Dark Hearts

Some lies never stay buried...

Betsy Jakes was having nightmares, nightmares that could solve a decades-old mystery. And for someone in her small town, that meant she had to die.

When Sam Jakes returns home to help his brother solve their mother’s murder, two things shake him to the core. This crime is clearly the work of a serial killer who has struck twice before. And...Lainey Pickett is still in town. The woman he walked away from without an explanation years ago has just walked back into his life. She still holds a grudge—and his heart.

As Sam digs deeper into the murders and thirty-year-old secrets begin to emerge, he finds himself racing against time not only to catch a killer but to keep Lainey, the only woman he’ll ever love, from falling victim, too.

Praise for the novels of Sharon Sala

“Sala is a master at telling a story that is both romantic and suspenseful.... With this amazing story, Sala proves why she is one of the best writers in the genre.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wild Hearts

“Skillfully balancing suspense and romance, Sala gives readers a nonstop breath-holding adventure.”

—Publishers Weekly on Going Once

“Vivid, gripping...this thriller keeps the pages turning.”

—Library Journal on Torn Apart

“Sala’s characters are vivid and engaging.”

—Publishers Weekly on Cut Throat

“Sharon Sala is not only a top romance novelist, she is an inspiration for people everywhere who wish to live their dreams.”

—John St. Augustine, host, Power!Talk Radio WDBC-AM, Michigan

“Veteran romance writer Sala lives up to her reputation with this well-crafted thriller.”

—Publishers Weekly on Remember Me

“[A] well-written, fast-paced ride.”

—Publishers Weekly on Nine Lives

“Perfect entertainment for those looking for a suspense novel with emotional intensity.”

—Publishers Weekly on Out of the Dark

Dark Hearts

Sharon Sala

www.mirabooks.co.uk

It’s never too late to make amends for a mistake. You can’t change the outcome, but acknowledging what you’ve done is the first step in helping yourself to heal.

I am dedicating this book to people who have learned how to let go of what they did wrong. I’m sure the list is long, and since being first seems to intimidate a lot of people, I will volunteer to add my name first.

My name is Sharon.

I learned to let go.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise for the novels of Sharon Sala

Title Page

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

It was raining in Atlanta—what locals called a toad strangler—with water rushing through the streets and into gutters, taking dirt and garbage with it, flowing down into the sewers like shit being flushed down someone’s toilet.

Sam Jakes had an apartment in downtown Atlanta, in a building that catered to high-end renters with expensive tastes. He hadn’t chosen it because he loved the high life, but because the security factor was second to none. He also liked it for the anonymity it provided for the people who lived there. No names on the mailboxes, just apartment numbers, and no public listings anywhere on site. He’d made enemies running Ranger Investigations, uncovering other people’s secrets and lies. He didn’t want them following him home.

Sam hadn’t always been a loner. Growing up, he had been as normal and fun loving as any young boy could be. He hunted the mountain behind the family farm outside Mystic, West Virginia, and fished in the rivers. He loved football and pork chops with his mama’s cream gravy, and as he grew older he’d learned to love Lainey Pickett most of all. Then two planes flew into the World Trade Center and changed his life. Instead of beginning his freshman year of college, he’d enlisted in the army and gone to war.

After his second tour of duty he’d become a bomb tech, learning to defuse everything the enemy could construct, and then went back to war. Nine months later he came home in pieces, burned over half his body and with PTSD so bad that he didn’t turn on the ringer for his cell phone for three months. When he could move without screaming, he changed the ringtone to the opening notes of “Amazing Grace,” and when the hospital finally released him, he moved into an apartment without telling anyone where he was. He didn’t want his family camped out on his doorstep, bemoaning his condition or treating him like an invalid.

It took close to a year for the burns to completely heal and for him to get mobile enough to go through rehab. It took even more time for him to accept himself. His family came to see him once he let them know where he was, but he wouldn’t go home. In his mind, Sam Jakes from Mystic, West Virginia, was dead and buried in the sands of Afghanistan, which meant Lainey Pickett was no longer a part of his life. He quit Lainey without giving her a chance to quit him first.

Ten years and three psychiatrists later, he and PTSD had an unsettled truce, and the burn scars on his body looked like melted plastic. Except for the occasional visits his family made to Atlanta to see him, he communicated with them by phone. He lived for work and very little play, and on this particular day, he was trying to catch up on rest after a six-day stakeout.

Although it had been raining with soggy persistency for more than six hours, Sam was sound asleep inside apartment 4B, stark naked and belly down on the king-size bed with his cell phone in one hand and a handgun in the other.

In his dream, he was making love to Lainey. His fingers were tangled into the mane of red hair fanned out around her face, and he was hard as a rock and so deep inside her he couldn’t think. He could hear her short, breathless gasps as he pushed deeper into her, pounding harder until she suddenly arched up beneath him and wrapped her legs around his waist. He felt the climax roll through her and was about to come with her when he began hearing his brother cry out, calling his name. He turned to look for Lainey and she was gone. Then the tone of Trey’s voice changed to one of terror.

Help me, Sam, help me!

I’m here, Trey, I’m here! Where are you? What’s wrong?

Then Sam began hearing music. Someone was playing “Amazing Grace.”

And then he heard his brother scream.

Sam woke abruptly, bathed in sweat and shaking. It took him a few moments to realize he’d been dreaming and his phone was ringing.

He glanced at the time as he rolled over onto his back and answered the phone without checking to see who was calling.

“This is Jakes.”

“Sam, it’s me.”

Sam frowned. Trey had been in his dreams and now he was on the phone? Sam didn’t like coincidences. And because his voice was still husky from sleep, the anxiety in his gut made him sound angry.

“What the hell’s wrong?” he said.

Trey started to cry, and Sam sat up with a jerk and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Talk to me, brother.”

“Mom’s dead, and Trina is hurt bad.”

Sam grunted. It felt as if someone had just walked up behind him and coldcocked him with a baseball bat. His ears were ringing, and he couldn’t breathe. An ugly little voice in his subconscious was whispering, Dead. Dead. Everyone’s dead.

He thought leaving the land of blood and sand would get him away from so many people dying, but death had come into his family. How could that be? The room began to spin as Sam lowered his head to keep from losing it.

“Sam? Sam! Did you hear me?”

Sam wasn’t sure he could speak, and when he finally did, his voice cracked with the shock of an overwhelming grief.

“Yes. You said Mom was dead. She can’t be dead.”

Trey was struggling with his own emotions, but hearing the heartbreak in his big brother’s voice hurt on a whole other level. “She is, buddy, she is.”

“Oh, my God.” Sam was starting to shake. He had to focus. “Was it a wreck?”

Trey knew this was going to send his brother over the edge, but it had to be said.

“No, Sam, she was murdered. We believe she was killed for something that happened when she was a teenager. Come home. I need you. I’ll explain it all after you get here.”

Sam’s voice went from shock to rage.

“Teenager? Are you kidding me!”

“No. We’re almost certain it has to do with the night she graduated high school, but beyond that it’s just supposition.”

“How can you be sure?” Sam asked.

“Do you remember the story of Mom being in that bad wreck the night she graduated?” Trey asked.

Sam frowned. “Slightly. Why?”

“There were four people in that wreck, and three of them lived. In the past two months, two of the survivors have been murdered, and the killer tried to make both deaths look like accidents. Until today, Mom was the only one still living.”

Sam’s hands were shaking. “Why—”

“We don’t know, and now that Mom became the third victim, they’re taking me off the case even though one of the murders happened in my jurisdiction. That’s why I need you,” Trey said.

“I’m on my way,” Sam said, and hung up the phone, but he was pissed.

Three victims? Why hadn’t he known this was happening? Why hadn’t they called him?

He grabbed a suitcase from the back of his walk-in closet and threw it on the bed as reality reared its ugly head. Why would they call him? By his own actions he’d shown them he wanted no part of Mystic. It made him sick to think of Trey knowing Mom was in danger and not knowing how to protect her. Even worse, he couldn’t imagine how frightened his mom must have been as her classmates were being killed.

Then he remembered a couple of recent phone calls from her that he hadn’t returned. What if that would have made a difference in her living or dying? He wasn’t sure how to live with that question.

Suddenly his belly rolled and he headed for the bathroom. He got as far as the sink before the feeling of nausea passed. He splashed some water on his face and then leaned forward, staring at his image in the only mirror in the house. He would never hear his mother’s voice again, and that was on him.

He grabbed a towel to dry his face, then went to the bedroom to get dressed. He was sick at heart and feeling so guilty he could hardly focus as he began to pack.

The last thing he packed was an overcoat. At this time of year, there was no way to predict what the weather would be like in the mountains. He grabbed the suitcase, and then stopped to get his brown leather jacket out of the hall closet, settled a Stetson the color of dark chocolate firmly on his head and headed for the door. His handgun and ammunition were in the outer pocket of his suitcase, and his cell phone and charger were in his jacket pocket.

He got on the elevator with a heavy heart and rode it down to the lobby. He made one last stop at the front desk to inform the security guard he would be gone for an indeterminate time, and headed for the covered parking garage.

It was still raining, suitable weather for someone trying to hide tears, as he dumped his things inside his SUV and slid behind the wheel. His belly growled, a reminder that he hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours. His head hurt, another reminder that he hadn’t had coffee. But it would take more than coffee and food to ease the pain in his heart.

He drove from the parking garage and out into the downpour with his wipers on high. Alone in the car, with nothing but memories for company, he quit fighting against the tears and let them fall.

He had so many memories of his mom that he hadn’t thought of in years: her teaching him how to fillet a fish because his dad was never home long enough to do it; crying with him when he didn’t make the baseball team the year he turned ten; teaching him how to waltz so he could ask Lainey to the prom; the cookies fresh from the oven that were always on the kitchen table when he and his siblings came home from school. He remembered the winter it was so cold that all their water pipes froze and waking up to see his mom sitting in front of the kitchen sink with a hair dryer on high, trying to thaw the pipes and cursing a blue streak with no apologies. She’d been their rock. What in holy hell had she witnessed in her youth that got her killed? And why now?

He glanced up in the rearview mirror and caught a quick glimpse of the shock in his eyes.

“I swear to God, Mom, I will find out who did this to you and Trina, or die trying,” he said, and headed north out of Atlanta. It had been a long time coming, but Sam Jakes was going home.

* * *

The killer was drinking from a cold can of Pepsi as he gassed up his car at a quick stop. Someone drove by and honked. He grinned and waved, then set the pop can on top of the car as the pump kicked off. He hung up the hose, grabbed the Pepsi and then slid in behind the wheel. Just as he was about to drive away he began hearing the scream of an ambulance siren, so he stayed put until it passed. When he saw Trey Jakes in the cop car behind it and realized the direction from which it had come, he frowned. Why the ambulance and all the rush? Wouldn’t they take the bodies straight to the morgue if—

His heart skipped a beat. Unless there was someone to save?

A man came out of the store on the run.

“Hey, what’s going on?” the killer asked.

The man pointed at the ambulance. “That killer struck again. Shot Betsy Jakes and her daughter. They said one of them is still alive. I gotta get home. My wife went to school with them. Ain’t no telling where that bastard will strike next.”

There was a knot in the killer’s belly as he watched the man driving away. All he could think was What the fuck? They had to be dead.

He started the car, debating with himself as to whether he should cut and run now, or wait and see how this all played out. He decided on the latter and headed home.

* * *

Trey Jakes came to a sliding stop a few feet away from the ER, then got out on the run as the EMTs were unloading his sister.

“Is she still alive?” he yelled.

“Yes, Chief, we still have a pulse.”

Trey led the way inside, bypassing onlookers and patients, heading straight for the trauma team awaiting their arrival. The moment his sister’s body was wheeled into an empty bay, they exploded into organized chaos.

Her clothes were cut off as they began to assess her condition. People were talking loudly, the doctor was issuing orders and a lab tech was getting blood to cross-match while another wheeled in a portable X-ray machine. Someone was putting an oxygen mask over Trina’s face, and somebody else was hooking her up to a heart monitor. And then the doctor turned to look for Trey and spoke.

“Gunshot wound, in and out. No bullet.”

Trey heard but didn’t react. He was past the initial shock. Relief that he was no longer responsible for keeping her alive swept over him, and numbness followed. When his fiancée, Dallas, came running into the ER in tears, he opened his arms and held her without taking his eyes off the team fighting to keep Trina alive. The moment they hooked her up to the heart monitor he heard three beeps, and then she flatlined.

The sound was horrifying, and Trey’s first instinct was to run to her, but Dallas held him back. He could only watch in growing horror as someone scrambled for a defibrillator.

When the doctor slapped the paddles onto her bare chest and yelled, “Clear!” Trey jumped at the same time Trina’s body bucked from the shock.

Trey saw nothing but a continuing flatline as the doctor reset the defibrillator. “Clear!” he yelled again.

The slap of paddles against her flesh was lost in the chaos, but Trina’s body bucked again as the electrical shock went through her.

Trey was praying to God in silence, begging for mercy, when he heard a beep. Everyone watched as her heartbeat began to register on the monitor, and when it picked up a rhythm, the doctor’s voice echoed Trey’s relief.

“We’ve got her!” the doctor said. “Somebody grab the IV. There’s no time to stabilize her here. We’re heading straight to the OR.”

They wheeled her out of the bay and began pushing the gurney up the hall. Trey went with it, running at her side. He grabbed her hand, desperate to give her one last message.

“Trina, it’s me, baby! It’s Trey. I love you. I need you to fight to stay with me! Can you hear me? Fight to stay with me!”

“Sorry, Chief, but this is as far as you can go,” the doctor said, as a pair of double doors swung open.

Trey stopped. His heart was pounding as the doors swung shut behind them, and the quiet that swept through him at that moment made him weak. Whatever happened now was out of his control.

He wondered how long it would take Sam to get to Mystic, then let it go. It wouldn’t matter when he arrived. Their mom was gone, and Trina would either live through the surgery or she wouldn’t. He took a slow, shaky breath and walked back to Dallas. Life as they’d known it was over. Whatever happened in the next few hours would be written on a whole new page.

* * *

Lee Daniels was happy for the first time in days. The fight he’d had with Trina was his fault; thinking she’d been cheating on him had been a knee-jerk reaction to his mother’s behavior when he was a child. Being able to see her and apologize at Paul Jackson’s funeral had made a bad week better. Everyone was keyed up over a second murder in their small town, and now, knowing it was connected to Dick Phillips’ murder as well, had left everyone uneasy. It was hard to believe, but it appeared there was a serial killer in Mystic targeting a trio of old friends.

He was coming out of the supermarket carrying a bag of groceries in one hand and his car keys in the other when he heard an ambulance siren. Out of habit he paused to say a brief prayer.

“God bless whoever is in need,” he mumbled, and then dumped his groceries into the front seat of his car and headed back to his apartment.

He had been home about a half hour and had just put up the last of the groceries when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and frowned. The Jakes family hadn’t been all that happy with him lately, and he hoped Trey wasn’t about to read him the riot act.

“Hey, Trey, what’s up?”

Trey didn’t mince words.

“Mom’s dead. She was murdered on the way home from Paul Jackson’s memorial service. The killer thought he took Trina out, too, but she was still breathing when I found her. They just took her into surgery. I thought you should know.”

Lee grabbed on to the kitchen counter to keep from going to his knees.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I’m so sorry about Betsy. Did they take Trina here to Webster Memorial?”

“Yes. I’m in the waiting room outside the OR.”

“I’m on my way,” Lee said, then grabbed his wallet and his car keys, and left on the run.

All the way to the hospital he kept remembering those last moments with Trina and the sadness in her voice. She couldn’t die. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

* * *

Trey hung up the phone and looked at Dallas, but they didn’t talk. There was nothing for her to say. His mother’s body was on the way to the morgue. There would be an autopsy, and since the murder had taken place in Webster County, the county sheriff, Dewey Osmond, had taken charge of the crime scene, just as he had when her classmate Dick Phillips’ body was discovered.

Dallas couldn’t quit shaking. This was a nightmare—a horrible, hideous nightmare. Both of their parents dead—murdered—for something that had happened when they were kids. When she reached for Trey, he grabbed her hand. She saw the shock in his eyes, and when she saw the tears, she cried with him.

* * *

The news of Betsy Jakes’ murder swept through Mystic like wildfire. There were plenty who’d been at the memorial service who hadn’t taken Trey Jakes’ comments all that seriously until now. He’d asked the members of that ill-fated graduating class to think back. He’d said there were some in Mystic who knew things. He’d asked them for their help. He’d mentioned a ten-thousand-dollar reward. Now every classmate left in Mystic, as well as everyone who’d been in high school then, was thinking back to the night of graduation, going through everything they could remember and every bit of gossip they’d heard.

* * *

Lainey Pickett lived almost ten miles outside Mystic, and after being dumped by Sam Jakes years earlier, she had purposefully shut that place and the people out of her life. She did her business and shopped in a neighboring town and coped with life the best that she could. She hadn’t been at the memorial service because she knew nothing about any of the murders, which meant she didn’t know anything about the announcement Trey Jakes made there, either. She made it a habit not to think about the Jakes men in any manner whatsoever.

She’d spent four of the past ten years getting a PhD in history, and for most of the past six years she’d been teaching online classes for the University of West Virginia. Her life wasn’t perfect, but she had taken it for granted until last Christmas, when she’d found the lump in her breast.

A double mastectomy and a round of chemo treatments later, she was now minus boobs but cancer-free and getting ready to begin breast reconstruction. Her once-thick red hair was growing back, and she was alive, and for that she was grateful.

She had just finished her last class of the day and was getting ready to answer some student email when her cell phone began to vibrate. She had forgotten to turn the ringer back on, and when it began to rattle across the counter, she grabbed it before it fell off.

“Hello?”

“Lainey, this is Dallas Phillips.”

Lainey froze. She and Dallas had once been close friends because they were dating the Jakes brothers, but that had all gone by the wayside with her dreams. The urge to hang up was strong, but curiosity won out.

“Well, it’s been a while,” Lainey said.

Dallas heard the chill in Lainey’s voice but didn’t take it personally. She knew Sam had left her high and dry, which was why she was calling.

“I know, and the reason I’m calling isn’t pretty, but I wanted you to know. From one woman to another, you need to be forewarned that Sam is coming home.”

Pain shot through Lainey so fast she could barely focus.

“Well, hell must have finally frozen over,” she snapped.

Dallas winced. Lainey was still angry, and she couldn’t really blame her. Sam had abandoned all of them.

“No, it’s worse. Betsy and Trina were shot on their way home from Paul Jackson’s memorial service. Betsy is dead, and Trina’s condition is critical.”

Lainey gasped. “Dear Lord! What happened? Why?”

Dallas frowned. “Surely you know about the recent murders of my father and Paul Jackson?”

Lainey was shocked. “No! I had no idea, and I’m so sorry. I rarely go to Mystic. I do most of my business in Summerton. What happened?”

“My dad was the first. The killer tried to make it look like a suicide, but they figured out pretty quickly it was a homicide. Then Mack Jackson’s dad, Paul, was killed. Same thing. The killer tried to make it look like an accident, but it was determined to be a homicide.”