Cemetery Hill (Sunshine Walkingstick Book 3)
Page 1
Table of 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
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Cemetery Hill
A Sunshine Walkingstick Novel
Celia Roman
Published by Bone Diggers Press, Clayton, GA.
© 2017 C.D. Watson. All Rights Reserved.
Cover © Domi Hlinkova, Inspired Cover Designs.
ISBN 978-1-943465-27-9
Description of Cemetery Hill:
After my uncle Fame run his wife off for messing around with his brother, we thought for sure we seen the last of 'em. Good riddance to bad blood, right?
Only, weren't no Happy Ever After in store for any of us. When my errant aunt and uncle turned up dead on Cemetery Hill, was Fame what was arrested for the crime, and me he turned to for help, on account of the long-standing blood feud between him and the sheriff.
I weren't one for keeping my nose outta trouble nohow, but once I started poking around, trouble weren't the only problem I found.
The Sunshine Walkingstick Series
Greenwood Cove
The Deep Wood
Cemetery Hill
Also available in this series:
Death Omen
Get Death Omen for free.
License Notes: This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is purely a coincidence. Actual localities and entities are mentioned solely for the purpose of adding realism to the story.
Table of 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
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter One
The phone shrilled its annoying chirp, waking me from a deep sleep. I rolled over and groped a hand across the bed to the nightstand. My fingers hit my cellphone, and away it went, skidding across the polish slicked surface onto the shag carpeting.
Damn it all to hell and back.
I sat up and flipped on the bedside lamp, already regretting the two quarters I’d be donating to my cussing jar, and blinked my sleep deprived eyes in the too bright light ‘til they focused on the phone lying like a black stone on the sea’s surface. It’d landed face up. Soon as I saw the name of the caller, my heart flipped over behind my sternum and a sappy grin replaced my irritated scowl.
Riley Treadwell, a childhood friend and my newly acquired boyfriend. We been dating for a while now, long enough for me to relax into the idea, but not so long we felt free to broach the s-e-x subject ‘less we had to. Riley was gung ho and ready to go, but me, I was a mite skittish about the whole subject for reasons I didn’t much like to ponder.
I leaned over, fished the phone outta the carpet, and thumbed the call open. “Hey.”
“Get dressed, Sunny.”
Riley’s voice held a grim note, tense and completely contrary to his normal, laid back drawl. I sat straight up and glanced at the time. 2:48 a.m., far too early for him to even be awake, let alone calling me. A cold knot of dread slid into my stomach. I flipped the covers off my bare legs and shivered in the bedroom’s too cool air.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Dad’s on his way over to Fame’s to arrest him.”
“What in tarnation for?” I squawked.
“Some kids found Fame’s wife and brother out on Cemetery Hill.” Riley sighed and a sound like skin scraping against skin filtered through the connection. “They’re dead, Sunny, both of them.”
And ever body knowed Fame’d run his wife off for cheating on him with his brother. Ever body also knowed Sheriff Treadwell, Riley’s daddy, and my uncle was in a long-standing feud, ‘though what they was a-feuding over was anybody’s guess.
“Shit,” I muttered, and winced. Three quarters in one night after being good for so long. Oh, well. The preacher man’d be able to do something good with my bad, surely.
I cradled the cellphone between my shoulder and ear, yanked open a dresser drawer, and fumbled for clean clothes. “How long ‘til he gets here?”
“Soon,” Riley said, real low and soft. “I’m sorry, Sunny. If I could do anything to stop him…”
“Ain’t nothing you can do, hon.” And that was a fact. Probably nothing I could do neither ‘cept warn Fame and Missy and my two cousins. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“I’ll be there soon as I can.”
“No,” I said right off, and slammed the drawer shut. “You go on back to bed. I’ll call you soon as I know something.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up, and soon as the line broke, I hit Fame’s number. He picked up on the first ring.
“The Sheriff’s on his way,” I said straight off. “Some kids found Lily and Ferd dead.”
“I’ll be ready for him,” Fame said in that deceptively soft voice of his, and that’s all either one of us needed to say. We hung up without another word, and I stumbled into the bathroom to clean up, shivering from the cold air and the sick feeling growing like a canker off the dread pooling in my gut.
Lily and Ferd dead. Fame the most likely suspect. And Sheriff Treadwell was on the case, good ol’ boy Chip Treadwell what had a burr in his side over Fame, and the weight of the law behind his gun. I didn’t need two guesses to know how the investigation was gonna go. Fame’d already been judged guilty by the folks in the know, and if them what knowed better didn’t do something, the hangman’d soon have another neck for his noose.
I shimmied into clothes quick as greased lightning, brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face, then grabbed a flashlight and about run out the door. I left Daddy’s hunting knife and my Ruger 1911 at home, both a near necessity in the woods. Weren’t no help for it. The law’d be at Fame’s any minute now, and my uncle didn’t need no more trouble aside from the steaming heap what’d already landed on his stoop.
I hoofed it up the trail betwixt his place and mine, far faster’n the dark night allowed, ignoring the cold and the intermittent calls of wild cri
tters hiding in the deep wood and the pull of healing wounds in my side. It’d only been three weeks or so since my grandma Walkingstick near about killed me. The claw marks she inflicted hadn’t healed yet, and I was pretty sure Doc’d have my hide if he found out I was stretching ‘em the way I was doing.
Shoot, forget the Doc. If Riley caught me, he’d hogtie me to my bed ‘til my side finished healing. I resolved right then and there not to breathe word one about it.
The front yard was empty, maybe a good sign, maybe bad. Soon as I skittered into it, huffing like a steam train and sweating buckets, Gentry stepped outta Fame’s trailer onto the front porch wearing a thin t-shirt and pajama bottoms.
“Izzat you, Sunny?” he called, and I waved a hand, too winded to holler a response.
Trey appeared behind Gentry and placed a broad-palmed hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. “C’mon back in, Gent.”
“But Sunny,” Gentry said, and his voice trailed off as Trey guided him into the bright warmth beckoning beyond the trailer’s front door.
Trey reappeared a minute later and shut the door behind himself. Thin streams of light spilled outta the windows, backlighting him. He stuffed his fingers in his front jeans pockets under his sturdy canvas work coat and waited patient like for me to trudge the rest of the way to him.
I stepped a foot on the lowest porch step and about dragged myself up the rest. “Them deputies ain’t come and gone already, has they?”
Trey shook his head. “Not yet. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Least I could do.” I stopped beside him and heaved in a deep breath. Lordy, I needed to work out more if a trot up the trail was enough to do me in. “What’s Fame saying?”
“Not a blessed thing.”
“He going quiet?”
One of Trey’s muscled shoulders lifted and fell beneath his jacket. “Ain’t running, is he?”
“Hunh.”
It was the only response I could muster. Never mind the lack of breath and the throbbing ache in my side. Guessing what Fame’d do next was foolhardy at best and downright dangerous at worst. I loved my uncle with all my bitty heart, but he weren’t one to cross and he sure weren’t the predictable sort.
I tried to swallow, coughed when my parched throat seized up.
Trey grasped my elbow and tugged gentle like. “You best come on in and get some water or something.”
I waved a thank you and let him lead me inside. Gentry was huddled on the couch still in his jammers, staring blankly at the blackened TV screen. Bless him, he was a kind soul, but thanks to his mama’s shenanigans when she was carrying him, he weren’t none too bright most days.
Missy entered the room and plopped into a chair at the dining table. Her skin was ashen. Dark shadows dimmed the violet of her eyes and her sable curls tumbled down around her robed shoulders. “Oh, Sunny. Thank God you’re here.”
I sat down beside her and cupped her icy hands between mine, what good it’d do. Mine was about as cold from being out in the December air as hers was from shock and stress. “Where’s Fame?” I managed to croak out.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she sniffed. “Taking a shower. Said it might be the last one he got for a while.”
The truth of that simple statement hit me harder’n a ton of bricks. I mustered a trembling smile around the worry accumulating in me piece by inevitable piece. “I’ll call Tom Arrowood. He’ll know what to do.”
“Oh, Sunny,” Missy said, and the tears overflowed and slid down her cheeks, two jagged, wet trails. “We knew this day was coming.”
That took me aback. “How?”
She glanced away and down, hiding her eyes, and I narrowed mine on her.
“What ain’t you telling me?” I asked.
She shook her head, scattering her sable curls. “Some things are beyond even your understanding, Sunshine Walkingstick.”
Fame shambled into the living area right then dressed in a crisp new flannel shirt and dark jeans. He finger-combed his wet, dishwater blond hair off his forehead and dropped into a chair next to Missy. “Hey, Sunny girl.”
“Thank Riley for the warning,” I said kindly tart like. Fame weren’t none too keen on me dating his oldest enemy’s son, and I weren’t none too keen on the way the two men sniffed around each other when they was in a company, like starving dogs eyeing a meaty bone.
“I figured.” He draped a loose arm around Missy’s shoulders and his wild blue eyes drifted to her, like they always done when she was within reach. “It’s up to you, Sunny.”
I nodded, not even questioning his meaning. It was up to me to make sure Missy and the boys was took care of. They was full growed adults ever last one, but without Fame’s guiding hand, trouble was sure to follow. For the boys anyhow, since they helped Fame with his business, some of which was extralegal.
Strong as she was, Missy’d need my support, too. She and Fame wasn’t married. Leastwise if they was, they hadn’t told us and neither one wore a ring. But the day she wandered outta the woods onto Fame’s front porch, she become family.
And family took care of its own.
“You’re a good woman, Sunny girl,” Fame said. “Remember that.”
An odd twist of dark foreboding slithered into my churning gut. “You say that like you ain’t gonna be around to tell me it again.”
His mouth tightened a hair. Whether he woulda replied or not, he lost the chance. The low buzz of car engines intruded, then shut off. Car doors slammed, and a minute later, booted feet stomped up the front porch and somebody banged on the front door.
“Open up, Carson,” Sheriff Treadwell boomed.
I half stood to open the door. Fame’s hand shot out and grasped mine, and he shook his head ever so slight.
Trey walked over and opened the door in my stead. “Sheriff,” he said, and his voice was ice and hate all rolled into one.
I kept my back to the door. Last time I laid eyes on the good Sheriff, he accused me of drugging his only son, him what’d been clocked from behind by that hussy Belinda Arrowood. My hand stiffened under Fame’s and his fingers tightened, digging into my skin. Weren’t no love lost between Sheriff Treadwell and the Carson brood. Thank the good Lord above that Riley took his nature after his sweet mama.
“I’m looking for your daddy,” the Sheriff said.
Fame squeezed my hand one last time, then stood and skirted the table. “I’m here, Chip.”
“Fame,” the Sheriff said in the same ugly tone Trey’d used. “We found your ex-wife and your brother out on Cemetery Hill.”
Fame’s expression remained unchanged. “I heard.”
“You need to come down to the station for questioning.”
“You got some evidence I done it?”
Sheriff Treadwell barked out a harsh laugh. “Hell, Fame. We all know what happened between Lily and Ferd.”
“Do we,” Fame said flatly, but it weren’t no question. “You can take me in, but I ain’t talking without my lawyer present.”
“Fair enough.”
I locked my eyes on Missy, willing myself not to turn around, not to look at the man what’d accused me of hurting one of the few folks what cared enough for me to treat me decent.
Unbidden, my mind lunged back to the day Mama come home with my daddy’s blood on her hands. He run off the week before with that vacuum cleaner salesman. Reckon it took her that long to track him down. One night she left me with Fame and her eyes was feral, like a rabid coon, dark and greedy and vengeful. Fame fed me and the boys, then sat us down on the couch with a movie, and that’s where we fell asleep, Trey cuddled up on one side of me, Gentry on t’other, like they knowed something was coming, something so bad, it’d eat us alive, bone, skin, hair, and all.
Mama woke me up the next morning, and her eyes wasn’t wild no more. They was peaceful, calm, but the stench of blood lingered, a coppery tart sting in my nose, and the awfullest feeling enveloped me.
“What’d you do, Mama?” I asked, but she just shushe
d me and carried me home, and tucked me in bed like she done when I was no bigger’n knee high to a cricket. Not like I was then, on the cusp of being a woman and in full possession of the knowledge that the world weren’t always a fair abode.
Was Sheriff Treadwell what come for her, back when he was still a deputy. Was Chip Treadwell what stood in that shabby living room with its puke green carpet and water stained ceilings, and told me the DFACS people was coming to get me.
Fame come for me instead, my uncle. My friend. Fame saved me from the hell of revolving foster homes and state welfare and the shame of knowing my own family betrayed me.
Missy’s hands draped over mine, snapping me back to reality, and that smell come to me like it always done. Through the veil of the past, half lost in the horrifying memories of what I was and where I come from, I almost blurted out a question right there as to why. Why’d the scent of the tomb and the battlefield always linger around Missy, sweet Melissa with her warm smiles and generous heart? And why did nobody else seem to notice it the way I done?
Metal snicked and slid into place. I went taut as a bowstring, and in my mind, the memory of Mama’s arrest overlapped Fame’s. Handcuffs. Sweet Jesus.
“Remember what I said, Sunny girl,” Fame said. “Trey, you know what to do.”
Then the Sheriff dragged him outta the trailer and the door closed behind him, and ever good thing I knowed come crashing down around me, shattering like a star exploding in the night sky.
Chapter Two
Hands fell on me, tender rain against my skin, and a familiar voice murmured, “It’s ok, baby. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
I turned toward Riley. He was kneeling beside my chair dressed in warm, casual clothes. Jeans, a thick flannel shirt under a black ski jacket, boots. His auburn hair flashed blond and red amidst the brown, and his hazel eyes was pinched at the corners.
My mind was blank as a clean slate and my heart too numb to process his arrival. What was he doing here, tangled up in this mess? Why’d he come?