Tangled Blood Lines Read online

  Contents

  Acknowledgments 1

  Chapter One 3

  Chapter Two 23

  Chapter Three 35

  Chapter Four 41

  Chapter Five 46

  Chapter Six 54

  Chapter Seven 70

  Chapter Eight 88

  Chapter Nine 105

  Chapter Ten 120

  Chapter Eleven 133

  Chapter Twelve 139

  Chapter Thirteen 143

  Chapter Fourteen 149

  Chapter Fifteen 166

  Chapter Sixteen 176

  Chapter Seventeen 182

  Chapter Eighteen 192

  Chapter Nineteen 204

  Chapter Twenty 212

  Chapter Twenty-One 214

  Chapter Twenty-Two 215

  Chapter Twenty-Three 216

  Chapter Twenty-Four 224

  Chapter Twenty-five 234

  Chapter Twenty-Six 244

  Chapter Twenty-seven 246

  Chapter Twenty-eight 268

  Chapter Twenty-Nine 282

  Chapter Thirty 287

  Chapter Thirty-one 293

  Chapter Thirty-two 305

  Chapter Thirty-three 313

  Chapter Thirty-four 320

  Chapter Thirty-five 332

  Chapter Thirty-six 338

  Chapter Thirty-seven 347

  Chapter Thirty-eight 359

  Chapter Thirty-nine 367

  Chapter Forty 376

  Chapter Forty-one 385

  Chapter Forty-two 402

  Chapter Forty-three 415

  Chapter Forty-four 419

  Chapter Forty-five 421

  Chapter Forty-six 425

  Chapter Forty-seven 430

  Tangled

  Blood Lines

  Tangled Legacy

  Book 1

  Deborah Noel

  Copyright © of Deborah Noel

  All rights reserved

  The right of Deborah Noel ( AKA Deborah Fry) to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by his in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Published by Vamptasy Publishing

  Cover from stock

  Designed by

  Nicola ormerod

  Acknowledgments

  All the thanks in the world go to my husband, Herb, for putting up with me during this write and all the others. I think he began to “hate” the relationship I had with the computer! He stood beside me, encouraged me, talked me through problems, offered his ideas and opinions. My heart can never thank him enough. I love you Herb.

  Mom, thank you for all you have done for me, your support, and your love. I did it!

  I must also express my thanks to my sisters Nicole Towarnicki and Julie Christman, both authors in their own rights, who surprised me by enjoying the story and encouraging me to continue from the beginning, offering their advice and input when I needed it most. To Julie (college professor of English Lit) who became my editor. Thank you so much for all of your help and for not going soft on me just because I am your sister. I would sit in one of your classrooms any day! To Nicole, thank you for becoming my second editor, I can’t thank you enough for squeezing me into your busy schedule.

  A special thank you goes to Niki Perry, my closest friend and my muse. She saved my writing career by pushing me to write and helping me every step of the way while battling her own writing demons and cancer to boot. Bless your heart my friend and thank you always. I love you dearly!

  Vicki Dale gets a big thank you for reading, re-reading and your continuing words of encouragement when the ink seemed to disappear.

  I would do a grave injustice if I didn’t thank Nina Babon who helped edit and re-edit and even edit AGAIN in the beginning stages! She also helped me with all the German translations. A wonderfully talented author of poetry, Nina, when you are ready to give prose a try, I’ll be there to return the favor!

  Jim Kind, Everett Wiginton, Kelsey Burroughs, Kata Boedecker, and many, many others get thanks from my heart for helping me develop my writing, critiquing my work and supporting me. Poetry developed my prose and they all helped my poetry. Thank you. Julie Tabor, a wonderful poet, helped me with research I needed, much thanks goes to Julie T.

  And last but not least, I have to thank my sounding board, Katie Thompson. Your help has been so valuable to me, as is your friendship. Thank you, I truly couldn’t have done this without you and our late night sessions!

  I also need to say a big “Thank You” to my agent, Marisa Corvisiero who believed in my work from the beginning and encouragement me during the writer’s block times and everything in between.

  Chapter One

  I walked up the steps and into the cramped room. I no sooner had both feet in the door when my bladder let me know it was full, in no uncertain terms. I needed to go – NOW - and I had only been on the scene for three seconds. Figures.

  No time, I told myself. There is work to be done.

  I wasn’t able to concentrate. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the work to be done. I tried to figure out why. I knew. It was my way of procrastinating.

  Back to the job at hand. Focus.

  I looked around. It was dark. I could hear the humming of the generator as it powered up the lights. The sight before my eyes was almost indescribable. I took a moment to gather myself. I had to get myself into my character, so to speak.

  I pulled out my notebook to keep notes of what I saw. But it was too loud around me. I needed everyone to clear from inside this tiny room. Too much distraction, too many moving things walking around and trying to keep their stomachs where they belonged and not add to the mix of already putrid things on the floor.

  “Everyone needs to clear out for a spell. I need to be alone with the scene to process it. Please, give me five.” I yelled out.

  There were no arguments. Quicker than the urge to pee had hit me when I arrived, I was alone.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My nasal passages were swamped with smells of death, rot, mold and a few other things I couldn’t quite identify. I slowly opened my eyes. It was only as the blurry visions came into focus that I was able to see the truly horrible scene.

  Blood was everywhere, and I mean everywhere. On the floors, the walls, the chairs, table, the sink, the stove, the refrigerator and even on the ceiling. There were dead rats, cats, and pieces of animal legs scattered around. There were nooses hanging from the exposed beams and meat hooks as well. Rabbits and squirrels hung from some of them.

  “This gives a new meaning to a work-from-home slaughterhouse,” I said to myself.

  I pushed the notebook into my kit. There just weren’t any words. I grabbed the camera hanging from my neck and began to focus the lens. I snapped pictures of everything.

  In the corner was a small closed door. I made my way to it. With great effort I pulled it open and stepped inside. I wish I hadn’t.

  The first thing I noticed was there was much more light in this room than the last. It was so bright, in fact, that it took a few seconds for my eyes to re-focus. When they did, I knew that the extra lighting was for effect.

  On the small bed in front of me was a body – I knew before totally seeing her that it was a she and that she was dead. Her ankles where bound to the footboard posts. The bed was caked with dried blood. Her hands were bound to the posts of the headboard. Her naked body was covered with a white sheet only. Her curves were as visible as if she wasn’t even covered. Her head was covered with a pillow. Her neck had been sliced wide open. Her wrists, too. Her abdomen had an incision that had been hand-sewn closed with big stitching. Between her legs lay a dead baby, the umbilical cord still attached.

  All of my superiors used to tell me that
I would always remember my first dead body on the job and I would always remember the worst smelling one. They were right.

  I wanted to puke right there.

  I closed my eyes and composed myself.

  I walked to the top of the bed to remove the pillow from her head. Her blonde hair was matted with blood. She was facing away from me, her eyes open still, and I could see the fear and hurt in them. I looked across the room to where her final vision was. My knees buckled.

  A small crib was against the wall. Hanging above the crib was a mobile, and in the center of it hung small blonde-haired little girl. She couldn’t have been more than 2 years old. Under her dangling feet was her stuffed teddy bear. I knew she had been holding it before her neck snapped.

  Suddenly, without warning, I fell to the floor. I winced. I consciously gagged on the screams that were building in my throat. I fought back the tears that blurred my eyes. I knew the others didn’t know about this. The door I pried open had been closed for a good while.

  I began to scan the room to see if I could notice anything that would lead us to the horrible monster who called this place home.

  The room was simple with a hardwood floor. There was a nightstand by the bed that only held a lamp. I walked between the bed and the crib; there was the body of a dog that had meant to protect his girls. The dog had been ripped to shreds. I couldn’t imagine who could do this. This was beyond a who; no human in his right mind could do this. The one responsible for this or even capable of this was beyond mental.

  I turned to go back to the door to begin taking photos, but could not move. Through another doorway I saw him. He was trying to smile. That is what stuck out the most in my mind. He was hanging in the middle of the tub; a chair lay on its side in the tub and he looked like he was trying to smile at the image he saw through the doorway.

  I screamed.

  I woke myself from my nightmare, screaming. I was covered in sweat. The sheets were soaked.

  My dog, Bullet, had already jumped up on the bed to comfort me.

  Gasping for air I tried to calm myself. I was used to this; this was the scene that had haunted me since I first saw it almost five years ago. I thought the nightmares would eventually go away, but they hadn’t. I thought a hundred miles or so between there and here was a good hiding spot. The nightmares still found me. It sucked.

  I allowed Bullet to lick my face. He always feels better if he thinks he has helped. I got up, stripped the bed of the wet sheets, then myself of my tank top and shorts. I walked a few feet into the master bathroom and tossed the sheets in the hamper and turned on the water in the tub.

  I lit eucalyptus and vanilla candles. The tub was loaded with the hottest water I could stand. I poured in some bubble bath for the hell of it. This had become my “after nightmare” ritual. With my suction-cupped pillow already in place, and my hair up in a scrunchie, I climbed into my claw-foot tub and sunk in. Even if it truly didn’t help, I convinced myself otherwise.

  Bullet turned himself in three circles and curled up on the fuzzy peach- colored rug in front of the tub. In seconds, he was snoring.

  I closed my eyes and slid down far enough to cover my shoulders and let the bubbly hot water work its magic, penetrating deep in my blood-starved muscles.

  About halfway through the process, I was startled by my alarm clock. I hadn’t even bothered to look at the time. I now knew it was 7:00 a.m. What day was it? I thought for a minute. Friday. Today was Friday. I had 45 minutes to get Mattie and her things ready for the weekend with her father.

  Declan was taking her on an adventure this weekend. They were going to go camping by a waterfall, which had a beach and woods nearby to explore. He had asked if I wanted to join them, but I politely declined. Mattie was so looking forward to going. She was becoming a true tomboy, even at the young age of 4. She was the only little girl I knew who, with pigtails and a mini-skirt, insisted on wearing work boots.

  “Ya never know what you’ll need to walk over, Mommy,” she told me once when I questioned why she wanted to wear her work boots with a pretty sundress.

  Mattie wanted to know all about snakes and fish and “crocs” and insects, just like her hero, Bindee Irwin. And Declan was the one who could teach her; that was for sure.

  I smiled at the thoughts in my head. I rose from the tub and pulled the plug. Bullet was up and wagging his tail. I wrapped myself in my favorite pink micro fleece robe, blew out the candles and left the bathroom to turn off the music spewing from the alarm clock.

  Just down the hallway was Mattie’s room. Her door was closed as I had left it last night. Bullet beat me to the door and was jumping up and down trying to reach the door knob. Poor guy didn’t know he’d never reach it, nor would he know what to do if he did reach it.

  I knocked gently on the door before opening it. When I looked in, Mattie was sitting in the middle of a haphazardly made bed, staring at me.

  “A nutter nightmare, huh, Mommy?” she softly asked.

  “Just a bad dream, doll-baby,” I answered as I joined her on her bed.

  “Same one?”

  “Yep.”

  “You okay now?” she asked as she reached out and took my hand.

  “I’d be even better if I had a big hug and kiss from my favorite daughter.”

  She nearly knocked me off the bed with a huge hug. She squeezed as tight as she could, nearly choking me, then pulled back and planted a kiss on my cheek.

  “I’m your only daughter, Mommy! There, all bedder, right, Mommy?” she whispered, although she really wasn’t asking me. Before I could reply she was off the bed and giggling, with Bullet nipping at her heels.

  She turned to me and stated, as matter-of-factly as she could, “It’s been three sleeps since Daddy promised to go on our adventure. He’s coming today, right?”

  I was amazed. When had she learned how to keep track of days? Did I miss something somewhere?

  “How do you know this?” I asked her.

  “Simple, Mommy. When I told Daddy you taught me to count, he told me the secret of how to know when things were going to happen,” she began to explain. “He told me that, since I could count, if I wanted to know when something was going to happen I could make lines and count them when someone says something is going to happen in so many days. See, look.”

  And with that she ran to the small table beside her bed and pulled open the drawer. She pulled out her doodle pad. She brought it over to me and opened it.

  “See, Daddy told me after three sleeps we would go on our adventure. Every time after that when I woke up, I put a mark on the paper. Today is three,” she pointed to the paper and then looked at me. “One, two, three.”

  “Wow. When did you get so smart?” I asked and pulled her in for a hug. Amazing. I was at a loss for words, stunned.

  We went downstairs and had breakfast together. Mattie talked on and on about what she and her Daddy were going to do and what she wanted to see, and asked if she could take pictures of everything so that when they got home she and I could add pages to her scrapbook. She talked so much that I barely got a word in edgewise. The phone rang, interrupting our conversation.

  “Hey, Kid,” the husky voice greeted through the phone.

  “Ugh,” I rolled my eyes and sighed. This wasn’t going to be a good phone call.

  “Now, now. Well, okay you might be right with your quick assessment. Come on, Cianna, cut me some slack, will ya?” the voice begged.

  “What Sam? What?” I demanded.

  Sam was not a good ex-boss, but I did have to give him credit, he was a good uncle. As a boss, he wasn’t half bad either.

  “All right, listen. I know better than to ask you for help. But I have to ask you to arrange for me to see her… ” Sam’s voice trailed off as he waited for me to unleash my anger on him.

  “No,” was all I decided to give him. I was still too exhausted from the nightmare and I needed all my energy to deal with Declan.

  “Call Declan,” I yelled and slam
med down the phone.

  The phone rang again. I knew it would. I walked down the hall and up the stairs back to my room.

  The phone stopped ringing. Then from far away I heard Mattie’s giggle. Crap, I kept forgetting she was getting older and more independent. She had answered the phone for the first time last week and had been doing it ever since, if I didn’t beat her to it. I hung my head and went back downstairs.

  Giggling still, Mattie looked up at me. “Hold on, Uncle Sammy. Mommy’s here.” She handed me the phone and skipped into the den to find Bullet.

  “Sam…”

  He cut me off. “Listen, Kid, I am under strict rules that Declan is unavailable for the weekend. His cell phone is sitting here on my desk. I need help. Mattie said you had another nightmare. I’m sorry. Can I help?”

  “No, Sam. It was just a nightmare. I refuse to think about it in the light of day. And I will not involve Mattie in any of this. I know I have taken extreme measures to protect her, but she is my baby and that’s my job,” I began.

  “No need to go into that Cianna. I know. I am glad you are letting Declan stay involved with Mattie. He is a good man and he loves you and Mattie more than his own life. You know that.”

  “Yeah, Sam, I know. I just can’t for me. For Mattie, I would never hurt her by keeping her father away. No matter what happened between me and Declan.”