HOUSE ON BLEAKMOOR HILL | HOUSE OF SECRETS #1 | EBOOK

For decades, reporters have chased James Holloway for answers about his best friend, convicted serial killer Calvin Rook.

Rook died on death row, taking his secrets with him. The most haunting question remains: where are the bodies of the women who were never found?

Now, at ninety-two, James is ready to talk. For the first time, he’s prepared to reveal the truth about Calvin’s life and what really happened all those years ago.

From New York Times and 16-time USA Today bestselling author Cheryl Bradshaw comes a chilling new novella series for fans of Stephen King, Joe Hill, and Shirley Jackson.

SNEAK PEEK OF CHAPTER ONE:

My name is James Holloway, and this is my story.

I suppose that’s what people have wanted from me all these years. A story. Something neat enough to hold, something that makes sense of what happened. They come looking for answers, but what they really want is comfort and a reason to believe the world is a safe place.

I used to believe that too.

Calvin Rook and I met when we were boys. It was the kind of meeting that felt ordinary until I looked back on it many years later and realized it wasn’t. We were in kindergarten together, and when we met on the first day of school, I don’t know how I knew, but I was sure we would be friends for life. And we were just that.

We grew up attending most of the same classes with the same teachers, and since he lived only a few blocks away, we even walked home together once we became old enough. It wasn’t long before my mom met his mom, and that was that. From then on, our families came together for family dinners, and life was good. Looking back on it now, I’d say it was darn near perfect. 

If there were signs back then, anything that might have warned me of what was to come, I didn’t see them. Or maybe I didn’t want to see them. The mind has a funny way of playing tricks like that, compartmentalizing the bad while keeping the good working on all cylinders. 

I’d like to believe we were good boys, the kind most people believed us to be. Whether they did, I can’t say now.

Time has a way of slipping by, the hourglass progressing from minutes to days, days to years. One of those days we were chasing a ball across a field. The next we were sitting in a quiet living room in our thirties, watching a football game together.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. The game was on, and though I no longer recall who was playing, I remember the sound, the steady, familiar murmur of the announcers, the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Calvin sat in his usual chair with one leg crossed over the other and a beer in his hand. I laughed at something on the screen, and Calvin shook his head like he always did when a player made a bad call.

Then the knock came—loud, firm, and certain.

Calvin glanced at me, set his drink aside, and stood.

“I wonder who that could be,” he said.

He walked toward the door, and I stayed where I was, the game still playing behind me, though I wasn’t watching it anymore. I was more interested in who was interrupting our game and why.

There was also something about that knock, something intentional, and when Calvin opened the door, our whole world changed. Two officers stood on the porch, their presence filling the space even before they stepped inside. It wasn’t the first time they’d come to Calvin’s house. They had been there a week earlier, when both of us were questioned.

One of the officers spoke, his voice calm and practiced, as if he had said the words many times before. “Calvin Rook?”

Calvin nodded.

The officer said something about bullets and gun casings, and then he stood there, hand on hip, waiting to hear what he had to say in response. Calvin looked at me, and I looked at him, and neither of us spoke. Words weren’t needed. In that moment I knew he was about to be arrested.

The other officer read him his rights and cuffed him right in the doorway. I still recall the metal catching the light as they tightened the cuffs around Calvin’s wrists. The game continued as if nothing had happened, the crowd cheering as one of the teams scored. As I stood and watched him being carted away, the game no longer mattered. All that mattered was Calvin and the looming feeling that this time, I wouldn’t be able to save him.

The trial came and went faster than I imagined it would. The evidence was presented, witnesses took the stand, and the story unfolded one piece at a time until all the pieces the prosecution had were presented.

The facts were as follows:

Five women were dead.

Three of them had been found.

Two were still missing.

The first two women were found in the woods, not far from each other. They were killed in the same way, which led police to believe one person was responsible. But DNA testing was far less advanced at the time, and identifying the killer proved difficult. Then came the third victim, and let’s just say things got sloppy.

When two more women in the same area went missing not too long after, it was assumed they died at Calvin’s hand like the others.

Assumed, but not proven.

A plea deal had been offered. If Calvin confessed to the other two murders and gave the locations of those women, he’d get life in prison without the possibility of parole, but he’d be spared the death penalty.

But Calvin wasn’t buying what the prosecution was selling. Maybe that’s why everyone found his story irresistible, even today. Calvin never told them where the others were. Not during the trial. Not after the conviction. Not even when they moved him to death row and the days began to slip away from him, one after another, each one bringing him closer to the end.

People said he was protecting himself, that he enjoyed the power of it, the power of taking his secrets all the way to the grave.

They were wrong.

In the end, Calvin died without ever giving them what they wanted, and that’s when they turned to me. Reporters. Writers. People with questions they believed I could answer.  They came in waves at first, then in steady numbers over the years, each one convinced they would be the one to get me to talk. I never did, not about the murders or the victims anyway.

They asked me about Calvin, about our childhood, and about the man they believed him to be. They asked if I had seen anything, if there had ever been a moment when I suspected the truth, and the biggest question of all—if he told me anything before he died.

I told people what I chose to tell them. The rest … well, some things are better left alone. Or so I used to think.

Over the years, life had become quiet, almost too quiet some days. Time passed, settling into the walls and the floors and the spaces where voices used to be. I spend most of my hours in a chair, the same chair that used to belong to Calvin, facing the window that looks out over Bleakmoor Hill.

From here, I can see the road winding its way up toward the house and anyone who comes long before they reach the door. It’s one of the house’s biggest assets, offering me time to prepare. Though these days most people who clamored to question me have given up, and I no longer get many visitors.

At ninety-two, I’ve begun to understand certain things. My body has slowed to a trickle instead of a stream, my bones creaking and cracking with each movement. Sleep has become a welcome respite, and often I find myself wondering if tonight will be the night death takes me as it took Calvin so many decades ago.

Which is why, after all these years, I’ve given in and said yes.

The time has come to talk about my dear, departed friend, and the lucky young woman whom I’d chosen to be the recipient of my story, Juniper Vale.

She’d been here before, though not inside the house. The first time was a month back when she parked her car and stood on the edge of the property, notebook in hand, watching and waiting, but she never came to the door. Two weeks after that, she showed up again, and I invited her to join me on the porch for a glass of lemonade, which she accepted. I thought she might take advantage of the moment, admitting the real reason she’d come. But she just sat there, telling me about herself and her fascination with old homes, like mine, a turn of the century Victorian.

Perhaps she was interested in old houses, even though I suspected it wasn’t the main reason she was there. Still, I respected her cautious approach. I suppose it’s the reason why I chose her. One of the reasons, at least. As I waited for her incoming arrival, I closed my eyes for a moment, listening to the house settle around me. Old wood had a way of speaking, if given enough time, and it, like me, had much to say.

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