The Roxbury Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 1) Read online

  “Hello, Detective.” There’s a grin in my voice and I bite my lip.

  “Hey, Jack. Thought you’d like to know what happened today since you helped out.”

  Nope. At the sound of Acker’s voice, I’m sure I’m not at all eager to hear. When I crossed the state line, I decided not to give the man a second thought. Now here he is acting like I’m still just down the road and not out of his life.

  “You were right about the lake. We pulled Etta Jane and her vehicle out this afternoon. She stuck a note in a jar, still holding on to it tight as a vice.”

  I’d gotten a call from Tucker shortly after I was on the road home. He was at Hayley’s house feeling the Christmas spirit. Probably several tall glasses of Christmas spirits. After inviting me over for drinks, I told him his mother asked me to tell him that she loves him.

  Of course, he thought I was talking about Dorothy and wanted to know if she had come back to the house to tell me that. I told him that the dead speak to me wherever they are. Then I told him she would always be there for him, and he could call on her for help anytime, night or day, happy or sad.

  It confused him a little, but I think in his condition, most things would. He thanked me for letting him know then thanked me for getting rid of the spooks. I was almost feeling a soft spot in my heart for the kid when he told me I was the best ghost buster in the whole dang world. That made it a lot easier to say goodbye.

  “What reason did she give?” I ask Acker. “I hope she gave one for her kids’ sake.”

  “She admitted responsibility for Mrs. Matthews’ fall down the stairs.… Jack?”

  I’d dropped my phone and it took me a couple of seconds to pick it up. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Read the note myself. She was on my radar anyway. Woman kept chickens and she had a black rooster, left a calling card for some reason. Plus, I’d seen those boots she had on at the funeral. I confiscated them and the lab left me a message that they’d matched them with the print found on the day Mrs. Matthews fell, along with the one she left the other night. I got my own vibe that she was feeling guilty about something or other. I planned to pay her a visit today, just not the way I did.”

  “Ever think about becoming a ghost buster?”

  “Not even once.” He laughs and my stomach quivers. “Note said she went over to talk to Mrs. Matthews about Tucker, her son. I know you already talked to the boy. Anyway, said she went to the house afterwards to find the necklace she lost that day. Looks like she found it then dropped it when she got spooked. Ever think about becoming a detective?”

  “Not even once. When Etta Jane paid me a visit before I left the house, she sure didn’t mention killing anyone.”

  “Note said they argued about Tucker. Etta Jane thought it was time for him to know who his real mother was, and she wanted Dorothy to come clean about it. Seems Harold Matthews was determined to raise his son himself without regard for what Dorothy or Etta Jane wanted. The note said they argued and Dorothy went upstairs. Etta Jane went after her and Dorothy ended up at the bottom of the stairs.

  “She said it was an accident, but what else would she say? She knew Tucker would never forgive her for what happened to Dorothy. Whether it was guilt, regret, or the evidence stacking up against her that caused her to commit suicide, no one will ever know. That is, unless you want to come back and discuss it with the woman. I swear I won’t act like a total wuss during the séance if you will…. Jack?”

  “I’m here,” I say.

  What I don’t say is that the overwhelming emotions Alexander felt in losing his children were the same that Etta Jane felt in losing her son. I don’t say that Carmela’s inability to cope with motherhood was the same Dorothy must have felt raising a son who wasn’t hers. Both with husbands who disregarded their pain.

  I also don’t tell Acker that the rooster feather wasn’t Etta Jane’s calling card, but Alexander’s. Whatever happened to both women, a hundred years to the day wasn’t a coincidence. It was shared experiences and shared emotions, of the very human kind.

  “Well, guess it’s hard to collect your fee from the dead,” Acker says.

  “Usually. How did Tucker take it? It must have been a real shock.”

  “It probably will be tomorrow when he sobers up. Course Hayley knew something wasn’t right all along. She was actually happy to hear the truth. She was fifteen when a baby showed up in the house one day. Parents lied to her too. Said that secret had nagged at her for years. She worried her parents had stolen the kid. I guess where Etta Jane was concerned, they had.”

  “Sounds like Harold did anyway. I can’t imagine how Etta Jane felt all those years watching Tucker grow up. Wonder she didn’t kill the both of them years ago and take him back. By the way, how did Harold die?”

  Acker laughs. “In his sleep. Peacefully, or so Mrs. Matthews reported back then.”

  We both get too quiet, and I’m about ready to say a final goodbye when Acker clears his throat into my ear.

  “You know. Well, the thing is I’ve got some vacation time coming up in a couple of months. I’ve always wanted to visit Roswell. You know the spaceship, aliens?”

  “Total tourist trap.”

  “Exactly why I need a local to keep me from getting snagged in that trap. What do you say? Jack?”

  “I’m here. I say that I wouldn’t mind showing you the scenery, little green men included.”

  We continue talking like a couple of teenagers until I notice the time. “I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late for my waitressing job if I don’t get back on the road.”

  “You were serious about that?”

  “Bye, Acker.”

  Chapter Thirty

  §

  “Hey,” I say to the wolfdog who’s giving me the amber evil eye. “Don’t look at me like that. I know what I’m doing.”

  I swear he rolls his eyes when I open the door for him. He gets in like he’s doing me a favor. Course, he never met my online dating losers, so what does he know?

  “Acker’s a nice, intelligent, respectable guy. A friend.” As soon as a friend comes out of my mouth, I wish I could take it back. It’s too late, I’ve already jinxed myself.

  Everything happens for a reason, I hear Maybelle whisper in my ear. She never met the online losers either.

  When I finally pull into town, I follow the Christmas lights to the diner on the Old Kennaw Road. The parking lot is crowded already. I can hear Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer blasting from inside. Mojo smelled the place as soon as I turned onto Kennaw. He’s already sitting in the seat beside me, licking his chops, thinking about the steak Arthur has waiting to throw on the grill for him.

  As he does every year, Dad’s wrapped the Lacey’s Diner sign on the roof in gold and white lights and placed an angel on top. When the last customer leaves for the night, we’ll have a whiskey together in front of the plastic tree he’s put up for the past fifteen years and wish Mom a Merry Christmas.

  I thank Alexander for being kind enough to let me get home tonight. I can almost see him smile, not quite but almost. I hope he found the white light, and he and Carmela and the children are together again. That’s the way I’m going to remember it.

  I crawl in the back of the jeep and wrap cowboy boots and a ridiculous ten gallon hat. Then, I write Dad on the smiling, fat Santa gift card. Tomorrow, I’ll give him the pizza oven he just had to have for his customers.

  Maybelle will get her yearly Navajo poncho and robe; her day and night apparel for reading her twelve totally raunchy romance novels. She gets those every year too despite the fact that they embarrass me to tears to buy, even online. Mojo’s new collar and rawhide bones are at home, under the potted coral cactus.

  There’s probably twenty cars at the diner with more on the way; all of them belonging to friends. Some of those friends have other places they could be, some have nowhere else to go. My diner family is as strange as my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, almost.

  I sneak in
the back entrance and change into my waitress uniform.

  Despite health department regulations, Mojo doesn’t even consider waiting with me. He’s already picking out his steak when I come around the corner.

  “Hey, Jack’s here, everybody.”

  Everybody yells, “Hey, Jack,” and I wave.

  “Where’s my pony?” I say, kissing Dad on the cheek and reaching for menus for a family of five who’s just walked in the door.

  “I told you it’s better than a pony.”

  “Hey, Jack.”

  I’m still reaching for the menus, but my fingers can’t seem to grasp them. My stomach is twisting and turning and my legs are wobbly; none of which are coming from the spirit realm or my psychic abilities.

  I catch my dad’s eyes and they say a mouth full. I must look lethal. That would explain why he’s taken a few steps back and is holding up his spatula for protection.

  “Surprise,” he whispers, with a goofy grin. I grind my teeth and turn around.

  “Hello, Levi. When did they let you out of prison?”

  The End

  ∞

  Book 2 in A Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Series

  The Cathville Haunting

  Release: February 2017

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  For her next job, Jack’s headed to Cathville, Arkansas. She’s been hired to chase off a spooky mist in the woods where real estate broker Dexter Joubert and his business partners plan to build a shopping mall.

  Dexter has more problems than ecto-mist, construction delays, and financial ruin. He’s got some good old local boys who’ll do anything to keep a bunch of mall shoppers out of their neck of the woods. There’s also the little matter of a pretty, young, and very dead real estate agent who’s got a clump of his hair in her hand, and a secret in her cold, still heart.

  Ex-boyfriend and ex-con, Levi Cordona, is determined to tag along to win back Jack’s heart and prove he’s not a common criminal. Even though pulling off that miracle means spending a week in a twelve foot, barely road-legal camp trailer in some wickedly weird and unwelcoming backwoods with a still irate psychic medium who doesn’t think he has a prayer in Hades.

  Feeling haunted? Take the quiz and find out if you’ve got a ghost in the house.

  About the Author

  I grew up in Southern California watching the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, everything Alfred Hitchcock, and reading Edgar Allan Poe, Ira Levin, Arthur Hailey, Jacqueline Susann, Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, E.B. White and so many other wonderful storytellers. Now I live in a suburb of Seattle and spend my time trying to create a little fictional humor, mystery, drama, and horror in a world gone mad.

  Visit my website robingaustin.com to download a free book of your choice, email of new releases, and review copies. Find me on Twitter and Facebook. If you read all this way, maybe you liked the book and want to leave a review right now.

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  Volume 2: Dark and Primal

  Volume 3: Dark and Crazy

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