Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh Vanguard

It was Preston’s habit to visit a site on the first day that work was to begin. He’d done it with his very first project, and over the years what had begun as a display of involvement for his men had turned into a superstition, one that he had never taken lightly or ignored. No matter how busy he was, Preston made a point to show up on that crucial first day and remain for at least a few hours. After day one, his visits were sporadic at best—unless there was a problem.

Turning away now from his new pride and joy, he left the door of his truck open as he looked at the foreman rushing toward him.

Judging by the expression on Javier’s face, there was definitely a problem.

How could there be a problem? Preston wondered. The workday was barely a couple of hours old.

This morning the demolition ball had mightily swung into the rear wall of what had once been an elegant structure. When the Old Aurora Hotel had first gone up, it had been the first of its kind, not just in the newly formed town, but in the county as well. George Aurora was said to have worked on the building himself.

A great many people in and around Aurora had fought the historic hotel’s demise, wanting to preserve the sprawling three-story structure for a host of reasons.

But, as was often the case, money trumped history and sentiment. The land on which the old, boarded-up hotel stood was worth a fortune. Aurora had grown from a small, three-traffic-light town surrounded by farmland to a thriving, ever-expanding city. A city where, it seemed, everyone wanted to live.

Land was at a premium, and an old hotel that was no longer of any use became a casualty of that siren song. Decisions were made, money changed hands and the hotel was to be demolished to make way for a brand-new, state-of-the-art residential development.

After a run of bad luck and investments that hadn’t panned out, Warren Preston was counting on this development to put his construction company back on the map—and in the running for more construction bids farther down south.

That was why everything had to go smoothly with this job.

“Javi, I’m late for a meeting. Can’t this wait?” Preston asked impatiently. With one foot still in his truck, Preston was ready to take off the second his foreman backed off.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Javier answered.

The foreman’s stance and his body language made clear that he was waiting to reenter the building he’d just vacated—but only with his boss in tow.

“What’s with the long face, Javi?” Preston asked, resigned to the fact that he would be late for his meeting. Leaving his vehicle, Preston closed the door. “Buck up—this is the first day of a brand-new project. Everything’s still fresh and new. Hell, man, you look like somebody died.”

“That’s just it, boss,” Javier answered solemnly. “I think somebody did.”

Bushy eyebrows drew together above small brown eyes, looking for all the world like two caterpillars awkwardly attempting to rise up as Preston glared at the man who had worked for him for over fifteen years.

“What the hell are you talking about, Hernandez?” he demanded. “Who died?”

Rather than answer, Javier was beckoning for his boss to follow him.

Taller than Preston and leaner than his boss by half his weight, Javier had a lengthy stride that put more and more distance between his boss and him. Clearly agitated, Javier seemed to be restraining himself from breaking into a run.

Hernandez insisted, “You have to see this for yourself.”

“See what?” Preston snapped, trying to catch up with the younger man. “I don’t have time for guessing games, Hernandez,” he warned.

“It’s not a game, boss,” the foreman assured Preston. “I only wish it was.”

He brought the construction company owner into the rear of the hotel that had been designed to emulate an elegant Southern mansion.

The dining room had been considered exceptionally stylish and upscale in its day, but time and the elements that had seeped into the structure had not been kind. The expensive wallpaper that had graced the walls had long since begun peeling.

Standing in the doorway, Preston fisted his hands at his ample waist as he irritably scanned the area. Daylight was coming in through the hole where the wrecking ball had made first contact.

“Okay, so what’s this big emergency?” Preston demanded.

“Right there, sir.”

Javier pointed to the reason he had urgently called for both workers and machinery to come to an absolute grinding halt. To the right of where the wrecking ball had left its first startling imprint, knocking down part of a wall, what looked like a skeletal hand reached up out of the gaping hole.

Chapter 1

Major crimes detective Jackson Muldare had just exited the southbound 5 freeway when he felt the inside pocket of his sports jacket vibrating.

Again.

He didn’t need to pull his cell phone out to know who was calling. It was either his superior, Lieutenant Jonathan Cohen, or the lead homicide detective he was going to be working with at the latest crime scene. Either one of them undoubtedly had the same question for him: Why wasn’t he there already?

There was a simple answer for that, but not one he was willing to go into right now.

Just as he was leaving his apartment, he’d got the call to head out to the Old Aurora Hotel. Although he’d said he’d be there, his first destination of the morning wasn’t the site of the old hotel, or even the police precinct. Instead, he’d headed to the Safe Haven Rehab Center. Not because he wanted to but because he had to.

A police detective’s salary—at least an honest one’s—only stretched so far, and he had already paid the monthly fee for his father’s room at Happy Pines, the board and care facility where his father had been living these last three years. Jackson was consequently late with his payment to Safe Haven, the rehab center where Jimmy was currently staying.

He made it to the center with his check by the skin of his teeth. Though sympathetic, Alice Harris, the administrator who was in charge of the center’s business office, had told him that if he hadn’t come through with the payment by the end of this business day, Jackson’s younger brother would have found himself back out on the street.

Jackson had paid the woman, telling her solemnly that it wouldn’t happen again. He’d left quickly before his temper got the better of him and he said something he couldn’t take back. He was well aware that Ms. Harris and the center held all the cards, forcing him to keep his thoughts to himself. He was doing his best, but the money he earned only stretched so far, and on occasion, he came up short.

There were times, Jackson thought as he turned on the siren and flashing lights that allowed him to cut through the city’s traffic, when he found himself almost regretting that he’d turned his back on a life of crime.

Almost.

In his teens, the guys he hung around with in his old Oakland neighborhood had all dropped out of school and declared that staying on the straight and narrow was only for gutless losers. The thinking back then was that guys with guts could find all sorts of ways of gaming the system, lining their pockets with money and achieving the good life at the expense of others.

More than a few of his so-called friends ridiculed him for his choice to actually work for the money he brought home. But crime had never been an option for him. Jackson had people to take care of.

His mother had walked out on the family when he was ten, and his father, Ethan, although a kindhearted, loving man, had also been a functioning alcoholic who anesthetized his sense of failure with any bottle of alcohol he could get his hands on. He wasn’t choosy. Anything would do. Eventually, Ethan Muldare ceased functioning and just devoted himself exclusively to drinking.