Shaw's Landing (Haunted Hearts Series Book 4) Read online

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the author in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction, distribution, or transmitted in whole or part in any form or means, or stored in any electronic, mechanical, database or retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

  Contact information: [email protected]

  SHAW’S LANDING

  The Haunted Hearts Series: Book Four

  Copyright © 2015 by Denise Moncrief

  Electronic Edition

  Paranormal Romantic Suspense

  Editor: Linda Pitts

  Cover Design: Keri Neal

  Cover is copyright and trademark of the author, used under license owned.

  SHAW’S LANDING

  Tired of keeping secrets that could get her killed…

  As long as Courtney lived with Jared Crenshaw, she was able to keep his secrets and stay alive, but now that he’s dead, what she knows could get her killed. Hiding from the good guys can be just as dangerous as running from the bad guys.

  Protected by a man who seems too good to be true…

  Just when she thinks she has nowhere left to run, an investigator with the Arkansas State Police helps her find a new place to hide. Shaw Bennett seems to be everything Jared wasn’t, but can she trust him? He is, after all, just another cop.

  Her life threatened by the father she never knew…

  Shaw’s Landing seems a great place to disappear for a while until the night terrors begin. Are the visions she sees her imagination, the product of her increasing fear, or something more sinister? Has the curse of Haskins blood followed her?

  Can the promise of love overcome the ghosts of the past at Shaw’s Landing?

  ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

  Special thanks to my long-suffering family, Larry, Katy, and Eric, who put up with my many writing moods and encourage me to pursue my publishing dreams anyway. I would like to also thank the fabulously talented Keri Neal for the beautiful book covers she has designed for The Haunted Hearts Series. Keri takes my vague ideas and brings the concept for each cover to life.

  I’d also like to acknowledgment all the readers who enjoyed Laurel Heights, Victoria House, and Ashley Ridge and gave me encouraging feedback. I write because it’s an obsession. I publish because I want someone to read what I write. My readers are why I do what I do. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  FOREWORD

  For those of you who know and love the state of Arkansas, I apologize for mangling the geography. Hill County and the town of Fairview are fictional places and loosely based on multiple locations, a conglomeration of locales woven together to create a setting especially designed for The Haunted Hearts Series.

  Each book in the series is written to stand alone, but together they tell the story of one man’s corrupt influence over an entire county and how one bad decision can affect so many lives. I hope you, the reader, enjoy Shaw’s Landing as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  SHAW’S LANDING

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  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

  About the Author

  Other Titles By Denise Moncrief

  Bonus Material: Excerpt from Chelsea Lane

  Chapter One

  Ashley Creek, Hill County, Arkansas

  May 2014

  “I’m telling you, Nat, this place has been abandoned for years. No one’s gonna bother us here. There’s even an apartment upstairs we can use.” Parker extended his hand, and Natalie reluctantly grabbed it. With ease, he pulled her from the boat onto the dock of Shaw’s Landing.

  “Are you sure no one will find us?”

  “Stop worrying. You can see the only way to get out here is by boat. No one comes here anymore. We can stay awhile, and then we’ll move on, just like we always do.”

  She concentrated on relaxing and slowing her heart rate. “How did you know about this place?” They’d been all over Arkansas. Parker seemed to know all the abandoned buildings in the state. None of them were luxury accommodations, but two people running from the law couldn’t be choosy.

  “I heard about it from my Uncle Luke.”

  Luke? That figured. He was the one who’d led them down the road to trouble. Luke knew all about being a fugitive. As far as she knew, he was still running, probably always would be. Her distaste for Luke came the closest to unadulterated hatred that she’d ever felt in her life.

  She suddenly wished she could go back home, back to school, back to being a kid. She was only seventeen. She should be getting ready to enjoy her summer and not following Parker all over Arkansas. A load of guilt lodged in the bottom of her stomach. Her parents were surely frantic with worry. They probably claimed Parker had kidnapped her. Wouldn’t they be surprised to find out she went with him willingly.

  Nat had thought she loved the bad boy. She’d been wrong. Being with Parker was exciting, but it wasn’t love.

  He tugged her along the dock, which was surprisingly sturdy for a place that had been closed for years. “It used to be a catfish restaurant and the only way you could get to it was by boat. Luke said it was a pretty popular place until the old man that ran it died.” Parker smiled and his expression oozed mischievousness. He was about to lay it on thick. “They say the old man died upstairs and the place is haunted.”

  The abandoned restaurant was located a mile or so up Ashley Creek from where it fed into Lake Jefferson. A covered area next to the dock offered seating, a place perhaps for guests to relax while waiting for the boat to collect them and take them back to the dock on Lake Jefferson. Through the trees and up the path, the abandoned restaurant loomed out of the dark.

  Natalie laughed and pulled back on his hand. “Really, Parker? You’ve said that every place we’ve been is haunted. I haven’t seen a ghost yet. Ghosts don’t exist, except in your imagination.”

  “No, no. I saw one once.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s what you keep saying, but I’m starting to think you’re full of crap.”

  “Aw, girl, I thought you liked me.”

  She allowed him to pull her forward toward a set of stairs on the side of the building. When they reached the upstairs door, he didn’t hesitate to kick it open. Once inside, it was obvious that someone had been living there recently.

  “I thought you said this place was abandoned. Looks like someone’s been here before us.”

  He dropped her hand, stood just inside the doorway, and placed hi
s hands on his hips. “Yeah, it does.” He waited a few moments before speaking again. “Well, we can grab something to eat out of the refrigerator before we leave. I’m starved.”

  She was too. She stayed hungry most of the time. They had resorted to stealing junk food from conveniences stores and gas stations to exist. Only once in a while did they get lucky and eat an entire meal. Nat pushed past Parker, crossed the open living room/kitchen area, and yanked open the refrigerator. It wasn’t extremely well stocked, but she spotted eggs and half a carton of milk, enough to scramble them some breakfast.

  Without a word, he scrounged through the cabinets looking for a skillet. She might not call it love anymore, but they definitely knew each other enough to read each other’s minds. Maybe because they’d been on the run together for months, an extended amount of time that seemed like forever.

  And truthfully, Parker was a pretty basic kind of guy. Not hard to understand at all. Her heart longed for more than basic.

  He leaned against the counter while she pulled out a spatula and found the salt and pepper. She was done frying up the eggs and had just turned off the burner when his fingers dug into her shoulder.

  Natalie turned to him. “Ow, you’re hurting me.”

  A horrified expression covered his face.

  “What’s wrong?” She dropped the spatula and put her hand to her cheek.

  “You’re bleeding. On your neck.”

  She pressed her fingers against the pulse of her carotid and then looked at her hands. Blood. Lots of blood.

  “I told you to leave that necklace in the water. It must have some kind of toxic crap on it.” His voice shook. Fear flashed in his eyes.

  She’d never seen Parker scared. She began to tremble. “Why? What’s happening?”

  He grabbed her hand and dragged her through the bedroom to the small bath. “Look.”

  Her eyes widened when she first glimpsed her image. A thin line of oozing blood started below her right ear and sliced across her neck to her left ear. She screamed and searched for a towel or a rag in a panic. Her heart raced again. Not a good thing for someone with her kind of heart condition.

  Parker located a washcloth and pressed the rag to her throat. She clawed at the clasp of the necklace. When she finally released the hook and pulled the chain from around her neck, her skin burned where the pendant had rested just about her cleavage.

  Natalie glanced at the mirror again. A spot the shape of the pendant had raised a red welt on her chest. Another scream erupted from her. She opened her hand. The necklace seemed to be burning a hole in the palm. She dropped it onto the bathroom counter and backed into Parker. He grabbed her around her waist and pulled her from the bath.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Nat wrapped her hands around her neck. The pain seemed to sear her skin, a burning, stinging, throbbing sensation she’d never felt before.

  Neither of them moved, glued to the floor in the bedroom, their attention on the view through the bathroom door. Their eyes riveted on the necklace, glowing red hot on the bathroom counter. The tension in the room broke. The desperate urge to escape took over as adrenaline coursed through her veins.

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Parker turned and raced through the bedroom, pulling her behind him. Her pulse beat in her ears, and her ragged breaths erupted from her mouth. Parker had begun a weird sort of wailing, half moan and half cry. He didn’t seem like such a bad boy any longer. In fact, he was running like a scared little boy.

  When they reached the dock, his head swiveled right and left as if making sure the demons of hell weren’t chasing him. He boarded the boat he’d stolen earlier that day and reached his hand out to help her aboard. Her shoe slipped on the wet deck.

  Why is the deck wet? It isn’t raining.

  Her breath caught in her throat when she realized the liquid on the deck wasn’t water but blood. Was she bleeding that much? Parker’s grip on her loosened and she stumbled, caught her balance on the far side of the boat. She released the breath she’d been holding. But she relaxed too soon. The boat tipped and she plunged into the murky water of Ashley Creek headfirst.

  It seemed she stayed under water for minutes when it was probably only seconds. Her head broke the surface, and she splashed and bounced a bit, trying to get some traction on nothing, unable to find the creek bed. Once more, she went under.

  When she bounced to the surface again, Parker had managed to climb out of the water and get back into the boat. “Give me your hand.” His anxious voice barely penetrated her panic.

  Natalie couldn’t swim. She screamed and it was a mistake. Her mouth filled with water.

  Her hand found the side of the boat. Parker’s fingers touched hers for a brief moment. When she thought he was about to rescue her, a skeleton popped out of the water, wrapped its bony digits around her neck, and dragged her under.

  Her lungs filled with water, and her last living thought was that the skeleton actually seemed to be sneering at her as it pulled her to the bottom of the creek.

  Chapter Two

  Hill County, Arkansas

  Six Days Earlier

  Courtney Crenshaw paced from one end of the bar to the other. No doubt, the antique was a leftover from the 1920s when the underground space was used for Alfred Hamilton’s illegal private club. She stopped and stared across the mahogany at the mirror over the back bar. Glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, her distorted reflection could easily be mistaken as a ghost. She shivered once as her pale face wavered next to the lone bottle of liquor still remaining behind the counter. She swiveled and turned her back to the glass, no longer able to stand gazing at her fractured image.

  The remains of Omar Cooley’s meth lab were scattered on the other side of the large room. He’d removed anything still usable and left the rest to collect dust. She sighed. There was nothing useful in that assortment of junk. Eventually, she would have to brave leaving in search of food. Without any money, she would have to beg.

  If Jared Crenshaw hadn’t died and left her with the motorcycle he’d taken as payment in a drug deal, she’d be without transportation. If Josh McCord hadn’t taught her to ride, she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Strange how so many small coincidences could blend together and make her life easier…or harder.

  Hiding in the underground room had seemed like a good idea. Until Cooley had shown her the hidden door a few months ago, Courtney hadn’t known about the tunnel or that it had been dug into the hill beneath Victoria House beginning at the edge of the lake and ending in the house’s basement. Before then, no one had ever mentioned its existence.

  Victoria House was owned by the infamous Hamilton family and sat atop a hill on a finger of land that jutted out into Lake Jefferson. The inlet on the north side of the peninsula was narrow enough at one point she could see her trailer across the water from the Hamilton property, but the tunnel entrance was hidden on the south side of the peninsula and was so overgrown with trees and brush that no one boating on the lake would have been able to see the access door set into the side of the hill.

  The few times Courtney had been to the house with Jared, she’d arrived by boat, but when she had returned a few days ago, she’d ridden Jared’s motorcycle into the woods surrounding Victoria House and hid the machine in the brush while she searched for the tunnel. It hadn’t been easy to find in the dark, but she’d found it.

  Courtney had heard stories all her life about Alfred Hamilton, the Baron of Hill County. He had been the crime boss of his day and had controlled liquor distribution and gambling in northern Arkansas during the days of prohibition. Someone had hated him enough to kill him in his sleep. The story went that he and his wife were murdered in the 1920’s. Some said his ghost haunted the halls of Victoria House. Some said his wife haunted her bedroom. Others claimed that sometimes Victoria Hamilton strolled along the edge of Lake Jefferson looking for her lover.

  Perhaps over the years, the owners of Victoria House had forgotten ab
out the tunnel. No one had lived in the mansion for a long time, not since Pearl Hamilton had moved out. Cooley had used the underground room without the owner’s permission and had abandoned the place when he’d decided the ventilation was too poor to house a meth lab. Forget about the toxic fumes almost killing the cooks. That wasn’t his concern. According to Cooley, he could recruit new help whenever he wanted. No, his complaint had been the ruined product when one of his workers passed out. Everyone in the room had been lucky the lab hadn’t gone boom.

  Pearl Hamilton had kept someone on the place as a maintenance man and security guard for years, but Earl Johnson was not much use in either role. Cooley had paid him extra to scare intruders away. When Pearl died, one of her relatives had inherited the place. A few weeks ago, the new owner had fired the maintenance man, so Cooley couldn’t count on Earl any longer. For some reason, Cooley couldn’t offer enough money to entice anyone else to guard his lab. Between the bad ventilation and the lack of security, he had decided it was time to leave.

  Courtney had been one of his involuntary recruits, paying off Jared’s debt one batch at a time while he had transported the drugs to Cooley’s distributors. She usually worked at one of Cooley’s other locations, but once in a while, Jared would drag her out to Victoria House.

  She hated the place. Almost every time she worked there, a sudden chill would envelope her and her vision would darken. Several times she could have sworn she’d seen a dark form gather out of a shadowy corner and coalesce into an almost solid mass of black. She wanted to believe it was just the fumes affecting her, but she couldn’t quite shake thoughts of the ghost stories about the old place from her mind every time she’d worked in the dungeon-like basement.