by Dale Mayer
Then Gabby kept on reading. Again, it was more conjecture than anything. The book was obviously written for the purpose of sharing salacious details about Susan’s private and personal life, rather than offering any meaningful clues about her death. And that was kind of sad—that people would profit off something like this, particularly when the author had nothing to actually say. Everybody had a theory, but nobody had any proof.
Then she reached the next chapter, describing the death of the third victim, Becca Jones, seven days later. As she read through those details, which indicated nothing specific, she reached a point that struck a chord: this grisly crime occurred after snowboarding. She stopped there, making notes. Becca had died on the mountain after snowboarding. With Susan? With Andrea? The same woman who had been conjectured to have killed herself?
Gabby wondered at that. She kept reading, looking for more details of the same oddities, finding that the third woman who had died thirty years ago had definitely been snowboarding on the mountain at the same time as Andrea and Susan. Gabby nodded and wrote down her name and the time frame.
Now Gabby got a shiver up and down her back as she read that Susan and Becca had both been in contact with Andrea. Gabby made further notes.
And, sure enough, the fourth of five victims, Jerri Appleby, who died seven days later, was in a different chapter. A car crash was listed, supposedly unexplained, that had killed two single men. There wasn’t any record of them, other than the fact that they died in the car accident. Gabby put a bookmark in that chapter.
She kept on reading, looking for more on the women. The fifth woman, Haley Hart, who Gabby was pretty darn sure was also in Damon’s cold case files, was also written about here, but she had died at home. Seven days later.
Gabby rechecked the five dead women from thirty years ago, including Andrea, confirming the dates of their deaths, then confirming two died at home—Susan and Haley. Two had died on the mountain—Andrea and Becca. One died outside—Jerri, the car crash victim.
Was Jerry’s wife, Andrea, one of the four cold cases? That didn’t make sense because Gabby had five dead women from thirty years ago. She picked up the phone to call Damon, and she heard the exasperation in his voice. “I gather that Jerry’s wife wasn’t one of the cold cases, correct?”
“No,” he said, “she isn’t.”
“Okay, because there’s the one who you said had been skiing with Andrea on the same day she died.”
“And?”
“Well, counting Andrea, I have five dead women from thirty years ago. It just didn’t make sense, when you’ve got four cold cases,” she said. “I’ll leave you alone now.”
She continued through the book, reading several more chapters on other deaths in the area, but none were similar to these current deaths. Toward the end of the book, she found something else disturbing. A child who had apparently died in its bed with no cause or explanation. She shook her head, wondering why someone would write a book about such horrid things, muttering to herself, “How odd that the same cold cases were written up in this book.”
She wrote down the author’s name and looked him up on the internet. He passed away ten years ago. She shrugged, checked for reprints on it, but it hadn’t been reprinted. It wasn’t a terribly popular book from a sales perspective, but why would it be? It was local lore more than anything. For the amusement of anyone visiting or for any of the locals potentially. She ended up speed-reading through the initial chapters, and they all involved some spooky case or an unsolved mystery, but nothing of the same ilk that she sought.
Finally she got up, made herself another cup of coffee, and heard footsteps on the stairs. She headed to the doorway and called out, “Is that you, Damon?”
When there was no answer, she frowned and waited. But no one appeared at the door. She shut the door, grabbed her phone, and texted Damon. Where are you?
In my living room. Why?
Somebody just came up the stairs, she typed, but, when I called out, nobody was there.
Hang on, he wrote. I’m coming.
She stood here, waiting, hoping that somebody would at least show up, so she wouldn’t think she was crazy. And, sure enough, she heard Damon on his way over here. First, the door at the back of the main house slammed open and shut, then the crunch of his footsteps on the snow as he crossed over. The door down below opened up, and he came up the steps and called out, “I’m right here.”
“Go ahead and open the door,” she said. He opened it, and she peered behind him. “Is anybody there?”
“No,” he said. “You’re really expecting somebody, aren’t you?”
“I heard footsteps,” she said. “Clear as a bell, I heard footsteps.”
He frowned, then looked down the staircase and said, “I didn’t see anybody.”
She nodded slowly. “But I did hear them,” she said.
“I’m not saying you didn’t,” he said, holding up his hand. “Just one more of those bizarre experiences.”
“Too many of them,” she said. “Did you know that all four of your cold cases are written up in that first book?”
He looked at her in shock.
“I don’t think that they’re done in any great detail, and certainly without anything definitive that could be used to help solve the crime,” she said. “I just thought it was interesting that somebody was writing the salacious details and hoping to make a profit from it.”
“Well, I don’t think the book is terribly popular,” he said. “I’ve never heard of it before.”
She smiled and nodded. “It’s probably more of a curiosity piece than anything.”
“Did the author say very much?” he asked.
She shook her head. “More about the victims’ lifestyle, the families they left behind, and then the public details about the crime. Only that they died and, you know, in horrific circumstances. But it does mention that two women had been up on the mountain with Jerry’s wife at the same time, Susan and Becca.”
“Interesting,” he murmured.
“It’s a connection but not much of one,” she said. “And it doesn’t mention if the other two were as well.”
“Well, I can tell you they were from my cold cases,” he murmured. “I didn’t know about the first two though.”
She looked at him and said, “The book could be wrong.”
He nodded. “I’ll go back to the statements and see.”
“Did you find anything yet?”
“Nope,” he said, “boring and dry. Lots of families were together. Lots of friends were together. But nothing terribly conclusive.”
“Of course,” she said, “that would be way too easy.”
He nodded. “You know what? If killers got away scot-free all the time, we would probably not even bother looking,” he said with half a smile. “We are pretty good at our job, and, most of the time, killers do get caught.”
“More so now,” she said, “than before. DNA has moved you guys well ahead.”
“As has genealogy,” he said. “That’s been a great avenue for us to explore new connections that we didn’t have access to before.”
“I’ve heard about that,” she said. “Might be interesting to check.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but it’s an extra cost, and we don’t have a budget for it, unless there’s a good reason with a solid theory behind it.”
Gabby nodded. “I’ve been thinking about getting my DNA tested and put up on a genealogy site to see if I have any relatives.”
“What do you mean, if you have any relatives?”
“Well, I’m adopted, although not legally,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons I came to Aspen actually. I just knew that my adoptive mother picked me up from somebody here in town.”
He stopped and stared. “What?”
“I know, hard to believe isn’t it?” she said, struggling, even now, to avoid the hurt and pain of not being wanted. “Back then a lot of things were informal, not done legally.”
“
Very true,” he said thoughtfully. “You could probably check it out easily enough.”
“Maybe, though it doesn’t mean there’d be any answers.”
“Well, if and when you become wealthy,” he said, “you can get it done yourself.”
She laughed at that. “How about if I just manage to pay my own damn bills?” she said with a shake of her head.
“Still no response on the job applications?”
“Nope, nothing. I’ll start pounding the street soon,” she stated.
“What about snowboarding?”
“That’s still the plan,” she said. “I haven’t heard from Wendy yet though.”
“Well, let’s see if you hear from her tonight or tomorrow,” he said. “You should go up when I’m there anyway. I’m scheduled to be on mountain patrol soon.”
“Lucky you,” she said. “You get to go up there and get paid for it.”
“Actually it’s a volunteer position,” he said. “At least it is for me.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “Nice to be able to do that for the community,” she said.
He nodded. “You’re right. It is,” he said with a grin and didn’t say anything else.
She smiled too. “Now, if only the lawyer would contact me.”
“He said twenty-four hours,” Damon reminded her.
“I know. I know,” she said, raising both hands. “Doesn’t mean he couldn’t do it earlier, if he wanted to.”
“Are you ready for dinner?”
She looked at him in surprise, and just then her stomach growled. “Maybe. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s plenty late,” he said. “It’s after five-thirty already.”
She looked at him, shocked.
“Didn’t you just read that whole book this afternoon?” he said. “Surely you felt the passage of time.”
“To a certain extent, sure,” she said. “I just didn’t realize how much. Oh, and I forgot to tell you something else.”
“What?” He turned back from the doorway.
“I had a little bit of spooky trouble earlier. I think this place is really haunted. Are you sure your aunt is dead and gone? Like happily gone?”
He nodded slowly. “Why?”
“My book kept closing on me,” she said quietly. “Without any justifiable reason.”
He just looked at her and started to smirk and then laughed out loud.
“I get it,” she said crossly. “It’s funny for you.”
“Well, I don’t imagine it was too funny for you,” he said. “But you know something? If that’s the only thing that ghosts can do, I’m okay with it.”
“You mean, outside of those heavy footsteps I heard earlier here.” She snatched up her notes and the first book and said, “Come on. Let’s go get some food then.”
As they walked downstairs and crossed the driveway, entering Damon’s place, she said, “It’s weird to think spirits may actually be out here, you know?”
“I hear you,” he said. “I think it just goes along with that comment of Stefan’s, about a whole world that we don’t want to actually know anything about.”
“And yet you’d think we would. I mean, we’re a curious species. We push the outer markers of our world and the boundaries constantly,” she said. “You’d think going across the life-death divide would be something we would want to understand more.”
“I think it scares people,” he said. “I think, at one point in time, they don’t really want to know.”
“Plus just so much misinformation is out there too,” she murmured. “You get one experience from one person that seems to completely contradict the story from the next, so nobody really knows what the truth is.”
And, at that, a voice in front of them said, “Very good analysis.”
Gabby jumped back with a small shriek and then glared. “If that’s you, Stefan,” she said, “a little warning would be nice.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to talk to you,” he said, “for the last bit, and then I gave up for a while.”
“Was that you slamming the book in front of me?”
“No. I believe that was your ghost.”
“So can you tell me anything more about … him?”
“Her,” Damon and Stefan said together.
“Sorry, nothing I can confirm,” Stefan continued. “I must have some connection with her to tell you more. However, I tried to get your attention telepathically,” he said, “but you still ignored me. You just kept on reading.”
“What was I supposed to do?” she said. “You could use a phone like a normal person.”
“I could,” he said, “but sometimes it’s just easier to talk this way.”
“But not as effective,” she said.
He burst out laughing at that, his ghostly voice echoing around the house.
“God, that’s just spooky when you do that,” Damon said beside her.
“Maybe so,” Stefan said, “but I can also do it from the comfort of my bedroom, which makes my life a whole lot easier.”
“Well, maybe, but, at the same time, an awful lot is going on right now that we’re not too sure about.”
“You need to dig more into Andrea, your boss’s wife,” he said to Gabby. “I read up on her, and I was there while you were reading part of her story and talking to Damon. I could see her partial silhouette.”
“My boss’s wife is here?” she asked Stefan, but she stared at Damon.
Damon shrugged, his palms up.
“So she’s here?” She looked around. “Andrea, are you here now?”
“Do you feel her?” Stefan asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what it feels like.”
“What about that coldness you experienced at Dr. Mica’s?” Damon asked.
“I’m not feeling that now,” she said. “I did walk around the bridge earlier today, wondering if I would have a similar experience.” Damon glared at her, but she shrugged and said, “But I didn’t.”
“It could have been timing, or somebody else could have been around,” Stefan said. “Ghosts pick and choose their times. They’re not always capable of coming when we want them to.”
“Do they have a choice?” Damon asked. “Can they just wander at will, or are they tethered to a spot?”
“Yes, to all of that. And, no, to all of that,” he said. “As Gabby said earlier, everybody’s experience is different, and that is the important lesson here. Andrea could be tied to the garage apartment. Or to Gabby herself. It’s just when you think you understand that you find out you don’t understand anything.”
“Well, that’s not helpful,” she murmured. She sat down at the table and said, “Can you see anything with these people?”
“I see a lot of them,” he said. “I can see through time in some cases, but, if you’re asking me if I know what’s going on in this instance, I don’t. I’m not connected to them. You are.”
“Me?” she said, startled.
“Yes, you.”
“And how am I connected?” she asked in surprise.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “That’s what you’ll have to dive into.”
“Are you saying it’s by experience, by family genetics, by something odd, like those tarot cards, or what?”
“And again, it could be any or all of the above,” Stefan said carefully. “Or none. There is no right or wrong here. I will tell you that generally the ghosts are connected by some feeling. Often somebody they love or hate.”
“Well, that was my understanding too,” Damon said.
“But, in this case, nobody even knows me,” she added. “I’m the newcomer here.”
“Maybe not, or maybe it’s not what you thought,” Stefan said.
At that, Damon turned to her and said, “But you were collected from this area as a child.”
“Sure,” she said, “but that was what? Thirty years ago?” At that, she stopped, and her jaw dropped. “Oh, crud,” she said. “Thirty years a
go.”
“The same time frame that we’re looking at,” he said, staring at her in complete surprise. “So you are thirty?”
“Yes,” she said, “just over.” She shook her head. “One of the reasons I came here was because I felt a connection here, and I wanted to come before my, you know, … before life got too old,” she said. “I know that sounds weird, but it just seemed like it was passing by so fast, and I was doing everything I had to do, but nothing I wanted to do.”
“So you took the winter off to come snowboard?”
“Yeah, selfish, huh?”
“Or thinking about yourself and your mental health,” he said. “Nobody can judge that, even though they’re all willing to line up to do so.”
She started at that. “And I think the problem that Wendy’s mother was having with all this was the fact that she thought it was a frivolous whim of mine, and her daughter was just being sucked along.”
“Well, Wendy was,” Damon said, “but she wasn’t being sucked along willy-nilly. She was coming along because she cared.”
“Believe it or not, we talked a little about that when she was here earlier too,” she said. “Not the most comfortable of conversations, but she told me how she felt, and we cleared the air a bit.”
“That’s great,” Damon said. “Now I want to know everything there is to know about your history.”
“I don’t know anything,” she said. “I was raised by a husband and wife who had no kids. The husband died about three years ago, leaving the wife, whom I don’t really have any contact with, other than the random Merry Christmas call.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was a chore to them. When I turned eighteen, they told me that they’d done their duty, and that was it. Get out.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Well, it would be nice to have a family, but, if they didn’t want me,” she said quietly, “what was I supposed to do?”
“Good point,” he said. “I want their names, their address, and anybody else who was family to you back then.”
“It’s just them, as far as I know.”
“Do you have any idea why they adopted you?”
“No, I don’t. I assume they always wanted kids, but, when they got one, parenthood wasn’t quite what they thought it would be.”