Stone Shattered
Renee Harless
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2015 Renee Harless
This work is one of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. All trademarked items included in this novel have been recognized as so by the author. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
All rights reserved
Cover photo by J.D. Harless
Cover Design by Renee Harless
Website: reneeharless.com
Facebook: authorreneeharless
Twitter: Renee_Harless
Instagram: renee_harless
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PROLOGUE
The sound of chains rattling against the concrete wake me from my drug-induced slumber. Where am I? How did I get here? Goosebumps spread across my paralyzed skin as I glance around the dark and barren warehouse.
Struggling against my restraints, I hear the faint voice whisper, “If you make any movements, they will only cut into your skin.”
As the lone light bulb flickers off in the distance and as I glance around again in the light, I make eye contact with another victim.
Nodding my head towards the other person, I stop my wrestling and collapse fully onto the chair.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“I don’t know. An abandoned warehouse along the harbor I think. I can hear some boats, every now and then.”
Filling my lungs with the damp cold air, I feel my paralyzed muscles gain their strength.
“Why are we here?”
As a foghorn sounds in the distance, I can only hear the victim say, "... to kill us.”
CHAPTER 1
Five Months Earlier
“Mallory? Mallory, are you listening to me?”
As I sit and stare out into the emptiness of the park across the street, I barely take notice of the laughter coming from my kitchen as my friends play a drinking game. Deciding to ignore Madison’s question, I sink farther into my couch cushion, hoping to become one with the piece of furniture. Typically, I am pretty outgoing and I enjoy spending time with my friends, but today I started feeling strangely melancholy about my life. Most days I find that I am happy and self-assured with what I bring into this world. I have a great job and a great set of friends. However, today my mother called and started asking when I planned to settle down. She was expecting grandchildren soon, after all. Only hindering my mood more, I found out today that my assistant is getting married to her prince charming at the age of twenty-two. Instantly, I felt jealous of her pending nuptials. I have had dates and one serious boyfriend, but none of those men were what I read about in my fantasy novels, even though I know they’re completely unrealistic. I want a partner who makes my breath halt and pulse quicken, with just a glance. My only form of relationship is currently with my three best friends, who are happily intoxicating themselves, before we decide where to go for the evening.
“Never have I ever taken someone home with me from a bar,” my roommate Mika yells before tossing back a shot of Goldschläger. Mika and Madison seem to make it a point to go home with someone every weekend. Me? Not so much. I typically stay in my little bubble when we go out, but tonight I may find myself dancing along with the girls to knock myself out of this funk. I’m usually very shy when meeting new people, so used to caring for those around me, that I’m afraid of someone else taking advantage of my nurturing sense of personality.
Seth walks over to perch on the love seat, hands me a shot glass, and in a joking tone continues the game that is already in session.
“Never have I ever loved Seth,” he says.
I toss back my shot glass. I do love Seth; he is one of my best friends. We met during orientation at the agency and hit it off as we were the only two in attendance around the same age. He works in the information technology department on a completely different floor than me, but we eat lunch together every day. I am acutely aware that Seth wants to date me, but I don’t see him that way. I don’t see anyone that way. I can feel my bubble of anxiety slowly forming as I consider that I will be alone forever. Right now, alone isn’t half-bad. I don’t have to inquire with anyone when I want to make plans or travel, but I miss connecting with someone. My one boyfriend, Derek, had been a nine-month relationship, my senior year of college. We were in the same media ethics course. Derek was my first for everything and once I gave in to his incessant pleading to have sex, he broke up with me. He said he had hoped I would have been more like Mika in bed. Yep, he had slept with Mika their sophomore year. I wasn’t nearly as heartbroken as I should have been. That lack of emotion solidified the fact that he wasn’t for me.
Seth is staring at me as I look at my empty shot glass and I know I must have been zoning out. I tend to do that sometimes when my inner monologues take over and it freaks him out. He asks if I am ok or if I need any water. I tell him I’m fine, and I was thinking about how my assistant is getting married. He smiles a large Cheshire cat grin.
“If that’s what is upsetting you, you can always beat her to the punch and marry me,” he says.
Rolling my eyes at his statement, he puts his arm around me and tries to kiss my neck, but I shrug him off. I force a polite small smile so my rejection doesn’t seem as harsh. Seth seems to develop a need to touch me when he’s drinking, and it makes me uncomfortable.
“When are you going to ask out that girl from reception? Her name is Stephanie right?”
“Well, I've been thinking about what you said. Maybe I'll take her out this weekend,” he replies.
Before I have a chance to consider Seth’s statement, Madison, my other roommate, runs over to us and plops down on my lap. Yelling into my ear, she tells me that it is time to get ready and Mika wants to go to the new bar that opened down the street called Lucky 21. Lucky’s is part dance club and part “extreme” bar. By extreme bar, I mean bartenders that put on a show, fire on the bar, and a hundred different types of liquor. It has been open for about two weeks, with lines that meet our row house three blocks away.
“Madison, how does Mika think we can get in? Is she going to find someone to hold spots for us in line? Like starting now?” I jokingly ask while glancing at my watch.
“Mika works with one of the bouncer’s girlfriends. So tonight we got added to the VIP list,” she says, between fits of giggles. “And…she wants to pick out our ‘ensembles,’” she air quotes, “so that we coordinate.”
Of course she does. Mika thinks of us as The Three Musketeers, or as she calls us, “M&Ms”. I grumble at the thought of prancing around Baltimore in one of Mika’s creations.
“Mallory, suck it up. You know you can’t change her mind,” Madison quickly adds in a tone telling me she does not want to argue about it.
With a strategy in place, the girls skip out the front door towards Mika’s domain upstairs. A few seconds later, Seth tells me that he is going to head to his place and asks if I want to join him
instead. I shake my head no, as he too heads out the front door.
Looking around my living room in the row house, I fixate on a picture of the three of us girls from college. The night before graduation, we took the photograph when we decided to go to a fancy restaurant to celebrate.
I start looking at Madison standing on the end. She is a tiny little nymph in the photograph. Madison hails from Native American and Irish roots. With her jet-black hair, olive skin, and blue eyes she is absolutely breathtaking to look at.
Madison and I grew up together. Her family lived across the street from mine and we were always causing trouble. Her parents were like a second family to me; always taking me along on their vacations and mine did the same with her. We both went away to the University of Maryland together, where I studied journalism and media studies, while Madison studied business. Her goal in life was to own a chain of bakeries, which she has achieved. We shared a dorm room at UMD, which is where we met Mika. She lived across the hall from us and hated her roommate. One day, Madison and I walked back from class and entered our dorm room to find Mika had moved all her stuff into our two-person room. It was a tight fit for the rest of that semester, but the next year we got ourselves an apartment and began living together.
I glance next at Mika posing beside me in the photo wearing a tight green dress. She could be a daughter to Marilyn Monroe or a sister to Kate Upton and is just as tall. She towers over Madison and me. Mika has beautiful blonde curly hair, porcelain skin, and violet eyes. She has an endless amount of curves that perfectly shape her body into an hourglass. Oozing sex appeal, Mika knows how to get attention from men.
Her parents divorced when she was younger, and since neither wanted a small child after the separation, she went to live with her aunt and uncle. Mika loves her aunt and uncle more than her biological parents, though it isn’t difficult to understand why. Both her mom and dad have remarried a few times and each has a handful of half siblings for Mika. She has only met a few of them because her parents try to pay her off to keep her from disrupting their lives. She spends the money on frivolous things that make her happy. Her upbringing caused her to have quite an attitude, which makes her perfect for her career as an attorney.
Despite her short temper, Mika will do anything for anyone. I know I should hate her for what Derek said, ages ago, or for the fact that she kept their relationship a secret from me, but I love her, and I try to practice the art of forgiveness. I feel bad for her sometimes. She will try to seduce and date anyone, and I think it boils down to abandonment issues stemming back to her parents. Once she sets her sights on someone, anyone around her better stay clear of her trajectory. She is terrified of being alone, and has a new date almost every night. If someone makes it past a first and second date, she will typically kick them out after the third. I have to give her credit though, because she is having more sex than Madison and I combined. I envy her as well sometimes; the way she carries herself with such confidence and won’t take no for an answer. She always gets what she wants.
I think about Seth and how I would have pegged him to want to date both of my roommates instead of me. I know that they think he is gorgeous and I can’t say that I disagree with that observation. Seth is not what one would envision as an information technology person. He could be Chris Evans’ identical twin. My preferences sway more towards the tall, dark, and handsome type; not the all-American pretty boys. Stephanie, the receptionist at my office, argues the case that I need to date him before he is snagged, specifically by her. Most of our agency already thinks we are together
Looking back at the original photo I’m holding, I scrutinize myself. I have unruly, waist length, mousy brown hair that I have to flat iron to keep from frizzing out of control. Occasionally, I can put some salt-water mouse in it and let it wave, but even that takes too much time. Typically, I tie my hair back into a ponytail or a French twist, but the night of the photo, Madison and Mika spent an hour curling it into beautiful tousled waves. The dress I’m wearing is a dark purple wrap dress that I received as a gift from my mother for job interviews. It was the nicest thing I had in my closet at the time and I'm lucky enough that I can still wear it to this day. Madison said the purple made my eyes pop against my pale white skin. My eyes are the only feature I like on myself. Though they are a little big for my face, they are this amazing color of emerald. I try to play them up with makeup, but I have no idea what I am doing most of the time.
Even with my medium height and slight frame, I blend into the background, next to the two beauties that are my best friends. It’s no wonder they have men flanking them every time we go out. Not that I’m jealous; I would much rather sit at home, watching reality television and reading a trashy novel on my e-reader. The girls constantly remind me of my loner tendencies, which is how they trick me into joining them most evenings.
Placing the photo back on the mantle, I walk down the hall to my bedroom. Plopping back onto my bed, I sigh while passing glances around my bedroom. Noticing the click-clack of stilettos on the hardwood in the stairwell, I can hear the girls running down the steps outside my bedroom. I’m aware of the stiletto clap going in the opposite direction once they reach my living room and I realize they went straight for the kitchen before coming to find me in my room. They bring a shot of Goldschläger with them as they step into my bedroom and with a smile I throw my head back, letting the warming liquid slide down my throat.
“Mallory what’s wrong?” Madison says.
With a dramatic sigh and whine I relent, “Do I have to go out?”
As Mika laughs, I turn my head in her direction and notice the bag placed behind her back.
“What do you have there?” I say with a tilt of my chin towards the hidden bag behind Mika’s back.
“A surprise for you,” Mika says as she hands me the bag.
Glancing inside, I pull out a beautiful bronze sequined dress.
It is a one shoulder, body hugging, design that will stop about mid thigh. It is very glamorous and very out of my comfort zone, but I am instantly in love with it.
Grabbing some sexy underwear from my bureau, I grab my new dress and move into the adjoining bathroom to put it on. Slipping the dress on, I am amazed at how well it forms to my body and how luxurious it feels against my skin. This must have cost Mika a fortune.
Treading back out into the bedroom, I see that the girls have moved into the living room and turn on some music to a dance beat I don’t recognize. My feet slide into my favorite shoes and I turn to look into the full-length mirror resting on my wall.
With a strut towards the living room, the girls stop dancing and gasp.
“Mallory, wow!” Mika says.
Madison adds, “I have never, ever seen you look so sexy!”
“Thank you,” I say, a little stunned and speechless at their reaction.
“Wait here, I need to get my camera!” Mika cries.
She is always taking pictures of us when we go out.
Propping ourselves onto my barstools, Madison and I lounge against the counter that separates the kitchen and living room while we wait.
When Mika returns, she sets the camera on the fireplace mantle and adjusts the timer, then rushes back over to us yelling, “Smile”.
After losing vision temporarily from the flash, she bounds over to the camera to look at the photo. After analyzing the picture, she hands the camera to Madison, who smiles, and then hands the camera over to me. I look down and smirk at the three of us. Madison is wearing a gold skirt and Mika is a silver piece of scrap material draping across her chest.
“We look like the Olympic medals!” I exclaim causing us to fall into a fit of laughter.
Looking down at the photo again, my smile fades because I’m the one in bronze; the third place trophy.
As we head out the door, I can’t help but wonder where all this lack of self-confidence is coming from. Maybe I’m having an early mid-life crisis because I’m usually so self-assured. At this point in the trek,
I have slowed my pace and I am at a significant distance behind the girls. Realizing my friends haven’t even noticed, I decide to give it an hour or two at the bar, when they are too wrapped up in whomever they have met, and quietly slip out.
CHAPTER 2
After picking up my pace, I quickly catch up to the girls as we stop at the entrance of Lucky 21. The other patrons are sending scathing looks in our direction, angry that we are skipping ahead of the line. Trotting up to the bouncer, Mika announces her name and gives an award-winning smile. With a wink and a grin, he asks for her number. I cringe and pray that this is not the co-worker’s boyfriend, at least I hope it isn't or Mika will have some explaining to do at the office.
Opening the door, he ushers us inside past the grumbles of those waiting in line. Glad I won’t have to wait outside, I give a polite smile to the crowd to say that I am sorry and then I turn my smile to the bouncer and say thank you. He shoots a tight nod in my direction and then turns away quickly to address a few men in suits waiting at the door. I stopped for a moment to ponder his reaction and then realize Mika and Madison have again left me behind, again.
Walking farther into the club, I turn my head to the right, past a pillar, to find a beautiful room with a chandelier, pub tables, and a very regal bar. Narrowing my eyes, I decide this must not be the portion of the club the girls were mentioning to me. Moving forward, I head past that room a few yards and turn left. Jackpot! I can already see the girls on the dance floor with a drink in each of their hands. Boy, they sure do work fast. I meander farther into the room and take notice of my surroundings. Impressed, I find the bar towards the back and spot an empty stool. I also notice a few private booths that have been roped off, along with a stairwell that another bouncer is staffing. That area upstairs must be the VIP lounge.
The empty stool I was eyeing is still vacant when I finally make it over in that direction and I observe that the place isn’t nearly as crowded as I would have imagined, considering the line outside. The bartender makes her way over to me and asks what I would like to drink, but before I order, I tell her of my observation. She laughs and says that in about thirty minutes, they will open the door to let in everyone. If the girls have already started drinking, on top of their pre-gaming, I know that I need to keep my head screwed on, so I order a kamikaze shot and a water. No indulging for me tonight.
Stone Shattered (The Stone Book 1) Page 1