Shadows of the Past: A Supernatural Suspense Mystery (Shadow Slayers Stories Book 1)

by Nellie H. Steele

  At home, she gathered her snack and forced herself to finish her report generation, sending them off before deciding to call it quits for the day. She was mentally and physically exhausted and spent the rest of the afternoon on the front porch swing, trying to remind herself of her end goal. She anxiously awaited the return of her roommates and the distraction that they would provide for her.

  “Wonder what all that was about?” Michael asked, as they pulled back into their hiding spot near the house.

  “Seems like she’s trying to distract herself, that’s what she usually does when she’s upset by something. Retail therapy. Ever seen her closet? She does it a lot.”

  “She wasn’t at the motel or the mall long though, and she purchased nothing.”

  “Yeah, that’s the part that’s got me concerned.”

  “That she didn’t purchase anything?”

  “Yeah,” Damien responded, lost in thought.

  “Of everything going on, her lack of purchasing has you concerned? Seriously?” Michael asked.

  “Yes. Well, I mean, it’s totally out of character. When Josie has a problem, she shops it away. Do you know how many pairs of shoes she bought when she didn’t get a big contract once?”

  “No?” Michael phrased his response as a question.

  “Well, it was a lot. Broke up with a boyfriend, that’s like a five dress minimum. Bad day at work, she buys a new sweater. Fight with her mom, going rate is about three blouses and a new skirt. The fact that she met with that guy, whoever he is, then went shopping and came out with nothing is majorly concerning.”

  “Hmm,” Michael said, enlightened to the stress-relieving mechanism employed by Josie. “So, what’s it mean when she buys nothing? Nothing is bothering her?”

  “I’d say just the opposite. Something so significant is bothering her, she can’t even shop. So that’s like something scary serious.”

  “But what could it be?” Michael mused. They both sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in their own theories about what might be bothering Josie. After a few minutes, Michael said, “So, how many dresses did she buy when she broke up with me?”

  Damien looked up at the roof of the car, thinking, “Um, three dresses and two pairs of shoes, I think.”

  Michael made a face. “Not bad, did I do good then?!? So what’s this guy’s story that she’s bought nothing.”

  “That’s the million dollar question.”

  “I’m getting stiff.” Uncomfortable, Michael shifted around in his seat. “Good thing I’m not a cop. I couldn’t do this often.”

  “Might not have to, looks like she’s calling it a day. She’s on her swing.”

  “Maybe we should 'come home from work early,’” Michael suggested.

  “That’ll work for me. One of us should circle around a few times so we’re not back at the same time.”

  “Rock, paper, scissors for it?” Michael asked.

  “Okay,” Damien responded, as they both made fists. “Figures, that’s my luck,” he said after losing, his rock being covered by Michael’s paper. “Okay, drop me back at my car and I’ll drive around for about fifteen minutes then come back.”

  “Sounds good,” Michael said, firing up the car and backing onto the road. They drove to where Damien had left his car.

  “See you soon,” Damien said as he exited the car at the abandoned pizza parlor parking lot.

  Josie laid in bed, unable to sleep. Despite both Damien and Michael coming home early, they did little to distract her from her conversations earlier in the day. She had made a good show of it, but finally night had come and she was alone with only her own thoughts to plague her.

  From her position in bed she could view the music box in front of her. She stared at it. She should have put it away earlier today, but she didn’t. Now it served as a constant reminder of her past. She considered putting the thing away now. She rose from bed, intending to do just that. After grabbing hold of it she took a moment, sitting back on the bed, holding the box. She clutched it to her chest, an overwhelming sense of sorrow filling her. She opened the box, letting the music fill the air. She decided against putting the music box away for the moment, setting it back on the night table and climbing back into bed.

  As she set the box down, she noticed the notification light blinking on her phone. Picking the device up she checked her notifications and found a text message waiting for her. She opened the message; it was from Gray: Here is a picture of Max and Maddy, Avery’s two children… I thought you might want to see what’s at stake

  Attached to the message was a picture of a smiling boy and girl, standing on either side of Avery. The last time she had seen Avery, she had been a child smaller than the ones in the picture. Now Avery had children that were about ten and eight.

  How much things had changed yet also how little. Gray realized guilt was weighing on her, and he was exploiting it; how well he knew her. Using her guilt to his advantage was smart, but also maddening. She stared at the picture; at those two little faces.

  Shutting her phone off, she set it back on the night table. She rolled over, facing away from it, trying to shut the image out of her mind as easily as she had shut off the phone’s display. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. Even though she recognized what he was doing, she couldn’t ignore the text. Rolling back over, she retrieved her phone and responded: Meet tomorrow morning to talk?

  She didn’t know what she would say, but it bought her some time to reflect. She got up, pacing around the floor while she waited for the response. Her phone chimed: Can we meet tonight?

  She sighed; Gray would not let this go. He had a hook in her and would use it to his advantage. She responded: Usual spot?

  It wasn’t long before Gray texted back: See you there soon

  Josie changed out of pajamas and into casual clothes, sneaking out of the house and down the driveway. It would take her a little longer than usual since she would not jog the route. She had made it almost to the end of the road when a car approached. It was Gray; he rolled down the passenger window. “Hop in,” he said.

  “Can I trust you not to drive me straight to Bucksville?” she joked.

  “No, but it’s a chance you’ll have to take,” he joked back as she slid into the passenger’s seat. He swerved around, turning back toward the main road. “So, you haven’t changed your mind then, I take it?”

  She sighed, “I can’t do it.” He frowned at her response but said nothing. “But,” she continued after a moment, “I can’t do nothing either.”

  “So, you’ll come?”

  “I haven’t decided. There’s no good ending for me. I’m at a loss.”

  “The worst ending for everyone is the one where you do nothing. Now I’ve shown you what is at stake, it’s a tragedy waiting to happen.” He pulled off the road into an empty parking lot.

  Josie stared straight ahead into the darkness in front of her. “I can’t be what I was.”

  “But if you aren’t we have no hope.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Well, I am. We need you, Celine.”

  “Perhaps I could help in another way.”

  “Another way?”

  “Yes, I mean, I know a lot, I remember everything. I remember…” She paused, struggling to get the words out. “I remember the Duke. Perhaps I can help even if I’m just as I am now, just Josie.”

  Gray considered it for a moment. “Okay, there’s a train leaving early tomorrow morning. I’ll meet you at the end of your driveway at four thirty tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay, I’ll be ready.”

  Gray turned the car around and pulled back onto the road. “So you’re okay with this?” Josie asked him after they were back on the road.

  “You’re coming home, I will take whatever you’re giving me right now, so yeah, I’m okay with it,” Gray responded.

  Within minutes they were pulling back onto Josie’s road. “Just leave me off at the end of the driveway,” she said.<
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  “Okay,” he said, pulling to a stop across the driveway. “See you tomorrow morning, four thirty, don’t be late.”

  “I won’t be. See you then.”

  Gray pulled away, swinging around to head back toward the main road. Josie made her way to the house. She needed to pack. Worry plagued her. She hoped this wasn’t a mistake, but she had a nagging suspicion it might be.

  Gray entered the motel room, throwing his keys onto the nearby table. Millie was waiting in a chair, having known he was meeting Celine. “Well?” she asked as soon as he entered.

  “Well, we leave tomorrow morning, pack your bags, Millie, we’re going home.”

  “She agreed?”

  “More or less.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “She agreed to go and no more.”

  “Is that any use to us?”

  “It’s a win, she’s going, I’ll worry about the rest when we get home.”

  “That’s a brave attitude.”

  “It’s the only attitude that I can have, Millie. Now, let’s get packed up, we pick Celine up at four thirty in the morning.”

  Chapter 18

  Josie stood at the end of the driveway. There was a chill in the summer morning air. Josie couldn’t help but wonder if it foreshadowed what was to come. She pulled her sweater around her tighter as she watched the car lights approaching. The car pulled up alongside her. She took a deep breath knowing this was her last chance to back out before the ball started rolling. Josie would have been indecisive at this moment; Celine was not. She recognized what she had to do.

  “Good morning, Celine,” Gray said, jumping out of the driver’s side to put her luggage in the trunk.

  Josie slid into the backseat on the passenger side. “Good morning, Celine,” Millie said from the passenger seat. “I’m glad you’re joining us.” Josie didn’t answer.

  Grayson slid in behind the wheel and swung the car around toward the main road. “Time to go home, Celine,” he said as they pulled away from her driveway.

  Josie stared back for a moment watching her driveway and mailbox disappear behind her. She couldn’t help but feel this was the end of an era for her, that she might never lay eyes on this house again. Returning her gaze to the front, she made a silent vow that this would not be the case. She would help but she would remain strong, she would return as Josie.

  A loud rapping at the door startled Michael awake. He rushed to the door, opening it to find a flushed and flustered Damien. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “We got trouble,” Damien answered, a bit out of breath.

  “Trouble? Is it Josie? Is she sick? What?” he asked, pushing through the door past Damien and racing toward Josie’s room.

  “She’s gone.”

  “What? Gone? Where?”

  “Looks like the city, perhaps the train station? I only looked quick. I came to get you right away.”

  “Train station? What?”

  “Well, I’ve been tracking her phone. I wrote my own little application to track it that will also alert me to out-of-the-ordinary occurrences, like odd times or locations or…” Damien began.

  “Yeah, okay, get to the point.”

  “Oh, right, well, it alerted me this morning. According to my little tracker, Josie left the house around four thirty this morning and traveled into the city, see?” he brandished his laptop with the blinking red dot.

  Michael looked at the screen. “Four thirty? Seriously? Where is she going?”

  “No idea, but it might be worth following her.”

  “Yeah, I’d say so, let me change and we’ll head down there.”

  “Okay, me too.”

  The two parted ways to dress for the trip, meeting back in the living room a few minutes later. “Okay, I got phone chargers, laptop, some clothes, basic toiletries, snacks, and I grabbed a few waters. Perhaps you should throw some clothes in just in case? It looks like she’s at the train station, she could be going anywhere.”

  “How did you do that so fast?” Michael said, running back upstairs to grab a few things.

  Damien followed him up the steps. “Oh, it’s my go-bag.”

  “You have a go-bag?”

  “Yeah, doesn’t everyone?”

  “No?” Michael said grabbing a few things and tossing them into his duffel bag before running to the bathroom to throw a few toiletries in.

  “Oh. Hmm. Well, anyway, you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be,” Michael said. The two headed downstairs and continued out the front door. Damien locked it behind them and double-checked that the lights were all out before heading to the car. “Come on, what are you doing?”

  “Sorry,” Damien said, throwing his bag in the backseat and climbing into the passenger’s side of Michael’s SUV, “Josie’ll kill me if I left a light on or something.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Perhaps she’s seeing the weirdo from the motel off or something.”

  “Doubt it, her car is here, so wherever she is, she went in someone else’s car so I have this bad feeling that it’s not that.”

  Michael turned the car around in the driveway and made his way down the drive, turning toward the main road. Both of them were silent, lost in thought, wondering what they might find when they caught up with Josie at the train station.

  About thirty minutes into their one hour drive to the train station, Damien’s app beeped an alert. “She’s on the move again. Heading north it looks like.”

  “So, she’s not coming home, that’s for sure,” Michael responded, knowing they lived west of the city.

  “Nope, wonder where she is going. Do you think she’s on a train?”

  “It’s a little after six o’clock, can you check the train schedules to determine what trains are pulling out now and where they are heading?”

  “Good idea,” Damien answered, pulling up his web browser on his phone and heading to the station’s website. “Let’s see,” he said as he scrolled through to find a list of departures. “There’s a train that departed at 6:05 a.m., heading up the coast, final destination is somewhere in Maine.”

  “The time frame fits, what are the other stops, I wonder.”

  “There’s a list of them here, but there’d be no way of knowing unless we knew what ticket she bought or we wait for her phone to show us.”

  “Once we get to the train station perhaps we will get some information. We’ll use the phone as either a confirmation or back-up.”

  “Sounds good, I’ll keep an eye on my app to see if she stops moving before we get there but I doubt that.”

  They finished the rest of their ride in silence with Damien staring at the phone tracker, watching Josie move further and further north. They pulled into the lot and parked. Grabbing their things from the backseat, they made their way into the train station. This early in the morning, it wasn’t very busy. There was only one person working the ticket booth. “I’ll see if I can find anything out from her,” Michael said, pointing to a girl at the ticket window.

  They both walked over to the ticket agent. “Good morning,” Michael said, flashing a smile. He planned to use his good looks to charm the girl out of some information.

  “Can I help you?” she said, in a monotone voice.

  “Ah, I hope so. We’re supposed to travel north to meet a friend. In fact, she just left on the earlier train. We slept in, oops,” he joked, flashing another smile, “anyway, we’re heading to the same place she was so we need the same ticket.”

  “Final destination?”

  “Ah, same as hers was.”

  The girl looked at him, expressionless. “Final destination?” she repeated.

  “Well, okay, this is embarrassing, but… ” Michael said, leaning in toward the window and lowering his voice, “neither of us remember what stop she told us to get off at. I was hoping you could help me out and give us the right tickets, you know, based on what she bought.”

  “Why don’t you just ask her?�
�� the girl said, annoyed.

  “Like I said, we slept in and she’s already going to be mad about that. On top of that, if I tell her that we forgot where we’re going she will be super mad. I would rather avoid that if you know what I mean.” Michael winked at her.

  The girl sighed. “I don’t remember every ticket I sell so looks like you’re out of luck.”

  “Ah, well if it helps, she was on the six-oh-five, with a tall, dark-haired guy. Here’s Josie, our friend,” Michael said, pulling out his phone and flashing a picture of him with his arm around Josie. “Do you remember where they were going? I’d really, REALLY appreciate it if you could help us out.” Michael also flashed a one hundred-dollar bill.

  The girl rolled her eyes, but slid her hand over the cash, pulling it discreetly toward her. “Two tickets to Bucksville then?” she asked, tapping around on her computer.

  “Yep, that’s right, how did we forget that?” he said, turning to Damien and playing along. “Bucksville! Awesome, well thank you so much, Cara,” Michael said, eyeing her name tag. “Two tickets on the next train to Bucksville, please.”

  Cara sold him the tickets. “Train leaves off platform B at 8:35 a.m. Got a long wait,” she said, handing the tickets to him and turning away to avoid any further discussion.

  “Thanks,” Michael said, taking the tickets. They turned around, scoping out the area.

  “How about the seats in the corner? Quiet spot and there’s a plug,” Damien said, waving his phone to indicate the need for the plug.

  “Good idea.” They both headed toward the corner, setting their gear down and taking seats on opposite walls. Damien took out his charger and plugged his phone in. Michael said, “Well, that worked out. We’ll only be about two and a half hours behind her. Let’s see when we get there. A little after six thirty tonight. Why is she going to Timbuktu, Maine?”

  Damien continued to watch the little red dot moving further north on the map. “No idea, I will be happy when we are moving in the same direction. Oh, I should call off work.”