DEADLY HOPE a gripping detective mystery full of twists and turns

by Jack Parker

  This Novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Jack Parker

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  CHAPTER One

  My name is Lauren.

  My parents never gave me many things I enjoyed, but my name had been a comfort to me, simple yet uncommon, much like my life, or so I had hoped. My father's family name is Danes, and as much a disgrace to me as the man himself. "Unnatural" was the word commonly used when he spoke to me about my behavior in the half-slurred, raspy breath that reeked a little too much of stale liquor and cigarettes and pounded inside my head a little too loudly for civilized conversation. I inherited his voice, which I blamed on my avid smoking habit for years rather than accept our similarities. He was taller than most men in our tiny town, gangly and pale, and it wasn't until I looked in the mirror one day in my early teens that I realized my own heritage. The long raven hair and bright green eyes were my mother's, but by then his genes had taken every other resemblance of her from me. Like our dilapidated trailer, I had become void of her influence from years of abandonment and neglect, a pale canvas of flesh that had been tainted by rough and unsure hands. I wondered in that moment if gentler and more skilled fingers could ever erase the destructive brush strokes hidden beneath the stretched muslin and rebelled against the angry artist that day. I rebelled and determined from that moment forward that I would create my own colors even if I couldn't determine how they would be used. In my father's eyes, it was unnatural for a woman to think so freely without the influence of a man's guidance. I'm not sure he ever understood how much he shaped the person I would become.

  Our town was small, maybe five thousand people (bearing in mind that number encompassed over half the county, not just the town itself.) We drove at least thirty minutes for groceries, over a small mountain, and when kids graduated from high school, they either went to the sawmills, the state to work on the roads or got married. If we found a bit of luck, we received athletic scholarships to colleges, either that or you belonged to the small elite of middle or upper class who could afford to pay for a higher education. When you lived in rural West Virginia, though, those opportunities were few and far between even if the teachers could manage to get you ready for that endeavor. It wasn't their fault, most times, because when a teacher had twenty students, over half with learning disabilities or broken homes or parents with substance abuse problems or all of the above and limited resources, there was only so much they could do to get everyone on the right level. Me? Well, I preferred to be outside, exploring the surrounding forests, than sitting in a classroom doing work I usually didn't understand.

  The first time I stood staring at the mansion two miles outside of town, I envied the wealth and the prestige of living in such grandeur, like a scene ripped from an old novel or movie. Though weeds had grown over the cast iron fence surrounding the property and the green runs of ivy had commandeered the walls, I gaped in awe of the massive structure, knowing that at least twenty replicas our tiny trailer could fit on just the first floor of the structure easily. Until that day, I'd been blissfully unaware of its existence, but that day it changed everything. I waded through the waist-high weeds in the yard and picked the wildflowers and strung them through my coal black hair, pretending that I was a medieval maiden who had been captured by a witch. Slowly, I worked up my courage to enter the massive wooden doors, but my prince left his tower room and rescued me from the enchantress in my mind before I ever entered that desolate castle. He told me that the red and yellow flowers complimented my bright green eyes beautifully, and he was taller than me, a rare quality in a boy around here, at least in any my age.

  I lost my virginity that day, pressed against the wall of ivy. The cool vinyl texture slipping through my fingers as I grasped at the heavy wooden door brought some comfort as I fought down the urge to vomit on the sweating body painfully pounding into me, pushing me further into the ivy with each thrust, making me wish the structure would crack and create enough space to combine our forms. I wanted him to stop, but I never wanted that exhilaration to leave my body. It was an important feeling for me. For the first time in my life, my heart pounded and my adrenaline rushed for other reasons than fear of my father. This, I thought, would be my salvation, my survival. This would be the one thing my father couldn't control. That was the thought in my mind the first time I ever felt a boy climax inside of me, and it confused me while solidifying the purpose behind the idea. When he asked about my distant gaze, I told the boy that I was thinking about the tickling sensation his peach-fuzz beard caused against my neck.

  I've tried to remember the boy's name for some time now with little success. I knew it was common, mundane, monosyllabic. Ben, maybe? Or Greg. He was older, in high school at the time, and I was 12. He had appeared from nowhere that day, and even apologized kindly after he'd finished grunting over me like a caveman, once he saw the blood droplets spotting the cracked, gray slate stone beneath us as proof of my taken innocence. That's what my dad called it anyway. I knew that he'd already beaten any innocence I may have been born with out of me before I ever felt a man penetrate me. He asked what grade I was in and why he'd never seen me before today. Why he felt the need to make small talk after he'd taken my virginity was a question I had no answer to that day. I just wanted him to go away, so I revealed the truth. He nearly cried and then stuttered terribly when he explained that he'd thought that I was older. Apparently, my tall, lanky physique and prematurely developed breasts fooled him. I told him that I would call to ease his guilt, and he gave me his phone number. He wanted mine as well, wanted to spark some sort of connection between us, but I knew that my father would never let him within a mile of me on a good day. I never called. I never wanted to see or speak to him again, at least not until I figured out the motive behind his desperate attempt to make a connection with me. Why had he felt so bonded to me when I felt nothing?

  A few months later, he cornered me under the bleachers at our school's gym during one of the odd periods where the middle school and high school shared gym time. He apologized again for our encounter that day and then tried to kiss me, told me that he hadn't stopped thinking about me. I allowed him one kiss and then shoved my knee between his legs. He knelt down in pain, and I bolted. I have never figured out why his sincerity frightened me so much; I only knew that I didn't want his attentions. My gym teacher caught me fleeing the scene and immediately pulled me into the locker room. She brushed back my black hair, searched my wild green eyes urgently as she demanded to know what had happened to evoke such a violent reaction.

  I realized then why he'd done what he'd done. Power. I had all of it, and he wanted some of it back. I confided to her our secret liaison at the mansion, sniffed at the appropriate intervals to hold back fake tears that would never come and gripped her hand tightly when she pulled me into her coach's office to call the police. I hadn't meant for the sheriff to show up that day with two of his deputies. I certainly never intended to watch the boy who had shared my first sexual experience escorted from the building in hand cuffs, but as my gym teacher held a protective arm around my shoulder tightly and reassured me that everything would be just fine, my body hummed with that same exhilaration it had the day I'd given h
im my virginity. Sex equaled power, and I was addicted to that feeling. Sex gave command of a person's future if they weren't smart enough to control his or herself. I recognized in that moment at 12 years of age that as long as I controlled the sex, I controlled the person afterwards with a simple whisper into the ear of the right (or wrong) person. Sex gave me power, and I exercised that power as often as possible from that day forward. That was ten years ago.

  I swore that day in Mrs. Harper's protective embrace that I'd never go back to the mansion again, blaming it for unleashing this urge for dominance within my soul. It frightened me, the pull of the mansion and the desire that built inside of me until I could no longer control it anymore. I asked around about it, though, at the diner where I started working only a few years later. I desperately sought to relinquish the image of the insolvent castle from my mind and hoped that contacting the current owner with an update of the destitution of the property would ignite some sort of effort to save it. It was, after all, the safe haven of my mind. I may never have physically visited the property again, but every night when I lay down to sleep, visions of it swam in my thoughts. I loved it, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it loved me back.

  For years, my quest to find the owner consumed me. It was my obsession. The younger people of the town enraged me when they shrugged and then continued slurping their milkshakes or asked, "What mansion?" The older folks surprised me with the passionate responses they gave, even if they ignored me completely about the subject. The signs were the same with nearly every person, the slight reddening of the cheeks, the rigid motions of their arms and hands as they brought food to their mouths to avoid answering. One older fellow, the most memorable response, poked a finger in my chest and told me that I should stay as far away from that place as possible because it evoked a devil that would fill me with all sorts of wanton and sinful desires. I suppose if the day I lost my virginity served as my guide, I wagered that perhaps Old Pete might have been correct. That was 7 years ago.

  Old Pete's words have repeated in my mind nearly every day, battling with the sensation of awe when I first caught glimpse of that mansion. I remained true to the vow I made to myself of never returning to that house, believing the ranting of a Bible-thumping, senile man as truth, until her. It was a Tuesday morning in April; the diner was slow, only a few truckers and sawmill boys trickling in and out for coffee before heading to their jobs. I skimmed the paper, just like I did every morning, especially the classified ads, hoping to find something of interest, but somehow teenagers defacing church property merited headline news for the third time this month. I nearly discarded the paper in disgust but then… There it sat in black ink on the flimsy grey paper: In search of a personal companion, no experience necessary. Will provide on-site lodging and board for successful candidate in addition to a negotiable salary. Please call upon Ms. Pravitas at the old Carver Manor, two miles east of town.

  I glanced around the familiar diner at the cute little wooden plaques that spouted platitudes about what does and doesn't make a home, the cream-colored walls, and the blue floral boarder. Everything appeared normal, in place, and nothing like the dreams I've seen in my sleep with twisted shadows and dead faces of customers gnawing the air like a zombie seeking flesh. I jumped at the sound of the ridiculous bell on the door as another truck driver barged in seeking caffeine to tide him over until lunch time. I nodded as politely as my shaking body would allow and immediately reached for a foam cup beneath the counter; Steve never dined in anymore, not since I rode him like St George's horse in the sleeper of his Mack about six months back. I think he felt guilty because I'm the same age as his daughter and apologized profusely for losing control of his senses. Isn't it funny how men have a tendency to apologize after they've blown their load inside of a pretty woman but not the good sense to stop before they regretted their actions? Either that or he feared the owner of the restaurant might come at him again with a cleaving knife, like she did the moment we walked back into the diner rather disheveled.

  Barb was not a woman to be trifled with. She'd thrown more than one drunk out on his head for making an inappropriate pass at one of her "girls." I owed the woman too much to ever clutter her business with my pitiable decisions. No, poor Steve became the first and last tryst I ever attempted at work, though I did hand out my phone number quite a bit. Luckily, the coffee was too strong and the burgers too tasty to ever keep anyone away from Barb's diner for longer than a few days. Whenever Steve came in, though, I always caught a glimpse of her round, pear-shaped figure lurking just inside my peripheral vision, watching, protecting, probably glaring. I never looked. I never wanted to see her eyes when she thought she was doing me a favor; she cared too much for me, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that these men were my victims, that I deliberately made them tremble in my presence because I thought it was funny. How could I ever tell the only mother figure I've ever had that I have all the makings of a serial killer who used sex instead of physical torture to slowly kill people, to strip them down to their primal essentials and reveal the Neanderthals beneath their cosmetic gentlemanly appearances? I saw them for what they were, animals. They were the same as me; I was simply better at playing their game.

  I smiled a bit when I took Steve's money, imagining her puffed up rosy cheeks as she grabbed me in her arms that day, dirty blonde curls crispy with a perm and hair spray bouncing around my face, and smothered me in her over abundance of bosom and gently whispered in her accented twang that she just wanted to protect me. Barb had always been a sort of guardian angel, an angel who wore too much vanilla musk perfume ordered from an Avon catalogue and styled her hair too high, but she loved me. And she'd love me anyway, if I'd told her the truth, but instead of breathing a word, I adjusted my red polo with my name embroidered at the left breast and plopped down on a stool by the register as the ding of the bell bade us Steve's goodbye.

  "I need tomorrow off," I threw out casually before gathering the newspaper in front of me again.

  "What for?" Barb barked and planted her chubby hands on her chubbier hips as she stared at me across the counter.

  I pointed to the ad and watched Barb's eyes widen with some indiscernible emotion. Her pudgy hand rubbed at her collar bones nervously as her eyes flew back to mine. I waited and fought down the urge to reassure Barb that I would be completely fine, mistaking the fear in her eyes as concern for my safety. I realized, though, when she took a couple of steps back and looked at the newspaper like it was a coiled Copperhead, that she hadn't known anyone had even begun restoration on the mansion much less moved into it, and that terrified her. The mansion and whatever happened there before I was even born terrified her and everyone else over forty in this superstitious hellhole.

  "Barb?" My voice jarred her back to reality. I slipped off the stool and rounded the counter to stand just out of her reach, lest she felt the need to slap me on the head for my stupidity, something she did often.

  "Laur," She started.

  "Lauren," I muttered and rolled my eyes, but she made no acknowledgement of my correction.

  "You always were a contrary girl," She murmured as she retreated towards the kitchen. "Go on, then! As a matter of fact, why don't you take the rest of the day off. Get out of here! Be sure you're here in time to open on Thursday."

  Her sudden anger glued me in place, and I jumped when I heard a skillet slam in the kitchen and echo into the dining room. Barb had always had a fierce streak as long as I've known her, but of every way I had envisioned that conversation going, this reaction did not resemble any of them remotely. I held a sigh in my cheeks and looked around the diner helplessly, wondering if it would be better to check on her now or wait a day and let her temper cool. I wasn't sure if she'd used anger to cover the hurt of me wanting to leave or the fear of that house, probably a bit of both. A metal spatula clattering against the floor followed by a curse made the decision for me, and I scurried to the front door, not bothering to look around to see if the hounds of hell were
in fact chasing me. That was yesterday.

  Now, as I stood rooted to a spot in the road only a tenth of a mile from Carver Manor, I replayed those particular events over and over in my mind - Barb's reaction to my request, the boy I'd destroyed the day I discovered the mansion, every man I'd been with since that day. Everything I'd done since that day ten years ago had led me back here to the place I swore I'd never return, the place where it all started. I kicked at the packed snow in the ditch beside the gravel road in frustration. The inexplicable pull of the mansion had grown in the past twenty-four hours until it physically hurt to stay away from it any longer than the five minutes it would take to finish walking there, and yet I hesitated for some unknown cause. Exasperated at my unusual indecision, I kicked more snow out of the ditch and watched it skitter across the gravels and solid dirt-clay road and pulled another drag from my nearly spent cigarette. I stamped out the butt as I sighed the smoke from my throat and pulled my shoulders back before taking that first tentative step towards the mansion. Excitement swelled in my chest once more and pushed my body forwards, popping the stiffness in my joints caused from standing still for so long in the low early April temperature.

  By the time that mansion's spires peeked above the tree line, I was jogging in my haste to see it one more time. I kept my eyes on the dark peeks as I slowed to a brisk walk. The steam from my labored breathing fogged the image every couple of seconds, and I wondered how the mansion would look on a spring morning when the dew evaporated into hazy, humid smoke that blanketed the mountains. I took a moment to imagine it before the whole mansion filled my vision, stole my breath with its beauty.

  My steps slowed as my heart somersaulted and began a frenzied tempo in my chest. The mansion was gorgeous. The ivy had been pulled from the walls, revealing a combination of worn but preserved sandstone blocks and hard Maple pillars. The waist-high weeds that had previously covered the yard had been flattened by the previous winter's snow fall and laid in haphazard patterns across the massive front yard. They would not be cleared until the ground thawed completely and loosened its hold on the stubborn roots. As I stepped through the opening in the ten foot tall iron fence where a huge gate had once hung, I noticed the tarps and harnesses attached the steeples and spires of the roof. Dark blue slate rock shingles laid on the ground near the foundation of the house, a testament to the incomplete restoration.