Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight
Read Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight Online
Authors: Ann Mauren
Tags: #aquamarine, #backpacking, #banff, #barbie, #canada, #corvette, #frodo, #gems, #geology, #goth, #jewelry, #kentucky, #kings island, #lake louise, #louisville, #roses, #secret service, #skipper, #state quarters, #surveillance, #ups
by
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Published by Ann Mauren Media at
Smashwords
Copyright © 2010 by Ann Mauren
This
is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either
the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners
of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have
been used without permission. The publication/use of these
trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the
trademark owners
This eBook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please return to Smashwords.com and purchase an additional copy for
each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the
author's work.
A Few Words of
Acknowledgement
:
To my hero husband, Jerry, for keeping my
secret identity under wraps…
To my ‘framily’ friends Natalie and Janet,
whose influences bounce back and forth all over this story…
And to my favorite author, Bill Bryson, who
educates and entertains with words like no other…
Thank you.
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Series
It’s been said that there are always two
sides to a story. The case could be made that the actual number of
sides depends on how many individuals are involved since every
viewpoint brings something different to the table.
I have always been fascinated by the overlap
and particularly the divergence that occurs when you compare one
person’s account of a situation with that of another’s—especially
when something very important to those involved is at stake. This
series embraces those shades of gray in the overlap where stories
coincide, intersect and ultimately depart.
Book one of the Mayne Attraction series, ‘In
The Spotlight,’ presents the story from the youthful and sometimes
naïve perspective of Ellery Mayne, heroine and namesake of the
series. The subsequent volumes contain the viewpoints of a hero and
an antagonist, though which is which will be for you to decide
after having viewed both men’s accounting of events, thoughts and
actions as explained from each unique perspective.
I hope you enjoy the world of Mayne
Attraction and that you find fun and color in the overlap.
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Publius Terrence
Roman Playwright
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Contents
—
ARTAN AGOLLI—
We didn’t mean to kill him.
Dritan assured me this unusual little foray
would be easy and well worth the effort. And, as always, I was
foolish enough to believe him. It made me very nervous, though.
We’d never ventured this far on our own with so little in the way
of solid information. Adding to my nervousness was the sense of
blindness I felt. Nothing looked or seemed right here.
The house was nice, but not what I had
expected. It was much smaller and more modest looking than it
should have been. The fact that it had no security system or
personnel caused me to question his information all the more.
“Are you sure you have the right address?” I
asked, assuming the accusatory tone one takes with a misbehaving
child.
“I’m sure,” he said as he took a long drag
from his cigarette while staring in the opposite direction out his
window.
“This doesn’t look right.”
Holding his breath, he tilted his head back
in irritation, closed his eyes and let out a long smoky exhale.
“It’s right,” he responded—curtly.
We rarely looked at each other when we
conversed. Our relationship constantly evolved yet somehow it
remained as it had always been: sometimes we were partners, at
other times bitter enemies, but at all times tied together as
brothers.
It was just past midnight. We waited for
about an hour after the last light was out, both smoking, relaxing
and listening to some new downloads he was overly excited
about—just more irritating noise as far as I was concerned.
The plan was simple: drug the old man while
he slept, ask a few pointed questions, locate the items we needed,
put him back to bed and move along. Easy.
The girl walked in on us after we’d been
unsuccessfully working on him for about twenty minutes. We were in
the middle of arguing over the dosage and next steps when a form in
the dim light moved slowly past the foot of the bed where we were
set up. Our normal reaction would have been quick and deadly for
the intruder, but she didn’t scream, act frightened, or even
acknowledge us. She just kept moving at a slow pace deeper into the
room. Alarm quickly turned to amusement as the situation became
clear.
Moving around the bed to a large walk-in
closet, she opened the door wider, letting more light into the
bedroom and illuminating her small form very nicely. Pulling an
empty laundry basket from a lower shelf she dumped out a hamper of
clothes into it. Then she bent down to gather some dirty boots, a
hat and a belt, throwing them on top of the pile.
We looked at each other and then back at the
sleepwalking laundry girl. She was very young and pretty; the old
man’s granddaughter perhaps? If so, then I felt more assured about
this being the right house after all, but still very unsettled that
we had overlooked her presence after making such a thorough search
of the house initially. Where had she been up to this moment?
Moving out of the closet, she toted the
basket–which appeared to be twice her weight–into the bathroom
where she then dumped the contents into the tub and poured a
generous capful of what was probably shampoo overtop ‘the load.’
Placing the emptied laundry basket on top of the toilet, she
flushed it and walked out into the bedroom once more; a blank
expression on her face as she headed for the hallway. Though her
movements had the look of purposeful efficiency they had been
bizarre and funny to watch. I realized I hadn’t smiled about
anything in a long time. It felt good.
Dritan laughed and rose immediately to
pursue her, probably to make certain she wasn’t just a very quick
thinking and self-preserving actress whose next move would be to
set off an alarm of some kind. He was gone for several minutes
while I sat with our host who had slept through the injection but
frustrated our efforts by not responding to the smelling salts or
any of our actions to rouse him in the normal way so that we could
question him. I was growing tense and irritated at the lengthy but
silent interruption. What stupidity was he engaging in now?
After what felt like an eternity he finally
returned.
At first a well pleased smile played on his
lips as he reported, “It looks like she came in through the
kitchen. The door was still open with a key in the lock. But she
put herself to bed in one of the rooms at the end of the hall. I’ve
heard of people sleepwalking before, but I’ve never seen— ”
Suddenly concern changed his expression as
he looked past me to assess the old man.
“What happened?!”
Even in the low light, the man’s color was
decidedly blue now, and I realized he’d stopped breathing while I
was busy imagining my brother’s actions in the next room…
After a brief consultation we decided to let
him ‘sleep’. Resuscitating him probably wouldn’t help now and might
leave too much evidence.
We didn’t get any information out of him or
the items we sought, though I did find something promising in a
folder on the night stand which I collected for further review.
Always the impulsive opportunist, my brother
stood in the doorway looking into the darkness down the hallway. I
knew exactly what he was thinking about.
“Artan, I don’t suppose we could just take
the girl instead…” he said with a resigned sounding sigh at the
end, though he already knew what I would say.
“Besnik would pay a lot for her, for that
hair especially,’ he continued wistfully.
I could see his point. The addition of the
girl’s ‘company’ and the substantial profit from her sale would
surely reduce some of the evening’s disappointment. But looking
over at the dead man in his bed we both knew the answer.
“No,” I said, taking charge. “Let’s have one
more look around and get out of here before she wakes up.”
Working hard to resist the lure of what
would surely be huge mistake at this point, I added, more for
myself than for him, “If we need to we can come back later,” as
though it was just an option and not a certainty.
Every little girl wants to believe that her
parents are deeply in love. If mine were not, they were fabulous
actors.
My poor, sweet mother. I was convinced that
she would never marry again. I was also concerned that she might
die of a broken heart, and then I would too. That’s what I thought
when I had been in this place the first time. Shorten and Bryan
Funeral Home off Preston Highway, on the south side of Louisville.
That was seven years ago when I was ten years old. My dad was a
commercial airline pilot. Well, he was actually in charge of
training new pilots for UPS (United Parcel Service) at the time of
the crash, a mid-air collision off the southern coast of Norway,
near Bergen. Parts of the plane were eventually recovered—but no
bodies.
I felt so sorry for my mom. I certainly felt
sorry for myself too, but my mom…she was going to be so lost
without him. My dad took such good care of her—of us both; we
absolutely adored him. He was chivalrous, humorous, and sometimes
mischievous, and now he was gone. His absence felt like a black
hole sucking all thoughts of a happy life now or in the future into
a timeless, lifeless void. But unlike the coldness of space it
burned me over and over again every time I looked in my poor sweet
mother’s eyes.