Dead Man's Hollow
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Synopsis
As its name suggests, Dead Man's Hollow is a place steeped in spine-tingling ghost stories, dark secrets, and whispers of the supernatural handed down from generation to generation.
Heather Ryan has never been found, and no suspect has ever been arrested. As the thirtieth anniversary of the girl's disappearance approaches, Maisy and her unshakable producer, Jordana, are determined to uncover the truth about what happened to her. The teenagers with Heather that night, now middle-aged parents, remain tight-lipped about the events in the hollow. The few details that do emerge are dark, disturbing, and not entirely trustworthy. And someone will stop at nothing to keep the long-buried truth hidden.
Undeterred, Maisy vows to bring closure to the Ryan family, no matter what ghosts she and Jordana disturb in the process.
Release date: May 21, 2024
Publisher: Brown Street Books
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Dead Man's Hollow
Melissa F. Miller
“When truth is buried underground it grows, it chokes, it gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it.”
— Émile Zola
CHAPTER ONE
May 27, 1994
Heather sways in the bonfire’s flickering light, moving along to whatever song happens to be playing on the boombox that sits on the big, flat rock. Her shadow dances on the ground behind her. When The Sign comes on B-94, the radio station out of Pittsburgh, she belts out the lyrics to the Ace of Base song, raising her arms and closing her eyes to lose herself in the music.
When she opens them, Gino, from her chemistry class, is pressing a sweating bottle of Zima into her hand.
“Thanks.” She smiles and takes a swig, grimacing as the citrusy clear malt liquor hits her taste buds. Then she shakes it off, and drinks again.
There are a lot of kids in the hollow. A lot. Most of the seniors, plenty from the lower grades, too. Some kids from other schools. This is the largest of the fires, but not the only one. Some groups have split off, made smaller fires where they’re drinking their own cheap booze and listening to their own music. The woods echo with competing noises.
Everyone’s celebrating something. It’s the holiday weekend, and there are only a few weeks of school left. Prom is coming up. Then graduation. The waterpark opens tomorrow. Summer’s almost here, and the energy is high, barely contained.
The strains of the opening saxophone loop of Rump Shaker fill the air. Heather chugs the rest of her drink, sets the empty bottle on the ground, and then does as the song suggests. When the song ends, she collapses onto a log next to her sister, breathless and laughing. Amy nudges her with her shoulder.
A guy from the next fire over wanders up to them, a can of beer in each hand. “Nice moves.”
She grins. He hands her a can of IC light. She runs it over her sweaty neck before popping the tab and taking a long drink. He offers Amy the second beer.
She shakes her head. “No, thanks.”
He shrugs and opens it for himself.
Amy turns to her sister. “And you should slow down.”
Heather dismisses her with a wave.
The guy looks from Heather to Amy and back to Heather, then asks, “You bring your mom?”
They both laugh. Amy frowns, then she gets up and leaves. He slides into the spot she’s just vacated, dips his head, and says something in a low voice. Heather laughs even louder. Amy doesn’t turn around.
* * *
Amy bumps into a girl she knows from the yearbook staff. They talk for a while about prom, summer plans, college orientation. Then Amy checks her watch and says goodbye. She has a midnight curfew. Heather does, too, even though she’s a year and a half younger. Diana, two years older than Amy, always tells her not to whine about it. When she was a senior, she had a ten o’clock curfew. Their parents, according to Diana, are getting soft.
Soft or not, they can’t be late. It’s time to go. She returns to the bonfire, but Heather is gone. The log where she’d been sitting is now occupied by a couple who Amy knows from her homeroom. Michelle and Brett are making out, oblivious to the party around them. Amy moves on, circling the fire. No Heather.
She returns to the log where the pair is still macking. She waits, antsy. Neither of them looks up. Finally, she taps Michelle on the shoulder. The girl whips her head around to glare at her.
“What?”
“Have you seen my sister? She was sitting here with some guy?”
Michelle narrows her eyes. “No. Beat it.” She flicks her wrist at Amy, then resumes sticking her tongue down Brett’s throat.
Brett flips Amy off and then runs his hands down Michelle’s back.
Amy walks away. She asks everyone she runs into if they’ve seen Heather. Nobody has. Another time check. It’s ten to midnight, and they have a twenty-minute drive. Damn you, Heather. Panic rises in her chest.
She starts asking if anyone’s seen Heather or a Black guy with a fade. The answer is still no. Tears fill her eyes. She didn’t even want to come to this stupid party. Heather cajoled her into it. Probably because they share a car and she knew Amy wouldn’t drink if she was driving.
Now, she’s going to end up in trouble because even though this is definitely one hundred percent Heather’s fault, she’s the older sister and should know better. She can already hear the lecture.
Frustration wars with worry. She should just leave. That would teach Heather a lesson.
She’s weighing her options when Rich Marino runs up the hill, shouting “Cops, cops!”
Girls scream, people take off, streaming out of the woods.
Damn you, Heather.
She’s frozen. She wants to flee and save herself. But she can’t abandon her sister—not if the police are sweeping the woods. Rich skids to a stop and shakes her.
“Did you hear me? Get out of here.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t find Heather. I can’t leave her here.”
He swears. His chest is heaving from exertion. He locks eyes with her. “Go. I’ll look for her.”
She hesitates. Rich’s older brother is a rookie cop. He joined the force as soon as he was old enough. That’s probably how Rich knows the cops are on their way. And it’s not like Jimmy’s gonna arrest his own brother. Right?
“Go.”
She squeezes his arm. “Thanks, Rich. Last time I saw her, she was talking to some guy at the big fire. He doesn’t go to school with us.”
He frowns. “The Black guy with the fade and the earring?”
She hadn’t noticed an earring, but she nods.
“Okay. I’ll find her. Now, go.”
She runs.
CHAPTER TWO
Maisy Farley scrolls through the emails in the Farley Files inbox. Her fingernails tap out a rhythm as she opens, skims, deletes. She spends just a few seconds on each message, scanning the words only long enough to ascertain the gist before moving on to the next. She’s been at this task for nearly two hours, and so far, has little to show for it.
She breathes out a sigh and runs her hand over the unruly knot that barely contains her blonde curls before glancing across the small table at her producer. Jordana has taken on the task of weeding through the podcast’s social media messages.
Bless that girl, she thinks. While they’re both equally unlikely to come across a tip with the makings of a juicy, Jordana’s far more apt to encounter the unsolicited, very much unwanted pictures of male genitalia that their listeners inexplicably seem to think they crave. She grimaces at the thought.
“You finding anything, sugar?” she asks.
Jordana meets her eye with a wry expression. “You mean other than dick pics and offers to be your sugar daddy?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
“Just the stray cold call marketing request.”
“Do any of the sugar daddies seem promising?” she deadpans.
The younger woman’s eyes go wide for an instant, then she giggles. “I thought you were serious for a second.”
“I noticed.” Maisy raises her arms overhead and arches her back, stretching. “You know, I thought the tip line at the TV station was a bust, but at least we got enthusiastic cranks. I haven’t even seen so much as an Elvis sighting or an alien abduction.”
Jordana laughs again, softly, then wearily pushes her chair back. She rolls her neck from side to side, then pops her knuckles, pulling on the joints one by one..
“Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Maisy pauses while Jordana watches her face.
Her mama always told her it would give her arthritis and big, swollen, ugly knuckles. But she doubts that’s true. And she suspects Jordan’s not overly concerned with attractiveness of her knuckles. “It sounds like it hurts,” she says lamely.
“Well, it doesn’t. It’s a relief. I’m releasing built-up synovial fluid, Maisy. The cracking noise is bubbles popping”
“Synovial fluid?” she parrots.
“It’s a non-Newtonian fluid that cushions joints.”
She stares at the college student. “Like oobleck?”
“Well, not exactly. But, yeah, they’re both non-Newtonian fluids.”
They’re acquainted with oobleck thanks to the children of a mutual friend. Sasha’s twins delight in making the squishy suspension. But Jordana sounds positively professorial. And that reminds her.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your graduation or something? Celebrating, at least?”
Jordana flicks her hand, but Maisy persists.
“Don’t wave it off. It’s a big deal. You’re graduating from college. Just because you’re a working woman doesn’t mean you can’t cut loose.”
“I’m not interested in partying, Maisy. I’m interested in finding our next case.”
Jordana is the oldest twenty-one-year old Maisy knows. She’s also the only twenty-one-year old Maisy knows.
“This isn’t exactly fun,” she points out.
“No,” Jordana agrees readily. “It’s the opposite of fun.” She blows out a frustrated breath. “I’m not saying I disagree with your reasoning, but your guidelines have locked us into a narrow niche.”
Maisy nods. It’s true, she knows. But her guidelines are well-reasoned: no serial killers; no gory recreations of murders; and, at least for, no attempts to exonerate the wrongfully incarcerated. Neither she nor Jordana has any interest in glorifying some killer who has a fan club complete with T-shirts, merch, and taglines, and they agree they never want to profit off the pain of crime victims or revictimize their friends and family members. They part ways on the issue of the imprisoned. Jordana believes her background working for a law firm and Maisy’s sharp investigative skills make them uniquely suited to look into claims from prisoners who insist they haven’t committed the crimes they’ve been found guilty of.
Maisy’s reminded her producer at least a dozen times that she’s not ruling out an innocence season: she hasn’t said she’ll never do a season that looks into a conviction. She sees the value in such podcasts. But.
But the first season of the podcast was emotional—even draining. Sure, they’d helped a widow prove that her ex-husband hadn’t committed suicide but had, instead, been murdered. In the process, Maisy’d tangled with a powerful billionaire, dredged up secrets that put her closest friends in jeopardy, had her home broken into, and was nearly murdered for her efforts. It was equal parts exhilarating, terrifying, and exhausting. And completely worth it. But it’s hard act to follow, and if Maisy wants to keep doing this for the foreseeable future,—and she does—she has to make the work sustainable and valuable. The Farley Files has to be something she can be proud of.
As if Jordana’s reading her mind, she says, “Lots of good came out of the first season. Most podcasts don’t win awards their first season. I know we need to choose our next subject with care.”
“Right. And yes, the Farley Files was a freshman year hit, which reflects well on both of us professionally. But I think we also enjoyed some personal benefits.”
“Like your friendship with Deanne and Jenna?”
“Exactly.”
Maisy somehow became close to both Deanne Lewis, the murdered man’s ex-wife, and Jenna Novak, the widow of the man who killed him and was, himself, murdered to keep him silent. It’s a strange little circle, she knows. But their connections are real.
She waits for a beat, then adds, “And like our partnership.”
Creating a podcast had been Jordana’s idea. And the college student left the law firm where she’d worked as an intern since she was thirteen to produce it. She changed the trajectory of her life for Maisy. So Maisy feels she owes it both to her listeners and to Jordana to create something with integrity in her second season, something that will help people like Deanne and Jenna. Something that will affirm the choice Jordana made. Maybe that makes her sappy and soft, but she doesn’t think so. And if it does, she doesn’t care.
Jordana flushes, pleased by the recognition. But her joy is short-lived. “We’ve got nothing. I can’t believe we’ve got nothing.”
“I know,” Maisy agrees. “We need to find a subject soon.”
Yes, she needs to be selective, but it’s been over a year since the podcast’s first season ended, and the only spots they’ve air have been increasingly urgent invitations for listeners to send in tips. At some point, the perfect will become the enemy of the non-obsolete.
Jordana closes her laptop lid. “Ice cream break?”
Maisy almost says no. After fifteen years of television works, accounting for every spoonful of food that crosses her lips has become second nature. But she reminds herself she isn’t being judged on her looks. For the first time in her entire life, she’s being judged solely on the quality of her work. She can eat premium ice cream if she wants to, and she doesn’t owe anyone an explanation.
“Salted caramel for me, please.”
“You’re so predictable”
Jordana leaves and returns a moment later from Maisy’s kitchen with two single-serve ice cream containers and two spoons. She passes Maisy the salted caramel and digs into the brown sugar cinnamon. They savor the treat in silence except for the occasional soft moan of pleasure, which prompts Jordana to murmur, “Your neighbors are gonna think you’re filming porn in here.”
Maisy laughs so hard she nearly chokes. After they catch their breath, they resume flipping through messages while they polish off their ice cream.
She almost misses it.
She’s in the zone, zipping through emails and scooping up ice cream, when she stops. Just before she hits delete on yet another message, her brain catches up with words she’s read and hasn’t fully processed. Before she puts it in the trash, she reopens it and reads it again, more slowly this time.
Her heart flip-flops and her voice quavers when she says, “We might have something here. It came in through the tip line form you set up.”
“Really?” Jordana’s spoon clatters to the table and races around to peer over Maisy’s shoulder at the message on the screen:
New Message to The Farley Files Tip Line at [email protected]
Date: April 12, 2024
Subject: Thirty Years Without Answers
Ms. Farley,
Our sister, Heather Renee Ryan, vanished almost thirty years ago when she was just sixteen. She’s never been seen again. The police have never arrested a suspect in her disappearance, never recovered her body, never found her living somewhere else. Although her case is technically not closed, it’s clear to us she was written off as a runaway and nobody truly tried to find her. We need to know what happened to her. You’re our last hope.
Sincerely,
Diana Ryan, Amy Ryan Marino, Kristy Ryan Kolawski, the sisters of Heather Ryan
They stare in silence at the short message for a long moment, then Jordana exhales “A cold case. A missing teenager. Three sisters who’ve been waiting nearly three decades for answers.”
“It checks all the boxes,” Maisy says, half to herself.
“And with the anniversary of her disappearance coming up, we can generate some real interest.” Jordana’s marketing wheels are spinning.
“I want to help these women find out what happened to their sister.” Her face breaks into a wide grin. “We may have just found our second season.”
Jordana grins back for a heartbeat, then she’s all business. “I’ll do some preliminary research into the disappearance.”
Maisy frowns, but it’s a playful frown. “Now, you know I love to research. I’ll do that. Why don’t you reach out to the family and set up a meeting?”
She bobs her head. “On it.”
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