Crimson Secrets

by Garnet Davenport

  The Mac Tire Chronicles

  Crimson Secrets

  The Mac Tire Chronicles

  Crimson Secrets

  Book 1

  Garnet Davenport

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters or likeness, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are to be used fictitiously for an element of the book. Any mention of mythological characters are based solely for fiction and are not to be considered as true mythology.

  Copyright © 2019 by Garnet Davenport

  First Edition

  Cover design by Fantasia Cover Designs

  All rights reserved.

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

  ISBN-13:978-1976238444

  ISBN-10: 1976238447

  This book has been assigned ISBN through CreateSpace.

  A company of Kindle Direct Publishing.

  For my husband Eric

  For being my life, love, courage, and support

  Let’s live life

  Listening to the rain on the windows,

  Walking barefoot in the grass,

  Reaching for our own stars,

  And growing old together.

  ➢1 Disjunction

  There I was, running through the trees. The branches ripped at my arms as I tried to escape from whatever was chasing me. I could hear its panting and heavy footsteps behind me. I couldn’t catch my breath. I could feel my blood as it dripped down my fingertips. I turned to look behind me, but I couldn’t see anything.

  All I could hear was the deep growling coming closer. My breath was warm in the night air. I could see it in front of me as I ran, but that was as far as I could see. I knew I had to keep running. I couldn’t stop. I feared for my life.

  I felt as if I was slowing. I couldn’t keep up the pace to get away. I could hear every raindrop fall through the leaves of the trees and hit the ground. Then there was a crack far off in the distance, and I jerked my head. Panicking, I took off, not looking before I ran.

  Everything went dark.

  ***

  “Samantha Shay Evans, let’s go. It’s time for breakfast.”

  My eyes shot open. Crap! She used my full name. I rolled my eyes as I sat up in bed and yelled back, “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  I got up and went over to my bedroom mirror. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I was still so tired. My whole body ached to move. I looked in the mirror, squinting to see myself clearly then reaching for my dark-rimmed glasses so I could actually see. My green eyes, which normally looked so electric, looked old and tired, almost gray. My lips were slightly chapped and dry, and my dark auburn-brown hair was so tangled that it was sticking up slightly on the right side in a knot that looked like a bird’s nest.

  I tried to comb it down with my fingers.

  “Samantha Shay Evans, right now!” Mom yelled with an annoyed tone.

  “Just a second.” I got the one part of my hair somewhat combed out.

  “Now!”

  I swung open the door to my room. “All right, I’m coming,” I yelled back as I hurried out of my room and down the stairs, rounding the corner and walking into the kitchen. Everyone looked up at me as I walked to the table.

  “You look terrible,” Tommy said, barely looking up.

  I turned to him, tilted my head and gave him a fake smile. “Gee thanks.”

  He smiled back at me as I sat down at the table and grabbed the toast off my plate. I cleared my throat. “I actually didn’t sleep very well.”

  Tommy and I had always been close. Besides the fact that we were fraternal twins, we actually looked pretty similar. However, the last few years there had been a weird separation between us. I suspected he might have been keeping a secret from me.

  We had a best friend in common, Matt Pearson, but that was about it lately. Tommy had been busy with lacrosse and then he got an internship at Callamore Industries. Matt was normally around when Tommy wasn’t. Matt had black hair and dark honey-brown eyes. He did a bunch of outdoor activities, so he almost always had a tan, and over the last two years he and Tommy had been bulking up and getting really fit. It was like some type of muscle club. I would think they were using steroids, but they would never use anything like that. I think they were just looking for a way to look older.

  I can remember that we were so close when we were little. I guess like most twins we did everything together. It had been hard to make time for each other these days; the only time we had was while we drove to school. I smiled at my thoughts.

  My mom spoke from behind the kitchen island. “Sweetie, you need to eat your fruit salad.” She was always concerned about me eating healthy. She had decided sometime while she was in college to protest animals’ suffering by turning into a vegetarian and ruining everyone’s enjoyment of eating meat.

  When I was little, she made us watch a documentary showing cows getting slaughtered. I felt shivers go down my spine at the memory of it, and I sat up straighter. It gave me nightmares for weeks after I saw it.

  I definitely lost my appetite for meat after that, but lately I had really been craving the protein. “I’m not that hungry, for some reason.”

  My nerves were still on edge from the nightmare I’d had last night, and I had a weird unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “You didn’t eat much at dinner last night. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” my dad asked, showing concern, but I knew he was busy looking over his last-minute preparations for his big presentation to Julius Callamore.

  He’d been talking about this for months. Some big deal that he’d been overly stressing himself and my mother over.

  Julius Callamore was one of the leaders of our community, and my dad was his financial advisor of sorts. I had only seen the man once. He was almost a celebrity in our small town because of all the business and jobs his company brought here. Callamore Industries was a leader in acquisitions. They bought portions of other companies that needed advice on business operations. The one good thing about Julius Callamore was that he left the small businesses alone, and I’d heard he even helped out when they were in need. My dad worked so hard and stressed himself out to make sure the rich stayed rich.

  “No, I’m sure it’s just because I didn't sleep very well,” I said, sighing as I took another bite of bland, dry toast and chewed it slowly.

  I looked around at my family and decided that the weirdest thing about breakfast was the fact that we sat at the table as a family and didn’t look at each other as we ate or communicated. Most of the time my dad worked on his laptop, my mother was searching the web for her newest vegetarian creation for dinner, and Tommy was attached to his phone. He was more popular than me and definitely got along with people more. I could sit and just watch them, and no one would even notice.

  An alarm went off on Tommy’s phone. “Hey, we’ve got to get going,” he said, looking at the clock on his cell phone. “You’re still in pajamas.” He looked up at me for a second and then grabbed his orange juice and gulped it down.

  “Yeah, I’m going.” I got up, grabbed my other piece of toast, and went running back upstairs.

  I closed the door to my bedroom and leaned into it, taking a moment to gather myself. Then I went to my closet and pulled out the first T-shirt and pair of jeans I could find to put on. I looked around the room for my favorite red hoodie, but it was nowhere to be found.

  I opened my door and stuck my head out. “Has anyone seen my red hoodie?”

  “No, sweetie,” my mom yelled back. “Where did you leave it last?”
>
  I turned around in the doorway and said quietly to myself, “My room.”

  Then I heard Tommy say, “Just pick a different one. We’ve got to go, we’re late.”

  I growled in frustration. I turned and grabbed a black hoodie. “Fine. Hey, Tommy?”

  “Yeah?”

  I hesitated just a moment and said, “I forgot to tell you that we have to get Matt. Umm… his car isn’t available.”

  We both knew what that really meant. In reality Matt typically got the keys taken away from him for something stupid every other week before his dad realized it was too hard for Matt not to have a car.

  I was trying to grab everything and run, headed out the door.

  “You need to hurry. I’ll be out in the truck,” Tommy called out.

  I stopped for a second just to double-check that I had everything. I jerked my head over to the window when I heard something smack into it. I walked over to look. A black bird had flown right into the glass. It was lying on the roof outside my window. I watched it for a moment as it lay still. There was something about this bird that terrified me. It almost didn’t look like a crow; it was bigger than I had imagined a crow would be.

  Then it jumped into a standing position, looking at me, tilting its head back and forth as it watched me. “I thought crows were supposed to be intelligent.” I shook my head and then walked away from the window. “That was weird.”

  I started to run down the stairs to catch up with Tommy. “Okay, I’m coming,” I yelled out as I flew out the door. I looked up at the sky. It was dark and wet—even the air was wet—and that was weird for mid-October in Kenosha county.

  I got into Tommy’s red truck, and as he drove I watched out the window. It seemed like there were crows covering the sky as they circled.

  We went straight over to Matt’s house, and Tommy honked the horn for Matt to come out.

  “Shay, are you doing anything after school today?”

  I looked at him. “Nope.”

  Matt opened the door to the truck and hopped in. “Hey man, what’s up?”

  He already knew we were running late because of me, and I was sure that was why he was smiling.

  “Nothing much,” Tommy said.

  “Hey, Shay.” Matt leaned forward and around the seat to look at me. “Damn, Shay, did you sleep at all last night?”

  Tommy laughed and Matt smirked at me, probably expecting me to come back with something sarcastic and witty, but I didn’t have anything right then.

  I was looking out the window of the truck toward the sky.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, turning and smirking at him. Then I turned back to look out the window at the sky.

  I continued to see crows. They were circling over the cemetery as we drove past. A thick fog blanketed the cemetery, so I could only see the tops of the weathered old headstones. Like that wasn’t creepy. It was almost like the crows were following us, or was it me they were following?

  “So, yeah, I don’t mind coming to get you. But at least let me know, since Shay is destined to be irresponsible.” They both smiled and looked at me, but I pretended I hadn’t even heard what they were talking about.

  “Yeah, man, of course,” said Matt.

  We pulled into the entrance of our school, Tremper High School, and got out of Tommy’s truck.

  I took a deep breath and looked up at the front of the building, hesitating before I had to endure another exciting day there. They say the best days of your life happen in high school. Well, let me just say that whoever said that should be dragged out into the street, shot and run over, and then shot again.

  It was great, all the time, one big party. I could feel myself becoming more sarcastic with every passing moment. I just hoped that when I finished my senior year I would be able to get away from all these people that had strived so hard to make me feel like the most insignificant person alive.

  Matt put his arm around my neck. “Come on, you.”

  We walked toward the front door. Tommy yelled out, “Hey Matt?”

  Matt turned around.

  “Take care of her, okay?” Tommy said.

  Matt smiled and said, “Always do.”

  Matt had always been there for me. Lately he’d literally been my best friend while Tommy was so busy with lacrosse and his internship at the Callamore Industries.

  We kept walking up the front steps and through the door. “What’s going on with you today?” said Matt.

  I looked at the roof, seeing more crows sitting on the edge. “Nothing. I just had this really in-the-moment dream last night, and it kind of freaked me out.”

  He looked like he actually wanted to hear about it and not just make fun of me the way that Tommy would have. “Really? What about?”

  I decided I didn’t want to tell him too much about it. “Oh, it was stupid. I was in the woods running from something. Probably nothing. Or worse, it was really the math test I’m about to take.” I made a goofy face to shrug it off.

  “Yeah, nothing. You’ll get better sleep tonight.” He said that in the creepiest way I’ve ever heard him speak.

  “Yep,” I said. The bell rang, and I started to walk away.

  “I’ll see you at lunch,” he called out in my direction, probably not expecting me to answer since I was pretty far down the hall and we eat lunch together every day.

  I turned and said, “Yeah, okay.”

  As I turned back around, I saw Matt walking up to Duncan Callamore. Duncan was at the top of the high school hierarchy of our generation. He already had his life planned out for him. I knew they knew each other, but jeez, did he really have to talk to that asshole?

  I ducked into the classroom when I saw Duncan look up at me while Matt was talking to him. I moved quickly to get out of sight. “And today keeps getting creepier,” I said to myself.

  Duncan was one of those pretty people that had just about everything in life handed to them. He was very nice looking, I could admit in one of my weaker moments, and got a lot of attention from girls, but he never acknowledged any of them. He probably thought he was too good for any girl in school. Besides the fact that we lived in such a small town that everyone our age basically grew up with each other.

  He was still handsome. His hair was brown and slightly wavy, his eyes were brown, and he had these eyelashes that were so thick it made his eyes even more fascinating. He stood tall and wore jeans on a regular basis with some type of T-shirt or dress shirt. I personally thought his grandmother picked out his clothes.

  The rest of the day went by fast, and before I knew it, the last bell rang and everybody piled out of class to their lockers and then out the door. I don’t even remember going to lunch with Matt. While I was getting my books out of my locker, I saw Matt by the front doors. I was sure he was waiting for me. He always did.

  I caught up to him. “Waiting for me?”

  He smiled. “Who else?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe your girlfriend?” Of course, I said it jokingly, but he coughed and looked back at Duncan. I had never seen Matt with a girlfriend. Although I was pretty sure he had a thing for Angelica Callamore, but he would never admit that to me.

  Angelica was so beautiful, even though she could be completely intimidating almost all the time. Her blonde curls were even perfect. She also spoke with a wit that made most people doubt themselves even when they knew the right answer.

  I walked with Matt out to Tommy’s truck, and I felt like someone was staring at me. It was like the back of my neck was on fire.

  When I turned around, there he was, Duncan Callamore. He was staring straight at me. It was very unusual. Sometimes he actually smiled at me just to pretend he spoke to the third-class citizens on the popularity ladder. I got chills up my spine and quickly got in the truck.

  I could hear Matt and Tommy discreetly speaking about something, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to really keep up with the conversation.

  My eyes were heavy as I leaned over the console on Tommy�
��s shoulder while he drove us home.

  Crows were still circling overhead, as if there was prey nearby, and the clouds were dark like a storm was coming.

  My eyes closed for just a second. My heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to beat out of my chest, and then I heard a strange eerie sound that brushed over my ears.

  “Hey, we’re home,” said Tommy.

  I opened my eyes to see our little house, nothing great like the mansion the Callamores lived in, but it was home. I loved our little white house with the small porch out front.

  My dad had recently repainted the shutters a dark red and sealed the new cement slab with gray sealant. Tommy and I wrote our names on the edge in the cement just like we had so many years ago when we were kids. This was my home, and I was more than pleased with it. My dad had worked hard to get a small two-story house in our area and then harder to maintain it.

  “Yep, I’m up,” I said.

  They both laughed at me.

  “What?” I looked back and forth between them.

  “I think you drooled on me.” Tommy looked down to his shoulder.

  Feeling pretty embarrassed, I said, “Oh, sorry.” I rubbed my hand over my face and wiped the drool off. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders at him.

  He rolled his eyes at me and got out of the truck. Matt and I followed behind him into the house.

  My mom was standing there at the door as soon as I walked in. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry you had a bad dream last night. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I was pretty sure I had mentioned something about it that morning, but she rarely paid much attention while she was in the recipe zone. She was hugging me so tightly I thought I would stop breathing.

  She stepped back, put her hands on my shoulders, and looked me in the eye. Then she pulled me in close again. Was I dying? I’d never had this much affection at one time.

  “Mom, are you okay?” I asked, pulling away slightly to look at her with concern.