Born on the 4th of July Read online

  Born on the 4th of July

  Heather Graham

  Copyright © 2020 Heather Graham

  Born on the 4th of July Copyright © 2020 by Slush Pile Productions

  All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior express written permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction of this material, electronic or otherwise, will result in legal action.

  Please report the unauthorized distribution of this publication by contacting the author at theoriginalheathergraham.com, via email at [email protected], or at Heather Graham 103 Estainville Ave., Lafayette, LA 70508. Please help stop internet piracy by alerting the author with the name and web address of any questionable or unauthorized distributor. Born on the 4th of July is a work of fiction. The people and events in Born on the 4th of July are entirely fictional. The story is not a reflection of historical or current fact, nor is the story an accurate representation of past or current events. Any resemblance between the characters in this novel and any or all persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  about this story

  A long Krewe of Hunters short story, or a short novella—approximately 20,000 words—Born on the 4th of July takes place as the holiday nears and comes upon us.

  Angela and Jackson and their adopted son Corby have headed with Adam Harrison and the ghost of his son, Josh, to pay tribute at the graves of Adam’s family.

  But while they’re there, the ghost of an old serviceman beckons to Angela.

  He’s just seen his daughter, Annie, kidnapped. She had brought coffee and flowers to his grave. A murder of crows had burst into the sky; what appeared to be the giant figure of a man dressed like a crow had doused her with something on a rag—and disappeared through the graveyard and behind a group of family mausoleums.

  Like Angela, his daughter is expecting a child any day.

  While Jackson worries about Angela’s activity as her due date draws near, it’s precisely her condition that makes Angela certain she can’t leave this one to others—she must help in any way that she can. Jackson, of course, can do the crawling around and physical work. She’ll get into the cemeteries office and begin all that she can online.

  But the sensible way of doing things doesn’t always work as planned.

  Angela will find herself dead center in a conspiracy that has gone on far longer than what they’ve seen, literally deep in it!

  Deep underground, a victim herself.

  But she knows she has Jackson, Corby, Adam, Josh, and the Krewe behind her. Nor will she forget her own abilities as they face down a malicious evil that has already claimed several victims.

  But they’ll need the help of the living and the dead to make July 4th a genuinely happy holiday!

  Born on the 4th of July

  Prologue

  The 4th of July was almost upon them.

  Annie Green sat in the grass at the cemetery, feeling the wind, breathing in the scent of the earth and the breeze. It was a beautiful day, the first day of July. It might have been horribly hot, and maybe it would be later; but right now the temperature was just warm and the air around her was light and the cemetery was quiet and pleasant.

  She had brought flowers, of course. She always brought them in honor of her dad. She’d loved him with all her heart. He’d served in the military, seen horrible action, and been decorated; but in her mind, he’d come out of it an exceptional human being. He believed in education; and he believed when people were left in poverty and misery, it was easy to stir them to war. The world needed more understanding, more diplomacy, and more money spent on agriculture and schools than on machines for war.

  He was pragmatic, too.

  It wouldn’t be easy to get the whole world to agree on anything at the same time. Heck, you couldn’t get a city council to agree on anything!

  But he had been a kind and amazing man.

  He’d been gone ten years, but she came here for every holiday she could. She came religiously every Father’s Day, around the 4th of July, Christmas, and more. She brought a cup of coffee for each of them—his being poured into the ground while she drank hers—and of course, she brought flowers lest people think she was too weird. She and her dad had shared many a cup of coffee while talking when he’d been alive, and the coffee was . . . well . . . it was a ritual that meant something to her, and she hoped to him.

  She glanced at her watch. Kyle would be by soon to pick her up. He’d park on the cemetery’s pathway and come to the grave; he would have come with her for the entire time, but he knew this was special to her and he didn’t interfere. She’d asked to come today with

  the 4th of July still ahead of them because she’d wanted the cemetery to be peaceful and quiet. No fireworks, no groups of people—though she did have her mask hooked to her ear if she encountered others. She was so excited about her baby due so soon now. The seventh of July was her due date, but the doctor had teasingly told her that babies came when they wanted to, and it could be an all-American baby, born on the 4th of July.

  Kyle was excited, also. He liked the idea of a birth on the 4th, but then again, if the baby was born on a different day, that would be a great day, too.

  Kyle was a great husband. Her dad would have loved him.

  She ran her hands over the grass, thinking the old cemetery really was beautiful, peaceful, filled with shade trees and graves that went from crooked slate with weather-worn memorials to modern stones, mausoleums, and above ground tombs.

  She started suddenly. Crows let out loud caws and flit from one of the tall maple trees that graced the path. They were big, beautiful birds in flight.

  “A murder of crows, Dad!” she said aloud. “How bizarre that we count a number of crows as a murder. A gaggle of geese and . . . a murder of crows!”

  She shook her head. Language could be so strange!

  She smiled at her father’s gravestone again.

  “Kyle will be here soon,” she said aloud. “Dad, I so wish you could have known him! He’s so proud I want to name the baby after you. It’s a boy, and his name will be Cameron Alan Green. Well, you were Cameron Alan Adair, but you know what I mean!”

  She could just imagine her dad in life. He’d have said, “If I knew what you meant, young lady, you needn’t be explaining it to me.”

  She smiled at the memory and looked across the grass. At first, she thought Kyle was coming for her, or coming to the grave to pay his own respects before they both headed out. The sun was in her eyes, and she wondered why in heaven he would be wearing a big black coat—it was July! A beautiful day.

  She smiled, thinking about the crows. He looked just like a crow, the black floating back like wings! He’d laugh, of course, when she told him what he’d made her think.

  She glanced back to the grave.

  “Okay, Dad, I never told you he was just a little bit crazy.”

  When she looked up again, she realized it wasn’t Kyle.

  But the person resembled a crow more than ever. Yes, people were wearing masks these days, caring for others. But this . . .

  This man had a black face mask covering not just his mouth and nose, but his entire face and head. And he was wearing something strange especially for summer. It wasn’t a coat or jacket, but in truth was a cape, and the moving figure indeed resembled the movement of a crow in flight.

  And still . . .

  At first, she was just curious. She wasn’t alarmed.

  And then she was.

  Because one of the “winged” arms moved as he swooped down on her, shovin
g a cloth over her face. She screamed and wriggled; there had to be someone else in the cemetery.

  The beautiful July day, green grass and blue sky, began to fade.

  The last thing she saw was her father’s gravestone.

  Cameron Alan Adair.

  Cameron Alan . . .

  She tried to gasp out words.

  Cameron Alan . . . no. She couldn’t die. Her baby was due in just a few days. She wanted him so desperately, she’d dreamed . . .

  A murder of crows . . .

  And a giant crow had come for her, its sleek sweeping wings turning the world to black.

  Her baby . . .

  She would fight! She would fight!

  But the blackness, the wings of the crow, wrapped around her.

  Chapter 1

  Angela Hawkins stood between her husband, Jackson Crow, and Adam Harrison, creator and Assistant Director of the Krewe.

  She and Jackson came to the cemetery every year with Adam. They weren’t just coworkers; they were friends and were very close. Jackson had been Adam’s first choice to head up the special unit he managed to get the powers that be to set up as a part of—and apart from—the FBI.

  Adam’s son was buried next to Adam’s parents and his wife; he also had a plot for himself in the little section with the large weeping angel monument that honored the family “Harrison.”

  “I don’t know why we come here, Dad!”

  She saw Adam smile.

  Adam didn’t have the ability—gift or curse—to talk to the dead. Not generally. But he had recognized it in others when he had lost his only son Josh to a car accident when Josh had been in high school. He’d used friends and acquaintances across the country he’d believed to have been so gifted, and then made the Krewe an official “thing.”

  A rich man, Adam had spent his life supporting life-saving charities, and he was friends with a great many people who could make things happen. While he still didn’t see others, somewhere along the line, his devotion to saving lives and his care for others had allowed him to see one ghost—that of his son.

  Angela often wished she’d known Josh in life. The boy had possessed different qualities, sometimes knowing when things would happen. And he’d told Angela once, he had known long before the fatal night that had taken his life, he hadn’t been long for the world. He was funny, bright, and witty, and she imagined he would have grown into a fine man.

  Adam turned to Josh.

  “You know you’re not the only one buried here,” Adam reminded him. “I come to—to honor my parents as well. Your grandfather stormed the beaches at Normandy, and your grandmother was one of the first to hit the work force on the line for supplies for our troops.”

  “I know! Sorry, Dad. It’s just that—well, they’re not here, you know.” He was quiet. “And I’m right beside you, Dad.”

  Adam nodded and shrugged. Then he smiled and told Josh, “And I am so grateful,” he said softly. “But Jackson and Angela come with me, and they don’t even have anyone buried here. It’s just a way to honor those we’ve lost and appreciate the memories.”

  “It’s a beautiful cemetery and a beautiful day,” Jackson said.

  “Yeah, sorry, Dad, sorry,” Josh said.

  “That’s okay and don’t ever think I’m not grateful you’re here and helping us all, whenever you can,” Adam said.

  Josh hugged his father. He had no physical being, but Adam could feel the touch, and he brushed the air in response.

  Jackson looked at Angela.

  She smiled at Jackson; it was a nice moment.

  Sometimes when they came with Adam, they saw others at the cemetery. Others among the dead. Usually those who had remained for whatever reason came because they knew their loved ones had come, and hoped their presence would be felt just a little.

  Of course, she and Jackson came because it did mean something to Adam, especially when it was near the fourth of July.

  Jackson had tried to talk her out of coming that day. He was always worried about too much activity; she had been told by her doctor and nurses alike that walking and moving about normally helped to make for an easy delivery. She was due soon with their first biological child. They had an adopted son, Corby, and they loved him dearly, and they’d talked often about making sure he knew he was their child, just like the little girl they were due to have soon. For Jackson, it was all new. She had kept her pregnancy a secret even from him until she’d been sure she would make it through the first weeks. He had discovered at Christmas—right when they had met Corby and started the adoption process—that she was pregnant.

  And she knew Jackson; knew he would never love Corby less. But Corby had come to them as a ten-year-old. Jackson worried about Angela. Worried that she maintained her position with the Krewe of Hunters—though she was usually at home or behind her desk at their headquarters—worried when she prepared meals. Worried when she . . . moved.

  “Do you need to sit?” he asked her anxiously. “I hope we didn’t walk too far.”

  “Jackson, I love you, but for what I have to believe might be the billionth time, walking is good. Going about normal activities is good. Attempting to score the winning goal in a football game might not be good, but regular activity is!”

  Adam and Josh were both smiling then. Little got to Jackson, but he was a “hovering” father-to-be. They hadn’t walked far at all. The car was on the pathway that meandered and split and came back together again at both the front and rear entrances to the cemetery.

  It was not far.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. And she told Josh and Adam, “I love this place! We have Revolutionary soldiers here, Civil War Soldiers, the beautiful monument to Dr. Henderson who did so much research on diseases—just beautiful monuments to lives well lived. And it’s as gorgeous as it is because it was revamped during the Victorian era when they added some of the amazing funerary art. And the trees are glorious, and so many of the mausoleums . . .”

  She broke off. There was something by one of the mausoleums in the area she was speaking about. The mausoleum belonged to the MacInnes family, and many had served in the government throughout the years in Alexandria and on the national level as well.

  There seemed to be someone there.

  And she had the strangest feeling the someone she sensed was beckoning to her.

  She smiled at the others. “In fact, I shall walk a minute if I may, and enjoy the beauty of so much of the art that honors lives lived past.” She glanced at her watch. Corby had met a friend at a local ice cream shop that allowed ordering—six feet apart—at a window and had well-spaced outside tables where he could help her with a math project that had been making her crazy in summer school.

  Corby loved Adam and would have come with them, but he also believed it was important to help out where he could. Math happened to be something that came naturally to him; so was helping others.

  They were due to pick him up soon, but they had at least forty-five minutes left.

  “Angela,” Jackson said worriedly. “You could go into labor at any time.”

  “Jackson, I’m not due until the ninth. But if I do go into labor, I promise you’ll be the first to know.” She told him, smiling, and calling out as she walked away, “Love you!”

  Jackson, of course, saw the dead as she did; he was exceptionally talented. But she thought if it was a ghost summoning her, it might be a shy ghost or a worried ghost, and she thought maybe she should find out what was going on before alerting him.

  She rounded the MacInnes mausoleum with its gothic arches and angel statues and discovered she was right.

  The ghost of a man stood there. He was dressed in military attire, perhaps fifty or so, with a mix of platinum and white hair, deep brown eyes, and face with lines that spoke of character through the years, and she thought, a lot of smiles.

  But he wasn’t smiling.

  He looked at her anxiously. “I’m—I’m dead. I don’t mean I’m in trouble and I’m going to be
dead, I am dead. I’ve been dead a decade. But I could . . . I sensed something in you and . . . oh, dear Lord, can you see me, hear me?”

  “Yes, sir, I see you clearly. And I hear your every word.”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  “What’s wrong, sir?”

  “You have to help me. My daughter, my poor, beautiful daughter. She’s like you—well, no, she doesn’t look like you, but she’s expecting any day now, has a great husband, and he’s beside himself. He’s with the police, but they won’t even accept that my daughter is missing, and I saw it, I saw it! I saw it when she was taken. The crows . . . so many crows! They took flight, and then . . . he looked like one of them. Like a giant blackbird. He went up to her and he . . . she’s alive. I know she’s alive. He covered her mouth with something, knocking her out, but I know she’s alive. When my son-in-law came to get her, she was just gone. He’s a good man; he loves her. I wish I might have known him in life. You have to believe me; you have to help me.”