The Last Thing She Said Read online

  The Last Thing

  She Said

  A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery

  By

  Lauren Carr

  The Last Thing She Said: Book Information

  All Rights Reserved © 2019 by Lauren Carr

  Published by Acorn Book Services

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author.

  For information, call: 304-995-1295

  or e-mail: [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Designed by Acorn Book Services

  Publication Managed by Acorn Book Services

  [email protected]

  304-995-1295

  Edited by Jennifer Checketts

  [email protected]

  Cover designed by Warren Design

  ASIN: B07SJGJRCJ

  Published in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  The Last Thing She Said: Book Information

  Cast of Characters

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Check Out Lauren Carr’s Mysteries!

  Attention Book-Clubbers!

  It Came Upon A Midnight Murder

  Cast of Characters

  The Geezer Squad

  Christopher Matheson (Chris): Widowed father of three girls. After his father’s sudden death, he retires from FBI and moves to family farm in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

  Doris Matheson: Chris’s widowed mother and grandmother to his daughters. Director of the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library. Her late husband was Kirk Matheson, captain of the West Virginia State Police’s local troop.

  Sterling: Eccentric German shepherd. Retired law enforcement canine. Banned from local casinos for cheating.

  Helen Clarke: Lieutenant in charge of homicide with the West Virginia State Police. Divorced with one daughter, Sierra, sixteen years old. Chris’s girlfriend.

  Francine Duncan: Retired investigative journalist from the Associated Press. Divorced children and grandchildren living with her.

  Jacqui Guilfoyle: Retired medical examiner from Pennsylvania. Widowed with no children. Lives alone in elegant home on a mountaintop overlooking Shenandoah Valley.

  Bruce Harris: Retired state attorney general. Owns a winery in Purcellville, Virginia. His wife is an architect with her own firm in Leesburg. Has son in law school—much to his disappointment.

  Ray Nolan: Established cyber warfare task force after 9/11. Retired from Homeland Security after he took a bullet in the back from a home-grown terrorist. Lives with his daughter and her family.

  Elliott Prescott: Founding member of the Geezer Squad. He could tell you what he did before he retired, but then he’d have to kill you.

  Characters in Order of Appearance

  Mercedes Livingston: Award-winning, international best-selling author of The Last Thing She Said, a novel said to have changed the mystery genre forever.

  Lacey Woodhouse: Mercedes’s college roommate. Her murder changed Mercedes’s life forever.

  Robin Spencer: Grande dame of mystery. America’s answer to Agatha Christie.

  Leah Woodhouse: Lacey’s mother.

  Gavin Fallon: Event coordinator. He and his ex-wife, Patricia Baker, organized the two conferences in which the crimes had ben committed.

  Sue Richardson: Mercedes Livinsgton’s literary agent.

  Shannon Blakeley: Associate Director at the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library and Doris Matheson’s oldest friend. Her husband recently passed away.

  Billy Blakeley: Shannon’s late husband. The love of her life.

  Emma (7 yrs old), Nikki (10 yrs old) and Katelyn (13 yrs old): Chris Matheson’s daughters.

  Cutie-Pie (aka Chompers): Jack Russell puppy acquired at soccer game. He was free.

  Thor: Female fifteen-pound tan and white rabbit with long floppy ears. Usually seen wearing frilly pink clothes.

  Sadie (Doberman) and Mocha (Golden Labrador): Doris Matheson’s entourage. Sadie is a retired law enforcement canine. Mocha is a retired search and rescue dog.

  George Livingston: Mercedes Livingston’s husband. Became corporate vice president after marrying Horace Billingsley’s daughter.

  Sal Loughlin: Antique book store owner. Expert in rare documents. Former classmate of Lacey Woodhouse. She worked at his store.

  Rick Hunter: Lacey Woodhouse’s former boyfriend. Did he get away with murder?

  Horace Billingsley: Mercedes and Kyle Billingsley’s father. Multi-millionaire.

  Kyle Billingsley: Mercedes’s older brother. Chose to become a talent agent for boy bands instead of following in his father’s footsteps of corporate wheeling and dealing.

  William (Speare) Blakeley Junior: Shannon and Billy Blakeley’s son. College professor and budding novelist. Expert in William Shakespeare, after whom he was named.

  Ripley Vaccaro: FBI agent. Chris’s former partner.

  Kevin Crane: Original lead detective in the Livingston case. Owns a prestigious private security and investigation agency.

  Patricia Baker: Event coordinator. Partners with Gavin Fallon, her ex-husband.

  Lucille Del Vecchio: She was on the fast track to becoming vice president until George Livingston married the boss’s daughter.

  Mac Faraday: Retired homicide detective. On the day his divorce became final, he inherited $270 million and an estate on Deep Creek Lake from his birth mother, Robin Spencer. Married to Archie Monday.

  Archie Monday: Former editor and research assistant to world-famous mystery author Robin Spencer. Mac Faraday’s wife.

  Gnarly: Mayor of Spencer. Mac Faraday’s German shepherd.

  Otis: Overweight squirrel. Gnarly’s frenemy.

  Adam Buttwrinkle: Town council chairman. He’s a politician. That’s all you need to know.

  David O’Callaghan: Spencer’s chief of police. Mac Faraday’s younger half-brother.

  Storm: David’s Belgian shepherd. His constant companion. She’s not a police K-9.

  Tamara Dawson: Lacey Woodouse’s cousin. Decades later, she
is still seeking justice for Lacey.

  Caroline Andrews: Patricia Baker’s sister. Does she know anything that can help our detectives?

  Joshua Thornton: Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney. Grew up in Chester, West Virginia, and knows everyone. Widowed with five children. Remarried to Cameron Gates. They share an adopted daughter.

  Cameron Gates: Lieutenant with Pennsylvania State Police homicide division. Married to Joshua Thornton. They have an adopted daughter Isadora Thornton.

  Isadora Thornton (Izzy): Cameron and Joshua’s fourteen-year-old daughter. The light of Irving’s and Admiral’s lives.

  Irving: Thornton’s twenty-five pound Maine Coon cat. Black with a white stripe down his back, he resembles a skunk.

  Admiral: Thornton’s enormous Great Dane-Irish Wolfhound mix.

  Tad MacMillan: Joshua’s cousin. Caroline Andrews’s doctor.

  Serendipity: Artist and art teacher. She regularly visits Caroline Andrews.

  Epigraph

  You might not make it to the top, but if you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.

  Tony Hawk

  Athlete

  Prologue

  Hill House, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia - Forty Years Ago

  Seven-year-old Christopher Matheson gazed longingly at the bright sunshine outside the window. The petals from the spring blossoms blew past the window and off the cliff on which the grand hotel rested. From there, they did an acrobatic dance down to the railroad bridge crossing the mouth of the Potomac River.

  Perfect day for playing softball. With a sigh, Chris rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his chin into his hands. And I’m stuck in a stuffy hotel listening to a bunch of grown-ups talking about books! No fair! Since he couldn’t hit anyone, he delivered a punch to his knee instead.

  A second later, he felt a jab in his ribs.

  “Sit up,” Doris Matheson ordered in a murmur.

  He dragged his gray eyes from where he was staring at the floor to where his mother watched him from her seat next to his. She narrowed her eyes to gray slits. He returned the glare.

  With her blond hair and tall slender build, Doris Matheson stood out in the conference room filled with librarians, book sellers, mystery authors, agents, and publishers. In her mid-twenties, her appearance did not fit the stereotype of a librarian.

  To Chris, she was Mom. At that moment, she was a mean one, too.

  It was the first sunny Saturday after a month of rainy weekends. Chris had planned to meet his friends for softball, but those plans were dashed when a wild pitch shattered his great-grandmother’s turkey platter.

  It’s a given that pitches can go wild sometimes. When they go wild in the formal dining room, bad things happen. This time, the casualty was an antique turkey platter and Chris was sentenced to a Saturday of being dragged from one boring speech about mystery novels to another.

  With a heavy sigh, Chris sat up and looked around the banquet room. Rows upon rows of cushioned chairs filled the room. Each one was occupied with an attendee of the mystery authors conference. Those unable to score a seat stood in the back or sides of the room to see Mercedes Livingston.

  Chris Matheson had heard the name repeatedly. His mother had been excitedly looking forward to hearing her speak at the conference being held only a couple of miles from the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library where she worked as its director.

  A huge poster on the stage next to the podium displayed the cover of Mercedes Livingston’s book: The Last Thing She Said.

  Chris had heard of the book, which didn’t involve baseball, football, superheroes saving the world, or horses. Based on the cover, that of a chalk outline of a woman who Chris assumed to be dead, it wasn’t about anything he would ever be interested in.

  As the woman at the podium continued to speak, Chris tried to tune in to what she was saying. Mystery … puzzles … crime … murder is the greatest puzzle of all … she droned on and on. Every word she said flew over Chris’s wavy auburn hair.

  The woman on the stage was pretty—much like his mother. Her long thick hair was darker—more of a brownish-bronze—falling in thick waves to her shoulders. She wore a gray suit with thick shoulder pads, which accentuated her slender waist, and a short skirt. From his seat in the front row, Chris caught a glimpse of her long legs—made longer by her high heels. He had to guess that she was slightly older than his mother. By how much, he was unsure. It was hard to tell with all the make-up she wore.

  In his childish imagination, he imagined her as a robot. Beneath the perfect hair, the perfect figure, that suit and long legs, she was a robot—reciting the speech of an automaton.

  “How much longer is this going to take?” he whispered to his mother.

  Wordlessly, Doris shot a glare to answer his question. As long as it takes.

  With another sigh, he returned to looking out the window.

  In the VIP parking across from the hotel’s main entrance, a red Camaro IROC-Z shone in the sunshine. The fast-looking sports car appeared ready to soar down the road. He closed his eyes and envisioned himself behind the wheel of that beast—racing out of that dry stuffy room.

  “What advice do you have for new authors looking to find their voice?” The grating voice of a man sitting behind him shattered Chris’s fantasy.

  She’s taking questions! That meant they were almost over.

  “My best advice is to find out what you love and pursue that,” Mercedes said in a tone that struck Chris as firmer than during her speech. “This is your life. In comparison to eternity, we aren’t here that long. We have a finite length of time to make our mark and then our lives are over. That is certain. One day, it will end. Don’t deny yourself of love and happiness for the sake of those who are incapable of reciprocating it. When you find love and happiness” —she clenched her fist—“grab onto it, hold it tight, and never let go.”

  The robot was gone. There was an emotion on her face that had not been there during her speech.

  “What inspired you to write The Last Thing She Said?” a woman directly behind him asked. “Was it the Lacey Woodhouse murder case?”

  The author’s face turned white.

  Chris turned around in his seat to look at the woman who had struck fear into the heart of the author.

  She was an older woman with long unkempt hair the color of straw. Unlike the other attendees thrilled about the gathering to share their love of mystery novels, this woman exuded an air of discourse.

  “What’s the Lacey Woodhouse murder?” Chris heard his mother ask the person sitting on the other side of her.

  “That’s Mercedes’s college roommate. She was murdered for real,” was the response.

  A stocky woman with a cloud of salt and pepper hair swirling about her head hurried onto the stage and took the microphone. “Thank you very much for that inspirational speech, Mercedes. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for more questions. Mercedes will be signing copies of her blockbuster book, The Last Thing She Said, in the bookstore. It’s currently in post-production for a major motion picture! Look for its release this December!”

  Immediately, hotel staff shot into the room to gather chairs and set up the room for the banquet.

  Chris’s mother gathered her belongings. She clutched her copy of Mercedes’s book to her chest. “We’ve gotta move fast and I don’t want you slowing me down,” she told him. With that, she sprang from her seat and joined the stampede rushing for the exit.

  Chris watched Mercedes Livingston being escorted off the stage by the stocky woman. The author’s eyes narrowed as she peered in Chris’s direction. He turned around to see that the audience member who had asked about Lacey Woodhouse was behind him.

  Their stare-down ended when a man hurried to Mercedes’s side and grasped her elbow.

  When the author turned he
r attention to him, her face darkened. “Gavin, what are you doing here?” she asked.

  The mob parted to give them space.

  Gavin fell in step with them. “Patricia had an emergency in Shepherdstown. 60-Minutes called us. They have a team in the area and would like to set up an interview with you. What’s your schedule tomorrow?”

  “60-Minutes?” the stocky woman said with a gasp. “That’s huge, Mercedes. You need to make yourself available for them.”

  Mercedes seemed hesitant. “Tomorrow?”

  “I need a copy of your calendar to schedule the interview,” Gavin said.

  “My organizer is in my suite.”

  “Give me your keys and I’ll make a copy of it.”

  Mercedes handed her keys to him and he peeled off toward the stairs. He strode past the woman with the straw-like hair. After he had trotted up the main stairs and out of sight, the strange woman followed after him.

  “Christopher!” Doris tugged on his arm. “Keep up!”

  Chris turned to her only to body slam a woman dressed in a casual pantsuit.

  “Christopher! Watch where you’re going!” There was an unmistakable note of horror in his mother’s tone.

  Chris looked up at the woman. She may have been older—to him all grown women were older—but her beauty was timeless. Her hair was dark auburn. What he would never forget was her eyes—violet like jewels.

  “Oh, Miss Spencer, we are so sorry,” Doris said. “We were trying to get in line for Mrs. Livingston’s book signing and my son—he’s always got his head in the clouds.”

  Chris saw that his mother was one step from bowing her head and doing a curtsey. Who is this lady? The Queen of England?

  “Oh, it’s no problem at all. I completely understand.” Her violet eyes sparkled down at Chris. “Young man, why aren’t you outside playing ball with your friends?”

  “I broke my great-grandmother’s platter. My mom is punishing me by making me come to this stupid conference.”

  “Oh, Christopher! I am so sorry, Miss Spencer, you must excuse—”

  Robin Spencer drowned out her apology with a loud laugh. “I love your honesty, Christopher. I guess you aren’t a murder mystery fan, huh?”