Deadly Hallows (The Dead Ringer Series Book 1) Read online

  DEADLY HALLOWS

  The Dead Ringer Series, Book 1

  Taylor Henderson and Sara Schoen

  DEADLY HALLOWS

  Copyright © 2015 by Taylor Henderson and

  Sara Schoen.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: February 2016

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-496-7

  ISBN-10: 1-68058-496-0

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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

  Dedication

  For our older brothers:

  John Gaskin & Joey Schoen

  “I love you. You have always been there for me. You protect me, and most of all, you love me. We used to fight, scream, and argue, but under it all was a love that only exists in a brother and a sister.”

  —Anonymous

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Prologue

  “Wait for me,” I called as I chased after my brother and his friends. I was a tomboy, and always had been. It was normal for me to be with my brother, and even though we were only one year apart he didn’t like me hanging around him and his friends.

  Today, Mom had forced him to bring me. I think she felt bad that I didn’t have any close friends since my best friend Katie had moved away last summer. I’d been having a hard time making new friends ever since. Katie was the outgoing one out of us two, but after her only living grandparent was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, her family moved to be closer to him. I missed her, but if John would just let me spend time with him and his friends then I wouldn’t be so lonely.

  “John?” I called as I burst through the trees. The cliff John and his friends hung out on opened up before me. “This isn’t funny, John,” I stated as a hard shove came from behind me, causing me to trip over my feet and over the edge of the cliff. I let out a piercing scream as I frantically tried to grab onto a branch or rock that would sustain my weight. I found one about four feet down and glanced up to see Chase and Kevin, two of John’s least favorite people, laughing at the top of the cliff.

  “Oh, did we push you? Sorry, our bad. We’ll be sure to let John know his sister fell into the canyon,” Chase said with a sinister laugh before grabbing Kevin’s arm and pulling him out of sight. Kevin and Chase used to be John’s friends until they got into a huge fight, and now they took every chance they could at making his life a living hell. Even if it meant pushing me into a fifteen-foot hole in the middle of the woods.

  “Help,” I cried as their laughter dissipated. I was slowly losing my grip on the branch. Fear shot through me as I realized my hand couldn’t hold on much longer. Even if I could, I was also fearful that the branch would eventually break and I would fall. Worst case scenario, I would die, best case was that I would break something; possibly my leg. Tears welled up and rolled down my cheeks as I let out another cry. After a moment I heard the sound of someone approaching above me.

  “Hang on!” I heard a voice say as I felt a hand wrap around my wrist and pull. I tried to help by placing my foot on some of the rocks but every time I did I slipped and she had to pull even harder. I finally found a solid place to put my foot and help lift myself up. After a few moments where my heart threatened to beat out of my chest, I was finally pulled over the edge, where I fell to the ground as my rescuer fell onto her back.

  Breathing heavily, I pushed myself onto my knees and looked up into the smiling face of the girl who had saved me. A petite girl with blonde hair and straight white teeth stared back at me. She raised a hand and swiped a few strands of hair from her wide eyes, letting out a huff of air.

  “I’m glad to see that you’re okay, but if you plan on doing that again, I hope you don’t struggle as much. You aren’t heavy, but you surely didn’t make that easy for me,” she said.

  I stared blankly at her with my mouth open to form a small ‘o.’ She looked so familiar, but I didn’t recognize her, which seemed strange. My town was so small that I knew everyone who lived here. Shady Hallows, Maine, is affectionately referred to in these parts as the town where everyone knows everyone. When someone new showed up it was a pretty big deal. I furrowed my eyebrows and sucked in a ragged breath of air, still trying to catch my breath so I could speak, though when I opened my mouth all that came out was, “Who are you?” I should have said something along the lines of, “Thank you for saving me from fracturing my skull and being found dead in the woods.”

  She sat up straighter. “I’m Sophie Peters.”

  I nodded. “I’m Casey Hale. I’ve never seen you before,” I said aloud, wondering why I didn’t know her.

  “My family just moved here from Colorado. My brother, Mason, told me about this place after he found it yesterday, and I begged him to show it to me. Little did I know that I would be saving a life today, especially of someone who looks so much like me.” Her emerald eyes sparkled in the sun as she fixed them on me, obviously taking in my similar features.

  “You mean, that I would be saving a life,” a boy corrected as he stepped forward. I hadn’t noticed him before. I had been too distracted by Sophie’s mirror-like reflection of me to notice anything else. His brown hair swept over his forehead, shading the green eyes underneath. He flashed me a stunning smile before continuing. “I had to lower you down or you wouldn’t have gotten to her.”

  I looked from the boy to Sophie, noticing their similar features, defined cheekbones, and wide eyes, but also taking in the differences. Sophie had a heart-shaped face, blonde hair that flowed past her narrow shoulders, and a pouty bottom lip. This guy, who I assumed was her brother Mason, had a defined jaw line and deeply bowed lips.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked curiously, not even hearing what he had said because I was too busy taking a long look at Sophie’s face. I was no longer looking at the similarities between her and Mason, now I was noticing the ones we shared. We had the same heart-shaped face, pale blonde hair, and button noses. Even our lips had a similar shape. The only differences between us were her bright green eyes, while mine are a crystal blue, and that she was much smaller than me. We had to be around the same age, but she looked a little younger than I was by maybe two or three years. “We do look a lot alike,” I murmured, staring directly into her eyes.

  She nodded and then pushed herself up off
the ground. “Yeah, it’s weird.” She brushed her bottom off. “I’m glad we could help you. I can’t believe those boys did that to you. We were in shock for a few moments after they pushed you. If we hadn’t been here,” she hesitated momentarily. “I’d hate to think of what could have happened.”

  “Well, besides them I can guarantee you that everyone else around here is nice.” I glanced over my shoulder to see that the drop was definitely deeper than ten feet. “Thank you for coming to my rescue,” I finally said. “I wish I could thank you better, but I don’t know how,” I said, earning a laugh from Sophie. “I feel like the words thank you aren’t good enough for a life-saving situation.”

  “It’s fine, I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me. It was the least I could do anyway. Especially since your friends left you hanging,” she responded with a soft smile before she turned to leave with her brother, offering me a gentle wave goodbye, and leaving me sitting in the grass.

  Little did I know that the opportunity to repay her would arrive a lot sooner than I thought.

  Chapter 1

  Victim Identified

  The dismissal bell rang three hours earlier than usual, filling the hallways with my fellow classmates and their aimless chatter. We were told that we were getting out of school early due to a local emergency, and that we were all supposed to go straight home. Of course this early dismissal paired with talk of a local emergency led to rumors about what was going on. There was talk that a body had been discovered, but no one truly knew what happened. Everyone was just listening to what others were saying and adding to the story.

  The rumor was that a girl’s body had been found in the woods that surrounded our small town. I heard people saying stuff about how there was probably a serial killer or an axe murderer on the loose, but I couldn’t find it in me to take any of them seriously. Nothing ever happened in this town. The most exciting thing to happen here was when I was six and our town held a meeting to change our name from Seaside Hallows to Shady Hallows. Apparently everyone agreed that there was more shade here, thanks to the surrounding woods, than there was sea. Therefore it was obvious why I had my doubts about a murder happening here.

  Apparently I was the only one who didn’t believe what was being said through the grapevine. A few people claimed they heard the teachers talking about it, but there was no way for them to be completely sure. Our cell phones had been confiscated, the televisions in the school were turned off, and the computer labs were closed down for the day. The only people who had access were the faculty members.

  The only thing that worried me was the police officers scattered throughout the halls. One of the officers focused his eyes on me, noticeably watching me as I walked past and headed straight to my locker. I could still feel his heavy gaze as I put in my combination, stuffed my textbooks inside, and slammed the door shut. One peek told me that he still had his eyes on me, and despite the fact that I had no reason to be worried, I felt uncomfortable—like I had done something wrong. His eyes shifted away from me, and I hurried toward my second period class to claim my phone. Like everyone else’s, it had been taken in the middle of the class after my teacher had received a very peculiar phone call that set her on edge for the rest of the period.

  With my phone in hand, I could finally head home. I made my way through the halls, following the stream of students who were headed out of the main entrance, smiles plastered on their faces. School was cancelled for the next few days, and as people got their phones and internet back, it was clear why. While there was no information being released by the police at the moment, there were news updates about a body found in the woods. Even with the now confirmed news of a dead body, everyone was talking excitedly about the early dismissal, and school being cancelled; faulty priorities.

  The body had yet to be identified, but that was enough to spark some fear into the population of our small town. Just seeing the words “body found” in bold on the screen of my phone sent chills down my spine. I tugged at my backpack strap, re-positioning my bag higher on my shoulders as I headed down the staircases and off of campus, wanting to be in the safety of my own home more than ever now that I knew the rumors were true. My heart rate increased as thoughts filled my head.

  What else was true? Was the victim a female? How old is—was she? What if she went to my school? I had to have known her. Everyone in this town knew each other. People who lived here tended to stay forever. The main additions to the population were births, and the subtractions were, well, deaths. If the victim was a teenager then we went to school together. It was the only school in the area other than the elementary school. Since the town was so small, the middle and high schools had been combined to create a whopping total of 112 people who attended the school.

  On my walk home I passed by several police officers and cop cars. There were more cops in the town than we were used to. They must have pulled in police from neighboring towns to help out, considering that we only had about four police cars in the Shady Hallows department.

  “Who do you think it was?” a boy asked as he walked past me, holding hands with a long legged brunette.

  “The murderer or the girl?” was her response, earning a shrug in reply.

  I bit my lip, thinking about the girl’s response. It was a good question. I was so busy wondering about the victim that I hadn’t even asked the other question—who did it? The town only had a population of 619 and most of them had been here for years. If you didn’t know them by name, you knew them by face or by family connection. It was difficult to think that anyone in this small town could kill, much less that a murderer could be living among us.

  I shivered. Someone in my town was a murderer and another had been killed. There was no getting past that, and the scary part was that it could be anyone. That terrified me the most.

  The walk home was quick, mostly because we had police shooing us off the streets. The town was basically shutting down for the day. My usual walk down Main Street involved saying hello to Mr. Woodward, the hardware store owner, then getting an apple from Mrs. Kinkus, the food market owner, and on days that the farmer’s market was in town I was able to buy caramel popcorn from Mrs. Neville, who ran a bookstore in town.

  Today, no one could be seen walking down Main Street. The stores were closed until further notice. People had gone home to be with their families, while the cops were on high alert. There were more cops around today than I had seen in the last five years. That’s what worried me. The police were afraid, so why shouldn’t I be? There was a moment when the innocence, the veil that nothing could go wrong, was lifted from a child’s eyes, and for my town this was that moment.

  After walking down another block, empty except for old man Jenkins’ ratty Chihuahua, I arrived home. He must have noticed a change in the atmosphere as well, because normally when I got home from school he would run along the chain link fence that separated our two yards and bark nonstop until I disappeared inside my house, but today he just sat in the yard, his eyes following me until I got inside.

  As soon as I was inside, I locked the door and headed into the living room. I set my bag on the coffee table and grabbed the remote to turn the TV on. There had to be a news story on by now. I flipped the station away from one of my mom’s soap operas and flicked through the news stations until I saw one with the words “body found in Shady Hallows” rolling across the bottom.

  On the screen, the newscaster, Marissa Merriweather, a resident of our town, stood in the woods, clutching her microphone tightly as she said, “There isn’t much being said about the death of this young girl, only that speculations are pointing to murder due to her injuries that we cannot disclose. It is uncertain how the body ended up in the woods, where it was found by hikers, since very few people travel this far up the trail. Only experienced hikers take the risk, and even then few go this far up for fear of a landslide due to the recent rainy weather. The police on the scene are still investigating the victim’s body and the area where she was found i
n case there are any clues to what happened here last night. There are no signs of a struggle on the body, which may mean that she knew the suspect personally or that the unknown subject caught our victim by surprise.”

  I rolled my eyes at that last part. Everyone here is familiar with each other so that’s not a big discovery.

  Suddenly Marissa raised one hand and pressed it to her ear, obviously listening intently to something being broadcasted to her earpiece. “This just in,” she began to speak hurriedly. “The young woman found this morning has now been identified. The victim is fifteen-year-old Sophie Peters, a resident of Shady Hallows and a student at Shady Hallows High. Young Sophie Peters is survived by her father, her mother, and her older brother. Our condolences go out to her family during this tragic time.” She looked off screen, then back at the camera. “Back to you in the studio, Jeff.”

  My mouth parted slowly as a picture of Sophie Peters flashed at the bottom of the screen with the words “Victim identified” as Jeff Moran came onscreen. My eyes widened, and my heart began to hammer in my chest. I hadn’t recognized the name because Sophie and her family were still relatively new in town, but I recognized the face instantly. She was the girl who saved me. The one who helped me out of the hole my brother’s enemies had shoved me into.

  My heart pounded harder in my chest as I focused on the image in the corner of the screen. It was a school picture of Sophie, probably the one taken at the beginning of the year for our yearbook. Her blonde hair fell neatly over her shoulders, and her smile seemed wider than normal, causing her eyes to squint. She looked happy, probably at the prospect of starting a new year at a new school in a new town. Now all of that had been taken from her. She was no longer smiling, and she no longer had a future.