Grave Lies: A Psychic Investigator Mystery (Mercury Mediums Book 1) Read online

  Grave Lies

  Mercury Mediums Book 1

  A.N. Willis

  Copyright © 2022 by A.N. Willis

  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.

  Cover design by Ebooklaunch.com

  Editing services by The Wicked Pen

  Observatory Books

  Denver, Colorado

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Also by A.N. Willis

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Wyoming—1988

  Heather’s grandmother lived in a ramshackle farmhouse with peeling paint and a crack in the front window. The first moment the building came into view, Heather thought, My grandma’s house is haunted.

  Speckles was sitting beside her. She gathered him into her lap, digging her fingers into his soft fur. He licked her cheek.

  Heather’s dad switched off the car’s engine. The roar died, but it kept making a quiet ticking sound. “Well, let’s go everyone.” He didn’t sound excited.

  “Do we really have to go in there? Speckles doesn’t want to.”

  “Your grandmother wants to meet you.”

  “But I don’t even know what to call her.”

  “Just go with ‘Grandma.’” Dad’s voice was tense. Mumbly. “You think I want to call her ‘Mom’?”

  Heather couldn’t take her eyes off the slats of wood on the sides of the building. She imagined bugs crawling between the gaps. Clawed fingers reaching out. Her bladder felt too full, and she held her legs together.

  Her mother turned around, giving her a stern look from the front seat. “We talked about this. Daddy needs you on your best behavior today. This is hard for all of us.”

  “But you said Grandma barely knows what’s going on. So she won’t notice if I’m not there.”

  “Heather.”

  The harshness of her dad’s tone made her jump.

  “No more discussion. We’re going.” He got out and muttered a bad word under his breath.

  Mom’s expression was sympathetic. “See?” she whispered. “Daddy needs us to be positive. I know you can do it. Speckles can, too. Right? Look, he’s smiling.”

  Speckles was always smiling. But Heather did need to pee. They’d been driving for three hours since the last gas station stop.

  “Okay. I’m coming.”

  They got out, her dog trotting along beside her. Heather wrapped his leash tightly around her hand. Her palm sweated against the textured green fabric.

  Her eyes moved up to study the windows as they approached. Curtains showed through the glass. Were they moving? Was somebody in there, watching?

  At the porch, her dad stood in front of the door. He hadn’t knocked yet. “Tie Speckles to the railing. He can’t come inside.”

  Heather started to whine, but another stern look from her mom quieted her. She looped the leash around and around the wooden porch railing.

  A lady in nurse clothes answered the door. “Mr. Davenport, Mrs. Davenport. Please, come in.” She smiled down at Heather.

  The inside of the house was dim. It smelled like medicines and the basement of Heather’s house back in Omaha. Musty. She covered her nose, but her mom grabbed her hand and pulled it down.

  Heather was eight. Her third-grade class was memorizing their multiplication tables this month, and the teacher had promised that any kid to complete the task would get to have a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Heather thought about seven times four and three times nine as she shuffled behind her parents into a bedroom.

  This room was crowded with furniture that looked like it came from a doctor’s office, bright and shiny and new, which was strange compared to the old-fashioned furniture elsewhere in the house. She’d seen yellowed and scuffed kitchen floors, and a stiff-backed sofa with button-studded cushions in the living room.

  For a long time, Heather hadn’t even known that her dad had a mother. She’d understood that he did in theory, since everybody had one, but he never talked about her. Heather thought maybe the lady had died when he was a baby, or some other sad thing like in the books she sometimes checked out from the library. The books that were meant for way older kids—like fifth graders—except Heather was an advanced reader.

  Then, about a month ago, the phone rang during dinner. Mom had gotten up to answer it in the kitchen. She’d looked shocked when she turned to Daddy and said, “Jonathan, it’s about your mother.”

  Since then, Heather had learned in bits and pieces about her grandmother. How she lived on a horse ranch in Wyoming, and how Daddy had grown up there, too. Heather had been sad that she never got to ride any of the horses, but then Daddy had explained that no horses lived there anymore.

  Heather’s father hadn’t liked growing up in Wyoming. Daddy hadn’t wanted to explain why, but Mom had whispered something about his father’s belt. Her daddy didn’t like the way his parents had treated him.

  Heather got spanked every once in a while, but only with the flat of her mom’s hand. Sometimes Heather didn’t like that, either, except she still loved her parents and knew they loved her. She’d heard her parents whispering about how her grandpa had died, and Daddy hadn’t even gone to the funeral.

  But now, her grandmother was sick and wasn’t going to live for very long.

  Heather stared at the wrinkly, small woman lying in the bed in front of her. Then she looked over at her father, whose eyes were shiny though his mouth stayed angry. He was going to cry. It made Heather feel scared and like she was going to cry, too, simply because there couldn’t be any other possible reaction to her father shedding tears.

  As soon as the grownups weren’t looking, she started backing away toward the bedroom door.

  Heather wandered down the hall, peering into the few open doorways until she found the bathroom. It looked dingy but not much worse than the gas station toilet she’d used a few hours ago.

  The toilet flushed with a low gurgle. She opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked out. Voices still murmured from the bedroom. Heather turned and tiptoed toward the front
door. The hinge on the screen squeaked when she pushed it open. She froze, waiting for her mom to make her come back inside, but nobody did.

  It was darker outside than when they’d arrived, the sun beginning to set. Heather’s stomach growled, making her think of the powdered donuts that she got to pick out at the gas station. She still had half the package left in the back seat of the car. She laughed, thinking of how Speckles had licked the powdered sugar from her fingers.

  Then she realized that Speckles wasn’t tied to the railing anymore.

  Oh, no. Didn’t I tie him tightly enough? she wondered.

  She ran down from the porch, quietly calling his name. She was afraid her parents would hear her if she yelled. But she didn’t see the dog anywhere. Not around their car, not hiding underneath the porch or behind the house.

  There were open fields out beyond her grandma’s home, with fences for the areas that had probably once held horses. She started walking through the grass. It scratched at the bare legs beneath her shorts.

  “Speckles?”

  It was bad enough she’d snuck away from her grandma’s bedroom. Now her parents would be even madder at her for not tying Speckles up properly. Tears pressed at her eyes.

  There were sounds all around her. Wind rustling in nearby trees, insects buzzing their wings, even her own breathing, but nothing that gave her a hint of where her dog had run off to.

  Heather jogged into a wooded area, wading through brush and dead leaves. Shadows danced around her. The setting sun winked in and out between the tree trunks.

  Then she stopped. She’d heard something.

  There it was again—laughter.

  But dogs didn’t make noises like that. It had sounded like a grown-up lady. Not like Mom. More like Heather’s babysitter, Lindsey, who was almost out of high school.

  And whispering.

  The lady was talking to someone. Maybe she’d found Speckles.

  “Hello?” Heather asked, inching forward.

  Something darted through the shadows of the brush.

  “Speckles?”

  The woman’s laughter tinkled again, clear and crisp as a wind chime. It was a nice sound. Happy. Maybe she could help Heather find the dog.

  The trees thinned. Heather pushed between two bushes and found herself in another open field. A little wooden building sat up ahead.

  And there was her dog, scratching at the weather-stained door.

  “Speckles!” Her sneakers crunched dry grass as she ran. She grabbed the green leash, which trailed on the ground. Speckles looked over at her, grinning widely. “What have you found?”

  The dog whimpered, his gaze moving back to the wooden structure. It looked like a one-room cabin. Heather had seen similar pictures in books about pioneers moving out west in the olden days. The roof was dark red from rust. There was a tiny window next to the door, but it was boarded up. The front door had a padlock attached to it.

  Speckles resumed scratching his nails against the wood.

  “You want to go in there? We’re probably not allowed.” But Heather saw her hand close around the padlock, testing it. She hadn’t even realized she was going to do it. After a single tug, the lock came apart in her hands, rusted like so much else around her grandma’s ranch.

  The door remained shut tightly against its frame.

  Heather’s stomach made a high-pitched, hungry sound. The girl in your tummy is whining. Does she want out? That’s what her mom always said, and Heather usually giggled at the silly image. But right now, the thought made her teeth clamp down, setting her on edge. Her breaths were shallow in her chest.

  Does she want out?

  The woman laughed.

  Heather glanced around, still not seeing the source. “Where are you?” Who are you? she added silently.

  Then it came to her.

  The woman was inside the cabin.

  Again, Heather’s hand reached out before she knew was she was doing. Her fingers pried at the edge of the door. Speckles came closer, tail wagging and tongue lolling. The door creaked open on protesting hinges.

  The moment a gap appeared, Speckles squeezed inside, disappearing into the blackness.

  “Hey!” Heather shouted. “Wait!”

  A stale smell came from the gap. She couldn’t hear the laughing anymore—just the sound of her dog’s claws digging into dirt.

  She tried to pull the door wider, but the hinges were stuck. They wouldn’t move any further. Heather couldn’t get enough air, and all she breathed in was that old, dusty smell, like the crawlspace underneath her house. Dirt and mold and something savory. Rotten.

  Acid rose up from her stomach and into her throat. A fat tear rolled from her eye.

  “Speckles, come out!”

  The lady’s not in there, she thought. We’re not supposed to be here. We’re going to get in trouble.

  But finally, her dog bounded through the gap, smiling around something clenched in his teeth. His tail wagged as he looked up at Heather, as if he were saying, See what I’ve found?

  Heather screamed.

  It was a skeleton hand, a tarnished ring still attached to one finger.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Heather Davenport still thought of the house in Coldwater, Wyoming as her grandmother’s, even though she now lived in it herself. She looked out the kitchen window at the fields, which were dusted with yesterday’s snowfall.

  Never would’ve thought I’d end things here, she thought. But it fits. Doesn’t it?

  The dull ache in her head served as an ever-present reminder of why she’d moved to this place. But the pain was mild today. That probably meant she should be productive, go into town to pick up supplies and check her box at the post office.

  She’d been living in Coldwater for two months now. Her fellow agents at the Cheyenne FBI office weren’t calling as much, and her cases had been taken over by colleagues. She hadn’t told them exactly why she’d needed a leave of absence. Just hinted that it was health-related. They’d been respectful, though no doubt they were curious. She was in her early forties but could’ve passed for thirty-five, except perhaps for the frown lines around her mouth.

  By now, everyone in the office had to know that something wasn’t right. There would be paperwork if she made her early retirement official. But jumping through those administrative hoops didn’t interest her. She had more important things to do.

  The old wooden cabin was out of sight from her current vantage point, but she still visualized it in her mind. Its rusty metal roof would be blanketed by a thin layer of snow this morning. A monument to the two souls who’d been discovered there over thirty years before.

  Because of their wedding rings and young ages, the officers investigating the case had taken to calling them the “bride and groom,” and for Heather, the moniker stuck. She had no other names to call them.

  That cabin served as a monument to Heather’s career, too. A reminder of the single moment that had shaped her identity. The case that no one had been able to solve.

  But I’m not out of time yet, she thought. A rock had lodged in her throat. She breathed through the sorrow, willing it to pass.

  The pain, she could get through. But that bottomless despair? If she let it rise to the surface, it would drown her.

  Heather’s phone rang. When she’d moved out here, she’d switched cell phone carriers to one that got reliable service.

  It was Michael Novak, the Coldwater chief of police. “Chief, what can I do for you?” she asked.

  “Morning, Heather. How are you today?”

  Chief Novak knew that she had health issues, though not the full extent. “I can’t complain.” Heather had always kept her emotions close, as if she’d be giving away some essential part of herself if she revealed too much.

  On bad days, the headaches were downright debilitating. They’d been coming more and more frequently. Her options were few. She could either try to think through the pain, even though it jabbed at
the inside of her skull like a thresher churning through wheat, or she could take one of those magic little pills she had in her cabinet and check out from the world for a while. But her supply was dwindling, and doctors were getting touchier about writing opioid scrips these days. Even for someone with an inoperable brain tumor.

  “Is there a reason you’re calling?”

  Novak laughed. “Always quick to the point. I hear your order’s ready at the market. Thought I’d check and see if you needed one of my boys to drive it out to you.”

  The chief had two teenage sons, both of them football players at Coldwater High and checkout clerks at the grocery. They sometimes did chores on her property and ran errands for her, always refusing payment. Heather knew it was because Chief Novak had a soft spot for her. He’d mentioned his divorce in passing more than once, making sure she was aware.

  At forty-five, Michael had a few years on her. He was handsome, still in trim shape, always ready with a kind word. Yet she felt too old for him, even setting aside the brain tumor. Heather might pass for younger, but she’d felt older than her years for a long time. Perhaps ever since she and Speckles had discovered that shallow grave in the cabin way back in ’88.

  Not all kids would’ve been so affected. She’d overheard multiple psychologists telling her parents that kids bounced back from all sorts of traumas. Maybe her inner psyche simply wasn’t the bouncy sort. But she suspected it was the tinkling laugh she’d heard in the fields that day. The girl that laugh belonged to hadn’t known what terrible things the world had in store.