synopsis
Praise for Sheri Lewis Wohl
By the Author
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Books Available From Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
A call she never expected to receive. A plea she never wanted to hear. Forgiveness she never intended to give.
Lorna Dutton wouldn’t take a call from Anna Frye if she was the last person on earth. Despite the unconditional love Lorna has discovered with Renee Austin, she is far from ready to forgive Anna for dumping her for another woman. Some wounds cut too deep. But when Anna’s wife, Sadie, goes missing and the police are getting nowhere, Renee convinces Lorna to do the unthinkable: she takes Anna’s call begging Lorna to use her psychic abilities to find her wife. Always reluctant to use her psychic powers, Lorna is faced with a hard decision. Will Lorna be able to move past the history of lies and betrayal to help? Or will an unseen evil take Sadie beyond salvation?
Third in the Reluctant Psychic Series
Praise for Sheri Lewis Wohl
Scarlet Revenge
“Vampire stories have been written by hundreds of authors, but this is probably one of the few times that you will actually see one who works at the Library of Congress…With the setting of the story, it almost gives the feel of National Treasure meets paranormal.”—American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table
Vermilion Justice
“It’s probably impossible to read this book and not come across a character who reminds you of someone you actually know. Wohl takes something as fictional as vampires and makes them feel real. Highly recommended.”—American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table
Necromantia
“This is one of the most sensational and thrilling books I have read in a long time. From the stirring opening scenes to the dramatic and exhilarating conclusion, this novel keeps the reader completely engrossed.”—Rainbow Reviews
Twisted Screams
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Twisted Screams
© 2016 By Sheri Lewis Wohl. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-648-7
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: September 2016
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Shelley Thrasher
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])
By the Author
Crimson Vengeance
Burgundy Betrayal
Scarlet Revenge
Vermilion Justice
Twisted Echoes
Twisted Whispers
Twisted Screams
Necromantia
This book is dedicated to
Linda Emerson, whose art has always been an inspiration, and her willingness to share her talents to teach so many of us is a testament to the generosity of her soul.
And to Steve Emerson, whose incredible research into the history of the Spokane area has more than once helped to ignite my imagination.
The weak can never forgive.
Forgiveness is the attribute
of the strong.
—Mahatma Gandhi
Chapter One
Sadie returned to consciousness with a start. Jesus, everything hurt. She pushed up to a sitting position and rubbed her head. When she moved even slightly, little sparks of bright light appeared in front of her eyes, and pain shot through her skull. She was no doctor, but she had to believe that wasn’t a good thing.
What the hell had happened to her and where was she? Everything was foggy and unclear, made worse by the pounding in her head. How could she think when lightning bolts blasted across her skull? For at least a full minute she sat still, willing the waves of pain to subside. Tentatively, she tilted her head one direction and then the other. Her stomach didn’t roll, and the sparks behind her eyes disappeared.
One more minute of stillness and she began to feel more like herself. She risked an unhurried look around, moving her head slowly so as not to trigger pain. Dim light filtered through windows caked with decades’ worth of grime and fell across the dusty floor. A tall ceiling made the room feel massive. Lined up against the walls were rows of old metal bed frames that once had held their now-missing single mattresses. It was a dormitory, but where? She didn’t remember the room or even coming into a building.
Think, Sadie, think. How in the world had she ended up in this dusty old building? Blackouts were not her thing, so surely if she tried hard enough she’d remember. Gradually, recollection rolled in and a whisper of relief loosened her shoulders. Unfortunately, it didn’t help to make any more sense out of where she sat. She was so certain she hadn’t gone into any building and definitely not into this room. She’d remember seeing this place if she had.
Earlier, she’d been out scouting locations for the television series her company would be filming over the next year. First, she’d checked out the old monastery on Mt. Spokane, and then she went to a fascinating homestead cemetery on the north side of town. Both turned out to be incredible and perfect locations for several episodes of the new series that would showcase the area. She’d been really excited by the finds, that much she did remember.
The cemetery was the last place she could clearly recall. Her next stop was to have been the abandoned grounds of the mental hospital west of the city, and if this was the hospital, she had no clue how she got here. She couldn’t recall leaving the cemetery or even walking back to her car, for that matter. It was at least thirty miles between the cemetery and the hospital, so how in the world did she get here?
Her hands on the floor, she pushed until she was up and on her feet. The dizziness returned and for a moment she swayed. Chills raced down her spine, and she was afraid she might crumple back down to the dirty floor. With effort, she managed to stay on her feet, her legs still trembling a little. She took a deep breath and coughed like an old smoker. Good grief. It smelled as bad as it looked. She put a hand over her mouth and nose, her eyes watering. Slowly she took her hand away and let the odor of the room wash over her.
She scanned the room, and as she breathed in and out, the scent of the empty room took shape. By all rights it should smell of dust and disuse, except what hit her with hurricane force was more than the dirt and mold of a long-unused space. Something very different assailed her senses. This, she decided, reminded her of unwashed bodies and stale sweat. Like an old locker room that
hadn’t been cleaned in weeks or months. The scent also held a freshness, as if those who had passed through to leave a trail of odor behind had exited mere hours ago. Deliberately she did a full circle, taking in the tall walls, old furniture, and the cobwebs hanging from the corners.
What exactly she was looking for, she didn’t know, and frankly, nothing jumped out at her. It was an old, unused room, empty save for the black, dented frames of the numerous single beds that looked sad in their neglected, discarded state. Certainly those things accounted for at least some of the scent of decay and abandonment. It was what she didn’t see that confused her. No tossed-aside clothing, no visible dampness or mold, nothing that would fill the air with the odor of a recently vacated locker room.
Her heart always in the game, she shifted from confused to work mode. Briefly, she considered how this room would play on film. Light and dark, shadows and sunshine, crowded and spare. That it would work on a number of levels sent a shock of excitement through her, and she wished she had her tablet in hand so she could take pictures and make notes. Then a shot of pain zipped through her head again, and all thoughts of work, cameras, and sets disappeared.
As she massaged her temples with her fingers it occurred to her that maybe it was all in her head. Judging by the way it hurt, she could have suffered a concussion, and if that was true, she might easily imagine things that weren’t there. Yes, that must be it. She was suffering from a head injury, and that’s why she couldn’t remember how she came to be in this room. Or, for that matter, how she’d even hit her head.
The way she figured it, the best thing she could do was get outside and draw in a good long breath of fresh air. Get away from all the dust and God knows what else that was circulating in the air she was breathing in and out. Once her head cleared, she’d be able to figure out exactly what had happened. Come to think of it, her car was probably outside too, along with her cell phone and her tablet with mobile Internet access. Help was a quick call and email away.
At the opposite end of the room was a single closed door and, she realized, her only way out. It struck her a little odd as she made her way to the door that a room this large had only one avenue for ingress and egress. What kind of architect would design this type of room with only one door? Then again, it was an old building, and things in decades past didn’t always make sense in today’s world. With each step, her head pounded like someone was smacking her with a baseball bat. Whatever she’d done, she’d done it in a big way. This was going to take a bit more than fresh air. Probably more like an ice bag and a handful of ibuprofen. Or, though she hated to consider it, a trip to the ER.
At the door, she closed her hand around the brass knob and twisted. It was cold and hard in her hand, and it didn’t budge, not even a centimeter. Well, now that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, considering it had to have turned for her to get in here in the first place. She tried harder. Still nothing. She let her hand drop away and stepped back, biting her lip as she studied the stubborn door. Even though the pain inside her head was now pounding away at hurricane force, the truth pierced the fog: locked. Not just locked, either, but locked from the outside, as if whoever occupied the beds were prisoners more than occupants.
One more time she tried. “What’s the definition of stupid,” she muttered to the empty room. “Trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Her self-incrimination fell on an empty and silent room.
Panic started to rise as the reality of her situation settled in, and her hands trembled as she patted her pockets. Maybe she hadn’t left her cell in the car, but as she thumped her hands against her pockets, her heart sank; the cell phone wasn’t on her. More than likely, she’d dropped it in the bag she used when scouting locations. She carried all sorts of things in that bag: a cell phone, her SLR camera, a sketch pad, some granola bars. The bag went where she went, so it had to be here somewhere. Again, she surveyed the room. It wasn’t anywhere in sight. No closed closet doors or cubby holes where she could have dropped it. In fact, the only thing in the room besides the skeleton bed frames was her. Her bag wasn’t here.
Forcing herself to stay calm, Sadie looked around one more time. If she couldn’t make a call, she had to find another way to get out of this place. The windows beckoned to her like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. That was it: she could crawl out a window. It made perfect sense. Once more ignoring the pounding in her head, she hurried over to the old, dirty windows. The sooner she got the hell out of this room, the sooner she could get home to her bottle of ibuprofen and her nice comfortable sofa, where she could relax and put her feet up. Most of all, she could give Anna a kiss and tell her how much she loved her.
At the bank of windows covering the south wall, she stopped and stared, and tears began to pool in her eyes. Even if she could find a way to open one of them, it was pretty clear she wouldn’t be crawling out. If she managed to break away enough of the rusted bars to squeeze through—and she was coherent enough to realize that was a long shot—the four-story drop would more than likely kill her. Her back against the wall, Sadie slid to the floor and gave in to sobs.
*
“No fucking way.” Lorna Dutton stared at the phone and refused to touch it. While she understood it was an inanimate object, she had the feeling that if her fingers came in contact with the phone, it would burn them. She wanted nothing to do with it or the person on the other end of it, so she kept her hands clamped to her sides.
The very last person in the world she expected to hear from was Anna, yet that’s exactly what Jolene Austin, her housekeeper extraordinaire who also happened to be her girlfriend’s mother, was telling her as she held the phone toward her. Seconds before the phone rang, she’d been enjoying great coffee and great conversation in her bright kitchen, feeling optimistic about the start to the day. Talk about a buzz kill.
Jolene patiently waited, the phone held out toward Lorna, while her girlfriend, Renee, looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Really?” she said with an edge of sarcasm. Renee was the best, and Lorna loved every minute she spent with her. Except maybe for this particular minute. She couldn’t believe she was advocating that Lorna take the call.
Lorna pressed her lips together before blowing out a long breath, her hands still at her sides. This shouldn’t require an explanation. “Yeah, really.”
What the hell did she want to talk to Anna for? She’d dumped Lorna like she suffered from a contagious disease, and, Jesus, how she’d felt like shit for such a long time. In fact, she lived here on the coast of the Pacific Ocean instead of across the mountains in her hometown of Spokane because the future she’d thought she had with Anna had blown apart. Not in a pretty way either. No, it had blown like Mount St. Helens back in the eighties, covering everything with gray ash for hundreds of miles and making everything look like a barren, alien landscape. That’s how she’d felt at the time, gray and lifeless. She’d come here to hide and wallow in her misery, though as it all worked out, she’d discovered a wonderful new life that the beautiful Renee completed.
Come to think of it, Renee should be supportive in this one. Of all people, she knew how badly Anna had treated her and how hurt she’d been. Renee was the one to help her come out of the darkness and back into the light. Step by step, day by day, Renee was there for her, and slowly she’d come to see that her life hadn’t ended. In fact, it had just begun in so many ways.
Even given the happy ending to her tale of heartbreak, she didn’t owe Anna a damn thing. She refused to let her cast a cloud over what was turning out to be a great morning, and she wasn’t going to talk to her. Regardless of what Renee might think, she was going to hold a grudge, and that was that. She’d earned the right to dig in her heels on this one.
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not talking to her. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” She turned her gaze away from the phone that Jolene still patiently held without bothering to cover the mouthpiece. Anna, she was quite sure, was hearing the conver
sation taking place in the kitchen. Perhaps the best thing she could do was have another cup of Jolene’s excellent coffee, so that’s exactly what she did. Her hands shook a little as she poured coffee from the carafe into the mug, and silently she cursed herself. She was not bothered by this; she was not. Holding the hot mug between her hands, she leaned against the counter and pretended nothing at all had happened to disturb their congenial conversation.
Renee shook her head before sticking her hand out. “Give it to me, Mom. If one of us is too childish to take a call, I’ll have to be the adult here.”
This time Jolene raised an eyebrow and a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, but she still didn’t say anything, just handed the phone to Renee. Lorna didn’t move from where she continued to lean against the counter. She loved Renee, but her beautiful girlfriend wasn’t going to make her do something she was dead set against doing. Right was right and wrong was wrong. She was right. Anna was wrong.
On the other side of the kitchen, Lorna’s brother, Jeremy, was sitting at the kitchen table next to his pregnant fiancée, Merry. They looked at each other with expressions that seemed to say, “Oh, shit.” It wasn’t a stretch to figure out what they were thinking. The old Lorna might wig out, but they needn’t worry. She hadn’t been that person for a long time. Not that it changed anything about the current state of things. She didn’t intend to talk to Anna; neither did she intend to let her call disturb her day.
“Anna,” Renee said in a friendly tone as she put the phone to her ear. “This is Renee Austin. I’m…” She paused for a second as she looked at Lorna and then smiled broadly. Her eyes were dancing as she continued. “Lorna’s fiancée.”
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