Murder at the Mine, page 1
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MURDER AT THE MINE
a Ghost Town Mystery
by
JAMIE L. ADAMS
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Copyright © 2023 by Jamie L. Adams
Cover design by Daniela Colleo
of http://www.StunningBookCovers.com
Published by Gemma Halliday Publishing
http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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.
Thanks to my husband, Rick, for cheering me on every step of the way with the writing of this book. Also, to my wonderful agent, Dawn Dowdle, for opening doors I could never have reached on my own and to Gemma Halliday for her amazing encouragement and guidance.
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CHAPTER ONE
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
I bit down on my bottom lip with a strong sense of dread and forced myself to reread the last line on the page silently to myself. "So, why don't y'all rustle up some friends and come on out and enjoy the Wild West for a spell?"
Meant to be playful, the flippant choice of words made me cringe. For sanity's sake, I reminded myself what I'd written so far was only the rough draft. Finished, for the time being, I hit Enter on my keyboard, saved the document, and closed my laptop, knowing how much my sister, Ava, hated it when I brought my work to her room.
Oblivious to my frustration, Ava hummed a familiar tune while she ran a circular brush through my dark-brown hair, the row of ceramic bead bracelets on her arm jingling with each movement. I watched in the large oval mirror as she paused, took a step back, appraised her work, and then smiled. I'd already fixed my hair, but there wasn't a lot you could do with the thick curly mess other than pull it back and tie it in a ponytail.
However, when Ava had seen how I'd planned to leave the house, she'd dragged me into her room and sat me down in front of the vanity table. Her bedroom was the only one in our house spacious enough to fit the large workstation left over from when she had owned a beauty salon. Although the youngest of us three siblings, she'd earned the right to claim the master bedroom as her own. As a young widow, she'd moved back home the year before our parents had died. Taking care of the farm business, maintaining the house, and paying the bills had fallen on her shoulders. Tall, athletic, and full of life, Ava was one of those "the glass is half full, so let's enjoy it" type of people.
I wrinkled my nose at my reflection in the mirror and said, "You really don't have to go to all this trouble."
"Nonsense." She sprayed strawberry-smelling stuff on a section of hair above my right ear. "Lily Cranston is back, and everyone is dying to get a glimpse of the small-town girl returned from the big city. Let's give them something to look at."
Oh brother, I thought to myself. Although, after having worked out of state for the past five years, it felt good to be home again. I thought Ava was glad to have me back as well. The two-story farmhouse was too big for one person.
Not only was I living near my family again, but I'd also landed my dream job managing the ghost town where I'd played as a child. I had earned a reputation for putting the ink into the black. The town of Grady's planning committee oversaw the mine and ghost town, and they were currently in the red because of past mismanagement and a few questionable expenditures. It was my job to get operations back to where they should be. Thus, my attempt to update the website. If company money weren't so tight, I'd hire a professional. Our web page was still under construction but needed more help than a simple edit would entail. Increasing sales was the biggest hurdle we had to cross. At one time, the false front structures right out of the Old West had drawn a huge crowd during the summer months, but the record-breaking heat this year had tourists headed to the beach instead of our out-of-the-way theme park.
After five years of managing a campground in the Ozarks, I was happy to leave behind the land of chiggers and ticks to manage the Calico Rock Mine and Ghost Town. The company's goal was to have The Park running as successfully as it had back in its heyday by next year.
If there were a next year. Funds were low, and if things didn't pick up, they'd informed me the tourist attraction would shut down. Any way you looked at it, I oversaw a dying ghost town.
"Hold still," Ava ordered as she turned on the hairdryer, and then she raised her voice. "You're worse than a kid sometimes."
I tapped my fingers against the top of the computer. Hopefully, Lauren was having better luck with the pictures for the collage we planned to use for the website's header. She had her hands full since she ran the Old-Timey Photo Booth at the mine and oversaw the art gallery on Main Street, which showcased the rich history of our town.
Grady, California, was a small community in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where the abandoned gold mine and ghost town was its claim to fame. Just below the timberline, towering pines stood watch over the rustic cabins and farms on the fertile valley floor. Main Street, where the business district blended in with local boutiques and antique shops, still held the charm of Grady's early golden days. It was a beautiful part of the state to visit and a wonderful place to live.
I raised my voice loud enough for Ava to hear me as I set aside the laptop. "I'm too old for this."
"Well, you know what they say?" My sister turned off what had to be one of the loudest hairdryers on the market, but she didn't bother to lower her voice. "Thirty is the new forty."
"I think you mean forty is the new thirty," I corrected her, thankful we were the only two in the room.
Ava picked up the circular hairbrush, and her hazel eyes met mine in the mirror. Doubt creased her brow, and her lips moved without any sound. After a moment, she returned to fixing my hair. "Yeah, I guess it makes more sense when you say it that way."
I refrained from rolling my eyes. My younger sister had a problem keeping idioms and clichés straight. Malapropism ran in our family. The clinical definition was the mistaken use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound. Our dad had been the same way, and as I recalled, so had his mother. There was a pattern there, suggesting it was hereditary. Thank heavens I'd missed out on the gene. Extra curly hair that, when it was humid outside, gave me the appearance of a chia pet and a short torso were my hereditary burdens to bear.
Ava grabbed what looked like a king-sized can of hair spray and then took a step back. "So, tell me. Are you nervous?"
At first, I thought she meant about the hairdo. If there was one thing Ava did well, it was hair. Then I realized she meant the date she was helping me prepare for, so I played dumb. "Do you mean about eating dinner at the Calico Rock Café?"
I loved the food they served there—down-home comfort cooking at its best, just as good as it had been before I'd moved to Missouri. There were two places to eat in the ghost town. The café was the smaller of the two and more family friendly. They served an amazing chicken fried steak platter. The other option, the Calico Rock Watering Hole, included a bar and got loud on the weekends. I'd like to have been able to enjoy either one of the two establishments more often, but my job had kept me too busy to relax long enough to enjoy a meal during the day.
"No, silly, I'm talking about the blind date." Ava waved her arm, sending a cloud of hairspray into the air like she was fighting off a swarm of mosquitoes. I nearly gagged on the foul mist floating down onto my head.
"Hey, take it easy," I said while waving my hand in front of my face.
"Oops." She let out a small giggle and covered her mouth with her free hand. "Sorry."
"I don't know why you keep calling it a blind date." Fighting moisture from my eyes, I coughed to clear my lungs. "I've known Cody ever since high school."
Cody West was an old friend of the family. He'd graduated the same year as me and married one of my best friends, Tracy. A widower now, he had two grown sons, one in college and the other newly married. Cody served as the crime scene investigator for the county alongside my older sister Pat's husband, Jack Owens, who was the Sheriff of Ward County.
"Yes, but, as far as I know, neither one of you arranged this date." Ava stepped back as if to appraise her work, and then thinning her lips, she frowned. "You've never been out with him before."
Ava was correct—we'd never dated. Cody and Tracy had been the golden couple in school. This little get together had been Pat's idea. Yesterday she'd called the office to ask me to meet her and Jack at the restaurant for dinner tonight. After I agreed, she'd let me know Cody would be the one picking me up and that I should be sure to dress nice. I hadn't seen him since
"Your outfit needs something," Ava said. She rummaged through the top drawer of her dresser until a smile of satisfaction lit her face. "This scarf will look lovely with your turquoise blouse."
Ava was as bad as Pat and Jack. I'd agreed to have dinner with them and Cody, but only as friends since I didn't have time in my life for dating right now. I had a new job, and it took up most of my time. Cody was a nice guy, and like other girls in high school, I'd had a crush on him. The man was gorgeous, but back then he'd only had eyes for Tracy.
"Lily?" Ava waved the greenish-blue cloth in front of my face, snapping me back to reality.
I took the scarf from her and watched in the mirror while I tied it around my neck. All they needed now was a leash. Ha! It wasn't like I had anything against men. I'd had several boyfriends over the years and had been engaged once, years ago, to a man I'd met in college. Our breakup had been amicable. The closer it'd gotten to the wedding date, the more we'd both agreed we weren't ready. No drama. Christopher went on to dental college, and I started a career in management.
"To be honest," I said as I turned my head from side to side to check out Ava's handiwork in the looking glass, "I'd rather stay home and help you watch the twins."
Pat's son and daughter were eleven years old, and she didn't like to leave them home alone at night. Both redheaded and freckle-faced, they were growing up too fast. Ava and I adored our niece and nephew, and they were always welcome at the family farm. While it was no longer an active dairy, people in town still referred to the twenty-acre spread we called home as Cranston Acres. The tall, two-story farmhouse with the large cattle barn behind it looked like a picture right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Until I'd moved back home, Ava had lived alone on the property with her cat and a few chickens. A local farmer, Mr. Smith, rented the big barn and back pasture to raise horses.
Ava set down her tools and, to my surprise, let out a weary sigh. "Well, it's the best I can do."
Before I had time to ask what she meant, one of the twins called out from the family room downstairs. "We're hungry. Don't you have anything to eat around here?"
The school bus had dropped Jack and Jill off from summer camp over an hour ago. While it may sound like it, my older sister hadn't named her twins after an annoying nursery rhyme. Jack was a Jr., named after his father, Jack. When your dad was six feet two inches tall and enforced the law for a living, you didn't have to worry about being teased. They'd named Jill after our mother, who'd passed away the year before the twins had been born. The children were lively, but they were not annoying. Thank goodness.
When Ava and I entered the family room, the kids were kneeling backward on the couch with their faces pressed against the front window. Cocoa, our Siamese cat, sat between them licking her fur. Cody was due to arrive any moment. My stomach twitched. So, maybe I was a little nervous, but my primary concern was for him not to think this date had been my idea.
"Hey." Jack glanced our way long enough to give us a brief nod. "There's a vehicle coming up the drive."
"Looks like the cops," Jill said. She stretched her lips thin and widened her eyes, feigning a look of fear.
"I bet you two are going to get busted." Jack's sarcastic chuckle reminded me of his mother. Pat found humor in the strangest things. Once, when we'd been vacationing in the Ozarks, we'd seen a squirrel run off a chicken hawk. My sister had laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
"What for?" Ava said with fisted hands on her hips and a playful glint in her eyes. "Making little boys do the dishes?"
"Just kidding, Aunt Ava." Jack raised the palms of his hands. His boyish grin would melt many young girls' hearts in the coming years. "I'm just kidding."
"Besides, what do we have to be worried about?" I lifted the edge of the curtain to peek outside. "We know the sheriff."
Cody pulled his red Ford pickup truck up to the front of the house, turned off the engine, and then shut off the lights.
"I'll get the door," Ava sang out then paused and glanced toward the twins. "You two better behave while Cody is here."
I grabbed my purse and hurried to the front entrance. "No need to make a big deal out of anything." A grin spread across my face when I beat Ava to the door. I wiggled my fingers at the trio and slipped outside before they had any chance of embarrassing me.
My not-so-blind date met me halfway up the walk. His long, muscular stride slowed as he approached. Cody wore a pair of dark blue jeans with a black bolo tie over his white shirt. By the time I'd left to work in Missouri, Cody had been on the force for several years, and I associated him with the suit and tie he wore when on the job as head detective. Otherwise, he still looked the same. His dark-brown hair hadn't thinned at all since high school, and unlike many of the guys his age, it hadn't receded either.
"Good evening, Lily," Cody said. He had a deep, sensual voice that never failed to send shivers racing through my veins, but his mesmerizing dark-brown eyes were his trademark. The glow of gentleness found there pulled me right in and made it hard to look away—or even want to. The intensity had always been strong, even when he was a young boy. At the moment, they were locked on to mine with something akin to amusement.
"Hello," I said as my voice cracked.
"You know," he said with a lopsided grin and a slight shrug, "I would have knocked on the door."
I was sure he would have, but I reminded myself we weren't teenagers going on a first date. Far from it. At our age, we both had a good sense of our own identity. Way past the need to worry about forced acts of civility. If not for my older sister's meddling, we'd each be doing our own thing right now.
"I wanted to step outside for some fresh air," I told him. It wasn't too far from the truth. I'd been escaping from the people still peering at us from the window as we walked side by side to his truck. The smell of Old Spice and peppermint took me back to when we were kids. Cody always had a fondness for hard candy.
"It's a nice evening." Cody shot a glance skyward before he opened the passenger door and waited for me to slide in. "If you lived a little closer to Main Street, we could have walked."
"Grady's a wonderful town," I said once he'd settled in behind the steering wheel and started the engine. "But Ava and I prefer living out here in the country."
Cody lived on the west end of the county near Jack and Pat's place, so he hadn't had to go too far out of his way to pick me up. On the short, ten-minute drive to the Calico Rock Café, we would have to pass through Grady. The town was a pleasant place with a historic Main Street. Charming little stores with friendly shopkeepers gave tourists something to do when they weren't exploring the ghost town. Vintage trunks, handmade rockers, hutches, and other wares placed in the windows of the antique stores drew a crowd on weekends and during the summer. The picturesque street was as much a draw to the community as the ghost town and mine.
This part of the state was full of history. One thing I loved about my job was sharing the fascinating stories of the gold rush era and our community. Because I'd been born and raised in the town of Grady, the Calico Rock Mine and Ghost Town were as familiar to me as my favorite picture of Mom and Dad. My parents had died thirteen years ago in a car accident while vacationing in Colorado. I'd been in my late twenties.
Dad had been a second-generation dairy farmer, and Mom had loved to bake. When we were kids, they'd take my sisters and me to explore the ghost town on the weekends. Back then, it had been an old, abandoned row of buildings with the opening to the mine at the end of the street where there were two shafts inside. Dad would let us peek but not go inside, as he'd deemed them unsafe.
