Secrets and Lace: A Dark Romance Thriller (Fatal Hearts Series Book 1) (8 page)

“Good for both of you. I'm sorry about her cancer.” Somehow his words didn't sound genuine. His tone was emotionless.

“Me too.” I hesitated. “We just found our way to each other. I hate to think about the cancer.” 

“Is she getting treatment?” His voice was dry and tired now, as though he was bored with the discussion.

“She doesn't want to spend the rest of her life in hospitals. The doctors said there's nothing anyone can do.” I sighed. “I tried to convince her to come and stay with us, but she refused—”

“You what?” Miles cut me off.

 “I asked her to come and stay with us. I mean… we have the space, and I could keep an eye on her.”

 “Why would you do that? You didn't even run it by me.”

“She's my mom. I thought you'd understand.”

 Miles didn’t respond.

 “Miles, you there?”

 “I am. I just don't see why you would do such a thing without consulting me first.”

I sat down at the desk, my head reeling. “My mom is sick; I want to be there for her. I didn’t think it would be an issue.”

“You were wrong. It
is
an issue, damn it. You should have asked me first. You’re inviting someone into our home, the place we go to get away from it all.”

 “Baby, it’s not as if she'd live with us forever, just a couple of months.”

“This is the same woman you never wanted to see again, remember? The woman who ruined your life? After only a few hours you're not only forgiving her, you're asking her to come and live with us. I don't get it.”

I lowered my forehead onto the surface of the desk and closed my eyes. More tears threatened to spill. Why was Miles acting this way? He was the kind of person who would do anything for people in need. He gave away millions to charity. But now that I wanted us to care for my mom, he was reacting so strangely, so unlike himself.

After a moment of silence on both ends of the line, I got it. He didn’t want to share me with anyone else. For a year it had been just us. His parents had died in a car accident when he was a child, and my mom had been out of the picture. Miles and I only had each other. Now I was bringing someone else into our lives, someone else important to me.

“Miles, don’t worry about it. I don't want to fight. She's not coming anyway. She doesn’t want to.” I was still a bit upset that he wouldn't make such a sacrifice for my mom, his future mother-in-law. He had lost his mother, but now he would get another through marriage. 

He sighed. “Look, baby, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say those things. I don't know what got into me. It's fine. If you want her to stay with us for a while, it's okay.”

“You're so hot and cold. You were so adamant a moment ago that you didn’t want her to stay with us. What changed?”

“I don't know. It's been a stressful couple of days. And I have to go on a last-minute trip out of town. I'm on the jet right now.”

“Okay.” I sucked in a breath. “She... she wants to come to the wedding. Can I invite her?” I had already invited her, but I didn't want Miles to react the way he had a few minutes ago.

“Of course she can come to the wedding. If you’ve forgiven her, I do too.”

 That was the man I knew him to be. The caring, loving man I had fallen for.

“By the way, did you sort out what you went there to take care of?”

A chill spread through me. “Not yet. But I will soon. I'm planning on coming back tomorrow.” It would be hard leaving Mom in her current state. The thought of leaving her alone again made my stomach hurt. But I would visit Misty Cove as often as I could to see her.

“Good. Have you received any more cards from the stalker?”

The cards. I had forgotten that I didn't receive a card yesterday. My stalker must have lost me. I wasn’t being followed in Misty Cove. Maybe they had no connection to my past after all.

“No more cards. I think it was a prank and the person got bored. It could be over.” I knew it wasn’t over. I felt it. But I couldn’t tell Miles that. I had to sort it out before I returned home. Spending my life looking over my shoulder was not an option.

Miles was quiet again. When he spoke, his voice was low and controlled. “I have to go. I'll talk to you later.”

When I hung up, I realized that in his rush to get off the phone, he hadn’t told me where he was flying to. I shivered. Something about him was off. He wasn’t acting like himself.

Chapter Fifteen

The living room was transformed. Everything was clean and sparkling, no dust or dirt anywhere. Even though my mom still looked sick, she seemed to have a lot more energy and was humming a song when I entered the kitchen. The huge pile of dirty dishes I had seen in the sink yesterday had disappeared.

“Good morning, honey.” She kissed my cheek. “I made breakfast, want some?”

“Actually, I was just about to head out. I don't really have time for breakfast.”

“Oh, that's a shame, I thought maybe we could eat together.” Her face crumpled the way it had when I'd told her about the night that changed my life.

I brushed away our emotional conversation from yesterday and glanced at the kitchen table, recalling all the times we had sat there in silence, day after day, as we ate our food. She hadn’t been there for me emotionally, but at least there had always food on the table.

“I'll be back by lunch, and we can eat together then. I really appreciate the effort you put in. Please don't overdo it, though. You need to rest.” I hugged her, but not too tight.

“Don't worry, honey. I feel stronger today.” She pulled away but held my arms. “I've been thinking about what you said last night. It was a shock to hear, but I blame myself for what happened… what you did. You wouldn't be in danger now if I had been there—”

“Stop beating yourself up. The decisions I made were all mine. You’re not to blame.”

“But I can't help it.” My mom went to fill the kettle. I could see from her trembling shoulders that she was crying. “If only I could do something to make it all go away.”

“Mom, really, you have nothing to do with this. It's all me.” I reached for an apple, rinsed it, and wiped it with a kitchen towel. “There is something you can do.” I leaned against the fridge. “Have you heard anything about my friends? Whatever you know will be a huge help. I need something, anything to go on.” 

Mom wiped her eyes and turned to me. “Not much. Stacy Prammer only visited once since she went to college, and not long after that her parents divorced. Her mom moved away. Her father died about a year ago.”

My heart sank. I wished I could talk to all of them, to find out if they were also being stalked. It had not even crossed my mind that they might not have returned to Misty Cove after college, as I had done. 

“How about Melanie Thompson and Jane Dreer? Are they still in town?” Even though I had not planned on having breakfast, I found myself sinking into a chair and reaching for a slice of fresh bread, tearing it with my fingers. It was warm and spongy. The apple was forgotten for now.

Mom’s face softened as she sat down as well.

“Word around is that Jane moved to Europe, but Melanie... She's still in town.” Mom lifted a glass of juice to her lips. “Well, life has been unkind to her. Her father made some bad investments and the family lost everything.”

“Oh, no. That's so sad.” I bit into the bread. It was so good, it distracted me from the bad news I'd just heard. But I had to focus. I put the bread down on an empty plate and directed my full attention to Mom. “How is Melanie now?”

“Well, she's changed. She dropped out of college because there was no money.” She sighed. “Now she has a job as an administrative assistant at the Trinity Church of Christ. But she's like a shadow of herself. She doesn't talk much, and doesn't smile. It's been like that for years.” Mom took my hand. “I don't think her father's bankruptcy is the only thing to blame. Maybe that night affected her too.”

I dropped my gaze. “I regret what I did. I just didn't know how to get out of the situation.”

“You of all people know I’m not a saint; I’ve made my own mistakes in life. I'm not in a position to judge you or anyone.” She glanced at the kitchen clock. ”If you want to talk to Melanie, I'm sure she's at the church already. She's usually there by eight.”

“Okay. But I think I'll finish breakfast first.” I gave her a small smile.

She smiled back, and I saw a flash of the beautiful woman she once was. “Do you think you'll get any more cards… the stalker?”

“I don't know. I hope not. At least I didn't receive anything yesterday. I hope that's the end of it.” 

Part of me told me to quit the search for answers in Misty Cove, to go on with my life. What if I was searching for answers in the wrong place? What if my stalker really was someone from my present and not my past?

Last night I’d thought of Fred, the lawyer I had dated before Miles. He had been the jealous kind. We dated for over two years, and the breakup was messy. He didn't want to understand that I couldn't be in a relationship where I felt something was missing. He'd accused me of wasting his time. 

But Fred couldn't be my stalker. I had woken up in the middle of the night and went online to check out his social media profiles, amazed that he hadn't blocked me. From the look of things, he had moved on completely. He was married and had a baby daughter. Judging from the pictures he posted of his family, he was happy. He didn't seem like somebody who would jeopardize his new life to get back at an ex. 

I had been somehow disappointed that it wasn't him. I'd have preferred the stalker to be someone in my current life.

“I hope it’s over as well. But please be careful.” Mom touched my cheek gently.

I nodded and started to eat, filling myself with enough food to get me through the whole day.

When I walked out the door and down the path, munching on my apple, I couldn't help wondering what had become of my friends. I now knew Melanie's dreams of becoming an actress didn't pan out, but what about the others? Did theirs come true? Were they married with kids? Did the past ever cross their minds?

I moved the apple to my left hand so I could reach into my purse for the car keys. When I looked up again I spotted something on my windscreen, tucked behind the wipers. My heart froze.

It was an envelope.

As I walked to the front of the car, I felt nauseous. My stalker had followed me after all. If somebody was willing to put their life on hold in order to follow me to another town, they had to be dangerous.

I glanced around, hoping I could catch the person watching me. But all I saw were people leaving their homes for work, and uniformed children getting into the school bus. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Where was he? Who was he? My feelings told me it was a man. I couldn’t explain it, I just knew.

Chapter Sixteen

The last time I stepped into the Trinity Church was when my father died, the one time Mom and I had resembled some kind of family, brought together by shared grief. As we listened to the minister, both of us had sat ramrod straight, gazing ahead, so near and yet so far apart. I remembered now that my mom had not cried. At the time I thought she had been consumed with grief, but now I knew she probably couldn't find it in her heart to grieve for the man who had hurt her so deeply.

Neither of my parents had ever really been the religious kind, although Mom had brought me to church occasionally when I was younger. Like with everything else, she stopped out of the blue. I didn’t understand why, but I also didn’t ask. By then the distance between us was too great to cross.

The Trinity Church was still as beautiful as I remembered, with its vivid stained glass windows and heavy, carved front door. Months after we stopped coming to the church, I would walk by often, contemplating whether I should enter. I used to envy the children playing on the swing in the large yard, or gazing into the koi pond. I hated that I couldn't be part of it. There were times I considered waking up early on Sunday before my parents got up and attending the service alone, but I had been afraid of being turned away. What if the reason we no longer attended church was because we had angered God in some way? What if we had been banished from the church?

I stepped over a puddle of rainwater that reflected the sky, and ran up the stone steps. I pushed my weight against the heavy wooden door. It was a warm morning already, which meant it would be a hot day, but the interior of the church was cool. The sudden change in temperature sent goosebumps scattering across the skin on my arms. As I walked down the aisle, the slapping sound of my leather sandals echoed off the walls. I inhaled the faint scent of burning candles.

Although I needed to go look for the office, I found myself standing in the middle of the aisle instead. In those few seconds, feeling to my heart rate slow down, a sense of calm fell over me. When was the last time I'd prayed? Did God even remember me?

My gaze landed on the large statue of Jesus that hung from the wall behind the altar, coming to rest at the pulpit.

In my mind's eye I saw the pastor standing up there, offering people hope beyond their pain and troubles. How many people came in here every Sunday carrying their burdens, wishing to leave lighter? And how many left feeling the same way? I was in no position to question God's power, since I didn't even know him. Did he really answer prayers? I decided I had nothing to lose by sending up a little prayer anyway.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” The baritone voice behind me made me jump. I quit praying and spun around. From his robe I could tell instantly that he was the pastor. He was short, with hair so gray it was almost white. Did he have problems too, like the rest of us, or was he immune to suffering?

“No.” I nibbled on my bottom lip. “Actually, yes, maybe you can. I'm Chloe Parker. I'm looking for Melanie Thompson. I heard she works here.”

“Yes, yes. Melanie is in the office. I'm Pastor Fred Jennings. Please follow me, Ms. Parker.”