The Haunted Hideout

By Doris Hale Sanders

Ed & Penny Wroe and six-year-old twins, Andy & Candy, live near Fordsville, KY in a haunted house they found in the first book in this trilogy, "The Haunted Hideaway." Daughter Crissy lives nearby with new hubby, Johnny O'Reilly. Ed & Johnny have a new employee in their carpenter business who ends up being shot. A long-lost aunt discovers she can communicate with the Wroe's resident ghosts. The twins find their very own ghost and Shadowhawk needs their help badly. These ghostly happenings along with heroin smuggling, murder, crooked cops and scheming politicians, one planned pregnancy and another definitely unplanned along with a mature but very sweet romance, spice up this thriller which switches locales between Laredo, TX and the Kentucky Haunted Hideout.
Coming soon: the third book in the trilogy, "The Phantoms' Refuge."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Doris Hale Sanders
• Release date: Feb 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301063444

Doris Hale Sanders

I was born Doris Bishop and grew up the middle daughter of Jim & Annie Bishop in a small village in the southern end of Breckinridge County, Kentucky. I went to a two-room school there at Glen Dean until high school. I graduated from Breckinridge County High School in 1953. I married and raised three children. In 1974 I was hired as Cloverport Municipal Clerk-Treasurer and spent 24 years in that position. In 2001, I married my second husband, Don Sanders, who encouraged me to pursue my dream of writing novels. My first book was published in 2003. As of 2012, I have published a total of 15. I enjoy writing, reading and music. And living with my husband on a few acres of land just south of Cloverport.

Book preview

The Haunted Hideout

By

Doris Hale Sanders

Copyrighted 2006

By

Double DD Enterprises, Publisher

2638 Tar Springs Rd.

Cloverport, KY 40111

Smashwords Edition

ISBN #: 9781301063444

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any means now known or hereafter devised without the written permission of the above-named author & publisher is forbidden.

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

The Haunted Hideout is the second book in a trilogy of the Wroe Family Ghost Stories. The first e-book in the trilogy was The Ghostly Hideaway and was published January 17, 2013. The third book, The Phantoms' Refuge, should be available in the next few weeks.

Cast of Characters

Ed Wroe – A cabinet-maker with a family who lives in a haunted house and an employee who is a candidate for murder.

Penny Wroe – A 41 year-old mother of three who isn't sure if she's sick, pregnant, or going through menopause

Andy & Candy Wroe – Ed and Penny's six-year-old twins who find their very own ghost, Shadowhawk.

Crissy Wroe O'Reilly – discovers she is expecting Penny and Ed's first grand child.-Also witnesses a murder.

Johnny Wroe – Works with father-in-law, Ed, and about to celebrate the first anniversary of his marriage to Chrissy.

Lydia Thorne – Johnny's grandmother.-Can life really start at 81 or is the end near?

Raymon Mendez – former drug smuggler and being sought by gang members because he quit.

Pablo Alvarez – He wants to do the right thing but it could cost him everything.

Jorge Laquidera – Jorge is his name; heroin is his game; and if he lets one get by with quitting, they might all quit.

Bernie Tavelerio – detective extraordinaire and determined to get his man.-He hates drug runners and crooked cops and has to deal with both.

Wilhelmina Foster – Aunt Winnie finds her long-lost family and then discovers she has the ability to communicate with her niece's resident ghosts.

Lester Finkley- Sheriff of Webb County, Texas.-He started out looking the other way then discovered he was in somebody's way.

Colton Keenan– What do you do when you realize your boss is crooked and you have no idea who you can trust?

Chapter One

Good & Bad News

It was her one-year anniversary.-Chrissy had become Mrs. Johnny O’Reilly one year ago today—Valentine’s Day.- The life of the attractive nineteen-year-old brunette had changed dramatically, not that she had been seriously underprivileged.-Her father, Ed Wroe, made a good living as a cabinet-maker and her mother, Penny, had been a beautician back in Fairmont, North Carolina.-Now that her twin siblings had started to kindergarten at the Ohio County Elementary School, her mother was thinking of going back to running a beauty parlor.-She had been exploring commercial spots in Fordsville, Kentucky, where she could set up shop.-She hadn’t found anything yet but she was still looking.-No, Chrissy hadn’t felt deprived, but she had a lot of advantages with Johnny that she had never expected to have at home.-The trailer where they were living now was quite nice, but Johnny O’Reilly had wanted a real house for them to live in.-So, soon they would be moving into their new home with three thousand five hundred square feet of floor space, four bedrooms, a library/office, utility room, walk-in pantry, dining room, four bathrooms, walk-in closets all over the house—well, Chrissy still couldn’t believe it.-It wasn’t fancy but quite utilitarian, spacious but still homey.-Now they would need to add another room but Johnny didn’t know it, yet.-She’d tell him tonight as an anniversary surprise.

Chrissy’s gift to Johnny for their First Anniversary would be a ribbon tied around her tummy with a bow in front up near her navel.-She had checked three times to be sure; but the little testers she bought at the drug store all three said pregnant when she did the test.-Actually, she had bought four but she was sure enough after three so she figured she would take the other one back to the drug store.-She was so happy her hazel eyes were fairly shining and she was sure Johnny would be thrilled, too.-She would have to wait to tell him until they went to bed, though.-She could almost see the dimples deepen and the sexy way his blue eyes would light up when she told him.-She wondered if the baby would inherit his fiery red hair and freckles.-She rather hoped so; she thought they were sexy, too.-She knew Ramon Mendez would be there for supper and it would probably be late when he retired to the bedroom at the far end of the trailer to sleep.

Ramon had come to her father looking for work while she and Johnny had been on their honeymoon in Ireland almost a year ago.-He had seemed to be willing to work hard and he appeared almost desperate for employment.-His clean-shaven appearance, the neat haircut and respectful demeanor had impressed Ed and Ed had really needed the help, so he had hired Ramon.-At that point, Ed had been busy remodeling the west side of his own house to close up the secret passage way that had been built on that side.-He was leveling the floor, putting in closets and book cases where the secret passage had been and installing recessed windows with window seats in each of the two bedrooms and a supplies storage cabinet in the bathroom all on the second floor.-It surely did look good and Ramon had been invited to occupy a room on the third floor while he was working there at Ed and Penny’s.

The four turrets that towered upward above the level of the roof top let the house look more like a castle than the plantation house the rest of it resembled.-Two of the towers stood up from the second story level and the other two were attached at the third story level.-They stood like sentinels keeping watch over the house that local historians said had been built in the early seventeen hundreds.- The Wroe family had discovered almost from the moment they arrived that it was haunted.

The Wroes hardly even noticed any more, though, when the ghosts acted up; but Ramon seemed to be a rather nervous individual anyway and one night after the door slamming and nocturnal crying went on most of the night, Ramon said he just couldn’t stay there any longer. The Wroe family could certainly remember when the ghostly activities had bothered them a lot, too.-In fact, they had called the house they had found accidentally when they were lost in the rain, their Ghostly Hideaway. Ramon offered to stay in the barn or Ed’s woodworking shop or just about anywhere in order to keep his job but he refused to sleep in the house even one more night.-By that time Johnny and Chrissy were back from Ireland so they told Ramon he could stay with them.-He slept at the opposite end of the trailer so he didn’t bother them much at all; and it was the only decent thing for them to have done.-The nights were still usually pretty cold in March and last year it had seemed even colder than usual.

It had taken several months to complete the renovations on Ed and Penny’s house; but Chrissy’s mom and dad were quite pleased with the improvements.-By that time Johnny had the blueprint drawn up for his and Chrissy’s new house and they immediately began work on that.-They hadn’t been able to work straight through on either of the homes because when Ed and Johnny got a job to do with their cabinet-making business, they had to take time out to do those jobs.-They always found jobs that Ramon could do on Johnny or Ed’s place because Ramon didn’t seem to want to be out in public at all.-So things were going rather slowly but surely.

Chrissy was already totally in love with the house design.-But they would have to make room for the nursery.-It couldn’t be very small either.-There was always the possibility that Chrissy could have twins as her mother had.-Andy and Candy were delightful if slightly boisterous and Chrissy didn’t know if she could handle raising twins like them or not.-But if that’s what the good Lord gave her, she’d do her best.-Maybe she would only have hers one at a time.-The nursery, though, would need to be large enough to accommodate a multiple birth anyway.

After Ramon had gone to his room that evening, Chrissy and Johnny prepared to retire as well.-Chrissy, as she had planned, went into the bathroom and tied a green strip of ribbon around her middle with a bow in front and wearing nothing else, she paraded into their bedroom.-With a sexy leer on his face, Johnny asked if that would be his anniversary present.

Yes, Chrissy answered, but I’m not sure you understand what it represents.-If you’ll notice, the bow isn’t down here, she moved the bow several inches lower, but up here.-She moved it back up to the region of her navel.

Johnny wasn’t getting the picture at all, at all, to use his Irish brogue.-I think I like it better where it was before.-He still looked a little puzzled.

Chrissy clasped her hands together and mimed the back and forth motion of rocking an infant.-Finally Johnny got it.

"We’re having a baby?-We’re pregnant?-Oh, Chrissy, are you sure, Honey?-A baby?-I can’t believe it.-We’re going to have a baby!-That is a surprise and a half.-That might be almost as good as the other ribbon placement.-He leered at her again and she slapped at him playfully.-That doesn’t have to come with a choice does it—one or the other?-Because, well,—"-The bow was mashed very flat very quickly.

They had been married a year already but they were still very much in love.-Chrissy had known almost from the first time she had seen Johnny swinging across the yard and whistling a lively Irish tune that she would fall in love with him.-She loved his dimples and his red hair and freckles; she loved his Irish brogue and well, she was just plain crazy about him.-He had thought she was the cutest thing he had ever seen the first time he saw her, too.-He had noticed her and her family when they first came to the big old house for refuge when they ran out of gas on the back roads near there.-Now, the two families were firmly intertwined with mutual love and respect.-

Ramon had been almost envious of them and their close-knit family.-His own family was back in Nueva Laredo, Mexico, and though they loved each other dearly, they had never had the carefree closeness that the Wroes and O'Reillys had.-Sometimes his father could find work and other times his family went hungry.-That had been why Ramon had gone across the border, got his green card and looked for work in Texas.-He had found part-time employment at a car wash, but it had gone out of business; then as a dishwasher in a small restaurant but that hadn't lasted either.-He had met another countryman, Pablo Alvarez, at a pool hall he frequented and they had become fast friends.-One day, after they had spent the last several days unsuccessfully looking for work, Pablo told him his sister thought she could get them a job making a lot of money with a friend of her husband's.-

They knew it sounded too good to be true and Ramon had been suspicious from the beginning but he had needed desperately to be able to send some money to his family, so he and Pablo had signed on.-It took only a short while for both of them to realize the illegal nature of their activities as well as the danger involved but the boss had let them know in no uncertain terms that trying to back out could be extremely detrimental to their health.

About a week later, though, Ramon had hopped a freight car and headed east.-He had no specific destination in mind—he just wanted to be as far away from the drug smuggling ring as possible.-He had tried to talk Pablo into going with him, but he had elected to stay.-He had first thought to lose himself in a big city, maybe Louisville, but had decided he might be less visible in a rural setting.-He had finally ended up at the Wroe Place and found fulltime work with Ed.-He liked his job and the people and he didn't have to worry where he would be sleeping every night.

*-- *-- *--

Other people were also thinking about where Ramon might be sleeping. As a matter of fact, Jorge Laquidera was most intent on finding Ramon.-He was standing in the large sitting room of a luxurious suite in Laredo, Texas, pointing at a map of Kentucky.-He indicated the area around Hartford and Fordsville with his pointer.

That bastard has to be around here somewhere.-His green card says he is employed somewhere in Ohio County and I want him found.-I must have assurances that he will not inform on any of us concerning the lucrative business we have been conducting between here and Nueva Laredo in Old Mexico.-I want him found and immediately, like yesterday, he reiterated.-He spoke in his native tongue so that he would be understood clearly by his employees most of whom were Mexican.-The ones who were not Mexican had lived near the border long enough for Spanish to be second nature to them.

One of his employees spoke up.-He didn’t really know much about the operation, Boss.-I don’t think he would say anything that would get any of us in trouble, anyway.-Pablo Alvarez was afraid of what might happen to Ramon if he should be found.-He knew that Ramon had gotten involved almost by accident, anyway, and mainly because of Pablo’s insistence.-Pablo had played up the easy money part of the job instead of what the job actually was.-When Ramon found out that they were smuggling drugs out of Mexico into Texas, he wanted out right away.-Jorge, though, told him that if he left the operation, he would be extremely sorry.-At first, Pablo had thought he was referring to all the easy money he would be losing out on.-Now Pablo wasn’t too sure.

He knows too much to be allowed to have the chance to shoot his mouth off and nobody can say for sure that he wouldn’t talk.-I want to be able to convince him that it would be quite unhealthy to let his tongue get too loose.

Pablo said nothing more but he had about decided it was time for him to get out, too, before he got in any deeper.-The money was good, but he and the other men were taking all the risks and Jorge was getting richer and richer because of their efforts.-The heroin they smuggled across the border was worth billions of dollars in United States currency and while Pablo’s take was fairly handsome in pesos, it didn’t go far on this side of the border.

Jorge was talking again.-"We’ll be on a charter jet in the morning; all ten of us.-We’ll put down in St. Louis and catch a commuter plane from there to the airport at Owensboro.-I want the nine of you to go into the area I’ve indicated here and look for work.-You’ll have better access to information if you can interact with other laborers in the area.-You can ask discreetly if there are other Mexican workers in that part of the county.-

Gabbert, you take Matthews and Perez and see what you can find out around Dundee.- Rojas, you and Sanchez and Mendoza check around Hartford.-Garcia, you take Alvarez and Norton and check things out around Fordsville.-I’ll set up a command post at the Executive Inn Rivermont there in Owensboro and I want reports from each of the groups on a daily basis or at least every other day.-Are there any questions?-There seemed to be none, so he dismissed them with a wave of his hand and a reminder.-I’ll see all of you at oh-eight-hundred hours tomorrow morning.

When Alvarez and his buddies got to Fordsville and started asking around about jobs for Mexicans in the area, Frank Tinsley happened to be in town and since he needed help in the log woods, he was glad to put all three of them to work.-Alvarez asked if there were other Mexicans working in the area and Frank said he didn’t know of any.-Frank did deliver lumber for the work on the O’Reilly house but each time anyone came around Ramon managed to be elsewhere—working hard—but elsewhere.-He didn’t seem to want to be in sight when strangers came around.-It still surprised Ed and Johnny that he never went to town.-If he needed something from there he would send by