The Return (Haunted Series Book 21)

by Alexie Aaron

“I could, but, Lazar, Ted and I almost died in that woods. Tom Braverman did die. Murphy brought him back. Make sure she knows of the risks. And if she’s still set on this folly, I’ll take her in.”

  “I’m coming too.”

  “Fine, your funeral,” Mia said quietly.

  “My grandmother is a crone. Old magic. I think she’ll protect us. But she needs an introduction.”

  “I’m her gal.”

  “I’ll let her know. About that leg, I’ve decided against it.”

  “Good to know. But I do know a guy. He’s a wizard.”

  “Harry Potter?”

  “No, but those were damn good books. Brian loves them.”

  “Isn’t he a little young?”

  “Mike started reading them to him, and then Brian picked one up and kept reading. As long as he’s not acting out the books, then we’re safe.”

  “Tell me about this wizard.”

  “He’s my half-uncle’s keeper.”

  “You have a very interesting family, Mia.”

  “So do you. I can’t wait to meet your grandmother.”

  Mia heard a foot hit the floor above them. “Time’s up. Brian is awake. You rest up. He and I are going to clean his room. Thank you for the talk.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Lazar said. “We should do this more often.”

  “Yes, we should.”

  “Next time, tell me about your half-uncle.”

  “You’ll have to sign a waiver first.”

  “That makes it all the better,” Lazar said.

  “Mom!” Brian called.

  “Shhhhh, Varden is still asleep,” Mia warned, running up the stairs.

  Lazar put on his leg and picked up the beer bottles. He liked having a conversation with a woman who didn’t pity him, someone with whom he could let down his hair without worrying about where it was going. The Martins were special people. If he had to lose a limb to find them, then so be it.

  ~

  Wyandot Junior College had a quaint little campus. It served the northernmost counties of Illinois. Its job was to prepare students to move on to four-year colleges or train them in a sought after technical career. The physical education program was a throwback to the time when the universities wanted to have the students to be more well-rounded before admission.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Susan said, entering the gymnasium. The janitorial staff had put most of the big apparatuses in this space. Trampolines, parallel bars, and several balance beams were getting the most attention from the representatives from other schools. Susan drew Cid and Ted in close. “We don’t need to waste our time here. I’m looking for football, basketball, softball, and baseball gear. Uniforms, if they have them. If you two can carry out a few sleds while I look for the smaller gear... Oh, look, a chute! Hurry!”

  Cid and Ted had no clue what a chute looked like. Ted found the sleds behind the uneven bars. Cid, in the meantime, Googled chutes and then slapped his head as he was standing right next to one.

  Susan walked into a side room and started grabbing regulation basketballs. She jammed as many as she could into the net bags she had brought with her before she ran them to the truck. She passed Cid and Ted on the way back in. They were muscling a training sled out towards the truck.

  “I’m going back in to see if I can find any pursue-and-tackle wheels. We really need some forty-two-inchers. Those thirty-six-inch ones aren’t going to cut it.”

  Cid waited until Susan went back into the building before he asked, “What language was she speaking?”

  “Jock. I don’t understand Jock. It makes me nervous,” Ted admitted.

  Susan, once again, entered the small, dimly lit, equipment room. She picked up a few footballs and shook her head. They were flatter than a Brady football in the playoffs. She moved on and found some tennis balls still in their pressurized tubes. They went into the net bag along with the still-boxed softballs. She found a few outdated football pads that she left for someone else. At the far back of the room was a caged area, and inside were the pursue-and-tackle wheels, along with some mint-condition practice uniforms. She walked up but couldn’t open the cage door. She smiled when she saw the prybar someone had slid through the hasp. She had competition. She’d seen this before at a few auctions. Someone would scope out what they wanted and make it look like it was already sold when it hadn’t been. In this case, her fellow raider must have gone back for something to carry the stuff in or, maybe, another vehicle.

  “Fool me once…” Susan said, pulling the prybar out. Quietly, she opened the gate of the cage. It was a bit of a struggle as the gate was spring-closed and the spring was tight. Susan muscled her way in and started stuffing her bag full of uniforms. She set them outside the gate and propped the gate open with a fifty-pound kettlebell weight before she reentered the cage, climbing the shelves to grab the pursue-and-tackle wheels.

  “I’m pursuing you,” she said, grabbing the first one. It was heavier than she originally thought. She slid it off the shelf and let it fall. She repeated the process until she had all six on the floor. She then texted Ted to come and help her out. While she was arranging her haul outside the cage, she was momentarily blinded by a series of overhead lights going on. She closed one eye after another trying to get rid of the blue dots. “This is going to blind someone,” she said. She felt her way along the wall to the light switches and turned half the lights off. There was still one over the cage. It seemed to be hitting something metallic. A bright gleam of polished brass drew her back into the cage.

  “Susan found her blah blah blahs and needs help. Evidently, blah blah blahs weigh something,” Ted said, putting his phone back in his pocket.

  “Whew, all this equipment is heavy. No wonder our gym teachers were so crabby. Probably great guys, but they were sore from setting this stuff up and taking it down,” Cid said.

  “I think we’re just not jocks. Jocks don’t mind heavy shit. Nerds do. That’s why all our shit is light,” Ted said.

  “Hey, you’re overusing the noun shit.”

  “I’m just getting it out of my system. At home, it’s what the fuzzy bunny and shipshape,” Ted said. “Here, I can say shit all I want.”

  “I’ll give you five dollars if you say it in front of Susan,” Cid dared.

  “You’re on. So, it’s five bucks for every time I say shit or is this just a one-time deal.”

  “You, dude, won’t even say shit once, so I’m confident to bet you a five each time you say it in front of Susan,” Cid said and reached a hand out to seal the deal.

  Susan dug her way through pom-poms and cheerleader costumes before she unveiled the source of the light. A very large, many-tiered trophy was lying on its side. Susan dragged it to the edge of the shelf and eased it to the ground. The trophy had to stand five feet high. “Someone went to state,” she said, examining the piece. There weren’t any identifiers to what the trophy was for. There was a year engraved and a name, but the plate must have come in contact with water because it was too corroded to read even under the overhead spot.

  “Whatcha got there, Susan?” Ted asked. “That’s some piece of sh… sh… shamrock? Look at the shamrock.”

  “Where? I don’t see any… Oh, it’s just a few figure eights. That’s what it is. It’s a skating trophy,” Susan realized.

  The lights flipped on again.

  “What the fuzzy bunny?” Ted said, holding his hand over his eyes.

  “The switches keep going on. They are giving me a migraine,” Susan admitted. “Let’s get this stuff to the truck and go home. I think we were very successful. Cid, if you could help me put this back? They had it on its side.”

  Cid walked into the cage, lifted the trophy, turned it on its side, and shifted it to the back. He pushed it into place and heard something drop off the back.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Really, Mr. Garrett, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Susan asked.

  “Honestly,” Ted said. “Forgive him, he spends too
much time with construction types. You shouldn’t use the word shit in front of ladies,” Ted said, holding up a finger. “Shit isn’t a couth way of expressing yourself.” Ted held up another finger. “Shit should be reserved for a guy’s day out as long as children aren’t within earshot.” Ted held out a third finger.

  “Thanks, Ted, I think you’ve chastised Cid enough. You can’t parent your friends,” she warned and walked out, dragging her bag of uniforms behind her.

  “You, sonofabitch,” Cid said.

  “Fifteen dollars minus the bar of soap Susan is going to use on your toilet mouth.”

  “Can you help me move this thing so I can pick up whatever this thing is I dropped?”

  “Sure, why not. Ooh, looky, cheerleading uniforms and pom-poms. I’m going to take something home for Mia.”

  “Mia is going to tell you where you can shove those pom-poms. She isn’t into that shit.”

  “Mr. Garrett, please. We’re representing Big Bear Lake schools here,” Susan said from behind them.

  “As I was telling you about the word shit…”

  “That’s not helping, Ted,” Susan warned. “What are the two of you doing?”

  “Something fell when we were putting the trophy back. I was just moving the shelf to get at it,” Cid explained.

  “Oh, that’s very commendable. Maybe I can reach it… Yes, I’ve got it.” Susan pulled out a small trophy. “Look, it’s a baby one. I’m going to take it home and repurpose it. We can give it away as a gag gift at an athletic dinner.”

  Ted looked at the small tarnished trophy and wrinkled his nose. “I think it’s a piece of…”

  “Shit?” Susan asked. “Me too, but it will be easy to clean up. Just some Brasso and a rag.”

  “I wonder who the loser was who got stuck with that thing?” Ted asked.

  “They didn’t. It was left here, probably for a dozen years or more,” Susan said, tucking it into her pocket. “You just wait, it will be as good as gold in no time.”

  The lights dimmed again.

  “Well, that’s a sign. Time to get going. Pick up those four pursue-and-tackles and follow me,” Susan said.

  Ted picked up two and waited for Cid by the door. “That’s twenty-five you owe me.”

  “No, twenty. Susan said the last shit.”

  “But she knew I was going to say it,” Ted pointed out.

  “Being clairvoyant doesn’t count,” Cid insisted and took out his wallet. He stuffed a twenty in Ted’s pocket, picked up his wheels, and walked out of the gym. Ted set his down, ran back for a size-small cheerleader uniform and a set of pom-poms. He tucked them in the back of his pants, picked up his wheels, and jogged out of the gym.

  No one saw her standing there, the aging beauty holding a set of pom-poms. She had signaled the people, again and again, with the lights and performed her cheer for them. She really thought the lady had appreciated her routine because she pulled the big trophy out. But then the big trophy was returned.

  “Maybe it was my high kick at the end. That was overdone. A split may have been better,” she said, sliding down into a perfect one. She walked back over to her mark to start again, but something was pulling her away. It was pulling her away fast. The cheerleader grabbed at the cage, but her hands slid through the metal. “Help me!” she called out, but no one heard her.

  Chapter Three

  Burt sat down at the table with Mike and Audrey. “We have a few great debunking shows in the can. Time for us to look into an active haunt.”

  “Is Mia ready to start working?” Mike asked.

  “She’s been begging me three times a day for the last week,” Burt said.

  “I know how she feels. I could only stay home full-time for so long,” Audrey said. “Being a mom of an infant is a tough job. Mia has taken on a teenager at the same time. She needs a little me time.”

  “She’s had an unusual request that we may be interested in,” Burt started. “Lazar Popov, the gentleman who works for the Martins, his parents are looking into buying the land north of Sentinel Woods. His mother is a Crone magic practitioner. She has asked, through her grandson, for an introduction to the creature that guards the woods.”

  “Why?” Audrey asked. “Didn’t Mia almost die there?”

  “Yes,” Burt answered. “And remember that Tom Braverman did die there. He was rescued by one of the teens the Martins went in to save, Ethan Aldridge. He’s due out of jail this month. He’s been communicating with Tom. He’s looking to do some restitution while he’s on probation. Maybe we can put all these people together. Mia says there is a plethora of French trapper ghosts drifting around in the woods. Also, two teens died there. She’s not sure they passed into the light.”

  “Sounds like quite a human-interest story,” Mike said, taking some notes.

  “What happened to the ring leader, the bully who set up the local boy?” Audrey asked.

  “Blair Summerfield. Actually, it was his deceased brother Keith who set Rory Kline up. I think I’ll leave that research up to you. But be careful. I imagine it was money that got Blair out of trouble in the first place. We don’t need his lawyers slapping us with a lawsuit,” Burt warned.

  “What if we leave out where the place is located?” Mike asked. “I don’t think it will do anyone any good to shine a light on Sentinel Woods. Several teams of ghost hunters have omitted the locations of their graveyard investigations to keep the riffraff out.”

  “It’s the responsible thing to do,” Audrey agreed.

  Burt rubbed his jaw for a moment. “Let’s do our research before we present it to the others. We need to tread carefully. The events in Sentinel Woods were life altering for some…”

  “Life ending for others,” Mike finished.

  ~

  Ethan set his jaw and listened to his father’s lawyer. The family was demanding he file to be emancipated from the Aldridge family. In doing so, Ethan would be given an adequate allowance for five years, as long as he agreed to stay away from the Aldridge home, his stepmother, and any of the companies and charities associated with the Aldridge name. Had they been able to, they would have insisted Ethan renounce the Aldridge name, changing it to something… anything… else. Ethan messed up. He was more than aware of that. Although, he wasn’t sure he deserved being banned from the family.

  Acting Sheriff Tom Braverman stood in the office of the Aldridges’ lawyer, listening to the long list of conditions the Aldridge family insisted upon. He had offered to be there to represent the county to explain Ethan’s parole to his lawyer. He was shocked by the turn in events. “Excuse me, could I speak to Ethan alone?” Tom asked.

  “You can use one of the outer…”

  “Respectfully, I’m asking you, sir, to leave this office,” Tom insisted.

  The lawyer glared at Tom but did stand up and walk out of the room. Tom flicked the lock on the door just to piss the man off.

  “Ethan, you don’t have to sign these papers,” Tom counseled. “You’re still a minor. Your father is responsible for you until you’re eighteen.”

  Ethan looked up at Tom and said, “Regardless of me taking their money or not, my family has abandoned me. My actions, along with others, contributed to the death of two classmates and the abduction of another. I’m not ready to make it on my own. I have a record.”

  “It’s a juvenile record. It will be sealed,” Tom pointed out.

  “People talk. You and I know that getting a job will be near impossible. Why? Because, frankly, I’ve slept my way through the classroom and have no skills beyond aiming a paintball gun. I’m too soft to survive the military. I’ve got to be smart here.”

  “I’m going to insist that they let you live, rent free, in your family’s summer home. It’s in my county and part of your parole agreement. You have to live in Big Bear Lake, Ethan, until your parole is up.”

  Ethan wasn’t surprised by Tom’s interest. It had started off with him fighting to keep Ethan’s punishment reasonable when it became appa
rent that Ethan was going to be the fall guy for the Sentinel Woods event. Waiting for his judgement, Ethan fell into a depression. Tom could see the youth slipping away and had to do something. He rallied the Martins and had Sheriff Ryan write and visit the presiding judge. But the facts were the facts; Ethan Aldridge had knowingly participated in kidnapping Rory Kline. He had hunted him like an animal and was indirectly responsible for the deaths of Jason Jones and Keith Summerfield.

  “It was Keith Summerfield who kidnapped Rory,” Tom had insisted.

  “Not according to Blair Summerfield,” the judge argued. “Also, Blair states that he suspects that Ethan killed his brother and Jason Jones.”

  “He’s lying. You have the Martins’ statement.”

  “It’s their word against his.”

  “He’s not a killer,” Tom emphasized. “He risked his life to save mine. Ethan could have run off and left me to die, like Blair did with Mia Martin. If you ask me, the wrong young man is being punished here.”

  Sheriff Ryan put a restraining hand on Tom’s arm. He knew the history of the presiding judge. He was a stern but fair man. Ethan had one ace in the hole; he wasn’t an adult yet. Even though tests had placed him in the junior class, Ethan, at the time, was actually fourteen. Ethan was headed to a juvenile detention facility. His confession had kept the incident out of the papers. The high-priced lawyers for Blair Summerfield and Sean and Vince Smithe, who had participated in the hunt of Rory Kline, had circled the wagons, and Ethan had been hung out to dry.

  “How about the guest cottage at the edge of the property? This way, I don’t have to pay for the maintenance of that monster of a place. I’m sure they will quickly plant some view-obstructing landscaping, possibly a fence with razor wire…”

  Tom laughed. He could see that Ethan’s satirical wit had survived prison.

  “Send in the clown, and let’s get this over with.”

  Tom unlocked the door and motioned for the lawyer to come back in.