ALSO BY JENNIFER JAYNES
Never Smile at Strangers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Jennifer Jaynes
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477827352
ISBN-10: 1477827358
Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014952002
For Mom.
Thank you for always being there for me.
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
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
URINE SKIDDED DOWN her leg, warming her bare skin. She was more terrified than she’d ever been, and in her short fifteen years, there had been plenty of reasons to be afraid.
A heavy downpour pummeled the small house, battering the living room window next to her. But Allie wasn’t aware of the storm outside.
Only the storm inside the house mattered.
Her older brother was facing her, his eyes unfocused. In one hand he held a gun. In the other was the smooth stone he kept on his nightstand while he slept. The gun was pointed at her and he was rolling the stone around in the palm of his hand.
Hatred flashed in his eyes—and she could see just how much he’d come to loathe her.
“Please,” she pleaded, tears flooding her eyes, making it difficult to see. “Please don’t do this. I’ll change. I will. I promise.”
Please don’t hurt me.
Thunder boomed outside, overpowering her words, so she wasn’t sure if he even heard her. He just continued to stare, his eyes glassy. He swayed a little, and she wondered if he was on something, even though it wasn’t like him to medicate with anything stronger than a beer or two.
The thunder died down and she tried again. “Just wait. You’ll be so surprised at how nice I can be. How normal.”
“No,” he said, his words slurring. “You’ll never be normal.”
“I will. I cross my heart. I . . . I love you.”
His handsome face twisted. “Don’t say that to me!”
“I’m serious. You’re all . . . you’re all I’ve got,” she cried, holding her palms out to him, showing him how vulnerable she was, just in case he didn’t already know. “You’re all I’ve ever had. Mama was sick. I knew that. I hated her for what she did to you. For what she did to everyone, but especially you.”
At that, he cocked his head. He seemed to weigh her words, trying to decide if, for once, she was telling the truth.
“I guess I just didn’t know any other way to act,” she added.
He stared at her for a long moment, then his face filled with rage. He shouted an expletive and sounded so angry Allie’s face burned with shame.
But it was true. She didn’t know how to act. At least not like others did. She didn’t fit in like most others did. She was always the outsider.
Her brother had been her only friend, so when he started avoiding her, she lashed back. She said nasty things to him and told him he was a loser, although she didn’t really think he was . . . and the more he ignored her, the nastier she became.
She was also frightened because he had grown sick, just like their mother had, and that summer he’d killed two teenage girls. The sheer fact that he’d done it really freaked her out. But what scared her even more was she feared he’d eventually get caught and be taken away from her.
Then what would she do?
How could she possibly live without him?
She didn’t want him to be sent away. She loved him more than anything, but she was also deathly afraid of rejection. So, instead of saying “please love me again” or “I need you more than anything,” she did and said hateful things. She wasn’t really sure why she did what she did; all she knew was that she didn’t know how not to.
Her brother’s countenance shifted. The hatred and loathing in his eyes was now replaced with something different. Something that looked like pain. His face went fish-belly white, his expression blank.
Allie realized that the moment had come. She slowly backed away from him.
Please, no! Give me another chance, she wanted to yell, but her mouth wouldn’t move.
The stone tumbled onto the living room carpet. The light draining from his eyes, he pressed the old army-issue .45 to his temple—and stared at her.
“Quit causing people pain,” he said. “Just stop it. It’s wrong.” He blinked a few times. “And don’t think this is about you, because it isn’t. It’s me. It always has been.” With that, he inhaled sharply and his eyes flickered to the wall behind her. “God, please forgive me,” he whispered.
And he pulled the trigger.
Allie clamped her hands against her mouth. “No!” she wailed. But, of course, it was too late.
“No, please. My God, no!”
Don’t die! Don’t leave me!
Her ears ringing, she went to him. Her older brother, the only person who had ever meant anything to her, was about to be gone forever. Just minutes before she was sure he was going to kill her, but in the end he had decided to kill himself.
He made a gurgling sound, his eyes now frozen on the popcorn finish of the ceiling, a flood of red spreading out beneath his head. His eyes fluttered once, then stayed at half-mast.
He went very still.
“No! NO! NO!” She fell to the carpet. Trembling, she lifted his shoulders and scooted her legs beneath his back so that his head lay on her lap. Ignoring the warm blood soaking her legs, she held on to his arm and sobbed.
Yes, he had murdered people. Bu
t he’d never hurt her. In fact, he’d taken excellent care of her over the years: protecting her from their psychotic mother, buying groceries, making sure she had most of the things she needed.
She studied his face, trying to burn a mental image of it into her mind so she would never forget what he looked like—and she noticed something different about him. The edges of his mouth were slightly upturned, as though he had been trying to smile. Like maybe, just maybe, he had finally found peace.
“I’m not as mean as I pretended to be,” she whispered through her tears. “I’ve always loved you so much. I just wanted you to love me back and you . . . you wouldn’t.” She placed her brother’s hands in hers and squeezed them tight.
Eyes clouded with tears, she realized she had to leave, and quick. Either go or risk becoming a ward of the state, and she couldn’t let that happen. No one had ever controlled her or told her what to do—and she sure as hell wouldn’t let anyone do it now, especially the government that her brother had hated so much. After all, if he hated it, she hated it.
Scooting away from his body, she ran to pack a bag. Three minutes later, just as she heard the first of the police sirens, she threw open the screen door at the back of the house and disappeared into the woods.
Thirty minutes after that, she was sitting, bloodstained and paralyzed with fear, in the passenger seat of an eighteen-wheeler.
She was headed west on Highway I-10, toward Texas.
CHAPTER 1
Nine Months Later . . .
HE STOOD OUTSIDE Sherwood Foods, a small supermarket in Truro, Louisiana, clutching a paper grocery bag as though he was waiting for someone.
And he was.
Just not in the sense that people might think.
The day was overcast and uncomfortably humid, but he persisted. Since he’d arrived thirty minutes before, there had been heavy foot traffic. Couples and families in and out. Hundreds of screaming, red-faced children.
Most people didn’t seem to notice him. And the ones who did probably forgot about him two seconds after making eye contact. He wasn’t especially memorable, which, of course, worked in his favor.
So far he hadn’t bothered to smile at anyone.
No one had been worth a smile.
He’d managed to stop hunting for years, but like all addicts, it was always on his mind, somewhere, well concealed behind several layers of thoughts. Or, sometimes just barely cloaked, behind one or two. But the desire was always there. Fortunately, he’d managed to keep it in check.
Until now.
He thought about the headlines he’d read of the kid who had killed people in an adjacent town a year earlier and wondered if he and the kid had shared any of the same thoughts. He wondered if the kid felt vindication or remorse after the attacks or if he just went numb. In fact, he thought a lot about the kid. About how alike they might or might not have been. About how awful it was that he ended his life just as it was getting started. It disheartened him just thinking about it.
The newspapers reported the kid had always been a loner. That he’d had weight issues when he was younger. That maybe his desire to kill had been fueled by being bullied at a fragile age . . . which, of course, described him to a T. But who really knew exactly what drove people to the type of madness that made them kill? Was it nature or nurture? Or a combination of the two? Over the years he’d studied the topic relentlessly, but the more he studied, the more confused he became, so he’d decided to stop.
The itch was back. He barely slept, and the rare times he managed to, he woke up in a pool of sweat. And, as always, when he had the itch, the rage flooded in, sickening every cell of his body. The problem was that he only knew of one short-term cure for his itch: hunting. He first discovered this, almost by accident, at the age of sixteen.
When he hunted he abided by three rules: the prey had to be a woman, she had to be a certain type . . . and she had to smile at him. He had learned the hard way that men didn’t satisfy his needs. Nor did just any woman. And the smile did two things: It gave the woman some control over her fate. It also provided more of a challenge, because most people didn’t like to smile at strangers, which meant he often had to work for it.
The new life he was leading had him on edge. He’d been waiting around for months for something big that might not ever happen, something he wasn’t sure about, and it made him tense. He needed the release.
His thoughts snapped back to the foot traffic. Just as long as SHE didn’t find out, he’d be okay. So with HER, he’d been very careful. Out of self-preservation he’d learned how to lie very well to HER over the years. Still, something had changed. SHE was guarded now . . . not nearly as warm. They even argued—something they never did before. He sensed it was because SHE was still suspicious, and that disturbed him . . . and only made the itch worse.
He stared deep into the parking lot, his eyes narrowing as he watched a young, blonde woman step out of her white Honda Civic.
She was cute, but plain.
Not his type.
Plus, she didn’t have that certain attitude he usually went for. That cool, confident, even arrogant one that usually meant trouble but also deeply attracted him. The type other women would call bitchy. The type who made his life miserable when he was a boy. He knew that this woman didn’t fit that profile, so he dismissed her.
He shifted his attention to the next row of cars and he spotted a curvier, more fashionably dressed young woman who had just eased herself out of a Pathfinder. She was a brunette, and he could gauge her attitude in her presentation and movements alone.
His pulse quickened.
The woman’s dark hair was sprayed stiff and she was wearing a sassy little shorts set, tall wedges, and oversized designer sunglasses. Her chin was tilted toward the sky, her spine straight as she fussed with her linen shorts, yanking them lower around her thighs.
Bingo.
But then the Pathfinder’s back passenger door flew open and a young boy jumped out.
He frowned. No, too messy.
Loosening his grip on the grocery bag, he halfheartedly turned his attention back to the plain-Jane blonde as she approached the supermarket’s automatic doors.
On closer inspection, he realized she was much prettier than he’d first thought. In that natural, girl-next-door sort of way. She appeared to be in her early twenties and had a thin, athletic build. Her blonde hair was long and pulled into a high ponytail.
As she drew closer, it was also more obvious that she was very self-conscious.
She would be so easy.
If only she were right.
It surprised him when, a few seconds later, his heart gave a little tug. He sensed something about her. Something special. He wasn’t sure what it was, but now that she was closer, he could feel it.
Suddenly he was excited.
But . . . was she going to smile?
Please, let her smile, he thought, strangling his grocery bag. For the true test was always the smile. It was an important rule he kept because it gave them a little control. Made what he did to them a little more fair.
Made him feel a little more human.
If they smiled, they were meant for him. If they didn’t, well, maybe they’d live long, happy lives. Maybe they’d become grandmothers. Great-grandmothers even. Happy ones.
If anyone’s even capable of being happy anymore.
When he and she were not ten feet apart, she stumbled in her sandals.
“Whoa there,” he said, his tone playful. He smiled at her.
She caught his eye and grinned sheepishly back, her face blooming into something truly beautiful. A light scar blemished her face, running the length of her forehead to her cheek, but it only added to her intrigue. “Guess I’m a little clumsy,” she laughed.
His smile widened.
No . . . no, you’re perfect.
CHAPTER 2
THE MOTOR IN the small air-conditioning unit sputtered, shattering the quiet of the motel room.
Allie s
tirred from her place beneath the heavy covers. She poked her head out and the frigid air chilled her cheek. Waking up in the morning was not one of her favorite things to do. It had become pointless, really. She was always exhausted, and her dreams were usually more pleasant than her reality.
Without fail, her first thought upon waking was always of her brother—and how desperately she missed him. Then, she would try to remember who was sleeping beside her.
It was usually a client.
Some lust-filled trucker who needed a warm body to sleep next to during long, lonely nights. Someone who had a loving woman waiting impatiently for him back at home.
Allie had followed in her mother’s footsteps. She wasn’t proud of it, but she didn’t know how to do anything else, and it kept her alive. Plus, she desperately needed the company. Being alone scared her.
Yes, sleeping with men for money made her feel pathetic; disgusting even. But by now she was almost numb to it. She told herself that she was using them. Not the other way around. And as long as she managed to believe what she told herself, she was okay.
And yes, she was always someone’s dirty secret. But at least now someone was paying attention to her. It was better than being the unwanted daughter of the local whore . . . or the loathsome sister her brother had always tried to get rid of. At least now people spent a little time with her. They even paid for it. Well, at least most did. She could count on two hands the number of times she’d been stiffed. Twice she’d even been knocked around. Just more experiences she had to shove to the back of her mind, because if she didn’t, she would probably lose it.
With enough vodka in her, she was able to escape into a cloud of nothingness and feel confident and powerful. It was a much-needed, albeit short, escape until the alcohol’s effects wore off and she discovered she was more used up than before and just as alone.
But her line of work ran in her family, so who was she to do anything different? After all, the apple rarely fell far from the tree. At least that’s what her mother used to say.
She reluctantly pried an eye open. The motel room was pitch black. The thick drapes on the wide rectangular window of the room kept any and all sunlight at bay, so she had no idea what time it was. If it was morning, it was her sixteenth birthday.
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