A Grim Telling Read online

  A Grim Telling

  A Ravenwood Mystery

  Sabrina Flynn

  A GRIM TELLING is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s overactive imagination or are chimerical delusions of a tired mind. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely due to the reader’s wild imagination (that’s you).

  Copyright © 2022 by Sabrina Flynn

  All rights reserved.

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  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Published by Ink & Sea Publishing

  www.sabrinaflynn.com

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  Book 9 of Ravenwood Mysteries.

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  ISBN 978-1-955207-27-0

  eBook ISBN 978-1-955207-28-7

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  Book cover by MerryBookRound

  www.MerryBookRound.com

  To Brothers

  the good, the bad, and the ugly

  3/28/2022

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  1. Flight

  2. Pride and Joy

  3. Family Matters

  4. The Whole Truth

  5. Pseudonyms

  6. A Spirited Mind

  7. Just Another Day

  8. A Bad Brother

  9. Burning Words

  10. Trailhead

  11. A Crooked Shadow

  12. Four Horsemen

  13. A Private Audience

  14. Curiouser and Curiouser

  15. The Wager

  16. Out of Mind

  17. That Night

  18. Doves

  19. Tremors

  20. Negotiations

  21. The Damned

  22. Hard Truths

  23. A Hollow Shell

  24. We're All Mad

  25. Umbrella Defense

  26. Writerly Troubles

  27. The Braver Half

  28. Of Like Mind

  29. A Step Behind

  30. Wild Card

  31. Printed In Blood

  32. The Agent

  33. The Hopper

  34. From Bad To Worse

  35. Moon River

  36. No Longer Alone

  37. Tobias

  38. Savage Gold

  39. Cat and Mouse

  40. Hansel

  41. A Grim Trail

  42. Divide and Conquer

  43. Lazy Coyote

  44. Three Little Pigs

  45. A Bitter End

  46. Surrender

  47. Dignified Flight

  48. Ever After

  Connect with Author

  Historical Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Sabrina Flynn

  About the Author

  Glossary

  There is a battle of two wolves inside us all. One is evil. The other is good. The wolf that wins? The one you feed.

  —Cherokee Proverb

  Author’s Note

  This book contains racial terms from the early 1900s. What may be accepted today may not be next year, so I’ve opted to use the racial self-identifiers of the time.

  1

  Flight

  1901

  Moonlight slipped through cracks in a boxcar. Shadow and light danced on the walls, playing over the huddled forms of her children. It reminded Lily of a child’s rotating picture lamp. Tobias had taken refuge in her arms, his head nestled against her breast as he slept. Maddie rested on their sparse belongings, and Josiah slumped against the far wall, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

  Josiah looked up to meet her gaze. His rich black skin blended with the shadows, but his eyes fairly glowed in the moonlight. They were the color of amber, and when joy entered those eyes, they turned to honey. But not lately. The past haunted her older son and tore at his soul.

  Lily turned her face to the distant moon as if it were a touch of sunlight. With the past came memory: a ghost of a caress over her cheek, the scent of summer grass and honey soap, and a deep voice murmuring in her ear. A memory of happiness.

  Josiah Shaw had the eyes of his father. Only they were as grim as his nickname—full of pain and apology. But mostly regret.

  2

  Pride and Joy

  1892

  “I do believe you’ve gotten more beautiful, Mrs. Shaw.”

  Lily smiled at the voice in her ear. “You said that yesterday, Mr. Shaw.”

  “Did I?”

  “And the day before that.”

  “I do not lie.” His voice was rich with warmth. “I was never any good at it.”

  “You haven’t ever tried.”

  Nathan Shaw stared down at her with more love in his eyes than she knew what to do with. Tall grass swayed above the couple. The sound of children’s laughter drifted from a nearby stream, and sunlight sprinkled through leaves overhead, playing over the ebony skin of the man stretched by her side.

  Lily cocked her head. “Is there any sort of disease that makes a man delusional?”

  Nathan sobered with an expression she knew well. She saw it every time a patient came in with some dire illness. The gray at his temples became severe, the creases on his forehead deepened into a scowl, and frown lines emphasized his broad and crooked nose.

  “There is,” he confided. “I’m afraid it’s deadly.”

  She raised her brows as he slid his palm to her pregnant belly. The baby within gave a kick, and Nathan laughed.

  It was a soothing sound that she felt in her bones.

  “It’s called love,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her.

  “You’re a goner,” she murmured against his lips.

  “I’ve made peace with it, Mrs. Shaw.”

  Her stomach lurched, and she groaned against his lips, shifting onto her side to sit up and lean back into his arms. “I haven’t.”

  “How about… Basil?”

  Lily snorted. “No.”

  “Consider the name for a moment,” he urged. “Basil Tiberius Shaw.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Nathan moved his hand to feel the energetic infant kicking a foot against her insides. “He’s trying to break out again, isn’t he?”

  Lily grunted.

  “All right, here’s a name: Atticus Shaw.”

  “How do you know it’s going to be a boy?”

  “I know.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “We’ll name her Angela.”

  “For the sake of our child, I hope it’s a girl.”

  “You got to name Josiah,” he defended.

  “And you gave Grace Madeline Shaw a beautiful name.”

  “But you got to name the hotel.”

  Lily leaned more heavily into him. “If the kicking is any indication, this baby is looking to be more work than running that hotel.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been around to help you.”

  “You haven’t been around to sleep,” she pointed out.

  “Rude of people to get sick on Sundays and in the middle of the night, isn’t it?”

  “They should wait,” she agreed with a laugh. “Josiah has been help enough.”

  A splash attracted their attention. Nathan looked over the swaying grass to where his children played in a stream. Josiah was ten and Maddie was seven, and he couldn’t account for how quickly time flew.

  Maddie had slipped on the rocks and was fighting tears, while her brother tried to drag her out of the water. Nathan trotted over to pluck his daughter from the rocks. “Now what’s this?”

  “A frog scared her, Pa,” Josiah said with a roll of eyes.

  “You said it was poisonous,” Maddie cried.

  “Why would you go and believe anything I say?”

  “Because you’re her older brother,” Nathan said.

  His son looked down at his toes.

  Nathan carried his daughter to the bank and set her down to look at the gash on her knee. He clucked his tongue at blood streaming down her shin. “It’s going to need something real special.”

  Maddie fought back tears as her father dabbed at the gash with a clean handkerchief.

  “It’s not that bad,” Josiah said, crouching by the pair.

  “Are you the doctor here?” Nathan asked.

  “Enough to know she ain’t gonna die.”

  “She isn’t going to die,” Lily corrected.

  “See now,” Nathan said. “You both made your mother haul herself up to see what the fuss was about.”

  “I’d choose your words with more care, Mr. Shaw.”

  He winked at his wife.

  “So what’s it need, Pa?” Josiah asked. “Want me to go catch the frog so Maddie can kiss it?”

  Maddie’s mouth fell open with shock.

  “Hmm, that’s not a bad idea.”

  “I’m not kissing a frog!” the girl shrieked.

  “That’s how I found your father,” Lily said.

  The children fell to giggling when their father made a croaking noise.

  “You sound the same when you sing, Pa,” Josiah said.

  It was Lily’s turn to laugh, only she covered her lips with one hand and rested the other on her pregnant belly. Nathan’s eyes danced as he watched her. He never tired of those dimples.

  “I don’t do this for many patients, Maddie, but you’re special.” Nathan Shaw be
nt down to kiss the cut on his daughter’s knee. “Better now?”

  Maddie gave him a smile that was the mirror of her mother’s as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “You best not do that for me,” Josiah said.

  “Of course not, son. I’ll just have you kiss the frog.”

  Lily eyed a distant three-story building. The Mineral Springs Hotel was her pride. It was nestled in a pine grove with a bubbling hot spring, and while the hotel wasn’t in town, it was close enough to take advantage of the two rail connections. She’d chosen the spot with care. And one day, she’d turn her hotel into a sanatorium for ailing East Coasters.

  She already had a doctor at hand.

  Katherine Lillian Shaw had been born and raised in Nantucket, and later lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where the Quakers believed in social equality and a strong community. Her people had prospered in whaling, then textiles, and running everything from restaurants, hotels, to factories. But New Bedford was established—old brick, old roads, and old money with hotels dating back ages. Land was gold there, and opportunity was expensive.

  But as a Choctaw Freedmen, Nathan could settle in the territory, so they’d chased opportunity to his birthplace with the Five Civilized Tribes.

  “See, you can leave for an afternoon.”

  “The outside’s not up in flames, Nat. But there’s no telling the mess I’ll find inside.”

  Lily’s gaze might be on her pride, but the hotel wasn’t her joy—her joy was with her now. Maddie rode on his shoulders, directing his head like a galloping horse to chase her brother.

  “Wasn’t I right?” Nathan asked.

  “You don’t need to be told that, Nat.”

  “You did marry me for my brains.”

  Lily glanced at his strutting form. Nathan Shaw had a jaw chiseled from stone and was six feet of muscle with long, powerful legs. He looked more cowboy than doctor. But it was his hands she loved most—strong when they needed to be and always gentle when they could be. His hands were as compassionate as his heart.

  “Dr. Shaw!”

  It was a call the family knew well. They went to bed every night expecting an urgent knock, a plea for help, a crying mother, or a frantic husband. Hardly a day went by when Dr. Nathan Shaw was not called away for some emergency. Aside from the medicine men and barbers, he was the only doctor in town.

  The call came from a lanky boy running towards them. Sometimes it was gunshots, fevers, sick babies or even a cow having trouble birthing. This time it turned out to be a busted ladder and a bent leg from a fall.

  Nathan gave his wife an apologetic look as he set Maddie down.

  “I’ll come, Pa.”

  Maddie loved working with her father. Lily didn’t think it proper, but the seven-year-old had a strong stomach and a curiosity for all things medical that bordered on alarming. Lily had tried to teach her sewing, but the child’s efforts with needle and thread looked suspiciously like her father’s sutures.

  “Not today,” Nathan said. “You help your ma with the hotel. Same for you, Joe. She needs help with the lifting.” Nathan bent down to kiss his daughter’s head, then his wife’s cheek. “Time for my hobby, Mrs. Shaw.”

  Rich or poor, he never turned down a soul in need of doctoring. Fortunately, he’d married a woman with a mind for money and business. Her hotel kept the family fed, while Nathan kept folks from an early grave. And she loved him for it.

  “I can always use another chicken,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ten feet away, Nathan snapped his fingers and turned back to his wife. “You’re going to love this one. It’s perfect… Sherlock Shaw.”

  “You’d best get, Mr. Shaw.”

  He flashed a grin before trotting away.

  3

  Family Matters

  1901

  Someone was being rude. Tobias White was being shaken awake by a hand. It was cold and dark, and Tobias groaned out a protest.

  “Too early for chores,” he muttered.

  A click of wheels, a rattle of wood, and rocking… Tobias opened his eyes. He thought he’d been having a bad dream—the one where his family was fleeing Ravenwood Manor in the middle of the night. A dream where he’d had to leave his bedroom, the only one he’d ever had to himself, and his friends Jin and Sarah.

  Only this wasn’t a dream.

  “Hurry,” Grimm hissed.

  His older brother was standing by the door of a boxcar, gesturing him towards the edge. Tobias blinked away cold tears as his mother dragged him to his feet.

  The train was still moving. Tobias peeked around the corner of the open door and saw lights in the distance. Why on earth had they bought tickets for Los Angeles, but then hitched a ride on a boat to Oakland, and had that fellow sneak them onto a train bound for—

  Tobias didn’t know where. He never knew. But they’d made more exchanges like that until he was all turned around—sleeping in barns, a flea-ridden hotel, and even rough one night. He was used to having an ocean nearby to find his way.

  At any other time, with Jin and Sarah, this might have been exciting. Instead, he was terrified. He hadn’t wanted to leave San Francisco.

  “You first, Maddie,” Grimm said.

  “Watch your skirts,” Lily said.

  Tobias watched, open-mouthed, as his boring older sister sat on the edge of the boxcar and leaped off without hesitation. She landed and rolled onto unforgiving ground.

  Grimm tossed out their suitcases, and hopped down. The train was rolling slow enough that Grimm could jog beside it. Lily nudged Tobias towards the edge, but Grimm grabbed him before he could jump.

  Getting handed down was boring. He was eight years old. How come everyone else got to jump?

  Even his mother had jumped. She landed hard, though. And as the train clicked by, Grimm ran over to help her up. “You all right, Ma?”

  “I’m just out of practice,” she said, smoothing her skirts. “And maybe getting old.”

  Maddie came trotting up with their suitcases, and Tobias watched the train disappear into the night. The moon was high and bright, and the air cold enough to make his breath fog. Distant shadows looked like mountains, but the surrounding earth was mostly flat, with a beacon of warm light off in the distance—a city.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Safe right now,” Lily said, taking his hand.

  Tobias let her pull him along, no longer caring where they were going, but brimming with other questions—not the where, but the why.

  When the sun peaked over the horizon and thawed his tongue, he asked, “Why are we on the run?”

  A year ago, Tobias wouldn’t have understood what they were doing, but he was older and wiser—he’d spent enough time with a detective to know they were shaking a tail, as Mr. AJ called it.

  To his surprise, it was Grimm who answered. He hadn’t expected anyone to answer, let alone his near-to-mute older brother.

  “Because of me.”

  “What did you do?” Tobias asked.

  Everyone got real quiet, and Tobias had the eerie feeling he was walking with a ghost family.