Skeleton Key Read online

  Skeleton Key

  By

  Jeff LaFerney

  World Castle Publishing

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  World Castle Publishing

  Pensacola, Florida

  Copyright © Jeff LaFerney 2011

  ISBN: 9781937593704

  First Edition Jeff LaFerney June 2011

  Second Edition World Castle Publishing January 15, 2012

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  Licensing Notes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Editor: Beth Price

  Dedication

  Two years ago, while aggressively seeking goals that were 100% my own, I finally realized that my chosen path was approximately 0% God’s. He had shut door after door and frustrated my stubborn pursuits. Finally, I got the hint and plunged into my first book-writing project—except I continued to wonder if I could continue seeking my own goals at the same time. Um, no. As I stubbornly forgot the earlier lessons, God patiently put trials in my life that pointed me back to the computer and book number two. I don’t know what the future holds as far as my writing “career,” but I can say without hesitation that my goals have changed and I’m grateful for God’s direction and patience. I didn’t write this book for me, God. I wrote it for You.

  Acknowledgements

  Well, a second book is done and once again the greatest portion of thanks must go to the Lord. I’m extremely grateful for the ability to write and the ideas that seem to appear miraculously. It is difficult to express adequate thanks when I consider the support and encouragement from family, friends, and other readers of my first book. For those who have partnered with me in the sales and promotion of Loving the Rain, thank you all very much. Jennifer, Torey, and Teryn—I love you. Thank you to my wife, Jennifer, and my friend, Andrea McGlashen, for reading my manuscript for Skeleton Key and helping me put together my final version. Thank you Marguerite Somers for your editing skills and Dave Vinton for your cover design. Special thanks go out to Chrissy (at the Durand Depot) and Dan Brooks who helped in numerous ways answering questions about the Depot, trains, railroad jargon, the railroad tracks, and the town and its history. Dr. Brian Hunter was more than just my forensic expert. It was Dr. Hunter who gave me the idea of how to solve the mystery of Adrian Payne’s death. I am extremely grateful for his help. Finally, I must give enormous props to my friend, Attorney John Folts. John answered all of my law questions, and believe me, I had a lot of them. Thank you so much, John. Your insights, knowledge, and suggestions are woven throughout the book.

  Chapter 1

  The horn sounded, and Tanner Thomas stepped onto the court as a six-foot-two-inch freshman substitute in his first University of Michigan college basketball game. He had missed the first four games because of a sprained ankle. DeMarco Newton, the senior point guard for Oakland University, grabbed Tanner by the jersey. “It’s gonna be a long night, Rookie.” Tanner was substituted earlier than either he or his father expected. It was a Friday in late-November and Clay Thomas, his father, was sitting in the second row of the stands next to his friend, Dr. Zander Frauss. The Michigan Wolverines’ starting point guard, Darius Williams, committed an early second foul and was removed from the game.

  On Tanner’s first possession, he fumbled the ball for a turnover while he attempted to dribble through the lane. “Nice ball handling, Rookie,” taunted Newton. “If you want to see good handles, keep an eye on me. Unlike you, I have some skills.”

  Tanner bit his tongue and didn’t respond. After all, he did just make a turnover. Not a great start to his college basketball career. The Oakland player continued his smack talk as Tanner pressured him up the floor. The dribbler faked a quick crossover dribble and drove right past the U of M freshman, dishing off an easy assist on the play. Newton beat his chest and leaned against Tanner, holding onto his jersey to keep him from getting open. The inbounds passer was called for a five-second violation and Coach Beilein called a quick timeout. “You ain’t no good, Rookie,” Newton taunted. “You ain’t ready for the big time. This ain’t high school, but you still ’bout to be schooled.” Tanner took a deep breath and headed for the huddle.

  Coach Beilein stared at Tanner initially, but then gave him a pat on the butt and said, “Settle down and play your game. We need you out there.”

  As Tanner stepped back onto the court, his father yelled, “Mental toughness, Tanner…and use your head out there!”

  During a short delay while a shot-clock malfunction was being serviced, Newton got in Tanner’s face again. “You can’t stick with me, Rookie. Won’t be long and you’ll be back on the bench where you belong. Gonna be a long night.”

  A frustrated Tanner had had enough of the cocky trash-talker. DeMarco Newton was about to learn a great lesson in humility. Tanner held a finger in front of Newton’s eyes, moving it side to side, slowly and purposefully. “Listen! Look at me! You’ve just lost your confidence, Mr. Upperclassman,” he said sarcastically. “Focus right here, Newton. No matter how hard you try, you can’t keep up with me. And you don’t wanna dribble with your left hand.” With a smile, Tanner added, “Gonna be a long night.”

  Newton’s brash angry eyes immediately took on a look of uncertainty. With the clock problem fixed, the official returned to the baseline and handed the ball to an Oakland player who passed it in to Newton. On his first dribble, Tanner reached for the ball, making a steal and dribbling the length of the floor for a lay-up. Newton was unable to catch him. After the inbounds pass, Newton bounced a left-handed dribble off his foot. Tanner recovered it and passed for a second consecutive easy basket.

  Zander coolly stuffed a handful of popcorn in his mouth and chewed. He said as casually as if he were doing nothing more than watching the clouds float in the sky. “I think Tanner hypnotized him.”

  Clay leaned back just as nonchalantly and put his feet up on one of the empty seats in front of him. “Hmmm. And here I thought his only powers were mind-control and clairvoyance.”

  “Surprise, surprise. I guess he took that ‘use your head out there’ line kind of literally, didn’t he?”

  “Yep, he does tend to think literally.”

  “You have any new powers, Clay?” Zander cautiously asked as Tanner drove past Newton and sank a short jump shot.

  “Mind-control, telepathy, other random extra-sensory messages. I’m starting to get the hang of telekinesis. That’s a new one for me.”

  “Why do you hide these things from me?” Zander asked as he watched Newton pick up his left-handed dribble and have his pass deflected by Tanner for another steal. “You don’t have to go through life alone, Clay. Since your wife died, you’ve pulled away from people. You don’t need to trust only in yourself. You have friends.”

  “Thanks for the lecture, Doc. I’m doing just fine on my own, I think. We can talk after the game, okay?”

  Clay had already said far more than Zander could usually get out of him. He much preferred to not talk about his powers or Tanner’s at all. It was his opinion that the tragic events in his life the past year were because of the misuse of those powers. He and Tanner witnessed the murder of Jessie, Clay’s wife, at the hands of a man that was seeking revenge on Clay because of how he used his power in the past. His wife’s behavior at the time, Clay believed, was also his fault because his dishones
ty had a harmful effect on their relationship. Professionally, Zander Frauss was determined to learn as much from Clay and Tanner as he could, but even though he was their friend, both men were cautious in their dealings with the doctor. So, while he watched his son, Clay just sat back and made small talk the rest of the game.

  DeMarco Newton had a terrible first half and sat out most of the rest of the game, while Tanner continued to impress once he cured himself of his early game jitters. Michigan rolled to an easy victory. At the end, Michigan’s play-by-play announcer, Matt Shepard, described Tanner’s day as “an impressive debut.” While shaking hands at the end of the game, Clay and Zander observed Tanner approach Newton and snap his fingers in front of the Oakland player’s face, releasing him from his hypnosis. “Kind of a long night for ya, wasn’t it?” Tanner quipped with a smile. “Maybe you won’t be so cocky next game. Good luck the rest of the way.”

  ***

  Roberto Gomez and his wife, Stacy, walked away with their three cute girls. The two youngest were dark-haired and dark-skinned and resembled their father very much. Anna, the oldest, who had developed a very close bond with Logan Payne, was fair-skinned, blond, and blue-eyed like her mother. She had the cutest little dimple when she grinned. They waved goodbye and pulled away in their banged-up Ford pickup truck. Roberto was a railway worker at the Durand, Michigan, railway yard. He was hired shortly after his wife was hired to work for Adrian Payne and Marshall Mortonson, co-owners of the Durand Depot and the Durand Railroad. Adrian hired the long-legged buxom blond in 2001 with the intentions of getting more from her than just someone to file, answer phones, and sort the mail. Adrian Payne had a gorgeous wife, but he also had no conscience and cared little about anyone but himself. He liked it when Stacy was happy, so he hired Roberto and made it clear that he did it for her. She seemed pleased.

  Erika Payne and her son, Logan, watched politely and waved as their friends drove off. “They’re such nice people,” Erika commented as they re-entered their home. The Gomez couple had been loading up their children and bringing the Paynes one meal a week for the past seven years—ever since Adrian’s mysterious disappearance after the famous Amtrak train wreck. “Time for dinner, Logan. Set the table while I take this out of the box.”

  Logan was a seventeen-year-old senior who was four months shy of his eleventh birthday when his father disappeared. He had inherited his straight brown hair from his father, but he got his blue eyes from his mother. He had long bangs that hung over and hid those eyes, a hairstyle that symbolized his entire personality. Logan barely talked, had no close friends, and tended to spend more time asleep than awake. His mother was energetic, outgoing, and loving. She had remarkable patience with her son and was the only one able to get him to care about anything at all. She was a five foot three inch bundle of joy with short, curly, nearly white blond hair and the most expressive, beautiful blue eyes imaginable. She was cute and beautiful. She was sexy and desirable, but didn’t seem to know it, and that humbleness made her even more attractive. When her husband disappeared, she seemed to become happier and more content with her life, and those that knew her husband understood completely. Logan, on the other hand, was already introverted before the disappearance, and then withdrew more after the incident.

  Once in the kitchen, Erika began working on the tape that secured the box holding their meal. Logan reacted to her instructions to set the table in the normal teenager way—he didn’t move a muscle. As Erika began picking at the packing tape with her perfectly manicured nails, Logan observed that she was making exactly no progress, and he was hungry. He loved Stacy Gomez’s cheese tortellini with butternut squash. He pulled his jackknife from his pocket and gently touched his mother’s hand—an indication that he would open the box for her. The jackknife was a gift from his father. While most teens carried a cell phone around twenty-four seven, Logan carried his jackknife. He flipped it open, sliced the tape expertly, and pulled the meal from the box. “Thank you,” Erika smiled.

  “Yep.” No eye contact. The knife spun in his palm, clicked shut, and disappeared with the skill of a magician.

  “I believe I told you to set the table.”

  With a subtle nod of the head, Logan did as directed, then sat at the table waiting. Erika sat across from Logan, reached for his hand, and said grace. “Lord, thank you for your love and graciousness to us. Thank you for providing this food. Help us to be your servants, and we ask that you bring someone into our lives that we can show your love to and who might love us back. Amen.”

  Logan squirmed. “Why do you always ask for someone to love us back?”

  A question? A whole sentence. Wow. “We’ve been alone for seven years, Logan. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone that we could share our lives with?”

  “We have the Gomezes, and Coach Duncan, and Morty, and Mrs. Frauss.”

  “Let’s see…the Gomezes are a sweet married couple who have three small children. Dan Duncan is a stressed out egomaniac and your baseball coach when he’s not too busy being a cop. Marshall Mortonson is my boss, and Dr. Frauss is your behavioral therapist. I was thinking more along the lines of a male figure in our lives whose company we can enjoy. Wouldn’t you like to have a father figure around here occasionally?”

  “No.” And that was the end of the dinner conversation. Erika worried about her son. These years without Adrian had freed her to be happy again, but Logan seemed to live in fear of something…something he’d yet to express to a single person in seven years.

  Chapter 2

  Dr. Zander Frauss was a neuroscientist for the University of Michigan’s Department of Psychiatric Medicine who specialized not only in the field of neuroscience but also in the field of parapsychology. He headed a parapsychology laboratory called The Division of Perceptual Studies. Except for his glasses, he looked nothing like a scientist. He dressed casually, combed his wavy blond hair stylishly, and had a strong, athletic frame. Clay and Tanner Thomas were seated in his office, patiently waiting for the good doctor as he agitatedly paced back and forth, eyeing some files he held in his hands. Zander would only glance at Clay when he was willing for Clay to receive a telepathic message. Clay heard, “When will you trust me?...I can’t help you if you won’t include me…Are you ever going to trust anyone other than yourself?...When are you going to use your powers for good?”

  Clay never liked discussions about his powers with Zander, so the silence wasn’t bothering him in the least—and the thoughts he was pulling from Zander’s head were interesting to him. Tanner was texting and seemed oblivious to Zander’s irritation. Tanner was tall, handsome, intelligent, athletic, and had a good sense of humor. His dark, sparkling eyes accented his short, dark hair and ready smile. Tanner never seemed to take his powers too seriously. He reminded his father of Johnny Storm, the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four. He liked that he had powers and was so good-natured about having them that Clay only worried about him doing something immature. He was wondering about the hypnosis thing that he had just witnessed, but he knew that Zander would get around to asking the questions once he stopped fretting about being left out of the loop. He was also curious about the papers that Zander kept eyeing.

  Finally Zander turned to Tanner. “Since when can you hypnotize people?”

  “Oh, you noticed, huh?” He turned to his father. “He was such a jerk, Dad.”

  Clay just rolled his eyes a bit and shrugged his shoulders. It really wasn’t his business, he figured. And not Zander’s either, but when Zander set his mind on something, he was difficult to be denied.

  “Well?” Zander asked.

  “In my psych class, we were talkin’ about hypnotism. The prof had some pretty funny examples. Anyhow, I figured I’d try it and see what happened. So anyway, Big Jake from the hoops team is always comin’ into our room eating our food and smellin’ up the place, so I told him I was gonna hypnotize him if he’d sit still. Didn’t know if I could do it or not. Told him it’d help him shoot free throws better. I grabbed a spoo
n—no kidding—and swung it back and forth in front of his eyes. I talked all calm and stuff. I was watchin’ his eyes and his pupils dilated and started kinda bouncin’ around, so I said, ‘You’re very, very sleepy.’” Tanner laughed. “Stupid words like that, and then I said, ‘Whenever you’re in our room and we say “Jake,” you’re gonna smell a horrible smell. So bad you can’t stand it and you have to leave.’ Then I told him he was a great free throw shooter. He stays out of our room now, and he’s been makin’ his throws.”

  Clay couldn’t help but smile. “That’s not what you did tonight, though. I didn’t see any spoon.”

  “Well, once I realized that it actually worked, I did a little studying. Stage hypnotists usually use short, firm commands because their audience volunteers are already on edge. I figured it might work in front of a screaming basketball crowd too. So I got the dork’s attention basically by shakin’ my finger at him, gave a couple of commands, and I saw the same look that Big Jake had, so I just told him he wasn’t gonna play so well anymore. You saw me snap him out of it at the end, right?”

  Clay nodded. “Any other stories you wanna share?”

  “I had Jake clucking like a chicken in practice yesterday. He was struttin’ around without a care in the world. Thought Beilein was gonna have a stroke, but we were laughin’ so hard he gave us a drink-break instead. Said if Jake wanted to act like a chicken, it was his business as long as he kept makin’ his free throws.”

  Clay laughed, but Zander had other things on his mind. “Did your dad tell you that he’s telekinetic?”

  “Like, you can move things with your mind? Really? That’s so cool, Dad! Show me.”

  Clay usually didn’t feel very comfortable using his powers, but he figured he’d mess with Zander, just for the fun of it. The doctor had been pacing in front of his leather office couch holding what seemed to be important papers in his hands, but when Clay stood up, Zander stopped and stood facing toward Clay and away from the couch. Clay telekinetically used his right hand to start pulling his friend’s file folders from his hands. Zander clearly objected and began pulling back while Clay used his left hand to slide the couch forward several inches. The doctor tightened his grip and with additional effort began pulling back. Clay simply released his “hold” on the files and Zander stumbled back, hitting his calves on the sofa, falling backward, and literally flipping over the back of the couch, papers flying every which way. Amazingly, he managed to land on his feet, his hair flopping over his eyes and his glasses hanging crazily from just one ear. Tanner’s eyes got big until he saw the doc’s face and then he lost it, laughing hysterically. Clay laughed, and then Zander lost all seriousness and broke out in his own laughter.