The Curse (Seacliff High Mystery Book 2) by Kathi Daley

$2.99 or FREE for Prime Members and Kindle Unlimited Subscribers

Amazon

Alyson Prescott moves to Cutters Cove, Oregon, after being placed, along with her mother, in the witness protection program. In her previous life, Alyson was an A-list heiress with the excitement of a trend setting lifestyle and the security of old money. After witnessing a murder executed by two members of a powerful gang family, she is forced to leave her old life behind and become a middle class girl, living in a middle class town. Alyson struggles with the duplicity in her life as she strives to reconcile her new life with the old.

In book two of the series, two Seacliff High students turn up missing just days before Halloween. The police believe that they have simply run away, but when strange and unexplained things begin to happen at the annual Haunted Hayride, Alyson begins to suspect there may be more going on than the adults in town would like to believe. After they the props and decorations for the annual event turn up missing, Alyson and the gang decide to look into the case of the missing students. Could the two events be connected? And what about the symbol found splattered in blood in the barn where the annual Halloween party is to take place? Could it be connected to the gypsy curse that most believe to be simply a legend?

Book two in the series will also begin to reveal Alyson's past and the reason for her inclusion in witness protection.

Excerpt:

Dreams are funny things. Sometimes they act as a window to the past, where memories, hopes, and wishes lay dormant. Other times they act as a portal to the future, where events wait, suspended in time, for the dreamer to catch up with them. And finally, sometimes a dream is just a dream, nothing more than a motion picture played out in your mind, with connections to neither the past nor the future.

Alyson lay unmoving in the dark room as she tried to steady her breathing and slow her racing heart. She couldn’t help but wonder which type of dream she’d just experienced. It seemed so real. Too real. She knew that the dream didn’t lie in the memories of her past, and she was terrified to consider that it could portend her future.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember how it had all started. The dream was beginning to fade, but she remembered they were locked behind the door. She couldn’t see them, but she could sense their fear, their pain. She couldn’t remember who they were, but she knew she had to get to them before it was too late.

The passageway was dark and narrow. She could feel the walls closing in on her as trickles of dirt rained down from above. She shone her light into the darkness but couldn’t see anything beyond the endless passageway. Who knew how far it extended? She prayed for the strength she’d need as she continued forward, slowly picking her way through the timbers that had fallen during a previous cave-in. Her heart raced as an overhead beam crashed to the floor, blocking her only means of escape.

She fell to her knees and tried to clear the passage with her hands. Her nails broken, her knuckles bleeding, she knew she couldn’t dig her way out but still persisted. Her instinct told her to turn back, but somehow she knew it wouldn’t matter. She remembered her feeling of terror as she realized that the darkness would engulf her, drown her, strangle the life from her body.

Alyson opened her eyes. She didn’t want to relive the rest. She didn’t want to remember that she could feel her lungs labor in the airless chamber as rivers of dirt rained down around her. She’d known she would die alone in that dark grave. No one knew she was there. No one would ever know what had become of her.

Alyson got out of bed and looked out toward the rolling tide. There was light on the horizon, which meant morning was near. Normally Alyson found comfort in the view outside her bedroom window, but today even the sight of huge waves crashing onto the rocky shore failed to bring her peace.

As she watched the sky begin to lighten, she let herself remember the final moments of the dream. She knew the memory would be too terrifying to replay, but as she opened the portal in her mind, she smiled. She’d wakened as the life drained from her body, but in those final seconds, as she’d felt her life slip away, she’d realized that in death she’d finally be free. Until that moment Alyson hadn’t been aware of how much the chase had plagued her.