Yesterday's Lost: YESTERDAY'S MYSTERIES

By Sam Cheever

THE YESTERDAY'S MYSTERIES PREQUEL

An old house…a shadowy night…a tortured spirit...two lives irretrievably changed...

Pratt Davies is a police detective with the Saint Louis PD. He's comfortable in his role…confident that he's seen just about everything there is to see.

Until he and his partner answer a call to enter a home where blood-curdling screams speak of horrific violence.

Inside the disturbing house, he encounters a strange, icy mist and something malevolent waiting just beyond view. Pratt's confidence is shaken, his worldview smashed into tiny pieces…like shards of glass from a broken mirror.

His partner comes out of that house damaged, both physically and mentally, unable to even form a coherent response.

Pratt is so shaken he can barely function.

And he still has a murder to solve.

Who killed the couple living in that terrible house? What haunted the mist obscuring the scene? How did Pratt's partner end up bleeding and babbling on the floor, something evil oozing through her gaze?

And how is Pratt…broken and terrified himself…ever going to solve a murder that has every indication of having been born in the ether?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Electric Prose Publications
• Release date: Jan 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999170380

Sam Cheever

USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author Sam Cheever writes mystery and suspense, creating stories that draw you in and keep you eagerly turning pages. Known for writing great characters, snappy dialogue, and unique and exhilarating stories, Sam is the award-winning author of 100+ books. NEWSLETTER: Join Sam's Monthly newsletter and get a FREE book! You can also keep up with her appearances, enjoy monthly contests, and get previews of her upcoming work!  https://samcheever.com/newsletter/ ONLINE HOT SPOTS: To find out more about Sam and her work, please pay her a visit at any one of the following online hot spots: Her blog: http://www.samcheever.com/blog; and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SamCheeverAuthor. She looks forward to chatting with you! She has a technique for scooping poop that she knows you’re just DYING to learn about.

Book preview

FROM THE AUTHOR

Pratt Davies is the hero in my Yesterday’s Mysteries series, which is a unique mix of paranormal, historical cozy mystery. In the series, we know Pratt used to be a cop. We know he stopped being a cop and came to Crocker, Indiana because of something horrible in his past. We even get bits and pieces of that horror, and meet some of the people who were a big part of what went down in Saint Louis during that time. But these tantalizing glimpses are just not enough.

We want more.

We want to know exactly what happened to Pratt on that fateful night. We want to know how he came to be in Crocker...how he met Anna...and what that meeting was like.

This is that story.

By necessity, Yesterday’s Lost is a bit darker than the other books, because it’s based on a dark and terrifying event. But there’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel.

Because in the end, Pratt does meet Anna. And their friendship begins on a strong note.

And even more importantly, as we would have hoped, Pratt begins annoying Joss from the very first moment. Driving Anna’s ghostly friend to distraction just by his very existence in her life.

And that’s always an event that’s worth the price of admission. #:0)

Happy Reading!

AN OLD HOUSE...A SHADOWY night...a tortured spirit...two lives irretrievably changed...

Pratt Davies is a police detective with the Saint Louis PD. He’s comfortable in his role...confident that he’s seen just about everything there is to see.

Until he and his partner answer a call to enter a home where blood-curdling screams speak of horrific violence.

Inside the disturbing house, he encounters a strange, icy mist and something malevolent waiting just beyond view. Pratt’s confidence is shaken, his worldview smashed into tiny pieces...like shards of glass from a broken mirror.

His partner comes out of that house damaged, both physically and mentally, unable to even form a coherent response.

Pratt is so shaken he can barely function.

And he still has a murder to solve.

Who killed the couple living in that terrible house? What haunted the mist obscuring the scene? How did Pratt’s partner end up bleeding and babbling on the floor, something evil oozing through her gaze?

And how is Pratt...broken and terrified himself...ever going to solve a murder that has every indication of having been born in the ether?

I don’t give away a lot of books. But I value my readers and, to show it, I'm gifting you a copy of a novella from my fun Silver Hills Mystery series just for signing up for my newsletter!

SIGN UP HERE!

CHAPTER ONE

Yesterday, 2015

Blood-curdling screams. Lots of them. That was the report that brought him to the small, ramshackle house on a quiet residential street in the Saint Louis suburb of Creve Coeur.

Detective Pratt Davies stood back and cast a leery, golden brown gaze over the house, noting the broken window on the first floor and the quiet flap of cotton cloth dancing from a jagged blade of glass in one corner.

His partner, Pam Rogers stood near the rusted gate which dissected the tipped and sunken sidewalk. She stood with her hands in her pockets, nodding as the man who’d called them spoke in rapid-fire English, made nearly indecipherable beneath his thick Latino accent.

Other than the soughing of moist air through the trees hanging over the small house, the area was quiet. Eerily so. The hairs on the back of Pratt’s neck had risen the moment they’d pulled up to the curb and climbed out. His inclination had been to call for support as soon as they arrived.

Only Pam’s cool resistance had kept him from making that call.

The house was supposed to be empty, except for a bunch of feral cats that had taken up residence there the previous fall.

So they’d decided to question the neighbors first.

Pratt knew his partner was right. If it turned out that the screeching the neighbors had heard came from a couple of mating cats, and he’d called for backup, they’d never live it down.

Still, when he and Pam had circled the house after arriving, Pratt had felt death like an icy touch skimming over his skin, bringing gooseflesh up along his arms.

Pam had cast her hard, brown gaze over the peeling white paint and overgrown yard and had shaken her head. She had a mental card file of victim types, which she accessed upon receiving the first impressions of a crime scene. It was based on a concise list of assumptions that Pratt hated to admit turned out to be right more often than they were wrong.

In Pam’s world, certain people, in certain situations, generally suffered a predictable array of outcomes.

He guessed that, in this case, she was thinking drug addicts. Empty, run-down house on the edge of town. Nobody policing it. The scene was tailor-made for people who were beyond the ability to control their rabid hunger for the drugs that were methodically removing them from the functioning world, a snort or an injection at a time. In Pam’s estimation, these people followed an expected progression from happy and normal to sick and debauched and generally suffered violent ends.

It wasn’t a new story. But it was an unpalatable one.

Pratt was hoping that, this time at least, she was wrong. He was pulling for mating cats. Though the words of the small woman with the pale face and ratty nest of graying brown hair were rasping across his nerves like a razor on glass.

They were horrible, terrifying screams, she’d said.

Human? Pam asked because she needed to. Pratt could tell from her tone that she hadn’t any doubt. Her assumptions had already been made, locked and loaded. They awaited only her documentation to become final.

Yeah. A woman and a man it sounded like. Pratt turned to see the tiny woman’s pinched white face folding into a frown. She swallowed hard. I heard a child too.

Pam’s head shot up and her gaze skidded to his. Her hand was already on her gun as Pratt nodded and started forward.

Stay back, his partner told the small crowd of onlookers as she fell in behind him, moving low and fast, one long-fingered hand holding her Glock 9 and the other bracing the small flashlight along the muzzle.

Pratt shoved the gate open and pointed toward the sagging front porch. He cut left, intending to enter the back of the house to cut off the escape of anyone who might be inside.

Pam headed for the front.

As Pratt jogged around the house, his gaze skimming the area around him for shadows that didn’t belong, he heard Pam’s raspy voice call out, Police! just before she kicked the door into the house.

He reached the back just as the front door slammed into the wall. An oily hiss slipped through the pitch-black space where he stood, and fear stabbed through him like a well-honed blade. Pratt stood for a moment and looked around, seeing only the bulky form of a dark green stove on the wall across from him. The adjoining wall held a short bank of cabinets, the doors hanging crooked