by Mary Burton
“House was too damn quiet. Thought I’d come looking for you.”
“You didn’t need to come. We got this under control.”
He kissed her a second time and looked at the girls. “I bet she’s having trouble getting that fire started.”
The girls laughed. Amber folded her arms over her chest. “Save us, Ranger. She is starving us to death.”
He squeezed Jo’s shoulder and moved past her to the unlit fire. Kneeling, he pulled matches from his pocket and lit the fire.
“That’s cheating,” Jo said.
“I go for what gets the job done, ma’am.” The flames quickly danced and licked over the wood Jo had carefully stacked into a tripod. “Though I got to say you stacked yourself a pretty pile of wood.”
As the fire grew, the girls gathered around, and Brody showed them how to find the right stick and thread their hot dogs on it. Soon the girls were gathered around the fire, cooking.
Jo folded her arms over her chest, recognizing that this was one of those rare moments in life when all the stars lined up and life felt perfect. She was here. Alive. With Brody. And the world was missing two vicious monsters now that Harvey and Robbie were dead.
Once Brody had freed her from the grave, the cops had secured the entire area. They’d removed Sadie’s body from the ground and taken it away. Sadie’s father had claimed the body and ordered it cremated. Later, Brody found surveillance images of Sadie getting into Tim’s car. Over the next three days they searched the area for bodies, using ground-penetrating radar. They’d found none.
However, the medical examiner, based on Candace Granger’s testimony, had gotten DNA from Delores Jones’s sister. Mitochondrial DNA had confirmed that the unidentified victim found by the barn had indeed been Delores, the girl Candace had seen bound over thirty years ago. Police believed after Candace fled, Smith had moved the girl to the alternate location where he’d buried her alive before fleeing the area.
Jo had hired a good lawyer for her mother, ready to defend her, but her mother had refused to take a plea agreement. She was actually relieved to have her dark secret revealed. She’d pled guilty to criminal homicide.
Because Candace had been seventeen at the time of the crime, the judge had considered her a juvenile. He’d given her five years probation.
Physically, Candace had pulled herself together. She was back at the shop, working her long, crazy hours as she’d done all Jo’s life. However, what Jo now saw was not a woman driven to succeed, but a woman trying to outrun a haunting past.
As much as Jo said to herself the past was the past, it had been impossible to let go. Being out here in the open land conjured memories of the night she’d lain in the earth, dirt weighing on her face, filling her nose and mouth and cutting off her breath.
Brody laid his hand on her shoulder, snapping her from her trance. “So where were you?”
She smiled, shaking off the darker thoughts. “Just watching you with the girls.”
He shook his head. “You slipped away from us minutes ago.” He pulled her into his embrace and she let him mold her body to his. He smelled of earth and sky. “He’s gone, Jo. He can never hurt you again.”
Brody’s strength shielded her from the ghosts. “I know.”
He squeezed her tighter. “I mean it, Jo. Nothing bad will happen to you on my watch.”
She pulled back, smiled and kissed him on the lips. “I know. I know.”
He smoothed her stray hair from her eyes. “Marry me.”
For a moment she simply stared. “What?”
“Marry me. Again. Let’s do it right this time. Church. Family.” He looked at the gaggle of girls now staring at them with wide grins. “Friends.”
She shook her head. She’d sworn she’d never mention marriage. She enjoyed him in her life and had not wanted to put a cage around him. “It’s pretty good the way it is, Brody.”
“And it will be better. We aren’t kids.”
“You’re sure?”
“Damn sure.”
Tears welled in her eyes before she kissed him. “Yes.”
He laughed and hugged her to him. As the girls squealed and circled around them, Brody pulled a ring from his pocket and slid it on Jo’s finger. “We’ll get it right this time.”
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Mary Burton’s
next romantic-suspense thriller,
YOU’RE NOT SAFE,
coming in April 2014
from Kensington Publishing!
Hill Country, Texas
Monday, June 2, 1:00 A.M.
A hangover punched and pounded Rory Edwards’s brain as he woke to discover a hangman’s noose coiling around his neck. His hands lashed behind his back, his booted feet were braced on an open truck tailgate. He shifted, tried to wriggle free, but hemp dug painfully deep into an already-bloodstained neck and wrists.
What the hell?
He blinked grit and film from his blurred gaze as he glanced up the thick rope meandering over a distant tree branch and snaking down the gnarled bark to a square knot at the trunk.
Shit.
He’d done a lot of stupid things in his life, but what had he done to land here?
Panic rising, he scanned the area, illuminated by the full moon, to find dense shrubs and trees and a patch of dirt too rough to be considered a road. He didn’t recognize his surroundings, but a lonely, isolated feeling banded around his chest. Wherever he was, it was far from another human. Texas had hundreds of thousands of bleak acres where a man could die and never be found. A coyote howled in the distance.
Dread kicked and scratched his insides. Shit. Shit. Shit. He struggled to free his hands, but when they refused to budge, he couldn’t silence his fears.
“Help!” He shouted his plea over and over until his throat burned inside and out. No one came.
Breathless, he craned his neck, trying to better identify his surroundings, but as he leaned forward, his foothold slipped and he nearly skidded off the tailgate’s edge. Every muscle in his body tensed as he scrambled and threw his weight back until he was on firm footing. Hyperventilating now, minutes passed before he calmed enough to think.
This time his gaze roamed wildly and landed on a picture nailed to the hanging tree. It was an old picture, crumpled, careworn and faded. Recognition flickered instantly. He’d carried the picture in his wallet for a dozen years, and he’d cherished it. More nights than he could count he’d stared at that picture asking for strength when life shit-kicked him in the gut.
Tears filled his eyes.
The aging image captured a grinning teenaged Rory, tall, straight, and broad-shouldered. His thick sun-kissed hair skimmed piercing blue eyes. Tanned skin accentuated a crooked melting grin. His arm wrapped around the shoulders of a petite, young blond girl. She was pretty, not overly stunning like Rory, but her smile could be electric.
At first glance Rory’s embrace around the girl appeared casual and playful. Two young teenagers in love. However, closer inspection exposed a wrinkle of tension creasing Rory’s forehead and the pointed edge of desperation behind his gaze. The young Rory held the girl a little too close and a little too anxiously.
On that long-ago day, he’d been so worried about himself and his immense burdens. He’d never bothered to look past the girl’s forced smiles. Not once had he asked about her feelings. Not once. If he had really noticed her, he’d have seen she hadn’t been happy. Yes, she smiled, but her full lips often thinned into a strained line, and her green eyes reflected the weight of her own demons. She clutched his shirt as if knowing one drowning swimmer couldn’t save another.
If he’d been a little less selfish, he would have seen her sadness. Instead of whispering empty compliments in her ear or kissing her when she needed to talk, he could have soothed her wounds. He could have done so much for her. But he didn’t.
Twin weights of regret and failure settled on his shoulders as he begged for her help one last time. “I’m
sorry, Elizabeth. Save me. Just one more time, please. Don’t let me die. Save me.”
Laughter crept out of the darkness and rumbled behind him. “How many times is Elizabeth supposed to save you, Rory?” The deep, clear voice made him bristle. “Don’t you think Elizabeth deserves a break from your incessant whining?”
Shocked by the voice, Rory twisted his bound hands against the tight rope. “Who are you?”
Silence.
“Why are you doing this?”
Laughter.
In his peripheral vision, a strike and a flash of flame cut the shadows as the stranger lifted a match to a cigarette’s tip.
Rory craned his neck, trying to see the stranger’s face, but the ropes cut and burned until he stilled. The smoke’s acrid scent wandered out from the shadows. “Who are you?”
As if he hadn’t spoken, he heard “How many days of sobriety did you wipe out last night? Two hundred and five or six?”
Two hundred and six days of sobriety had bolstered his confidence and pumped up his pride. He believed he’d never go back. And yet he had tossed away those months so easily. He stared at the sparse land as barren as his promises to get clean and sober. Shit. Why had he been so reckless?
The demons, which had stalked him for many, many years, murmured familiar words. Loser. Stupid. Failure.
Shit. He thought he’d licked the drinking. Pooling tears spilled down his cheeks.
Loser. Stupid. Failure.
The words beckoned him to step off the tailgate and let the rope end his suffering. Who would notice? Who would care? Likely no one.
And still he clung to life. “I don’t want to die. Whatever I’ve done to you, I’ll fix it. I’ll make it right.”
“How are you going to fix it?”
“I don’t know.”
The stranger chuckled. “Don’t you see? The true fix is death.”
Rory swallowed. His throat burned. “It’s not too late. It’s not. I can make amends and fix what I’ve done. I’ve a brother who has money. He’ll make it right. Just tell me what you need.”
The stranger moved out of the shadows toward the tree, giving Rory a glimpse of a red ball cap and a heavy blue jacket obscuring a lean frame. His tormentor tossed his cigarette on the ground and summer grass dried from drought crackled under his feet as he ground out the embers.
Rory cut his vision to the left toward his tormentor who remained just out of sight. “Come on, man.” Pure desperation emphasized the words. “I can make it right.”
“You can kid yourself, but you can’t fool us, Rory. You’ll never get it right. It’s not in your DNA.”
His slight body trembled and he pissed on himself. “What the fuck do you want?”
“We don’t want to hurt you, Rory. We want to end your suffering.”
“I’m not suffering!” He managed the strained smile of prey facing predator. “I’m living my life as best I can.”
“It’s a sad, miserable life, Rory.”
His wrists strained against the unbreakable bindings. “But it’s mine, and I’ve a right to live it. I’ll get back on the wagon. Start over.”
“I know you’re scared.” The stranger’s voice gentled. “I know you don’t have the courage to see this through. Look at that picture, Rory. Even then, when your chances were at their best, you clung to young Elizabeth, who could barely take care of herself.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“Do you really think Elizabeth would think your life is worth saving, Rory?”
“Elizabeth was kind and gentle. She’d want me to live.”
“Really? You hurt her badly. Disappointed her when she needed you most. And then you proceeded to screw up all the good works your family did for you. You’ve been in one crap job after another for the last decade, and you managed to piss away two hundred and six days of sobriety in one night. You talk of your brother, but in recent years he’s refused all your calls.”
Rory had burned the last bridge with his brother last year when he’d missed their mother’s funeral. “I’ve never claimed to be a straight arrow.”
“It’s as if you feel you don’t deserve any bit of happiness.”
He’d never wanted to be a suit like his brother or be jailed by the family business. “I like happiness just fine. I have fun all the time.”
“Where do you think your trouble began, Rory? When did your life go off the rails?” The stranger’s voice was soft but clear. And a little familiar now.
Rory rummaged through his memory, trying to isolate the voice. When had they crossed paths? He’d been in that bar in East Austin last night. He’d had a lead on a job and had not wanted to go inside but the promise of work had been too tempting. Who?
“Just because I’m not a choirboy doesn’t mean I’m bad.”
A click of a lighter and then more smoke from a fresh cigarette. “I think you were done the day you were born, Rory. I think you could never hold a candle to your brother. He’s the one your parents loved. He’s the one that got all the attention and support.”
The stranger’s blistering truth rekindled the old anger that had chased him toward reckless choices, gotten him kicked out of a string of private schools and thrown into too many jails. “Did my brother send you to do this? I know he’s wanted me gone for a long time.”
“Face it, it’s time you left this world for the next.”
Panic extinguished the anger. “That’s not true!”
“Of course it’s true.” The stranger’s voice remained soft, steady and so reasonable. “You were the mistake. The child no one wanted. Sad your own parents wouldn’t want their own flesh and blood.”
Rory tipped his face up away from the picture and toward the moonless sky. “Stop.”
“It’s not good to bury the pain, Rory. Better to face it head-on and deal with it. Admit it. Your parents didn’t want you.”
Tears stung his eyes. He was thirty-one, could hot-wire a car, crack any lock and hold a gallon of liquor in his belly and still walk straight. He’d grown a thick skin, but the stranger’s words stripped away the gristle and left him feeling like the sad, pathetic kid he’d been. “Not true.”
“Come on, Rory, it’s Come-to-Jesus time. The moment of truth. The pain had burrowed deep inside you, and though it does a good job of hiding behind a bottle, it’s there.”
Rory stared at Elizabeth’s face. He fisted his fingers. “Who sent you?”
“We weren’t sent, Rory. We were summoned by you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You called us. Your pain and suffering beckoned us to find you. I’m only here to take the pain away.”
Rory twisted his head toward the stranger and stumbled on the truck’s tailgate. Heels skidded up to the edge. Heart racing, he shouted, “I don’t want you to take the pain away. I like my life!”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen Elizabeth?”
“How do you know Elizabeth?”
“I know all about her.”
Even now, here, hearing her name and staring into her lackluster blue eyes soothed him. “She told me she loved me.”
“And I believe she did. She was willing to go to the mat for you. And you sent all her letters back unread.”
More tears spilled. “I didn’t want to send them back. I loved her.”
“Our deeds define us, Rory, not our words.”
Rory tensed, shocked a stranger would know deep and intimate details. “How do you know so much about me?”
“I know a lot about you. And Elizabeth. And the others. I know all your deepest desires.”
“You don’t.”
“You once said you’d die a happy man if the last face you saw was Elizabeth’s. Isn’t that right?”
“Go to hell,” Rory spat.
“I’m here to grant that last wish. No one should go to their grave without getting their last wish granted.”
The stranger ground out his cigarette and opened the truck cab door. H
is body scraped across cloth seats before the cab door slammed closed. He turned on the engine and revved it.
Rory braced.
His gaze bore into Elizabeth’s smiling face. In these last moments he ignored her tension and saw only her smile, her smooth skin and her blond hair, swept recklessly over her right shoulder.
In these last seconds, he transported back to the night by the campfire. She’d raced to the fire laughing, and seconds before the image had been snapped, she’d pulled her hair over her left shoulder and nestled close. He’d hugged her tighter and attributed her tensing muscles to the evening chill.
Rory gritted his teeth and fisted his hands. He straightened. He’d die like a man for her. “I love you, Elizabeth.”
The truck engine roared and the bed moved slowly away from the tree. Even knowing he couldn’t escape his bindings, he struggled to free his hands and dig his boots into the rusted tailgate. His bindings clamped hard on raw wrists and his feet slid to the tailgate’s edge.
Seconds ticked like hours as the last inches of metal skimmed the bottom of his boots and his body fell with a hard jolt. The noose jerked tight and sliced into his skin. Pain burned through him. His struggles tightened the rope’s grip, crushing his windpipe as his feet dangled inches above the ground. He gasped for air, but his lungs didn’t fill. He dangled. Kicked. The rope cut deeper.
He was vaguely aware the truck had stopped. The scent of another cigarette reached him. The driver had stopped to have a smoke and watch him dangle.
Staying to enjoy the show.
And then his brain spun, spittle drooled from his mouth. As the blackness bled in from the corners of his vision, he stared at Elizabeth.
I love you.
His grip on life slipped away.
“Unbind his hands.”
Her voice had a shrill quality that made Jackson cringe. Out of spite, he ignored her and continued to stare at Rory’s dangling, lifeless body. Head tilted to the right. Eyes stared sightless at the sky. Tongue dangled out of his mouth.
“Unbind his hands,” she demanded.