Blast from the Past (A Mac Faraday Mystery)

by Lauren Carr

  “Well, Gnarly, are you all relaxed now that you got your massage?” he rubbed the top of Gnarly’s head and back of his ears.

  “What’s with all the cars?” She stepped into his arms. “You decided to give a party and not invite me.”

  Mac clasped his chest. “I would never do that.”

  “Who do these cars belong to?”

  Mac gestured for her to step inside. “Come inside and find out.”

  Casting him a suspicious look, Archie opened the door.

  “Surprise!” The volume from over sixty voices almost knocked her over.

  Archie did not know what to focus on. A mob swarmed around to quickly envelope her. She recognized many of the faces and voices from her past. On a banner hanging above the dining room table were the words: “We Love You, Kendra!” Under the banner, she saw the chef from the Spencer Inn and four servers that Mac had hired for the family reunion.

  “Stand back! Stand back!” Archie recognized a hulking man who had taken a position by her side as her oldest brother. “Let Mom get to her!”

  She had six brothers and quickly spotted each one among the members of the mob.

  The sea parted and a tall, slender woman, who hadn’t seemed to age a day in the years since Archie had ten minutes to say good-bye, stepped forward to take her only daughter into a hug. “I always knew that one day I would get to see my baby girl again.”

  Through the tears in her eyes, Archie was able to make out Mac ushering Gnarly away from the table and out onto the deck.

  After greeting everyone and meeting new members of her family, Archie hurried out onto the dock to where Mac was admiring the start of the sunset. “You are really something else.”

  “Who? Me?” he feigned innocence.

  “I never told you anything about my family. How did you find all of them?”

  “I’m a great detective,” Mac said. “If I had known you had six big brothers—who are all very protective of their little sister—I may have had second thoughts about doing it. You should have seen the interrogation I’ve been getting all afternoon.”

  She felt the tears coming to her eyes again. “How can I ever thank you for bringing me back to my family?” She wrapped her arms around him and wiped her tears on his chest.

  “Well,” he said, “we could set a date.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she said. “We both know you were only asking me to marry you because you were scared you were going to lose me.”

  “You did say yes.” He pulled away and looked down into her face.

  “Because I do want to marry you,” she said. “But I’m not holding you to that proposal that you asked in the heat of the moment.”

  “I’m not in the heat of the moment now.” Mac lifted her face to look into her eyes. He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Archie Monday—or Kendra Douglas—whoever you are—will you be my wife?”

  She answered him with a kiss.

  “Hey, what’s that rubber duck doing in the punch!” one of Archie’s brothers yelled. The question was followed by a loud crash, which was then followed by squeals of childish laughter when Archie’s nieces and nephews pursued the wayward dog.

  When Mac turned to go help, Archie pulled him back. “Let someone else kill Gnarly for once.”

  “I like the way you think, my lady.” He wrapped his arms around her to kiss her in the sunset.

  The End

  Coming September 2013!

  The Murders at Astaire Castle--Book Excerpt

  Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil. -- Lord Byron 1788-1824, British Poet

  Prologue

  November 2002 – Astaire Castle, top of Spencer Mountain, Deep Creek Lake, Maryland

  Shivering, Rafaela turned up the fan for the heater in her old Plymouth. The weather channel was calling for snow. With an eye on the storm clouds heading straight for Spencer Mountain, she picked up the speed a notch. Her car bumped along the worn road cut through the trees and rock to take her to Astaire Castle.

  The notion of being trapped at the castle by a winter storm made her curse the day she had accepted the job as housekeeper at the Astaire estate. The young illegal immigrant thought her prayers had been answered by landing the job at the luxurious estate. Not only was it prestigious to work in a castle, but lucrative since Damian Wagner was paying almost twice her normal hourly wage.

  What a gem to put on my housekeeping resume! To be hire by only one of the world’s most famous authors of horror books—even more famous than Robin Spencer—to clean an honest-to-goodness castle. So what if the Astaire Castle has a reputation of being haunted? I’ll be making a bundle for cleaning five days a week in the daylight. Besides, I don’t believe in no ghosts.

  Rafaela regretted her decision the first time she walked into Astaire Castle.

  At first, she dismissed her cleaning supplies moving from where she had left them as forgetfulness. Then there was the time she kept hearing someone whispering her name. She had looked around, but never saw anyone. Same with doors closing or opening or footsteps coming up behind her, and the old-time music and party noises in empty rooms when no one was there—she tried to tell herself that it was all her imagination.

  None of that was anything compared to the Wolf Man who she had seen in the dining room mirror while she was cleaning it.

  She had heard all about the Wolf Man who lived in the woods surrounding Astaire Castle. The woman with two teenagers who lived in the apartment next to hers was quick to tell her about him. Rafaela had dismissed it all as ghost stories made up by her neighbor’s kids to scare her—until she had seen him with her own two eyes.

  That day she ran out of the castle. She returned only after Genevieve, Damian Wagner’s daughter, had promised that her father finish his book and be moving out of the castle by the end of the year—at which time he would pay her a handsome bonus that would give her enough money to visit her family in Brazil for Christmas.

  Rafaela caught her breath when her Plymouth entered through the gate at the end of the road to pull into the front courtyard and fountain.

  The fountain was off. Damian Wagner had never bothered to turn it on. He wouldn’t notice if it was. He spent his time banging away on his computer in the study on the top floor. He wouldn’t eat if it weren’t for his daughter bringing food to him.

  Then there was the editor—Mr. Jansen.

  He reminded Rafaela of a bird with his bony frame, high cheekbones over a pointy chin, and thick eyeglasses with his blinking eyes magnified behind them. He sounded like a squawking bird with his high-pitched voice no matter what his mood or what he was saying. Ready to pounce in anticipation of any need from Damian Wagner, he was always lurking nearby.

  Damian’s daughter, Genevieve, was as charming as beautiful. She often asked Rafaela about her family in Brazil and about her life in Deep Creek Lake. For the new immigrant to America, Rafaela felt as if she was making a friend who would give her good references for more housekeeping jobs in the resort town of Spencer—more millionaire estates to clean—estates that weren’t haunted.

  Rafaela pulled her car around the circular drive and parked at the bottom of the steep steps that led to the front door. When she got out of her car, the wind howled and whipped her long dark hair around her head. The wind actually seemed to want to rip her thin coat off her body. Grabbing her box of cleaning supplies, she squared her shoulders, and sucked up her nerve to go inside.

  Need to make this quick. They don’t have enough money to make me stay here during that storm.

  The wind yanked the heavy wooden door from her grasp to slam it against the side of the house.

  “Stupid door!” Rafaela set the box inside the foyer and went outside to grab the door and pull it shut. “Mr. Wagner! Mr. Jansen! Genevieve! It’s
me, Rafaela! Hope I’m not disturbing you.” She picked up the box and made her way through the foyer.

  “Raf-aela …”

  She stopped. With wide eyes, she peered up the staircase to the second floor balcony. “Is that you, Mr. Wagner?” She paused to listen. “Genevieve?”

  “Get out. Now.”

  Has to be my imagination. She reassured herself. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she muttered over and over to herself while hurrying to the back of the castle.

  “I don’t suppose you had any trick-or-treaters last night, did you?” she called out to ease her nerves with the sound of her own voice. “Not up here I suppose.”

  She waited for an answer. She heard footsteps on the floor up above.

  The smell of burnt meat came to her nose. It smelled like steak that had been left on the grill for too long.

  They must have grilled steaks last night.

  “Lots of little children stopped by my apartment.” Feeling braver as she rattled on, Rafaela set the box of cleaning supplies on the kitchen table and gathered together her duster and furniture polish.

  Best to start in the living room. The antiques, wood, and silver takes the longest.

  Admiring the decades-old priceless china encased in the china closet, she went through the dining room. With her cleaning lady’s eye, she gauged what needed to be addressed on this visit that she may have missed before. She stopped when the blotch of red on the doorframe through the kitchen caught her eye.

  What’s that? Catsup?

  It wasn’t until she spotted a spot on the floor that she first considered that it wasn’t a condiment, but something much more sinister. She spotted another. Bigger this time … and another.

  There was a red pool in front of the kitchen door that opened out onto the back patio and deck that projected out over the rocks to provide a massive view of the valley down below. All of the drops and splatters and pools led to the common source—the fire pit outside.

  She saw the flames and smoke wafting in the wind whipping around her where she stood in the open doorway. She stared at the blackened objects in the pit. What at first appeared to be a burnt log projecting out of the flames took shape.

  The hand and fingers reached out to her.

  The index finger was pointing at her.

  Through the rapid beating of her heart, Rafaela could hear the footsteps behind her coming closer.

  “Get out!”

  His image was reflected in the glass pane of the door. The wild hair. The crazed eyes.

  It’s the Wolf Man!

  Chapter One

  Present Day—Late-October

  The two ATVs shot through the shrubbery that had overtaken the south side of Spencer Mountain’s top. The occasional sunray that managed to peak through the clouds above would catch on the gold trim of the black all-terrain vehicles.

  To the left side of the road, Police Chief David O’Callaghan scoured the landscape littered with bare trees for any sign of the old woman they were seeking.

  Behind him, Mac Faraday searched the right side of the road. A retired homicide detective with more than twenty-five years of police work under his belt, Mac had looked for more than one missing persons. His experience, plus his availability, made him a regular volunteer to be called in by the Spencer police department when extra manpower was needed—whether it be a missing person or a major murder case.

  This search was for an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s who had wandered away from her family at the Spencer Inn. She had been missing for five hours. The sun was starting to set. Soon, the chilly day would turn into a freezing night. Snow was expected and that wasn’t a good thing in the mountains.

  They were running out of time.

  David held up his hand in a fist to signal a stop and slowed down his vehicle. While waiting for Mac to halt behind him, the police chief removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his blond hair. “Any idea where you are now?” He shot Mac a wicked grin.

  Guessing, Mac shot a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the road they had just traveled. “The Spencer Inn is about three miles back that way.”

  The police chief nodded his head. “The Spencer Inn is on the north side of the mountain top, looking down on the lake and the valley to the north.”

  “But the Spencer Inn owns the whole mountaintop,” Mac said with a question in his voice.

  “And you own the Spencer Inn.” David took out his radio. “Therefore, you own this whole mountaintop.” He pressed the button on the earpiece on his Bluetooth to speak into the radio. “Hey, Bogie, we’re up on the southern side of the mountain top. Nothing’s up here. Any luck in your area?”

  “Nothing, Chief,” the deputy chief responded.

  “We’re going to head back toward the Inn,” David said.

  “But we haven’t searched to the end of this road.” Mac pointed further up the trail.

  “She’s not up there,” David said in a tone so sharp that it startled him. The police chief shifted his ATV into reverse and backed up.

  Even though David O’Callaghan was the chief of police, Mac Faraday was one of Spencer’s wealthiest residents. Descended from the town’s founders, he was unofficial royalty in the small town of Spencer located on the shore of Deep Creek Lake.

  Several years younger, David O’Callaghan had much less law enforcement experience than Mac. Being David’s older half-brother added another level of respect to make David tread softly when issuing orders to the retired homicide detective. With the same tall slender build, their familial relationship was evident to the few who were aware of it. The only notable difference was in Mac’s dark hair with a touch of gray showing at his temples.

  “We won’t know unless we look,” Mac argued for going further out the tattered road. “We’ve searched for her in all of the usual areas. You can’t—”

  “She’s not there.” David’s hard expression ordered him to drop it.

  “We won’t know unless we look,” Mac said in a steady tone.

  “Check it out,” David said. “Do you see any sign of humans being in this area in recent years? This road is completely overgrown. No sign of hikers. No one comes over to this side of the mountain. We’re talking about an eighty-six year old woman with Alzheimer’s. She’s fragile and on foot. She’d never be able to make it this far.” With a wave of his finger, he ordered Mac to turn around. “We’re going back.”

  The order only served to make Mac more suspicious. “What’s up that road?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why are you afraid to go up there?”

  David whipped off his sun glasses as if to show him the glare in his blue eyes, which were identical to his. “Drop it, Mac. Forget about this road. Forget about this side of the mountain. Now turn your vehicle around and go back to the Spencer Inn and forget about coming back here ever again. Got it?”

  Mac met his glare. “And what if I don’t? Like you said, it’s my property. You can’t stop me from going up there to search … or whatever.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Mac.”

  “Shoot me?” Laughing, he shook his head. “Are you serious?”

  Any shred of humor that David had when they started talking was now gone. “If you go out that road, there’s nothing I can do to help you. Have I made myself clear?”

  The corner of Mac’s lips curled while he studied the intense nature of David’s order. “Very clear.”

  They were halfway back to the command post set up at the Spencer Inn when the call came in from Deputy Police Chief Art Bogart: Mac Faraday’s German shepherd, Gnarly, and Archie Monday, Mac’s housemate and “lady love” as he liked to call her, had found the woman.

  Gnarly had followed her scent down the mountain trail. He had zig-zagged t
hrough the ski slope to the service shed that managed the electronic chair lift. The elderly woman had forced her way into the shed and fallen asleep in the dark corner.

  Gnarly was hero of the day, which was why Mac thought it suspicious when he found the German shepherd hiding in the backseat of his SUV.

  “We need to go,” Archie whispered in a hurried voice to Mac. “We need to go now.” There was fear in her deep emerald green eyes. Her pink cap was pulled down to cover her pixie blonde hair and ears. With her petite features, the cap made her resemble Tinker Bell in Peter Pan.

  “Why?” Mac received part of his answer when he saw the dog lift his head to peer out of the back window. Mac caught a glimpsed of what appeared to be a cigar in the dog’s mouth, before he laid his pointy ears back to rest flat on his head and ducked back down.

  Mac heard a crackling voice yell from the open back of the ambulance. “I’m telling you one of you robbed me. How dare you rob an old woman! You should all be ashamed of yourselves—all of you.” He turned around to peer through the window at where Gnarly was crouched.

  Hurrying up to them, David interrupted before he could launch a full investigation. “Mac, Gnarly was the one who found her, wasn’t he?”

  Mac hung his head.

  The police chief turned to Archie. “That scent that Gnarly was following—we assumed it was her, but could it have been the scent of beef jerky?”

  “He did find her,” Archie said. “Whether it was her or the beef jerky she was carrying in her purse doesn’t matter.”

  “Thieves! You’re all thieves!” They heard the impact of her purse hitting one of the EMTs.

  “Mother, calm down,” her daughter said to her. “I’ll buy you another package of beef jerky on the way to the hospital.”