Blackwater Hallows: Ghosts of Murder Town (Blackwater Hallows Series Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Sneak Peek

  Copyright © 2016 by G. Grayson Tabor

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writers imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Please Visit www.ggraysontabor.com

  ~This book is dedicated to my children who waited patiently while I typed - and to Melissa for making me finish - Also, special thanks to my love McKenzie Jean for volunteering for the cover art and promotional video~

  Chapter 1

  PART I

  There was a crisp chill in the air – a frigidness that made breath seen and kept most people indoors. An Indian summer was an uncommon occurrence in these parts; an anomaly - like everything else on this night. It was a still, quiet night, in Brandywine Mills, in a city known as Murder Town, USA. A cold fog began to settle on the banks of the slow moving Brandywine River. It was peaceful – tranquil, …until that sound. That sound that shatters silence and breaks stillness. A swift crack – then silence again. Some would have thought it was the crack of a whip or the slam of a hammer – but he knew better. He knew exactly what it was because of the flash of fire and the puff of smoke that came from the end of his left hand – the hand that held the gun. And soon everyone would know what happened that night. The sirens would come; the crime scene tape would cordon off the horror as it had so many times before. But this time was different…much, much different. Only fourteen minutes before that shattering shot, plans were being made…

  ***

  Liam Marx sat at his computer typing his very last paper; a graduation was on the horizon. With every peck of the keys he could feel the relief that came with success, and some would say, escape. A second career brewing, he only had to make it through this one. Sixty-two days left and his twenty-year career was over and his new journey would begin. Twenty years of violence and death nearly destroyed him. Nearly destroyed her. Nearly destroyed all of them. In sixty-two days that would be behind them. But, such as life, things were just not going to be that simple for Liam. No, life had much different plans for the career detective, and it was on this night that everything would change, and the shock waves that were about to befall the decorated veteran would span the Atlantic Ocean and reverberate on the Isle of Wight, England, in the village of Blackwater Hallow. But being unaware of all of this, the future hidden as it always is, Liam kept typing – the final words on the final page of his final paper. That is, until he was interrupted.

  “Where to?” she asked with her usual smirk – her right hand pulling the dark hair from her eyes.

  “Where to what?” He barely noticed her – never taking his eyes off of his computer monitor.

  “Dinner fool. You know I get grumpy when I don’t eat.” Mary Jane collapsed into her chair at her desk as she waited for her partner to finish his paper.

  Engrossed in his cause, Liam hardly acknowledged her. “Five more minutes.”

  With a huff and a sigh, she doodled on a notepad. “You really going?”

  “Um hm. Sixty-two days. That is, if I get this paper done.”

  “And then what? How are you going survive without me annoying you ten hours a day?”

  Liam took a pause from his typing and looked at Mary Jane unconvincingly over his glasses perched on the tip of his nose, “I’ll have Hailey to annoy me.”

  “Well, you have a point,” she replied with raised eyebrows and a roll of her eyes, all the while drawing hearts on the page and scratching them out in red ink. “Is she coming to your walk-out?” she asked nervously.

  “Don’t know, all depends on how she’s feeling,” he replied, his fingers banging the keys once again – and once again he didn’t look at Mary Jane, which seemed to annoy her more. She slammed her pen down onto her cubicle desk and stood from her chair, towering over Liam, “I’ll be in the car.” And with that said, she stormed off.

  Liam took a momentary pause from his typing and sat back slouched in his chair pondering something quite deeply. He reached over and retrieved Mary Jane’s notepad from her desk beside his. Studying it, he saw the hearts beneath the scratch and sighed. But it wasn’t a sigh of contentment; it was a sigh of hopelessness. And at that very moment, Mary Jane sat in her unmarked detective car as driving rain pelted the windows drawing her attention to the dark street and to night shadows. She was there, but not really. She too was deeply pondering all of the things that could have been. And like the drops of rain that trailed down the window – her tears trailed down her cheeks. And if time could have somehow stopped at that moment, it would have been better for everyone. But time is a bastard.

  ***

  Hailey Marx sat in her rocking chair on her covered back porch listening to the sound of rain drops on her tin roof. It had been Liam’s mothers rocking chair; it was an antique. Although it was strong and sturdy, it was a noisy bugger. It creaked and crackled with every movement – including breathing. Her head bald and build frail, all she could think about was Liam; not the cancer – not the other woman – not the sound of the rain or the noise of that old wooden chair, just him. She dreamt of a day that he would look at her again the way that he did when they were teenagers. Before the late hours. Before the lonely nights. Before Mary Jane. Sixty-two days and he would be hers again. They would be reborn and life could start anew. She was as forgiving as one could be – but second chances were all she had to give, and she knew that. The pain they had endured in the past, and the devastation her cancer had on her body, left Liam wanting things that she couldn’t give him, and for that she sadly blamed herself. But reconciliation had come and she prayed that her forgiveness was strong enough for the both of them.

  ***

  On the other side of the world, on the Isle of Wight, in Blackwater Hallow, England, something was stirring that only time could prevent – but as time goes, so too does destiny. Fourteen-year-old Carly Holloway was hiding a secret. A secret that no one knew. A world of hushes and whispers, it was a secret that would catch up to her six months later – but it was only just beginning on this night; the night that would usher in a life shattering gunshot heard halfway around the world, in a place she’d never heard of before. From the stillness of Brandywine Mills, Murder Town, USA, to the rolling hills of Blackwater Hallow, England – this was the night that would begin a chain of events that would challenge even the best laid plans. Sadly, for Carly Holloway, we cannot un-see what we’ve seen.

  ***

  Stirred from her night gazing, the passenger car door swiftly opened and the tranquility that had helped hold her captive to her thoughts was disrupted with the chaotic entrance of Liam who had forged through the driving rain and now sat waterlogged beside her.

  “You couldn’t drive around?” he asked annoyed, but not at Mary Jane – at everything.


  With a swipe of her fingers she quickly wiped the tears from her eyes without notice as she placed the car in drive.

  “Sorry Princess,” she replied sarcastically. “Paper done?”

  “Paper’s done,” he replied coyly. He could see that her eyes were red and swollen and he could only assume that he was the cause of it. His heart was contrite – never having wanted to hurt anyone. He reached over and brushed her cheek with his fingers.

  “I’m sorry.” He was sincere, but apologies at this point did little to stop her ache. She rested her face against his hand knowing that it would soon be over. “I wish it hadn’t come to this.”

  “Oh great,” she uttered, half laughing – half crying. “What does that say about me?”

  “I mean; I wish I never hurt you. What happened between us will always be a part of who I am, but in truth, it never should have happened. We both know that.”

  “And what makes you so sure these tears are for you?” she asked.

  Surprised, Liam pulled his hand away, “I just assumed…”

  “…Yea – well, you’re not the only married man in this town you know.”

  After a moment of reading one another’s expressions, the two laughed. And as they laughed, destiny heard. Not to be outdone, destiny swiftly counter punched any possibility of normalcy for Liam and Mary Jane; for Hailey; for Carly; for Emily – and it happened with one long tone that paused their glee with an attentive ear.

  After a loud alert tone over the police radio, the dispatcher jargoned, “Any unit that can respond, number two, Hill Road, a home invasion in progress. Any unit that can respond, acknowledge.”

  “That’s right around the corner,” Liam said, his face stressed.

  Instantly, both Liam and Mary Jane were transformed from helpless lovers to attentive police detectives and their training immediately shuffled their emotion aside and replaced it with adrenaline.

  ***

  Hailey Marx continued listening to the symphony of rain drops from her rocking chair, unaware of what was about to befall her. Unaware that at that very moment everything was about to go awry. All of her plans would be undone in an instant, regardless of how sure they seemed. No matter the struggles, no matter the cost, everything they had overcome would not be enough to stop this night – oh so tragic.

  ***

  On her bed in Blackwater Hallow, Carly Holloway lay reading words on the pages of a book, not comprehending any of them, checking her watch constantly. The teen posters on the chipping walls of her bedroom in her middle-class home were invisible to her at that moment. Her thoughts were elsewhere; at a place she’d wished she’d never gone; at a time, she’d wished had never come. All the while, her fate lay in the United States, at Brandywine Mills.

  ***

  Not far from Carly’s quaint home, in a tiny Hampshire, England borough police station, Detective Inspector Emily Ingle sat at her dark quiet desk under the light of her desk lamp, sorting through her caseload of street robberies and home burglaries. Another victim of happenstance a world apart, Emily was an up-and-comer in the Hampshire Constabulary and she was soon to be thrust into the realm of destiny that has no care for personal desire. Destiny only wants what’s hers and unfortunately for Emily, she was directly in the path. And over her shoulder, through the quiet patrol station window, in the far distance, a light was showing. It was a glowing light of lunacy illuminating a corner of the Isle between Blackwater Hallow and the English Channel; Whitecroft mental asylum.

  ***

  And so, back to where it all began; that still, quiet night – that shot heard ‘round the world.

  Headlights off, Mary Jane crept the police car quietly up Hill Road, a single lane street bordered by trees and shrubs. It was dark, very dark; darker even still because of the unrelenting rain that fell that night through the canopy of overhanging trees. The car came to a stop just outside of the view of number two Hill Road. These kinds of tactics had served them well. They opened their car doors to a thunderous storm with winds that howled and torrents of rain, but the moment that each of them placed their feet on the wet ground the storm fell divinely quiet. Everything fell quiet; eerily quiet.

  ***

  Detective Chief Inspector Ian Kemble stepped from his private office into the community office area filled with cubicles at the Hampshire Police Department disrupting the peaceful quiet that Detective Inspector Emily Ingle was enjoying. He was an authoritarian autocrat, often times barking orders just to hear himself speak in his gruff British accent. She had learned over the months since his appointment to the station house, to try to avoid eye contact with him in order to minimize his verbal assaults, although it never really worked very well.

  “Ingle! Where’s that report?” Emily jumped from her chair startled, even though she knew it was coming.

  “Have you checked your desk, Sir?” She knew she’d placed it there, albeit slightly hidden beneath some other rudimentary paperwork. She didn’t mind making him look the part of the wanker occasionally.

  “Of course I checked my desk, that’s why I’m here!”

  Emily walked past Ian and into his finely appointed office, carefully shuffled a few papers aside on his desk, and nonchalantly produced the report. She was careful not to give him the satisfaction of looking around the room at the walls that were peppered with his many awards and commendations. He was not a modest soul and the prominence of his accomplishments made her think he was over compensating for something.

  “This report, Sir?” She asked, innocently. Ian snatched the report from her hand and studied it.

  “Yes, well – be more careful next time, Ingle, will you please?” His tone was condescending as usual, but Emily was satisfied.

  “Will there be anything else, Sir?”

  “Yes, Whitecroft called to report an absconder, did you get the information?” This was Ian’s attempt to upstage the lower ranking detective.

  Not to be outdone, Emily pulled a notepad from her suit pants pocket and read verbatim the information that Ian assumed she couldn’t produce, “Erik Erikson of Northwood, failed to meet the required three consecutive court ordered mental enquiry sessions. Is that the appeal you were talking about, Sir?”

  “Ah, yes, exactly. Follow that up, would you please?” he said, clearing his throat and turning towards his desk.

  “Right away, Sir,” Emily responded. She may have been small and quiet – but she was a formidable foe for the older, more seasoned Detective Chief Inspector. She knew that one day she might have his job, and it was for that very reason that she made it a habit of snooping in his office when he wasn’t there. He was well versed in every area of detective work; every area but one, that is. He had been transferred from the busier London Metropolitan Police Service, called the MET, where he was exposed to crimes never seen in this rural area, but there was one crime that eluded the Detective Chief Inspector, and the whole of the Hampshire Constabulary. Even still, she knew that, although he was a bit of a knob head, if she wanted to be promoted from Detective Inspector to Detective Chief Inspector, she would have to work as closely as possible to earn his respect. But just as she began to elate in the satisfaction of upstaging the man, a quite uneasy feeling fell about her. She knew something was amiss, but she couldn’t place it.

  ***

  Mist billowed from the wet ground and fog began to rise as Liam and Mary Jane approached the dark house. They each had a feeling of apprehension – and indeed they should have. Mary Jane made her way down the long driveway hand on her gun. Although she was petite, she was a commanding figure, except of course when it came to matters of the heart, then she was just a girl. Liam navigated the yard towards the opposite side of the large Tudor home and found himself on a sidewalk that circled to the rear of the house, his weapon held tightly in his left hand. He was prepared to confront anything that he may encounter, but he never could have expected this. And from a birds-eye-view, in the midst of the darkness and fog, the smell of wet sidewalk in the air,
Mary Jane walked towards the rear yard on one side of the home, while Liam made his way towards the rear on the opposite side of the home, each one being led by the tip of their weapons; each one inspecting every door and window that they passed.

  ***

  Carly Holloway made it a habit of meeting him by the abandoned railway tunnel just outside of the Whitecroft asylum. She had been meeting him there in secret since she was an awkward twelve-year-old girl. Now fourteen, she was beginning to develop into a young woman. Her long blond hair and Scandinavian blue eyes espoused a beauty that most other fourteen-year-old girls envied. Her parents though, would never have approved of her spending time with an older boy, even though she’d be the first to say they were only friends. Fourteen when they met, he was now sixteen – taboo in this little town where word spreads faster than the Zika virus in Brazil. She stood at the entrance to the abandoned railway tunnel at midnight after sneaking out of the house to meet him; an uneasy feeling was about her. And with Erik Erikson not reporting for his court ordered mental enquiry, she had ample reason. But the absconder was not the cause of her anxiety – no, that wouldn’t be exposed for a time yet. Nevertheless, she couldn’t shake that feeling, just as Emily Ingle couldn’t – nor could Hailey Marx who suddenly stopped rocking in that old wooden rocking chair, the rain having fallen silent.

  ***

  Sixteen-year-old Ethan Clark paddled his skateboard down High Street at 11:50pm. He liked this time of night; the town was quiet. The cottages were all mostly dark, only street lights to mark his path. Most importantly though, he would get to see Carly, his best friend. She’d told him earlier in the day that she had something important to tell him; a secret that she’d never told anyone. Things were running through his head – evil things. He had no idea what she would say to him, but he did know that he’d been hiding something from her. . .from everyone. If she had found out his secret, he wasn’t sure what he would do. It was the kind of secret that could destroy a young handsome boy in the town of Blackwater Hallow, a place where secrets were stored in cool damp places, in pickling jars awaiting advantageous opportunities to be opened – when the onions were ripest. With his palms sweating, he rounded the corner on Widow Lane and skillfully stepped from his skateboard, kicking it from the back up into his hands like a professional. He stomped the short walk from the road to the railway tunnel through reed grass that barely reached his knuckles – the place they’d always met, a small opening surrounded by a thicket of wood. He could see her in the distance dragging on a Lambert and Butler, the glow of the cigarette could be seen a fair distance on a night as dark as this. And as he walked slowly towards her, he was terrified inside. Terrified at what she might say to him. His secret could never be exposed.