Laurel Heights (Haunted Hearts Series Book 1)

by Denise Moncrief

  Chase laughed, a real expression of amusement for a change. “That could be interesting, especially if the ghost decides to interfere with what they’re doing.”

  “Ghost? You really think there’s a ghost in my house?”

  “No, babe. I was joking. I told you I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  “Grayson does.”

  That was interesting. He’d gotten a peculiar vibe from the man as if his motives for interviewing Laurel weren’t strictly professional. He’d made the mistake of thinking there was a sexual attraction there. Maybe he had misread the cop’s behavior. He was acting oddly, but perhaps for an entirely different reason than Chase had considered. Just because Chase wanted to be with her that way didn’t mean the cop did.

  He glanced at Laurel. She was lovely when she was deep in thought. Her profile was stunning. Pouty lips. Cute little turned-up nose. Long lashes.

  He swallowed hard and refocused. “What do you mean? Why do you think Grayson believes in ghosts?”

  “He brought some guy with him named McCord. They wanted to do an investigation in my garage because they think it’s the locus of paranormal activity or something like that.”

  He slapped his hand on the steering wheel. “I thought I recognized that guy.”

  “Chase, you weren’t there for the conversation. How do you know what he looks like?”

  No, he wasn’t there when Grayson and McCord visited Laurel. He’d tried to stay out of the way.

  “I saw them when they drove up and got out of the car.”

  “You saw them? Then why didn’t you come to the house?” She sounded a bit peeved.

  “Because I knew Grayson wanted to talk to you alone, and I thought maybe it was a good idea to let him get it over with so that he could move on. He wasn’t going to give up until he questioned you without me in the room because he doesn’t trust me. He thinks I manipulate you. The only other way to make sure it happened was to haul your butt off to the Sheriff’s office for questioning. He can’t do that without your cooperation. He doesn’t have enough probable cause.”

  She blinked at him but didn’t question his reasoning. He relaxed when she accepted his explanation. As she should have. It was the truth.

  “So where have you seen the other guy before?”

  “Before I moved here, I researched the area and ran across a blog... I think they call themselves the North Central Arkansas Paranormal Society. Grayson was listed as one of the members of the society that contributed frequently. If he’s the same man, I didn’t recognize him because he doesn’t look anything like his pictures on the blog, but I recognized McCord. How can you miss that hair? Most of the articles were posted by Grayson and this McCord guy and a woman named Ashley something.”

  The truck hit a bump in the road and jarred them.

  “Didn’t see that in the dark.”

  The road had otherwise been smooth. The pothole came at him out of nowhere.

  “So I was right. Those guys are wannabe ghost hunters.”

  He grinned, proud of her for already forming the conclusion. “It appears that way.”

  “Maybe I should let them spend the night in my garage.”

  “Okay, I’m not arguing, but why?”

  “Maybe I should let them do their thing in the house as well.”

  She’d dropped her feet to the floor and sat up straighter. Excitement oozed from her, and there was a mischievous glint in her eyes. The intensity on her face made him catch a breath.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Suppose they do their investigation and find the man that’s sneaking around my house. Suppose they discover everything that seems paranormal is explainable. That would be... What do they call it?”

  “Debunking.”

  She smiled, and the warm expression transformed her tired face into radiant beauty. Her eyes glittered with refreshed hope.

  “You see where I’m going with this? They might find out how someone is getting into my house. They could possibly figure out how someone is trying to drive me crazy by making it seem like ghosts are running around my place, and once they debunk the so-called haunting, then the rumors about Laurel Heights will slowly die. Whoever is hanging around looking for whatever it is they’re looking for will have to stop pretending the place is haunted. Maybe Grayson will actually catch my cousin’s murderer while he’s at it.”

  She slid down in the seat and planted her bare feet on the dash again.

  “Yeah, this is a sweet plan. I could get Grayson to fix all three of our problems and then we could live happily ever after.” She seemed pleased with herself for coming up with a plan of action.

  Our problems. Had she really joined them together, anticipating a happily ever after for them? He’d planned to stay around, but he hadn’t thought about permanency beyond next week or next month. Could he settle down and... No, he wasn’t ready to consider the M word with Laurel. Was he? He still considered himself married to Angie, but the possibility of staying with Laurel indefinitely was appealing. That he couldn’t deny. She’d gotten to him. When he was away from her, all he could think about was Laurel.

  He had often thought he could spend the rest of his life alone and be content, but maybe he didn’t want to be a lonely, old man after all. He’d already acknowledged Laurel would be difficult to live with and harder to leave, but Chase had never backed down from a challenge.

  Once again, he needed to force his mind back to the conversation before she guessed where his thoughts had wandered.

  She sighed. “I wish I could find whatever it is that Rand wants from me and give it to him. He talked about codes, but I don’t even know what he means by that. What codes?”

  The nervous moment passed. The tension in his shoulders relaxed. She apparently hadn’t guessed where his wandering mind had traveled. He wasn’t ready to talk about a long-term committed relationship yet.

  “Passcodes to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Without them, he can’t access the money he has stashed there.”

  “Oh. Well... That’s not like cash or his drug inventory or something I could stuff into a bag and run away with it. They’d have to be on a piece of paper or in a book or on his computer or something. That kind of thing is... What’s the word?”

  “Intangible?”

  “Yes, intangible. If I had them, I probably wouldn’t even know what I had.”

  “I was hoping you might know who took them.”

  If she had a clue who took the travel drive, he could get it back and get Rand out of their lives.

  “He owes some dangerous men some major cash, and if he can’t come up with it, he’s a dead man, so he’s desperate to get the funds transferred to those guys before they do something permanent to him.”

  Actually, he was surprised someone hadn’t already gotten to Rand. He paused to let the importance of what he was saying sink in and suddenly felt uncomfortable. Hadn’t he already hinted that he wouldn’t mind if Rand was permanently out of their lives? It would be so easy to do nothing and let criminal nature take its course.

  “If those guys are so dangerous, why haven’t they already had him killed?”

  Was she a mind reader?

  “They can’t get the codes from him if he’s dead. If they kill him before he talks, they might as well kiss their money goodbye.”

  “Oh. I get that.” She scrunched her mouth, apparently deep in thought. “How could I steal something like that from him? I don’t remember seeing anything like that. Besides, he never let me into his office, and I knew better than to go in there without him.”

  “He had them on a travel drive.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s... Well, most of them are small rectangular things you can insert into a slot on a computer. About this big.” He held his thumb and index finger apart to show her about how big one of them would be. “Most of them are black or silver. They’re for storing computer data.”

  She dropped her feet to the floorboa
rd and started digging in her purse. “Is this what you’re talking about?”

  He slammed on the brakes, and it was a good thing there was no other traffic on the road.

  “I thought you said you didn’t have it.”

  She could have saved them so much grief if she’d just handed it over when he first told her the truth about why he was there. He pulled to the side of the road to allow his heart rate to decelerate.

  She sat very still, barely breathing. “I didn’t know what it was. Actually, I’d forgotten all about it. It’s been in the bottom of my purse for months.”

  The one place he hadn’t been able to search.

  Was she telling him the truth or was she playing ignorant? It wasn’t like she could do anything with them. She’d have to know Rand’s password, which he was sure Rand kept in his head instead of on the travel drive.

  “Where did you get it?”

  If she never went into his office, how did she get her hands on the drive? His heart beat a little harder while he waited for an answer.

  “Tino gave it to me.”

  “Who’s Tino?”

  Rand had mentioned several associates that might want the drive and might do anything to get it, but he’d never mentioned anyone named Tino.

  She studied the drive as if it had the power to alter the universe, and in a way, it did have the power to rearrange her life. Having it in her possession changed everything for Laurel. Changed everything for Chase.

  “Tino worked for Rand. Sort of like a security guard. But I think he was more than that. I think he cleaned up Rand’s messes for him.” Her voice held a distant quality, sort of like it was traveling back to her from a far off place in her memory.

  He knew what she meant. Rand had told him how Skip Watson had died. Rand was not the killer, but he wasn’t innocent either. He’d relied on someone else to get rid of his problem for him. Rand was good at that. Obviously, something hadn’t gone according to plan, because whoever killed Skip had dumped his body in Rand’s garage. Even though Rand hadn’t done the deed, he was still part of the conspiracy.

  When the police started asking questions, Rand had tried to frame Laurel for Watson’s death. After getting to know her, he knew she’d had no part in Skip’s murder. Laurel would kill to defend herself, but she’d never kill for lust or greed.

  “When Rand trapped me in the garage and beat me up, I already wanted to get away from him, so I called the cops. Rand was arrested for assaulting me. He stayed in jail until someone bailed him out. I don’t know who posted the bond. I refused. He’d put me in the hospital, and I wasn’t in a forgiving mood. Tino came to visit me while I was there. He gave me that thing and told me to keep it. He said I might need it one day. Said it was my insurance. I didn’t know what he meant, and I didn’t have time to find out. I still don’t know what he meant.”

  She dropped the drive in the cupholder as if the device had soiled her hands.

  “I didn’t trust Tino any more than I trusted Rand. I hid from everyone who ever knew him, including Tino. When he gave it to me, I was already making plans to go north to Oregon or Washington. I was in a hurry to get away from Rand, but I went back to the house one more time to get something. It was dangerous going back because he was finally out on bail, but I wanted to get my mother’s things that I’d hidden in the garage.” She sniffed once and then kept talking. “Anyway, while I was there, I got the call from Celeste’s lawyer and arranged to meet with him. I left California as fast as I could.”

  “So you’ve never found out what was on the drive?”

  “I didn’t know what it was for. I’m still not sure how that could have what he wants on it. Are you certain that’s what he’s looking for?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” He reached over and took her hand in his. “Are you up to this?”

  “What do you mean?” Her voice wavered a little as if she had just considered the idea that discovering what was on the drive could be dangerous.

  “We could turn this all over to Grayson—”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  That’s all he needed to hear. “We’ll have to find a computer to use.”

  She nodded. “Then, let’s do that after our trip to Little Rock. Can we just forget about all this for a day or two?”

  He squeezed her hand, then loosened his grip, and shifted the gear back into drive. “Sure. It can wait a day or two.” Even as he agreed, he wasn’t sure it could.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Gray rolled his task chair up to his desk and tapped on the computer keyboard, turning his attention back to the ongoing investigation of the Standridge murder while the Crenshaw case simmered. Gray had reached the edge of frustration. His investigation into the death of James Standridge had stalled and gone cold way before its time.

  Sam Richards’s potential relationship to the Standridges was a thin lead, but a fresh one. His heart raced with renewed energy, just like it did when he knew without a doubt he was on to something important that might break a case.

  Accessing the state’s vital statistic records was not difficult for someone in law enforcement. Determining everyone related to James Standridge was another story. Sometimes investigative work was just plain tedious. He could have begun his search with Sam Richards, but that might have been a wasted effort if it turned out Richards wasn’t related to the Standridges. Better to start with Celeste and work across the family’s branches. He scratched his head and closed his eyes, trying to recall Timna’s exact words.

  Was it Zeke or Jake? Maybe it was Sam or Rufus. I can’t be sure. There’s a lot of them.

  Quite a few documents were spread across his desk. Births. Deaths. Marriages. His printer was still churning them out. Timna was right. There were a lot of people in Hill County related to Celeste Standridge. One of her ancestors had had eleven children.

  When he examined James’s birth record closer, he discovered the man had a twin. No matter what details he put into the search engine, he couldn’t find a birth record for the other child. Where was James’s sibling? Had the baby died after birth? No, there would have been a death certificate. Gray had lived in Hill County all his life and had never heard of James or his twin until James died and Gray started asking questions. The missing birth record meant the file had been sealed by court order. It was reasonable to speculate that James’s twin had been put up for adoption. Another intriguing development.

  When he considered Laurel Standridge, the name of her property, and how Celeste had disowned James in favor of his cousin, the pieces dropped into place. Laurel and James were about the same age, weren’t they? He whistled as he often did when jolted with a bolt of revelation. Laurel had to be James’s twin sister. Given away for adoption after birth to Celeste’s brother Burt and his wife Mary. That made sense. Much more sense than anything else did.

  His stomach churned from his discovery. That meant Celeste had abandoned both of her children. At different times, yes, but both of them had been rejected by their mother. What if Laurel had discovered Burt and Mary weren’t her biological parents? What if it occurred to her that she was the twin Celeste didn’t want? Such a discovery might cause a ton of bitterness. He knew how that pain felt. He’d lived it himself.

  Gray had crossed Laurel off as a suspect, but maybe he needed to put her back at the top of the list. What if James had confronted her and demanded his share of the estate? Would threat of exposure prompt Laurel to shut him up permanently? That was prime motive for murder.

  Was Chase Peterson an accomplice or was he merely an interference Laurel hadn’t planned on? Who was in danger? Chase or Laurel? Because of the toxic mix of suspicious activity at Laurel Heights, Gray feared someone was going to get hurt. If not physically, then emotionally or mentally. He had considered Chase the dangerous entity, but maybe he should consider Laurel the real threat.

  Even if he could obtain enough circumstantial evidence to charge Laurel with murder, he still had no physical evidence to
put her at the scene of the crime. He still didn’t know where the man had been murdered. His body had been dumped in the middle of the road so someone would be sure to find the corpse only a few hundred yards away from the front gate of Laurel Heights. Not a coincidence. Gray didn’t believe in coincidence.

  An unsettling mystery lingered in the background of the case. Who was the man who pretended to be Celeste’s brother Burt, and why had Celeste let the man get by with his duplicity? Perhaps Celeste had developed Alzheimer’s Syndrome. Toward the end of her life, she had exhibited some eccentric behavior.

  If Laurel was involved in James’s murder, then she was probably involved in Celeste’s improper commitment as well. She had to know the impostor and was working with him to gain Celeste’s inheritance. He still needed more before he had enough probable cause to search her property, but he did have enough to obtain her phone records, so he could search for a link between her and the impostor. He was now back in business with a definable plan.

  He scrutinized each of the documents he’d printed off the vital records database. The more he researched records, the more he believed Timna was right. There were a lot of large dangling limbs on the Standridge family tree. Before he was done, he had filled in the Standridge genealogy back several generations, and there at the end of one branch was Sam Richards, brother of Zeke. First cousin to Jake. Second cousin to Rufus and James.

  Maybe Sam was Laurel’s accomplice in her plan to swindle Celeste out of her fortune. How ironic that Laurel hadn’t needed to force Celeste into a hospital. According the lawyer Franklin, Celeste had made Laurel her sole heir years before she was hospitalized.

  He didn’t have enough cause to search Sam’s records for a connection to James, but he did have the option of going the other direction. Maybe James’s phone records would reveal a link to either Laurel or Sam. Or maybe one of their other cousins.

  Gray was reluctant to confront a fellow officer of the law, but if Sam knew who James was, why hadn’t he come forward with the information at the scene of the accident? Richards’s deductive reasoning skills were limited, but there was no way the man didn’t know how he was related to the deceased and how proper protocol required disclosure of the fact at the scene.