Miss Dixie was crushing into her; she was aware of her camera more than anything else.
For a moment she’d wanted to somersault into the air again. An opening had appeared in the motel’s ceiling and roof and she could see the black, starry night above her. Something tugged at her, called her upwards. Taryn had thought about extending her body and just flying up and out, soaring into the cool sky and feeling the weightlessness forever.
It was so much better.
But then she felt Miss Dixie.
She was back on the floor again, the camera digging into her stomach. She could no longer breathe, no longer move.
She could feel her camera, though, and with the last bit of strength she had, she grabbed ahold of the body, tugged it free of its strap (a movement that would leave her neck bruised and scarred for months), and grasped it. Then, with a primal cry, she flailed blindly and struck the figure atop of her with all her might.
The pressure on her face lessened and she could move.
Taryn used the opportunity to roll out from under the pillow. When she saw the outline of the person kneeling before her, clutching their head, she stood and brought Miss Dixie down with all her might. Then she did it again and again, driving her camera into whatever surface on them she could hit.
Satisfied they were still on the floor, Taryn turned to run from the room but was stopped when a hand reached out and grabbed her ankle, dragging her back to the floor. Thinking of Matt, and of Parker, she kicked and fought and screamed a primal sound that rang throughout the motel’s complex.
Then her scream was replaced with something else, a blast that sent a spark of fire through the darkness.
The grip on her leg was loosened. Taryn could stand again. The figure was slumped over in front of her, an acrid scene of blood and gunpowder filling the room.
Looking up in surprise, Taryn saw the tall, thin outline of a woman standing in the doorway. Next to her, in a faint silhouette, was Parker Brown. His face, turned to the woman beside him, was as radiant and peaceful as it had been in any photo. Ruby held the gun before her, still and unmoving.
“And this one’s for Parker, Lenny,” she said softly. And fired again.
Thirty
“Are you sad it’s coming down? Just a little?”
Ruby turned and smiled at Taryn. The two women stood side by side as the construction workers milled around the motel’s parking lot, shouting and following orders.
“Maybe a little,” she replied. “But Parker would want it. He wouldn’t want this to be his tomb.”
“Well, at least you’re making this side of town happy,” Taryn teased her and laughed.
The pain rippled through her stomach and chest, a reminder of the events that had occurred a month earlier.
“I don’t know whether to be amused or disappointed that the tabloids didn’t take a greater interest in what happened,” Ruby mused thoughtfully. “I guess nobody’s interested in an old woman like me.”
“Want me to leak a story or something?” Matt asked, throwing his arm around Taryn. “I could say you were having an affair with Garth Brooks or something.”
“Good job, Matt, you know who Garth is.”
“Yeah, well, I’m learning,” he shrugged.
“Make it Rodney Crowell and you’re on,” Ruby teased him.
Although he might not have known who Ruby was initially, anyone who would shoot somebody to save Taryn was okay in his book. While she recovered in the hospital, he’d formed an odd sort of friendship with Ruby, even being invited to stay with her until Taryn was released.
Taryn again thought of the night’s events. Remembered seeing Ruby in the doorway with the gun, feeling Lenny’s hands holding the pillow over her head.
She guessed if you were going to be murdered, there were worse ways you could go than death-by-superstar.
“So the ‘girlfriend’ who was with Parker earlier that night was Aker’s ex wife?” Matt had trouble putting the story together when he’d visited Taryn in the hospital.
“Apparently everyone was sleeping with her, even Lenny,” Taryn had laughed wryly, although laughing hurt so she’d quickly nipped that one in the bud.
“And the night he died?”
“Lenny had found out she was sleeping with Parker, too. She knew he was angry. She’d gone there to warn him but it was too late.” Taryn sighed, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. “Gloria was just a replacement for Ruby, someone Lenny couldn’t have. Every time he fell for a woman, she wanted Parker.”
She was grateful Matt had called Ruby that night. Even more grateful she’d forwarded that first email to him, the one with Ruby’s phone number. If he hadn’t called her and told her where Taryn had gone…
Of course, how could she have known that Lenny was stalking her? That’s he’d been looking to destroy her paintings and pictures.
That someone that famous had been so crazy?
“Okay ladies,” Aker called, marching towards them. “Enough standing around here. Let’s get some food.”
Taryn smiled as the bulky man threaded his arm through Ruby’s and led her to the car. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, but it was nice.
In the hospital, Ruby had visited Taryn and asked her what she really wanted to know.
“He didn’t overdose, did he?”
Taryn, feeling the effects of the pain medicine, had told her the truth.
“In a way, he did. It wasn’t that he’d taken too much, it was that he’d been clean up until that point and had re-dosed at his old dosage. His body just couldn’t handle it. If he hadn’t been trying to get clean, it might have been okay.”
“But he didn’t do it.”
“No,” Taryn said sadly, “he didn’t. It was Lenny. Lenny gave him the sedative then shot him up. Parker never knew.”
She had the pictures to prove it, too. Miss Dixie had come through in more ways than one.
The ring, which Taryn had clutched until the paramedics had rushed her off, had fallen into the radiator when Lenny entered the room and grasped Parker in a hug. He’d done his best to find it, but couldn’t. When he’d heard about Taryn’s paintings, he knew she’d figure it out.
“Why was the ring so important?” Matt had asked.
“Because Parker had bought it for him the day before. And he’d told everyone that he hadn’t seen Parker since, hadn’t been in the motel room. That put him on the scene,” she told him.
Then it was Taryn’s turn to ask Ruby.
“You and Parker never, you know, did you?”
Ruby shook her head sadly. “No. Just a kiss, one night in Arizona. It was going that way. It would have gone that way. I was going to tell him. I was going to go there and tell him I loved him. But I chickened out. I thought there was so much time. We had that tour coming up, we were talking about a new album. I didn’t want to do it over the phone and I didn’t feel well that night. I waited.”
“So he never knew.”
“He never knew,” she agreed.
But Taryn thought he had. She thought the idea of Ruby was what held him together.
Later, while talking to Matt, she told him of the things she’d learned. “Parker wasn’t an addict in the sense we think of,” she said. “He wasn’t taking stuff to get high, he was taking things to feel normal, to maintain. There was something in him that just wouldn’t give him any peace.”
“I hope he has it now,” Matt said.
“Me too.”
“Listen, do you think all of that was just Parker? The hauntings, the stuff going on in the room?”
Taryn had wondered that herself. “I don’t know,” she replied at last. “I want to say no. I think there was something else going on. Sometimes darkness follows grief, desperation, lost people. I think at one time it might have just been a normal motel but then over the years it became something else. I know I feel better now that I’m out of it.”
“I’m glad it’s coming down,” Matt had shuddered.
“So am I.”
“And maybe now Ruby can find some peace as well. Never underestimate the power of unrequited love. Or guilt. Ruby had both. I hope she can move on now.”
Matt laughed as he ruffled Taryn’s hair.
“What?”
“Did you hear yourself? ‘Move on’,” he grinned. “Are you moving to the dark side?”
Taryn bit her lip and tried to hide a smile. “I hope not,” she replied.
I hope not.
Special Notes
There is a lot of truth to the novel you just finished, although the “true” parts have been lavishly embellished. I am going to attempt to separate truth from fiction now, to give you an idea of the things I completely made up, the things I exaggerated, and the things I didn’t change at all.
Firstly, Taryn’s love of music is my own. I wrote myself into this book more than any other piece of fiction I’ve released. Like Taryn, I am a strong music lover. I was able to write about Nashville in such a way because, as a teenager, I moved to Music City and attended Belmont College where I majored in Music Business. I wanted to be a country music singer. Alas, it didn’t happen.
The part at the beginning about Taryn and the concept album and 8-track? That’s actually true. I made up the Ruby Jane artist, as well as the Civil War album, but the story itself is true. When I was a kid I had a Don Williams 8-track. I played it every single day, up until I was about 5 and it mysteriously vanished from the car…
Taryn’s grandmother, Stella, is loosely based on my own grandmother. They share a lot in common. If you REALLY want to read a character that’s more faithful to my own grandmother, then check out my Kentucky Witches series. Liza Jane’s grandmother is very similar to mine-more so than Stella.
The Black Raven Inn is a conglomeration of several places. It’s no one motel, thank goodness. I actually got on Trip Advisor’s site and pulled up some of the motels with the worst reviews and drew inspiration from them. A lot of the Black Raven Inn’s descriptions came from these motels.
While backpacking Croatia in my early twenties, I spent the night at a youth hostel in the capital city of Zagreb. It was, by far, the worst hostel I’ve ever stayed in. Going by the reviews, others agreed. I drew from my experience with that hostel to help flesh out the motel in the book.
Some people will see similarities to the Drake Motel in downtown Nashville and the Joshua Tree Inn and Motel in Joshua Tree, California. The Drake Motel has been around for many decades and, in the past, was a place that up and coming singers would stay while they tried to find their footing in Nashville. It’s a typical motor lodge. It had its heyday many years ago but some people still like to drive past it to take pictures of its sign.
The Joshua Tree Inn and Motel in Joshua Tree is a quaint, vintage motel that my son and I stayed in during the research phase of this book. It’s reportedly haunted by the ghost of Gram Parsons and we stayed in the “Gram Parsons’ Room” while were there. We loved our stay. It’s clean, cute, has a vintage feel to it, and the staff was awesome. I highly recommend that you check it out if you’re around Joshua Tree. Which brings us to…
Parker Brown.
Parker Brown is a mixture of several different people. His personality is entirely made up. His career and death, however, ARE loosely based on those of Gram Parsons. I am a huge fan of his, to the point where my son and I visited California to trace some of his steps and sleep in his old hotel room. The shrine outside the room where he overdosed is real.
I really did hear guitar music in the middle of the night. If you want to watch a video about our stay there, you can find it on my You Tube channel.
The name “Parker Brown” comes from the fact that my son can never remember Gram Parson’s name and, consequently, always refers to him as “Parker.”
I combined several different stories of singers’ deaths and struggles with addiction to create the idea of “Parker.” Lenny is entirely made up. No such person ever existed.
Country music and music in general lost a great talent the day Gram died. He was a beautiful man with a sad, tormented soul. I became very close to his memory as I wrote this book. As a result, I found parts of this book hard to write. I became extremely involved, to the point where I had to put the book down and pick it back up again months later (I wrote A Broom with a View in the middle).
The name “Ruby Jane Morgan” comes from two of my aunts–Jane and Ruby. Aunt Jane is responsible for introducing me to a lot of musicians I’ve come to like as an adult. She gave me an Emmylou duets album when I was a freshman in college and “Gulf Coast Highway,” her duet with Willie Nelson, changed my life and the way I viewed music from there on out. My Aunt Ruby always felt more like a sister than an aunt to me. When my Aunt Wilma, a big influence on my life, passed away in the fall of 2015 I knew I needed to do something in honor of the other two relatives who had meant a lot to me over the years. It was Aunt Jane who turned me on to Gram Parsons and Aunt Ruby who, along with grandmother, solidified my love of Elvis. This book is, in part, a tribute to those fine ladies who love music as much as I do.
David and Matt are fictional. People who are close to me will see a resemblance of a childhood friend I grew up with in Matt. He is also equally based on the character of “Spencer Reid” from “Criminal Minds.” David is entirely made up and, alas, exists only as a figment of my imagination.
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About Rebecca
Rebecca Patrick-Howard is the author of several books including the first book in her paranormal mystery trilogy Windwood Farm. She lives in eastern Kentucky with her husband and two children. The picture above features her in her homemade Nudie Suit, made especially for this book.
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Want MORE Taryn?
Want to learn about Taryn’s beloved grandmother and get a glimpse of Taryn when she was a child? The companion novella to the Taryn’s Camera series entitled Stella is 100+ pages and available in the Ghost Children anthology.
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Other books by Rebecca
Visit Rebecca’s website at www.rebeccaphoward.net for ordering information.
Taryn's Camera Series
Windwood Farm
Griffith Tavern
Dark Hollow Road
Shaker Town
Jekyll Island
Taryn’s Pictures: Photos from Taryn’s Camera
True Hauntings
Haunted Estill County
More Tales from Haunted Estill County
A Summer of Fear
The Maple Ho
use
Four Months of Terror
Two Weeks: A True Haunting
Three True Tales of Terror
Other Books
Coping with Grief: The Anti-Guide to Infant Loss
Three Minus Zero
Estill County in Photos
Haunted: Ghost Children Stories from Beyond
Reviews for the
Taryn’s Camera Series
Windwood Farm
"This is an absolutely wonderful book and I didn't want to put it down. It was exciting and sad but it was uplifting too." (Kim @ The Open Book Societyopenbooksociety.com/)
"I won't spoil anything but this book has great characterization, loads of atmosphere and is never dull. The first book in the Taryn's Camera series so roll on number two!" (A Drunken Druid's Reviews the-drunken-druid.blogspot.com/)
"The author does a great job painting just what life in a small town in Kentucky is like. She also writes a great mystery." (Lisa Binion @ The News in Books thenewsinbooks.com/)
“while I do not believe in ghosts and such, this book was written in a way that I was able to enjoy it and go along for the ride and "believe" the story.”- online reviewer
“a great chiller that was perfect summertime reading!”- online reviewer
Griffith Tavern:
“I actually love Rebecca's descriptive style of writing which kept feeding my imagination and continuously created images and pictures in my mind”- online reviewer
Black Raven Inn: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 6) Page 20
