Chasing Shadows Read online

  “Wow.” Hobbs looked at Avery over the roof of the Impala. “Where’d you go to college, Detect—I mean, Avery?

  “Georgia State University.”

  “Ah, okay. I had a football scholarship to a college up in Tennessee, but…” He patted his right leg. “…you know, my knee.”

  Poor guy. Avery nodded. “I’ve heard.”

  “Yeah, I thought that was my ticket out, but…” He looked down for a moment and cleared his throat. “Anyway, at least my uncle was able to help me get on with the department. I’d hate to think of ending up like my dad, working fifteen-hour days at the paper mill.”

  “Hey,” Avery frowned, “don’t feel that way. Just because you’re not able to make it happen right now, doesn’t mean you never will. I thought I was going to have to drop out my junior year of college when money got tight, but between student loans and my grandmother, I was able to finish up. It may have taken a year or so longer than I expected, but here I am.”

  “Did you always want to be a cop?”

  “No. I studied criminal justice in college, but I always had plans on going to law school.” She sighed, pushing back the painful memories of coming out to her parents and the aftermath. “But, sometimes life happens.” She smiled at Hobbs, ready to move on from the topic. “And I’m happy doing what I do,” Avery said honestly.

  “I understand that.” He opened the door to the Impala and then paused, looking past Avery. “Hey, speaking of your grandmother—isn’t that her across the street?”

  Avery turned and scanned the sidewalk in front of the row of businesses across the street from the Harvest Moon Café. It took only a second to pick Mildred out of the handful of pedestrians who were window shopping in front of Esserman’s department store.

  Hmm, that’s odd, Avery thought. Mildred usually hated shopping in that part of town due to the lack of parking in the area, instead picking up whatever she needed from the Walmart that was near their home. She watched curiously as her grandmother strode past the department store and stopped in front of the one next to it, Hill’s Lawnmower Sales and Repair.

  What the hell?

  “Hobbs, wait here just a minute,” Avery said, not bothering to look back as she headed to cut off her grandmother. Pausing to allow for a noisy Ford pickup to pass, she jaywalked across Broad Street. Mildred turned and caught a glimpse of her as she was stepping out of the road and onto the sidewalk.

  “Are you following me now?” Mildred said, leveling her eyes at Avery.

  “No, I’m not following you. We’re across the street working on a case,” Avery said, pointing a thumb in the direction of the Impala. “Why are you at the lawnmower store?”

  Mildred chewed on her bottom lip, looking like a deer caught in headlights. She was, Avery decided, obviously up to something. After a long moment, she straightened her back and seemed to sniff the air. “Maybe I’m shopping for a new lawnmower.”

  Avery crossed her arms. “We have a lawnmower.”

  “Maybe I want to upgrade, anything wrong with that?”

  I seriously don’t have time for this today. “Grandma, you don’t cut the grass, I do.” Avery narrowed her eyes as a suspicion began to form. “What did you do to the lawnmower?”

  “I found a spot!”

  Avery spun on her heel to see Jane ambling toward them. A look of shock crossed Jane’s face when she saw Avery and, for a split-second, the elderly woman looked like she was going to bolt. Avery peered over Jane’s head to see her Honda parallel-parked in front of Esserman’s. One headlamp was missing, the fender buckled, and the bumper hung three inches lower on the left side than it did on the right.

  A wave of anger flashed over Avery. “You ran over the lawnmower?” She spun around, glaring at her grandmother. “In my car?”

  Mildred sniffed again. “I did no such thing.”

  “What the hell, Grandma? Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” She ran a hand through her hair and then balled her fingers into a fist. Damn, I do not have time for this today. “Let me guess—”

  “Detective Smith?” Hobbs called out, sprinting across the street. “Dispatch just radioed in. We need to go.”

  Avery scowled at Mildred for a minute longer and then turned questioningly to Hobbs. “What’s up?” she asked, her mouth still set in a hard line.

  The young deputy panted, out of breath. “They’ve found our stolen car. Patrol just pulled it over on County Road 6, out by the quarry.”

  That was something at least. “Good. Tell them to tow it to impound and take the driver in to the station. We’ll meet them there.”

  Hobbs shook his head. “No, they said we need to get out there asap.” He nervously licked his lips. “Dispatch said we have a 10-89 on site.”

  The words caught Avery by surprise. She tilted her head to one side, not sure if she’d heard him correctly. “Are you sure?”

  Hobbs bobbed his head in response.

  Avery took in a deep breath and gave a curt nod. She turned back to Mildred and Jane. “Grandma, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about the car and the lawnmower when I get home tonight.”

  Avery’s grandmother exchanged an inquisitive glance with Jane and then asked, “Avery, what’s a 10-89?”

  “It’s a dead body.”

  Chapter Eight

  After finishing up the surprisingly delicious lunch at the Harvest Moon Café, Cam had followed Chuck Jackson back to his office. She’d left her rental car there and, after a short jaunt inside the real estate office to locate the keys to the house he’d briefly described at the restaurant, they were on their way in Chuck’s Chevrolet Tahoe. He’d driven them through town—slowing down every so often to point out some property or the other that he’d sold, imparting little bits of gossip about the seller to accompany each—before turning off a side road that had led them out of the city limits and into the countryside. Even though she’d spent the better part of her high school years in Bethel Springs, Cam had given up trying to gauge any sense of where they were headed ten minutes ago and was now content to count the number of cows they passed as Chuck prattled on.

  “…and I’d be more than happy to be interviewed on your program. I was thinking we could work in Charles Jackson Realty somehow. Maybe I could wear a company ball cap or something along those lines.”

  “Sure, why not?” Cam murmured, only half-listening as she texted back and forth with Shaye with details of their destination. She was pleasantly surprised to see that the assistant producer was surprisingly on board. Maybe it would all work out and she would be able to kill two birds with one stone.

  “This is it.” Chuck slowed the large, black SUV a moment before spinning the steering wheel with the palm of one hand.

  Feeling the Tahoe shake as the tires rolled off the paved two-lane road they’d been traveling and onto loose gravel, Cam sat the cell phone down on her seat and peered out the windshield. The view was partially obstructed by the dust that rose over the hood of the vehicle as Chuck sped down the gravel road. Tall grass and overgrown bushes hugged each side of what Cam slowly realized was a driveway, the faint outline of the approaching house just barely visible through the dust cloud. The sound of the passing branches scraping down the side of the Tahoe mixed with that of the gravel pinging against the fenders.

  “And here we are,” Chuck announced, bringing the Tahoe to a sliding stop in front of the house. He popped off his seatbelt and opened the car door. He had one foot out of the vehicle when he paused and reached back in to retrieve the keys he’d picked up earlier from the real estate office out of the Tahoe’s cup holder.

  Cam stared up at the house through the car window for a long moment before sending one final text to Shaye. “We’re here. Will send pix as we go.”

  Stepping out of the Tahoe and onto the loose gravel that dead-ended at the front of the house, Cam was thankful she’d chosen tennis shoes over heels that morning. With its shuttered windows and white paint peeling from its kudzu-covered walls, Cam had to admit t
he house certainly looked haunted. She snapped a quick picture with the cell phone’s camera and sent it to Shaye. She received an almost instantaneous, “OMG that looks perfect!”

  “It’s a Gothic Revival style architecture, built in the 1870s. The house has gone through a few restorations over the years, but still has the original hardwoods. The roof was replaced last fall,” Chuck was saying as he pointed over Cam’s head to the house’s black, steeply pitched roof, “just before Rosemary Johnston, the former owner, was sent to Magnolia Manor.”

  “Magnolia Manor?”

  “Sorry,” he smiled. “That’s the nursing home out near Highway 12. Mrs. Johnston, bless her heart, had to move in there after she fell and broke her hip.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  Chuck twirled the set of keys on one finger, looking eagerly from Cam to the house and back again as he did. “So, what do you think? Do you sense any…presence?”

  If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that, she thought, biting back a smile. She’d grown used to the question and the various ways to answer it vaguely enough to avoid an outright lie. She’d filmed fifty-seven shows since joining the cast of Chasing Shadows and in that time had never seen or felt anything remotely supernatural. She’d been spooked a few times, but given that most of the shows involved walking around old, often abandoned properties in near total darkness, who wouldn’t be?

  “No,” Cam answered, “it doesn’t quite work that way.” She took a few more outdoor shots of the house with her camera. “So, you said this Mrs. Johnston is the former owner?”

  He nodded. “That’s right. I’m told that she never quite recovered from the fall and caught the flu when it was going around so bad last year. She died at Magnolia Manor.” Chuck began moving toward the house, motioning for Cam to follow. “After Mrs. Johnston died, the house fell to the state.”

  “No family?” Cam asked, continuing to snap pictures as they walked up the creaking steps that led to the front porch.

  “No,” he shook his head. Having reached the front door, he slid the key into the lock and pushed it open, looking back over his shoulder at Cam as he moved. “Her husband was killed in action in Korea, and she never re-married. She had just the one daughter, Roxanne. She went missing back in the late 70s.” Chuck crossed the threshold, pausing to wipe his shoes on the brightly colored “WELCOME” mat that guarded the entrance.

  Following Chuck into the house, Cam arched an eyebrow, interest piqued. “Missing?”

  “Missing,” he echoed, nodding. “Terrible thing.”

  Cam sniffed and swiped at her nose as she inhaled the musty smell of mothballs. Even though it was in the middle of the day, the house was dark. Little bits of light snuck past the drawn window shades, casting eerie shadows across the empty living room. She sent the additional pictures she’d taken to Shaye before sliding the phone into the back pocket of her blue jeans.

  “So, do you know what happened to her?” she asked, turning her full attention to Chuck.

  “Depends on who you talk to,” he answered and then began walking around the house’s lower level, turning on lights as he spoke. “I was just out of college and starting up in real estate at the time. It was the talk of the town for years. Some people said she ran off with a boy from Birmingham, others thought foul play was involved.” Chuck flipped on the kitchen light and walked back to Cam. “Either way, she never turned up.”

  Cam regarded Chuck for a long moment, surprised by his age. His dark hair didn’t show any sign of gray and his face was wrinkle free. She wouldn’t have pegged him to be in his sixties. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said with a smile, “but if I had to guess, I would have said that you were at most maybe fifty.”

  “No offense taken.” Chuck grinned in return and ran an outstretched hand over his stomach. “I guess it’s like my mama always said—fat don’t crack.”

  “I can honestly say that I’ve never heard that one before,” Cam laughed, shaking her head. “So, Roxanne disappeared without a trace?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Nobody knows what happened. Just one day Roxanne woke up, kissed her mama goodbye, and was never seen again.” He sighed and gave a small shake of his head. “I’m told Mrs. Johnston never moved away, always hoping that one day she’d return. Sad, really.”

  Forehead furrowed, Cam walked fully into the living room and looked around. The walls of the room were sorely in need of painting, and she could make out the dark outlines where pictures once hung. “So, what makes you think it’s haunted?” she asked. “I’ll give you that it’s decrepit and spooky, and the family who owned it had a tragic history, but we’ll need more than just that to pique the interest of my show’s producers.”

  Chuck followed her into the living room. “There’s been stories over the years about odd things happening at the house. I’m in real estate, of course, so I work with a lot of the local contractors. They say that workmen that came out for various and sundry repairs over the years would say that lights would turn themselves on and off. Sometimes they’d hear footsteps when no one else was there.”

  That sounds promising…

  “And then there’s the other.”

  Cam turned to face Chuck. “The other what?”

  “After Mrs. Johnston passed, the estate fell to the state and they auctioned it off to help cover the nursing home costs since she’d been on Medicaid. The house and the contents were sold to a young couple from Montgomery who intended on turning the house into a bed and breakfast. They didn’t last a month.”

  Cam frowned. “What happened to them?”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it just as quickly, as if not sure of his next words. He took a long breath. “They were staying at the Cottonwood Inn at night while they worked on the house during the day. Right after they bought the place, they had a big estate sale, then rented one of my storage units to put what they were keeping from the house. The first two weeks after they started working on the house, they called the police out half a dozen times.”

  “Called the police?”

  Chuck nodded. “The wife told Dana over at the Cottonwood that they thought kids were breaking into the house after they’d left for the evening. Tools were coming up missing, they had some repairs vandalized, that sort of thing. And then…”

  Her attention rapt, Cam inched forward. “And then?”

  “And then the husband got tired of it all and decided that they would spend a night in the house to try and catch the vandals in the act.” Looking uneasy, Chuck darted his eyes around the room and then glanced over his shoulder. “All I can say from there is that according to Dana, they showed back up at the Cottonwood at three in the morning. Both were white as…well, ghosts and the wife never stopped crying. The next day, they checked out of the Cottonwood, stopped by my office with instructions that I sell the house and everything associated with it for whatever I could get, and left town.”

  “Wow…now that is interesting.” Cam stepped back away from Chuck and resumed her exploration of the house’s lower level. “From what you’ve just said, I think I can definitely sell the idea my producers. What about the owner? Will he be willing to let us film here?”

  Chuck gave half a shrug. “I think I’ll be able to talk him into it. He’s eager to get out from under the loan. We held an estate auction and sold the remainder of the contents a few weeks ago, but there’s been zero interest in the house itself. Maybe an “As Seen On TV” sticker will help move the property.”

  “I’ve seen stranger things,” Cam admitted, wandering to the foot of the stairwell. She peered up the dark, narrow passageway. A cool breeze drifted down the stairs and wafted gently over her, giving her a sudden shiver, the kind she used to get as a kid when her mother would smile and say, “Someone must have just walked over your grave.” One of the least charming of her mother’s old southern expressions, in Cam’s opinion. Much more likely, of course, that someone had left a window open upstairs.

  “So, do
you think this ghost the couple saw may be Mrs. Johnston’s spirit roaming the house, still waiting for the return of her long-lost daughter?”

  “Why?” he asked anxiously. “Do you sense something?”

  Shaking her head, she looked back at Chuck. “No, not at all. But it would make for a good story.”

  “Ah, I see what you’re saying,” he said. “That’s certainly possible, I guess, but there were reports of odd happenings when she was still among the living.” He frowned. “Unless there’s more than one ghost.” He cleared his throat. “If you’re the sort to believe in that kind of thing.”

  The look on Chuck’s face told Cam that he was definitely the sort, even if he was loath to admit it. “It’s possible,” she mused. “I’ve been to a number of places—houses, estates, even a couple of castles—that were reportedly inhabited by multiple apparitions. So…” She chewed on her lower lip as she thought. “Maybe a spirit from the Civil War? That certainly wouldn’t be unusual for this area, would it?”

  Chuck shook his head. “No, but this house wasn’t built until after the war.”

  “I see. Well, let me go around and take pictures of the rooms to send to my producers. Maybe we could go upstairs first and work our way down?”

  “Okay,” Chuck said with a little sweeping gesture of his hand. “After you.”

  Cam smiled and started up the stairs, holding to the rails because the risers seemed to be a little off-balance, though she hadn’t noticed anything unusual about them earlier. At least that would account for the odd, prickling feeling she was experiencing as she climbed upward—a feeling like she needed to hang on tight. As she got to the top of the stairs, she found herself on a small landing that opened into a short hallway.

  Coming up behind her, Chuck cleared his throat. “The doors all lead to bedrooms—four of them up here. Two on each side of the landing, and then those bedrooms share a bathroom between them. That young couple from Montgomery? They did a lot of work up here before they left, trying to modernize the place.”