by Mel Teshco
Parallel Roads
Mel Teshco
www.escapepublishing.com.au
Parallel Roads
Mel Teshco
What would you do, if you had the chance to revisit all your decisions, to fix all your mistakes?
Celebrity chef, Jessie McCormick is incredibly late. Driving his Hummer to the opening of his latest restaurant seemed like a much better idea than flying, but incomprehensible directions and a dodgy shortcut throws him instead into the driveway of a rickety old house. Hopeful of finding the house occupied – and its inhabitants capable of directing him to Brisbane – he heads inside.
Voices lead him into the attic, and there he finds no direction – and every direction. The attic is an endless line of doors and ladders, each taking Jessie down a different path of his life. In one, he is a celebrity chef, fêted by the world. In another, his mother is still alive. In a third, his beloved sister is dead.
But in all of them is a small, dusty town and a small, dusty restaurant, run by a woman named Tara. As Jessie races to find his way back to his own life, he must make the biggest decision of his life: rescue his sister or take his chance at true love.
About the Author
Mel Teshco’s gypsy-like upbringing saw her living in many places along Australia’s east coast. Each new home stimulated an already overactive imagination, where she spent as much time dreaming about fantasy worlds as the real world—the fantasy sometimes being much better.
Now living on a beautiful rural property with views of the mountains, keeping her two horses, three cats and one hyperactive Belgian shepherd happy, she is happily married with an ever-hopeful husband (he’d love to retire), three children of widespread ages and two grandchildren.
She is a multi-published author with a love for the written word along with a short attention span that sees her juggling a variety of genres and heat levels in her stories. From contemporary to paranormal, inspirational to erotic, she hopes there’s a little of something for every reader out there to enjoy. With too many stories in her head to keep up with, there will be many more books to come.
Acknowledgements
I have so many people to thank for this story. My insightful and amazing critique partner, Alissa Callen, and fellow authors, Cathleen Ross and Cate Ellink for reading much of this story and saying all the right things about it. Suzanne Brandyn for her aircraft knowledge. And for all those readers and authors who have read pieces of this book—I thank you!
To my family, for their patience and their belief in me
Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…
Chapter One
Jessie McCormick peered through the dust-caked windshield of his Hummer, negotiating the rutted and narrow track that followed the perimeter of an old barbed wire fence.
According to an aged mechanic who’d fuelled his car at the one-horse town of Mirraway, this unsigned, unsealed road would cut over an hour off his journey to Brisbane.
A pity the track ended just ahead. He slowed the SUV and blew out a harsh breath, the knots between his shoulder blades not loosening even a little as he caught sight of a shabby old house between weedy looking shrubs and towering gum trees.
He rolled down the automated window and decelerated as he scanned the landscape with a frown. No birdsong filled the air and no breeze stirred the leaves, which drooped from yet another dry and relentless Australian summer. His frown deepened. There was something unsettling by the stillness outside, a quiet that was almost … unnatural.
A flicker of unease hovered in his gut. He’d been so caught up in navigating the track and worrying if he’d make it to the opening of his twenty-third restaurant that he couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the world outside had begun to feel different. But it was as if he was an insect in a bottle, disconnected somehow from humanity.
He shook his head and ignored a sudden compulsion to spin his vehicle around and make a quick getaway. For god’s sake, he was a thirty-five-year-old man at the pinnacle of his cheffing career; he would not let his imagination go off the rails now!
He cut the Hummer’s engine, closed his scratchy eyes for a couple of blissful seconds, then opened the door and climbed out. All he wanted was help to get out of this cursed countryside and back to civilisation. Somewhere he could use a landline phone, or better yet, somewhere he could get mobile coverage and perhaps even make it yet to his latest restaurant acquisition.
He peeled off his too-hot jacket when flailing wings abruptly broke the thick silence that was as palpable and suffocating as the midday heat. He dragged in a steadying breath, his pulse resuming normal rhythm on seeing the big crow that had settled on the rusted tin roof of the house.
At least he wasn’t alone.
‘Great consolation,’ he muttered, before tossing his jacket onto the back seat. There was no air conditioning out here and no one to appreciate his tailored suit. He could have worn a pair of old shorts and thongs and been a hell of a lot more comfortable for it.
The door clunking shut behind him, he cut through the stringy, long grass littered with the concrete shards of a broken path. He glanced up at the crow, the bird staring down at him with a glittering eye.
‘What are you looking at?’
The crow’s one eye blinked and Jessie snorted at his own idiocy before he continued to the front door, stooping for a moment to swipe off the sticky grass seeds clinging to his pants.
‘Hello!’ His voice echoed emptily in the still air.
The sun beat down on his bare head, uncomfortably hot. He loosened his tie as sweat dribbled between his shoulder blades, his shirt sticking to his back. All that heat yet his insides steadily grew chilled, as though he was intruding on hallowed ground.
He dragged a hand over his face. The rising temperature was making him lose the bloody plot. He rapped on the wooden door with its peeling green paint. ‘Is anyone home?’
Of course there was no answer; he hadn’t really expected one. The only thing to greet him was the sudden hot breath of wind that rustled the dry gum leaves like rusty castanets and clapped a loose piece of old tin somewhere on the roof overhead.
He glared up at the cloudless azure sky. If it wasn’t for his unhealthy fear of flying, he wouldn’t be in this position. He’d probably even now be celebrating his good fortune with his colleagues.
He turned away and took a step towards his SUV.
‘Hello.’
He froze, his heart jumping out of his chest. He must be going stark raving mad. Because whoever had called out from inside the house had a voice that was unmistakably his own.
Not. Possible.
With a disbelieving, impatient hiss of breath he spun back to the house. He didn’t bother knocking this time and the doorknob turned easily under his hand, before he pushed open the door with just a moment’s hesitation.
A musty dankness hit him first, followed by mousy-smelling urine and faeces. It was dark inside, the lone cracked window beside the door filthy and half covered by a latticework of spider webs. But even with the gloomy interior it was obvious this was the onl
y room in the tiny house.
Whatever innards had been inside the house—cupboards, sink, pantry—were there no longer. It was just a shell. Whoever lived here had probably used an outhouse for a toilet and an outdoor shower from the sketchy water supply of a corrugated iron tank.
Whoever had lived here had probably died half a century or more before.
He was most definitely alone.
He shook his head. ‘I really am an idiot!’
The soughing wind had been all he’d heard, surely? It was the only logical explanation he could come up with. He’d always been the rational one out of all his peers, not to mention his family.
An old mustard-coloured chair, half its stuffing spewing free from the back of the seat, lay awkwardly on its side. Jessie’s scornful laugh echoed in the room, disconcerting and a little unnerving.
Get a grip, man. It’s just an old house.
He jigged the chair back onto its legs before sitting and dragging a hand through the prickles of his close-cropped hair. ‘A fine mess I’ve got myself into,’ he mused aloud, watching as a large, seedy-looking cockroach ambled across the torn linoleum floor that was faded to a mottled puke green.
He leaned back in the chair, ignoring its creak of protest and the headache creeping upon him as he closed his eyes, his head lolling backwards.
His eyelids snapped apart a nanosecond later at the indistinct muttering of somebody’s voice—just as another blast of hot air had the loose piece of tin flap again overhead. Only then did he notice the large square hole in the ceiling.
An air vent? No, a manhole.
He froze. A chill trickled up and down his spine, his gut clenching. Had the voice come from the ceiling? Because it hadn’t been his imagination this time, he’d definitely heard someone.
A shiny aluminium ladder—Jesus, had it been there earlier?—was perched against the edge of the hole, looking totally out of place with its shabby surrounds.
He jerked to his feet, the chair clattering back onto its side like marbles hitting iron as he edged his way towards the ladder. He trusted his senses, they’d gotten him out of a whole shitload of sticky situations and right then they prickled with foreboding.
It hadn’t been the fault of an overactive imagination. Nothing in this place could be taken for granted. Nothing could be fully believed.
He’d take a quick look to satisfy the questions rattling around in his head and churning in his gut, then he’d hightail it out of there and return the way he’d come. No harm done—aside from his credibility and a small fortune.
Taking a deep breath he began climbing, half afraid the ceiling would crumble from his extra weight. It stayed intact, and his relief was twofold when he looked up to discover the darkness in the ceiling was broken by a shaft of sunlight pulsing through the loose piece of roof iron.
His head breached the ceiling. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. ‘Holy shit.’ He swallowed past a suddenly parched throat as a soundless rush of denial tore through his brain.
The roof stretched endlessly either way, lit every few yards by an identical shaft of sunlight streaming through what appeared to be the very same loosened piece of tin, like an infinite line of mirrors. And in the ceiling below, a row of square holes, each one revealing the top of an aluminium ladder.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said hoarsely.
He glanced into the room below. The cockroach was still ambling across the floor, near the chair that lay keeled on its side, the seat innards beside it. Everything seemed so normal down there. Up here, he questioned whether he just might be losing his sanity.
But the seemingly immeasurable roof cavity couldn’t be real. It had to be a trick of the light, or his imagination. His heart thumped as though a drum in his chest and he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, willing composure. He had to take a better look, or forever doubt his own eyes … his own logic.
Gritting his teeth, he clambered onto the ceiling and crouched low on its rotting rafters. The tin above his head flapped again, echoing loudly either way in a further chorus of bangs.
Senses jangling and skin crawling, he carefully balanced his way across a beam, peering down into each room he passed with stunned incomprehension. Impossible! The rooms below were identical.
He looked behind at the infinite roof and ceiling, and the endless row of manholes. Dread suffused him from the inside out. Holy shit. Which hole had he climbed through?
He thrust an unsteady hand over his face, striving to make sense of the unexplainable. And failing.
His breath hissed. It didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that he returned to the room he’d entered and get the hell away. He shivered, terror creeping into the base of his skull. No longer was he the hard-arsed man whose tough ethics preceded him.
Not since his mother’s death had he been more frightened.
Swiping his sweaty palms on the seat of his trousers, he inched back the way he’d come, wishing now he’d thought to count the manholes that he’d passed. But one room would connect to another, right?
He couldn’t be sure of that, he couldn’t be sure of anything. Not in this place.
Gripping hold of what he guessed was the ladder he’d climbed, he carefully descended and dropped onto the floor. He released a taut breath and looked around. He was definitely alone here, he didn’t doubt that now. And he’d swear this was the same room he’d been in earlier.
‘One way to find out.’ His voice echoed eerily, emphasising his aloneness.
Striding towards the grimy window, he swiped a hand over the pane and looked through the smudged mark that was now marginally cleaner. He took a step back, his shoulders loosening with relief. His bright yellow Hummer was just where he’d left it, yards from the front door.
Thank you, god.
Something moved in his periphery. He turned, watching as a sickly looking cockroach started a familiar, slow trek across the room.
It’s a different roach … a totally different fucking roach. But the unsettled feeling within shot into a whole new stratosphere of hysteria as he all but sprinted for the front door and jerked it open.
Something close to elation filled him as he stumbled outside into the hot but clear, clean air. He didn’t look back, didn’t want to verify this little house was exactly that—little.
Removing his suit jacket from the driver’s seat to toss it into the back, he climbed into his vehicle and fired up its engine. Only as he reversed with the tires kicking up a shower of dust, did it dawn on him he’d already tossed his jacket on the back seat.
Stop being a bloody psychotic idiot!
Hysteria bubbled over into adrenaline as he spun the Hummer back towards the tiny township where he’d fuelled up. A wild grin pulled at his lips. He’d probably screwed over his television career and his own restaurant by his no-show—but to hell with it! What was eight million dollars down the shitter in the bigger scheme of things when he’d been a whisker away from losing his mind?
Now that was a hell of a price to pay.
Snaring his seatbelt and clipping it on, he leaned forwards and pressed the play button on his stereo. A ZZ Top song filled the tense atmosphere inside the car and immediately calmed him. But it was a peace that was short-lived when he noticed the poor excuse for a barbed wire fence no longer appeared to edge one side of the track.
No longer existed.
He turned off the stereo, slowing down to scan the scraggly line of trees. Was it possible he really had had some strange, psychotic episode? Was the stress of his career, predominately his television cooking show, getting to him? Add possible heat exhaustion, along with his pathetic personal life, and it was probably just a matter of time before something within him unravelled.
It was only once he’d finally turned back onto the highway nearly an hour later that he released his iron grip on the steering wheel. He expelled a shaky breath, contemplating what had brought on the mental lapse.
Carla, his mother, had died of alcoho
lism a little over seventeen years ago. And at the tender age of eighteen, he’d been a frightened young man trying to cope with her loss while consoling his confused five-year-old sister, Lolita.
He’d worked like a madman to provide for his sister and prove to the world, to himself, he was nothing like his mother … nothing like his father who’d abandoned them even before Lolita was born.
But had it ever been enough? Had his work interfered too much with raising his young sister?
The one-horse town came back into view, and he slowed along the highway to turn right into a short main street where some weatherboard homes and a dribble of shops—most of them closed and boarded up—lined either side.
He braked to a stop in front of an old hotel the colour of dried mud. A white bed sheet was slung over its upstairs balcony, where large black lettering proclaimed, ‘cheap accommodation, hot meals and beer on tap’. Opposite was a small restaurant with an ‘open’ sign facing outwards in the middle of its shuttered glass door, and what looked like living quarters above it.
Tiredness from the whole surreal experience swept over him, while hunger pulled at his belly. Parking in the near-empty area in front of the hotel, he flipped open his phone. He snapped it shut again with a curse. No coverage.
Un-fucking-believable.
Frustration again burned in his gut as he strode inside the hotel. The dim interior did little to hide the threadbare burgundy carpet, the reek of stale beer and cigarette smoke.
Behind the polished wooden bar, a beefy, bald man with more tats than skin nodded in greeting. ‘What’ll you have?’ he asked.
Jessie declined the bottles of liquor lined up behind the man and the beer on tap in front of him as he pulled out his wallet. ‘I’m looking for a room for the night.’
The barman turned out to be the owner of the establishment and charged far more than the room could possibly be worth, before handing over an old fashioned key.
Jessie unloaded his overnight bag from the Hummer and carried it up loudly creaking stairs to room two. Unlocking the door with an old metal key, he dumped his bag onto a sagging double bed with a thin blue comforter, before riffling through the three sets of clothes and underwear he’d thrown inside.