A Look Inside Justice, Deck of Lies Book 1

 

 

“We just need you to sit in here. Someone’s already on their way over.”

“My parents were supposed to be on the way over! Where’s my mom?” I could feel the tears bubbling in my eyes. Why wouldn’t anyone tell me what was going on? Had Carsyn denied my story? Did the store say I was shoplifting after all? Was I going to get charged with a crime? And why was my dad in handcuffs?

“Just sit in here.” We were back in the waiting room.

“Please,” a few tears spilled out of my eyes and down my cheeks. “Just tell me what’s happening.”

                He must have taken pity on me, because I saw something soften in his expression. “Your mom and dad are being held for questioning right now.”

“Questioning? But they didn’t have anything to do with the bracelet. I didn’t even call to tell them I was going shopping. I’m probably in trouble for that already. They really didn’t know about any of it!” I desperately tried to explain.

“It’s not about the bracelet.”

I frowned. “Then…what’s it about?”

Obviously he regretted getting into this conversation with me. He looked down at the toes of his boots before answering, and when he looked up he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You were flagged in the database as a missing person.” 

 

“But I’m not missing. I’m right here.”

“A social worker is on her way. She’ll be here any minute to explain it to you.”

“But I don’t understand. What crime are my parents being questioned about?” I asked.

He cleared his throat before answering. “They’re being questioned about a kidnapping, Rain.”

It didn’t really sink in right away. The word kept bouncing around in my suddenly-empty head, completely devoid of all meaning. Kidnapping.

But why would the police want to question them about something like that?

I wouldn’t get an answer for thirty-five minutes, the amount of time it took for the social worker to arrive. I made about a dozen calls on my mobile phone to Aaron, my mom and dad and the house phone, but no one answered and I just listened to empty, hollow ringing as my tension mounted. Finally the social worker came bursting into the room, but I heard her coming well before the door flew open. She was wearing the clunky, square-heeled kind of shoes that made loud, clip-clopping sounds on the linoleum floor. There was a run on the left leg of her pantyhose, and I could see a bit of lace where her hem was slipping past her wrinkle-resistant polyester skirt. It was a nondescript brown color, like her hair, and a poor match for the blue blouse she wore under the matching jacket.

“Rebecca Keene, Child Protective Services,” she introduced herself immediately, thrusting a pale, cold hand out toward me. I shook it automatically. She pulled back quickly, flipping open a manila folder to glance at it before looking back up at me. “You must be Chloe.”

“Chloe? No. I’m Rain Ramey.”

“Ramey. Ramey,” she flipped open the folder again, turning pages. “Yes of course. Rain, right?”

“That’s me.” I nodded. Then, all the questions came exploding out of me. “What’s going on? Where are my parents? The policeman said something about kidnapping?”

She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. It was just one of many tendrils that had escaped the bun at the nape of her neck. Rebecca Keene looked tired and harried, and I’d never missed my mother more than I did in that moment. “That’s right, Rain. Your parents are still being questioned in connection with an infant girl who disappeared more than fourteen years ago.”

My head tilted to one side as I stared at her. “But it’s all just a misunderstanding. My parents haven’t kidnapped anybody.”

Rebecca Keene gazed at me before her eyes lowered to the folder in front of her. “Today, the child would be sixteen years old. At birth, she had blue eyes and blonde hair. Like all babies born in the Silverwood Hospital since 1985, her fingerprints were taken shortly after she was born. The fingerprints found a match for the first time tonight,” her dark green eyes found mind before she continued. “When your ten-print card was ran through the database.”

My ears were ringing again. I felt my fingertips go numb. My eyes were cloudy; it seemed as though I was looking at Rebecca Keene through fog. “I don’t understand.”

“Rain, you are a match for that missing child. Arthur and Rhianna Ramey are not your natural parents. They abducted you from your home when you were eighteen months old.”

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Lies, Murder and Mistaken Identity in Justice

 Take a look inside Jade Varden's Justice, a book about lies, mistaken identity and murder...

 

The red BMW was waiting for me as if it had always been mine. I tried, again, to call Aaron and my parents on their cell phones, but when no one answered I threw the car into gear and left the von Shelton estate.

I saw the car parked in front of the blue house almost as soon as I turned onto Sutton Street. By the time I crookedly parked the BMW behind it and stumbled out, the tears were pouring freely down my face. I stood at the front door sobbing and fumbling with my keys for nearly five minutes before I managed to get the door open, and by that time I couldn’t find the breath to call out.

It wasn’t necessary. “Rain!” I heard the startled whisper as I stood near the door catching my breath. The sound of my own name brought a fresh rush of tears to my eyes.

“Aunt Ronnie.” She had me swept into her embrace a moment later, and I laid my head against her shoulder. I didn’t realize how badly I needed a hug until I felt her familiar arms around me.

“Oh, Rain,” she squeezed  me, and for several minutes we stood there and cried together. Finally she pulled away, wiping tears off her cheeks. “Honey, what are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. And Aaron. And my…and…everybody.”

“Rain,” her brown eyes, so much like my mother’s, were filled with pain as she reached out to brush a stray curl behind my ear. “You can’t be here.”

“But you haven’t been answering my calls! I had to come here.”

“Oh, Rain,” she turned away, bowing her head to hide behind a black curtain of hair. “I can’t take your calls. I can’t talk to you, and neither can Aaron. Not right now.”

“What? But Aunt Ronnie-”

“It’s not me, Rain, it’s the lawyer.” She held up her hands defensively.

“Rain? Rain!”

My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment I couldn’t catch it to speak. “Aaron!”

He appeared at the top of the stairs. Aunt Ronnie stepped before me, blocking my view of him just as he came into sight. “No. Aaron, back upstairs. Do you want to make things worse than they already are? Rain, you’ve got to go.” She put her hands on my shoulders and bodily turned me toward the door. “Aaron, upstairs!”

I’d heard her use that firm tone only once before, when I was six. I’d found the birth control pills in her purse and thought they were candy. Aaron was no longer rushing down the stairs, and I had no choice but to let her physically push me out the front door.

“Aunt Ronnie,”  I turned and seized her hand, my eyes boring into hers. “Just tell me why they did it. Just tell me they aren’t terrible people.” I didn’t even know how important it was to me until that moment, that horrible moment when I saw my entire childhood being pulled away from me on the front porch of that blue house on Sutton Street. If the parents who raised me were capable of committing such a terrible crime…then what did that make me? The desperation in my eyes made Ronnie look away; I saw her swallow several times before any words came out of her throat.

“I can only tell you to ask Violet von Shelton. She knows the answers to your questions. I can’t talk to you. I’m so sorry, Rain.” The door closed to punctuate her statement, and I was left standing alone on what used to be my own front porch. I slipped my key ring out of my purse, the one with my house keys and the keys to my Corvair, and placed it on the welcome mat.

There was nothing left to do but climb into the BMW and go back to the von Shelton mansion. It was the only thing like a home I had left…and apparently, it was the place with all the answers.

 

Justice is available at Amazon, Smashwords and everywhere books are sold!

Guest Post Excerpt: The Secrets of Yashire

 Today, Jade's blog has been taken over by author Diamante Lavendar. Read an excerpt from her new book "The Secrets of Yashire: Emerging from the Shadows."

 The Secrets of Yashire: Emerging from the Shadows

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Opening her eyes, Brianna gazed into a clear blue sky illuminated by warm, hazy rays of sunlight. She slowly turned her head to look around. She was lying on a carpet of soft, green grass. All around her she heard the sweet, cheerful songs of birds as a playful breeze rumpled her long black hair. Where am I? She tried to raise her head but a hot, sharp pain shot through it.

Ow! I have one heck of a headache!

Gently, she lay her head back down. As she stretched into a more comfortable position, she noticed the clothes she was wearing; a white, ruffled blouse and a long, purple skirt. She was vaguely confused but couldn’t figure out why. Suddenly a strong urge to sleep overcame her.

Closing her eyes, she listened to the birds and felt the warm sun soaking into her skin. The soft breeze caressed her cheeks and pressed the tendrils of her hair against her forehead. Gently, she was lulled back to sleep.

Brianna was awakened by a swishing sound nearby.

What was that?

Song of the Sea: Look Inside

I always knew my mother was unhappy. I just didn’t know why.

I don’t really know when I realized she wasn’t happy. When I look back at my childhood, all I can remember of her is long, black hair blowing in the wind as she stood on the deck of our house. She spent most of her time staring at the ocean with a sad expression on her face. The ocean was all around us, and it was the center of our world. It surrounded the tiny island where we lived (Matinicus, Maine. Population: 54), forcing us to contend with the water if we wanted to visit the mainland. It was the source of all our income, and it has always felt like my best friend. It just didn’t occur to me, back then, that my mother was looking at it differently.

Our house sat on a high, rocky bluff that overlooked the narrow strip of beach where our boathouse stood. Every day, my dad took the boat out on the water. He was a fisherman, and that’s actually how he and my mother met. She was in a terrible boating accident and very nearly drowned. My father came bouncing along the waves in his Boston Whaler and scooped her right out of a blow-up life raft.

It was such a romantic story, but the drama of almost drowning severely affected my mother. Since that day, she never went on a boat or in the water again. I often wondered if she was remembering her accident, those times I caught her staring at the gray waves of the North Atlantic Ocean.

I, too, was fascinated by the ocean, always had been. I think I could swim before I could walk. My dad once told me more than seventy percent of the Earth is the oceans. They connect everything to everything else. They link the continents, rivers, all the other oceans. And here’s the interesting part: most of the ocean floor is still undiscovered, unmapped. Unexplored. Scientists guess at all the different life forms which might exist in the ocean—but they don’t really know.

It is a liquid land filled with secrets and mysteries, and I wanted to discover them all. Looking back, maybe I was always interested in the water because I wanted to know why my mother found it so fascinating. Maybe I should have stayed on that small strip of beach.

But I didn’t. I went on a journey to find my mother…and somewhere along the way, I found myself instead. 

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Song of the Sea: Sneak Peek

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“All set for your school project?” As always, my mom was standing at the stove when I entered the kitchen the next morning. Dad was long gone on the boat, out fishing. He would finish up about the same time I finished school, leaving him free to greet me when I came home. For as long as I could remember, my mom sent me off to school in the mornings and my dad was there to make sure I got home in the afternoons. By that time, mom was usually standing out on the deck—or by the bay window, in bad weather—looking out at the ocean.

“I think so.” I slipped into my usual chair at the kitchen table, still trying to hold onto the dream I had during the night. I could only vaguely remember bits and pieces of it, but I was sure it involved Luke, and I was pretty sure we kissed in the dream. If only I could remember what it was like, maybe I wouldn’t make a fool of myself if he ever kissed me for real. After the two false starts, and the embarrassment at dinner, Luke was quick to leave at the end of the night. He mumbled “good night,” and practically ran out to his father’s truck after we finished eating. He didn’t even hold my hand again. How would he act at school today?

I suddenly became aware my mom had been talking to me when I felt the roll of paper towels hit me in the side of the head. I looked over at her. “Sorry, what?”

She laughed. “You must be thinking about that cute boy who was over here last night. I was asking you what you found to use for your school project. With all the excitement, I forgot to ask.”

I nodded. Dad had monopolized the discussion last night after my mom’s flub. As it turned out, Dad was a huge fan of Luke’s father’s artwork. Come to think of it, no wonder Luke didn’t want to kiss me after he spent most of dinner talking to my dad. “I found this old seal skin up in a trunk. Maybe it belonged to Grandpa, you think? Didn’t Dad say that he…what?” I stopped when I noticed the strange look that had come over my mom’s face.

“Can I see it?” Her voice was hoarse when she asked the question, but I barely noticed it at the time. I was busy thinking about Luke, and school, and catching the ferry on time. I’ve often wondered what might have happened if I’d acted differently, if I’d stopped long enough to ask my mom some questions. If I’d done anything but what I did do.

What I did was shrug, reach into my book bag, and unwrap the old animal skin I’d found and placed in a plastic bag to take to school. As I shook it out, I might have heard my mom make a strange sound, but I wasn’t sure. “This thing.” I held it up.

My mom reached her hand out, then quickly pulled it back. “It’s lovely. May I…may I have it?”

“I’ve got to take it to school.” I folded it and shoved it back into the plastic.

“Be careful with that,” my mom snapped. I looked up at her, surprised. “I think maybe it did belong to your grandpa. You know how Dad gets about Grandpa’s things,” she explained. “May I have it after school, then?”

“Sure. I don’t care.” I was barley paying attention. I wanted to eat my cereal quickly, get on the ferry and maybe find Luke. Maybe he would sit next to me on the ferry. Maybe we would walk into school together.

Maybe he would even hold my hand again.

“Today?” My mom pressed.

“Yeah, today. I gotta go, Mom. I don’t want to be late for school.” I grabbed half a piece of toast, scooped up my bag and kissed her on the cheek before I went out the door.

It was one of the last times I ever saw my mother again.

***

“You never called me back last night!” Stacey wore a wounded expression on her freckled face.

“That’s because I didn’t want to re-live it. My mom embarrassed him, and then my dad spent the whole night asking Luke about his dad,” I sighed and slid into my usual seat beside Stacey, glancing around to see if Luke was already on the boat. He wasn’t. I pulled out my phone to check the time—ten more minutes before the ferry pulled out of port.

“Oh no,” Stacey groaned. “How did your mom embarrass him?”

“Well,” I smiled. “Actually, that part wasn’t so bad. I mean, for me.”

“Tell me!”

I grinned and leaned forward, ready to relate the whole story, when I felt the air around me change. I knew instantly that Luke was on the ferry, knew that when I looked up he would be looking back at me. “He’s here,” I breathed, my eyes lifting to find him.

“I think he’s coming over here,” Stacey hissed.

He was. With a determined stride, Luke walked right up to us and jerked his head toward the bench seat opposite ours. “Morning. Mind if I sit here?”

I shook my head quickly.

“Why don’t you sit here?” Stacey jumped up like she was sitting on a pile of springs, she got to her feet so quickly. In one motion, she pulled her book bag and her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll go up front and grab Paul when he gets on, so he knows where we’re sitting,” she offered. Stacey moved around Luke a little too closely, forcing him to move nearer to the seat she wanted him to take.

“Good morning,” I smiled at Luke as he slid into the bench next to me. “Sorry about Stacey. She can be a little pushy.”

“That’s okay.” Luke’s smile never failed to take my breath away. “I’d rather sit next to you than Paul anyway.”

“Yeah, me too,” I answered.

“I never thanked you for dinner last night. So, thank you.”

Luke’s face was so close to mine, I could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. “That’s okay,” I whispered. “I don’t think I really thanked you for helping me with our English project. So, thank you.” My mouth felt dry. Luke was giving me that look again. What if he kissed me right here, on the ferry, in front of everyone?

“Listen, Brenna. I was wondering if maybe you’d like to do something this weekend. Like maybe go to the mainland and see a movie or something?”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “I would like that. A lot.”

He smiled back at me. “So would I.”

We were sitting there, grinning at each other, when Stacey and Paul walked up.

“Well, I found him,” Stacey announced breezily as she sat down. The boat whistle sounded just after her words, halting conversation for a few moments.

Paul Smithson was a tall, skinny boy with longish black hair he wore parted down the middle. He always wore boating shoes. I’d gone to school with him since kindergarten, and Luke was the only friend I’d ever known him to have.

“Morning, Paul,” I offered.

“Morning,” he muttered, shooting a questioning look at Luke, who shrugged back.

“Did you finish your English project?” I asked him.

Paul shot me a strangely guarded look, face expressionless. “Yes.”

“Well,” Stacey quickly filled the awkward silence. “I finally finished mine at the last minute, as usual. Talk about epic. I was digging around in our attic for three hours.” She leaned back against the bench and quickly launched into her narrative, entertaining us all the way to school.

Midway through the ride, Luke smiled at me and casually wrapped his hand around mine, which I’d left sitting next to him on the bench just in case. I couldn’t concentrate on anything Stacey said for the rest of the trip.

Luke and Paul joined Stacey and I in the hallways between classes most of the day. We walked together to first period Math, from there to Art and then to Biology, where Stacey and I whispered excitedly about the development for the entire hour. I looked for them all through lunch, but didn’t see a sign of them. I didn’t see Luke again until English, which we had fifth period.

He sat near the front, of course, while Stacey and I had two seats next to each other near the back of the class. I had to walk right past him as I made my way toward the front of the room carrying my project. I felt him brush my arm as I passed, and shivered with a little spark of delight.

My voice started out a little shaky as I shook out the skin, addressing the very back of the room where Stacey maintained an encouraging smile. “I found this in a bunch of my dad’s boating stuff. It’s a seal skin that belonged to my grandfather, Sean Douglas.”

“It looks really thin for a seal skin.” The heckler was Charles Goode, who always had an opinion on everything.

“Well, that’s what it is,” I shot back. “It represents my family’s history on the water, which goes back four generations,” I quickly launched into my presentation. “My great-great-grandfather came to Maine from New York about a hundred and fifty years ago, during the Potato Famine in Ireland. He loved the sea, so he came to live on the islands. And my family’s been here, fishing, ever since. I think my grandfather got this skin when he went up to the Arctic Circle.”

“Thank you, Miss Douglas,” Mrs. Arnold sounded bored, but she always sounded that way. “You’ve written your report?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I walked toward the corner of the room where her desk was located. Mrs. Arnold spent a few moments examining the skin before she nodded. I dropped the report on her desk, folded the skin, and went back to my desk. I carelessly shoved the skin back into my book bag. I didn’t think about it again that day.

***

The first thing I did, most afternoons, was run up to my room to drop off my book bag. I usually had a snack with my dad in the kitchen before I worked on homework or called Stacey to dissect the day. But today, all I could think about was Luke. He sat next to me again on the ferry ride home, and just before we docked he asked if I wanted to come over for dinner. It only took me a second to say yes.

It would take much longer to figure out what I was going to wear.

“Hi, Dad! No snack today—I’m going to the Allens’ for dinner and I have to get ready!” I didn’t pause to wave as I ran through the kitchen.

“Slow down!” He laughed at me as I buzzed by.

When I got up to my room, I threw my backpack on the bed and ran for the closet. I forgot all about the conversation I’d had with my mom that morning. If only I hadn’t. If only I had remembered that she wanted the skin. If only I had asked her why she wanted it.

If only I had said no, you can’t have it. Everything would be different now.