Harlequin Romantic Suspense April 2021 Karen Whiddon (best fiction books to read TXT) 📖

whisper of a sound, so faint it could almost be a breath in her ear. Julia looked up quickly. A movement. She stared through the rear windshield. A face peered back. Standing at the end of the truck’s bed, the person was dressed in black. A black hood was pulled up over stringy blond hair, the face was kept in shadow.

It was the same person who’d been in her house.

Her heart hammered, and bile rose in the back of Julia’s throat. Cold sweat covered her brow and snaked into her eyes. She blinked as the cold hand of panic gripped her throat and squeezed. Still, she rallied enough to act and not cower.

She backed out of the truck, drawing her sidearm in one movement.

“Police,” she said, following protocol. “I’m placing you under arrest for trespassing at my own damn house. And I’m taking you in for questioning in the death of Tom Dolan.”

The person took off at a sprint, running for the trees that lined the drive.

“Stop,” Julia yelled. In an instant, she assessed that the person was a danger to themselves and others. “Stop,” she said again, “or I’ll shoot.”

The person only ran faster.

She pulled the trigger. Her shoulder jolted with the recoil. The shot went wide, the trunk of a tree exploding with the impact.

With a curse, she gave chase. Her feet slapped the ground as she pushed harder. The figure in front put more distance between them. The trees grew closer to one another, blocking out the light. The temperature dropped. Roots snaked up from the ground. One caught Julia’s foot and she stumbled forward. The gun slipped from her grip. It fired as it hit the ground.

The stench of cordite filled Julia’s nostrils and her ears began to ring.

Ahead, the person dodged behind a tree and disappeared from Julia’s view.

Scrambling to her feet, she awkwardly gathered her gun and set off at a sprint, but stopped at the tree and looked around wildly. Whoever it was, they were gone.

* * *

Luis hobbled forward, stepping into Darcy’s childhood bedroom. Yellowed curtains hung over grimy windows. A twin bed, complete with a canopy that at one time might have been pink, but was now the color of weak urine, was pressed up against one wall. A small white dresser sat in a corner. A matching vanity with a stool stood at its side against another wall. A shelf of dolls ringed the room. They were covered in dust so thick, it looked like snow.

Obviously, he was standing in a girl’s room. Yet, it was well suited for a small child, not a teenager. He knew that Darcy had lived in this house until she was a senior in high school and this space wasn’t suitable for a young woman. Then again, there was very little about her upbringing that had been appropriate.

He stepped farther into the room. His ankle ached, throbbing with each beat of his heart.

A small, white metal stool with a velvet cushion was nestled under the vanity. He pulled it out. The cushion slipped. Part of a lid, he supposed. After prying up the top, Luis dumped the contents onto the floor. He picked up an old high school yearbook and flipped through the pages. There were no well wishes written on the sheets reserved for signatures. In the sophomore class, he found an unsmiling picture of Darcy Owens. Staring at the photo, he wondered if there was a clue in her blank stare. Was she already dead inside, preparing to embark on a life of killing?

Tucked into the back cover was a graduation tassel from thirteen years ago, the same year that the yearbook had been produced. Had it belonged to Robert Carpenter?

He looked through the rest of the cache that had been stored in the stool. Bits of paper. Old candy wrappers. A few pens.

A headless Ken doll and his counterpart, Barbie, with no legs or arms.

Repressing a shiver, Luis lowered himself onto the stool.

As he sat, he saw it in his mind’s eye. He’d seen an irregularity just seconds before. What had it been? A slip of paper. Was it a tag on the bottom cushion? He stood. Pain wrapped around his ankle and squeezed. With a curse, he shoved aside the ache and lifted the cushion once again.

Bingo. There was a slip of paper—yellowed and brittle with age—attached to the wooden underside of the cushion. He tugged.

Two things happened at once.

First, the paper disintegrated with his touch.

Second, another inch became exposed. The paper was white, with faint blue lines—the kind found in almost any notebook—and definitely not a tag left by the manufacturer. Moreover, if Darcy had taken great pains to hide this note—and he assumed it was a note—then he also assumed it was important to her state of mind all those years ago.

But he dared not pull anymore, since he could destroy the paper and whatever it might say.

On closer examination, Luis found that the wooden seat bottom was held in place with a series of small staples. He pushed through the thick coating of dust and debris on the top of the vanity and found a set of tweezers, the ends brown with rust.

He worked the flat head of the tweezers under a staple. It popped free. After removing four more staples, Luis peeled back the thin piece of wood. It broke with a crack. A folded sheet of paper clung to the bottom of the cushion. It had been there so long that fibers from both the cloth and the paper had fused, becoming a new creation.

Using the tweezers again, Luis pulled the paper loose and set it on the vanity. It hadn’t been a note, but rather the entry from a journal that was dated in November, eleven years ago.

He read the large, looped handwriting and went cold.

We’ve decided to do it. The Watcher knows how to make it all look accidental. My dad will look like he died of exposure and then a few weeks—months?—later,