Missing, Assumed Dead

Missing, Assumed Dead

A Novel by: Marva Dasef

Genre: Suspence Mystery Romance

Rating: L=2    S=2    V=3

Release: July 29, 2011

Editor: Anne Duguid

Line editor: Penny Ehrenkranz

Cover artist: Suzannah Safi

Word count: 45000

Pages: 127

ISBN: 978-1-927085-28-8

Price: $5.50

Warning: Moderate violence, sexual content - PG13

Blurb:

When Kameron McBride receives notice she’s the last living relative of a missing man she’s never even heard of, the last thing she wants to do is head to some half-baked Oregon town to settle his affairs. But since she’s the only one available, she grudgingly agrees.

En route, she and her rental car run afoul of a couple of hillbillies and their pickup in an accident that doesn’t seem . . . accidental. Especially when they keep showing up wherever she goes. Lucky for her, gorgeous Deputy Mitch Caldwell lends her a hand, among other things. Her suspicions increase when she meets the probate judge, and he tries just a little too hard to buy the dead man’s worthless property.

Kam probes deeper into the town’s secrets and finds almost no one she can trust. With Mitch’s help, she peels away the layers of prejudice, suicide, murder, and insanity. Kam must find out what really happened to her dead relative before someone in this backward little town sends her to join him.

And she thought Oregon was going to be boring.

Excerpt:

The front yard—if the flat space in front of the house could be given that much honor—was a mass of sharp gravel. Kam was happy to have her tennies on. The bottom of her foot was still sore from her impromptu foot race along the creek.

“Let’s look in the house first. Mirabel said the body was in the shed, so I’d just as soon put that off.”

Kam tried the door. It swung open easily. The single room held only a cookstove on one side and a narrow cot on the other. A small table on the kitchen side had a single chair. Kam opened a wooden cupboard to find it lined with metal—an icebox. Desiccated carrots and shrunken potatoes hung limply on the wire racks that served for shelving.

Kam hunted for evidence of an electrical supply. Not so much as a two-prong socket adorned the walls. Two kerosene lamps stood on either end of the room. But the shack was neat and homey. Salvadore hadn’t had much, but what he had, he kept clean and tidy.

“This is awful,” Kam said, picking up a tin plate from the table. Something had congealed, and petrified itself to the plate.

Mitch was on the other side of the room examining the bookshelf. He held up a photo album. “You wanted to find photos or records. Is this what you’re looking for?”

“Yeah. Mom will definitely want that. Would you fetch the box off the porch and load it with everything from the shelf?” She leaned over one of the kerosene lamps. “I know a guy who collects these. I’ll snag them too.” As an afterthought, she added, “I hope Salvadore doesn’t mind.”

Kam opened the album to the first page. A stern-faced couple stared out of the sepia-tone pictures. She worked her fingernail under the edge and lifted carefully because of the brittleness. She could just make out a faint scrawling on the back. The writing was spidery and elegant, very turn of the century. The name Vasco was clear, but the rest of the notation was in a language she didn’t recognize. Her brief studies on the Basques revealed their language, Euskara, was not at all like Spanish. She decided that when she got back home, she’d help her mother research this side of her family.

Mitch brought back the box with the metal cup inside. “That might be a collector’s item.”

“Maybe.” She put her hands on her hips and stared around the room. “Damn! I feel like a thief, but it’s better for Mom to have these things. She’ll cherish them rather than letting them rot out here.” Kam put the album and a few other books in the box. The titles and authors were in both Spanish and Euskara. They packed everything and put the box in the back of the Expedition.

Mitch closed the hatch, put his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “When this is all over, we need to talk. Seriously. About us.”

“What? Well, hold that thought.” Kam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, let’s look at the shack now.”

She followed Mitch. She didn’t want to admit she was afraid the two rednecks might be lurking out here. Perhaps the judge had contacted them. Maybe he knew she’d found out what happened. The whole situation tied her stomach into a knot. When they rounded the corner of the house, Kam pointed. “The shepherd’s crook. I guess the judge put it there.”

“Why do you think he did that?”

Kam shook her head. “Mirabel said she’d carried it back here from the porch and dropped it. He probably propped it up unconsciously. It’s practically a signpost saying ‘Look Here for Evidence’.”

Brown grass and a couple of loose tumbleweeds obscured the bottom of the wood door. Mitch shoved the dead vegetation aside with his boot and reached for the door handle. He stopped abruptly. Kam followed his gaze to the ground. A rusted axe and shovel lay on the ground almost hidden by the weeds. Kam stared at them. “Rust or blood?”

Mitch shrugged and pulled open the door to the shack. Two dusty windows, almost hidden by the shelves, lit the inside with a diffused, dim glow, just enough to make out the interior. The eight-foot square space had shelves lining every wall where Salvadore had neatly arranged a variety of tools, ropes, and cans. At the far end, a workbench jutted from the wall.

“I don’t see anything suspicious. Looks neat as a pin,” Kam examined the cans and bottles. “Paint, turpentine, weed killer. Just the usual stuff people keep in a shed.”

Mitch knelt down and examined the floorboards. “There’s a dark stain over here. It’s different from the rest of the floor.”

Kam bent to examine it. “The judge cleaned up, but it could be anything.” In her heart, she knew it was blood. A chill raised goosebumps on her arms despite the heat. She rubbed them. “This is really creepy, Mitch. Let’s go outside.”

“We’ll take the axe and shovel.”

“Can you get them analyzed? For blood, I mean?” Kam reached down to pick up the axe, but Mitch blocked her hand.

“Let’s not contaminate the evidence. I’ve got gloves and some plastic garbage bags in the truck.”

“Of course.”

Mitch went back to the SUV for the bags and gloves. Kam crouched in front of the shed for a moment, searching the ground for footprints or whatever. With a snort, she straightened. “Huh. That’s dumb,” she muttered. After seven years, the weather would have washed away anything left out in the open.

Reviews:

MEET THE AUTHOR

Customer Reviews:

Missing Assumed Dead by Marva DasefrnrnIn this fast paced mystery suspense, Kam McBride is summoned to a small town in Eastern Oregon to settle probate on a property of a distant relative she wasn’t aware existed, until now. rnrnKam agrees to go to Eastern Oregon only to appease her mother’s wishes of obtaining any family photographs, or family documents, but when Kam arrives in the hot and dusty town, things get a lot more complicated as she delves into what really happened to her long lost relative, Salvadore Vasco, seven years prior.rnrnAs she slowly uncovers the town’s layered secrets, with the help of a hunky sheriff deputy, and her life is threatened more than once, Kam realizes she’s stumbled onto a much deeper mystery than she bargained for.rnrnMs. Dasef’s harrowing action scenes and interesting characters drew me into the end of this tight mystery, and there are some fascinating twists which add to the flavor of this story. I felt the intimacy scenes were a little rushed, but that’s the romantic in me, and sometimes Kam’s character was a little too hard headed for her own good, but thankfully Mitch was able to gently steer in the right direction. Occasionally, I was distracted by the ‘he said, she did this’ passages, but all in all, Missing Assumed Dead is a solid and unique mystery, with great action and atmosphere, and interesting secondary characters. As an Oregonian, I definitely enjoyed this read and would recommend it for any mystery suspense enthusiasts. rnrnS. Durham

I just finished this book. Marva weaves a tale of suspense and action. Great book.

Here are a few comments for this book in reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other sites:rnrn- Action packed, suspenseful, with a good dose of mystery. Ms. Dasef had me hooked from the first page through to the end. Highly recommend this read! rnrn- This is a wonderful tale set right here in my home state of Oregon. Fictional with the flair and feeling of what the terrain and weather is like on our side of the Cascade Mountains adding in the mystery, flips and turns of a very good mystery thriller that only Marva Dasef in her descriptive and unique way can capture.rnrn- Ms. Dasef has proved she can carry a story in many genres. Missing and Assumed Dead is a another great read.rnrn

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