Faded Children

By Jo Beekman

Morgan Knight, law enforcement widow, security company owner and sheriff’s department consultant on occult activities, has her vacation interrupted by her mother, who is determined to track down the source of the unusual grimoire that was found during Morgan’s previous adventure.

Just as the search heats up, her estranged brother Eric contacts her for the first time in twenty years and asks for her help in uncovering what exactly is going on in his new house. He refuses to believe it is haunted, despite evidence to the contrary.

Morgan has friends to call on to help her solve the mystery of her brother’s house, but when she uncovers a cult’s instructions on how to perform human sacrifice during the Solstice, local law enforcement dismisses her claims. As the Solstice grows ever nearer, Morgan feels impelled to stop the ceremony... no matter the cost.

The second book in Jo Beekman's Morgan Knight Mysteries series, 'Faded Children' is a look at how mystery can touch even the most ordinary of people, and how uncovering secrets can be dangerous... and maybe even deadly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Mar 7, 2023

Book preview

Chapter One

There were no tortured teenagers, no dead bodies, and no evidence of any kind of a black magic ritual. Heavenly. So far, she was having a fabulous vacation. The view from the third-floor condo balcony was awesome. Morgan stretched while lying in the lawn chair. The breeze was warm and smelled of salt water.

She was right on the beach and except for a few people walking on the sand, all she could see was ocean. Earlier she had spotted dolphins jumping out of the water but now the water was calm except for the rolling surf. Morgan contemplated getting up and taking another walk or going down to the condo’s pool and swimming a little but decided that both were too much work at the moment. Besides, she would have to braid and tie her thick dark brown hair back before getting into the pool and her other swimsuit fit her not quite skinny body better. Not that what she looked like mattered, but the weight of the water tended to pull the top of the one she was wearing a little lower than she was comfortable with. Definitely too much work. She was on vacation. She could be lazy every day for the remaining eight days if she chose.

Especially after the hectic and sometimes scary events of the last few months. Captain Jack Branigan of the Landis Sheriff’s Department had caught the occult killer who was sacrificing migrant workers to his Palo Mayombe gods but not before she had been kidnapped and almost killed. It all turned out well, but when the staff at her security company, Knight Integrity Security Systems, suggested she take a vacation, Morgan agreed.

Kevin had expected her to argue and was clearly surprised when she didn’t. She had felt she needed a vacation too. She also thought her staff needed one. So, she closed up shop for two weeks so everyone could de-stress and unwind. Just sun, the warm Gulf water, and good food that she didn’t have to cook was already working wonders for herself. She hoped the others were also having a good time.

She was surprised when her cell phone rang. Not only was it the first telephone call she had gotten all week, but it was her mother.

What’s up? Morgan asked curiously.

I’ve been shopping around that weird grimoire you found in that unfortunate young man’s attic, her mother said. I thought you’d like to know I have a few good leads but before I pursue those, I wanted to ask you some questions. Was he in any group? Not necessarily a coven, Thea added hastily, Any sort of quasi-religious group.

That depends on how you feel about the Methodist Church, Morgan said with a smile. He belonged to their young adult group.

Well, that’s not exactly what I had in mind, Thea said, laughing. This book is not for sale anywhere but one of my sources thinks he’s seen something very similar before. He thinks this is an updated version of the book he’s seen.

Morgan sat up. He’s seen it before? That’s amazing.

Well, he thinks he has. I’m going to drive down this weekend and we’ll compare what he remembers to this one. He’s just north of Athens, Georgia, so it’s not that bad a drive.

He teaches at the University?

He teaches philosophy. He was apparently involved somewhat in this sort of thing years ago and he saw something very much like this book at a party at a friend of a friend’s. Now it’s more of a hobby.

Morgan thought about that for a second. Do you actually know this guy? Are you going to have someone with you?

I’ve met him dozens of times and his wife will be there. I’m not going to stay with him—I’m past the age where I enjoy teenage angst and he has four daughters. I’ll send you the address of the Marriott I’ll be staying at. I have another question.

Shoot.

If this young man didn’t participate in any groups other than his church group, did he have someone in his family that did?

Not exactly. Nothing that would use a grimoire. If he did, we’d pretty much know where the book came from, Morgan said.

According to Bart, this type of grimoire would have only been distributed to the group members it was written for. It wouldn’t have been sold anywhere, Thea explained.

Hector and I thought Luke might have bought it at a garage sale, Morgan said. He kept a ledger of his budget and from the entries, he bought quite a bit of stuff that way. Maybe someone left the group or passed away or whatever and his family put it out for sale. Luke’s mother’s family followed Santeria and of course, his cousin was a Palo Mayombe priest. But no coven, as such.

Humph. Thea sounded thoughtful. I’m leaving tomorrow morning. If Bart has questions, I’ll call you but otherwise, you enjoy yourself and relax and I’ll talk to you when I get back.

Be careful and have a good time yourself, Morgan said. Love you.

Love you too baby.

Chapter Two

It felt funny to unlock the office door and walk inside. Two weeks wasn’t really all that long but it seemed like a lifetime. Morgan sniffed the stale air and cranked the a/c down a couple of degrees to freshen it up.

Tish and Kevin came in about twenty minutes later, followed by Hector. Tish and Kevin were a couple, both tall and into physical fitness. They were committed to each other, and Morgan thought they looked like a TV couple; she with her wild curly blonde hair and he with his black hair slicked into a ponytail. He looked Italian, although he swore there was none in his ancestry. Beside them, Hector looked even shorter and plumper than he was, his pale blond hair and blue eyes making him appear younger than his twenty-five years. Julian, their part-time secretary/receptionist, wouldn’t be in until Friday. He was a full-time student at the local college and had finals this week.

Manny came in last, but he had stopped and gotten a box of assorted Danish from their favorite bakery. They sat in the bullpen and traded vacation adventure stories. Morgan’s was short: she had no adventures but since the whole point of lazing around the beach was to have no adventures, her vacation was a success. Manny had the most adventures and the others listened to his tales of being stopped at checkpoints by soldiers who wanted to see his family’s passports and losing the oldest of his four children in a Mexico City street market. Manny had been born in Puerto Rico, but his grandparents on both sides and his wife were from Mexico and he wanted his children to experience their cultural heritage. He considered his vacation a success as well, since he did manage to make it back to Florida with all four of his children and his wife.

Eventually, they broke up the breakfast party and went to work listening to messages and answering the phones. Morgan went into her office so she could access the business email. Morgan had expected the messages to dwindle after people heard the We’re closed until the tenth message, but she hadn’t taken into consideration how the added publicity the Palo Murders as the press was calling them, would impact their business.

Manny stepped into her office and sat down. Kevin and I are going to do first come, first serve except for a few that sound like emergencies, he explained. We’ve got a couple small businesses that have had break-ins and some drunk took out the back door camera at the Pig’s Foot Bar, so we’ll get on those first. I had a message on my phone from a guy on Casper Drive who says he’s had someone peeping in windows at his fourteen-year-old daughter. I’ll shoot you that one so you can tell Captain Jack about it in case they didn’t report it. Kevin’s already on his way over there.

Sounds good, Morgan agreed. We’re going to need another vacation after all this. The office email account is full. Give Hector some of the site visits. He can do those until he gets design work. Give Tish the doorbell installs, and anything else simple that can free the two of you up a little. I’ll take some of those from her once I get my end of things cleaned up.

It’s a plan. Manny nodded, as he got up. I’ll send you the peeper information and then head to the Pig’s Foot. He’s been a great customer and it’s probably only a fifteen-minute job. Catch you later.

The guy with the peeper hadn’t reported it to the police.

He’s concerned enough to pay for a security system but not enough to notify law enforcement? Morgan asked Jack, puzzled. I mean, I know people don’t report stuff they should all the time, but he’s going to put out some serious cash for a system. You’d think he’d try the Sheriff’s Department first.

Jack sighed. You’d think. But it could be he thinks he knows who it is and wants proof before turning him in. Or before he confronts him. A neighbor’s kid maybe, that he doesn’t want to get in legal trouble unless he has to.

I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense, Morgan said thoughtfully. So, you won’t go talk to him?

Oh, I’ll send someone to talk to him and everyone else in his neighborhood. We’ll just say it came in on the tip line and we’re just surveying the neighborhood to see whether it’s true or not. That protects you but it’s also very possible that some of his neighbors are also having the same problem. Sometimes peepers are just curious kids, but some rapists and serial killers got started by peeping girls at a young age. It’s good to nip it in the bud even if it’s just some curious twelve-year-old. It’s still a crime and people are entitled to privacy in their own home. Not to mention the possibility of some poor kid ending up on social media in their underwear or worse because of it.

That would be horrible. Morgan shuddered. And in a small town where it’s likely everyone knows them to some degree if they attend public school.

Yeah, it sucks, Jack agreed. But it beats dead bodies. How was your vacation?

Marvelous. Morgan smiled. Boring and wonderful at the same time. Work, though, is going to be a beast for a few weeks. We’re totally backed up.

Honest money is always good. Jack chuckled. Let me know if anyone reports anything else to you that they should be talking to me about.

Will do.

Chapter Three

When Morgan got home, there was a brief message on her answering machine from her mother. She was back in Georgia, back in the same hotel as before, meeting with the same couple she had met with several weeks ago. Bart had run down a few leads that, while they had answered some questions, weren’t useful in tracing the book. Now they were going to meet and brainstorm some ideas. Oh, and she was going to go back to an antique mall that she hadn’t had time to fully investigate on her first trip. Morgan shook her head. Driving four hundred miles to check out old bottles and dusty bread boxes was something Thea wouldn’t think twice about doing.

She poured a glass of wine while she studied the not particularly inspiring contents of her refrigerator. She had eaten salad for two nights in a row as penance for eating anything she wanted while on vacation, even though that had consisted of a lot of fresh fish. Her freezer contained ice cubes, ice cream, and a package of unidentifiable meat. She took the meat out and tossed it in the garbage can. She finally picked the tomatoes out of her remaining salad and made a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. She made a note to make a grocery run after work the next day. She could probably eat the now tomato-less leftover salad but she was almost out of wine, and that wouldn’t do.

The morning dawned bright and beautiful, and she felt good. Once again, she had slept well and if she had dreamed, she didn’t remember it. Quite a change from the last six months. Occasionally she kind of missed the wolf she used to dream of regularly and sometimes caught herself wondering if he missed her too.

Stupid and weird, but it was true.

Her wolf dreams had started with her standing in a backyard she didn’t recognize, watching dark shapes move across a hilltop that didn’t exist in her area. As the weeks passed, she would occasionally dream about the place and the hill with its wooded slope to her backyard; the dark shapes coming closer until they were clearly wolves. Eventually, they appeared in the yard and chased her into a house she had never seen before. In her last dream, the lead wolf had been curled up on the doorstep looking cold, and, her heart pounding, she had let him in.

Since then, if she had dreams, they were wolf-free. And despite them alternately worrying her and terrifying her at the time, she hoped she would have them again, if only to see what happened next.

Stupid and weird.

In the meantime, she was out of breakfast food unless she wanted to eat the remaining salad, which she didn’t. So, she stopped by a fast-food place and got a yogurt with fruit, a hash brown, and a diet coke. Not the food of the gods, but good enough for a Tuesday morning.

Even though she was early, she was the last one at work. And the only one there. Tish had left her a note that the guys had all left on jobs, and she was leaving with Hector to be a second pair of arms for him. Tish was almost six feet tall, and Hector was five foot seven a good day so Tish was going as a ladder substitute.

She had just thrown her breakfast trash away when the front door buzzer tinkled. She hurried out to the front counter, where she should have been in the first place and was surprised to see a man lay ten dollars and change on the counter and turn to walk away.

Good morning! she said.

The man stopped and turned. Smiling at her, he said Thea Bonnaire overpaid for her newspaper ad and told me to leave you the money instead of refunding it to her. I can show you the invoice if you like. Ms. Bonnaire already has it.

No, that’s ok, Morgan said, a little confused. Thea’s my mom. She bought a newspaper ad down here?

Yep, well, over the phone. She didn’t come in personally. Is there a problem with leaving you the money? You’re Morgan Knight, right?

Yes, Thea’s my mother, Morgan said again. No, it’s fine. I’m just not used to having people come in and just leave money on the counter for no apparent reason. You have a great day.

Yourself as well, he said as he opened the door and left.

Ten dollars and thirty-seven cents. She’d have to call her mother that evening and see what was going on.

Chapter Four

After some chitchat about the antique treasures her mother had freed from thrift store bondage, Morgan asked her about the ad.

Did Norman give you the change? Thea asked.

Yes, he did, Morgan said. Well, I assume it was Norman. How did you meet him? I didn’t know you had friends here.

I met him over the phone when I called to place our ad, Thea explained. He seemed like a nice man, and I thought that maybe you should start meeting a few.

Morgan mentally slapped her head. Her mom had been matchmaking. She had been married to Chris for six years and it had been over a year now since he and his K-9 Rambler had been shot and killed in the line of duty. She had totally forgotten this aspect of her relationship with her mother. She had probably overpaid for the ad on purpose.

I’m really not interested in dating anyone. Morgan sighed. And right now, I really don’t have time. Really. We’re swamped at work.

All the more reason you should get out with new people once in a while, Thea said firmly. Have some adventures. Safe ones, she added hastily. Not like last time. You almost gave me a heart attack.

Morgan knew from experience there was no winning this argument. She had, in her mom’s opinion, been late to marry, which probably had something to do with her mom’s not so subtle attempts to hook her up with someone. Not that she would ever hurt her mom’s feelings by telling her so. So, she changed topics.

What does the ad say?

Well, it was actually my idea, but Bart’s wife helped, Thea said proudly. And if I do say so myself, it’s a great idea. It’s going to run all week and again the following Sunday. Even people who don’t read the paper everyday usually get the Sunday edition. It’ll run on their online paper too. I’ll weed out the replies and then you can do any necessary legwork.

What does it actually say? Morgan didn’t know whether to be enthused about the idea of her doing the legwork, whatever that was going to entail, or be appalled. This is about the grimoire, right?

Of course it’s about the grimoire, Thea said. The ad has a picture of the front of the book and promises a reward for information that leads to its source. I think we did a pretty good description of it without calling it a grimoire. Of course, the young man…Luke was his name, wasn’t it…almost certainly bought it locally. The ad is a large one, so it’s hard to miss. And it says that the original seller may have had some occult or ritual items for sale also. Anyone owning a grimoire probably had other things.

Morgan thought about that for a long second. That actually sounds like a good idea. She heard her mom humph and had to laugh. Well, it does. Did you mention that it was probably bought in a garage sale?

Well, we called it a yard sale, but they’re virtually the same thing. Yes, we did. And we said that it was probably sold around two years ago but could have been sold a few months before or after.

That sounds right, Morgan agreed. He wouldn’t have bought it before his parents separated because until they moved into that farmhouse, he probably didn’t have a place to hide it from his mother. Plus, there’s no evidence he got into the occult until his mom and aunt stopped speaking to one another. Of course, that’s supposing that his cousin, Morgan shuddered involuntarily; Luke’s cousin Dominic had almost succeeded in having her killed, and he fell out about the same time.

I felt it was important to pin at least an approximate date on it, Thea said. Otherwise, I’d have to talk to everyone who had sold a book in your town in the last fifty years. This will narrow it down.

Good idea. So, you’ll want me to go talk to them in person if you think they may know something useful?

That’s the plan right now, Thea admitted. You’re there, after all. Although, I can be if you need me to be. Morgan gave another shudder. She loved and adored her mother, and they got along great—much better when they weren’t under the same roof though. And we think you should look at any ritual or occult items people bought around the same time. If any of them are the real deal, so to speak, they might be from the same sale. Hopefully, someone will remember where it was.

Send me the information you think might be something in email, Morgan requested. I mean, we’ll need to talk about it, but stuff like names and addresses I’d rather have in written form so I don’t screw them up.

Sounds good to me, Thea agreed. By the way, the ad starts running this Sunday so you have a few days to get caught up at work. Love you baby. Be careful. And she hung up.

A few days to get caught up, Morgan mumbled to herself. It had been two and she hadn’t even cleaned out her work email completely. But ok, she sighed to herself. She was curious about the book too. And this, at least, sounded as though it might work.

Chapter Five

To her surprise, she did manage to catch up on Wednesday. Of course, she had eaten lunch at the reception desk and stayed a couple hours late, but being caught up was good. The guys weren’t even close, so she took a few estimate visits from each of them, did those and even managed to install a doorbell camera for a young man who seemed somewhat embarrassed that he had to pay someone else to install what was supposed to be an easy do-it-yourself piece of equipment. She tried to make him feel better by telling him that a lot of people who weren’t used to doing that kind of home improvement hired a professional to do it, but she didn’t think that she had succeeded.

They were normally closed on weekends but Kevin wanted to work so she did too. It bothered him to be so far behind and she could do estimates and easy installations as well as anyone. She could even do the tricky ones, but since it took her twice as long as it did Kevin and Manny, she generally left those to them. Starting Monday, Hector had custom installations to design, so he’d be in the office all day for a while and thankfully Julian had come into work on Friday. With the office manned, she felt much better about going out and doing field work.

She slept in Sunday morning and was halfway through a grilled tuna and cheese sandwich when she saw the ad. Thea hadn’t mentioned that it was an entire page and in color. Anyone browsing through the paper couldn’t miss it. Morgan was relieved to see that the listed phone number wasn’t her mom’s. After seeing the actual ad, she felt more optimistic about the search.

Hector called her later that afternoon.

Holy heck! he said. "I take it that the ad is your