An Unexpected Guest
Heather Graham
Slush Pile Players
Copyright © 2020 Heather Graham
An Unexpected Guest Copyright © 2020 by Slush Pile Productions
Please report the unauthorized distribution of this publication by contacting the author at theoriginalheathergraham.com, via email at [email protected], or at Heather Graham 103 Estainville Ave., Lafayette, LA 70508. Please help stop internet piracy by alerting the author with the name and web address of any questionable or unauthorized distributor.
An Unexpected Guest is a work of fiction. The people and events in An Unexpected Guest are entirely fictional. The story is not a reflection of historical or current fact, nor is the story an accurate representation of past or current events. Any resemblance between the characters in this novel and any or all persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Cover design by: Connie Perry
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
Introduction
Krewe Special Agent Jon Dickson and Kylie Connolly met under tough circumstances, but despite that, they discovered it seemed they were meant to be.
Now, moved into a condo in the D.C. area—easy shots for Jon getting to the Krewe offices and Kylie getting to Adam Harrison’s newly founded museum—they’re about to spend their first Thanksgiving together alone, sorry they won’t be with family, but happy to be together.
But an old friend from the academy calls Jon. He and his bride have just bought an historic house in Plymouth, Mass, but odd things are happening.
There’s a killer on the loose, and the old house abounds with ghost stories and the truth of what is happening must be discovered if Evan and Julie are going to stay in the dream home into which they had just invested all they had.
Thanksgiving is just a day away . . .
Jon doubts anything can be solved so quickly, even when he’s given special assistance from the dead.
But the first Thanksgiving did take place in Plymouth . . .
And they just might make discoveries that allow them to see just how very thankful they are.
An Unexpected Guest
Prologue
The Turkey
The turkey had moved.
Julie Fletcher stared at the bird. She had left the completely defrosted turkey on the counter by the sink, having just washed it and dried it, and set it aside for a while to prepare for Thanksgiving tomorrow.
She didn’t put stuffing in the bird, but rather wrapped a stick of butter in lettuce leaves. An old friend, once a cook in the Navy, had told her that bread crumb stuffing took moisture out of the turkey while the butter wrapped in the lettuce put it back in. Stuffing could be prepared on the side.
But she wanted the turkey to be seasoned before she baked it early morning on Thanksgiving.
Now, it looked almost as if the headless body of the creature was standing up. If it had eyes, it would be staring at her.
She almost envisioned it flapping its plucked wings.
But it didn’t even have a head, much less eyes, and it was just a turkey, and still . . .
“Evan!” she shouted.
Her husband—for all of three weeks now—strode into the kitchen, a questioning look in his eyes. But bad things had happened lately in Boston, and all the nearby communities had been warned to be vigilant and keep doors locked, try to not be alone, and so on.
Did psycho killers tease victims first by moving turkeys?
No, this had to have been Evan.
He had to have done this—it had to be a practical joke.
“Funny!” she told him.
“What?”
“The bird!”
He looked at the turkey.
“What about the bird?” he asked.
“Oh, come on, please! Are you trying to freak me out about this house or something?”
“Of course not!” He truly looked confused and concerned, and he slipped his arms around her pulling her close. “We own this house! We’re married, and we have a real home, and we’re going to start on the two or three kids we’ve decided we’re going to have, and they’ll grow up here. When they’re big enough we’ll get an above ground pool for summers, and . . . we love this place! We both agreed, we love this place! Julie, we looked at dozens of houses. We wanted a family home in an area with great schools. Hey,” he teased her, “we’re in Plymouth, not Salem.”
“Right, but—”
“There is no such thing as a haunted house,” Evan said firmly. “Look, you just washed the bird, right?”
“Right. And I had it laid out. You know how I like to prepare a turkey. He was down! I was ready to put the butter and lettuce into him!”
“He slipped or something,” Evan said.
Julie gave herself a serious mental—and small physical—shake.
“Okay, right, fine,” she murmured. Then she felt an icy sensation all over again.
“Julie—”
“Someone was in the house!” she said.
“What?”
“Someone was in here. Turkeys don’t move themselves. I mean, not headless turkeys. Evan, someone was in here! And I’ve seen the news. There have been three unsolved murders in the last month in Boston.”
“Boston is forty miles away.”
“Right! A drive of less than an hour.”
“You can’t even get through downtown Boston in an hour!”
“Evan!”
“Honey, okay. I’ll go through the house—will that make you feel better?”
“You have your gun?”
He sighed. “I was given the holiday off. I put my gun in the safe. But I’ll get it and go through the house.”
Julie winced. They so loved this house. The school districts were wonderful. They weren’t kids—Evan was thirty-six and she was thirty-three. He worked for the FBI; she had designed a line of accessories and worked from a great studio she had created out of what had once been a family room and before that a music room. They had fallen in love with it even though it meant Evan did have a drive into the bureau offices in Boston.
The house had been built in the late 1600s. It was far from the oldest home in Plymouth. The Richard Sparrow house was accredited that honor, having been built in 1640. But the house had been built by Mayflower descendants and had an incredible history.
The house had, however, been vastly changed through the years. Once it had been two rooms and two stories. Now it offered four bedrooms upstairs and bathrooms, while downstairs included the parlor, a large dining room, a kitchen, an office, and her refurbished studio. The wood construction and the façade remained, other than the outbuilding that had once been a kitchen and had been converted into an entertainment room. One day, they would modify it so they could turn it into a safe playroom for the little ones they intended to have.
It was an old house and it had seen history come and go. Of course, there were ghost stories that abounded around it. But the people who had last owned the house were alive and well. They had retired and moved to Arizona.
They had just shaken their heads at the ghost stories, as did most people.
Julie just couldn’t believe the turkey had moved on its own.
She followed Evan into the parlor where he took his gun from the safe there.
“Do you want to wait—”
“Hell, no! I’m following you!”
He nodded. Evan really was an amazing man. He worked for the FBI in their cyber division, but he also went into the field upon occasion with the criminal investigation teams. He was a steady, competent man with his Glock.
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She stayed right at his back as they went through the house room by room, ending back in the kitchen.
“Happy?” he asked her.
“The turkey moved!” she whispered. She looked at it again, and then at the window. Something had shifted outside.
“Evan!” she cried. “He’s outside.”
“You saw someone?”
“I saw movement. Someone has been watching us!”
He hurried to the back door, prepared, and threw it open.
Julie hovered behind him.
“Julie, I can see the whole yard. There’s no one here.”
“But—"
“Come on! You don’t believe in ghosts! And you’re usually tough as nails!”
“I am tough as nails.”
“Then—”
“The turkey moved! I know! Evan, maybe someone got in and then escaped when you became involved. But maybe they’re waiting for us to go to sleep. Maybe they’ll get back in. Maybe it’s the homeless man we saw yesterday—his sign said that he was a veteran. Oh, my God! Maybe he’s desperate and needs something and would shoot us for it. I mean, he’d know how to shoot, right? Oh, my God, I’m being terrible! That poor man just needs help. But Evan, I’m telling you, the turkey moved.”
“So, we do have a ghost.”
She frowned at him.
He winced. “I can’t do anything else! I’ve searched the house and there is no one in the yard.” He was quiet. She didn’t know why she was so unnerved herself.
Yes, she did. She’d never seen a turkey move before. And she watched the news too often. She knew what was out there—too much of that was real.
It’s what happens when you marry an FBI agent, even if most of his work is in the office.
She frowned suddenly. She had forgotten about the disturbance beneath the tree the day before. The ground looked as if it had been . . . trampled.
“There is someone hanging around here. If it’s a poor, homeless man, we need to do something for him. But now . . . I can’t help it. I’m freaking out, Evan. Too many weird things . . . ghosts . . . killers, I can’t believe it, but I’m terrified to be in the house alone.”
“You’re not alone. I’m here.”
“But you will go to work. I work from the house.”
“Julie, everything we have is in this house.”
“I know that!” she whispered miserably. “But I’m . . . I can’t stay here alone like this!”
Evan was thoughtful a minute.
“How big is the turkey?” Evan asked.
“What?” she asked.
“The turkey—how big is it?”
“Um—big. I know we’re not having anyone this year because they’re warning us all about mingling different households with the extent of contagion going around, but I have a big bird. Almost twenty pounds. We both love turkey and I figured we’d have leftovers. There is a lot that can be done with leftover turkey.”
“So, it is big enough to add in a couple more people for Thanksgiving—people who are routinely tested.”
“Uh—sure. But—”
“I’m going to invite friends from a special division of the bureau. I mean, I can try to get him here. He’s based in the D.C. area—”
“Can they get here soon? Will they come? I mean, why would they risk anything when they don’t have to? Risky enough that you go to work.”
“No guarantees, but I can try. And they’re tested constantly at the Krewe offices.”
“Krewe offices? Aren’t they the—”
“They’re the guys who go out when weird things happen,” Evan said.
“Put to rest the idea of a ghost hanging around with me and see if anyone is trying to break in. Okay—that would be okay. You can get someone up for Thanksgiving—last minute notice?” she asked.
“Like I said, I can try.”
“Okay.”
He smiled at her and turned around. He winced at what he was going to do, but in the spirit of being a newly-wed husband—whose wife tolerated the crazy hours he had at his office—he was going to bite the bullet and make a call.
Part I
A Backwards Invitation
Kylie Connolly was scanning the order she had put in for grocery delivery.
They were going to be alone for Thanksgiving, but that was fine. She and Jon Dickson had been together for a little over six months, ever since the horrifying events in Salem that had thrown them together. A pandemic was raging across the countryside. She didn’t want anyone’s parents or siblings involved with travel. She’d seen a great quote—Forgo your beloved family this Thanksgiving so that you may see them for all the holidays to come.
She had friends who were traveling and doing so with all precautions. And that was all right. Jon only had Thanksgiving Day and the Friday after off—he was helping cover the office this year to give their field director, Jackson Crow, and his right-hand “man,” his wife Angela—a real holiday with their adopted son and baby daughter. There was always someone in the office; always someone to answer when something dire was going on that held elements of the unusual.
As with her when they had met. She had been on a not-so-wild bachelorette weekend, engaging in past-life regeneration. He had been on the trail of serial killer, and her experience of seeing through the eyes of the victim instead of seeing herself as a queen or duchess in a long-ago century had brought them together. Her unusual talent had brought them to the strange truth of what had happened!
She smiled, pushing the button for more cranberry sauce.
It was a personal favorite.
She’d already seen to it that there was plenty of mashed potatoes and lots of gravy.
She started, looking up. Jon was hovering at the door to the bedroom of their newly rented condo in Alexandria. It was comfortable for them both, close to his offices and to the museum where she worked. The museum was started by Adam Harrison, philanthropist and founder of the Krewe of Hunters.
“Hey?” she said. He was looking at her oddly. She smiled. “I’m putting in a last order. They are busy, but I still have time. I know it’s just us—”
“Kylie, um . . . how would you feel if it wasn’t just us?”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed softly. “I know I’m off a couple of days and so are you. And I love being with you—I love being the two of us.” He gave her an awkward grin. “Maybe fifty years from now when we have children and grandchildren and maybe even great-grandchildren, being just us won’t be so cool. No, it will always be cool. But . . .”
This wasn’t like Jon. When they had first met—well, she had passed out cold and awakened to find herself in his arms, and she’d been convinced he was a monster—but instead he’d been rock solid and determined. Of course, he had been on the trail of a killer.
Now, he looked a little awkward. Still tall, dark, and handsome—and imposing—with his ice-blue eyes and hard physique, but . . . uncomfortable.
“Jon, what, please! Tell me. This isn’t like you.”
He joined her, sitting at the foot of the bed.
“A friend of mine is in trouble.”
“Oh?”
“A guy I went through the academy with—he’s with the Boston office. He just bought an historic home in Plymouth and . . .”
“He’s being visited by long-gone Puritans?” she asked. “You are talking about Plymouth, Massachusetts?”
He nodded. “He’s a newlywed. Evan and Julie both love the house, but she’s convinced something is going on around them. She’s heard of the recent murders in Boston and . . .” He hesitated for a minute, grimacing, “Her turkey moved.”
“Her turkey moved—on its own.”
“Here’s the thing; Evan says Julie is usually incredibly down to earth. She’s smart as a whip, and she isn’t prone to being nervous over nothing. She’s working out of the house. But he is considered an essential worker at the worst of times, and she’s so rattled that . . . um. Huh. Well, how would you feel
about a trip for Thanksgiving?”
“You think it’s necessary?” she asked.
He nodded. “There have been murders in Boston, unsolved, no leads.”
“An hour away,” she murmured.
He nodded. “But I’ve seen some of the briefs. Three people are missing from cities and towns not that far out. Evan knows we met in Salem. Of course, Plymouth is no where near Salem, and I know that—”
“Sure.”
“What?”
“If we need to go, we need to go. But—when?”
He winced again. “As soon as possible.”
“Okay. It’s a seven, or eight, hour drive—”
“Adam is going to pop us in the jet.”
“Oh. Hm. I guess I shouldn’t put this order through then.”
He smiled and shook his head. “You’re amazing, you know,” he told her.
“Well, I’d like to think I’m okay, especially since I’m with the guy who made me feel sane after everything. So . . .”
He stood. “Hopefully, we won’t be there long. Think we can be packed and out of here in thirty minutes?”
She grinned. “You do know how most people would answer that.”
“You’re not most people.”
“Yes, am I packing for you?”
“I’m always packed. You know that.”
Kylie smiled and stood, turning off her computer. “Thirty minutes. Meet you at the front door.”
He left the bedroom. She stood and stretched and walked to the dresser, picking up her brush for a quick go-thru on her hair. But she froze, staring at herself.
Deja-vu.
She was suddenly seeing something else. A young woman, tied up, strung from her arms to a beam far above her. She was snuffling softly, as if she had screamed and cried for hours and that was all she had left.
Kylie staggered back from the dresser.
As quickly as it had come, the vision was gone.
Her mind playing tricks? The power of suggestion?
She quickly steadied herself.
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