by Alan Russell
PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
“He has a gift for dialogue.”
—New York Times
“Really special.”
—Denver Post
“A crime fiction rara avis.”
—Los Angeles Times
“One of the best writers in the mystery field today.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Ebullient and irresistible.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“Complex and genuinely suspenseful.”
—Boston Globe
“Credible and deeply touching. Russell has us in the palm of his hands.”
—Chicago Tribune
“He is enlightening as well as entertaining.”
—St. Petersburg Times
“Enormously enjoyable.”
—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
“Russell is spectacular.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
“This work by Russell has it all.”
—Library Journal
“Grade: A. Russell has written a story to satisfy even the most hard-core thrill junkie.”
—Rocky Mountain News
OTHER TITLES BY ALAN RUSSELL
The Gideon and Sirius Novels
Burning Man
Guardians Of The Night
Lost Dog
Stand-Alone Novels
No Sign Of Murder
The Forest Prime Evil
The Hotel Detective
The Fat Innkeeper
Multiple Wounds
Shame
Exposure
Political Suicide
St. Nick
A Cold War
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Alan Russell
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477820087
ISBN-10: 1477820086
Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects
To my three children: Luke, Hart, and Brooke. Great kids all.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SEVEN YEARS LATER
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
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
“Don’t get too near the fire, Stella.”
It wasn’t the first warning Eleanor Pierce had given to her seven-year-old daughter, and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
“All right,” Stella said, but she didn’t stop dancing around the fire pit. Stella was of an age where she appeared to be mostly hair and eyes. A pixie, her father called her. Her blue eyes seemed to dance as much as her thin limbs. She had Eleanor’s hair, but blonder. Southern California always produces a bumper crop of blondes.
“For how many thousands of years do you think parents have been warning their kids about not getting too near the fire?” asked Duncan Pierce.
The other adults offered knowing nods. All four couples had children scattered around the beach. Six-month-old Kenny Hart was in the arms of his mother, Arlene; the three Stewart children were throwing a Frisbee; best friends Michael Pierce and Luke Hart were digging to China, while Ricky Wertz was more interested in hermit crabs; the other two Wertz children were playing surf tag, seeing which could stand his ground the longest without being tagged by a wave.
There were ten children in all, including Stella, who was dancing with the fire. Every so often one of the parents did a head count. They had the beach mostly to themselves. Their get-together had saved them from having to scramble for babysitters and struggle for restaurant reservations.
The weather was in the low sixties. All the adults had on sweaters or light coats. The children were wearing short sleeves and bathing suits, resisting any and all efforts by their parents to further clothe them.
“Valentine’s Day,” said Rusty Wertz. “It seems like only yesterday it was wine, women, and song. Now it’s beer, the old lady, and whatever’s on the radio.”
His wife, Dina, smacked him on his backside. “After fifteen years of marriage,” she said, “you’d think he would be better trained.”
“The threat of being struck again notwithstanding,” said Rusty, “did I neglect to say that I wouldn’t change a thing?”
This time the couple kissed. The men made disparaging noises, while the women all went, “Ahhh.”
Eleanor looked at her watch. It might be Valentine’s Day, but it was still a school night. “Duncan, maybe we ought to call in the troops.”
“Good luck,” said Randall Hart. “Did you bring a lasso?”
“I have a secret weapon.” Duncan cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Who wants s’mores?”
The children had been remarkably deaf up until that time. Now they all came running. Each clamored to be first.
“I have enough skewers for everyone,” said Duncan. “The skewers are not to be used as swords. Do not attempt to poke out the eye of your brother, sister, or friend.”
His words didn’t seem to be much of a deterrent, but he added, “And if I see any horseplay with these things, I’ll confiscate them and you won’t have any s’mores.”
That was the deterrent.
Each of the children picked up a skewer and started impaling marshmallows. The fire ring was large enough for all of them to have a spot.
“Flame on!” yelled Michael Pierce, brandishing a ball of flame—his marshmallow—proudly in the air.
At eleven, Michael was three and a half years older than Stella. Usually she heeded his opinion, but here she felt his s’mores-making technique was all wrong.
“Your marshmallow is burned,” she said.
“That’s how it tastes best,” said Michael.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does.”
He took a big bite of his blackened marshmallow and said, “Perfect!”
Stella looked askance at her brother and went ahead with her own careful preparations. In the time it took her to make her one s’more, Michael ate three, announcing the immolation of each marshmallow with the shout, “Flame on!” Luke Hart copied Michael’s marshmallow-flambé technique and echoed his cry, but even that didn’t hurry Stella.
Eleanor watched the goings-on and hid her smile. Stella was secretly—or not so secretly—sweet on Luke, but she liked to do things her own way. “You can’t hurry perfection, can you, sweetie?” she asked.
Stella looked up from the serious business of marshmallow cooking and gave her mother a fairy-bright smile.
“Pyromania and sweets,” said Dave Stewart to his wife, waving his flaming marshmallow. “What an unbeatable combination.”
When everyone was full of s’mores, the beach chairs were dragged closer to the warmth of the fire. The younger children found laps to settle into, while the older kids quieted down, mesmerized by the flames. The sun had sunk into the ocean an hour earlier, and there was little in the way of a moon, just a sliver of feeble light. It felt almost as if they were on an island.
“This reminds me of going to camp when I was a kid,” Dina said, voice low and almost reverent. “We’d sit around the campfire telling ghost stories.”
“I know lots of ghost stories,” said Michael.
“You do not,” said a skeptical Stella.
“He does so,” said Luke, defending his best friend’s honor.
Michael rose to Stella’s challenge: “Once upon a time there was this ghost named Gory George.”
According to Michael, Gory George was a ghost with horrible green eyes and a large, bloody mouth with dagger-sharp fangs. For unspecified reasons, Gory George hunted down a boy named Tom. None of the parents mentioned that George sounded more like a ghoul than a ghost. Whatever his supernatural genus, George was a persistent creature, pursuing Tom over hill and dale, across the sea, and then around the globe.
“And then George finally caught up with Tom,” Michael said. “There was no place for Tom to go. Step-by-step, Gory George came forward. His breath was horrible, and he had this awful B.O. His mouth was open, and blood dripped everywhere. He lifted his arm in the air, and these razor-sharp claws popped out. Then he slashed downward . . .”
Michael’s voice cracked. It wasn’t puberty, but his transition from intensity to frivolity. “And George said, ‘Tag, you’re it.’”
Most of the adults expected the punch line, but applauded anyway. Then the children clamored for a real ghost story. Eyes turned expectantly to Candy Stewart. As an undergrad, Candy had majored in dramatic arts. Nowadays she used those thespian talents as a storyteller in classrooms and libraries.
Candy acknowledged the waiting eyes with a smile. She collected her thoughts by looking into the fire, and seemed to draw her inspiration from the flames.
“This isn’t your usual ghost story,” said Candy. “I heard this tale from my cousin Jean, who says every word of it is true and that she personally knows the family I am going to tell you about. Among my kin, Jean’s word is considered gold.”
Candy paused for a long moment. The dramatic effect worked. All her listeners leaned closer, taking a deep breath and holding it, waiting for her to begin.
“There was a terrible fire,” Candy began. “Not a fire like the one warming us, but a raging inferno of hate. The fire sprang to life in a two-story home. One moment there was a spark, and the next the flames were everywhere.
“This was a fire with a hunger to burn. It swept through the house, its flames so hot it made the glass windows weep, melting the panes down to nothing. The fire turned the night sky into a Halloween nightmare, sending off colors of orange and red and black.”
Candy’s hands moved upward, painting the conflagration.
“Will and Sue Berry woke up with their room in flames. The fire was everywhere. There was no time for them to think. They had to react or die. With flames already reaching for them, they jumped out the window. But as soon as they were outside, they started screaming for their seven-year-old boy, Jason. They tried to reenter the house to rescue their son, but were driven back by the heat. It was as if the fire physically fought them off. They were frantic to save their boy, but helpless against the flames.”
With her hands, Candy showed their struggles and how the flames forcefully rebuffed the couple.
“They knew Jason couldn’t survive such an inferno, but still prayed that he somehow would. Their cries of pain merged with the sounds of approaching sirens, but the firefighters arrived too late. The flames had eaten everything.
“Neighbors tried to lead the couple off, but they wouldn’t leave. They wept and wept. Some of their tears fell on hot embers, causing steam to rise and producing a hissing that sounded like small, evil laughter.
“Weeks, months, and then years passed. Will and Sue tried to put their lives back together. They rebuilt their house, but it was a silent dwelling, empty of life. Jason’s death haunted them. How could they have escaped the fire while leaving their son to perish? The knowledge that they surely would have died attempting a rescue was no consolation. Nothing could make them feel better, nothing at all.
“The fire had not only taken their son; it had taken most of the mementos of his existence. Almost all tangible reminders of Jason were gone, including their favorite pictures that had been displayed throughout their home.
“‘A family picture of us standing with Jason,’ Sue lamented. ‘Why couldn’t we have been left with at least that?’
“Will held her in his arms and they wept together, but it didn’t ease their relentless pain. With so few earthly reminders of Jason, it was almost as if he had never existed.
“Their loss drove the couple apart. They decided to split up. And that’s when Jason came back to them, but not as flesh and blood. A spectral figure materialized in their bedroom.
“‘I can’t stay,’ he told them.
“Sue and Will both started weeping. They tried to hug their son, one from each side, and somehow ended up in each other’s arms.
“‘Hurry!’ Jason said. ‘Take a picture of all of us!’
“Will grabbed his phone and set the camera’s timer. Then he and Sue huddled around the ghostly figure that was their son. The phone camera flashed, and the shot was taken.
“‘Now you have your picture, Mother,’ said Jason, ‘even though it wasn’t necessary. I’ve always been in your heart. You needed to look no further than there.’
“Their boy, looking radiant and beautiful, smiled at his parents one last time. And then he told them that he would always love them, and said good-bye.
“For a long time Will and Sue held off looking at the picture, telling each other that Jason’s visitation was all they needed. To each other they repeated, ‘Love isn’t something you need to capture in a picture. It just is.’ And they believed that. But the truth is, they were afraid to look. They wondered if Jason’s return was something they had deluded themselves into imagining.
“Finally, they decided they had to look. Will went and got his phone. ‘The shot might not have turned out,’ he warned. ‘You know how tricky the timer function is. And maybe it didn’t autofocus.’
“‘The room was dark,’ agreed Sue, ‘maybe too dark to get the picture.’
“With trembling fingers, they looked at the photo. Standing between them was a pale but smiling Jason. And they also saw the time stamp with the picture, a date three years after Jason’s death.”
In the silence that followed Candy’s ghost story, a piece of firewood suddenly crackled loudly, sending sparks up. And people. Both children and adults jumped, and then laughed uneasily at themselves.
“That’s a rather intense story, Candy,” said Rusty. “And I have the underwear to prove it.”
Comic relief prevailed. The adults laughed long and hard, overdoing it a bit.
�
��It reminded me of one of the real Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” said Duncan. “Before they became childproof, people were dying right and left in all sorts of horrible ways.”
“Well, just think of the story of ‘Hansel and Gretel,’” said Arlene Hart. She was a social worker and viewed the world through that vocational lens. “In a very few pages we read about child abandonment, the occult, cannibalism, and murder.”
“And it’s not like children’s rhymes are innocent,” said Eleanor. “‘Ring Around the Rosie’ is a rhyme about the bubonic plague and everyone dying.”
“Children’s songs aren’t any better,” said Dina. “Everyone thinks ‘Alouette’ is this little French song that children sing, but what it’s about is the desire to catch a songbird, pluck its feathers, dismember it bit by bit, and eat it.”
“Alouette, gentille alouette, alouette, je te plumerai,” sang Rusty.
The children smiled at hearing a familiar song.
“Rusty,” warned Dina.
Her “shut up” was implicit, so he replied, “Yes, dear.”
“When I was a kid,” said Duncan, “I remember being scared to death of those ghosts in A Christmas Carol. Marley and his chains had me hiding my head behind a pillow. And the ghost of Christmas Future—forget it. I always had to leave the room.”
“A not-so-subtle ghost of the present offers similarly scary news,” said Eleanor. “It’s a school night, and the kids need their sleep.”
All the mothers voiced seconds of that motion. Even the children didn’t seem inclined to argue. Most of them looked sleepy, with the exception of Stella. Her attention was on the embers floating up into the sky.
In his best Tiny Tim voice, Duncan said, “Well, then, Happy Valentine’s Day, all, and God bless us every one.”
CHAPTER TWO
A so-called simple family trip to the beach, Duncan often complained, was like a major military campaign. But now their car was packed, and they were finally on their way home. Luckily home wasn’t far away, especially since Michael had decided to sing “One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”
Stella made herself heard over her brother’s singing. “Do you think we could see that picture of Jason?” she asked.
It took a moment for Eleanor to figure out what Stella was asking. “It was only a story, sweetie,” she said.
