Deep Dark Mire (An FBI Romance Thriller ~ book four)

     
 
Deep Dark Mire

                      By Morgan Kelley

          Copyright 2013 by
Morgan Kelley LLC
All rights

         
reserved. No parts of this publication may be

         
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

         
means, electronic or mechanical, including

         
photocopy, recording, or in an information storage 

         
or retrieval system without written consent from

         
the author. All characters are fictional

       
and any similarity to real life or individuals is

         
coincidental.

          Second edition © Copyright 2013 by
Morgan Kelley

        
LLC

         Cover art by James Grogan. Titled:
Mystical

        
Cypress Swamp
.  @ Dreamstime.com purchased

         Rights 01/31/2013

Other works by Morgan Kelley:

Stand Alone Romance/FBI thrillers

The Junction

Serial Sins

The Blood Betrayal

Romance/FBI Thriller Series

The Killing Times (book 1)

Sacred Burial Grounds (book 2)

True Love Lost (book 3)

Deep Dark Mire (book 4)

Fire Burns Hot (book 5)

Darkness of Truth (book 6)

Devil Hath Come (book 7)

Consumed by Wrath (book 8)

Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Series

Celestia is Falling (book 1)

Vegas is Dying (book 2)

Christmas is Killing (book 3)

Love is Bleeding (book 4) Spring 2014

The Littlemoon Investigations Series

Blood Red Rage (book 1) Early 2014

Lost and Broken (book 2) summer 2014

The Carter Chronicles

Sinner Repent (book 1) Summer 2014

The Dangerous Series

Dangerous Revelations (book 1) Spring 2014

             Mire

               [ mīr ]

            
an area of very marshy ground or deep slushy

            
mud

                  or

             difficult situation: a troublesome or oppressive

            
situation or state

  
         that is very difficult to escape from

      
A
Native American grandfather talking to his young

     
grandson tells the boy he has two wolves inside of him

     struggling with each other. The first is the wolf of peace,

     
love and kindness. The other wolf is fear, greed and

      h
atred.

     
Which wolf will win, grandfather? asks the young boy.

                      
Whichever one I feed, is the repl
y
.

So Begins Desdemona Adare’s story and

continues Callen Whitefox’s…

~Prologue

Two weeks ago.

The only sound that surrounded him was the chirping of crickets and the swishing noise of his boots through the swampy water. The bayou was beyond quiet tonight.

It was d
eathly silent.

It seemed completely appropriate
, since he’d just committed murder. He took the life of the woman in his arms and snuffed it out from existence. Part of him believed it should have been hard to do, but the evil part of him knew better. Stealing away a life was simple. It only took intent and will to succumb to the call.

Now it was
finally done after years of premeditation.

Glancing
down into her serene face there was remorse, or he hoped what he was feeling was that particular emotion. The cold claws of fear ripped at his belly, not because he took a life, but that he’d get caught.

Then he relaxed.

This was the bayou. It was a mire of muck and decay and no one would find the woman, once she was placed with the other one. Time had proven that. As nearly twenty five years had passed since the first fragile life was taken and placed in the gaping hole in the rocky cliff. How no one found the body and returned her to her family, he would never know. But yet there she was, waiting to be discovered and reclaimed.

Time wasn’t
Trinity’s friend, and it certainly wasn’t kind to the family either. Both little girls grew up without a mother, always wondering if she abandoned them or was eaten by some vicious swamp creature. The beauty was that no one considered the other option…
Murder
.

The secrets remained hidden
for decades, and it was for the best. The man who stole her life had his reasons and his justifications. It was a valid killing in his mind, and the mind of the one who would follow in his steps. Trinity Adare was a blasphemous woman, and the children she brought into the world were mistakes who shouldn’t have found life. The time had come to take action and right the wrongs that lust and sin had given life to so many years ago.

The mother
had to die.

Now the woman in his arms also had to be removed from the world. She too was just like her
predecessor. Trinity Adare may have been gorgeous, funny and easy to look at, but she also crossed a line and wanted the truth to come to the surface. That wasn’t going to happen. There were too many innocent lives involved. When the decision came to end her life it was done with sorrow and no pleasure, he was sure. No one should take joy in the taking of a life.

There was no happiness that day
on the face of the killer, but there was satisfaction at protecting the secrets they shared.

Staring down into the face of the woman in his arms, there still wasn’t any
joy at what had to be done. This was a sin, but no worse than the sins that were being committed unknowingly. Something had to stop it before the ugliness came to light and the truth was told for the world to see.

The bayou was an unpleasant place, but even in all its horrible
poverty stricken hell, it still wasn’t worse than what was going to happen if the truth came out. People would make light of it, gossip, and that just couldn’t happen. The two women had to be sacrificed, and once the other woman came home, she too must die.

It was only a matter of time
to wait her out. Yes, he’d tried to find a way to get to her while she travelled the country dealing in death, but it wasn’t feasible. It had to be done correctly and done masterfully, like the murder before her. He’d stalked, chased and terrorized in an effort to bring her back to the bayou, where it all started.

It was a matter of time until the woman was trapped in the sins of her mother. Soon
, time would run out for her too, and he knew what that meant.

Death.

Cordelia Adare was much like her mother, but that wasn’t her only sin in life. The secrets that she found unknowingly were her undoing. Secrets he must kill to keep locked away for the rest of time. Had she not dug through the past, then she might have had a future herself.

He spotted the rocky hiding spot on the inner most part of the swamp and knew the journey was almost over. It had been a long walk in, and it would be a long walk out
, but one he knew well. He’d come here often to check on Trinity Adare. Now he’d come to check on Cordelia in a few weeks, when the decay and animals feasting on her flesh were finished. Even though he killed her, he had a weak stomach for watching things being consumed. The gators couldn’t get her in the crevasse, but there were a myriad of other swamp animals that could, and would.

It was only a matter of time
before her lifeless body became a meal, a snack, and a warm dwelling for all the bayou creepy crawlies.

Climbing up into the cliff and pulling back the branches of the ancient cypress tree
, he found the entrance and inspected the original remains. It wasn’t a deep fissure, but it would hold the body and the next one too. Then it would be filled to capacity and never used again.

This would be the Adare family crypt, just minus the oldest member of the family.
No sane person on the bayou would mess with Morgana Adare. She was the bayou witch. Whether or not she had power over God fearing people was a question he wasn’t willing to find the answer to personally. Better to be safe than sorry, that was his motto. The creepy woman wasn’t to be messed with and that was common knowledge among everyone in town.

Laying Cordelia beside her mother
’s fleshless body, he said a prayer for her, hoping her body would decay fast and all evidence would be eaten or washed away. In case it wasn’t, he knew what needed to be done.

Pulling the wicked looking knife from his back pocket, he ran his finger across the sharp blade. This would be the last step before returning home. Swiftly he slammed the knife to the hilt into her very still lower stomach. The flesh made a hideous tearing sound, despite the sharpness of the blade.

The stench of bowel and guts wafted up, making him want to gag, but he continued anyway. Cutting a wide enough gash, he dug and scraped at the internal part of her body, almost removing everything in sight. He wasn’t a doctor, so this was all new to him. When he found the slightly swollen bag, he assumed it was the uterus. Reaching in, he ripped it from her stomach. It slithered through his hands, like a bloody deflated balloon. Now he’d cut the abomination right from her body.

Looking around, he found the light ripples not far from where
he stood. He knew what was living beneath the murk, waiting for its next meal. Tossing the vile prize into the water, he watched the splashes as the alligator consumed it quickly. No more was Cordelia’s abomination. Now it was relegated to where it belonged.