Family Skeletons Read online

  Praise for Family Skeletons

  O’Keefe straddles the fence nicely between mystery and romance, keeping the relationship in the forefront but incorporating a genuine puzzle.

  --Kirkus Reviews

  Entertaining thriller is a fun fast-paced tale...support cast is solid while the lead protagonists are a nice pairing of starch and spice.

  --The Mystery Gazette

  The plot of Family Skeletons is good but it is truly the characters that make the book shine.

  --Leslie Granier, Reader Views

  Plenty of action and excitement.

  --Gumshoe

  Nice to have a change from gore and mayhem...a situation Miss Marple would have enjoyed.

  --I Love a Mystery

  Family Skeletons

  Bobbie O’Keefe

  Copyright © 2011 by Bobbie O’Keefe

  All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition 2013

  Dedication

  For families, immediate and extended.

  For all the joys and triumphs, losses and pain, and the love therein.

  Chapter One

  Headlights appeared without warning on the dirt road—on her right where they didn’t belong. Sunny Corday jerked the wheel left and the other vehicle crashed into her right front fender.

  “What the—!”

  Smashing the brake to the floor had stalled the car, but out of habit she switched the ignition off anyway. She couldn’t tell what the headlights belonged to, but it was bigger than her compact and its driver’s door was opening. She threw open her own door but the seat belt wouldn’t let her out. Impatiently, she fumbled the buckle open, narrowly missed falling into a ditch as she exited the car, and then she splashed through puddles on her way around the back of the vehicle.

  The afternoon rain had been heavy, but she’d barely noticed it then. She’d been distracted by a packet of snapshots she’d found in a junk drawer in her father’s kitchen that featured her parents and herself as an infant. Typical of him that he’d put them there. She’d let the discovery hold her up, and had then gotten a late start out of there.

  The driver exited the other vehicle, tall enough to be male, and he looked all in one piece. She shielded her eyes against the glare of headlights.

  “Are you all right?” Yes, it was a male voice, and he stopped at his front fender, giving space to them both. Too bad he hadn’t thought about space before he’d crowded her off the road.

  “Yes.” She clipped the word off, still shaky from the close call. Didn’t he know what side of the roadway he was supposed to drive on? “Can you kill the lights? You’re blinding me.”

  “Is that why you ran into me? My lights startled you?”

  Huh? “Hey, wait a minute. I ran into you? In case you didn’t notice, I was on the road, and you’re...you were...well, where the hell were you?”

  “I was just pulling off the shoulder when you came out of nowhere.”

  “I came of nowhere?” She covered her eyes with both hands. She’d already asked him once, quite nicely, considering the circumstances, yet the lights still glared at her. “Will you please turn those damned lights off?”

  He walked back to the driver’s door, reached inside and the lights mercifully blacked out. “You’ve got quite a mouth on you.” Though he had his head inside the truck, he’d spoken loud enough she’d caught both the words and disapproving tone, just as she was sure he’d wanted her to.

  Well, he had a lot of gall to be so unconcerned about the fright he’d given her. And even more nerve to blame her for his mistake. In the wake of the glare, exploding pinpoints of color now attacked her eyes.

  “I hate to break it to you, Mr. Civility, but my mouth isn’t my only problem.” She massaged her eyes with the fingers of both hands. “Thanks to you, I’m now also blind.”

  She heard his heavy exhale. The man must be feeling really put upon.

  “My apologies,” he said stiffly. “Once you’ve sufficiently recovered, perhaps we could exchange insurance information and be done with this unfortunate encounter?”

  “That’s what you call it? I thought it was a fender bender.” Vision was slowly returning. Water was seeping into her shoe, so she stepped out of that puddle and into another one. The cold water made her think that if she toned herself down, the situation might cool off as well.

  “You scared the hell out of me, mister,” she said apologetically, hoping to explain away her confrontational attitude. And then, too late, she realized she’d stuck another bad word in there.

  “And sent you straight into attack mode?”

  Well, yeah, but...“Me? Somehow I’m in the wrong here?” So much for toning herself down.

  “Actually, you were traveling a little fast for this road.”

  “I know the road and how to drive it. I also know enough not to pull into traffic without first checking for traffic.”

  “If there is any, which—”

  “You still check. You do not blithely assume—”

  “Blithely? Is there really an educated vocabulary lurking in there somewhere?”

  Well, he sounded a little teed off, too. About time a crack appeared in his composure.

  Then, as if he’d also noticed his control slipping, he waggled his hand and drew in another heavy breath. “Excuse me. I admit I erred—”

  “Erred?” This guy’s sphincter muscles must be extremely tight. Though that observation might be considered another example of an educated vocabulary, she decided not to share it with him.

  “And of course I’ll make restitution.” Pausing, he withdrew his wallet from his back pocket. “Here’s my card, and if you’ll give me a moment...” He went back and ducked inside the truck, one of those oversized sport utility vehicles that were so popular, and leaned across the seat.

  She walked forward, hoping to find a dry spot on his side of the road. Which had been hers until the gas-guzzler had bullied her out of it. In the overhead dome light, she noted the meticulous look of the man’s creased slacks and the caked mud on the sides and soles of his shiny black shoes.

  She heard the click when he snapped the glove compartment closed, then he eased out and stepped down, walked to her and gave her what appeared to be a business card. “I wrote down the name of my insurance company and the number of my policy on it. Contact them. I won’t contest anything.”

  Since he was accepting responsibility, she kept her mouth shut lest another bad word accidentally escape.

  He returned to the truck then paused and looked back. “I’m sorry about this. It really wasn’t your fault, and I don’t want you getting into trouble over it.” He hesitated with his hand on the vehicle’s doorframe. “I can follow you home and explain to your parents.”

  “You think?” He wasn’t the first person to make that mistake. She was a quarter inch under five-two and not quite a hundred and five pounds. In jeans and a sweatshirt and her short blond hair probably messy and windblown, she doubted that she was a picture of maturity. She turned her back and splashed through the same puddles on her way around the compact’s trunk, then addressed him over the top of the car. “Thanks anyway, but I’m closer to thirty than fifteen. And if you follow me anywhere, I’ll lead you to the nearest police station.”

  She settled in the driver’s seat. The engine caught on the third try, giving her plenty of time to worry that it might not catch at all.

  He stood watching her. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in position for her lights to also blind him. When he jerked up his hand in a stopping motion, she pressed the button to lower the passenger’s window to half-mast.

  “You forgot to give me your insurance information,” he hollered.

  She glanced at her purse on the passenger’s seat. It’d spilled
over when she’d braked so hard and dumped half its contents onto the floorboard. Much of it was peeking at her from beneath the seat. She tried to think of where in that mess her proof of insurance might be. And this wasn’t her car, and she didn’t even know if she had a copy of the owner’s insurance, or even where the registration was. Oh, crap.

  “I’ll mail it to you,” she called back. He’d given her some kind of business card, so some kind of address had to be on it. And he’d hit her anyway; he was the one who’d erred.

  She pressed the window up, reversed, then shifted into drive and maneuvered the compact around the truck without landing it in the ditch, and then resumed the long drive home—two hours south to San Francisco on crowded Highway One-Oh-One. And wasn’t she lucky; rain started to spatter the windshield.

  * * *

  The next morning, in the parking basement below the condo she shared with him, Sunny stood next to Ryan. They’d been friends since high school and housemates since she’d been released from the hospital four years ago and had started divorce proceedings against the guy who’d put her there.

  “Whoa, baby!” His hands measured the newest dent in the compact’s exterior. The car was the most economical model Reviler Automakers produced, and there were some who claimed that it was made out of plastic and that was why it was so cheap. The ugly implosion was about eight inches in diameter and looked worse in daylight, especially with its owner examining it.

  Sunny winced. “I really am sorry.”

  He straightened and pulled her to his side with one arm. “Sunny, sweetheart, lose the frown. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go out today and get a matching one on the other side.” He stretched his neck to look around her. “If there isn’t one there already.”

  “Wish I could say the other one looks worse, but it was too dark to tell. His card’s in the glove compartment. When you get the estimates, take the most expensive one. Please.”

  “Nah, not worth it.”

  “What do you mean? It—”

  He removed his arm from around her to point at the car. “Look at it, Sunny. It’s a clunker. Before they finally took Gran’s license away, she’d aimed it at everything and anything that caught her eye.”

  “But...”

  “You want to get even with the guy and his tank, you’ll have to find another way to do it.” He gave her a curious look. “Who was he, anyway? He live around there?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t look at his card.” With a shrug, she changed the subject. “Will you give me a ride to the dealership so I can pick up my car? It should be ready.”

  “Nope. Call came in when you were in the shower. A different part was delivered than what was ordered so it’ll be another week.”

  “Week?”

  At her tone he took a quick step back and put his hands up in a defensive posture. “Hey, don’t kill the messenger.”

  “But the only reason I came home was to pick up the car.”

  “I know. Call ’em up and give ’em hell.”

  She waited a beat. “No. Not worth it.”

  He gave her a slow smile. “Is that a touch of maturity I hear?”

  “Whatever you want to call it.” She headed for the stairs leading out of the condo’s parking area, and he fell in step. A gray and white cat was waiting on the other side of the door when she opened it. Sunny blocked its exit with her foot, then scooped it up.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” She ruffled its fur as she carried it to the door marked Manager. A young girl about ten answered her knock. Sunny smiled and handed the cat over.

  “Hi, Anna. Jojo got out again.” She was careful to keep censure out of her voice. “He almost got into the garage.”

  Anna thanked her and was scolding Jojo as she closed the door. Her voice held no censure either.

  Sunny turned and caught Ryan’s grin. Giving in, she returned it. “I know, I know. Rough and tough exterior, marshmallow interior.”

  His grin grew. “A true sign of maturity is knowing oneself.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  They arrived at their apartment, and he unlocked the door.

  “Guess I still need the clunker then,” she said without enthusiasm.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  She led the way inside the standard San Francisco condo, nothing special and not cheap either, but she only had to pay half the rent. Ryan was gay and the best friend she’d ever had. She was straight, but romantically gun-shy, and their housing arrangement had worked well for the last four years.

  He pocketed his keys and sent her a sidelong look. “How’s it going up there, cleaning out that old house? Difficult dealing with the memories?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “What memories come up, I just ignore.” At his silence, she frowned and shook her head. “And don’t look at me like that. I don’t wish to be psychoanalyzed right now, thank you.”

  “Phone hooked up yet?” he asked, proving that a shrewd psychologist knew when not to push.

  “They promised it for today. I wrote down the number for you. Hopefully I’ll find a dial tone when I get back up there.”

  “When do I get to see this place?”

  “When you get the time. You tell me.” She started to enter her room, paused and turned back with a defiant air. “You know what? I’m not rushing back up there. The place can do without me for one day. I’m gonna sack out, just read, maybe cook something special for dinner. What would you like?”

  At his quick grin, she leaned against the doorjamb and laughed. Both the menu and cooking would be on her, of course. Ryan knew how to boil hot dogs and make boloney sandwiches. When she wasn’t around, his diet was quite limited.

  * * *

  In order to beat the heaviest traffic, Sunny was headed north on the Golden Gate at 5:30 a.m. the following day. Her windows were rolled up against the cool morning air that signaled fall was on its way. At 7:15, she steered the Reviler onto the dirt road leading out to Corday Cove.

  When she spied the narrow space on the opposite shoulder, where the guy had been before he’d pulled out and surprised her, she eased over and parked. Then she got out and looked at the tire tracks, hers and his, and crossed the road to peer into the ditch next to where her car had stalled.

  “Ouch,” she whispered. It’d been more accident than design that the Reviler hadn’t teetered into it. One tire track was on the bare edge.

  She looked back across the road. With the ditch over here and the line of eucalyptus trees over there, that was the only place where the guy could’ve parked. But what had he been doing? Reading a map? This road led to nothing but the cove, so he had to have been lost. So he’d been studying a map, turned his dome light off as she approached, then flicked the headlights on as she rounded the curve. With his windows up against the night air, it was doubtful he would’ve heard her car over the roar of the ocean.

  Shaking her head, she put the incident behind her. She looked up at the wisps of clouds outlined in the calm blue sky and allowed her senses to take over. It was going to be a pretty day. A touch of fog, but it wouldn’t last. She concentrated on the salty air she could almost taste, the rhythmic crash of the mighty Pacific, the cold dew on her skin. She loved it and yet she didn’t.

  Three minutes later, she cut the Reviler’s engine at the bottom of the porch steps. Sunny retrieved her suitcase of clean clothes from the trunk. Closing the lid, she stared up at the old Victorian and thought about its previous owner, missing long enough he’d been declared legally dead. And most likely was. Franklin Corday had liked the limelight too much to have willingly stayed out of it for seven years.

  To Sunny, he’d been dead for longer than seven years.

  The house key was oversized, too big for her key chain. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket and mounted the porch steps.

  The front door opened onto a postage-stamp foyer that ended with the staircase, and the narrow hall to the left traveled the length of the house to a huge kitchen. Two exi
ts out the back, one at the side through a utility room, which also held a tiny cubicle that contained a half-bathroom with a toilet that wouldn’t flush, and at the direct rear of the house another door opened out of the kitchen onto a screened porch.

  The immediate room to her left was what was called the parlor when the house was built. The other three downstairs rooms were bedrooms, each with huge closets that had doubled as storage rooms, and every one of them had been crammed full of junk. Sunny had been busy the past week. Except for furniture and basic kitchen necessities, these lower rooms were now empty.

  Her cousin, so many times removed she couldn’t count them, owned half-interest in the house, but she got to do all the work. No real surprise there. She hadn’t yet met a male Corday worth anything.

  She checked the parlor’s phone, frowned when she found no dial tone, then made herself relax. The phone company would get to it. Eventually.

  Upstairs were three more bedrooms, brighter and cheerier and closer to the only bathroom that worked. But it held no shower, only a claw-footed bathtub she’d scoured until she felt okay putting herself into it.

  She mounted the stairs, deposited her suitcase on her bed and then stopped, dead-still, eyes and ears alert. Something was wrong. Stepping back to the doorway, she stood sideways in it, turning her back on nothing. The skin at the back of her neck prickled as she surveyed the bedroom, then the hall leading to the other two rooms, the door opening into the bathroom—

  That was it! Her gaze shot back to the open door leading into the right front bedroom. It was supposed to be closed like the other one. The house was chilly, and she kept the unused rooms closed off to save the meager heat from the floor heater in the hallway below.

  She didn’t own a gun, but she kept a baseball bat under the bed. She got it and crept down the hall toward the door that most probably hadn’t opened itself.

  A prowler must have broken in one of the back doors and was long gone—she hoped—but her heart was beating double time and a chill had settled over every part of her.