Trevar's Team 2
Page 24
My eyes flashed open, wide open. “Mandy? I know she’s affluent. Upper class by most standards. But twenty-five million?” I questioned.
Glenda shrugged. “Not too many know that she could buy and sell most everyone here. She tends to keep it quiet.”
“Wow,” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know she was so flush.”
Glenda’s laugh boomed. “If I had her money, I’d throw my money away.”
I grinned and shook my head, “That is a shocker.”
“Believe it. Her money transfer cleared.” Glenda examined my face. “Beryl, you really need to get more moisturizer on your skin. And wearing a wide-brimmed hat for protection wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I’ll moisturize immediately when I return home tonight.” I slid my sunglasses over my eyes.
“Good. And thanks for suggesting that I work with this foundation. I’m coping with losing Wendell better now since becoming more active with my charity work. And thank you for solving the case. It will never bring Wen back, but at least it helps to know his killers are behind bars.”
I stopped briefly to tell Rachel and Summer that I was headed home. As I made my way to my convertible, I watched for Evan. She wasn’t there. It was that simple. Before returning to the yacht, I swung around and headed for one more look at The Ghost – it would be taken away for salvage later in the day. I’d wanted to see her one more time.
Walking along on the dock, I noticed that Lefty was out on his fishing dinghy.
When I crossed the plank onto The Ghost I heard sobbing inside. I recognized the sobs. “Evan,” I spoke softly as I entered.
She turned. She explained, “Lefty picked me up at the airport. I asked him to bring me back with him, I knew I was already late for the service. I stopped here, because this is where I guess I was meant to be. Pixy’s memories are here. Lefty said the ship is going to be hauled away today. I thought you’d be at the festivities, and so I didn’t want to call you and interrupt you. I needed to thank you for keeping your promise to find Pixy’s murderer.”
“An Agatha Christie quote. ‘Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend,’ she said in her book, The Mysterious Affair.” Hesitating, I then continued. “This murderer was not old, nor was he a friend. He was probably the only one who was not Pixy’s friend. How could that be?’
“I wish the world knew the answer to your question, Beryl.”
It was as though I was looking at Evan for the first time. Or perhaps seeing her for the first time. “I’m so glad that you’re here.”
“Me too,” she answered.
My arms opened, as did hers. We stepped nearer, and I felt her. We were within one another’s embrace. “I was thinking about you, Evan. After the service. Well, I was thinking the same thing you were. I wanted to be here. One more time.”
Evan gazed around, then she suddenly smiled. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I feel her spirit. Beryl, wherever she was, she left happiness behind. I hope they said that at her service.”
“They did. We create imprints on one another’s hearts. Pixy was aware when she gave that gift.”
“There was a little gleam with her smile,” Evan whispered. Our lips kissed gently. My fingertips traced her face. Evan sighed. “Your touch seems different.”
“It might be different. I was thinking about how Pixy imparted a unique belief of acceptance. Difficult to understand, but she seemed to be calling me here to say goodbye to her ship.”
Evan’s words were slowly spoken, “Not so difficult to understand. Maybe she wanted us both to say goodbye to The Ghost for her.”
I understood that Lefty had not wanted to see her ship leaving. Perhaps he went fishing to avoid the goodbye. But it was important that someone say a farewell.
Evan and I waited for the arrival of the tugboat. We sat on the worn timber boards of the dock. We looked out across the waves as the tug hauled away Pixy’s home. Small clouds traversed a magnificent sky. The ocean was lit up as if it had been lacquered and polished.
It was The Ghost’s farewell voyage.
Author Kieran York
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kieran York has lived in Colorado for the past few decades. Nearly all of her fiction has ties or is set in the Colorado area.
She has authored both Sapphic fiction and poetry. The lesbian mystery series, Timber City Mask and Crystal Mountain Veils, were originally written in published in the mid-1990s. A second edition of them was recently released by Scarlet Clover Publishers. A third and fourth in the mystery series, Shinney Forest Cloaks and Rasp Meadow Crossing, were published in 2015 and 2016. All four Royce Madison mysteries have been on the Amazon 100 Best-Seller’s List – LGBT Mysteries. Autumn, 2016 a cookbook featuring culinary dishes from the mysteries was published, Timber County Cuisine.
York’s fiction also includes Appointment with a Smile, published in 2012. It was a 2013 Lambda Literary Society Award Finalist in the Romance Category. Careful Flowers was released in 2013, followed by 2014 releases – Earthen Trinkets and Night Without time. In 2015, Touring Kelly’s Poem, Loitering on the Frontier, Primrose, and Trevar’s Team: 1 were published. In 2016, thriller Astray and romance Ballad of Raindrops were published.
In 2014, York’s volume of poetry, Blushing Aspen, was published as Sappho’s Corner Solo Poets Series poetry for the year. It won the Rainbow Award Honorable Mention for Poetry, and was a finalist in the Poetry category of Golden Crown Literary Awards. In 2015, the poetry book titled Realm of Belonging was released by Scarlet Clover Publishers. In 2016, the poetry volume, Once Word was released.
York has two collection of lesbian short fiction. The first was entitled Sugar With Spice, and was published in 1989. The second was released in 2015, and was called Within Our Celebration.
Previously, during the nineteen-seventies and eighties, Kieran worked as a reporter and reviewer for both newspapers, and magazines, and was a magazine publisher for three years. She also wrote and performed songs with a regional woman’s band.
She has been a guest lecturer and panel member at various events, including Rocky Mountain Book Exhibition, and Colorado Musician’s Series. She is a member of Lambda Literary Society and Sisters in Crime.
She has written for Journal of Mystery Readers International. In addition, she has given numerous campus and coffeehouse poetry readings, as well as taught poetry and creative writing workshops. She graduated from Fort Hays Kansas State University, and Attended Mexico’s University of Americas her junior year.
Kieran lives in the Rocky Mountain Foothills of Colorado with her schnauzer, Clover. She enjoys music, literature, and art. She considers her valuables to include Clover, and her other family and friends, her library, her antique typewriter collection, and her guitars.
Additional information is available on her websites: https://kieranyork.com and www.scarletcloverpublishers.com in addition you can find her work on Amazon’s Author’s Page at: www.amazon.com/author/kieranyork/
SCARLET CLOVER PUBLISHERS
COMING SOON
SILVER WILDERNESS RANGE: Royce Madison 5
Sheriff Royce Madison is dispatched to a home on the outskirts of Timber City. The call is to remove a vagrant. Once there, Royce is perplexed. Seated on the steps of her own porch is an elderly woman named Dolly Barnaby. She had been the owner of that home for at least half a century. But now Royce discovers, it had been turned over to the assisted living home where the woman was sent.
Talking with the woman convinces Royce that it had all been done without Mrs. Barnaby’s permission. And Dolly swore that she had not signed anything relinquishing her property, nor was she senile. The senior citizen did not seem at all impaired to the sheriff.
But there was more. Dolly disclosed that one of the patients had been murdered.
Royce was not going to dismiss any crime in Timber City, real or imagined.
Eighty-year old Dolly was a friend of Royce’s grandmother. Was it all a mistake, an illusion, or would the facts show that Mr
s. Barnaby was indeed sound of mind?
FESTIVAL OF A MOMENT – Poetry by Kieran York
A collection of poetry by Kieran York.