Restitution (Haunted Series Book 17) Read online

  Restitution

  A Haunted Series Novel by

  Alexie Aaron

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ~

  Copyright 2015 – Diane L. Fitch writing as Alexie Aaron

  ALSO BY ALEXIE AARON

  HAUNTED SERIES

  in order

  The Hauntings of Cold Creek Hollow

  Ghostly Attachments

  Sand Trap

  PEEPs Lite Eternal Maze 3.1

  PEEPs Lite Homecoming 3.2

  Darker than Dark

  The Garden

  Puzzle

  Old Bones

  Things that Go Bump in the Night

  Something Old

  PEEPs Lite Checking Out 9.1

  PEEPs Lite Ice and Steel 9.2

  The Middle House: Return to Cold Creek Hollow

  Renovation

  Mind Fray

  The Siege

  NOLA

  Never Forget

  The Old House

  Restitution

  CIN FIN-LATHEN MYSTERIES

  Decomposing

  Death by Saxophone

  Discord

  The Wages of Cin

  Coming soon:

  Unforgivable Cin: An Opera in Three Acts

  For those that forgive too easily and those who see the best in all of us. To be able to see both sides of an equation or a fight is the mightiest of all gifts to have. I salute you.

  ~

  To my family, friends and readers who give me joy each and every day. Thank you.

  ~

  I would like to thank the Webguy for his help with the game segment of this novel.

  If not for you, Jake would still be stuck in Wichita.

  Table of Contents

  Cheerleader

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight.

  Glossary

  Alexie Aaron

  Cheerleader

  Heather ran hard. She had already completed her mandatory three miles, but she prayed she had more left in her. She had started off later than was her norm. A personal matter had delayed her. Damn that Terry. If he hadn’t been so hell-bent on telling her his side of the story, she would be finished. It was a story and not an explanation; an explanation should at least include one molecule of truth. His story began with how he wasn’t kissing Debbie behind the high school. “There was something in her eye.” And evidently up her shirt as well, because that’s the position Heather caught him in as she left cheerleading practice.

  “Are you that effing stupid?” she asked. “You stand there beside my car, make-out with the school’s sperm depository and expect to get away with it?”

  “Heather, listen…”

  “No, I’m finished listening to you. I’ve got regionals in two weeks, and my counselor says that I have a real chance of a scholarship if I shine. I’ve wasted all summer hanging with you and your lies. Now, if you will excuse me,” Heather said, dumping off her gear. She tied her running shoes, amazed that the loser was still standing there professing his love for her.

  “What about homecoming?” Terry asked.

  “What about it? I guess I’m going solo. I’m not going to end up in the back of a limo with an effing idiot.” Heather pulled back her thick blonde hair and contained it in a padded rubber band. She stretched, using her car as a bar.

  “Well, maybe I’ll take Debbie. At least she puts out,” Terry said and stormed off.

  Heather refused to let the tears fall. There would be time enough for that. Right now the cross-country course waited, and daylight was rapidly fading. She needed to hit the edge of town by six or she would be running through Handley Woods in the dark. It wasn’t that Handley Woods wasn’t safe, but it was creepy after dark. Lately, the evening fog from the valley arrived earlier and earlier.

  It was in Handley Woods that her left earbud popped out. She fumbled with the dangling bud as she reestablished her breathing pattern. In in out, in in out. She heard someone running behind her. She moved to the right edge of the path so whomever it was could pass her. When no one did, she moved back into the middle. The earbud was replaced, and Taylor Swift was telling her to “shake it off.”

  Two members of the varsity cross-country team passed her, returning to the high school. They nodded at her. Heather couldn’t remember the names of the two boys even though they passed each other every school day on this very path. Was it the boys’ footsteps she had heard earlier? She pulled out the buds and left them to dangle as she listened to their retreating footfalls. Nope, they had long comfortable strides. The footsteps she had heard had more of a slap to them, as if the runner was wearing skateboarder’s shoes instead of running shoes. Maybe a poser in Converse. No one in their right mind would run in Converse. This thought had her increasing her speed.

  Was it Terry? She didn’t remember what the quarterback had on his feet today. He normally had on cross-trainers, and they definitely didn’t slap when they hit. She had reached the halfway point of the Handley segment of the run. She either could continue or go back. Better yet, she could catch up with the boys. Surely they wouldn’t mind if a cheerleader ran alongside them? Safety in numbers, she thought. She turned around and ran after the boys.

  Heather noticed the change in the air as she neared the turn. She could just see the boys ahead of her. She increased her speed and watched as her exhaled breath clouded in the icy air. She heard the slapping footfalls rapidly approaching her from behind. Had the follower waited in the woods for her to return? There was definitely something wrong here. Heather took out her cell phone and raised it. It was slapped out of her hand as an icy strong hand covered her mouth. She was still on her feet; she still stood a chance to escape. Heather decided to turn quickly and drop her weight. This ought to loosen the grip on her mouth, maybe long enough for her to scream.

  Instead of hitting the ground, she ended up being carried. She fought her attacker as he left the path and headed into the foggy woods. She looked down at the ground and confirmed that she had been right; the shoes were Converse, vintage ones. The hand left her mouth.

  “Please let me go!” she said before she let out a scream that would rival the town’s tornado siren, but still the boy held firm.

  “Scream all you want, Becky. It’s not going to help.”

  “I’m not Becky. You’ve made a mistake I’m Heather Walters and I…”

  “Becky, there is no Heather Walters, at least not in our town. I’ve got to get you home. Your parents will be worried.”

  The boy put her down on her feet. Heather couldn’t remember what she was doing in the woods with this strange, thin-but-wiry boy. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’
t quite place him. She opened her mouth to say something, but the fog seemed to take her words away. He looked at her with his blue eyes and smiled. “Is something wrong, Becky?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are.”

  “I’m Jerry Keys. I’m in your history class.”

  “Jerry?” she questioned. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Almost home, Becky.”

  “But I’m not…”

  The further they walked, Heather became less Heather and more Becky. And as they hit the edge of town, Heather disappeared completely. Becky held on to Jerry’s hand as they talked about their history teacher Massey Fergusson.

  “Shouldn’t he be a tractor?” Becky asked.

  “Well he does like to plow our fertile minds,” Jerry commented.

  Becky looked at Jerry and smiled. She didn’t remember him in her class, but she didn’t remember too much at the moment. Jerry stopped in front of her house where her parents could be seen in the front window watching the television. She kissed Jerry on the cheek and walked into the house.

  Jerry watched her and smiled. The cheerleader had been secured, and the list was growing shorter. Soon he would have everyone.

  ~

  Whitney Martin kicked at the dirt in the old graveyard as he waited for his team to assemble. They were lending their expertise on a missing persons case. A young woman had been abducted in Handley Woods which wasn’t far from the target search area for their current case. Whitney was in charge of a PERT, paranormal entity research team. His experience as a deputy in Big Bear Lake had landed him a choice position on this covertly funded arm of the FBI. PERTs investigated crimes that had an unexplainable element to them. His team had been researching the possibility of alien abductions in the Rock Island area of Illinois and Iowa when the call for federal assistance came in.

  Davis, his field partner, was pissed at him. Justin Davis was a young recruit out of the cyber division of the FBI. The pleasant looking, brown-haired, brown-eyed, six foot even, thin male was more comfortable tracking money than he was UFOs. PERTs didn’t normally deal with the alien scares, but Whitney had pissed off their chief by sleeping with her little sister, and they had found themselves on alien patrol.

  “How was I to know it was her sister? She didn’t look like Melba.” The woman had come on to Whitney at his local hangout. He thought she was a tourist on the make. She was easily led and easily bedded. Hell, he wasn’t even sure what her name was. Sandy, Sharon… It had an S in it.

  “The last name was a clue. How many Fyenewevers do you run into on a daily basis, Whit?” Justin had asked.

  Well, that was water under the bridge. The tall, light and handsome Whitney was placed on the shit list, which meant his team had to do a UFO rotation. The other two members of the team took it in stride. Eileen Fisher and Orvin Colby were career feebs. They were paper-pushers by trade, so to get in the field occasionally was alright by them. They didn’t care if it was the little green men patrol or not.

  Eileen approached Whit. She was wearing a no-nonsense pantsuit that did little to help her stocky frame. Eileen tucked an errant brown lock of hair behind her ear before she flipped open her notebook, adjusted her plastic frames and reported, “The girl was last seen by two cross-country runners at six fifteen last evening. She passed them, smiling. They didn’t see anyone else on the trail. Her cell phone and earbuds were found ten feet from the trail. No footprints leading to or away from where the cell was dropped. And before you ask, the locals did a twenty-five-yard search to make sure the phone wasn’t flung. No footprints.”

  “She could have been taken on the path. How hard would it be to carry a young woman down that trail without being seen?” Whit asked.

  “That’s one theory,” Eileen acknowledged. “Except her hair band was found fifty feet from the cell phone deep, in the woods. Soft ground but still no footprints.”

  Orvin trotted over from the car. He didn’t understand his boss’s penchant for meeting up in graveyards. He dodged the marble markers and hopped over a few low gravestones. His years of running track in high school and college had kept him fit. Only the slightest sheen of sweat on his brown skin showed the exertion the twenty-eight-year old had just gone through. He looked at his boss with his wide-set brown eyes and reported, “Sir, they found a set of prints. Hers, they believe.”

  “Go on…”

  “A hundred yards from where the cell phone was dropped. It looks like she stood still for a while before she started walking towards town. The prints disappeared ten yards from that point.”

  “So you’re saying that this girl was carried by someone, who left no footprints, the length of a football field through the woods. She was then set down and walked a few steps before disappearing again?”

  “Yes, sir,” Orvin confirmed.

  “It’s not alien,” Justin said, packing up his gear. “Aliens would have sucked her straight up, greased up the anal probe, and left her in Kansas.”

  “Oh, it’s such a joy to work with a professional asshole,” Eileen groaned.

  “Wait. It still could be paranormal,” Whit said. “Were any large feathers found?”

  “Not mentioned in the local’s reports. The woods are pretty thick through there. It would be difficult for a large prey bird to maneuver,” Eileen said.

  Whit leaned against the large rose-colored marble, thinking. “Justin, pull up our missing persons location map. Plug this one in, and let me see it.”

  Justin dug into his pack and pulled out the iPad. He worked for a few minutes and then handed it to Whit.

  “Gather round, team,” Whitney ordered. “Do you see a pattern?”

  Orvin looked over Whit’s shoulder and said, “Most of the abductions happened within twenty-five miles of here.”

  “He’s right. I think we may have found ground zero. Change your footwear, team, and spray on some DEET because we’re going for a walk in the woods,” Whit informed them. He brushed off the top of the gravestone he had parked himself by. “Massey Fergusson. You think this guy would have been a tractor.”

  Chapter One

  Mia stood next to Ted, holding their precious son in front of the baptismal font. Alongside them were the godparents, Cid, Audrey and Murphy. Father Santos, who stood next to Ted’s family’s pastor, was conducting the rite of baptism in front of their congregated friends and family.

  Mia’s heart filled as she saw Susan Braverman sitting with her son Tom. Tom had gotten his height from his mother’s side of the family. Susan, an avid Chicago Bears fan, was a tall woman of middle years. Her bright, brown eyes missed nothing. They had come so far for this day. Mia almost felt bad she had thought a christening wasn’t necessary. Orion Stavros sat next to Susan. The small man was dwarfed by the tall woman and the even taller Italian, Angelo, who had flown in with Orion, sitting next to him. After the christening party, Mia would hand over her precious son to his great-grandfather and Angelo. They would take him to the safety of the aerie to have his rebirth-mark hidden.

  Orion had recommended it, and Ted had insisted. Mia, who thought it was a fruitless endeavor, disagreed at first but, upon listening to Ted and Orion, had acquiesced. There were several reasons for hiding the rebirth-mark. Two of the reasons stood at the back of the church behind the large, extended Martin family.

  Mia looked beyond Ted’s aunts, uncles and dozens of cousins to the beings. She wished they didn’t exist, but they did. They were Others. These suited businessmen represented both good and evil clients. They mostly dealt in binding contracts that were almost always impossible to refuse to sign. Mia knew that she had come so very close to being taken from Ted by one of their compatriots. She never knew what had happened to the Other known as Richard Chapman, but the self-satisfied look on Angelo’s face gave her a pretty good idea.

  Father Santos was speaking now. Mia handed Brian to Audrey and stepped back. Ted’s arm wrapped around his wife. He could feel her tension. He willed his strength into Mia. Ted was a r
ational, scientific man who moved in magical circles. His wife was a hybrid of the four strongest entities who had inhabited and watched over the earth. But she had a human heart. And her heart had forgiven him for being weak, and he would never forget that.

  Brian started to sing a song of his own words. It was one of joy and exultation. As Father Santos made the sign of the cross on his forehead, Brian started to chant, “Aham Brahma Asmi.”

  Orion smiled. He looked over at Mia and nodded his head.

  Mia concentrated on her son’s words and the love that radiated from her husband. She looked up at the stained-glass window and let a tear of thankfulness escape as one of the angels turned out of the glass and raised a sword. Sariel was there. How had he known that she needed him?

  Mia had insisted that Brian be baptized in Ted’s home church. Father Santos had consented, and the pastor of Ted’s parents’ congregation thought it was a splendid idea. Ted’s church was a nondenominational all-welcoming church. Mia had no religious upbringing and wanted her son to experience all that this world had to offer, and Sunday school was one of those experiences. Ted and Murphy were brought up going to church, and Mia thought that, aside from some definite quirks, both of them had turned out fine.

  Ted’s great-aunt Mildred glanced over at Mia’s people. They were a small group. Her parents had not come. Ted mentioned that they were on an archaeological dig. Mia was represented by Glenda Dupree, her son Mike and Burt Hicks. The Duprees had opened up their farm to house the young family while they were in Kansas. The Braverman couple drove in from Illinois and were staying in the Marriott, much to the joy of Raedell, Ted’s sister. Raedell thought the young deputy had come all that way to see her. Mildred had overheard Raedell telling her sisters that she thought she had made a connection with Tom at Ted and Mia’s wedding. Mildred only saw Tom as a groomsman doing his duty. He wasn’t interested, which was good. She didn’t want to see another of her kin moving to that sinful state.