Page 44 of Farlan (Immortal Highlander Clan McKeran #3)
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
As the sun sank and turned the sky a brilliant violet-gold over the seaside cliffs of Monterey, California, Esme Martinez stood at the front gates of McKeran’s Castle.
She and more than fifty other journalists, photographers and media professionals had been invited by the owner, Renard Beaumont, to attend this one-night-only event.
Since they’d been hand-picked for their credentials, the security check seemed a little silly, but she’d be happy to jump through almost any hoop to get inside.
Esme would finally be able to revisit some of the most delightful memories of her childhood.
If she could also find the reason why so many people had disappeared inside the castle since it had been brought over from Scotland, that would make her adulthood a lot happier as well.
As a local, Esme knew back in town the residents would be shifting from the genteel hustle of daytime work to gathering time.
Shops would turn their welcome signs from open to closed, count out their tills and lock up for the evening before the owners met their colleagues and friends at their favorite bar.
The proprietors would be griping once again about the end of the summer rush, during which sales had been disappointing this year.
Inflation hadn’t helped the region recover from the huge loss of revenue that businesses had been hit with during the pandemic.
With Christmas still four months away, they’d have to fight over the limited vendor spaces at the late-season car shows, golf tournaments and street fairs in hopes of making a little extra income.
The historic town looked just as gorgeous as ever, but no one could pay their bills with beautiful scenery.
During Esme’s childhood in Monterey, it hadn’t been quite so hard to get by here.
Back then rent, food and other costs of living had been more affordable.
The local attractions hadn’t yet been entirely turned into the homogenized, high-priced tourist Meccas of the present.
There had also been plenty of work available for those who wanted to earn more.
To augment her wages as a cleaner, Carmen Martinez had always spent her days off working from a neighbor’s taqueria truck parked out by Fisherman’s Wharf.
Esme would sit and do her homework under the prep table while her grandmother expertly made tacos, burritos, quesadillas and nachos for the customers, who often waited in long lines for her delicious fare.
What you see here is magic, mija , Carmen had told her once in between customers. Everyone forgets to be hateful after they eat my food. You know why?
A full belly makes a heart happy, Abuela , Esme dutifully repeated one of her grandmother’s favorite sayings.
As a little girl she had also spent a few years coming at night three times a week to the twelfth-century medieval stone hulk known as McKeran’s Castle.
She remembered as if it were yesterday peering out the narrow windows to watch the fireflies in the woods while her grandmother had tidied up after the last of the daily tours.
Being able to revisit one of the places Carmen had worked eased the sorrow of missing her, which still plagued Esme.
It also intrigued her as a journalist, as the ancient castle had grown quite notorious in the last few decades.
Nearly a hundred people had evidently gone missing inside the medieval structure, and many others had disappeared or died in mysterious accidents near the property.
For those reasons McKeran’s Castle had become the Roanoke of Northern California.
“Martinez from Monterey Today ,” the security guard muttered as he consulted his clipboard and then eyed her. “You look pretty young for a reporter, Miss.”
Thanks to her wonderful Mexican genes, she still looked like a teenager, and probably would until she was in her forties or fifties.
“It’s the face cream I use.” Esme gave him a cheeky grin as she showed him her press badge. “You’d never guess I’m thirty-nine with a daughter in college, huh?”
He chuckled, tucked the clipboard under his arm and waved the security wand over her. Once he knew she wasn’t carrying any weapons, he pinned a gold badge to her jacket lapel.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Everyone who’s been checked has to wear them,” the guard told her. “Don’t take it off while you’re on the property, please. ”
She tucked in her chin to inspect the badge, which had been etched with a circle in the center surrounded by eight crooked spokes. “Pretty. Is it supposed to represent the sun?”
“Got me, Miss.” He rolled his eyes.
As she walked up the long drive to the castle, Esme knew why her name had been scribbled at the very end of the guard’s list. After she’d asked to cover the one-night opening of the historic property, her jerk of an editor, Ron Buckley, had instead assigned Paul Childers.
That was part of his ongoing payback for her pointing out the racism that had plagued the bullpen at Monterey Today ’s offices.
Yet when reports of a school shooting in Salinas had come in, Ron had instead sent Paul to cover the tragedy, and told her she could go.
She could still see the sour look on his face when she asked if she could take a photographer with her.
I sent both of ours with Paul, so pull whatever you need from the pic files. Unless you stumble over a corpse, we won’t pub anything until Halloween Week. What people want to read about now are these school mass shootings.
Ron was right, of course. Any time they put up articles about kids being murdered, their traffic doubled, which Esme hated.
Why did little kids have to die horribly to stir people’s interest?
She’d mentioned it a few times to her co-workers, but no one cared about her opinion.
Because Monterey Today ’s primary goal was to generate revenue through the sale of online advertising space, anything that attracted more readers was highly desirable.
Occasionally Esme wondered if she should have gone into another field.
Nobody liked her at work, where she was one of just two women on staff.
She was also the only Mexican-American who wasn’t on the cleaning crew.
Along with getting ranked for being young and pretty, she’d also had to put up with a lot of bigoted crap from her boss and some of the older guys.
Her fiery temper still simmered whenever she recalled the most offensive remarks.
You work faster than one of those cartel tunnel diggers, hon.
Who ordered the iced Americano? Says ‘Be Near’ on the sleeve. Must be you, Martinez.
I’m fine with working with you immigrant types, as long as you’re documented.
Esme reacted the same way every time by holding onto her composure while politely correcting them about their racist comments and assumptions.
Some sneered back at her, but a few seemed genuinely confused, as if what they said didn’t even register to them as bigotry.
For her part she couldn’t stand by and say nothing, but throwing a noisy tantrum wouldn’t help the situation.
Being born a Mexican- American in California had trained her from the time she started school to expect to be treated with prejudice; her grandmother had encouraged her to see every incident as an opportunity.
Some people just don’t know that kind of talk is wrong, mija. Others do and will keep doing it unless you speak up. Teach them by showing them patience when they speak with hatred.
Ron had tried to corner her more than once about the way she reacted, insinuating that she was being overly sensitive.
She reminded her editor that she was as much an American as he was, and asked if he’d accept the same kind of remarks if his co-workers were all Chicano and disliked him for being white.
She also suggested he document everything just as she did.
Because California had some of the most employee-friendly laws in the country, she reminded him, just one incident could result in a hostile work environment lawsuit against Monterey Today .
She then cited several recent cases that had ended with a six or seven figure settlement.
“I’m happy to educate the staff,” Esme finally told him. “But I’m not certified to do that. You should really schedule everyone for a sensitivity class before someone calls an attorney, Mr. Buckley.”
Ron had hated that, and her, but after that conversation he’d scheduled and ordered everyone to attend training.
He’d also directed HR to update the employee conduct handbook, in order to protect the company.
Esme knew her editor’s archaic attitudes would never change, and from then on he would be looking for an excuse to fire her.
Until that happened, she was determined to keep working there.
It had become a matter of principal, she’d told her old college roommate Rosa Santiago, who worked as a high school guidance counselor in San Jose.
“I don’t know why you keep picking fights with those old gabachos ,” her friend complained. “You’re never going to change how they think. Every pendejo who works at that place looks at you and sees a maid, not a journalist.”
“So I work hard and maybe in time they’ll see me as a colleague,” Esme countered. “You know if we don’t fight, we can’t win.”
“Sure, and if you leave and work somewhere else, you also can’t write an exposé about that big ugly haunted castle place,” Rosa said.
Her friend was right, of course. Aside from trying to change things at Monterey Today , Esme did want to be the one who finally solved the biggest unexplained mystery in her hometown.
It wasn’t simply because her grandmother had worked there, or all the time Esme had spent as a kid inside its stone walls.
Every time she saw the castle, she had the sense that she was looking at something more than a window into the medieval world.