When Delaney Delacroix is called to locate a missing girl, she never plans on getting caught up with a human trafficking investigation or with the local witch. Meeting with Raelin Montrose changes her life in so many ways that Delaney isn’t sure that this isn’t destiny.
Raelin Montrose is a practicing Wiccan, and when the ley lines that run under her home tell her that someone is coming, she can't imagine that she was going to solve a mystery and find the love of her life at the same time.
A Jennis Slaughter Novel
Coming soon from Shadoe Publishing:
INTUITION
JENNIS SLAUGHTER
Insight
Published by:
Shadoe Publishing on CreateSpace
Copyright © 2013 by Jennis Slaughter
ISBN-13: 978-1490326047
ISBN-10: 1490326049
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Jennis Slaughter or Shadoe Publishing, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, or journal.
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Insight
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
A Preface a
Spots blurred her vision as she ran, stumbling through the underbrush like prey trying to evade capture. Her lungs burned, desperate for more air as she gasped for breath. Her body was starting to shut down on her, but she pushed on. What had started as a simple quest for answers had turned into something much darker, and much, much more sinister. Never in her short span of years would she have suspected such a small, quiet community to harbor such secrets.
Her feet tangled beneath her, nearly sending her to the ground as she heard the distinct sounds of her pursuers crashing through the bushes behind her. They were getting closer, and she was getting tired. Her initial struggle for freedom had drained most of her energy in the first place, and she had suffered a nasty hit to the head along with a few good shots to her stomach. She’d been running for a good ten minutes now, unsure how much longer she could go on, desperate to get away.
Blood dripped into her eye from the gash in her forehead, and adrenaline was the only thing keeping her going. She was lost, hopelessly so, having run blindly across the backfield, and in the dead of night no less. She’d been hoping to make the forest line, and some cover. Perhaps she could find a good place to hide, and allow her body some rest At least the initial brush had turned to tall grass. For once in her life, she was thanking the Gods for her smaller stature.
Auburn hair fell into her face, and she quickly brushed it away. She was almost there, she could smell the pine, the tang of decomposing leaves, and she pushed harder. Using the last of her energy, she struggled through the last few yards as she allowed herself one small moment of hope, if she could just make the tree line she might be okay.
Suddenly her foot snagged a root, and sent her toppling forward. She rolled, feeling a rib give under her weight, and gasped at the pain. Winded, she groaned, knowing she had nothing left to get her on her feet again. She looked up, spotted vision revealing she had fallen only a few feet short of the protection of the forest.
She heard the tell-tale sounds of her attackers, the rustling of the grass, snapping of twigs, and the murmurs of communication between various members of her pursuit team. Any minute now, they would be on her, and the hell she had worked hard to escape would be her reality once again.
She tried once more to get to her feet, but her chest protested the movement, and sent her flat to her back in anguish. The sounds were getting louder, and she resigned herself to her fate. The last thing she felt before the world went black was a set of hands reaching out, and dragging her into the darkness of the forest she had hoped would save her.
j
Hands moved with practiced ease as they shuffled the cards, before eventually stopping to cut the deck, and then to deal three. Dark eyes studied the faces, widening in realization. The first told her to wait. The second said something, or someone was coming. A shiver told her it was the latter. Okay someone was coming, but who? Soon was the only response the third gave. She glanced at her clock, four-thirty a.m. Something told her she needed to start preparing for something. She asked her Goddess what, but it seemed like she wasn’t in the mood to reveal her secrets just yet...she closed her eyes, reaching, seeking the lines running under the town. They were shifting, restless. Whoever it was, they were close, and she needed to be ready.
Opening her eyes, she looked at the cards one last time, asking them how she would know when she’d found the right person...the only answer she got as she gathered the cards back up was, ‘You’ll feel.’
j
A shrill ring sliced through the silence of the small industrial loft, ripping the woman in the bed from a fitful sleep. One pale hand shot out from the covers, retrieving the ringing cell phone off the nearby nightstand, and hauling it under the blankets where she was currently huddled She jabbed the answer button with her thumb, and brought it to her ear.
Before she could say anything, a thick sob carried across the line, and she pulled the phone far enough away to blink blearily at the time displayed. Four-thirty a.m.
“Excuse me for calling so late, but may I speak with Delaney Delacroix? This is a matter of utmost urgency,” a woman’s tearful voice came over the line.
Delaney sat up in her bed, scrubbing her blonde hair away from her face. She could tell instantly that this was a woman with money, or at the very least a woman who wanted you to think she had money. Her abrupt and formal way of speaking told the detective that much.
“This is she. What can I help you with, especially at this hour?” She wouldn’t normally have been so curt, but the hour, coupled with her recent late nights, was clouding the good manners she had been raised with.
A clearing of a throat was heard before the woman continued. “My name is Regina Kingsley, and I wish to hire you to find my granddaughter Jenny. She has been missing for almost a week, and we fear the worst. You come highly recommended by the Morials, and they said that you are very discrete.”
Del wracked her sleep-fogged brain for the name Morial, and her mind quickly dredged up the memories for that case. A particularly dirty one in which the New Orleans ex-mayor had suspected his boy was up to no good. She’d had to be extra careful on that one, not a family she wanted to be on the bad side of.
“Yes, well, I’m glad they think so highly of me. How old is your granddaughter exactly?” This wouldn’t be the first time some grandmother had feared the worst for a grandchild, and she’d been sent on a wild goose hunt for a kid who just wanted to go on vacation.
“Jenny is twenty years old, and she would never leave her mother without telling her. They are very close, and I’m sure that something awful has happened to her. I don
’t care about the cost, Ms. Delacroix; I just want my granddaughter found.” Regina sounded like she was a woman who was used to getting her own way. “I shall expect you to arrive tomorrow in Leroy promptly at eleven.”
Del rubbed her chin in mild frustration, she could tell this case, and this woman, were going to push her patience. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure she wanted another missing kid case, not after the last one that had ended with a corpse.
“Well, Mrs. Kingsley, have you tried the police yet? Have you asked her friends and other family perhaps?” She figured she might as well try to reason with the lady, although she had a feeling this woman wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
An indignant huff could be heard through the phone. “The police in this town are a joke. They don’t have the intelligence to find a jaywalker right in front of them, and I’m not even sure that they don’t have something to do with my poor Jenny’s disappearance. I’m sure that once you get here, you will see things my way, and understand why I have asked you to come here. Will fifty cover your time?”
“Clarify just how much fifty means and I might be able to work something out.” Truth be told, Del could use the money. Work had been slow, and groceries weren’t getting any cheaper.
“Fifty thousand, of course. If that isn’t enough, I’m sure that we can come to a figure that suits both of us.”
Fifty thousand for a kiddie search. It was way more than she would normally charge for a job that usually went down pretty easy. Then again, who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth? Still, the nagging feeling in her gut that showed itself every now and then, told her that maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as she was hoping. ”No, that will cover things just fine I believe. I’ll see you at eleven a.m. I’ll need any information you have on Jenny. Everything you can find on her friends, family, hobbies, any boyfriends, or even girlfriends for that matter.”
“Till tomorrow then, Ms. Delacroix,” Regina gave the blonde her address, and the call ended.
Getting an abrupt dial tone, Del tossed the phone, and flopped herself back onto her bed. She had a feeling she would regret taking this case, but there was nothing she could do now. Finally she managed the energy needed to haul herself from her warm bed, and began pulling out the supplies she knew she was going to need. It was going to be a long day.
A Chapter 1 a
Regina Kingsley looked at the Rolex on her wrist, ten-fifteen. Walking into the reading room, she looked over at her son Arthur Junior, or AJ as he liked to be called. She frowned disapprovingly when she noticed that he was already sipping on a glass of bourbon.
“Arthur...what have I told you about drinking before noon? I do not want the detective to smell it on your breath. It’s bad enough that we have to have an outsider to find your lost mistake, but we also have to dismantle this operation before we’ve squeezed every little dime out of it.”
“Well Mother, maybe if Father hadn’t pissed off, and left us with nothing, I wouldn’t need to drink before noon. Besides, you’re the one who made the decision that we needed outside help. I told you this would all come back to bite you. I have always said that I wanted to tell her that I was her father...she’s a smart girl, and would have kept her mouth shut, but no, you had to go and keep everything quiet. As far as my mistake goes, I was told that she wouldn’t be a problem. It seems the people you hired to keep an eye on Jenny aren’t as reliable as you thought now, are they?”
The older woman stalked over to her son and slapped him. “Don’t talk back to me young man. I can still end your life with a snap of my fingers. You are lucky I’ve kept you around this long, considering you can’t hold down a job, and all you’re good for is spending my money.”
Arthur’s hand instinctively snapped up to rub his cheek. Realizing his mother was dead serious, he backed down, not wanting to push his luck. Setting the drink aside for another time, he cleared his throat, and decided to try to change the subject from his own shortcomings to the detective en route.
“So what am I to expect of this detective, Mother.”
Taking a deep breath, the older woman turned to look out the front window overlooking the Kingsley Lake. “Ms. Delacroix did come highly recommended from the Morials; they said that she knows how to keep her mouth shut. What we need her to do is to find your mistake, and make sure that she finds enough evidence to point the blame elsewhere. It would not do to have our name dragged through the mud. Maybe once all of this is over, we can start something else. We were so close to being out from under the rock your father had left...why I married that man, I will never know.”
He stood there, regarding his mother, her stiff posture and stony face. She had been beautiful once, long ago when things had been so much simpler.
“For the only reason that matters of course. His money.” At this, he joined her at the window, hands in his pockets. “Now, is there anything you would like for our detective to find? Let me know so I can arrange some coincidences.”
Turning her head to look at her only son, she reached out to caress the cheek that she had just slapped.
“Let’s just give her a day or so to see what she comes up with before we start changing the direction in which she looks. We don’t want the others too suspicious. Like you said, it could surely come back to bite us. Now go brush your teeth, and gargle.”
j
Raelin Montrose was a pretty patient woman on most days. Today, unfortunately for the older woman standing in her front room, was not one of those days. Even though it had only been a few hours since she had been advised to be prepared, it seemed like days. Something was coming, and she wasn’t sure what.
She sighed as the woman begged her for another reading, disappointed in the results of the last one. She picked up the cards, and reshuffled, unconsciously glancing at the clock one more time.
She dealt the cards again, and began the reading, noticing with a smug satisfaction that she had the absolute attention of the woman before her. The meaning of the first card was the same as the previous draw, but she worded it a little differently to please her customer. She paused to pull her dark, wavy hair into a messy ponytail, keeping it out of her face. Flipping the second card, she described its meaning, realizing how her heart was just not in her work today.
She glanced at the clock again. When had her heart started racing? She felt a chill settle over her, and she felt like shooing the woman out. As she drew the third, a sudden jolt raced up her spine. She felt the town’s energy immediately shift, and for the first time in months, settle into something calm, as if a sudden weight had been lifted. Her eyes widened, and her words stumbled, and then stopped. The woman gave her a curious look. She felt like bolting out the door, and running to the middle of town.
Her eyes darted from the window where she had looked towards the clock on the wall, ten-thirty. She wanted to run to whatever, or whoever it was had come, to demand her answers to questions she wasn't even sure she had. She looked at the cards she had dropped in her surprise, the card on the top giving her a start.
‘Wait’, it told her. Frankly, she was getting tired of all the waiting. The woman was asking after her now, and she replied with a hurried reassurance that she was fine. Raelin finished her business with the older woman, feeling that whatever had come to this town would find her soon enough.
j
After driving for a large portion of the night, Del was glad when she finally passed the Welcome to Leroy, Louisiana sign. Her eyes were burning, and she had lost all feeling in her lower half a few miles back. The Pines, Live Oaks, and Spanish Moss were starting to dwindle in numbers in favor of a few farmers’ fields. Eventually she had left the trees behind, and could see the main drag of the sleepy country town just ahead.
She passed a small strip mall and grocery store before she pulled her old Jeep to a stop in front of an antique store. An older gentleman whom she assumed was the owner was busy sweeping the sidewalk in front of the entrance. He looked at her oddly, mildly wary of he
r, but she had been expecting that. It wasn’t unusual for an outsider to arouse a bit of mild paranoia in tight knit communities such as this.
Slowly she rolled her shoulders, feeling the joints pop, and a quick glance at her watch read ten-thirty. Opening the door, Del stepped down onto the dusty street, and immediately got the sense of something unknown. She felt a tingle up her spine, and it spread into an awareness of everything around her. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it made her feel light, like an old friend was looking out for her. She felt inwardly calm, like she hadn’t in a long time and that alone unsettled her. Almost as quickly as it had come it settled down again into a barely noticeable hum through her limbs, and she shook it off as she approached the man, hoping to get directions.
“Excuse me sir, can you tell me where the Kingsley estate might be?” she asked with a shy smile. She knew her looks could be used to her advantage, and wasn’t afraid to use them to get what she needed on the job.
The old man stopped his sweeping to lean against the broom for a few moments, judging the young woman standing in front of him. She was a tiny thing, only reaching to about his chin with a thin frame, but he could tell she wasn’t frail.
She looked at him, sizing him up, and as he watched, she reached up to brush a long lock of corn silk hair out of her face. Jade green eyes bore into his own, and he could see not just the intelligence, but the strength of their owner, betraying the softness of her face. He followed the creamy skin of her neck until it disappeared under the well-pressed oxford shirt, currently tucked into well-worn jeans that fit like a second skin. She must have noticed his appraisal because she shifted her weight onto one foot, pushing the sleeves of her fitted jacket up to her elbows.
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