Read Don't Say a Word (Strangers Series) Online
Authors: Jennifer Jaynes
Don't Say a Word (Strangers Series)
ALSO BY JENNIFER JAYNES
Strangers Series
Never Smile at Strangers
Ugly Young Thing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Jennifer Jaynes
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503933422
ISBN-10: 1503933423
Cover design by David Drummond
To Sage Gallegos
Thank you for being such a wonderful friend and
auntie . . . and believing in magic with me.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
TWELVE-YEAR-OLD ZOE SHUDDERED as a fly buzzed past her ear.
Her eyes filling with tears, she pinched her nose closed. She’d never smelled decaying human flesh before. It was a heavy, sickening, awful smell. Kind of like the reek of the dead cat last spring that she and her sister had walked past every morning to get to their bus stop.
The stench overpowered the odors of paint, sawdust, and freshly installed carpeting—the new house smells that had, just a couple of days ago, promised her family a fresh start.
Before
everything
changed.
She stood in her bedroom doorway, frightened to step out into the hall, but she was so hungry her stomach ached. She knew there was a big stash of gummy worms in the first drawer of her mother’s bedside table, but there was no way she was going to step foot in her parents’ bedroom, because she was terrified of what she would find in there.
She’d have to pick through what was left in the kitchen.
Don’t think about it, just do it,
she told herself.
She darted down the hallway at lightning speed, the wood floor cold beneath her bare feet, the sounds of each footfall echoing through the large, mostly empty house. She sprinted down the steps to the first floor.
The house was eerily quiet. Her mother wasn’t lazing on the couch. No soap operas blared on the new flat-screen television in the living room. No television judges barked admonishments. No drugs were strewn haphazardly across the coffee table.
In the kitchen, Zoe yanked the refrigerator door open and stared inside. Aside from a few condiments, some empty food wrappers, and crumbs, it was empty. Her stomach churned as she opened the door to the snack cabinet. She found two small boxes of raisins for her twin sister, Carrie, and stuffed them in the back pockets of her jeans. Then, dodging corrugated moving boxes and stepping over empty potato chip bags and an assortment of other food wrappers, she went to the pantry. Behind a giant carton of baking soda, she discovered one last can of raviolis.
Her mouth watering, she tore the pull-top open, dipped her fingers in the can, and plucked one out. She shoved the sweet pasta into her mouth, barely taking the time to chew before letting it slip down her throat.
The phone rang in the distance.
A bolt of terror shot through her, and she almost dropped the aluminum can.
The phone had been ringing a lot, but she had been too scared to answer it. Because if she did, it would finally make everything real. And she didn’t want it to be real. She had to believe that if she waited a little longer, everything would go back to normal. She’d wake up to find that all of this had just been a dream.
After six rings, the house became still again, and she felt her shoulders relax. She resumed stuffing the pasta into her mouth.
What the heck happened?
she wondered for the millionth time, trying to remember.
Think! Think!
She knew only that one, or possibly both, of her parents were now gone. The events two nights earlier were like the images she’d seen in toy kaleidoscopes. They didn’t all fit together or make sense. Since it had all happened, her brain refused to work right. Every time she tried to remember, her thoughts fell away, like dominoes that were standing, but then suddenly weren’t.
Her father had been on a haul that night, and her mother’s greasy boyfriend, Gary, had been at the house. Zoe heard her mother talking to Gary about something. Something scary. It’d had something to do with the Texas Lotto money her father had won a few months back at a gas station across town. He’d won $1.2 million—and the jackpot had paid for the huge new house she was now standing in.
Suddenly, an image flashed through Zoe’s mind that made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. The ravioli can fell from her hand and landed with a big
plop!
on the floor. Wide-eyed, she watched it roll across the ceramic tile until it hit the pantry wall.
More memories, painfully vivid ones, rushed forward. Memories of things she might’ve seen.
Zoe took a step back. She shook her head.
No, no, no, no, NO!
Clamping her hands against her ears, she squeezed, trying to crowd out the awful images. Attempting to remember had been a mistake. She no longer wanted to know.
Humming loudly to block out any new images, she went to the phone and dialed her father’s cell phone again. And again, he didn’t answer. Tears streamed from her eyes, burning her raw cheeks.
She sprinted back up the stairs. But when she reached the hallway that led to the bedrooms, she froze. Her parents’ door was partially open, and she could see the corner of her parents’ bed . . . and maybe, just maybe, a hint of her mother’s head, her blonde hair splayed out across the floor.
Had their door been open before?
No, she decided. It had definitely been shut.
Okay, maybe not definitely, but she was pretty sure it had. So . . . was it possible that she . . . they . . .
everyone . . .
was really okay? That this had just been a really vivid nightmare? That maybe her mother had only been lying on the floor drunk all this time?
Please, please, yes!
“Mother?” she called, her throat raw from crying. Hopeful, she crept toward the door. But when she got close, the overpowering stench of death twisted her belly. A fly buzzed out of the room and landed in the middle of Zoe’s forehead.
Swatting weakly at it, she burst into tears and backed away.
In the safety of her bedroom, Zoe locked the door and went to the closet. Her twin sister, Carrie, was lying where she had left her, partially covered in clothes, her eyes clenched shut, her cheek pressed against the scratchy new carpet.
She had been lying there so long, Zoe couldn’t tell if she was still sleeping or simply ignoring her. Since that night, Carrie had barely moved. She hadn’t even gotten up to use the restroom.
With trembling hands, Zoe dug the raisins out of her pockets. “Want raisins?”
Her sister didn’t budge.
“You haven’t eaten anything.”
The girl was silent.
Zoe nudged her with her foot.
“Stop,” Carrie croaked.
“But you have to eat.”
“No, I don’t.”
Zoe set the raisins next to her sister and went to the bedroom window. Peering out at the cloud-darkened sky, she watched a streetlight flicker in front of her house. She sat down on the window seat and cried fresh tears, not knowing what to do.
A few minutes later, she heard the rumble of a car’s engine, then tires
whooshing
over wet asphalt. She waited for the vehicle to pass her house and continue on.
But it didn’t.
Suddenly headlights cast a blue-white glow on the front of the house . . . and across Zoe’s face. Panic zigzagging through her stomach, Zoe jumped up and ran to the closet. She squeezed in next to Carrie and hurriedly slid the door closed.
CHAPTER 1
“FEAR MAKES THE wolf bigger than he is,” twenty-two-year-old Allie whispered to herself as she lay in her dimly lit bedroom. The expression was a German proverb Bitty Callahan, the woman who adopted Allie six years ago, had taught her. It was something she always tried to remember when her mind began to spin with negative thoughts.
Although Allie was much stronger than she’d ever been—more confident, more sure of herself, kinder, and more gentle—in the privacy of her mind, she still struggled with fear. Even though many of the heinous things that had made life so frightening when she was growing up no longer existed, she now had new fears.
As she listened to the autumn wind rattle the window next to her, she thought about how drastically her life had changed. She used to live in perpetual fear of losing her older brother. Now she feared losing her mental health and becoming incapable of being the type of mother her four-year-old son, Sammy, deserved. Sammy was her reason for living. He was her everything.
But having him in her life also frightened her—which led her to be overprotective.
She tried not to think negative thoughts because, supposedly, thoughts you dwelled on long enough could become true. Not that she really believed that (or maybe she did), but she had constantly worried about her brother leaving, and one night when she was fifteen, he did. He blew his head off in their living room while they were in the middle of an argument.
Over the last several years, Allie had read anything and everything to learn how to be and
stay
“mentally healthy,” to think more positively, to become a better person and a better mother—anything that would help her distance herself from what her biological mother had been, and what Allie had started to become. But no matter how far she traveled—physically or mentally—her mother’s grim words still stung her ears.
You’re going to be just like me, Allie Cat. Just wait and see.
Of all the dreadful things her mother had told her, this was the one that frightened her most—and Allie worked hard to make sure her mother’s prophecy would never come true. Her mother had been a mentally ill small-town prostitute who had killed several people. After she died, Allie’s older brother had taken care of her the best he could. He paid the bills, bought the food. But then he became ill, too, and when he committed suicide, Allie found herself suddenly orphaned and on the streets.
Then she’d met Bitty. The kind older woman took her in as a foster child and eventually adopted her. Bitty introduced her to a clean and relatively safe world that was so different from the dirty, unkind world Allie had always known. She taught her how to be a decent person, and every day, Allie strove to become more like her—and the exact opposite of her biological mother.
She’d really lucked out to be placed with Bitty. The woman had helped her turn her life around. But Allie had never been lucky before, and a part of her was always waiting for something to happen, for the other shoe to drop.
For something that might ruin it all.
The heat in the house kicked on, snapping Allie back to the present. The scent of vanilla wafted from the air vent above her. Bitty was in the kitchen doing some late-night baking. She was constantly experimenting with new recipes, making healthful versions of old favorites.
Allie shook the dark thoughts of her past from her mind and set her Kindle on the nightstand. Sheets of rain crashed loudly against the window, and the lamp next to her flickered. She was reaching to turn it off when the landline rang.
Allie froze. It was already half past eleven.
Late-night phone calls rarely brought good news.
The phone rang twice, then stopped. Allie wondered if Bitty had answered it. Curious, she climbed out of bed and shrugged on her robe. But as she neared the kitchen, a chill crept up her spine. She stopped in her tracks, feeling strongly as though something terrible was about to happen. For a second, she considered crawling back in bed with her son. Instead, she yanked her robe closer to her body and started walking again.
The wind outside rattled the windowpanes as she entered the kitchen. Bitty stood in front of the refrigerator, a dish towel slung over her shoulder, her back to Allie. She was in her robe, and her shock of white hair was piled, messily, on top of her head. “Did the phone wake you?” she asked without turning.
“No. I was awake,” Allie said.
The bad feeling Allie’d had moments before knotted in her gut.
Relax,
she told herself.
There’s nothing to be worried about. Just stop already.
“Who called?” she asked.
“That was the agency. Twin sisters will be arriving within the hour.”
Cold fingers of disappointment tugged at Allie’s heart.
More foster children.
Allie sat down at the bar, and her dog, Piglet, jumped into her lap and curled into a tight ball. Most of Allie’s carefully constructed, consistent, peaceful world now existed inside the house with her beloved Bitty, her perfect little boy, and their loyal dog. But when foster children were around, the house didn’t feel half as comfortable. Their presence disrupted her sense of normalcy.
But although Allie felt uneasy each time a new kid arrived, she could never tell Bitty. Allie admired the fact that Bitty fostered kids. It was one of hundreds of things she admired about the old woman. After all, how could she not? Bitty had literally saved her life when she’d taken her in. Bitty had given her a second chance at happiness—a chance most kids with pasts like hers never got.
“Where are they coming from?” she asked.
“About two miles away. Sherman’s Landing.”
Sherman’s Landing. Where the rich people lived.
They’d never taken in rich foster kids before. This would be a first. Most came from trailer parks and the little unkempt tract homes scattered around East Texas. They also usually took in one kid at a time. Not two.
The teakettle hummed softly on the stove. “Want a cup of tea?” Bitty asked, pulling a tray full of cookies from the oven.
“Yeah . . . sure.”
Bitty grabbed two mugs from the cupboard. She dropped a tea bag into each and filled them with steaming water; then she slid a mug and a cookie in front of Allie and sat down.
She smiled, the thin skin around her eyes crinkling. Allie noticed the lines in the old woman’s face looked deeper than usual—and she felt a pang of sadness at the realization that she was getting older. That maybe one day in the not-so-distant future she’d no longer be a part of her and Sammy’s life.
“You feeling all right?” Allie asked.
Bitty raised her eyebrows and sighed. “Oh, I’m fine. I’m not sure if those twin girls will be, though,” she said. “They were found a few hours ago, hiding in a bedroom closet. Both of their parents were found dead in the master suite, and from the looks of it, they’d been dead for some time.”