The Lady in Red

by Sidney St. James

Genres: Cozy Mystery; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

Sebastian Westfield, the grandson of Connor Westfield, is living life in style with the hefty allowance given to him monthly by his grandfather. The problem is, one night started like all the rest, with his arrival at Sid’s Cabaret in Portland, the home of famed theater star Valentina Clemente. When the evening first started, he could remember everything. However, the next instant, his mind goes blank. He can’t remember what happened the rest of the night when an assassin took his grandfather’s life in Black Rock Cove or how he ended up on the floor of an abandoned farmhouse a few hundred yards away from his grandfather’s house the following day.

The trees of the forest by the lake became slightly out of focus, like that of a poorly taken photograph. It wasn’t until Sebastian got closer, it congealed into a form… a woman dressed in red with silver skin and a predator’s smile.

All became silent while he watched the woman skirt along the edges of the stagnant lake. Then, without warning, he found himself on his back, looking up at a person wearing a red and black ski mask. He shook his head back and forth and heard the words from what he thought was the woman in red, but the words were said in a man’s voice with a rasping tone of a one-pack-a-day smoker. “Have you come to play, Sebastian?” Sebastian couldn’t find words to say and only opened his mouth to scream.

Then without warning, he found himself back on the dilapidated and deserted farmhouse floor. Abruptly, a chill rose up his spine making him shiver. Something was here with him. He could feel it! A voice, hoarse and faint, echoed around him, coming from the adjacent room in the farmhouse. Sebastian slowly turned his head over his shoulder, and the whispering came to a stop. The air chilled to ice, and his labored breathing was the only sound he could hear. It was hanging down from the ceiling, crawling ever so slowly, closer and closer… dark and brooding.