Dark Hearts Read online

  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

  Also by Sharon Sala

  Secrets and Lies

  COLD HEARTS

  WILD HEARTS

  Forces of Nature

  GOING GONE

  GOING TWICE

  GOING ONCE

  The Rebel Ridge novels

  ’TIL DEATH

  DON’T CRY FOR ME

  NEXT OF KIN

  The Searchers series

  BLOOD TRAILS

  BLOOD STAINS

  BLOOD TIES

  The Storm Front trilogy

  SWEPT ASIDE

  TORN APART

  BLOWN AWAY

  THE WARRIOR

  BAD PENNY

  THE HEALER

  CUT THROAT

  NINE LIVES

  THE CHOSEN

  MISSING

  WHIPPOORWILL

  ON THE EDGE

  “Capsized”

  DARK WATER

  OUT OF THE DARK

  SNOWFALL

  BUTTERFLY

  REMEMBER ME

  REUNION

  SWEET BABY

  Originally published

  as Dinah McCall

  THE RETURN

  DARK

  HEARTS

  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

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Going Once by Sharon Sala

  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 clim
ax 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 s
tarted 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.