Price of Blood

AJ McGillan

Description

It was a tradition to honor her parents and previous ancestors who lived in the cabin. When Emily went to the cabin to get engaged, she found a lot more than she had bargained for when she realized that this normal tradition was actually far more deadly. Will she be able to survive the lies when everything she has ever thought about her family implodes around her? Can she trust anyone anymore?

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645365761
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Price of Blood
AJ McGillan
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-11-30
The Price of Blood About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17
About the Author
This is the second novel written by AJ McGillan. As with AJ McGillan’s first book,  Mirror Image , this new book is also based on a dream the author had when she was younger and decided to create a story around it. It has been her dream to write since she was a teenager but only recently was she able to make it a reality.
Dedication
To my husband, Trevor, for his continued support, and my mother-in-law, Dorothy, whose continued encouragement keeps me writing.
Copyright Information ©
AJ McGillan (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information
Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloguing-in-Publication data
McGillan, AJ
The Price of Blood
ISBN 9781643789651 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643789644 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645365761 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020908894
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28 th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10005
U.S.A.
[e-mail]
[phone]
Chapter 1
It was windy; tree branches scratched at the window. The pitter patter of rain on the roof was driving me insane. Something felt wrong. On top of James being late, the night felt eerie. Almost like a scene from a horror movie, the part where the scary music played and you knew something was about to happen. Only this was no movie.
Making my way downstairs, I headed to the front door. I lived in this cabin as a child and even after I moved away, I still came to visit. My dad made sure I came back to visit at least every summer. I glanced at the grandfather clock that stood in the hall as it chimed 4 a.m., James was seven hours late. He had been late before, actually quite often, but never this much. I was getting really worried. I picked up the phone. No dial tone. The storm must have knocked out the line. I rummaged in my purse and pulled out my cellphone. I pushed speed dial 1 and waited for the voice to answer on the other end, telling me that he was all right and worked late. Maybe to let me know that he had car trouble and was staying in the city for the night. Instead, I got voicemail.
“Hi, you’ve reached James Whitfall, of Whitfall and Sons Construction, please call the office during business hours to book an appointment. If you are calling outside of business hours, leave me a message and I’ll call you back… beep …”
“James. Where are you…? I am very worried. Call me please, as soon as you get this. I don’t care what time it is,” I said, concerned and hung up the phone. Opening the door, a shiver ran down my back. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of his headlights coming down the road. Nothing. The wind whipped my hair into my eyes and they started tearing up. I closed the door and locked it. I closed my eyes, trying to stop the stinging. Maybe it wasn’t just my hair hitting my eyes, maybe it was everything else as well. This was not supposed to happen this way.
James was supposed to be on time. This weekend was supposed to be perfect. Special. A candlelit dinner that didn’t happen. A proposal that I knew was coming but he didn’t show up, the adding of the wooden chest to the cabin, I thought, as I climbed the stairs.
I laid back down in bed. The cabin has been in my family for four generations, built by my great grandfather. This cabin was a wedding present to his wife on their wedding day. Since then, every generation of my family was proposed to in this cabin and on the day of proposal, they would put a symbol in the house as a reminder of that day. My dad was the one that added the grandfather clock. My grandfather added the dining-room table and chairs. The tradition was to add something handmade. Store-bought didn’t count and it had to be made of wood. Nothing metal or technology-based was allowed. Dad said we had to preserve the rustic feeling of the cabin. We had to keep it as much to the original as we could.
Dad needed me to keep up the tradition. Normally, the cabin gets passed down to the son. My dad didn’t have any, just two daughters. My older sister moved away when she was 17. I haven’t seen her since. She sent a few postcards from Europe, Australia and five months ago, I got one from Mexico. When she took off, Dad looked heartbroken. My sister and I were drifting apart for years before she left, but I never expected her to take off like that. I told Dad not to worry, even if she didn’t carry on the tradition, I would. At first, he looked shocked when I first mentioned it. But why wouldn’t I do it for him? I knew how much it meant to my dad that the tradition be followed. I think, if Raylene knew what it meant to him and to the legacy of the family, maybe she would have done it. Dad felt it was symbolic, since they had passed on. It was like they could still be there with us, since a piece of what they created had been left there.
Every noise that normally sounded soothing was making me jumpy tonight. The hoot of an owl. The rustling of the leaves in the trees. I pulled the pillow over my face and tried to drown out the noises. It must have worked.
I woke up late the next morning to a crash coming from downstairs. I jumped out of bed and ran to the direction of the noise. Down in the dining room, a large branch had snapped and come through the window and was scraping the side of the china cabinet. It didn’t hold any china, just photo albums. I went outside. The branch was still attached to the tree. I wouldn’t be able to move it; it was way too big. I would have to pick up something in town to cut it up and some plastic to cover the window until I could replace it. I grabbed my phone and snapped a few pictures of it just in case I had trouble explaining the size or where it was wedged. I went back inside and got dressed; I washed my face and tied my shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair into a loose bun. I had brown eyes, long eyelashes; looking at my eyes now, it was very obvious that I did not get a lot of sleep. I was only 5 ' 1 " and had a petite figure. I never minded being short for the most part now that I was older but every time, I complained about it when I was younger, my dad would only say that the best things come in small packages. I would giggle every time he said it. I never believed him. I rubbed some concealer under my eyes and headed into town.
I grabbed some breakfast at Lucy’s and then went to the hardware store.
“Hey, Emily, back in town I see. It has been a long time. How long you here for?” I turned around to come face to face with a tall, handsome man with black hair and green eyes.
“Hi, Adam. Not sure yet, still deciding.”
“Bad storm last night, did you do okay out there?”
“A branch came through the window; I need to get it out and cover it up till I can get a new one in.” I showed him some of the pictures I had taken earlier.
“I can come out and help…if you like. Dad will be here in a couple hours,” he said, handing the phone back to me.
“No, I couldn’t do that to you. I am sure you have other stuff to do.”
“Dad won’t like it if he knew and I didn’t help fix it,” he said, smiling.
“Well, okay, as long as it is not keeping you from anything.” Adam put everything he would need on the counter and rang it up, and I loaded it into my car. I stopped at the liquor store on my way out of town to pick up some beer for him. I figured he would appreciate it after all the work it was going to take to get the tree cut up.
I have known Adam almost all my life. Dad made a joke out of it that during the summers, we were inseparable as kids, I didn’t think it was quite that way. I mean, sure, we did some stuff together. It was not like in a small town like this, you could be too choosy on friends; you just hung out with anyone your age pretty much. Even if we were close as kids, it didn’t last. We grew apart in high school slowly, having different interests. He was a really big help when my mom died. And then, of course, with me moving to the city, and him being here, it was really hard to stay in touch when we had nothing much in common anymore. We had two very separate lives; he never had the urge to leave. A few years ago, I asked him why he stayed. The only answer he gave was that he was waiting. When I asked him what for, he didn’t say anything.
When I got home, I was shocked at the sight of another branch that had gone through the bedroom window. My bedroom. If I had been in there…
It was a rather large log cabin, had three bedrooms. With a beautiful wraparound porch. The living room had a vaulted ceiling and was very spacious. Next to it was the hallway leading to the back of the cabin leading to the bathroom, laundry room, a small storage space along the right side, on the