No Unturned Stone

by David James Warren

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Sticks and Stone - Preview

  Meet David James Warren

  What readers are saying about The True Lies of Rembrandt Stone

  So, I read this book in one sitting. ONE. I never do that, ever. Seriously, ever. It's that good. Between life responsibilities and my short attention span, it simply never happens. Oh, but Rembrandt Stone and Eve. What a ride! This series is shaping up to be my favorite so far this year and we're only two books into a six book series. The plot twists and turns kept me guessing and muttering 'no, no, noooooo' more than once, but the characters are what I love best. Rembrandt for all his flaws and regrets is the kind of guy you can't help but love and want to see get things right. He and Eve's life together has been rife with complication, pain at times, but so worth it. The continued peel-back of their history together kept me turning pages with gusto. I love the slow, natural progression toward faith for Rem. Getting to know his mom and dad a little better was a nice addition.

  If you haven't started this series, seriously do it. You can thank me later. - Kelly, Goodreads

  * * *

  Oh my word! Where do I even begin? Love suspense? Read this book. Love time travel? Read this book. Love to have the unexpected happen? Read this book. Love going through the ups and downs with the characters? You know what I'm going to say, right?

  I like to take my time reading stories. Take them at a decent pace. Not possible with Rem's story. I had no choice but to swipe furiously through it because I HAD to know what was going to happen! I felt like every page held a piece of Rembrandt's disintegrating reality. I didn't expect to finish it in a day. The writing was just so good. It hooked me, reeled me in, and didn't release me until... well, I was going to say the last page, but that only propelled me into book three because I wasn't released! Gah! So good!

  Rem, sakes alive, he's still a favorite of mine. He's a deep character who knows his own flaws and wants to fix the ones he sees in his younger self. Once again he's trying to right his world, he's so desperate for it, it's palpable, but we know there's a ripple effect when things are changed during time travel. We saw it happen in book one, and all we can do is anticipate what might happen this time.

  I forgot that in book one we get "young Eve's" perspective of the past. I think I like this part the best because it gives a sense of normalcy in the insanity that is Rembrandt Stone's life. I love Eve because she sees Rem. Truly sees him and doesn't care what others think. I also love their interactions.

  The case this time is gut wrenching and time is limited. So much for Rem to figure out and cases to solve. It's just impossible to predict what lies on the next page. There wasn't even time to wonder what might be happening. You're just right there in the thick of things with him.

  Of course I still love Burke. Oftentimes I feel like he's Rem's plumb line. There's a steadiness to him. He's a rock and he's dependable. He was kind of my favorite last time (I no kinda about it) and I loved him this time, too!

  I just know this series is going to do me in. I should probably get an ekg fine before I read book three. Ha ha ha I'm not sure if my heart can take it! - Mimi, Goodreads

  No Unturned Stone

  David James Warren

  Soli Deo Gloria

  Tristone Media Inc.

  15100 Mckenzie Blvd

  Minnetonka, Minnesota, 55345

  Copyright © 2021 by Tristone Media

  ISBN: 978-1-954023-04-8

  www.RembrandtStone.com

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or as provided by US Copyright Law.

  Created with Vellum

  1

  Just try and outrun your demons, I dare you.

  I sit in my daughter’s upstairs bedroom, in my half-remodeled craftsman, the morning bright against the window, holding a black teddy bear in my shaking hands. Gomer, a throwaway gift to my then four-year-old daughter, almost an afterthought I picked up from a drugstore as I raced home from work on a long-ago birthday.

  A white star is embedded in the toy’s fur, and this version of Gomer still has both eyes. They stare at me, black, glassy.

  Shocked.

  It’s all wrong.

  Please, God, let me wake up.

  It’s a fear that stalks every man, at least the ones like me, middle-aged, married, a father of one, trying to frame his life into something that resembles success. A fear that, despite his heroic attempts, and as much as he tries to live in the light, his mistakes will find him.

  And the price of those mistakes will cost him everything.

  The voice that confirms it is seven years old, a deafening memory deep inside my head. “But daddy, you’re a detective. You know how to find things.”

  Overnight my life has imploded.

  My house is now a war zone, the product of fury and panic, the drawers opened, dumped out, my office bearing the wreckage of my disbelief. I spent the past hour digging through my belongings—our belongings—to find anything that might give me answers.

  My seven-year-old daughter, Ashley, has vanished. No, that’s not accurate. She’s been murdered. Two years ago.

  My beautiful wife, Eve, has left me. She wants a divorce from the man I’ve become.

  A man I don’t know.

  And I haven’t a clue how to get them back.

  But I’ve jumped too far ahead. Ironically, I’ll have to rewind time, return to the moment when the demons knocked on my door in the form of my ex-partner, a box of cold cases and a gift—an old watch bequeathed by my boss, Chief of Police, John Booker.

  No, maybe I’ll start later that night, when, after shaking awake from a nightmare, I stumbled downstairs to my office, the one with the less-than-inspirational leather chair my wife gave me when I left the force three years ago, and began to work on my unfinished novel.

  Eve found me in the middle of the night as I sat there, barely dressed, trying to find words to add to my unfinished manuscript. She dragged out the cold cases and pulled the first one, the coffee-shop bombings of 1997, the one where we first met.

  The catalyst for this entire nightmare.

  That’s when I put on the watch.

  I couldn’t believe Booker left me his prized possession. I don’t remember a day he didn’t wear it. An old watch with a worn leather wristband and a face like a vintage clock, the gears visible through the glass.

  The hands didn’t move, stuck on the five and the three, even when I wound it. On the back two words etched into the steel: Be Stalwart.

  I hope so, because this morning, when I realized what the watch had cost me, I threw it against the wall, snatched it off the floor and threw it again when it refused to work.

  And you might think, calm down, Rembrandt, just get another watch.

  But it’s this watch that has somehow loosed the demons.

  And I must find a way to send them back.

  Now, as I sit in the wreckage of my life, I wiggle the dial again, shaking the watch, pressing it to my head. Please, please—

&
nbsp; I don’t really know what I’m asking for, because the truth is, well, unbelievable.

  I dreamed—or did?—travel back in time. Solved the coffee shop bombing case. Then I woke up and everything…everything…

  Oh, God—

  “Rem?” A knock sounds on my open door—I didn’t close it after Eve left, just an hour ago after handing me divorce papers. I remember dropping the packet on my rush up the stairs to Ashley’s room to confirm Eve’s wretched words.

  “Ashley was murdered, remember? Two years ago.”

  I don’t remember much after that.

  “Rembrandt?” The voice makes me look up and probably it’s a good thing the law just walked into the room because this is a crime scene.

  My life has been stolen.

  “Burke,” I say, and I’m not even a little embarrassed that I’ve been crying. That my house looks vandalized. That I want to shake him for answers.

  Andrew Burke was my partner for the better part of twenty years. A tall, bald, dark-skinned detective of the Minneapolis Police department, he’s my best friend and sparring partner, even now.

  Answers. He’ll help me find them—

  “Don’t tell me you’re on a bender again.”

  What?

  Burke is wearing a suit, of course. I ditched mine after a few years on the job, but he always looked good in them. I was more of a sweater and jeans guy, and back then, I wore my hair long, with a hint of a beard, Don Johnson style. It was a thing. And Eve liked it.

  Eve. The scene flashes through my mind again—Eve on the doorstep with her assistant, Silas. Eve handing me a manila envelope, Silas’s arm around her. My insane urge to sink my fist into his mouth. Then the words—oh, God, the words—She’s dead, Rem. She’s dead, and you can’t bring her back.

  “No, I—” I stare again at Gomer, still in my grip.

  “Aw, shoot,” Burke says, his tone softening. “Eve told me you weren’t doing well.”

  “Eve told you…”

  “You fought again didn’t you?”

  My mouth opens and his words find the air around me, but don’t land. Eve and I don’t fight. At least, not about anything important. Sure, the occasional missed pickup at school, and she hates when I leave my socks on the stairs, but—

  “I told her to wait and give you the divorce papers at work. I know yesterday was a hard day for you.” He sighs, and I look back up at him. “I’m sorry man, but you knew this was coming.”

  I knew…

  I can’t breathe, my chest actually constricting, and I press my hand to it. Because twenty-four hours ago my wife was in my warm bed, my daughter in the next room surrounded by freshly unwrapped birthday gifts and my biggest trial was suffering from writer’s block.

  Then I had a dream—

  No, then I…

  I put my head between my knees.

  “Rem! Sheesh, breathe.” Burke leans down in front of me, his hand on my shoulder. “C’mon, don’t do this to me again.”

  Again? But at least Burke is still my best friend, still the guy who won’t let me drown.

  “Dude. Listen, I get it. You’re not the only one who wanted to forget yesterday’s anniversary. But, it’s been two years. Two.” He draws a long breath. “It’s time to at least try to move on.”

  I stare at him. “Ashley’s dead.” I am just trying out the words because, you know, she’s not dead, not in my, um, timeline, my real timeline, but here— maybe here is all I have—

  Now I can’t breathe again.

  “Yes,” Burke says. “Yes she is.” He sighs, and concern fills his dark eyes.

  “How, when?” Because maybe if I have answers—

  “No, Rem. We’re not doing this again. You’ve read the file a thousand times.”

  The file. The file. In the box of files Booker gave me, all cold cases from my time on the job.

  Maybe it’s still here, sitting on the floor by the chair where Eve left it last night.

  I toss Gomer aside, scramble past him, down the stairs and into my office.

  I kneel beside the box, stacked high with folders, and rifle through them.

  I stop, a coldness surging through me. It’s gone. The file from the bombing case, the one I went back to solve—and yes, that still sounds crazy to me—

  It’s gone.

  But of course it is. Because I, you know, solved it.

  So it’s not there. It can’t be. But …

  “What are you doing?” Burke says as he comes in and crouches again beside me.

  “I’m just looking—” I see the cases I know too well. The working girl found near one of my favorite bars. A nurse, found in a parking lot in the middle of January. A waitress outside an uptown diner, and the worst—yes, it’s still here.

  I pull it out and groan.

  The death of Eve’s father, Minneapolis Deputy Police Inspector Danny Mulligan, and her kid brother, Asher. Skinny kid, smart, a hacker.

  Asher saw me kiss Eve, and for a second the taste of her is on my lips. I kissed her last night, in her house, the smell of sawdust and summer in the air.

  Real. The dream felt, smelled, and tasted real.

  “It’s not here.” I set down Danny and Asher’s file and keep looking, just to confirm.

  “What’s not there?”

  “Ashley—where’s her file?”

  Burke is looking at me and now he shakes his head. “Get your head on and get down to the precinct. The Jackson murders aren’t going to solve themselves.” He turns away, runs his hand over his smooth head.

  Last time I saw him, he had hair. That thought slides into my brain, and yes, maybe I’m having a nervous breakdown, a split with reality. He looks at me. “I know you’re hurting, Rem, but you’re freakin’ me out.”

  Yeah, well, I’m freaking myself out too. But, “Where is Ashley’s file?”

  “C’mon, Rem.”

  “Tell me!”

  “It’s where it’s been for the last two years! With all the other Jackson murders.”

  Who’s Jackson? But I don’t ask, because Burke is wearing a thin look. “Listen, I can’t afford to have the head of the task force laying on his bathroom floor, drunk.”

  Again, drunk? Although, my gaze goes to my empty glass on the desk. One lousy shot of Macallans and suddenly I’m drunk?

  Burke looks a little desperate now and it’s an uncommon expression that unnerves me, too. “We finally caught a break—a survivor—and we need you on your game for this afternoon’s press conference. We’re close, Rem, you told me that yourself.”

  I did? But I nod. What I really want to do is bang my head on something, dislodge the memories that are stuck deep inside of a world I don’t know, don’t understand, but have clearly lived in.

  He heads for the door. Pauses. “Come in, get to work. Please don’t make me fire you.”

  Fire me? Burke is my boss?

  I guess that feels right—I always knew he had leadership in him.

  He leaves me there, and in a moment I hear his car drive away.

  Work? Oh, I’m going to work all right.

  To a job I remember quitting three years ago.

  So the demons couldn’t find me.

  But apparently, I’ll have to face those demons, if I want answers.

  2

  In my line of work, I’ve met plenty of the mentally ill. People who claim to hear voices, who believe in altered realities, even a few whose illness has split them into different personalities. They become people they’re not, who wouldn’t recognize themselves.

  For a moment, as I scan my kitchen, I wonder if I’m in that category. An empty bottle of Macallans—at least I’m consistent if not spendy—sits in my sink, along with an empty high-ball. In a Styrofoam container on the counter are the bones of wings from a takeout place down the street. (It does give me some small comfort that I’m still ordering from Gino’s in this reality. Clearly, I haven’t completely lost my mind.)

  But maybe I have lost it, because in the r
ecycling, which emits an odor that might raise the dead, I notice about four too many crushed beer cans.

  On another bender, was what Burke said, and a look at my house tells me that I’ve had a rough couple of years. The dining room remodeling project is still unfinished, but now wires dangle from where the light fixture should hang from the ceiling, a pile of unfinished baseboards sit along the wall, and no paint yet on the sheet-rocked walls. A layer of dust films the sheet over the table.

  I notice other things, also, as I dump the bag of recycling by the back door.

  No swing set in the backyard. But the towering dead elm that used to loom over the house is gone so at least I got that far.

  My wife’s satchel is not hanging from her hook in the mudroom. Nor her car keys, with her C.S.I keychain: Can’t Stand Idiots.

  Agreed. I used to joke that I didn’t know why she stayed with me, then.

  The old laughter, so easy in the past, boils a hole through me now.

  I walk through the family room—the picture of my girls on the beach at Eve’s parents’ home still hangs on the wall, a film of dust obscuring the pane. Ashley, age three, digging in the sand, wearing a bright pink swimsuit. Eve is sitting beside her, her face in shadow under a brimmed hat, grinning for me. The picture became my screen saver on my computer and Eve had it framed for me that next Christmas.

  I’m going to retch.

  I take the stairs two at a time, slide into the bathroom on my knees, but nothing rises. But a sweat has broken out across my forehead and I’m pitiful as I stand and look in the mirror.

  Go to work.

  Burke’s voice in my head, thundering.

  You’re a detective, Daddy.