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  23 Miles

  Renee MacKenzie

  2015

  Back of the Book

  When a brutal double-murder takes place on Virginia’s 23-mile-long Colonial Parkway it puts the FBI’s magnifying glass squarely on Shay Eliot, an ex-police officer. Her alibi comes from an unlikely source—a young woman who has been stalking her.

  Talia Lisher and her family have a history of lying about anything and everything. Her father is dead, her mother has gone on a quest to start a new life, and her brother is in prison.

  Talia sets her sights on Shay. She starts watching Shay, waiting for just the right circumstances and courage to talk to her. Shay tries to keep her distance from Talia, but once she gets to know the younger woman, she can’t keep feelings from developing.

  Talia might be watching Shay, but someone in a dark van is watching Talia.

  This is a story about community, and how it comes together in dangerous and devastating times. Will Talia and Shay find the answers they need to the mystery of the murders on the parkway, or will justice be elusive? Will they survive their quest for the truth?

  A sensational novel inspired by a true event!

  23 Miles

  Copyright © 2015 by Renee MacKenzie

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: ePUB: 978-1-927328-53-8

  ISBN: PDF: 978-1-927328-54-5

  ISBN: PRC: 978-1-927328-55-2

  First Edition

  PDF, ePub, mobi

  Published: March 2015

  This book is Published by

  Affinity eBook Press NZ LTD

  Canterbury, New Zealand

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Editor: Ruth Stanley

  Proof Editor: Alexis Smith

  Cover Design: Irish Dragon Designs

  * * *

  This work is copyrighted and is licensed only for use by the original purchaser and can be copied to the original purchaser's electronic device and its memory card for your personal use. Modifying or making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, without limit, including by email, CD, DVD, memory cards, file transfer, paper printout or any other method, constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  Big thanks go out to my publishing family at Affinity E-Books Press NZ—Julie for having faith in my work; to Mel for her awesome formatting; to Ruth for the exceptional edit; Nancy for the incredible cover; Kay for being my beta reader extraordinaire, and Robin for her great promotion.

  A very special thank-you to Bill Thomas for so graciously talking to me about the loss of his beloved sister, Cathy. He is truly an inspiration and I am happy to count him as a friend. Every time I thought I’d walk away from this project, even if just for a break, I thought of Bill and knew I had to keep at it.

  And to my family—thanks to Pam Bauserman for her love and support and patience (and that’s a lot of patience). I love you more each and every day, Pam. To Carol, Candy, Stacey, and Kemp, thanks for always being there, being supportive, and for being willing to call me out when necessary. I know I don’t say it nearly enough, but I love you all.

  Thanks to Annette, Chris, Lyndon, Karla, and so many others who talked to me about the cases on the parkway, although they would rather forget, and felt less than comfortable talking about that painful time.

  Thanks to my sister-in-law, Monica Bauserman, for being my biggest cheerleader through all of my novels. Karin Gillespie, Steve Fox, and Christine Clark gave invaluable feedback as my first readers. Thanks Kemp MacKenzie for ‘Liarhead Lizard’ all those years ago.

  To my family at the Hershee Bar—thank you for being there for me and everyone else for over thirty years. Annette and Bill, you were such a huge influence on so many of us as we found our way. I love you both.

  I would like to acknowledge prior publication of “Taste” and “Soul Dancing” (published as “Heady Dancing”) in the 1998 issue of Sandhills Magazine, and “No” in the 1999 issue of that magazine.

  Dedication

  For the victims and their families—may you receive justice and find peace.

  Also by Renee MacKenzie

  Nesting

  Confined Spaces

  Flight

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Author’s Afterword

  About the Author

  Other Affinity eBooks

  Chapter One

  October 1986

  Shay Eliot pulled her Chevy C10 pickup truck into a parking space close to the entrance of the bar. There were only a few other cars in the lot. She turned off the ignition and leaned her head back. She had been to this bar hundreds of times—first as just a patron, then as Dee’s friend, and then as a law enforcement officer.

  There weren’t a lot of problems at the bar. The fact that Dee would ban you for life for fighting did a lot to deter that kind of trouble. Usually the only problems were an occasional local punk yelling anti-gay rhetoric or the sporadic lover’s quarrel that would lead to sloppy breakups that only lasted until the following weekend.

  Shay took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She would continue coming to the bar as a patron and a friend, but never again as a law enforcement officer.

  “What have I done?” she whispered. It started to drizzle again and she stared through the spotted and streaked windshield at the building’s painted cinderblock.

  When she got out of the truck, she gave the parking lot a quick, visual scan. Her attention came to rest on the far right corner of the building where two bowls were set off to the side. It appeared Lana, or one of the other bartenders, had taken to feeding the feral cat that had started hanging around. Shay chuckled because she had known Dee’s ‘no strays’ rule wouldn’t last the week.

  Here goes. She pulled the heavy door open and stopped just inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darker interior. A woman leaning against the cigarette machine smiled at her. Shay nodded.

  “I did it,” Shay blurted out to Lana Christianson as she sat at the bar.

  “You did what and what’ll you have?” Lana asked as she adjusted her long, dark ponytail and reached for a glass hanging from the rack above her head.

  “A vodka tonic and make it a double.” Shay swiveled around looking at the few people in the bar at that early hour. “Oh, and a shot of tequila.”

  Phil Collins crooned “One More Night” from the jukebox. Shay much preferred his songs to the dance music that inevitably would take over later. She watched two women chalk up their pool cues as they eyed each other across the green felt table. Shay found their game of psych-out amusing. Running her hand over her semi-short, wavy hair, she watched them stare each other down.

  Lana set Shay’s drink in front of her, and then poured the shot. As Shay reached for the tequila, Lana placed her hand over Shay’s and the shot. “Whoa,” she said. Shay could tell Lana was nervous, probably because she’d never seen Shay do shots before.

  Lana’s voice lowered to a
near-whisper. “What did you do?”

  “I quit the force.” She slid the shot out from under Lana’s hand, held it up for a salute, slipped the lemon slice off the rim, and downed the shot. She ignored the saltshaker Lana slid in her direction and stuck the lemon into her mouth.

  “You…did…what?” Lana’s voice rose with each word.

  Shay put the lemon slice in the empty shot glass. “I quit my job.”

  Shay had talked to Lana a couple of times about a rough patch she was going through at work. She told her about how she hadn’t been considered for a promotion in years, about how she always felt a little on the outside at work.

  “I thought it was all just you venting,” Lana said. She wiped the bar around Shay and then emptied a nearby ashtray.

  Shay studied Lana’s face. “Well, aren’t you going to say anything else?”

  The door to the back cooler swung open. “Lana, can you help me with this keg?” Dee fumbled with the heavy keg as she tried to roll it out of the cooler. The bar manager’s skinny arms were all angles and elbows.

  “I got it,” Shay said. “Might as well make myself useful before I’m too drunk to be any good to anyone.”

  Dee gave Lana a what’s-up look. Shay wasn’t worried, knowing Lana wouldn’t say anything until Shay was ready for the world to know. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lana shake her head before following Shay to the keg.

  Shay maneuvered the keg into place and set it up. She felt both Lana and Dee watching her so she flexed her muscles an extra little bit. She wasn’t necessarily vain, but she worked hard to stay fit and liked it when people expressed appreciation for her physique. She hooked the keg up for Dee, something she’d done many times over the years.

  Before Shay could sit down, Lana grabbed her by the hand and led her out the door to the parking lot. She didn’t stop until they were a good distance from the door.

  “Tell me exactly what you did.”

  Shay crossed her arms over her chest. “I quit my job with the police department.” She waited a beat before saying, “Oh, you mean exactly what I did. Well, what I meant to do was walk in, hand that asshole sergeant of mine my badge and service revolver, and say screw you.” She took a deep breath. “But the reality of it was a little different. The sergeant wouldn’t take my badge or gun. He sent me to human resources where I very civilly signed my paperwork. Then they sent me to property and accounting so I could give them my belt, uniforms, badge, and gun.”

  “Why?” Lana asked.

  “Why property and accounting?” Shay asked, knowing she was bordering on being obnoxious.

  “No, why quit the force?”

  “My loyalty is to my community, not my employers, and that’s not acceptable, not to them and not to me.” Shay knew it sounded rehearsed but didn’t care.

  “Did you quit because of that thing with Paulie? Oh my God, Shay, you didn’t, did you?”

  “You know how much that whole thing sickened me,” she said as she used her foot to scoot some gravel around on the pavement.

  “Shay, we don’t even know if Paulie was telling the truth. What if he was lying? You threw it all away over him?”

  “We’ll probably never know the truth about that night. Maybe Paulie did resist arrest. Or maybe my brothers in blue— ” Shay stopped, almost choking on the words. “Maybe Dixon and McCoy did beat the shit out of ‘the little fag boy’ for no reason.”

  “So why quit if you don’t even know who to believe?” Lana asked.

  “Because I don’t know who to believe. I should have total faith in my fellow officers, but I don’t. I’ve heard enough fag jokes out of them to last a lifetime. The worst part—the very worst part—was how my sergeant not only blew off my concerns about the assault on Paulie, but ridiculed me over them in front of the others. When I looked around the squad room and didn’t definitively believe they had my back…” She stopped to compose herself. “…I knew I couldn’t be there anymore.”

  Lana reached for her, but stopped. “Wow,” she whispered. “Just…wow.”

  As a car pulled into the parking lot, illuminating them with its headlights, Shay said, “We should go in.”

  “Yeah.”

  Back inside, Lana resumed her duties, serving the women on the left side of the bar while Dee concentrated on those on the right.

  After Shay downed another shot and two doubles, Lana placed a plain Coke on the bar in front of her.

  “I’m such a lightweight. And you know me so well,” Shay joked.

  “It’s my job to know when it’s soda time.” She reached into the sink and started washing glasses as she spoke to Shay. “Does Kate know you were going to quit your job?”

  “No. You’re the only one I’ve talked to about the Paulie thing and, other than a softball buddy, the only one I’ve told so far about quitting.” Shay fidgeted with her glass and thought about the first time she’d met Kate and Lana. Shay was one of the first cops at a crime scene in which Kate was suspected of murdering Lana’s boyfriend, Richie. By the end of the case, Shay was left with a mad crush on Kate, who hadn’t murdered anyone, a friend in Lana, and now, three years later, no career.

  “When’s your girl coming in?” Shay asked, trying to shake off her thoughts.

  Lana’s face reddened at her words. Shay smiled. She liked that Lana still reacted that way to the mention of Kate. It was no secret in their little piece of the world that Shay’d had a bit of a crush on Kate when they first met.

  “She’s going to study sociopaths and psychopaths until she’s half-blind, then she’ll come by for a little while. So, probably not until midnight or later.” Lana sighed.

  Shay was glad that Kate and Lana had worked through their issues from three years earlier when Lana was having trouble inching her way out of the closet and gave into pressure from her mother to go straight. Shay just wanted Kate to be happy. She watched Lana serving drinks, and was glad to have helped her get the job there and an apartment nearby. Shay still wasn’t sure if Lana would have been able to resist her family’s demands concerning her sexuality if she hadn’t put a little distance between them.

  “If you don’t mind, would you tell Kate about me quitting?” Shay asked, recognizing that she used Lana as a buffer between her and Kate.

  “Don’t you think that should come from you?”

  “No. I’d rather you tell her, then I can fill in details later for her. I can hear her now, ‘Eliot, why would you let them run you off from doing what you love?’”

  “And your response would be?”

  Shay shrugged. “She’s the only person outside of work who calls me Eliot,” she said, not caring that she was going off topic.

  “Because for the longest time she only knew you as S. Eliot from your name tag. Calling you S. was a little weird for her.”

  Shay laughed. “It sounds sweet when she says it. Not like when my sergeant growls it out.” Shay shut up then, afraid her torch might be showing.

  “What are you going to do for work?”

  “My friend Brenda set me up with a few yards to mow. It’s not much, but it’s something.” Shay had been thankful that her softball buddy had such a successful lawn business that she could throw a little work her way. But she wasn’t sure how long that would be enough, both mentally and financially. She had a good-sized nest egg built up, thanks to her parents drilling into her head the importance of saving for a rainy day, but she knew it wouldn’t hold up forever.

  †

  Talia Lisher sang at the top of her lungs to Sam Harris’s “Sugar Don’t Bite” as she drove her 1982 Honda Accord to the Colonial Parkway. The twenty-three mile scenic roadway that connected Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Jamestown was the preferred spot for partying for many of her old high school friends. Talia was looking for Fish, the dude she got her pot from. A few minutes later, she pulled off the parkway near Yorktown, into a scenic overview. As if on cue, Fish pulled in right behind her. She’d recognize his Dodge Challenger anywhere. They both
killed their headlights, then Fish got into her car and they smoked a joint before Talia bought a nickel bag from him.

  Pulling out of the scenic overview, her mouth was dry—cottonmouth from smoking the weed—and she craved a Slim Jim and potato chips, her version of a meat and potatoes diet. She’d wash it down with an ice-cold Jolt Cola, getting just the desired kick so she could sit down and scratch out a poem or two.

  She noted yellows and oranges dotting the trees as autumn’s display of colors started. The yellows in particular glowed in the beam of her headlights. This was her favorite time of year. She loved the changing colors of the foliage, and she liked being able to wear her funky-patterned blazers out to the bar without getting too warm in them.

  When Talia passed the pull-off near Ringfield Park, a dark van pulled out behind her. It sped up until it was right on the bumper of her Honda. She increased her speed, and so did the dark van. She couldn’t tell if it was black or dark blue; she only knew it was too close for comfort.

  What if it’s the cops? she wondered in her marijuana-induced paranoia. No, no way they’d be out here in a van. Besides, she was on federal land. It’d be the park service rangers patrolling there, not the state or county. Right?

  Talia turned the music way down, as if to help her concentrate on driving. She sped up further but the van stayed right on her. The buzz she’d worked so hard to get disappeared and fear took over.