The Haunting of Rachel Harroway- Book 1 Read online

  The Haunting of Rachel Harroway: Book 1

  J.S Donovan

  Copyright © 2017 by J.S Donovan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

  The Haunting of Rachel Harroway: Book 1

  1. Squeezed

  2. 10-67

  3. The Mound

  4. Fogged Mirror

  5. Old Wounds

  6. The Trophy

  7. Cross

  8. Men of Power

  9. How the Dead Dance

  10. Safe Place

  About the Author

  The Haunting of Rachel Harroway: Book 1

  Free Prequel- The Haunting of Rachel Harroway Book 0

  Click Here

  In 1983, a family of four was murdered in their nineteenth century Queen Anne manse. There were no witnesses, no real investigation, and no survivors.

  Over thirty years later, the house is suddenly back on the market. Ready to settle down, a young married couple moves from New York City to their dream home in the quiet town of Highlands, North Carolina. However, as past secrets come to light and unpredictable strangers violate their privacy, the couple’s hope for a fresh start twists into the fuel for their darkest nightmares.

  Free Prequel- The Haunting of Rachel Harroway Book 0

  Click Here

  1

  Squeezed

  ** The Free prequel is available in the front matter of this book***

  Somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains

  March 15, 1977

  Hugging civil war history books against her chest, adorable seventeen-year-old Dakota Mulberry hurried out of the library, blinked, and awoke in the trunk of a car, curled up like a pill bug.

  A sliver of moonlight leaked through the ajar hatch, casting its dim rays over Dakota’s soft skin and watering blue eyes. Her purse, jacket, and shoes were gone. Her heart beat violently. She pushed against the inner trunk door. It creaked open without resistance and exposed her to the tall, green trees reaching for the black sky.

  A chilling breeze whistled through the night. Its cold fingers caressed Dakota’s pale skin as she sat up in the two-door and bulky ‘75 Ford Granada the color of wet sand. Trees and natural shrubbery enclosed the tight clearing only a few feet wider than the car’s body. After brushing away a strand of blonde hair spit-glued to the side of her lip, Dakota shivered and held herself tightly. She was no foreigner to the Appalachia, but the trail around her was alien. Sentry oaks overshadowed her, reaching out their jagged, swaying branches. Critters chattered in the darkness beyond, instinctively causing Dakota to twist and turn.

  “Jennifer? Liam? Anyone?” Dakota’s cracked voice drowned in the woods around her.

  Leaves rustled. A night cricket called for its mate.

  Dakota’s teeth chattered. Her closest friends were straight-edge honor students. They weren’t pranksters. Or were they? If her final years of high school had taught her anything, it’s that people were not always what they seemed.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Dakota noticed a flashlight tucked away in the corner of the truck. Hesitant, she grabbed it and activated the beam. It sliced through the trees and cast long shadows across the dirt and twig-littered earth. Cautious, she climbed out of the trunk.

  “Hello?” Dakota cried out to the unforgiving void of nature. Was I kidnapped? She’d seen scary movies and hated them, but the victims were always bound at the wrists and ankles. She was free and apart from her missing stuff… Dakota twisted back to the dark and shined the light into the back seat. She spotted her purse in the foot gutter and the library books in a tumbled stack. She pulled on the door handle. Locked. She tried the driver door. Locked as well.

  Whimpering, she scanned the wooded area around her. A carving on a tree grabbed her attention. The bark had been dashed away, leaving a smooth patch on the trunk’s coarse face.

  RUN, it read, crudely carved into the dry wood surface.

  Dakota’s breath quickened with her pulse. Suddenly, she was sweating. She craned her neck around, eyeing her surroundings for an onlooker. Only trees and blackness. Dakota read it again.

  RUN.

  It made less sense than before. Run where? Forward, back, left, or right, through the way the car drove in or out into the unmarked tree line? The teenage girl staggered back and shook her head. Prank or not, she wasn’t playing this game anymore. She pulled the rock from under her foot and jogged to the car door. She gave the handle a final try to justify her action and then smashed the rock’s point into the glass. The first strike splintered the glass, the next sent shards spewing across the driver side seat.

  Holding the flashlight between her teeth, Dakota unlocked the door, swept the glass on to the dirt, and slid inside. She kept the rock on her lap while she checked the ignition, dashboard, center console, and collapsible mirror for a key.

  “If you didn’t want this to happen to your car, you shouldn’t have backed me into a corner,” Dakota mumbled to herself, angry that she had to act impulsively, but still terrified.

  Leaves crunched nearby.

  All her frustration twisted to fear.

  Dakota turned to the figure standing outside of the car. Broad-shouldered with skinny legs, the stranger wore a plaid shirt, dark jeans, and muddy boots with a coil of rope diagonally across his chest like a sash. A natty burlap sack squeezed his head and tightened around his neck with a thick drawstring. Two crude eye holes had been cut out of the potato sack mask. The rope across his torso ended at a noose, held in the person’s gloved hand.

  Dakota screamed spontaneously and threw the rock at him. He sidestepped the projectile and darted to the car. Dakota scurried across the console as the stranger reached his hand through the smashed window and took hold of her ankle with his iron grip. She kicked with her other foot, sending her heel into his nose. Four quick jabs and he released her ankle. Maroon pooled at the face of the mask, but Dakota was too busy escaping through the passenger side door to notice.

  She failed to steady the flashlight as she ran. Around her, the trees blurred. All directional sense died. Dakota ducked branches and avoided trees. Adrenaline heightened her senses and kept her untrained legs from cramping. She had zero intention of turning back. Forward was what mattered. Her breathing and hasty footsteps across uneven terrain muted all other noise. It took her a moment to realize that the flashlight was a beacon to her location. She turned it off and delved deeper into the dark woods.

  A minute? An hour? Miles? Yards? Dakota had no clue how long or how far she’d run, but she found herself slowing down. Her clothes were prickly with needles. Can’t stop, she told herself. Can’t look back. Branches snagged her shirt. Thorns raked her ankles. Unable to see clearly, she dashed through a bush of blackberries and spikes. Splinters bit her soft skin and burrowed into the soles of her feet.

  She followed the murmur of rushing water. Streams go downhill. Streams hide footsteps. Against her body’s wishes, she quickened her pace and came into view of the tumbling water. Her toes stopped at its edge. Spikes of pain jolted up her calves and thighs. Hair frizzled and body trembling, Dakota turned back to the woods behind her. Thorn bushes, trees, and the blackness of night.

  Her fingertips dipped into the icy water. Dakota rubbed her palms on her tight, faded jeans. Her rose-colored tee had come untucked and was tattered. She sniffled. The stream was about four or five feet wide, but its depth was unknown. Cold a
nd lost in the woods, Dakota dreaded the prospect, but it beat the alternative. Slowly, carefully, she waded into the water. It submerged up to her ankle. A slimy rock kissed her sole. She shuddered and moved to put her next foot in when something scruffy squeezed her neck. A rope, she knew at once.

  Before she could turn back, the noose pulled taut, yanking Dakota off her feet. She kicked water as the thick rope constricted her throat. Her fingernails clawed desperately at the hemp binding. The rope squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter. Dakota gasped for air. Every breath was a chore. The man heaved her out of the water. Dakota attempted to run. The man let up slack and then pulled hard. Dakota feet slipped out from under her. She toppled forward. Her rosy cheek slapped the water. A boot held her down. Her drenched face turned red and then purple. The darkness of night closed in…

  2

  10-67

  Highland, North Carolina

  April 18, 2017

  Another Tuesday had come around, and Rachel Harroway ate Kung Pao chicken with her father, Liam, at their favorite cheap Chinese restaurant. It was eight o’clock at night, nearing both of their bedtimes, when Liam asked her about the case.

  “It was the mother,” Rachel swirled her fork in the noodles.

  Sighing, her father shook his head. “It never makes sense to me. How someone could hurt their child that way.”

  Stress, the boy had told her, but Rachel didn’t voice it. It was the inequality of her work and relationship that destroyed her own marriage, and it seemed appropriate not to talk about it when she was off the clock, if she was ever truly off the clock.

  Her father noticed her crinkled brow and let that conversation end. They chewed as the waitress took away their stack of used buffet plates. Traditional Chinese music plinked from the speakers nearby, filling their silence.

  “You call that guy I told you about?” Liam eventually asked with friendly curiosity.

  “Nope,” Rachel replied. Her father’s disappointed expression guilted her into answering. “He’s not my type.”

  “He’s a dentist, good looking, has a charming personality.” When he saw that Rachel clearly wasn’t interested, Liam changed his tactic. “What are you looking for?”

  Rachel thought about it for a moment. “Not really anybody.”

  “That’s fine and all, but it seemed when you were with Brett, you were so… I don’t know. I only want you to be happy.”

  “Work makes me happy.” Does it? Rachel found it fulfilling. Joyful, on the other hand… she looked out the window. Under the hazy beam of a streetlight, a six-year-old boy in a yellow raincoat watched her from the sidewalk. His face lacked expression, but his doe eyes spoke of sorrow. Rachel frowned and turned her attention back to her father. “I thought you didn’t like Brett.”

  Liam looked at her intently. “I liked that you loved him, not that he left you.”

  “He married an artist. I’m not that person anymore.” It seemed like a lifetime ago now that Rachel thought about it. She’d traded an easel for a crime scene and her paintbrush for a police-issued Glock 22.

  “No excuse. Marriage is a lifelong commitment,” Liam preached as he used to before his battle with alcohol. Rachel didn’t want to remind him that it took both parties to file divorce papers.

  “I’m forty, Dad.” Rachel had gotten used to that reality but still hated saying it. “I don’t know if marriage is still a viable option.”

  “You never know. God has got a plan for all of us.”

  They finished, left a fat tip, and headed out into the clear spring night. Rachel zipped up her brown leather jacket, gave her father a hug goodbye, and climbed into her inconspicuous 2005 Impala. She adjusted her rearview mirror, finding the dark rings and the beginnings of crow’s feet under her olive-colored eyes. She lingered on her own vision for a moment, missing sleep, before turning the mirror to the sidewalk. Moth-infested lampposts, mom-and-pop restaurants, and Appalachian gift shops, but no boy in a yellow raincoat.

  Driving out of town and through a stretch of twisting back roads, Rachel arrived at her four-bedroom, three-bath, 1892 Queen Anne manse. Standing two stories tall, the antique she called home was large and hollow and seemed to moan in the wind. The Hadley House, the realtor called it, after Roy Hadley, the town’s first in-home physician. With no streetlights or human life within seven and a half miles, inky blackness ruled every night. On evenings like these though, millions of stars sprinkled the sky and surrounded a massive moon the color of a spider’s egg.

  Rachel locked her car and hiked up the front porch stairs. The exterior lime green paint needed a fresh coat, and the entrance hall floor creaked upon entry. After locking the door, Rachel bounced up the rickety stairs to the second floor. She unbelted her Glock 22, took a moment to check the ammo magazine, and placed the weapon under her ex-husband’s pillow. She quickly stripped off her work clothes on the bedroom floor and climbed into the shower. The icy water spit violently from the hooked shower head before warming up and steadying out. Brushing her shampooed fingers up her scalp and through her black hair, Rachel washed away the day’s stresses. Slipping into her night clothes, she crawled under the covers. Her gaze stayed on her white plastered ceiling for two hours, as it did every night before Rachel drifted to sleep.

  Crash!

  Rachel jolted up in her bed, pistol drawn, finger on the trigger, eyes full of life. The digital clock on the nightstand read 3 a.m. Rachel listened, controlling her breathing. Nothing. Dressed in her nightgown, she slipped out of bed and placed her bare feet on the cold wooden floor. With quiet, deliberate steps, she stepped out of her room and into the hall. At the balcony railing that ended the upstairs hall, she scanned the ground floor. Wind screamed through the open front door, stirring the nearby window curtains.

  Controlling her breathing, Rachel inched down the stairs. With each step, the house groaned like a dying old man. Upon reaching the bottom, Rachel peeked out of the front door. The breeze punched her flesh, turning her goose skinned. Outside, blackness reigned. The silhouettes of swaying trees and the rolling Appalachian Mountains stood out in the distance. Rachel grabbed the copper doorknob and shut the door with a click. She locked it, as she had a few hours ago, and snatched the protection bar resting upright next to the coat stand. She placed it below the knob, making sure it was secure.

  Something scurried in the kitchen.

  Ears perked up, Rachel followed the noise. When she reached the threshold of the kitchen, Rachel reached her arm in and flipped on the light switch. It blinked several times before illuminating the room a pale yellow. The flower vase on the table lay shattered on the floor. Nearby, the boy in the raincoat rubbed his hands together nervously and looked at Rachel with guilty eyes. The yellow hood covered his wet hair.

  “You can’t keep coming back here,” Rachel said sternly, lowering her Glock and scanning the room for any more uninvited guests.

  The boy looked at her with puppy dog eyes.

  Rachel sighed and rubbed her forehead. “If I take you to Alfie’s, will you go home?”

  A beaming grin overtook the boy’s face, turning his sober expression to happiness at the flip of a switch.

  “Your real home,” Rachel elaborated.

  Smile fleeting, the six-year-old studied his yellow boots. Rachel watched him expectantly. Finally, the boy turned up his eyes and nodded.

  “Let me get dressed first.” Rachel said, yawning. “Wait here.”

  They arrived at the chrome-plated diner forty-five minutes later. Rachel wore a wrinkled tee-shirt, her leather jacket, jeans, and running shoes. She tied her raven-hued hair into a ponytail. Like her institutionalized mother, Rachel had a pretty nose, muted green eyes, and a defined jaw. She stood eight inches over five feet with a slender body apart from the “parts that counted,” as Brett used to say. At forty, she kept her makeup minimal and relied on natural remedies to keep her skin soft. She’d gotten to the age where she wasn’t trying to impress. Anyone interested got what they saw, but what th
ey saw was generally good.

  The boy in the raincoat eyed the hamburger lustfully as the waitress placed it in front of Rachel. After stealing a fry, Rachel slid the platter to the six-year-old and watched him eat. He wolfed down the burger in five big bites, ignoring a broken tomato slice clinging to his chin. Rachel thought about tea or coffee, and then rechecked the time. If there was any hope for sleep tonight, she’d better not.

  When the boy had finished eating, he slumped in his chair and rubbed his belly in contentment. This was his favorite restaurant. Hopefully it was enough to send the Orphan home.

  “You ready?” she asked quietly.

  With a satisfied grin, the boy nodded.

  Rachel left the money on the table and walked out with him. He tugged on the side of her shirt. Rachel leaned down and allowed him to kiss her on the cheek. It felt like the faintest breeze. After, the boy in the yellow raincoat ran down the street, turning back a final time to wave Rachel goodbye. She watched him go before heading back to the house.

  Inside the restaurant, the waitress scraped an untouched hamburger and fries into the wastebasket.

  The walls groaned that night. Rachel got two hours of sleep before daybreak.

  She climbed into the shower first thing and washed away her tiredness. She brushed her teeth, combed her hair, put on dark blue jeans, belt, gun, and her badge out of habit. Once she slipped into an ironed and tucked-in grey shirt, she headed downstairs and opened the cupboard, fishing out a tin tea canister. Inside were an assortment of odd herbs and roots with the appearance of warted chicken feet. With disappointment, Rachel studied the bag’s low quantity. There goes two grand. She made a mental note to visit Sequoyah soon and restock. She opened her mother’s old leather-bound journal. The faded cover displayed no markings or text to indicate what book was, and over half of the entries within were written in different languages, some as common as French and others as niche as Cherokee. There were even a few text blocks that no one in the twenty-first century or any known century could translate.