Skeleton's Key (Delta Crossroads Trilogy, Book 2)
Read Skeleton's Key (Delta Crossroads Trilogy, Book 2) Online
Authors: Stacy Green
Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller
A Delta Crossroads Novel
by
Stacy Green
Copyright © 2013 Stacy Green
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
“Evocative, first-rate mystery that will keep you guessing to the end!”
—Stacey Joy Netzel,
NY Times
bestselling author of the
Italy Intrigue Series.
“An antebellum home with skeletons and secrets, characters who heat up the pages…this book pulls you in and sticks to your soul like a sweat-soaked shirt in the Mississippi heat. Loved it!”
—Shannon Esposito (Author Pet Psychic Mysteries)
Other Books by Stacy Green
(Book One in the
Delta Crossroads
Trilogy)
2013 Kindle Book Review Best Indie Book Award Finalist for Best Mystery/Thriller
(Book Three in the
Delta Crossroads
Trilogy)
(Book One in the Delta Detectives Series)
(Book Two in the Delta Detectives Series)
(Book Three in the Delta Detectives Series)
(Book Four in the Delta Detectives Series)
(Book Five in the Delta Detectives Series)
(Prequel to the Lucy Kendall Series)
(Book One in the Lucy Kendall Series)
(Book Two in the Lucy Kendall Series)
(Book Three in the Lucy Kendall Series)
(Book Four in the Lucy Kendall Series)
C
age Foster wasn’t
afraid of the dark. He didn’t believe in creepers going bump in the night, and he could deal with the occasional nasty critter. But something about Ironwood Plantation’s cellar made the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. And he’d already been down there once today.
The cellar stunk. It reeked of mold-covered earth, stale air juiced up with God knows what dead animal carcasses, rotting wood, and several decades’ worth of dust. Like so many antebellum homes, Ironwood’s cellar was made of earth and bricks with some decaying Mississippi cypress thrown on top. Late afternoon sun shined in the kitchen windows and cast a shadow down the basement steps. An old light bulb and an equally ancient string hung somewhere past the bottom step, but since the entire fuse box had crapped out, Cage had to fumble down the rickety steps and hope he didn’t end up landing ass over backwards on the dirty cellar floor.
“Wiring up to code my ass.” His nose curled at the odor. “If it were, that cheap sander wouldn’t have blown the fuse.”
“You gon’ go down with me?” Harvey Lett, a square–shaped man with tobacco-stained teeth and a graying beard that desperately needed a trim, stood behind Cage. The only electrician willing to hurry out to an abandoned plantation house with old wiring and a fuse box from the Cold War era fixed Cage with a hawklike stare. “Or you gon’ stand there?”
Cage raked his hand through his hair–he’d been letting it grow the past couple of months as some sort of gesture to his supposed new start on life–but so far he wasn’t feeling any more carefree. Only irritated.
He avoided the basement as much as possible. The creaky stairs trembled at every step, and the layers of dust set fire to his allergies.
Plus the stinking hole gave him the creeps.
Fortunately, nothing important to Ironwood’s renovations was stored in the basement. In the last three months, he had only been down there twice. But now he’d sent the whole house into darkness, and he was on a tight schedule. After all, he had to have Ironwood up to par for the damned Yankee invader.
Smaller than some of the prized antebellums in Roselea’s historic district at just under 8,000 square feet, Ironwood was one of the few pre-Civil War era homes in Adams County that hadn’t been restored into a showplace. Adams County Baptist had done its best to keep the home from falling down, but the last decade had seen lousy renters and years of emptiness. A year ago, the church hired Cage to act as caretaker. Being a sheriff’s deputy didn’t rake in the big bucks, and the job offered cheap rent in a decent place: Ironwood’s carriage house, the only part of the plantation that had been properly restored.
One of the church members had called Ironwood a lost cause. The mansion had been neglected for too long until Cage arrived.
The plaster on its columns was cracked, the porch badly weathered, windowsills rotting. Inside, dust nearly an inch thick decorated nearly every surface. A previous tenant had left food in the 1930s refrigerator, and bits of garbage had been scattered about by whatever animal had used the back screened–in porch for its personal bathroom. He’d spent weeks just cleaning the 8000-square-foot home.
He knew all about lost causes. He’d spent years waiting for the only woman he’d ever loved to finally open her eyes and see what she was missing, and then she’d gone and fallen for his ex-brother-in-law. If his sister were alive, he might have had a shot. But Lana was dead, and Nick and Jaymee had moved on together. Leaving Cage stagnant and alone.
Sometimes he wallowed. Drank, too. Figured he’d be alone and bitter about it for the rest of his life.
Then one night he got sent out on a trespassing call to the old Ironwood Plantation–or what was left of it. Most of the land had been parceled off and turned into subdivisions, but the old house and nearly three acres still sat empty and wild, and an apparent hangout for teenagers.
Cage and another sheriff’s deputy broke up the party, and Cage found a new love. The old home, silent and dark and still breathing, called to him. He’d contacted the church about purchasing it. Couldn’t afford the price tag, but he’d jumped at the chance to be caretaker and had spent the last several months slowly making the big house livable.
He’d been semi-happy until three weeks ago, when he’d received the call from Adams County Baptist informing him that Ironwood Plantation had been sold–and to a damned Yankee, no less. Danny Evans, some rich Northerner set to come down here and make a mint off restoring one of Roselea’s last antebellum relics. Evans, a fancy restoration expert from Indiana. What did some Midwesterner know about the South and her plantations?
Cage had been kept on as caretaker and was now tasked with getting the big house decent enough for Evans to live in. The Yankee would arrive in a week, and Cage had too much left to do. And naturally, the fuse box was in the basement, and Cage would rather eat dirt than venture down there.
“Let’s get to it, then,” Harvey said.
Cage switched on his flashlight and stepped onto the first shaky step. “Be careful. These suckers aren’t exactly in top condition.” Ironwood had been built in 1835, and he had little doubt these stairs were original. He reached for the railing before he remembered it had rotted and fallen off.
Dust particles danced in the beam of his flashlight and then dived for Cage’s nose. He sneezed. The entire stairwell trembled.
Cage quickened his pace, trying to ignore the moldy stench and pressure of the encroaching darkness. He reached the earthen floor and cast his light around the black space. Like so many houses of its time, Ironwood only had a partial basement. The winter kitchen, or what was left of it, dominated half of it.
“The fuse box is under the stairs.” Cage shined his flashlight toward the area. Ducking massive spider webs, he hurried to the box, yanking on the rusty handle to the lid, and then flipped the switches. “Made sure I tried them before I called you.”
“Step aside.” Harvey busied himself at the fuse box. “Keep the light focused for me.”
“Right.” Cage peered over his shoulder, easy to do as he was a good six inches taller than Harvey. Of course, Cage was taller than most people. “Thanks again for coming out so quickly. The other two guys didn’t want to mess with the place.”
“Nice to know I was your third choice.”
“Yeah well, I’d have preferred to go to the hardware store and handle it myself, but electricity isn’t my strong suit. Figured I’d better call a professional.”
Harvey grunted, dropping his toolbox on the floor. He rummaged around the greasy tin box. “Fuse needs replacing. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“Good deal.” Cage kept the light focused as Harvey worked. “The wiring in this place is supposed to be up to code. You see anything that says otherwise?”
“Not so far. Sometimes you blow fuses.”
Harvey retrieved his own flashlight from the pocket of his overalls, shining it around the murky basement. “Wiring’s copper. That’s good. I don’t see anything that stands out, but I’d have to do a full inspection to be sure.”
“No thanks,” Cage said. “Church had one done before the place was sold last month, so I’ll have to take their word for it.”
Another grunt from Harvey, and then his flashlight stalled, the beam now shining against the sinking foundation. A deep crack running all the way to the ground had splintered the brick and mortar.
“Looks like you got varmints down here.”
At the base of the brick, the earth had been turned up as though something had been digging. A rat? Raccoon, maybe?
Cage shone his own light into the disturbed earth.
At first, he saw only white. Not bright white, like an untouched piece of paper, but a bleak gray-white. Aged.
Bone, he realized. Some critter had died down here–probably more than one.
He stepped closer, using the toe of his boot to shovel some of the dirt aside.
Behind him, Harvey emitted a sound resembling a frightened dog. “Is that what I think it is?”
Cage’s heart tightened into an iron-like fist, jumping at first into his throat and then dropping into the pit of his stomach.
An empty eye socket and cavernous smile protruded out of the earth.
A human skull.
“S
on. Of. A.
Bitch.”
Half-buried in the dirt, it had the weathered look of the skeletons he’d seen in an exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Science. And on the Discovery Channel.
Harvey stepped forward, hands outstretched. Cage caught him by the arm. “Don’t touch the damned thing.”
Cage yanked his handkerchief out of his pocket. It was damp with sweat but would protect him from getting fingerprints all over the skull. He knelt down, balancing on his heels, careful not to touch the earth around the skull. Fingers protected by the thin cloth, he ran his hand over top of the gray bone.