Raven: A Quinn Summer Mystery A Novel

By Faye Westlake Newman

Raven Knight is one of two teenagers desperately searching for
who they really are. One is adopted; the other doesn’t know
his real name.
Raven remembers an incredibly traumatic experience that occurred
when she was two years old. Later, perhaps because of her name,
she rescues an injured raven that has never left her and somehow
seems to have an ability to communicate with her telepathically
about events that are happening far away from her.
Colin Cameron has moved from city to city for years with a woman
who claims to be his mother but forces him to change his name at
every new city, until finally, he has had enough and turns on her.
Raven manages to catch the attention of police officer Quinn Summer
by passing on the information she seems to receive from the enigmatic
black bird, and begs her to find Raven’s identity. None of them
knows the heartache that comes with knowing the truth of who
these kids are.
Can Quinn handle the demands of her stressful job, respond to the
places Raven sends her and find the answers the kids need before
anyone else dies?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 28, 2025
• ISBN: 9781665776394

Faye Westlake Newman

After growing up on the coast of Oregon, Faye Westlake Newman raised a family there and then turned to a lifelong dream: to be a story teller. Drawing on a history of raising and boarding horses dogs, and children, she puts her experience in small town law enforcement to work.

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Copyright © 2025 Faye Westlake Newman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-7638-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-7639-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025907830

Archway Publishing rev. date:  05/02/2025

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 Dread

Chapter 2 Raven

Chapter 3 Grover

Chapter 4 Homecoming

Chapter 5 Hawk

Chapter 6 Capture

Chapter 7 Crash

Chapter 8 Beth

Chapter 9 Horse Show

Chapter 10 The Johnsons

Chapter 11 Escapee

Chapter 12 Janice

Chapter 13 The Real Raven

Chapter 14 Acosta

Chapter 15 Hospital Visit

Chapter 16 Mrs. Knight

Chapter 17 History

Chapter 18 Prayer For Protection

Chapter 19 Crash Landing

Chapter 20 Life Flight

Chapter 21 Colin Cameron

Chapter 22 Collection

Chapter 23 Guns

Chapter 24 Johnson Getaway

Chapter 25 Help Wanted

Chapter 26 Catching Colin

Chapter 27 Family

Chapter 28 Fair Time

Chapter 29 Raven

Chapter 30 Patrol

Chapter 31 Emil Janssen

Chapter 32 After Words

Chapter 33 Missing

Chapter 34 Marshmallows on a Stick

Chapter 35 Downhill From Here

Chapter 36 Lucia

Chapter 37 Peter Warren?

Chapter 38 Finding the Lawyer

Chapter 39 Busted

Chapter 40 Peter Warren?

Chapter 41 Family Matters

Books By

Faye Westlake Newman

Shaman Series:

The Shaman’s Granddaughter

The Shaman’s Apprentice

Spoken on the Wind

Summer Series:

The Summer Place

The Doppelganger’s Secret

Raven

Prologue

The room was dark. The little girl didn’t mind that. She was used to being in the dark. Her own room was almost always dark when she woke or before she fell asleep. What she did mind was being cold and hungry. The heater was making noise, but the room was very cold anyway.

A little murky light came in the open door, along with a lot of cold. She felt the cold. It chilled her plump little body and made her shiver. It chilled her face and chest where tears had soaked her cheeks and dampened her night clothes.

She had spent what seemed very long trying to get her mother’s attention, crying, calling out, and jumping up and down in her crib. She was barely tall enough to see over the sides of the crib, but her jumping up and down had done something amazing. A corner of the spring under the crib mattress had bounced enough times to come off the hook that held it in place. The corner of the mattress had dropped down, making a sleek track that she slid down, landing gently on the floor in her room. Surprised, she looked around, found the door in the dim light, and went looking for her mother.

Now, she had come down the long hallway to another room. A TV had a snowy screen and made noise that sounded different, but she didn’t care about that. Someone, maybe her mother, lay sprawled in the middle of the floor. The little girl crawled to her, recognized her mother, and lay down on the floor beside her, curling close for warmth. Her mother wasn’t warm, but she felt warmer than the little girl was. She didn’t stir, and the girl cried again, and after a while, fell asleep.

When she woke up, the room was even colder, and more light came through the door. Familiar noises came, like the noise of her mother’s car, only different, and once in a while, she heard a voice.

Her mother was still asleep and all wet, with something red, like the dress on her doll. The little girl gave up trying to wake her mom, and crawled toward the wide open door, through the blood on the floor, and out onto a wooden porch. She got there and sat up, frightened and alone. She cried. Then she screamed and decided to try to go down the stairs. She crawled toward them, but as she reached them, she found herself flying through air, up, up, until she could see the face of a man, a man who held her in his hands in front of him, at arm’s length. He had hair on his face, on his lip and his jaws. He carried her back inside the house. Moments later, he came back out again.

He carried the little girl to the house beside the one where her mother lay on the floor. He knocked on the door and then she knew nothing more. The dream ended.

A black-and-white image of a raven perched on a wooden beam. The raven's glossy feathers and intense gaze create a mysterious and contemplative mood.

Chapter 1

Dread

Q uinn Summer woke on a Saturday in mid-August to an intense

and inexplicable feeling of dread. There was no other word for it. It settled deep in her belly, heavy, like lead. It was a foreign feeling for Quinn. She did what her mother had always taught her to do when something felt deeply haywire. She drew a breath, breathing into her diaphragm. She let it go and took another, and another. The feeling receded a little. She lay exploring it, seeking, testing. No thought came that might explain it.

She was alone in the bed. Hawk had left for work at least an hour ago. His pillow felt cool.

Quinn’s first-floor bedroom windows opened on a fenced back yard. A well-placed rhododendron blocked any view into the room from beyond and above the fence. The house was built on a slope that rose above it, a foothill in the Coast Mountain range that framed the city. The digital clock on her nightstand displayed the time: 8:30 am. She’d gone to bed at two.

A thump drew Quinn’s attention to the window. She got out of bed and went to see what had made the noise. Seeing nothing there, she raised the window and leaned out. It opened over green grass, rhododendrons, and azaleas. A very large black bird fluttered from under a flowered pink weigela, stood up, shook itself, and squawked. Raven? Crow?

Raven, definitely. Straight line from the top of its head to the end of the hooked beak. Its body was easily two feet long, and when it flew, displayed a wingspan three feet wide. It flew to the back of the yard and landed on a tree branch overhanging the cedar fence from the other side, where another raven seemed to be waiting for her.

The incident was odd; the thump she’d heard could have been a meadowlark or even as small as a hummingbird, but not a bird the size of a hawk. Then why had the raven ended up on the ground beneath her window?

Quinn had seen ravens, but not up close. She was surprised at its size and stood musing about it for a minute or two. What had brought the pair to this backyard, and why had it struck the glass?

She closed the window and found clothes for the morning: long sleeved shirt, jeans, boots. The raven remained on the tree branch with the other one as she left the room, brushed her teeth, and ran a comb through her hair. She’d need a shower later, before work. The feeling of dread stayed with her, though it seemed vague now.

Silence reigned in the house. Tess, working the midnight to 8 am shift, hadn’t arrived. Chances were, she’d be breakfasting at Miles’ Diner with the rest of the cops on her shift, laughing and teasing each other over events of the night.

Quinn was scheduled to work the four to midnight shift. Meanwhile, she had some housework that was getting short shrift and a horse and a dog who needed exercise. Maybe some exercise would help her dispel the weird feeling in her midsection. She went to the kitchen and made coffee as Tess arrived.

Good morning, Tess said, grinning cheerfully. Did you get any sleep?

Hey. Enough to get by, given a bucket or two of coffee. Want some bacon and eggs?

Nah. Had some at Miles’, with a couple of the guys. Maybe another coffee, though. I’m not ready to go to bed yet.

Good. We can saddle up and go for a ride. You can exercise Moby.

Sure! I’ll shower off the patrol car sweat while you finish eating.

Quinn grinned. No, Tess wasn’t ready to sleep. Quinn knew the feeling. If the work didn’t wake you, the camaraderie over the breakfast table would. Remembering their start, hers, and that of all of the other rookie cops who had been hired in the spring, she marveled at the attitude changes. Tess, a compact young Black woman, only five two, but strong and athletic, an MMA fighter taught by her father, had been so unwanted that she’d been assaulted, severely beaten, and gang raped by a fellow police officer and two of his friends; the cop and one of the other two were now in prison. The third had pleaded guilty and given evidence in exchange for his freedom. The six officers who were rookies at that time had bonded and persisted, consulting with each other and their training supervisor to learn how to do their jobs to the best of their ability. Life still was not perfect. There were a few holdouts, officers who seemed to resent them for their success. But on the whole, the rookies, all from various minority populations, had been accepted, and worked well with the rest of the department and the public. Each of them had shown their value to the department, some in spades. Lost children found before a cougar reached them, a mother and child hauled out of a fast- moving river current, a cold-as-ice homicide case solved, and more, much more had brought about acceptance.

After Quinn had taken Tess home from the hospital to care for her while she recovered from the beating, the younger woman had been such a good roommate that Quinn had invited her to stay permanently in the old five-bedroom farmhouse she had bought and was still renovating. Hawk had come later, first to exchange work for board, for himself and his horse, and later, to join Quinn in her bedroom when she had fallen in love with the big Indian from a Washington Reservation, and he with her.

Quinn finished her breakfast and went to the barn to feed and tack her horses. Tess was still new to horsemanship and the horse she loved to ride was Quinn’s half shire, half quarter horse who stood as tall at the withers as Tess. She almost needed a stepladder to get on, but she loved the big beast. He was smooth, gentle as a kitten, obedient and patient. Even Hawk, proud owner of an energetic quarter horse stallion, loved riding Moby. Quinn would, except she had loved Kris, her quarter horse mare, more, since her last year in college.

Both horses were tacked and ready by the time Tess arrived. Quinn led the horses outside and gave Tess a leg up on the shire. Quinn mounted Kris, whistled for Grover, her German shepherd, to follow, and led the way around the fenced yard behind the house to a narrow path among the trees and bushes that blanketed the hillside behind the house.

She looked up at the tree that hung over their back fence for the pair of ravens, but they were gone. Oddly, so was the discomfort in her midsection. Quinn glanced back to be sure Tess was comfortable in the saddle. The grin that spread across her face was all Quinn needed to know. She picked up the pace. Ten minutes uphill, Quinn bent to open the gate that gave way to a large field formed by a wedge cut away from the mountainside.

This field had been planted with coastal grass, enough years ago that it was well established, and its thickness discouraged weeds. It was an ideal pasture, with shade trees, repaired fences, and a new drilled well, from which they filled a white cast-iron tub. Quinn, Hawk, Cooper Willis, and Moby had pulled the tub up the hill on a makeshift trailer so they wouldn’t have to carry water twice a day when the horses were in the field. Jason Skye had laughed and called them lazy, though he knew it wasn’t the work they were avoiding by installing the tub, but the amount of time it would have taken to carry water. They all worked demanding jobs that often required overtime.

Inside the fence, Quinn tapped her horse to a comfortable canter and Tess rode up beside her. They circled the field side by side twice before she began to slow, giving Tess time to settle and avoid being tossed over her mount’s head if he stopped suddenly.

She dropped her reins over the saddle horn and spread her arms wide to take in deep breaths of the clean, slightly salty air that reminded her how close they were to the ocean. Indian summer was her favorite season. It was warm and sunny, the sky clear blue, and cloudless. A few deciduous leaves had begun their transformation to glorious color, but most were still green, lighter, and brighter than the dark green of the Douglas firs that covered the hills and ridges surrounding Forest Glen. The dry soil of the ridges, the color of sandstone, pale beige to orange, even to red where they were bare of foliage, sloughed off the hillsides, making treacherous footing for horses. To Quinn, the entire topography of the coast seemed divided between compressed sand dunes and giant rocks, many of which had fallen into the raucous waves that battered the shore. It was home and she had taken risks to be here on the coast, where she’d spent nearly her entire life, and she wanted to be nowhere else.

A loose pile of scat drew her attention at the same moment Kris whinnied, tossed her head, and tried to turn. Grover squatted on his haunches and emitted a low growl that always raised Quinn’s neck hairs.

Quinn made sure her off-duty weapon rested on her hip and dismounted, shushing Kris, and looking around. A whiff of a breeze reached her nostrils and told her there was no need to examine the scat on the ground.

What is it? Ew. What’s that smell? Tess asked. Quinn liked that Tess had learned to be aware of her surroundings out here in the wild, just as she did in town when she worked.

We have company, she said and remounted.

Tess also checked her weapon. So now what?

I think it might be good to go back to the barn. Don’t let Moby run. Just turn back down the trail like nothing’s going on.

Moby obeyed, as always, as did Kris, though both were nervous. Quinn had to call Grover twice. She let Kris move along at a little faster walk and thirty yards down the hill, when the slope began to level, let her break into a trot. Moby stayed close. Grover passed them and waited ahead for them to catch up.

The odor Quinn had caught faded as they descended and disappeared entirely by the time they reached the back fence.

Are you going to tell me what happened up there? Tess asked.

I didn’t want to scare you, Quinn answered. It might have been harder to hold onto the horses. Did you see the scat on the ground?

You mean the poop?

Quinn nodded. We have a bear on the hill somewhere.

A bear! Are you sure?

Yes. I smelled it. Bears smell like pigs in the rain. They stink.

Do pigs smell worse in the rain?

Yes. Wet pig poop is disgusting.

I’ve never smelled bears before now, but it ain’t roses.

Quinn laughed. No. It isn’t.

How come you didn’t tell me?

I wasn’t protecting you, Tess. Horses are prey animals and among the predatory wild animals that eat them are bears. So they are very afraid of bears.

I could see that, and I don’t blame them.

"If you get scared, the horse will be more so, and you might lose control. They can smell fear as clearly as we smelled the bear. Typically, horses run away."

Seems like a good idea to me.

Yeah. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Bears can run very fast, and if you run, they will chase you. Also, it’s not safe for your horse to run down steep hills. If he stumbles and goes down, so do you.

Just this horse? Or all horses?

All horses. They’re top heavy and gravity affects their balance going downhill. And all horses look like lunch to bears. Come on. Let’s go exercise these two in the round pen.

Tess yawned as she guided her horse to follow Kris. Now, she might be ready to sleep. Quinn grinned.

A black-and-white image of a raven perched on a wooden beam. The raven's glossy feathers and intense gaze create a mysterious and contemplative mood.

Chapter 2

Raven

Q uinn led the way around the barn to the fenced round pen Hawk

had assembled for his stallion’s exercise. Quinn opened the gate and drew Kris aside to let Tess and Moby pass and then followed.

They walked, trotted, and cantered and tried figure eights and reverses. Quinn spent a few minutes teaching Tess to back and to recognize a lead. Tess was quick to learn, and Moby knew the drill, so the lesson went well.

They called it a day on a win and dismounted, led the horses into the barn, untacked and groomed them, cleaned their stalls, fed them, and put them away. Good exercise for everyone.

Wow! I can sleep now, I bet, Tess said as they went inside. She headed for a shower and bed. Quinn glanced at the clock: barely noon. Tess would get plenty of sleep before her next midnight shift.

Quinn called Victoria Bascombe, whose property on the mountainside shared a border with her own, to warn her about the bear. Victoria, who liked to be called Tory, had no fence separating her backyard from the forested hillside. Tory said she’d notify Dr. Hauser, owner of the third estate that backed up against the mountain on Merriweather Lane

On Quinn’s other side, a housing development perched on the slope. Quality split-level homes gave owners a stunning view of the city, though many were outside city limits. With that in mind, Quinn called the Sheriff’s Office to make them aware of the bear’s presence. The dispatcher thanked her for the information and promised to spread the word. Then Quinn spent some time catching up with housework.

After that, in the shower, she recalled her odd feeling of dread and wondered if the presence of the bear on her property was responsible for it. She thought not; having lived in Oregon nearly all of her life, she had encountered the presence of bears nearby before. They rarely bothered people unless frightened or with cubs. Then what had caused the odd feeling? She finished her shower, dressed, and placed a call to her parents. Her dad answered and she stumbled through an explanation.

Is everything okay at work? he asked after assuring her both of them were okay. Mom was taking a nap, which she usually did at this hour. She explained about the feeling.

Have you heard anything from the Albuquerque D. A.? he asked.

No. And nothing from WITSEC, either."

Would you?

If Garrett left the program, they promised to let me know. I hope so. Her ex-husband, Garrett Chambers, was in the Federal Witness Protection Program and had been since she’d left him and testified against him, going on two years ago now.

Honey, I’m not much of a believer in paranormal awareness, but please be extra careful while that’s happening. Maybe something has occurred that you only subconsciously noticed, and it’s your intuition trying to alert you.

Yeah. Maybe. Dad, it never sticks around. I only notice for a few minutes, and then it’s gone. I’m sorry to bother you. I’m sure it’s okay.

Honey, you never bother me. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. I’m glad you called. Take care of yourself.

I always do, Dad. Thanks for understanding. I’ll let you know if I figure it out. Or even if I don’t. Love to Mom.

Of course, honey. We both love you.

I love you, too.

Not Mom or Dad. Hawk was fine, Tess was fine. What? Jason? Jason was always fine.

She grabbed her service weapon and left for her shift at around three, feeling content for having done her share of the housework, at least.

Passing the Chaplain Bridge, she slowed, smiled, and waved at a man standing there. A long line of ODOT—Oregon Department of Transportation—vehicles sat parked on the shoulder while a huge machine lifted a concrete barrier with rebar extending from it into position on the curve leading to the bridge.

Quinn had interviewed geologists and engineers from Oregon’s major universities to learn the cause of the raucous, chaotic river current at this location and written to ODOT begging for these barriers. More than a dozen people had lost their lives over time, after driving into the river here, including, many years before, the wife and two children of a police officer with Forest Glen PD, shortly after he’d been hired. Damian Cortez and Hawk, rookies who were hired at the same time as Quinn, had risked their lives diving into the water after a woman with a child had driven her pickup into the river here. Quinn was happy to see these barriers going in.

At the cop shop, Quinn met Hawk in the parking level under the building and let herself be drawn into his embrace, returning his kiss. She resented the department rule that forced them to work opposing shifts and missed him when she was home while he worked.

Jeff Dunleavy, assigned to Quinn’s shift, waved at them on his way to the elevator as they drew apart.

Don’t ride on the hillside tonight, Quinn told Hawk. We have company.

What kind of company?

Tess and I crossed the trail of a bear traipsing around between pastures.

Male or female?

Quinn shook her head. We didn’t see it. We saw its scat and smelled it, and our animals knew it, too.

Okay. I’ll stay away for a while. You better go to work.

Quinn glanced at her watch and scurried inside, with just time to change to her uniform. She sat at the briefing table around the corner from Sgt. Acosta.

Sergeant, she said and nodded at Dunleavy, Jack Dunn, Mark Porter, and Terry Withers. A team of six today.

Summer, Acosta responded with a nod.

She poured herself a cup of coffee, sniffed it, and threw it out.

Porter got up and made a fresh pot, his expression laughing at her.

ODOT is installing barricades at the access to Chaplain Bridge today, she said.

He looked up from his paperwork. Oh, the hell. After all these years. She knew Acosta had tried for years to get barriers installed there. It had been his wife and children who lost their lives.

Quinn nodded. He left it at that and gave the briefing, the report of incidents and information from the preceding shift. As he finished and officers began gathering notebooks and preparing to leave, she said, There’s a bear on the ridge above my house.

You see it? Acosta asked.

She shook her head. Scat and smell.

A bear’s smell is identifiable? Jack Dunn asked.

Very much so. Strong, like pigs, she said.

What’s scat? Dunleavy asked.

Poop, Withers answered.

How do you know bear poop from stray dog poop? Dunleavy asked.

They don’t eat the same things, Terry Withers said.