Martha Holmes Mysteries 1: The Lost Girls: Martha Holmes Mysteries, #1

By Lavinia Thompson

Private investigator Martha Holmes is falling out of love and back into her life – or so she thinks, until a decade-old missing persons case comes her way. Four teenage girls have been missing for ten years, and their families have never given up looking. Desperate, Thomas Remmy turns to Martha, relying on her solid reputation to find some answers about his sister.

 

Martha isn't so sure she can carry the weight of these girls' lives and what their disappearances have done to the community, especially when she discovers there are more victims. The shambles of her marriage have left her uncertain of her capabilities and unsure of who she even is. She elicits the help of her best friend, Daisy, to ensure the community hasn't forgotten Ottawa's lost girls. Is there a chance to find them alive, still, or will Martha deliver the news she dreads most? As she sorts through leads that aren't what they seem, and as more lives are endangered, it becomes apparent this suspect hasn't forgotten the girls either – and might not let Martha get to the truth, or to them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lavinia Thompson
• Release date: Mar 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201621513

Lavinia Thompson

​I am a 31-year old author who wants to share the worlds inside my head with everyone. The theme woven through my books is survival. We survive adversity, trauma, hardship and obstacles every day. I survived a decade of child abuse and domestic violence. I want fellow survivors to know they aren't alone. You matter. It is okay to hit rock bottom, to fall, but we don't need to unpack and live there. Writing is what helped me survive, and continues to do so. It has been my life-saving foundation while struggling with mental illness and PTSD. Now, I want the worlds inside my head to reach you. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

I t was fun.

The moment my husband said those words, every gale of anger was verbally beaten out of me. The anguished storm within me dissipated and blew away. I stood there, mouth hanging open, the air stolen from my lungs. Fists still clenched. If the aftermath of a tornado felt desolate, I was there.

Is that all you have to say to me? I said, my words shaking.

He picked up one of the boxes I had thrown towards him. What else is there to say?

Tears stung my eyes. I struggled to take a breath through the rage building up once more. You cheated on me, and all you’re going to tell me about our marriage is that it was fun? Are you kidding me?

He threw the box against the brick wall of the house. The contents rattled. You’re the one who ended this! What more do you want? he yelled.

Some accountability! I shouted. You thought you could run around with her and I’d never find out? You think I wanted to end this? That I’d just take you back? Jesus Christ, Darren, after ten years you’d think you could be an adult and admit you cheated instead of living in denial.

Well you’ve lived there for long enough, haven’t you? Some private investigator you are.

Forgive me for believing in your better side. I see it doesn’t exist. Not anymore.

Before I burst into sobs, I turned to the open trunk of my car, pulled out his last two duffel bags and threw them at his feet. I hope you’re happy with her. She’s all you’ve got now.

I slammed the trunk and got into the driver’s seat, refusing to look in the rear view mirror. Tears soaked my face before I  turned off the street and headed to the highway.

I’d never tell him how much I wept when driving away from him that day. From us. From our dreams, our marriage. The sunset drenched the sky in auburn, lilac and magenta hues, his hometown becoming a dot on the horizon.  Fragments in his hands where I left my heart. My cheeks were soaked in salty tears and I bit my bottom lip to keep from breaking down completely. I had to get away from there. Far from him. Back to my own walls.

I’d never tell him how he’d destroyed me with three words said so dismissively.

"It was fun."

Alone. It’s what we become after a relationship ends. I stared down the highway before me, so hard and emotionless, oblivious to the journeys travelled upon it, the luggage and empty coffee mugs. Where had it all gone? The bliss, the adoring gazes, that particular closeness one feels with a beloved spouse.  Where did it go when it was all over? You can’t refill it like an empty mug. It filled heart, mind, and soul over years and holidays and family functions and quiet times at home. It was supposed to be more than fun. It should have been an entire life together. Something with meaning. It should have mattered. Why had it only mattered to me? Why had he dismissed it so easily? How long had I no longer mattered to him?

I’d never tell him how I pulled over about a half-hour from home on the side of the highway. Hands draped over the steering wheel, Andra Day blaring in my ears from the stereo, staring into the merging colours of the sunset tinted with faint indigo. The sun and moon met in the sky, waiting for me to get it together enough to keep driving. My gaze lingered on the space between them, that nothingness into which I longed to disappear.

There had to be something ahead. What if there wasn’t? What if that was my one and only chance at love? Of anyone ever accepting me? How the hell did I start all over at thirty-three years old?

Going forward was the only way to find out. If the day and night could meet in a beginning and ending each dawn and dusk, then I could find a point where my past and future could also make some peace.

Chapter 2

Photographs immortalize time. Two people, hanging onto a dream, staring into each other’s eyes while reciting vows. His black tuxedo. My white rockabilly swing dress, glittering beneath the sunshine, and red hair done up with pearls and flowers creating a crown, the veil cascading from it. Those contagious smiles. My ocean-blue eyes drowning in the earthy tones of his adoring gaze. We had each other, for better or for worse. We’d have no one else.

At least, that’s what I believed. I had believed in forever. Never had I dreamed I’d be free of him. I never wanted to be. Standing in my living room, staring at that photo I’d displayed proudly on the wall for seven years, I couldn’t believe it was over. No longer did I recognize those bright-eyed twenty-six-year-olds ready to take on the world together. Beyond that frame, everything changed. But that moment, one of unbreakable bliss, lived on.

He loved me, once.

Would I ever know such joy again? Was there life after this? Or did the entire world fade from the strokes of passion to hues of mediocrity and melancholy?

Our life together had existed within these walls. Every moment, be it small, blissful, passionate or sad, lived here. I dwelled with the ghosts of us while he lay down beside his new someone. All I could do was wait for something to change that fact, for my heart to somehow reassemble from the shards he’d left it in, for him to wake up and say I was dreaming. But the truth I had to accept was he’d stopped loving me months ago.

I fell to my knees, tears spilling from my eyes, sore from weeping. Silence descended around me. Emptiness. Loneliness.  Somehow, I had to start over when I didn’t even know how to move on from a memory.

Why hadn’t I been good enough for an amicable breakup, for honesty? What had I done so wrong to drive him to someone else? What had she done so right to draw him from his marriage?

I hadn’t been enough. Nor had love.

Shadows crawled across the floor when orange and gold hues faded to blues outside. I lingered in that spot until my phone beeped with a text message. With eyes red and puffy, I glanced down at the name on the screen: Daisy. With shaking hands, I clumsily entered my password to unlock my phone, only to find a few messages I hadn’t noticed come in, all from Daisy:

Are you home yet? How did it go?

Martha. Talk to me if you aren’t driving. Been worried all day.

Martha? Girl?

Don’t make me send a search party!

With a deep breath, I replied: 

I’m home. It’s over. It’s really over. I couldn’t even hold my marriage together. I’m useless.

I set my phone down, wiping tears away. The overwhelming weight of sorrow and devastation immobilized me. My spot on the floor felt like the only place I could exist without breaking. Like the world outside the walls around me barely existed and I remained a mere shell of who I thought I was.

My sobbing eased off when Daisy replied:

YOU ARE NOT. STOP. Do you need me to come over? I’ll grab vodka.

I quickly sent back:

I need hugs, vodka, and you. So yes. Come on over.

Silence washed over me again. Here, at rock bottom, I knew something more had to exist after this. But what? I hadn’t fathomed a life outside of my marriage. Somehow, Darren did, leaving me with so many questions.

How did one live with a spouse and still long for someone else? If one promised their life to someone, and only that person, why cheat? No one deserved this overwhelming sensation of doing something wrong and not knowing what, of not being good enough for anyone ever again, of feeling ugly and insecure and thrown away. No one.

His continued to echo in my head, tearing me apart every time they came back:

"It was fun."

Maybe for him and his extracurricular activities. I’d given him every tender touch, every whispered secret, every inch of my body and heart and soul and he yanked the rug from beneath me, only to leave me with one casual, haphazard remark. How did foundations become dust? Where did it start and when? Maybe I’d never know.

About a half-hour later, a knock came at my door. I barely acknowledged it. Daisy let herself in. The clinking of a glass bottle on the table alerted me to her presence.

She said nothing as she rummaged around my kitchen for the cocktail shaker and two glasses. I listened to the ice hit the shaker, her mixing then pouring the drinks. After setting the glasses on the coffee table, she sat beside me on the floor, cross-legged. Her dark-brown eyes drifted up to the wedding photo I still stared at, eyes red and face tear-stained.

You know, girl, she said, handing me the cocktail glass, isn’t it funny how the floor is also where you found me when Steven and I broke up a few years ago?

I gave a weak smile as I took the glass then nodded. The image flashed into my mind: poor Daisy, heartbroken and curled up on her kitchen floor, sobbing.

Well, she continued, here we are again. You, me, and a floor. I know how this feels—like the world is ending. Like you’ll never love again; no one else will ever love you. But you’re a damn good woman. Someone someday will worship the ground you walk on and you deserve no less. You basically did the same to Darren all these years and he took it for granted. Just think what the right man will do in response to the passion you put into a relationship.

"I can’t even fathom another relationship