Lost & Broken
Book Two in the Littlemoon series
They say you don’t pick your cases when you’re a private investigator, they pick you.
Well, that’s exactly what has happened for the Littlemoons. Since closing the biggest case of their careers, in the private sector, the jobs are pouring in.
Now, they just have to pick and choose.
The next case seems easy, almost too good to be true.
All they have to do is find a missing bible with a hidden birth certificate.
How hard can that be? It’s an all-expense paid trip to the Derby, and a once in a lifetime opportunity.
As the team arrives on the scene, of a famous Kentucky farm known for its ghostly haunting, it’s a lot more dangerous than it seems. Someone’s out to make a killing, and they don’t care who
gets caught in the crossfire.
Lost books.
Stolen lives.
And things that go bump in the night.
It all means one thing.
Julian, Tori, Kane and Christina have to stay one step ahead of the person willing to kill, or the team too will have something in common with the spirit haunting the place.
They’ll find themselves Lost & Broken…
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Quotes
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© Copyright 2014 by Morgan Kelley LLC All
rights reserved. No parts of
this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or in an information
storage or retrieval system
without written consent from the author. All characters are fictional and any
similarity to real life or individuals is coincidental.
~Prologue~
Kentucky
Hesser Plantation
Nineteen Fourteen
God! She couldn’t handle the
creaking anymore. It was beginning to drive her absolutely insane. If she
didn't know any better, she would think that the house was haunted.
How was that even possible?
There was just no way.
Hesser Plantation wasn't that old, so
there shouldn’t be anything creaking or groaning. No one died here, so how
could they have a ghost?
Climbing out of their bed, she
crept as quietly as possible to the cradle. Once there, she stared down at the
little baby sleeping safely inside.
He was her pride and joy.
Her only son.
Gently tucking him back in, she
glanced over to the now vacant bed. At one time, she would enjoy coming here to
sleep. Now, that wasn’t true. When her husband lost his favorite little piece
of fluff, he became almost unbearable. It was as if he blamed her for the
trollup running away.
Who knew that he had so much of
an attachment to the little whore he bedded in his free time? Maybe if she was
a chambermaid, he might actually see and pay attention to her once more.
The most astounding part was that
as of yet, her husband hadn’t replaced his mistress. Certainly, he should be
able to do it without much effort. After all, she was nothing more than a local
girl who worked in their scullery cleaning up after their family, and tending
the bedrooms.
What he even saw in that blonde
piece of trash, she had no idea. Her parents barely spoke in complete sentence
as they toiled away in the fields. How he could ever even be attracted to her,
appalled and astounded her. It had to be the fact that she’d open her legs for
any rich man who passed her by.
Well, she had news for her. The
man of this house wouldn’t be divorcing his high society wife to shack up with
some waste of skin and bones.
Unfortunately though, now that
she was gone, he was miserable as sin. Thankfully, he had taken the time out of
his busy fornicating life to impregnate his wife. At least now she had a
rightful heir to their family fortune. Her future was ensured the second a son
was born into the Hesser family.
She did what no one else had
rightfully done. She’d given him a legitimate child to carry his name and
bloodline.
Kudos for her.
Then, anger filled her. When she
had found that the little trollup was pregnant with her husband’s child, she
wanted to retch. No, she wanted to grab her greasy blonde hair and bash her
head off the floor that she scrubbed. Well, fortunately for everyone involved,
that situation was handled. It wasn’t hard to scare the little piece of trash
into submission. The night that baby was born, it was taken and sent off.
There would be no Hesser child
unless it was born from her womb. If drastic measures needed to be taken, so be
it.
Thankfully, the girl’s parents
were upset that their daughter had disgraced herself by getting pregnant by a
married man. Once they found out, that was easily rectified. They were wise
enough to know that their daughter committed an unforgivable sin. A few choice
words, and they realized that her loose morals could cost them everything. When
she showed up with the sheriff to terrorize them, it didn't take much. It was
funny, since she would have bought the child, just to sell it off to someone in
a foreign country.
Yes, that was how angry she was.
To add to it all, her husband
wasn’t even told that she had given birth. The family promised the little whore
would stay away and keep her mouth shut.
Or else.
That was the part she liked best.
If the family wanted to lose their land, their oxen, and asses, it could be
brought to fruition.
Little did he know, that this was
all for the best. It wasn’t like her husband was the only one the trollup was
sleeping with. Rumor around the house was that she had tried to bed her
husband’s brother and cousin too. Unfortunately, he was the weaker man, unable
to keep his dick in his pants. Had she known that he was like this before she
married him, there never would have been a wedding.
Who was she kidding?
That almost made her laugh out
loud.
Her husband was the wealthiest
bastard in Kentucky. She would have married him anyway. Allowing him to have
his little side pieces was fine with her. It meant less time that she had to
tolerate his voracious sexual habits.
Thankfully, he managed to give
them a son. At least she could look past having to sleep with him because of
that. Even after thinking it, there was a little piece of her that mourned
their marriage. She was stupid to believe all the sweet words he had once
whispered in her ear when they were courting.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Moving back to their bed, she
once more heard the sound. Since she was alone, it terrified her. It sounded
like weeping.
But how could that be?
The hired help lived downstairs
or in the other building, so no one was in the rooms surrounding hers. This
floor was exclusively for her and the man of the house. The private wing was
off limits to anyone but them.
Walking to the balcony, she
stared out at the plantation that was legally half hers. They had an empire
here, and she was damn glad. It was perfect, and that’s the way she liked it.
In her life, there could be no distractions to ruin it. Some might call her
ambitious, but she knew the truth. Love brought her into this marriage, but
business made her stay.
She just wouldn’t have it any other
way.
Yet, that was another lie. She
would trade it all to go back in time to when he loved her.
Really, truly loved her.
Again, she heard the noise but
this time, it sounded like singing. No one would dare be making noise at this
time of night near their room. If they woke the baby, they would be immediately
terminated.
Glancing around, she listened to
the sound and prayed that he would come home. Even if he was drunk, it would
mean that she wasn’t going to have to be there alone. Sometimes you needed to
take the lesser of the two evils in life.
Every evening, after the
trollup’s disappearance, the house scared her. It seemed to come alive with
some noise. In her mind, she knew that was impossible. There had to be a
rational reason. Possibly the grand plantation was settling. All the new wood
was finding its final resting place, or maybe she was a witch and cursed them
before she left.
There were no such things as
ghosts, and yet, she swore that she had seen one. Not face to face, but from
the corner of her eye.
It was always in passing.
It seemed to speculatively watch
her. Wherever she would go, or take the baby, the spirit would follow.
A cool breeze wafted in through
the window, blowing the sheer curtains around. They appeared to be hands, reaching
for her. In fact, the cold icy touch caressed her skin and gave her goose
bumps.
It was June, and it shouldn’t be
this chilly.
Then, she heard the laughter and
knew she wasn’t alone. There was someone there with her. She could feel the
malevolent eyes watching her.
Spinning around, she scanned the
room and finally picked up the sight, albeit diminished by the lack of light in
the room. What she saw scared and terrified her. The cradle, untouched by human
hands, began rocking. It swayed as if someone was standing beside it and
lovingly tending to the sleeping babe.
Her heart began pounding.
Not her child!
Her job as a mother was to guard
her babe at any cost!
There was more laughter, and then
the gentle sound of a lullaby being sung. It was one which she remembered all
too well. It was the same dreaded melody which his mistress sang to her newborn
child, just before it was taken away. It spoke of love and holding onto the
child forever.
This couldn’t be.
She was gone.
The whore had run away!
It had been handled by her
personally!
Much like it started, the song
stopped without warning. In its place were the horrible wails of her child,
calling out in some kind of agony. Every mother knew her child’s cries, and
something was hurting her little angel.
The babe continued to wail, and
the sounds pierced the night, shattering the silence. If she hadn’t been
standing there, she would assume the child was in distress. The wails were
becoming muffled, as if someone were placing the blanket over his face, trying
to smother him in his sleep.
She needed to act!
No one could hurt her only reason
to live.
Rushing to his side, she scooped
him up in her arms and held him protectively against her body.
“You can’t have my son!” she
screamed, holding her baby as if she were the only thing that stood between
him
and the end of his life.
There was more laughter, but it
morphed, turning evil and malevolent.
“Leave my house! You’re not
welcome here!” she demanded, as her son screamed at the top of his lungs.
The gentle caress on the back of
her neck made her gasp in horror, as the cold fingers touched her flesh.
“Go away! What do you want?”
The laughter exploded around her
as the curtains whipped in an angry invisible wind, found only in her
bedchamber. It was as if they were reaching for her, and she was forced to take
a step back to save them both.
“I want my revenge,” the voice
whispered, and then like it began, it suddenly ended.
No trace remained.
The room calmed.
There was peace.
She carried her son to the bed and
stared down into his precious face. The screams had ended, and she was
thankful. He stared up at her with tear filled eyes, blinking and trying to
focus on the calming voice above him.
“It’s okay, my little love. No
one is going to hurt you. Momma is here, and I’ll die to keep you safe.”
He stared up at her with his
father’s eyes, and immediately began sucking on his fingers to sooth the fear
he had been feeling.
“You’re safe,” she reassured,
kissing him on his soft baby skin.
When the bed creaked, her heart
began pounding in her chest. She could see the imprint of something
moving
across the flat duvet. Then, there was breath on her skin and a whisper in her
ear.
It had her full attention.
“No, he’s not safe,” came the
hushed voice. “He’s going to be mine.”
This time, it was her screams
that filled the night.
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“There are days when you have to play the game, and ones where you just watch. Get ready, because today it looks like we’re about to get dirty.”
~ Julian Littlemoon.
“I feel like Pandora. I found the box, and now I’m wondering how the hell to put it all back.”
~ Julian Littlemoon.
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About the Author
Morgan Kelley lives in the beautiful Pocono Mountains with
her husband and two children. After
attending college at Penn State University and studying Criminal Justice,
Morgan knew her only true passion in life would be murder and books. She put them both together and began her
career as a writer. Other than books and
writing, you can find Morgan hanging out in her garden and digging in the dirt.
Her other works include: The Junction, Serial Sins, The
Blood Betrayal, The Killing Times (1), Sacred Burial Grounds (2), True Love
Lost (3), Deep Dark Mire (4), Fire Burns Hot (5), Darkness of Truth (6), Devil
Hath Come (7), Consumed by Wrath (8), Blood Red Rage (1) Lost & Broken (2),
Celestia is Falling (1), Vegas is Dying (2), Christmas is Killing (3), and Love
is Bleeding (4)
Please feel free to visit Morgan at her website:
www.morgankelley.com, email her author.m.kelley@gmail.com,
or visit her blog at www.morgankelley.blogspot.com.
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