SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  I don’t like the thought of her getting caught up in all this, and if anyone finds out…

  “You could get fired for—”

  “Oh, pfft! Like I care. If this helps at all, then I want to help, Brenton. Now, what do you need?”

  I think I’m in love. No, I definitely know I’m in love, when, ten minutes later, I’m looking at copies of several sealed psych files and have answers that I don’t think anyone wants to hear.

  Mindy Marcy isn’t just a nut. She’s certifiable. And when I say that, I don’t mean a little cuckoo, but all kinds of cuckoo.

  “Oh dear,” Sophia breathes, her eyes going wide with fear as we read through years of records and go through her prescribed meds list.

  It’s one medication after another, starting from the year she turned fourteen. She’s been on, and is still supposed to be on, so many meds that I’d lay odds that she should be a drooling vegetable by now.

  “Shit!” I bark, grabbing my phone to call Heath.

  Holy fucking shit.

  Tee

  I sigh happily as I bite into the chicken and feel the deep pit that was opening up inside me fill up. I’ve been hungry before but nothing like I was until Mindy came back down with a tray of food and enough donuts to keep even Rosetta happy.

  At first, I didn’t trust it, but Mindy took a bite of everything while laughing jovially, and then she pushed it through a slot at the bottom of the glass that I didn’t even notice was there.

  “I’m glad you like the food. It’s the one thing that Mama taught me to do that didn’t involve punishment,” she sighs, once again back to the easy personality instead of that…

  Well—it’s complicated, okay? It’s not that Mindy is some split personality type who starts to talk in baby voices or angry, growly voices to suit her personalities, and she isn’t suffering from dissociative identity disorder, either, as far as I can tell. So what she’s got isn’t something that I can easily define, but if I had to try, I’d take a guess and say that she’s three pieces of a really messed-up whole.

  Mindy, the girl I went to school with, is timid and scared, and she stutters a little when she talks. Then you have the girl who was obviously abused by her mother or father, and is so angry that she lashes out with snide comments and these evil smiles that make my skin crawl. The last, but by no means the least, is the soft-spoken, kind-eyed woman that I’m staring at now. She’s the Mindy who would have emerged into adulthood had she not snapped. I like this Mindy the most, because she doesn’t say anything threatening, and she just seems to want to talk.

  So, yeah—what I’m staring at right now isn’t someone that I can steer into freeing me or slipping up. This woman is…not crazy. She’s broken.

  “I never liked your mama,” I say around a mouthful of sweet carrots and garlic chicken. “She was always a little too…intense for me. I remember how she’d sit beside you and Peter in church and pinch you if you so much as moved. Remember when Honey threatened to rip her fingernails out?” I ask, my chest thumping because it’s really hard to talk to her without fear of making another side of her break to the forefront.

  “I remember,” she sighs again, shaking her head with a soft smile. “Mama was fit to be tied when we got home, but for once, she didn’t put us down into the basement. I think that Honey scared her so much that she was afraid to even think of punishing us. She spent all that day banging around the kitchen, and by suppertime, Daddy was ready to lose his temper. I think that I would have been afraid if not for how good it felt that someone had stood up for us. I always loved your folks.”

  I’ll bet. I hardly knew the woman at all, and the one time that Honey let us go over to Mindy’s to play—we were about six or seven, I think—was the last time. That woman was a pain in the ass, and even if Honey hadn’t disliked her so much, I sure did, too. She wanted little dolls, not children, and I remember thinking after we’d left that I felt a whole lot sorrier for Mindy, who had to wear a white dress all the time and seemed jumpy just at the thought of getting dirty.

  As a tomboy who loved mud and all things dirty, it had been a hard pill to swallow to realize that we had to play tea party all afternoon and weren’t allowed out.

  “It must have been hard not to be able to make mistakes,” I say softly, feeling my gut tighten when her head shoots up suddenly.

  “Mistakes are for the faithless,” she snaps, visibly trying to get herself under control. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

  Oh, brother, I think, clearing my plate and biting into one of the many donuts that these kids need me to eat.

  “I dunno. I reckon that a little imperfection is necessary. Only God is perfect, Minds, and anyone who told you otherwise is batshit crazy. You know, when I was eighteen and going to college, I was really imperfect. I was terrified of failing, and so focused on doing well that for a whole semester, I didn’t do anything but study. My Uncle Jack eventually came and gave me a talking-to that set me straight. Life is about balance.”

  Oh my God, I cannot believe that I’m spouting all this Ares bullshit, and as soon as I get out of here, I’m scrubbing my brain of all that nonsense. But in this case, it makes sense, and hell, what the hell else am I supposed to say, anyway? This woman isn’t well, and in my present condition, I can’t exactly afford to rile her up.

  Speaking of…

  “So, what’s with the whole setup down here? After you took off earlier and left the conversation hanging, I looked around some. Someone took a lot of time and effort to make this room comfortable. That’s not something that I see a jailor doing for her prisoner,” I point out, biting my tongue when she smiles, and that slow, creepy smile turns my stomach to knots.

  “Oh, you know,” she says with a shrug. “I see no reason for you to be uncomfortable while you’re here. I got Timmons and that moron Hector to fix things up and make it pretty.”

  “Huh. You seem really good at that, Minds. Getting guys to do what you want them to do.”

  “Meh. It’s easy, really. I like to talk to people on certain sites, and they like to talk to me. People like me, they trust me, and they tell me things that they maybe shouldn’t,” she says, smiling and looking very pleased with herself. “It’s really easy to blackmail people with their own sins, especially since I feel that my work helps them repent.” She shrugs again and purses her lips. “And it doesn’t hurt that most of these men are pathetic and would do almost anything for a pretty woman.”

  Huh. Okay. But that doesn’t explain the penthouse suite.

  Don’t ask, Tee. Just keep talking and try to keep her calm, I scream silently, but even as I hear myself, I can’t stop the words from leaking out of my stupid mouth. God, Uncle Jack was right; my mouth is dangerous.

  “Where are we, and why did you take me?” I ask, shaking enough that the donut I’m eating suddenly roils in my stomach.

  “I was waiting for you to ask that question, dearest Nefertiti.”

  “I…this is dangerous, Minds. I’ve been trying not to upset you, honey.” Because I am going to kill you with my bare hands. “But I should be at the hospital. If you wanted to talk, you could have called. I hurt my hip when that guy hit me with his gun, and I fell off the toilet, honey. I should really get this checked out,” I say softly, hoping that nice Mindy will come back.

  “Don’t worry. I already looked you over. You’re doing just fine, and with you in this room as calm as can be, you’ll be just fine to carry those precious babies to full term.”

  Don’t think it, Tee, I murmur, my palms starting to sweat.

  “Mindy…exactly why am I here? No offense, but you and I haven’t been all that close. You and Sin were tight—”

  “Best friends! She was my best friend, until she went and snooped her nose into my business. I was doing so well, too. I’d moved out of my mama’s house, and I was doing everything right. Everything. I let my morals go for a little bit and did everything that she wanted me to do. I made myself so perfect in order to be her best
friend, and then she went and did what you all always do. She should have left things alone with me and Nathaniel, Tee. I was so close to getting him to love me, but then she went and told him that if he had doubts, he shouldn’t start anything with me again,” she whispers. “I just wanted to be with him. He was my ticket into the family. If he’d just married me, then none of this would have happened. But he kept pushing and pushing!” she screams, slamming the side of her fist into her temple. “Sex without marriage is wrong! It’s a sin. Mama helped me see that when I fell in love with Tommy Burns when we were sixteen. I was a dirty, filthy girl, but she cleaned me up again and helped me see. She helped me get back on the right path.”

  I gulp, my eyes wide as she rambles and keeps pulling at her hair just above her ear, in a way that sparks my memory. I’ve seen her do this one time too many, and now that I’m noticing, I see that the hair on that side of her head is a little thinner…

  “He was falling for me, you know,” she sighs, jumping back to kind Mindy as her hands fall into her lap, and she stares off into whatever crazy madness she’s stuck in. “Mama was so proud, too. She couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful he was, and how great it would be for us since Uncle Jack liked them all so much. Honorary Sweets, Mama said. That would make me one, too. I was so happy that I just…I could hardly breathe. He liked me as Sin, though. He only liked me when I was being like her,” she whispers, and a tear slowly slides down her cheek, pooling on her jawline.

  For reasons that I can’t examine right this second, I feel inexplicably sorry for this girl. She’s so broken and confused that I see glimpses of regret in her, little flashes of lucidity that make me want to scream and rail at her parents. There is no doubt in my mind that she needs help, a lot of help, and if she hasn’t been on some sort of treatment, she should be.

  “Honey, Nate loved you for you. He just couldn’t handle it when you started to revert back to that nasty girl that your mama made you into. It’s great to be faithful, baby, but all of us are only human. When you’re a family, you love each other despite all the bad stuff. Nate loved you for the sweet girl that you are, not that judgmental zealot that your mama wanted you to be,” I say as gently as I can, that ever-present dread still curling deep inside me.

  This room. It’s…oh, God, please let me be wrong.

  “He loved her! I did everything the way I needed to. I dressed like her, partied like she did, and said all the right stuff. Even…” she says, and shudders. “I even let him use my mouth. Mama was so angry.”

  Dear God.

  “Intimacy in a relationship is important, Mindy. Nate loved you. He just wanted to get closer to you,” I say gently.

  My hip screams when I rise again, but this time, it’s more than just a small ache. I feel a twinge there, and then a small, stabbing pain in my back, and fear suddenly engulfs me. This isn’t labor, I hiss silently. Don’t go borrowing trouble, Nefertiti Sweet.

  “He wanted sex, but I wasn’t going to sleep with any man! I couldn’t. I just…I only love her,” she whispers, her tearful confession turning into a snarl that has me stumbling back when she slams her fist into the glass.

  I see one of her knuckles pop, and blood leaks out against the glass when she drags her hand down, her face pressed so close that her nose scrunches up.

  “I…”

  “It’s all her fault. Mama made me see that. She’s a demon. She used her evil on me, and I was too weak to resist it, but I see it now. That’s why I have to save the babies,” she trills, her smile turning guileless and empty. “Mama says that they need to be saved from you all. I’m going to do that. I’ve always wanted babies.”

  “No!”

  “They’ll all be so happy here with me. When the time is right, I’m going to get the others as well. I already love the twins so much, but they’ll need to be taught better than what Alex has been doing with them. Why, she doesn’t even take them to church!”

  For other people’s safety.

  “They’re just babies!” I scream, too worked up to care about keeping things calm.

  I want to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze so hard that her eyes pop. I want to slam my fist into her face until there’s nothing left of her. Mostly, I want to run, and the more that panic takes hold of me, the more I feel the pain that I haven’t let myself feel up until now. Oh, God—please help me.

  This is that night with Peter all over again. I’m helpless, trapped. Unable to do anything to save myself, and now it’s not just me. God, Paris and Sin must be going crazy with worry for their babies.

  “They’re still innocent. And soon to be orphans.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I scream, slamming the glass with my fists when she giggles behind her hand and gives me a look filled with anticipation. “Let me out of here, you psycho!”

  “Oh, are you lonely in there, baby?” Mindy croons, her smile so hard that I slam my fists against the glass again, not caring anymore.

  I’m going to kill her! Screw fear and panic and all that traumatic shit that I was suffering from. I’m not scared right now, and if she weren’t such a coward, hiding behind that thick glass, I’d show her just how dangerous I am.

  “Don’t worry, Sweet Tee. You’re going to have company very soon.”

  That stops me, and I rear back from her, my eyes going wide when she smiles.

  “What have you done?”

  “Ooooh, nothing, really. I just thought that it’s about time that I tie up the loose ends. I’m ready to be a Sweet and raise the next generation. You know what they say, baby—lead by example. So I’ve decided to lead from here on out. Those poor little babies. They’re going to be all alone in the world. But don’t worry, Aunty Mindy will be here to take care of them. We’re going to be a family. The Sweets. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure that they’re raised right,” she says softly, almost gently.

  “What have you done, you lunatic?” I scream, a sick sense of anxiety making bile crawl up my throat.

  “Don’t worry, Tee. It’s almost all done,” she says with a smile, turning to leave me alone again as I fall to my knees, all my energy leaving me.

  “Mindy!”

  I keep screaming, so out of it that I don’t stop for a long time, even after she walks away and slams the steel door shut, leaving ghostly echoes of her laughter behind with me.

  Oh, Jesus. What has she done?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ares

  We’re using my parents’ home as a base, and the place is crammed with men all moving around and shouting orders to each other as I watch Ma feed people and try to coax Sin into eating something. Cleo is upstairs with Adonis, having been sedated when it became clear that she wasn’t going to calm down, and Chilli is settling Alex and the twins down in a bedroom as we speak, because the poor woman was crying so hysterically that she couldn’t even hold herself up anymore.

  “Honey, why don’t you take Sinai on upstairs and let her get some rest? She’s plum tuckered out,” Ma says, her thick Greek accent twisting her Southern drawl so that her words are mangled when they come out.

  “I can’t sleep now, Ma!” Sin mutters, her arms clutching at Paris when he rises from his seat and hefts her into his arms, his softly crooned words lost in the din around the room.

  Pop and Jack are somewhere in here, having grabbed the other Sweets after they got news of Tee’s disappearance. Honey is sedated, too, thank God, because she was so out of control that even Jack was forced to pull himself together in order to support his wife. He snuck up on her somehow and shot her up with enough sedative to knock her out for a few hours. Hope and Connie are in the same position, and I’d find it ridiculous that almost all of them are getting knocked out, if not for the fact that this situation isn’t one bit funny.

  It’s been seven hours now, and the longer that this drags on, the more I’m starting to come apart at the seams. Dr. Payne is on standby, and Beau is here with us somewhere, ready and willing to go w
ith us to help with Tee if need be.

  When Paris leaves, with Beau hot on his heels, I turn my back to the room and take out my phone, checking to see if Luiz or Juan has texted again. There’s nothing, though, and the fact that even these guys, as well connected as they are, haven’t found anything, makes my heart go cold with dread.

  My phone dings just when I’m ready to give up waiting, but I feel my heart sink even more when I read the text from Luiz.

  We’re hitting a dead end. Will keep looking.

  I don’t know why I believed that calling them would make this just disappear in a heartbeat. So far, it’s been a big mess of nothing, and even after Brent sent us those sealed records of Mindy’s, we haven’t gotten anywhere except to freak Connie and Hope out enough that Beau had to sneak up on them and jab them each with a tranquilizer.

  Mindy, as it turns out, is insane, and not your garden variety insanity, either, because according to the doctor, there’s no indication that she’s crazy. She isn’t a split personality freak or one of those creepy people who suffer a host of who’s who in her head. She’s just…unstable enough that they put her on a whole lot of meds that, according to her doctor, she hasn’t been near in months.

  That scared us all, even Zeus, who seems to be the only one keeping his cool at the moment. He’s a rock, and with every hour that passes, I feel more certain that we’ll find Tee. I just pray that it won’t be too late.

  “She’s out. She hit Beau with a good shot before she went down, though,” Paris mutters as he comes back down the stairs, scrubbing at his face tiredly.

  “She couldn’t have been any worse than Rosetta,” I snort, a smile pulling at my lips as I think about what happened when she caught Zeus and Beau sneaking up on her.

  I don’t know what I felt worse about—Zeus getting dropped to his knees when she punched him in the balls, or Beau screaming in pain when Rosetta sank her teeth into her crotch. I haven’t asked just where Rosetta ended up landing that bite, but from the way that Beau is limping and wincing, I don’t think I want to.