Relentless: Three Novels Read online

  As we scooted our way into the middle of the half-circle booth, so the guys could sit on the ends, Aaron let the waiter know that we would be having the rest of our dinner at their table.

  “Very good, sir.” He left with a faint smile on his face.

  “So, what do you girls do for work?” asked Tony.

  “Well, I am a fifth-grade teacher and Elizabeth is a florist and a movie makeup artist.” Elizabeth gave me “you’re gonna pay for this later” look.

  The guys grinned.

  “How about you guys?” asked Elizabeth politely. “What do you do?”

  “We’re both firefighters.”

  Elizabeth began to look more interested. “Wow, that must be a tough job, and exciting.”

  Tony began to talk to Elizabeth about the grueling daily requirements of a firefighter. Aaron put his hand on top of mine and smiled. Normally, this would have made me nervous, but there was something about him that made me feel comfortable. So, I decided to smile back. Wow, my first post-divorce flirtation. It wasn’t so bad.

  Our steaks came and so did theirs. Elizabeth insisted on us paying for our own dinners and gave me a hard look. The guys wanted to buy our dinners but she wouldn’t let them. For once, Liz seemed to be the one who was exhibiting ladylike manners.

  After we ate dinner, we decided to dance to the live band and we moved to a tiny high-top table with the men. Elizabeth and Tony seemed to be hitting it off well. I saw her giving him her smile that she gave when she liked a guy.

  As Aaron held me close to his body on the dance floor, I realized that I had missed being close to a man. It had been a long time and Aaron was gentlemanly and he smelled good, too. We were having such a good time dancing that I didn’t notice it was nearly two in the morning until the band ended their last set and all of the last-call drinks had been cleared away.

  I told Elizabeth that we should probably be heading home soon. By this time, she and I had polished off three Bud Lights on top of the Mimosas we had earlier.

  “We should call a cab and leave your car here,” Elizabeth said.

  “If you want to leave, I can give Elizabeth a ride home later,” said Tony.

  “Yeah, go home, Jodie,” said a very drunk Elizabeth. She giggled.

  “I can give you a ride home,” said Aaron.

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “No, I haven’t,” he said. “Well, one.” He pulled out some gizmo on his car keys and blew into it. Green lights lit up. “See?”

  “Oh, okay. How come you have one of those?” I asked.

  “As a firefighter, I guess I’ve scraped up enough people off of asphalt to know my limits.” He gave me a dazzling smile. “Let me take you home.”

  I gave Aaron a flirty smile, and agreed. He walked me to his Ford pickup truck and I noticed that it was very lifted. “You might have to pick me up and throw me in here,” I said, joking.

  “That’s not a problem,” he said. He came up behind me and pulled me toward him. He looked at me straight in the eyes for a few moments then leaned in and kissed me. I was taken by surprise but didn’t reject the kiss. Once he finally pulled away, I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. “You still need a lift up?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  I climbed in the tall truck and shut the passenger door. Aaron got in the truck and started it up. He reached for my hand as he began to drive. I willingly gave it to him with a huge smile. All of a sudden, there was an awkward silence, which made me start to think. What if he wanted to come in? Should I let him? What if he expects me to sleep with him? Would the ghosts be watching us doing it? I was beginning to freak out inside my head. All of my fears were rising up and mixing with the alcohol. I felt a little woozy.

  “Where am I going?” he asked with a smile.

  “Oh, my cottage is on Bruce Street. Just go all the way downtown and make a right onto Bourbon and the first street is Bruce, where you will make a left.”

  The truck ride was very pleasant. He spoke about his two young sons that lived with his ex-wife across the country. I told him about Trenton and being a teacher. He was very attentive, which made him very easy to talk to. As we turned on to Bruce Street, I motioned for him to turn in the driveway.

  His face became pale when we pulled into the driveway. “Is there something wrong?” I asked. He didn’t say anything, he just stared at the cottage.

  “I enjoyed the evening, Aaron.”

  “Likewise,” he said with his eyes on the cottage. His voice had gone cold and there was no smile on his face.

  “Thanks for the ride home.” I took out my business card from the school and wrote my private number on the back of it. “You have my number if you want to get together.” I left the card on his dash. He still didn’t say anything. I stepped out of the truck without even a goodnight kiss.

  He didn’t even say goodbye. I watched as he peeled out fast from my driveway. I guess I didn’t have to worry about him coming in, I thought to myself. I wonder what he had seen in the dark cottage that had spooked him, that big tough firefighter.

  Chapter Nine

  As soon as I opened up my front door, still sort of drunk and dizzy, I collapsed onto the couch in the living room. I fell into a deep sleep and started to dream. In this dream, I was watching a young woman with small boy. The boy looked like her son. I could see the back of them as she rocked her son in an old wooden rocking chair. I watched as the mother rocked him back and forth, as she hummed an unfamiliar tune. He seemed to be very content in his mother’s arms, with his face buried in her chest.

  The peacefulness didn’t last long and was ruined with a banging on the door. A large man entered the room. He was screaming loudly and his eyes were crazed. The woman rose from the rocking chair, quickly setting her son on the floor. She ran to the corner of the room, holding the little boy’s hand. That’s when I saw his face. I immediately recognized him. He was the little boy I saw playing with Trenton’s toys a couple months back. I began to get this horrible feeling in my stomach as I became terrified for the mother and the son.

  The man darted at them and pulled something out of the back of his pocket. I couldn’t make out what it was that he had, but I began to scream. I screamed so loud that I woke myself up.

  I lay shaking on the couch, scared to move. The puppy was at my hands, licking them and whining. I desperately wanted to know what had happened to the mother and the boy. I didn’t know if I dreamed something that already happened. Or if I had made it up in my head. Or even if it was a premonition.

  It was getting to me, the ghosts were. It was only a matter of time before I ended up in a mental hospital. But I knew I couldn’t let that happen because I had to take care of Trenton.

  When I finally got the courage to get up I made my way to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I thought it might help me snap out of the fear of the dream. I turned the faucet to cold and I splashed the water on my face. The cold water did feel good on my skin, I was starting to come out of it a little when I looked into the mirror. That’s when I saw the face of the woman from my dream in the mirror. She was just staring at me dead-on with a sad expression on her face. I tried to scream but nothing came out.

  “Help us find the truth,” she whispered to me.

  I ran out of the bathroom and slammed the door. For someone who didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits, I sure was shaken.

  Would this haunting ever stop?

  I slept with our little dog on my chest. We were both shaking.

  *

  Hung-over the next morning, I decided to look on the internet to see if I could find any records of deaths in the house. I entered in the search engine “213 Bruce Street, Beaufort, NV” but nothing came up. I decided to type in, “murders at 213 Bruce St in Beaufort, NV” but still, there was nothing. I messed around with a few different keyword searches and could not find any information about this address. I remembered that the local library kept old newspaper articles in the electronic archive.
I threw my shoes on and reached for my purse.

  Then, remembering I had left my car at the bar, I stopped. I looked at the clock and it was 9:45 a.m. She and the kids should be up. Then recalling the night before and how drunk she had been, I decided against it.

  I thought of the woman I had seen in the mirror last night and the terrible dream I’d had. I realized that I needed to find out what had happened in my new home before I had moved in. I dialed Elizabeth’s home phone and her mother answered. “Hi, it’s Jodie. Is Elizabeth awake?”

  “Are you kidding?” answered her mom. “She spent half the night on her knees in the bathroom, hanging over the toilet and moaning.”

  “Darn it. Poor Liz. Listen, I need a favor. Please?”

  “Yes. What do you need?”

  “I left my car at the bar and grill. I was wondering if you could swing by here and pick me up? And then I will take Trenton home.”

  “Yeah, that’s not a problem. The kids are driving me nuts anyway. They ate a bunch of sugary cereal and they are going bonkers, so yes, I will come and get you.”

  “Great, thank you. Do you know where the cottage is?”

  “Nope.”

  I gave her the address.

  “I’ll put it in my cell phone navigation. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

  I hung up the phone and grabbed my purse. I didn’t have my keys with me so I couldn’t lock the front door. I decided to wait for Elizabeth’s mom in the driveway. I felt like I needed to get out of that house.

  I sat at the end of the curb, still in shock from the night before. My drunken nightmare haunted my thoughts. I couldn’t get the image of the woman and the boy out of my mind. It all seemed so real that I felt as if I knew the two of them. Which couldn’t possibly be true.

  I stared into space toward the road, willing Elizabeth’s mom to show up quickly. It felt like someone was watching me. I fiddled around in my purse and found a pack of chewing gum that I had taken away from a student. I popped a stick in my mouth and started to wake up a little more.

  My mind switched from the woman and her son to the encounter in the bathroom. I knew what I had seen was real. I had been drinking last night, but after I fell asleep, I woke up completely sober. I would never forget the sad look on her face. The whole experience had scared the hell out of me, but I somehow knew I was meant to help her. I just needed to find out how.

  I was so deep in my thoughts that I almost didn’t notice Elizabeth’s mom’s car in front of me. She rolled down the window, and said, “Well, you gonna get in or what?”

  I stood up from the curb and made my way toward the car and opened the door.

  “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  “You looked like you were zoned out and in another world. Zombified.”

  “Close,” I said. “Very close.”

  Chapter Ten

  My Mimosa and Bud Light headache finally began to go away.

  I took Trenton and Missy along with me to the library. The children’s section was right across from the computer that I needed to use to look up past newspaper articles. I had a perfect view of the kids from where the computer was. I walked them to the children’s section and showed them where I would be if they needed anything.

  They both nodded and made their way to a large table that had puzzles on top of it. I waved to them from across the room and they waved back.

  The computer was very outdated. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to work. The computer was only used to look up old newspaper archives and nothing else. I clicked on the Beaufort Times icon and a search engine for the paper came up on top of the current cover page of the latest edition of the paper. I typed in very carefully, “213 Bruce Street.” I expected nothing to come up, but to my surprise, two articles came up. I clicked on the article dated the furthest back and the headlines were, “Family murdered on stormy night.”

  A chill ran down my spine as I began to read the story—I was shocked at what I discovered.

  *

  “Cliff and Debbie Carpenter, along with their young son, Bryce, were murdered late Friday night. Police haven’t released any names of suspects yet. The gun has yet to be found.”

  *

  The article went on to reveal how the family was found dead in the son’s bedroom. All three of them had suffered gunshot wounds. At the bottom of the page was a family photo, and that was when I knew that the lady and the boy from my dream were definitely Debbie and Bryce Carpenter.

  I gulped. This made it real, not my imagination. I really was seeing their ghosts in my cottage. Ghosts lived in my haunted cottage.

  I closed that article and clicked on the next dated one. It read, “Brother suspected in Carpenter family murder.”

  “Twenty-seven year old Ray Carpenter is a suspect in the killing of his older brother, Cliff, and his wife and son. He is cooperating in the investigation.” My jaw dropped when I read this. Ray had been a suspect in the killing of his brother and his family? I got a sick feeling. My landlord had been pretty good to me, but this new information put a whole different spin on things.

  I looked toward the children’s area to check on the kids. They were quiet and putting together a puzzle near the children’s librarian’s desk.

  I read more of the article: “Ray Carpenter was spotted at the Cliff Carpenter household around the time that the shootings occurred. He is being questioned. He has not been charged with any crime. The murder weapon has not been located.”

  I scrolled around the site to see if there were any other articles that I’d missed. I didn’t find anything. Ray had been a suspect in the murder of his brother and his family.

  I began to get chills down my spine. Did he do it? If Ray could kill his own family, what was stopping him from killing Trenton and me? The article said they never found any evidence, and that he was never charged, but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

  I searched my memory of the dream. Was the man in my dream Ray? I could not see the man very clearly. I knew that he had a large stature, which Ray had. But I could see from the photo that his brother had had a similar build. It was mostly Ray’s demeanor that was now so powerful and scary. He definitely didn’t tell me about the murders in that cottage, only that it was rumored to be haunted. I decided to print out both articles.

  I wasn’t sure what to do next. I didn’t know if I should talk to Ray about my findings, which of course he would know all about. But if I did talk to him about the murders, that could make it seem like a confrontation from me, which it nearly was.

  That might make him mad and endanger the lives of me and my son.

  What did this ghost want from me? It was crazy that I was more willing to ask a ghost for the truth than I was willing to engage Ray in any conversation about the murders.

  Had the woman ghost—his former sister-in-law—been trying to warn me about how dangerous Ray was? I sat at the computer desk for a while, putting together all my thoughts and occasionally glancing at the kids to make sure they were okay. That’s when it hit me.

  The ghost woman in the mirror wanted me to expose Ray. Maybe she knew where the gun could be found. It was the one piece of evidence that could convict Ray, or whoever had been the gunman.

  I grabbed my purse and headed to get the kids and drive back to Elizabeth’s.

  When we arrived back at Elizabeth’s house, I ran through the front door, eager to tell her what I had discovered. I dragged her into her bedroom and shut the door to keep the kids from overhearing.

  “You’re not going to believe this. While we were away at college…” I proceeded to tell her the whole thing.

  “Jodie, this is all so weird,” she said, after I blurted it all out.

  “I know. I’m having a hard time believing it myself. It goes against everything that I’ve ever believed in.” I reached into my purse to show Elizabeth the old newspaper clippings. “Here, read it, and tell me what you think.” Elizabeth reached for the paper and glanced at it in
horror. She dropped the paper on the floor and I could see the terror in her eyes.

  “Liz, what is it?”

  “Jodie, we definitely need to call my friend Margaux Thompson.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Elizabeth took a deep breath and regained her composure. “This is the man that warned me to stay away from the cottage. The ghost I saw? This is him. Cliff!” The horror came back to her face. “We need my friend, Margaux—she is an experienced ghost hunter and a psychic and I know she can help us.” Elizabeth reached for her cell phone and left the room. I went to sit on the couch and was in shock from everything. Was this really happening? The whole thing seemed surreal.

  Only the ghosts knew the truth? Or did Ray know, too?

  When Elizabeth returned to the room, she looked a little better. “I just talked to Margaux and she said she and her team are available to come in the morning and examine the cottage. They will be there at nine.”

  “Wait, I don’t know if I want a whole team of ghost busters in my home. And I can’t afford it.”

  “Jodie, you said yourself that the ghost lady asked for your help. This is the best way to help her. Margaux is a medium. She can see the dead. And she doesn’t charge anything to her old sorority sisters, of which I am one.”

  I sighed. “I guess it can’t hurt. But what if she digs up information that we shouldn’t know?”

  “Like what? That your landlord is some kind of serial killer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, if that turns out to be true, you need to know that, Jodie.”

  “He has been so decent to me. I hate to open this can of worms.”

  “The can is open and worms are spewing out, girlfriend! Regardless of whether your handsome landlord is a killer or not, I know one thing. You and Trenton are staying here until all of this ghost business is completely resolved.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  That night, I tossed and turned. Trenton and I were sleeping in Elizabeth’s guest bedroom on a twin bed. There was barely enough room to breathe and what little room I did have, Trenton took. I decided to get up at 4 a.m. I wasn’t sleeping anyway and there wasn’t any need to be squished any longer. I got off the bed and made my way to the kitchen. I found Elizabeth in the kitchen making a pot of coffee.