Page 8 of In Her Memory

Her mind filled with two images: Piper’s face, finally found after twenty years only to vanish again, and the unknown woman from her dream, desperate for help in the darkness. Two such important issues, making her feel insufficient.

“Where are you, Piper?” she whispered to the empty car. “And who was the woman with the candle? Was it really Donna Marsh?” If it was, then the woman’s plea about finding “who did this to me” made it doubtful that death had been a simple accident.

Jenna finally put the car in gear. Two mysteries, two women who needed her—one she’d spent her entire adult life searching for, and one she’d never met. And somehow, she had to find a way to help them both.

CHAPTER THREE

The county cruiser hummed along the tree-lined road leading to the outskirts of Trentville. Fall had begun to paint the landscape in earnest, daubing the oaks and maples with rust and gold. On any other morning, Jake might have appreciated the view. Today, it felt like driving through someone else’s watercolor. The radio crackled with routine dispatch chatter, but he barely registered the words.

As he took the final turn toward Calloway House, he was trying to push away thoughts of Piper’s disappearance and the hollow sound in Jenna’s voice during their call just a few minutes ago. Her father had told her in a dream that Piper had gone missing. Jake knew it was good that Piper herself hadn’t come to her—that would have meant that Piper was dead. But now Jenna had to deal with the loss of her sister again.

“She’ll be okay,” he muttered to himself, though the words rang hollow in the empty car. Because he knew Jenna better than that. The disappearance of her twin would consume her, just as the original vanishing had shaped the last twenty years of her life.

But that hadn’t been the only dream that Jenna had described. Jake kept mulling over something else she’d told him about her dreams—that she’d met a woman with a candle in the dark, and there had been a barking dog named Biscuit. Did that have anything to do with the death of the woman at Calloway House, the one he was on his way to investigate? He’d been told that it looked like an accident, but Jenna’s dream made him wonder.

The light at an intersection ahead turned red, and Jake eased the cruiser to a stop. Traffic in Trentville was seldom heavy, but today’s delay felt like an eternity. His mind wandered to Jenna—not to the sheriff, but to the woman whose cheek he’d once brushed with his lips. Like their quick hugs and occasional hand holding, that gesture had been impulsive, a moment of warmth after they’d closed a difficult case.

The light changed, and Jake accelerated through the intersection, his thoughts still tangled around the complications of their relationship. They’d acknowledged their mutual attraction, but had decided to put it aside for now. That left so much unsaid between them—professional boundaries blurred by partnership and friendship. He’d come to Trentville seeking quiet after the chaos of police work in Kansas City, not expecting to find someone like Jenna, with her sharp mind and quiet determination. Certainly not expecting to develop feelings for his boss.

And definitely not expecting to find himself believing in the supernatural abilities she’d revealed to him. Those lucid dreams where the dead spoke to her, giving clues that had helped solve more than one case—the skeptical cop in him had struggled with that revelation. Yet after what he’d witnessed, he couldn’t deny the evidence of his own eyes.

Somehow it all made him more eager to pursue the relationship that had barely gotten started. He knew the extent that Jenna felt alone, and was coming to recognize how much he’d like to fill that emptiness in her life and his.

Jake shook his head, remembering his first weeks in Trentville when he’d scoffed at such stories. The locals loved their ghost tales—the old mine shaft where lost souls wandered, the abandoned farmhouse where lights appeared in empty windows. Calloway House topped them all, with its Gothic architecture and storied history.

The mansion appeared around the final bend, and Jake slowed the cruiser. Morning light caught the limestone façade, transforming the building from foreboding to merely imposing. The Shannon estate, built by the coal baron Pete Shannon in 1878, now renamed after its current owner’s family. The irony wasn’t lost on the townspeople: Boyd Calloway, descendant of Amos Calloway, the man Shannon had supposedly cheated and driven away, now owned the very symbol of Shannon’s power and wealth.

Of course, this purchase had rekindled the spookiest legend about the place—that the ghost of Pete Shannon himself still stalked its halls some nights.

Jake pulled into the circular drive, noting a coroner’s van already parked there. The lawn was immaculate, the restored ironwork gleaming, every detail speaking to the money that had been poured into transforming the crumbling mansion into luxury condominiums. Yet something about the place still felt wrong to Jake, as though the building itself resented its modern inhabitants.

He killed the engine and sat for a moment, gathering his thoughts. What would he have made of all this—the supposedly haunted mansion, Jenna’s lucid dream—before he came to Trentville? Before he’d seen the impossible with his own eyes?

“Get a grip,” he muttered to himself, grabbing his notepad from the passenger seat and stepping out into the crisp October air. He told himself not to let his imagination work overtime. Jenna’s dreams were real but that didn’t mean every old ghost story was true.

When Jake reached the front door, he encountered a man in his late forties, his face lined with concern. Jake recognized him from the case file photos they’d pulled after Boyd Calloway reported vandalism last month—Nolan Greer, the building superintendent.

“Deputy Hawkins?” Nolan extended a hand, his grip firm but quick to withdraw. “Didn’t expect the sheriff’s department for this. Pretty clearly an accident, from what I can tell.”

Jake studied the man’s face. “I’m just checking in, making sure everything’s properly documented. Standard procedure.”

“Sure, sure.” Nolan glanced toward the coroner’s van, then back to Jake. “Damn shame about Mrs. Marsh. Told her a hundred times to call me for maintenance issues. Stubborn woman.”

“Mind showing me where it happened?”

Nolan led him into the building, through a grand foyer that maintained much of its nineteenth-century opulence despite the modern security panel discreetly mounted near the restored staircase. Their footsteps echoed on the marble floor, and Jake noted the mix of antique furnishings and contemporary touches—a blend that somehow emphasized rather than disguised the building’s age.

“Mrs. Marsh was in unit three,” Nolan said, gesturing down a wide hallway. “Second floor, east wing. Got the original master suite with the turret. Best views in the building.”

The elevator ride was brief and silent. As they stepped out onto the second floor, Jake could hear the muffled sounds of voices and movement from the end of the hallway. But before they reached the unit, another sound cut through the quiet—sharp, insistent barking.

“That’s Biscuit,” Nolan said with a grimace. “Mrs. Marsh’s dog. Little ankle-biter hasn’t shut up since we found her.”

Jake nearly missed a step. “Biscuit?”

“Yeah, some kind of terrier mix. Been driving the other residents crazy for months.” Nolan didn’t seem to notice Jake’s reaction as he used a master key to open the door to unit three.

The barking intensified as they entered. The condo was tastefully decorated in neutral tones with splashes of burgundy and gold, each piece of furniture carefully chosen and arranged. Sunshine streamed through tall windows, casting long rectangles of light across a plush area rug. A small, wiry Yorkshire terrier darted from behind a sofa, barking furiously at the intrusion. It circled their feet, its entire body vibrating with the effort of its warnings.