by Rebecca Grace
It’s always fun to celebrate and as this month comes to a
close I have something wonderful to celebrate – the world wide release of my
new book, Dead Man’s Rules. This is one
of those books whose inner story grabbed hold of me while I was still in
college and never let go. I wrote the
original version of it when I was in my early twenties on in pencil on notebook
paper and then finished it typing on my first manual portable typewriter. I revised it on my first Selectric typewriter
and kept reworking it until I finally finished it many years later on my computer.
But even as I finished it, I knew tragic love stories set in
the 50s and 60s weren’t going to sell, so I ended up updating it to the present
and telling it through a modern heroine’s eyes.
I’ve told the story of how I came up with Dead Man over and
over – it was one of those strange ghost-type stories you hear in high school
or college-some mysterious building being haunted, some mysterious person being
killed. And that was how I first came up
with the story of Marco Gonzales. There was supposed to be a bloody handprint
on a wall left by a dying man – at least the story went that he died. And he
was supposed to haunt this old building.
The building was real enough and my college friends and I set off to see
it.
We had to do it in daytime, since back in my college days,
girls didn’t get to be out of the dorm past ten and it took at least a couple
of hours to drive out there. That was just as well. The final drive to the old
building was over dirt roads and the building was boarded up. I remember being
impressed with my first view of the building I later turned into the Palladium
dance hall. It was an old company store that was two stories high and stood all
by itself. It was boarded up and we had to climb through a broken door to get
inside. And then we had to climb a rickety set of stairs up to the second
floor. All the windows were boarded up and we had brought no flashlight so we
had to do this all in near darkness, with the only light from broken pieces of
wood in the windows.
But somehow we found the right room and somehow we found the
hand print. It actually existed—just like we’d been told. Like Cere Medina in
Dead Man, I wasn’t that impressed with what we were seeing. But it was there.
And it was spooky, even if it was faint. There were splotches around it, which
could have been more blood. We didn’t even know if it had been made from a bloody
hand. It could have been made from a greasy hand. But we all wanted to believe
the story that it had been blood and it had been made by a dying man. There was
nothing written under it (yes, writers must have creative license for a good
story.) But it was eerie and we were all very quiet as we looked at it. All
laughter stopped, all joking stopped. All I could hear was the eerie sound of
the wind whistling through the boarded up windows.
We saw no ghost or anything else scary, but I remembered
being afraid of being locked inside that room. After a few moments of silence
we made our way downstairs and regained our voices. On the way back to town
during the long drive we all came up with stories about how the handprint had
been made. One of the guys figured it had been made by someone who had not paid
a gambling debt. Someone else thought it was a fight over a woman. My story was
Marco’s love story, or at least the start of the story was. It eventually
evolved into the foundation for Dead Man’s Rules.
That wasn’t the only time I visited that location or the
handprint. Years later I took my parents and younger brother up there and saw
it again. It was still just as spooky and only made me want more to write my
story about the handprint on the wall.
While the building still stands in the mountains of southern
Colorado near the New Mexico state line, it is impossible to get close to
now. It’s on private, fenced in
property, though I supposed a bunch of kids on a late night outing might still
try to do it at times.
I don’t know if the hand print is still visible, but the
building itself is still spooky. And if the man who made that handprint haunts the
place, he’s all alone these days.
So here's a toast to spooky stories and visits to (possibly) haunted houses! And another to Dead Man's Rules and its World Wide release. (see below for a blurb and excerpt)
Buy Links:
Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00I28UXFY
The Wild Rose Press: http://bit.ly/1kp7eUN
Blurb:
A woman on a mission, a man with secrets to hide...
When tabloid reporter Cere Medina decides to dig into the mysterious cold case death of Marco Gonzales, she hopes it will save her career. Instead, she unearths enough secrets to make a small town explode. Not to mention putting her on the wrong side of the town's fascinating sheriff.
Sheriff Rafe Tafoya doesn't need anyone digging up the past. He's come back to his hometown of Rio Rojo, New Mexico seeking peace and quiet. But Cere's arrival puts his town—and his heart—in danger.
Behind it all lurks the ghostly presence of Marco, who has everyone playing by a dead man's rules...
When tabloid reporter Cere Medina decides to dig into the mysterious cold case death of Marco Gonzales, she hopes it will save her career. Instead, she unearths enough secrets to make a small town explode. Not to mention putting her on the wrong side of the town's fascinating sheriff.
Sheriff Rafe Tafoya doesn't need anyone digging up the past. He's come back to his hometown of Rio Rojo, New Mexico seeking peace and quiet. But Cere's arrival puts his town—and his heart—in danger.
Behind it all lurks the ghostly presence of Marco, who has everyone playing by a dead man's rules...
Excerpt:
Cere caught hold of his arm. “Maybe you should take me to
the Palladium, Sheriff. I’d like to see the bloody hand print for myself.”
Damn, she was persistent. Rafe shook his head, again hoping
to discourage her. “I chase people out. I don’t give tours. Enjoy your
vacation.”
“I didn’t come for vacation.” Her eyes flashed with
irritation. “I want to do a story on the handprint. I need to.”
His stomach knotted, as his breakfast churned in his
stomach. He didn’t ask why she needed to do the story. He knew. Ego.
Reaching down, Cere pulled a reporter’s notebook from her
bag. “If you won’t do an interview, do you know anyone who might talk to me?”
Why had he wondered what she might think about him? Or hope
that she might be interested in him? She was only after her damn story. Acid
boiled in his stomach. This woman would pry until eventually she might uncover
some ugly truths. And she would spill it all out on national television. She
could hurt a good many people, people he knew and loved.
Rafe gritted his teeth as he forced an answer, hoping for
one final chance at dissuading her. “No one will talk to you. My advice is to
let it go. Relax. Take your vacation.”
He might as well have struck her. Her chin snapped up and
her body grew rigid. He drew back at the determination he saw grow in her
bright eyes.
“Don’t try to tell me what I should do. It’s time someone
found out who murdered Marco Gonzales. Yes, I said,murdered, Sheriff. If you
don’t want to help me investigate his death, I’ll do it on my own.”
