by A M Ialacci
Copyright © 2019 by A. M. Ialacci
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editing by: Amabel Daniels
Cover Design by: Alora Kate with Cover Kraze
Formatting: Tadpole Designs
Contents
ABOUT CRIMSON FALLS
2017
PROLOGUE
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
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
THE CRIMSON FALLS NOVELLA SERIES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To my family
ABOUT CRIMSON FALLS
In the late 1800’s, two brothers stumbled upon an unnamed village, surrounded by thick forest and fresh water to keep them protected and alive. The brothers were cruel men who wanted a home to call their own. In their darkest hour, the brothers slaughtered the villagers, dumping their bodies over the waterfall at the edge of town. People say the water ran red for weeks, giving the town its terrible name.
Ever since that horrible anniversary, Crimson Falls is haunted by its past with a present filled with violence and danger. Every October is filled with fear...and for good reason. On October 13th, the dreaded Founders Day, all the town’s crime comes to a head. And by the 14th, fewer will be alive than before.
Crimson Falls is a fictional town, created and shared by 8 mystery, suspense, and thriller authors. Each novella paints a picture about life in Crimson Falls and the insanity that takes place leading up to Founders Day.
Do you dare to read them all?
2017
PROLOGUE
Dear Cleo,
If you are reading this, I am now six feet under and pushing up daisies, and you have just been told that you now own my house in Crimson Falls and everything in it. I expect you to take good care of the house, all of my bluebird figurines, and especially Buttons. I’ll miss them where I’m going. Or maybe I won’t. Who knows.
I think you need something new in your life. You’ve made some terrible decisions and you need some time by yourself (and you are probably in need of a place to stay). I don’t know if Crimson Falls is your kind of town, but life is what we make of it. I was going to leave the house to your cousin Geraldine, but her prissy cats wouldn’t have gotten along with Buttons, and I know your dog is old and will die soon anyway. You were the logical choice.
There are some things you need to know about your new adoptive home, should you choose to move in, which you should, because if you sell my house, I will haunt you forever. This town was founded by some very bad people who killed some other people to gain control of the land, and they have been keeping the common folk around here under their thumb and scared ever since. Every October, the town “celebrates” its birthday, but strange things happen. Kids go missing, women get attacked, and people get killed. They leave that part out of the travel brochure, of course.
Some say it’s the descendants of that founding family reasserting their authority. Others say it’s just the evil in people coming out and taking advantage of the legend. Still, others say the town is cursed. I don’t know who’s right, I just know to stay indoors as much as possible during that second week of October, and make sure my mace is handy. In any case, the other fifty-one weeks of the year, it’s a nice place to live.
I’ve enjoyed watching you grow into a woman, Cleo, even if you did make some stupid mistakes and marry some even stupider men. Maybe Crimson Falls will help you find your way.
Take care of the house, and don’t feed Buttons any tuna. It gives him gas.
Love,
Great-Aunt Mildred
CHAPTER ONE
Cleo Kemp nearly jumped out of her skin when the bang of knuckles on aluminum announced the arrival of her handyman, Nicholas.
“Miss Cleo?” his husky voice rang out.
“Hey, Nicholas,” she said, standing up from the leather recliner which had been her base of operations since moving into her great-aunt’s house. Cleo stretched as various joints made popping noises, ran a hand through her spiky pixie cut, and then padded to the front door and opened it.
The door sucked cool air and the smell of decay into the entryway. Nicholas Stubbs stood with his hands in his jean pockets, leaning on his back leg. A flannel jacket fit snug to his body. His weathered face was a collection of wrinkles and small scars, and he was rumored to have lived a hard life. He stayed at the only garage in Crimson Falls in exchange for a little cleaning up, and did odd jobs for town residents. Cleo was a regular client now, and she had known he was coming to rake the leaves but had forgotten.
“Did you just want me to do the front?” A whiff of cigarette smoke reached her as he spoke.
Cleo looked at her watch. “Yeah, I’ve got some errands to run later. We can save the back yard for another day. You know where the rake is?”
Nicholas nodded, the ends of his silver hair brushing his chin as he waved at her and backed away under the canopy of the ancient oak tree in her front yard. Her gaze lifted to take in the whole thing, and a gust of cold wind knifed through her sweater from the open screen door. She let it slam shut and heard Nicholas’s voice from around the corner.
“I need to put your storm door on soon. Too cold for screens in October.”
She tucked her hands under her arms and breathed in the thick scent of rotting leaves. There were only patches left in that behemoth, and a heavy gray sky behind it. Nicholas had his work cut out for him.
Cleo closed the door, retreating to the warmth of the old bungalow. There were still boxes everywhere even though she had been in Crimson Falls for the better part of six months now. Her great-aunt Mildred had died and left her the house, a complete surprise but welcome coincidence to Cleo. Her second marriage had just fallen apart, and rather than get into a pissing contest with her crazy ex-husband about their stupid house, she had an instant escape plan. According to her aunt, Crimson Falls had a rather infamous history, but anywhere was better than living near her ex.
She hadn’t turned the lights on yet and realized she could look out the front windows without being seen. Her Canon was never far away and she reached for it now, focusing the lens on Nicholas working out front.
She suspected that his lined face had been handsome once, and even though his hands were rough from hard work and often lined with dirt or grease, there was a quiet solidity to
him. His presence was not unwelcome, she realized. Most men these days seemed stupid to her, or arrogant, or sexist. Every word that fell from their mouths was suspect. The few people in Crimson Falls in which she confided were women. A woman and a girl, in fact. Her neighbors, Imani and Kiara Fields.
Something about Nicholas drew Cleo’s attention, though. He was one of the few who knew she was not just an ambulance-chasing photographer. When he had come to fix her leaky kitchen faucet soon after she had moved in, he had seen the framed photos from her piece on homeless vets hanging in the hall, studying each of them for several minutes. When he was finished, he looked at her with pain in his eyes and nodded before turning to his work.
As he circled the tree, scraping the ground in swift strokes, Cleo followed his flannel-clad form with her viewfinder, watching in secret. She stopped a moment and reminded herself that she wasn’t a paparazzo either. But her curiosity won out as she raised the camera again, looking for anything in Nicholas’s movements that might tell her about the reticent man.
Shooting behind glass would never do, though, and it wasn’t like she was going outside. She carefully set her Canon on the coffee table as Oliver, her old hound-mix, plodded over to her and plunked his jaw onto her thigh. “Aw, Oliver. Is it your turn for some attention?” she asked, scratching his head and the spot just behind his ears. He sat back on his haunches and opened his mouth wide, tongue lolling, enjoying the scratches.
“Goddammitalltohell!”
Cleo’s spine straightened at the string of expletives clanging from the front yard. In a moment, she was on her feet, cramming them into her Doc Martens and running around the corner of the house.
“Nicholas! Are you all right?” she panted as she reached him. He was sitting on the damp ground, cradling his left foot.
“I’m fine, Miss Cleo. I was getting the yard bags out and I must have bumped that metal mallet hanging there. It fell on my foot, and I just happen to be wearing my light boots today. Probably a few broken toes.”
“Oh, shit, Nicholas, I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault, Miss Cleo. Just my clumsiness.”
“Do you need me to run you to the hospital in Arbordale?”
“Hospital! Hell no. Just give me a hand up, and I’ll get back to work.”
“Nicholas, you don’t need to—”
“Ma’am, I’m a man of my word. I told you I’d rake your front yard today, and I intend to rake your front yard.” He held out his hand.
Feeling uneasy about allowing Nicholas to hobble around her yard for the next couple of hours in pain, she could tell by the look in his eyes he would brook no argument. Cleo grabbed his hand and pulled him to a standing position. “All right then,” she said. “I’ll get out of your way.”
He nodded, reached for the rake, and started the job right where he stood. Cleo shook her head once and retreated to the house.
CHAPTER TWO
Great-Aunt Mildred’s multitude of bluebird collectibles watched Cleo as she shivered, closed the front door, and stood to look at the house that was hers in name but not quite hers in any other way. She stared back at them, biting her lip. Her gaze traveled over the moving boxes that still crowded the floor and had migrated to allow a path for Cleo’s petite frame to move around the first floor of the bungalow. Good thing I never have any visitors. It wound from the recliner where she had been startled by Nicholas’s knock, past the built-in bookcase where her police scanner was hooked up, to the dining room table where her laptop featured prominently in the midst of the workspace it had become. Oliver whined at her from his spot near the couch, and Cleo realized he needed to go out.
“C’mon, Ollie,” she said, grabbing her navy pea coat from the hook in the hall. She and Oliver navigated their way toward the kitchen at the back of the house. Cleo wondered briefly about dinner as she passed through and opened the back door to the deck.
It was warmer in the back yard but only slightly. The forest of trees here had not lost as many leaves and buffered the deck and the back of the house from the biting gusts of wind that were becoming more common these days. Oliver trotted off to find a private space to do his business, and Cleo glanced to her left, not wanting to intrude on her neighbor if she didn’t want to be bothered. More often than not, Imani and sometimes her daughter Kiara were spending time in their backyard, puttering as people in Crimson Falls seemed to do. Being a city girl, Cleo wasn’t quite used to the pace of life here, yet.
Nicholas must have brought his transistor radio, Cleo thought, as the ghost of a strain from a Led Zeppelin tune wafted her way from the front yard.
CHAPTER THREE
Cleo heard the scrape of a heavy sliding glass door and watched Kiara spill out into the backyard next door, grooving to whatever tune was blasting through her earbuds. Her mom, Imani, followed close behind, trying to get Kiara’s attention. Finally, Imani grabbed her shoulders and spun her around, pulling the earbuds out as Kiara stiffened in surprise.
“Listen to me when I speak to you, Kiara.”
“Yes, Mommy,” Kiara whimpered. Imani was a force to be reckoned with when angry.
“I need you to start raking the leaves back here, please.”
Kiara nodded and put the earbuds back in her ears as she went off in search of the rake. Imani noticed Cleo and waved as they both gravitated toward the usual spot at the fence.
“I see you got Nicholas raking for you in the front yard,” Imani said, jutting her chin toward the front of the house.
“I do,” Cleo said, bracing for what came next.
“I told you before to be careful of him,” Imani cautioned, smoothing imaginary stray hairs back into place in her tight bun. “Nicholas Stubbs has a bad history. Cocaine, some people say. Might even still be doing it.”
“I doubt it,” Cleo said. “Besides, we all self-medicate.” She looked down as she said this, aware of the small voice in the back of her head saying, like your bourbon.
“Cocaine, Cleo. We don’t all do cocaine. That’s all I’m saying. Be careful.”
“Noted,” Cleo breathed out. “And may I remind you that I’m not Kiara.”
Imani bowed her head and laughed. “No, you are not. Thank God!”
“Hey!” Cleo barked and punched Imani in the arm.
Imani held up her hands in defeat, still laughing. “Okay, okay. It’s just…you’re new and I want to make sure you understand what’s happened here. In this place.”
Cleo’s smile evaporated. “You’ve mentioned that, but a town like this can’t be all that bad. It’s tiny!”
Imani’s smile disappeared. She looked over her shoulder. Seeming satisfied that Kiara was preoccupied, she said, “Have I really not told you about all this?”
“Not in any explicit detail. All what?”
“This town has a bad history, Cleo. Didn’t your aunt tell you anything?”
“She wrote me a letter but I thought she had gone off her rocker a bit when I read it…”
“Listen, Cleo. I know you came here to escape your demons, but I’m afraid this isn’t the best place to do that.”
Cleo said nothing but shoved her hands in her pockets, listening to the swish of Kiara’s rake and a few sweet notes of her singing voice.
“When the town was founded, a family of homesteaders took another family’s land. Just showed up, built a house on property that wasn’t theirs, and when the rightful owners tried to get them off the land, this family killed them. Killed them all. At the waterfall. And the water ran red with blood that day, hence ‘Crimson Falls.’”
“When you said bad history, you didn’t tell me you were talking about ancient history.”
“I’m not done. Shut up.”
Cleo said nothing further but raised an eyebrow.
“This family just kind of took everything over, building on top of the burial grounds of that first family they killed. And they made a habit of celebrating their power every year, kind of like a show of force to remind everyone not to try any
thing or the falls would run red again. There’s been this…‘curse’ on the town ever since. Bad shit goes down every October. Kids go missing, people get killed. Some say it’s just people trying to get away with stuff, using this legend of the curse to get away with stuff, but I don’t care. I just try to keep my kid off the streets and watch my back.”
“You really believe the town is cursed, Imani?” Cleo asked, unable to ignore the goosebumps on her arm.
“I don’t know. Something weird happens every damn year. I hate it when Marcus is deployed in the fall.”
“When does he get back?”
“January.”
Cleo nodded. “Okay, I’ll be careful. But Nicholas is harmless.”
“Says you,” Imani said. “Did I see a police cruiser outside your house the other night?”
Cleo flushed. “Uh, yeah.”
Imani cocked an eyebrow.
“I, uh, had a bit too much at the Crooked Crow. I was walking home and, uh, fell in a ditch.”
Imani sighed and shook her head.
“Officer Truman found me and brought me home.”
“Cleo, honey. You’ll never find peace at the bottom of a bottle,” Imani said softly.
“I know.” Cleo looked away.
