The Girl and the Deadly Secrets

  Copyright © 2023 by A.J. Rivers

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Also by A.J. Rivers

  Thursday, August 12

  Present day

  Xavier picks up the remote and promptly turns the movie off.

  “I need to start from the beginning,” he says. “Why would you start me at the end that isn’t the end of a series that wasn’t supposed to have a beginning because it wasn’t a series?”

  Dean looks at him for a silent moment. We’re already off to a fantastic start with this ‘80s slasher movie marathon we’ve been planning. With Friday the 13th looming right on the other side of midnight, it just seems appropriate to do it tonight. I should have known it wasn’t going to go nearly as smoothly as finding the right film streaming and letting it play. Xavier has just found out that Dean tried to pull a fast one on him by starting with the fourth movie of the series rather than at the actual beginning. No one who has ever encountered Xavier should be surprised by his reaction.

  “You’re right,” my cousin replies flatly, still staring at Xavier. “Why would I do something like that?”

  While Xavier searches for the first movie, I go to the kitchen to refill my drink and contemplate the possibility of snacks for the movies. I look into the freezer at an assortment of ice cream pints and nearly grab one, but reconsider. The pizza we ordered should be here any minute and I intend on eating several slices. I don’t want the ice cream in the way. I get back into the living room just as Xavier is starting on a fresh set of questions.

  “Is that a real full moon or a stunt moon?”

  In our intermission between the first and second movies a couple of hours later, I clean up the dirty dishes from around the living room and bring them back into the kitchen. The ice cream is still calling my name and I’m deciding which flavor to choose as I’m wrapping leftover pizza when my phone rings. A glance at the screen tells me it’s my husband.

  “Hey, babe,” I answer. “How are you doing?”

  I do my best not to let my voice divulge how much I miss him. It feels like he’s been in Michigan for far too long, but I know he’s doing the right thing being there. His aunt is going through hell and needs him with her now.

  “Good,” Sam says. “It’s a lot, but I’m glad I’m here.”

  “I know you are,” I say. “How is Rose?”

  “Getting through it a lot better than I thought she would. Though, honestly, I should have expected that. She already got through the hardest part. This is just the formality.”

  “I miss you,” I tell him. I almost feel guilty saying it. Sam is by his aunt’s side as she copes with the loss of her only child, the cousin Sam was extremely close with growing up. The last thing he needs to be thinking about is me sitting at home wishing he was here with me.

  “I miss you, too. Are the guys there?”

  There was a time when this probably would have frustrated me. My mind would have immediately gone to the idea that he thought I couldn’t manage alone, or that I needed the two men to be there with me because he wasn’t. A few years of marriage and getting to know Dean and Xavier have mellowed me in recognizing that Sam just wants to know I’m safe and happy while he’s not around.

  “Yeah. We’re getting ready to start movie number two of our marathon. Well, actually, movie two and a half. Xavier found out that we started on the fourth one, and we got over an hour in before we had to find the original,” I tell him.

  “Why would you do that?” Sam asks, sounding almost shocked. “Even I wouldn’t try to do that.”

  I would laugh if my first instinct wasn’t a self-reflective nod he can’t even see.

  “I know. The mistake has been rectified,” I say.

  “Make sure you get some sleep. I know you have work tomorrow,” Sam says.

  It’s not so much that he knows I have work as he just assumes I do. Essentially, I always have work.

  “I will. You get some sleep, too. I love you,” I say.

  “I love you. Goodnight, babe.”

  “Goodnight.”

  I’m smiling as I end the call and tuck my phone back into my pocket. There are some moments in my life when I can’t help but acknowledge how damn lucky I am.

  The movies keep rolling and I’m fairly awake through the second and third. By the middle of the fourth, I’m curled up in my favorite corner of the couch fading quickly. I enjoy a good gory slasher as much as the next person, but after a few hours of it, my brain clicks off and the rest of the day catches up to me. And Sam’s right. I do have work tomorrow. Come way too early in the morning, I have a meeting with a fellow agent who I’m working with on a particularly sticky and twisted serial mass murder case.

  Generally speaking, I don’t partner with other agents if the crimes involved use just one of those modifiers. A mass murderer I can handle. A serial killer I’ve got. But it’s when the two start getting combined that things get tough.

  I’m not one to crave working alongside a partner. I’d call myself a lone wolf if just the thought of that phrase didn’t make me want to roll my eyes so hard it threatens to tip me over backward. I’ll just stick with saying I do better on my own or at the helm of a team and leave the flowery sentiments alone.

  I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until something wakes me up. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but a quick look at the TV screen shows the movies have stopped playing. That means the guys are asleep, too. The splash screen on the streaming menu for the sixth movie is up, so they lasted a good while longer than I did. It also means they aren’t the ones who made the sound that jostled me awake.

  I don’t know what it was that woke me. It shocked me out of sleep suddenly and sharply, making me think it was something loud, but neither of the guys has woken up and everything around me is quiet and still. I’m wondering if it’s possible I was having a dream that startled me awake when I turn my head and feel something warm trickle down the side of my face.

  Touching my fingertips to the warmth, I shift my position and feel a wave of dizziness and pain come over me. My vision blurs slightly as I lift my hand in front of my face to look at my fingers in the light of the TV. Red liquid glistens on my skin. My head is bleeding.

  Before I can fully process what that means, something crushes against the back of my head, sending me falling forward off the couch so my face smashes into the coffee table. I sag down between the two pieces of furniture, my body caught so I am partially still on the couch while the rest of me remains suspended. Pain pulls at my muscles and the areas of skin being stretched and compressed.

  Time is slow and murky. I try to look for Dean and Xavier, but don’t see either of them. The nest Xavier made out of pillows and blankets on the floor in front of the TV is empty. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the recliner where Dean was sprawled, but he’s not there.

  Fighting to get my body upright and in control again, I call out for them. Another blast of hard, blinding pain across my head dislodges me from my position and I hit the ground. The force of my body falling pushes the table a few inches away from the couch, giving me enough room to maneuver myself. Dizzy and squinting with the linge
ring pain going through my head and down my neck, I push back and onto my knees. My toes tucked under, I brace myself before finally looking up.

  An ominous figure looms over me. In the darkness of the room I can’t make out any of the features hidden deep in a sweatshirt hood. But it isn’t a question of who they are that’s running through my mind. It’s how they got inside.

  The light coming from the TV is enough to illuminate an object in the person’s hand. It must be what they hit me with, and they’re lifting it again. I force myself up and barely manage to dodge what looks like a piece of metal pipe as it whizzes mere inches from where my head was a second ago. The person lunges at me, but I move around to the other side of the coffee table.

  My shout for Dean barely gets past my lips before the figure dives at me. There’s nowhere for me to go. I can only duck to the side a few feet and it’s not enough for me to escape the impact of their body crashing me into the TV.

  Sharp pain and heat sting the back of my neck and my arms. The weight of the person comes down in the middle of my chest, making it hard to breathe. I grip my assailant’s arm as hard as I can to hold it back and prevent them from swinging the pipe again, then pull my knee up sharply. I’m aiming to dig it in the center of their gut, but I can’t move enough, and my knee hits a hip bone. It doesn’t have as much of an effect as I want, but they grunt and shift, giving me space to roll to my side.

  “Dean!” This time it comes out fully, almost more like a shriek. The taste of blood rolls across my tongue. Drawing my elbow back as hard as I can, I plant it in the person’s face and follow it with a backward kick to their chest. It stops them from coming down on me again and I’m able to get to my feet. They’re blocking my way to the front door and the steps, so I go back the way I came. The person moves to the side to come around toward me and I step up onto the table. Kicking aside the remnants of snacks and drinks that still clutter the surface, I throw myself off and tackle them.

  The force of my body hitting them causes them to stumble back. They try to stay on their feet, but the impact sends them to the ground. I maneuver myself to get my knee onto their throat, but they shift. An instant later I’m in the air. My head hits the side table first and the rest of my body sinks to the ground. I no longer have control of my limbs. I can only watch as the pipe rises up above me one more time. Somewhere in the distance, I think I hear footsteps. Maybe Dean’s voice. Maybe just wishful thinking.

  Dean Steele stood in the middle of the street waiting for the flash of lights. When the corner in front of him glowed red, he ran forward toward it. The ambulance crew knew where they were going. They were all from Sherwood. They knew the small town and its neighborhoods. They’d been to Emma and Sam’s house. But Dean didn’t want to risk wasting even a second.

  When the truck turned the corner and caught him in its headlights, Dean jumped onto the curb and pointed down the street toward her house where Emma lay on the living room floor. She’d been sleeping on the couch when he woke up in the last few minutes of the sixth movie. Xavier had been sitting upright in his blanket nest but was staring at the TV with a blank expression on his face, not giving Dean much confidence he was actually fully awake. Dean convinced him to go up to their bedrooms for the rest of the night and he’d woken up Emma on the way up the stairs.

  He thought she was awake. He thought she was following right behind them.

  He didn’t know she wasn’t until he heard her screaming.

  Dean chased the ambulance back down the street and ran up into the yard as paramedics spilled out onto the grass.

  “Where is she?” one asked.

  “Inside,” Dean said. “It’s my cousin. Emma Johnson.”

  He used her married name rather than the one she used when she was in the field. When she was investigating a case she was FBI Agent Emma Griffin. When she was home, she was Emma Johnson, wife of Sherwood’s sheriff Sam Johnson, Dean’s cousin, and Xavier’s devoted friend.

  “And what happened to her?”

  They were on the steps now, going up onto the porch that Sam built for Emma so she could sit and read in the evening.

  “I don’t know. I was upstairs sleeping and heard her screaming. When I came downstairs someone was hunched over her. I yelled at them and they took off running,” Dean said.

  “They?” the paramedic asked as he went through the front door and into the living room. “You couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman?”

  “No. They were wearing baggy clothes and a hood,” Dean said.

  He stopped a few feet from where Emma was lying. He’d turned on the lights in the living room and now the glow of the lamp bulb over her illuminated the ghastly injury on her head. A gash across her forehead and another injury on the side of her head both poured blood across Emma’s face and down onto the carpet beneath her. Xavier kneeled beside her, his face stoic, one hand resting on her back.

  He’d wanted to pull her onto his lap but Dean stopped him. They didn’t know the full extent of her injuries and didn’t want to hurt her further by jostling her. Instead, Xavier looked like he was guarding her. Standing vigil.

  The thought made Dean’s stomach turn. She was breathing. But just barely.

  “Emma,” the paramedic said as he crouched down beside her, taking tools out of his bag. He leaned closer. “Emma, can you hear me? If you can hear me, open your eyes. Come on. Open your eyes for me.”

  Dean had already tried that. He’d tried to get through to her, to get her to respond, but there had been nothing. He wanted to tell the team that, to force them to get her onto their gurney and to the hospital where there were people who could do something to help her. He forced his mouth to stay closed. They knew what they were doing. This was what they did. It was their occupation but had to also be their passion. He couldn’t imagine anyone doing anything like this without it being deeply important.

  He knew. He’d done unthinkable things while haunted by unspeakable memories because there was a burn inside him that wouldn’t go away, pushing him to continue to serve.

  “You said you didn’t see what happened to her?”

  Dean did his best not to let the questions frustrate him. They were trying to help. They had to try to figure out what caused Emma’s injuries so they knew best how to treat her.

  “No. I was sleeping upstairs and heard her shouting my name. I came down the steps and she was already on the floor. The person was over her with something in their hand. It looked like they were about to hit her, but then they heard me coming and ran out through the front door.”

  The paramedic had taken Emma’s vitals and peeled an eyelid back to try to get any kind of reaction out of her, shining a pin light against her pupil and moving her hands to garner any response. When there was nothing, he moved out of the way and instructed the rest of the team to load her into the ambulance. The front door was still standing open and Dean noticed new lights had joined those of the ambulance. The blue splashed across the walls and bounced off the glass of framed pictures. He looked out over the grass to the sheriff’s department cars pulling up frantically.

  Sam should have been among them, but he wasn’t. He was still in Michigan handling the situation with his cousin. Dean knew it was irrational to feel the surge of anger and frustration he did at the thought of Emma’s husband, the sheriff, not being there when she was in such obvious need. He should be the one responding, figuring out what happened, being by her side.

  Dean followed the gurney with Emma strapped to it down out of the house and met the deputies in the middle of the lawn.

  “What happened, Dean?” asked Seth, one of Sam’s deputies.

  “Someone came into the house and attacked Emma. I didn’t get a good look at them. I couldn’t tell anything about them,” Dean said.

  He ran his hands down his face then clawed his fingers back through his hair. He hated that answer. Emma had been calling out for him and he didn’t do anything. He didn’t stop the person. He didn’t protect Emma. And now he couldn’t even give a basic description that might help them narrow down who could have done it. He had no information to give them other than that the person seemed to be of medium to slightly larger height and build and was dressed in baggy dark clothing. He couldn’t even say for sure it was black.