Donn's Shadow

by Caryn Larrinaga

  “Okee-dokee then. Down to business.” She reached forward and switched on a recording device in the center of the table, then flipped open the folder and scanned the contents briefly. “Let’s start with you, Mac. Why were you at the Oracle Inn with Daphne Martin today?”

  I took her through my day, starting with the visitation from Horace at the massage parlor and ending with the wrestling match I’d had with Daphne on the floor of the attic suite. Deputy Wallace asked me to clarify a few things for the sake of the recording, like last names and approximate times, and I was grateful Sheriff Harris wasn’t in the room this time to glare at me from behind his beard.

  “Well, that explains why your fingerprints are all over the phone,” Wallace said when I’d finished. “And it lines up with the account Daphne gave us. Okay, Graham. Your turn.”

  Graham explained that he’d come to the inn to see me and heard Daphne and I yelling at each other while he’d been climbing the stairs. He described the scene he’d walked in on after throwing himself against the door. “Daphne was on the floor, crying. They both looked hurt. Mac asked me to call you guys, so I did.”

  “And Mrs. Martin made no attempt to flee while you were waited for the authorities to arrive?” Wallace asked.

  Graham shook his head. “No, I blocked the door with my body in case she tried to leave, but she just laid there.”

  “She wouldn’t talk to us,” I added.

  “Well, she had plenty to say once she got here,” Wallace said.

  I stiffened. What had Daphne told them? How much of it had been the truth? Wallace had mentioned fingerprints a moment ago. Had Daphne said something to them that somehow made me more of a suspect than I’d been before?

  Wallace reached out and patted my shoulder. “Relax, Mac. You’re in the clear. Daphne confessed to killing Raziel Santos. From what she told us, and from the evidence we’ve gathered, she acted alone.”

  “She really killed him?” I tried to square the Daphne I knew with the idea of taking a life. “Why?”

  “Because of this.” Deputy Wallace opened the laptop and pulled up a video file.

  Despite the muddy darkness of the footage, I recognized the interior of the cabin. It was the night of the séance. Dozens of flickering candles dimly illuminated a circle of faces, and I heard myself screaming. The sound sent a bolt of icy terror through my veins, and I remembered seeing Horace smile for the first time.

  Raziel’s phone didn’t capture Horace’s face. For a few moments, the video was completely black. Then Graham re-lit the first candle, passed the flame around, and Stephen pulled Daphne to her feet.

  “I need to lie down,” she said.

  The camera swept the room, recording my team as they switched on the battery-powered lanterns we’d brought along and started tearing down our equipment. Then, a few minutes, later, Raziel moved down the hallway toward the back of the house.

  Light from another electric lantern spilled out from around the nearly closed door of a back bedroom. Raziel’s pace slowed, and it took an agonizing few minutes before the camera reached the door. A muffled scratching overtook the audio for a moment and the angle shifted sharply a few times as Raziel took the phone out of his pocket and slid it through the narrow opening between the door and the frame.

  Daphne and Stephen sat on the floor of the bedroom, their backs to the door. A lantern glowed between them. Daphne rubbed Stephen’s back and nestled her face into his neck.

  He shoved her away. “No, Daph. There’s a half dozen people out there. Someone will hear us.”

  “They’re all distracted,” she said. “It’s fine.”

  “How are you not terrified right now?” he asked. “You heard Mac’s scream. And you saw… Well, what did you see?”

  She snorted. “Oh, relax. There was nothing there. She was faking it for their show, just like everybody else.”

  “I think she saw something.” Stephen shifted, repositioning himself on the floor a few inches farther away from her. “I felt something in that room. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “I’m not a customer, you know. You don’t have to pretend you’ve got some kind of psychic gift in front of me.”

  “I’m not pretending.”

  “Sure. Then I’m not, either.” She stretched her arms above her head then hugged herself and squealed. “I can’t wait for this episode to air. The timing is perfect. People will freak, and the cirque d’letrange will get a huge publicity boost.”

  More muffled scratching drowned out Stephen’s reply, and the camera returned to a height that made me assume Raziel had put the phone back in his breast pocket. His thin, tattooed hand pushed the door open. Stephen and Daphne turned toward the camera. He flinched. She glared.

  “Cozy place you two have,” Raziel said. “Don’t hide back here too long. You’ll miss the show.”

  The video stopped, the screen went black, and Deputy Wallace closed the laptop.

  “That’s one small piece of Raziel’s recording from that evening,” she said. “His manager, Amari Botha, helped us unlock the phone.”

  Exhaustion made my mind slow to process what I’d seen, but eventually the reality sank in. Daphne hadn’t seen Horace. She’d made it up for the benefit of the cameras. She’d lied to me about it, then lied to me again. And worse than that…

  She’d killed Raziel to keep her secret.

  “Why?” I whispered. “Why did she do it?”

  Wallace raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Did you watch the clip? She was a fraud, Mac. When Raziel told you he’d been recording all night, she realized he had everything he needed to ruin her career.”

  “But couldn’t she just… talk to him?” I’d been in Daphne’s exact position, and I hadn’t wanted to kill him. Sure, I’d tried to punch him. But taking a life…

  “She claims she tried to, at first. She went to his hotel room that night and begged him to delete the video.” Wallace pursed her lips. “She says he just laughed at her, so she snapped and yanked a cord off the curtains.”

  Every word out of the deputy’s mouth sent my mind deeper into a tailspin. I tried to picture Daphne strangling the life out of Raziel, but the image refused to take shape in my head. Nick had called me naïve; had he known just how right he was?

  “Did Nick know?” I asked at last. “Or Stephen?”

  “Stephen seemed genuinely shocked when we questioned him. As for Nick”—she shrugged—“we’re not sure.”

  “But you said Mac’s good, right?” Graham asked. “She’s not a suspect?”

  “No, not anymore.” Wallace looked me in the eyes. “You understand, right? I have to follow every lead, every time. Even if they take me somewhere I don’t want to go.”

  “I get it.” I stood and offered her my hand.

  She followed suit, getting to her feet. Instead of shaking my hand, she pulled me into a hug, releasing me after a few seconds. “Good. Now get out of here. I’ve got a pile of paperwork a mile high and lots more statements to gather.”

  “Hey,” Graham said. “Any leads on the break-in at our house?”

  Wallace shook her head. “No. I’ll level with you guys. The murder investigation has been taking up most of our resources. We’ll keep looking into it, though. You have my word.”

  We left her to her duties and snuck out a side door to avoid the press then settled into Graham’s Geo. I exhaled, putting my feet up onto the dashboard and stretching my arms above my head. Despite the shock of discovering Daphne’s true nature, the relief of knowing the true killer had been found made my spirit feel light. I felt like I could float up out of the car, drift over the farmland, and sail away on the breeze.

  “I haven’t seen you smile like that in a while.” Graham squeezed my knee. “How’s it feel to be a free woman?”

  “Amazing. I want to celebrate.”

  “Well, you don’t have to stick close to Donn’s Hill anymore. Want to take advantage? Drive to Moyard, get some food?”

  I stared at him
. “You don’t want to do that drive twice in one day.”

  He tapped the tiny digital clock next to Baxter’s ancient tape deck. “It’s after midnight, so technically it’s not the same day. Come on, there’s a great all-night diner we used to hang out at after concerts when I was younger. They had the best pancakes and the worst coffee.”

  “Who can resist that?”

  “Excellent.” He grinned and gunned the engine playfully then headed for the highway.

  I marveled at the changes we passed on the way out of town. The old Main Street Diner, which had previously occupied a run-down rail-car-style building, had been transformed into the new Café on Main. Bunting hung from the restaurant’s windows, and despite the late hour, Penelope’s staff was visible through the brightly lit windows making last-minute preparations for the grand opening in the morning.

  At the edge of town, a pile of rubble marked the place where the E-Z Sleep Motel had stood. I’d started my life in Donn’s Hill in that seedy place, and now it was nothing more than bricks and dust. A large sign promised that modern, luxury accommodations were on the way.

  “It’s so different,” I said.

  “This town never seemed to change at all until you got here. Now…” He glanced at me with a smile. “Everything is better.”

  Ahead of us, the road curved gently. The Geo’s headlights swept the tree line, illuminating a broken-down van on the side of the road. The other vehicle’s hazard lights blinked slowly, and its brake lights glowed crimson against the darkness.

  “That’s not Kit, is it?” I asked irrationally. She and Amari had looked beat. They wouldn’t be out on the road.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Graham pulled over, bringing the Geo to a stop a few yards away from the van. We climbed out and approached it, getting close enough to confirm it wasn’t Kit’s. It was a much newer model, tall and white, with yellow New Mexico plates.

  “Hello?” Graham called. “Need a hand?”

  No one answered. A light hissing filled the air, and I unconsciously touched the spot on my chest where my seatbelt had bruised me during the accident at Cambion’s Camp. Something about the van—and that sound—was uncomfortably familiar.

  As we rounded the corner of the vehicle, my breath caught. Steam poured out of the hissing engine. One of the van’s headlight’s was blocked by the enormous boulder it’d smashed into.

  The other illuminated two bodies lying face down in the gravel ahead.

  “Call 911!” I shouted, sprinting forward. I knelt beside each man, checking for any signs of life.

  Neither had a pulse in their neck or their wrists. Their bodies twisted into strange positions, as though they’d tumbled a few times before stopping. I stood and backed away from them, gagging into my elbow.

  “I think they’re dead,” I croaked to Graham as he caught up to me.

  He spoke into his cell phone, describing the scene as he double-checked each body for a pulse. “Two men,” he told the emergency operator. “Both dead.”

  His calm demeanor baffled me. How was he not vomiting all over the asphalt? How was he not screaming at the dark trees, like I wanted to do?

  I didn’t want to look at their faces. I was sure they’d be badly lacerated from the impact with the road. But I couldn’t help it. I needed to know if these bodies belonged to someone I knew, if their spirits were likely to linger.

  Gathering all my willpower, I forced myself to look at their faces. I’d been right; their injuries made them unrecognizable. But as I backed away, something about them struck me as familiar.

  One was tall and oddly skinny. The other was much shorter and heavyset. I didn’t know them, but I’d seen them before. Twice, I realized. Once at the Oracle Inn, just before we left for Cambion’s Camp. And again, in the security video from Graham’s studio.

  These were the men who’d broken into the garage.

  These were the two who’d taken the jewelry box.

  I clutched the black stone around my neck and bolted back toward the van, skidding on the loose gravel as I rounded the vehicle. My hands, slick with sweat, fumbled with the handles on the cargo doors at the back before finally pulling them open.

  Old, rotted, wooden cabinets filled the space. They smelled of mildew and campfire smoke. Lewd graffiti covered their doors. I’d recognize them anywhere. They’d been taken from Richard Franklin’s cabin.

  And atop one of the overturned cupboards, I recognized something else: Yuri’s mirror-lined box.

  It was open.

  And the little wooden jewelry box it contained was open too.

  The hissing in the air combined with the hissing in my ears, rising to a deafening volume. Dimly, I heard Graham calling my name, but my own screams drowned out all but that awful, snakelike sound.

  Then, his body collided into mine. He half-carried, half-dragged me back toward Baxter, shouting something in my ear. As we passed the Geo, the van caught fire.

  “Duck!” he yelled, not giving me any opportunity to do anything else as he dove behind his car, pulling me to the ground with him.

  We cowered there for several minutes, waiting for an explosion that never came.

  “Did you notice the license plates?” I whispered after a while.

  “No, why?”

  “They were from New Mexico.” I sat up and pulled my knees into my chest. “And those guys… They’re the ones who stole the box from your studio.”

  Graham stared at me. “What? Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  The reflection from the flames now engulfing the van glowed in his pupils as he stared at me. “New Mexico, and they knew about the box that Horace asked you to find. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  I inched my head around Baxter’s rusty bumper to stare at the van. Experimentally, I took off my necklace. As soon as the braided cord cleared my head, I felt it.

  Richard Franklin’s foul, dark energy crashed into me like a tidal wave. But like a wave, it washed over me, passing around my body as though I was a stone on the beach.

  There was a second energy in there, too, mingled with the poltergeist. It grazed my cheeks as though grasping for a handhold.

  As the flames consumed the van and its wooden cargo, both energies faded away like smoke drifting into a starry sky. My eyes misted over and something hitched in my throat. There was no denying it; Richard Franklin had crossed over, taking the spirit from the jewelry box with him.

  I blinked tears out of my eyes and focused back on the van. Graham was right. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the men who stole the box were driving a vehicle with New Mexico plates. Horace had been at Richard Franklin’s cabin, and he’d been the one to send me looking for that jewelry box. He’d known when it’d been stolen because it’d been stolen on his orders, and his lackeys obviously couldn’t handle the spiritual energy they’d packed for the drive home.

  A strange smile spread over my face as I realized Stephen was right. I had to go back to New Mexico. What other choice did I have? I’d find Horace there; I could feel it.

  The importance of finding him dwarfed everything else. Suddenly, I didn’t worry about Kit leaving the show or if we could continue on without her. Those things lay behind me.

  New Mexico, and answers, lay ahead.

  Thank you for reading Donn’s Shadow! If you enjoyed the book, I would deeply appreciate a short review wherever you bought this book. Reviews are crucial for any author, and even a line or two can help another reader discover this story.

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  Acknowledgments

  First, I always need to thank my wonderful husband, Kelly. You encourage me, push me forward, and comfort me when stories don’t sell or characters don’t cooperate. You listen to every awful first draft and help me develop my ideas. In short, I wouldn’t be where I am without you, in my writing or in anything else. I love you!

  Thank you, Mom, for once again reading through each draft and helping me make them better. I don’t know how you can stand to read and re-read my books, but you always give me the confidence to keep going.

  Thank you, Dad, for never getting tired of theorizing about the nature of the soul and the possibilities of the afterlife. And for the last time: no, you’re not Mac’s father.

  This book would literally not exist without the help and guidance of my incomparable friend, Jerry McPhee. Thanks for being the machete I needed to cut through the nonsense and clear a path for the future.

  Enormous thanks to my editing team: Kelley Lynn and Jolene Perry at Cookie Lynn Publication Services. You help me learn and improve with every pass. Thanks also to my proofreader, Beverly Bernard, for your diligence and expertise. I wouldn’t have the confidence to put this book in front of readers without all three of you.

  Huge thanks also to Stephanie Feldman, Brandy Rood, Steve Matney, and Martin McConnell who helped me track down last-minute issues in the book.

  Thank you, Lexi Johnson, for reading through this and reassuring me that I wasn’t about to make an enormous ass out of myself.

  And thank you to my real-life reiki masseuse, Kim. You helped me heal in difficult times.

  Finally, thank you to all the readers and friends who encouraged me to keep Mac and Striker’s story going. You know who you are, but you’ll never know how much it meant to me that you reached out to let me know how you felt about the first book. Thank you for talking to me at events, for sending me messages, and for telling others about Donn’s Hill.