Halloween Haunting (Monster Holiday Cozy Mystery #1)

Chapter 1

“All alone…don’t wanna be…all alone tonight –”

Grace Baker drunkenly slapped her palm against the top of her old radio.

It was one of the only prized possessions she managed to slip away with during her testy and volatile divorce.

The contraption might’ve been around forty years ago and had a wonky antenna that caught onto people’s bluetooth connections, but Grace wasn’t one to be picky about things anymore.

She hadn’t been picky in a long, long time.

The song stammered before the navy blue radio released an unfortunate hiss, a trail of smoke curling up from the CD player.

Grace frowned as the hotel room teetered in and out of her consciousness.

Maybe the radio wasn’t smoking at all, and she was too drunk to realize it.

But what was the best way to handle a situation like that?

Grace let her empty bottle of red wine roll off the narrow bed before clattering onto the floor.

The liquor was replaced in a second, as she reached for the nightstand and retrieved the next bottle she acquired for safe keeping.

There was a ribbon tied around the bottle’s neck, a beige note sticking out from it.

Grace swayed from her spot against the pile of pillows as she tried to read it, her eyes narrowing without her appropriate glasses.

“To…To Grace Baker,” she murmured, her words slurring. “For h-happy beginnings, new c-chances, and…and…” Grace held the note as close to her face as possible, almost forcing herself to go cross-eyed. “And better sex. Love, Mom.”

Grace laughed to herself while shoving the bottle opener onto the cork, not at all caring if she cut herself or if the wine happened to dribble onto the bed.

It wasn’t her bed, but Grace couldn’t imagine anything getting worse, especially if the problem was only a few spots of red along a rented bed.

All of her belongings – at least, all the things she was allowed to call her belongings – surrounded the bed in the small hotel room.

She took solace in the first run-down motel she could find, not caring that it was right off the highway and had a few missing lights in its big sign.

In the end, it was all she could afford if she wanted to buy another house one day.

Grace groped around the bed for her laptop. As the music clicked onto another eighties love ballad, she shoved the top open and watched everything she lost appear in front of her eyes.

The laptop’s screensaver was a collage of photographs from Grace’s failed marriage.

At the time, of course, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind about her relationship with Chuck.

They met during college and had been bound to each other since.

Even when they grew older and Grace remained unable to give their family children, she didn’t fear for her future. Chuck was always there, no matter what.

Until he wasn’t.

Grace didn’t bother with glasses as the cork popped off the bottle, flying relentlessly across the room.

The sweet smell of red wine filtered through her senses as she took a long swig, ignoring the painful burn as it attacked the back of her raw throat.

She spent too long crying already. She spent too long staring at that same collage of pictures, wondering where it all went wrong.

She spent hours imagining being replaced with the twenty-one year old he left her for.

She imagined their pictures with Tiffany in them instead of her, and somehow, sadly, Grace realized that the photographs turned out better without her in them.

But wallowing was no longer on the forefront of Grace’s mind.

As she looked over the photographs another time, spite grew like a blossoming flower in her chest.

She determinedly moved the mouse across the screen, inching toward the internet explorer. She clicked twice and the laptop hummed with energy before pulling a new window up.

Thunder crashed outside the hotel room window.

Grace jolted forward in surprise and clutched the bottle to her chest when light flashed across the room, followed by another grumble from the sky.

Grace burrowed herself within the thin layers of her cheap bed set, only the laptop’s screen providing any light into the room.

“Alright, Gracie,” she drawled to herself. “We need somewhere to live, don’t we?”

The money she had wasn’t enough to be proud of.

It was just the settlement from the divorce.

Enough to start over if she found a cheap enough place.

She just needed to find it and settle down somewhere.

Somewhere better. Which shouldn’t be hard.

The only home she had right now was that singular hotel room.

Staring at her screen, she frowned, feeling hopeless. The internet wasn’t doing a good job at showing her options for living. Most places were too far away, buried deep within a bustling city, or way too out of her budget. That being said, Grace’s budget was enough to even make a child laugh.

“What’s this?” she muttered.

There was a link at the bottom of the search engine, talking about fantastical estates for cheap prices in towns across the United States.

Grace lazily pulled the mouse to the link and smacked on the pad, watching as the screen changed into a darker ambiance, with orange hues and crawling shadows.

Perhaps it was creepy as a real estate website, but Grace was sick and tired of normal things.

She’d take creepy if it led to her finding a house she could actually afford.

With a shake of her head, Grace began to reach for the nightstand again, juggling with her wine bottle as she struggled to change the radio station.

The bed creaked underneath her when she went a bit too far, pulling a sore spot in her lower back.

Grace groaned and stopped reaching, only to realize that she was already leaning too far to the right, and was beginning to tumble off the side of the bed.

Before she could stop herself, Grace rolled and rolled, till her narrow frame smacked into the hard floor below.

The wine bottle fell beside her, but surprisingly enough, it landed without spilling a drop.

Laughter spilled out of Grace’s lips as the rain pelted onto the roof.

The giggles aching her empty stomach more than she thought.

When was the last time she ate? When was the last time she wanted to sit in a restaurant and truly indulge?

When was the last time she went out with a friend, without Chuck?

Or even on her own? The questions only managed to make her laugh more, revealing the true disappointment her life was really turning out to be.

“I am such a catch,” Grace blurted out as she struggled to climb back onto the bed, arms flailing. Her long brown hair caught into her lips as she flailed, but there was no energy left in her to brush it out the way. “I am a drunken, divorced, broke, homeless, forty-year-old catch!”

Grace landed on her stomach on the bed when she realized the bottle was still on the floor. “Honestly,” she murmured into the pillow, her words muffled, “Life hasn’t exactly turned out the way I planned.”

Chime! Chime! Chime!

Grace’s head snapped up, her eyes immediately landing on her cellphone.

The screen lit up onto the ceiling from its spot on the bed, a message notification blinking over the lockscreen.

It faded back to black after a moment, only for the sounds to come again, the light cascading over the room once more.

Grace couldn’t look away, no matter how much the quiet voice in her head told her to ignore it.

Ever since the divorce, Grace couldn’t bring herself to block her ex-husband’s phone number.

Even when his new girlfriend got a hold of it, finding some sort of humor in rubbing their relationship in Grace’s face, she couldn’t change a damned thing.

As if keeping her life the same as before was enough to bring it all back.

Grace glared as she snatched up the phone.

There was a single written message from Tiffany, the twenty-one year old cheater, along with a photo.

Grace only stared for a minute, hardly able to see the small picture from her lockscreen, but far too afraid to open it up. The message was haunting enough.

Amazing things come to those who wait!

After a few more minutes, Grace clicked open the picture.

It was taken in a bathroom, she guessed from the shower curtain and tile in the background, but that was hardly the thing Grace was focused on.

There was a pregnancy test, Tiffany’s neatly manicured nails holding it up.

And at the center, where there was a small screen, was a dark black cross.

Pregnant.

Grace was stuck with her mouth wide open, staring down at the picture with a growing sense of dread.

If someone told her that the world was falling onto her shoulders, she would’ve believed them, without a single doubt.

All her life, Grace imagined her perfect ending to be surrounded with a large family.

For someone who grew up without siblings, without friends to call family, having children was something she wanted for as long as she could remember.

The day the doctors told her that it was impossible was the day Grace believed she failed her husband.

And now, as she looked at his new girlfriend – his new pregnant girlfriend – Grace realized where it all went wrong.

Chuck would finally have the life he wanted.

Grace snatched the wine bottle off the ground, already pouring the scarlet liquid down her throat while looking at the real estate website she clicked on.

Most of the houses were rather unusual looking, though the prices weren’t anything to scoff at.

They were around her budget, which she hadn’t seen anywhere else she managed to look.

Grace ignored the wine dribbling down her chin when her eyes landed on one magical house in particular.

Though many people warned her not to place all her hopes on the pictures she saw online, Grace couldn’t help but feel her heart swell at the house.

Not only did it sit on the edge of a solitary lake, a wall of windows overlooking the view, but the house was surrounded by a dark forest. Tall trees stood at every side.

There were two stories to the house, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The pictures made sure to show a giant loft at the center of the house, where the photographer attempted to express the beauty of the view, but Grace knew that art like that could only be truly appreciated in person.

She kept scrolling, searching for the house’s price.

At the bottom of the page, where there was information to put in a bid for it, laid the price.

Though Grace was sure it would adjust to the incoming bids, she was aghast. How could a beautiful home like that be within her budget, as though it was meant for her?

The house was already decorated for Halloween, with Jack-O-Lanterns lining the walkway and ghosts hanging off the angular roof.

If that wasn’t enough to prove that the house was meant for her, Grace didn’t know what else could be clearer.

She spent the entire year looking forward to the late autumn festivities, like Halloween and Christmas.

“What do you have to lose?” she whispered.

Grace set her wine aside for the first time in days and filled out the bid application. At the very end, there was a single question and a wide text box.

Why do you want this house?

Her fingers hesitated over the keys. There were plenty of things she could say, even more lies she was capable of crafting to make her sound ten times better than what she really was.

Grace let out a tired sigh as the thunder came again, as if nature was egging her forward, tempting her with what her future could be.

“Honestly,” Grace whispered aloud as she typed, “I have nothing. I have nothing and I have no one. I’m recently divorced – extremely recently – with not a lot of money to my name.

Am I crazy for pooling it all into this?

” She paused, already nodding her head. “Beyond crazy. Is that going to stop me from taking this risk? Hell. No.” Her fingers rapidly danced across the keys as she described how quickly she fell in love with the house, how it looked to be plucked out of a fairytale – one that she wanted to be dropped into.

No matter what happened with the house, she made a promise on the message: “I will be starting over.”

And though she was still a bit drunk, Grace hit send on her message and put in her bid for the house.

The laptop snapped shut as she pushed it off the bed and returned her wine bottle to the nightstand.

Each movement felt like an ache in her stomach, and she was deeply ready for some sleep, but the idea of the house was still lingering on the forefront of her mind, and that was enough to keep her heart racing all throughout the late evening.

The storm continued to rage outside her hotel door, but Grace paid it no mind.

Somehow, some way, Grace Baker would be starting over.

Whatever that even meant.