Black Forest, Denver Cereal Volume 5

BLACK FOREST

Denver Cereal, Volume Five

Claudia Hall Christian

Cook Street Publishing
Denver, CO

Also by
Claudia Hall Christian

THE DENVER CEREAL SERIAL FICTION:

The Denver Cereal
Celia’s Puppies

Cascade

Cimarron

Black Forest

ALEX THE FEY THRILLER SERIES:

The Fey

Learning to Stand

Who I am

Lean on Me

THE QUEEN OF COOL

Originally published at DenverCereal.com
:
October 2010 — June 2011

copyright © Claudia Hall Christian

Licensed under the Creative Commons
License:

Attribution–NonCommercial–Share Alike 3.0

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ISBN (
13 digits
) :
978-1-938057-68-7

Library of Congress
:
2012930930
(print)

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.

First edition © January, 2012

Cook Street Publishing
PO Box 18217

Denver, CO 80218

For those who’ve faced
their demon and
somehow, some way managed to retain possession
of their whole big, beautiful, loving heart.

A
uthor’s note

There are a number of stories that go with
the Saint Jude storyline. Of course, finding the bones of the
Lovers under the Castle chapel came to me the usual way – from the
ether. I didn’t think a lot about it. After all, Delphie has always
said she felt a press of souls when she was in the coal tunnels
nearby. In some ways, finding the bones made great sense. And
truthfully, it’s not uncommon to find the bodies of expired
vagrants and runaways in the basements and cellars the old
dilapidated mansions near Race and Colfax where the Castle lives.
Plus, Denver Cereal has always had a Denver Police detective
(Seth).

I was having dinner with the Silent Partner
and some friends around the time when Jacob found the bones. They
wanted to know where the bones came from. What was the mystery
behind them? I’d planned to let Seth deal with all of that
somewhere off screen. After all, Denver Cereal is a romantic
serial, not a murder mystery serial. But they were insistent and
the ether spoke. A murder mystery was born.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Five is
another story. This chapter was published the week of Halloween,
2010. In some ways, this chapter is the ‘Halloween Special’ of
Denver Cereal. Once this chapter existed, the story continued along
the pathway of good vs. evil, demonic creatures, and other
other-worldly events.

For the record, I had planned to capture
Saint Jude and put him on trial. I felt the families deserved that
kind of closure. I was the only one who felt that way. The
editorial team argued with me so much that I put it out to the
Denver Cereal community at DenverCereal.com. I was out voted.
Readers not only wanted Saint Jude to die, they wanted him to die
in some horrible paranormal way in fitting with his crimes. You’ll
have to let me know if what I came up with soothed your blood lust
for this evil man.

Once again, Brion Sausser did a bang up job
with the cover.

Thank you, Denver Cereal reader! Without
you, Denver Cereal would not exist. I always say, Denver Cereal is
a labor of love. Thank you for sharing yours with us.

Janurary, 2012

What’s happened so far?

The Denver
Cereal:

In the Denver Cereal, we meet Jillian Roper
when she pulls on her thigh high leather boots and crashes her
abusive ex-husband Trevor’s engagement party. At the party, she
meets the man of her dreams, Jacob Marlowe. Together, Jill and
Jacob begin a crash course through grave injury and illness, to
find love. Along the way, we meet Jacob’s movie star sister,
Valerie, and learn of her struggles to have her own dreams and
share a life with her husband Mike. Jill’s best friends, Sandy,
Heather, and Tanesha, begin new courses in their life that take
them to confront their greatest fears and deepest longings.

Celia’s Puppies, Denver
Cereal, Volume 2

Jacob and Valerie’s mother, Celia, had a
habit of helping lost people, called Celia’s Puppies. In this
second Volume of the Denver Cereal, Celia’s puppies come to the
forefront. We meet Jacob’s noble step-sister Honey, we learn more
about Jacob’s ‘cousin’ Blane, and, via Oprah Winfrey, Valerie
learns of Mike’s terrifying time away from her. In the middle,
Trevor and his fiancé attempt to kidnap Jill’s daughter Katy and
her best friend Paddie at a holiday party. The fiancé all but kills
Honey. She is saved by her childhood sweetheart and Special Forces
medic MJ and they reorient their lives and love. Jill and Jacob
dance around getting married and, in the very end, they marry in an
incredibly beautiful ceremony which includes every member of the
Denver Cereal family. Of course, Sandy, Heather and Tanesha
support, love and take steps forward toward their own happily ever
afters.

Cascade, Denver Cereal,
Volume 3

Peace comes to Denver Cereal, but demons
from the past refuse to stay in the past. We learn of Sandy’s
horrific childhood and her boyfriend Aden responds with violence.
His violent act ends with Sandy getting shot by her pedophile
father and Aden lands in jail. Jill, her mother, and father tell
the story that was to never ever be told and her family begins to
heal. With the help of Heather, now his wife, Blane confronts his
past loves and battles Hepatitis C. Beloved Delphie must confront a
demon from her past. When he arrives to kill her and everyone else,
he meets what he could never expect. Delphie’s family battles for
her. In the end, Jill bashes him with a hockey stick and Delphie
survives a life threatening stroke.

Cimarron, Denver Cereal,
Volume 4

In Cimarron, the characters of Denver Cereal
grapple with the consequences of their actions to restart their
lives. Aden heals and continues his jail sentence. Delphie has to
come to terms with almost dying to start her life again. Valerie
performs in her first action adventure and launches herself as a
movie actress while Mike’s painting career flourishes. Jill and
Jacob face their first true relationship challenge. Sandy holds
everything together other to become gravely ill herself. Her child,
Rachel, is born 2 months early. They fight their way through the
problems to come together as a family. And just in time! Six pairs
of human remains under the Castle Chapel draw everyone into a dark
murder mystery.

Black Forest
begins in Sandy’s hospital room where we begin to
see the mystery intertwine with our characters.

Confused? You can download the Denver
Cereal, Volume 1 from Smashwords or from our store at:
CookStreetStore.com. You’ll find all Denver Cereal books in every
electronic format and paperback at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
Smashwords, and your local independent bookseller.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED &
TWENTY-FOUR
Gilmore

Sunday evening — 6:45 P.M.

“
I have this same Saint
Jude pendant,” Aden Norsen said.

It seemed as if all the oxygen had been
sucked out of Sandy’s hospital room. Without thinking, Aden had
just admitted to being connected to the serial child murderer,
Saint Jude. Aden gasped for a breath.

His children, Nash and Noelle, gawked at
him. Sandy’s half-brother and sister, Charlie and Sissy, looked
away as if they were embarrassed. Teddy Jakkman, Nash’s
best-friend, pretended not to hear. Still sick with the infection
that threatened her life, Sandy’s eyebrows furrowed with concern.
The man who never liked him, Detective Seth O’Malley, his only
in-law, looked as if he was going to arrest him.

“
What do you mean?” Seth’s
voice was cop-trick neutral to cover his interest.

“
I have this same
pendant,” Aden repeated. “I wore it every day. Never took it off. I
used to say it was why I survived everything.”

“
Jeffy used to say the
same thing,” Charlie said.

“
Is this your pendant?”
Seth asked in the same eerie voice.

“
I don’t know how,” Aden
said. “I saw the boy only that one time at the Castle. I was in
meetings all day when he worked for us. He stopped by my office for
his wages. I checked in with accounting to see how he did and then
paid him. I saw him like… one minute. Two maximum.”

“
Jeffy wore that necklace
since I first met him,” Charlie said.

“
Where is your necklace?”
Seth asked.

“
I don’t have any idea.
Our stuff is everywhere,” Aden said. “I sold the house when I was
incarcerated in case the kids or Sandy needed the money. Sandy
moved everything into storage. It must be there.”

Turning to Sandy, Seth asked, “Do you
remember this necklace?”

Sandy took the package from him. She turned
it over in her hand, played with the chain and held it away from
her.