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    False Shadows: Eight Scott Drayco Mystery Stories
    False Shadows: Eight Scott Drayco Mystery Stories
    False Shadows: Eight Scott Drayco Mystery Stories
    Ebook120 pages2 hours

    False Shadows: Eight Scott Drayco Mystery Stories

    By BV Lawson

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    About this ebook

    COMBINES "Grave Madness" and "Vengeance is Blind" into one volume!

    Scott Drayco had everything going for him: handsome, brilliant, a talented classical pianist. After violence scarred him physically and emotionally, he turned to an FBI career and now freelances as a crime consultant, taking on cases other people often don't want to touch. From a suspected serial killer who plays mind games with Drayco, to murder and revenge at 20,000 feet, these eight stories delve into the darkest mysteries of the human soul.

    Praise for Derringer Award-winning BV Lawson's short fiction:

    "We've had the pleasure of reading these tales and can enthusiastically recommend them." - Omnimystery News

    "...One of the best shorts I've read this year. Scary and triumphant in the bleakest kind of way with two of the best characters I've read. - AJ Hayes

    "Awesome story. Beautifully written...you have really written something special." - Terrie Farley Moran

    "BV Lawson ends the anthology on a strong note. Scott Drayco investigates the death of a shock jock and...cleverly solves the crime. All in all, an excellent read for lovers of quality mystery fiction." - Jacqueline Seewald

    "This was a well written, fast read that held my attention." -- druidgirl

    "That the author could fit all of this into a short story and make me connect to the characters makes me want to read more of her work." - Midu

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBV Lawson
    Release dateDec 30, 2012
    ISBN9781301603497
    False Shadows: Eight Scott Drayco Mystery Stories
    Author

    BV Lawson

    Past career hats BV Lawson tried on include maid, super-speedy typist, classical musician, radio announcer, being in TV commercials (for all of one day), research assistant, TV features writer and working for the Discovery Channel. Now a full-time freelance writer, she's penned articles for various publications and won awards for her many published stories and poems.Thanks to the influence of library genes handed down from her mother, she created the blog In Reference to Murder which contains over 3,000 links for mystery readers and writers. She's working on a series of crime fiction novels set in various locations in and around the mid-Atlantic, and when time permits, BV and her husband enjoy flying over Northern Virginia and the Chesapeake in a little putt-putt plane. Visit BV via her web site, bvlawson.com. No ticket required

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      Book preview

      False Shadows - BV Lawson

      FALSE SHADOWS

      Eight Scott Drayco Mystery Stories

      by

      BV Lawson

      Crimetime Press

      Arlington, VA

      Sign up for BV Lawson’s Newsletter

      And receive A FREE SCOTT DRAYCO NOVELETTE!

      False Shadows is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Copyright © 2012 by BV Lawson.

      All rights reserved.

      Published in the United States of America.

      For information, contact

      Crimetime Press,

      6312 Seven Corners Center, Box 257

      Falls Church, VA 22044

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      The Devil to Play

      Drayco tries to prevent the theft of a rare violin that appears to be cursed.

      Blood Antiphon

      A suspected serial killer plays mind games with Drayco, who learns the two men are connected in a most disturbing way.

      The Clue Room

      It wasn’t every day Drayco got a phone call from the dead....

      Valley of the Shadow of Death

      Betrayal leads to attempted murder-by-flash-flood in America's desert southwest.

      Terror of the Mind Bandit

      A man with dementia thinks the staff at an assisted living home are trying to kill him, and Drayco begins to suspect there may be something to the man's claims.

      The Fine Art of Justice

      Drayco and the world’s most diminutive attorney, Benny Baskin, get more than they bargained for when they visit a reclusive violinist.

      The Tradition Thief

      Drayco teams up with a Native American Sheriff to find the link between stolen artifacts and the suspicious death of a medicine man.

      Out of the Clouds

      Drayco discovers murder and revenge at 20,000 feet.

      Note to My Readers

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      The Devil to Play

      Blinded by smoke, Scott Drayco crouched in darkness as alarm bells wailed. He wiped his burning eyes on his sleeve and strained to hear any sounds the alarms weren’t drowning out. His companions were surprisingly silent, save for a few choking coughs from Belinda. Underneath the din, he thought he heard a faint metallic scraping, a noise he couldn’t quite identify.

      His mind was surprisingly clear despite the smoke bomb, and he started counting off the seconds, one by one. The metallic sound came at thirty seconds, and now, at about forty, the first drops from the sprinklers began raining down.

      The deluge was the last straw for Martin Mabie, who exclaimed, Oh for the love of God!

      Drayco could see a vague outline of Mabie now. Or at least he thought the blobby shape was Mabie, looking like a ghost crab as he crawled out from under a table where he’d sought refuge and started scuttling toward the door.

      Mabie yelled, I’m going to turn those damn things off before they ruin the exhibits. I’ll be right back. As he growled those words, it had only been fifty seconds.

      Just yesterday, Martin Mabie contacted Drayco with a peculiar request. He hadn’t wanted the FBI or police involved because he feared they would just laugh at him. Who in their right mind, after all, would take a threatening note against a violin seriously? But as Director of the Alsberg Museum of Fine Art, Mabie couldn’t take that chance.

      A private consultant would be more discreet, he’d said, pleading with Drayco to help. Your music background makes you the ideal person under the circumstances.

      Music background. What an innocuous-sounding phrase, that. Drayco avoided anything remotely musical in his professional life over the past decade, keeping it between himself and the beloved Steinway parked in a corner of his D.C. brownstone. All it took was one act of violence to change his career path from pianist to crime fighter. Had fate made this his first solo case as an investigator after leaving the Bureau?

      Even though part of him hadn’t wanted to touch this case, one of the reasons he took it on was the knowledge this was no ordinary violin, the Lady Ambrose Stradivarius. As Mabie explained, It’s named after the most recent owner, Lady Amelia Ambrose. But it had a previous sinister past, including a Russian countess who’d murdered her lover to get her hands on the instrument.

      And even more horrible, it was used at Auschwitz in prisoner orchestras who played as Nazis marched Jews to the gas chambers. But in the perverse world of collectors, its grisly history only made the instrument more valuable.

      Babysitting that rare instrument was why Drayco found himself ensconced with Martin Mabie among Balinese masks and Greek statues in a side room off the main basement exhibit hall at midnight. They were joined by curator Jonas Pancoast and Loncor Insurance rep Belinda Tewksbury, who’d insisted on coming along to protect her company’s investment. Mabie believed if the instrument truly were in jeopardy, tonight was the night—tomorrow it would go on tour with the Lafleur Quartet, before being sent on loan for six months to a museum in the Netherlands.

      After Mabie scurried away in search of the sprinkler shut-off valve, Drayco checked on the two other occupants of the room, now that the smoke had mostly dissipated. Jonas wiped his wet glasses on his damp lapel, and Belinda was still holding her tiny yellow Prada purse over her head in a vain attempt to stave off the downpour. Seeing they were okay, Drayco grabbed his pocket flashlight and headed toward the violin display case.

      The case was a stand-alone exhibit on an ebony pedestal in the middle of the hall, the bottom filled with a luxurious red velvet lining. Drayco could clearly see indentations in the fabric where the violin had rested, but the violin itself was gone. What had the threatening note said? Occasio facit furem. Opportunity makes a thief.

      Belinda joined him and stared glumly at the naked case. How could she see anything, with the strands of soggy dark hair plastered to her forehead covering her eyes? In his annoyance at the whole situation, Drayco raked aside the dripping locks on his own face and scratched his forehead in the process. He should have seen this coming, should have checked under the furniture beforehand. That was a rookie mistake.

      Belinda whined, Maybe Wall Street stock traders are accustomed to losing two million dollars in under a minute, but I’m not. And I don’t think my bosses are the understanding sort.

      Belinda was positively stoic compared to Jonas, the picture of agitation in motion as he wrung his hands together and rocked back and forth on his feet. Oh dear Lord, a centerpiece of the museum, just—gone. Do you know that violin brought in thousands of tourists who came to see it? More than one person has told me it was worth the price of admission alone.

      He glanced up at Drayco, These exhibits become like our children as we restore them and care for them. I don’t know what we’ll do without the Lady.

      Belinda scowled. At least you won’t lose your job over it.

      Suddenly, the sprinklers switched off, and the overhead fluorescents hummed back to life. Drayco said to the pair, I’ll take that as my cue and check the other rooms. Keep an eye out. He lowered his voice, using the same commanding tone that had worked well in his FBI days. And don’t touch anything.

      The Victorian room was the first he hurried through, dodging John Singer Sargent paintings and amethyst-colored sandwich glass. The smoke hadn’t made it this far, although the sulfur smell followed him through the halls. He’d memorized the building layout before the stakeout and quickly checked all access points and even the bathrooms. The museum designers planned for maximum traffic flow—leaving few hiding places, much to the dismay of small children, perhaps, but at least it made his search easier.

      He didn’t spy any evidence of other life forms, menacing or otherwise, save a spider in a corner of the Folk Art room, and his damp shoe prints were the only

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