The killer liked his women
young and defenseless.
He was never caught.
As a child, Jane Gale witnessed her
mother's murder and was nearly killed trying to escape. Left for dead,
she has suffered complete memory loss, unable to recall who she was
before the "accident" or the events that caused her mother's death.
Twenty-five years later, Jane has a new life and a blossoming career as
a novelist-until the killer picks up her book and discovers that the
only eyewitness to his secrets has survived. And told.
Oblivious to the fact that she has
attracted the murderer back into her life, Jane has no idea where the
inspiration for her bestseller came from. But she has a photograph that
leads her back to Louisiana, to a place she knows but can't remember-and
to a stranger she wants to trust. Because somehow he is a link to her
past...and her only chance of staying alive.
Forty five years ago.
Throat tight with panic, ten-year-old
Etienne Dexter launched himself off the verandah, bare feet thudding on
sun-hot dirt, dust kicking up as he ran. Lurching around the corner of
the house, he cut through a raged mass of weeds that had once been a
rose garden, eyes blind to the velvety shimmer of acres of uncut hay and
the hot, arching perfection of the Louisiana sky.
As he barreled through the open doors
of the barn a nesting swallow arrowed past his head. Heart pounding, he
skidded to a halt, the breath shoving in and out of his lungs so hard it
felt as if his chest was trying to turn itself inside out.
Agony scored him as he dodged around
the skeletal remains of ancient harvesting equipment, although he was
neither cut nor burnt. Rounding a stack of drums that filled the barn
with the thick reek of machine oil, he crouched down, thin shoulders
taut as he lifted the trapdoor in the wall, put there instead of a
regular door in prohibition days to hide Grandpa Dexter's moonshine
still. Ducking through, he held his breath against the instant need to
gag. Crawling into "the pit"-a windowless shed tacked on to the rear of
the barn, with a storm cellar beneath-always made him want to throw up.
A shudder of reaction swept him as he
leaned against the trapdoor, preventing it from closing fully and
shutting him into the dark before he'd had a chance to switch on the
flashlight he'd stolen from the kitchen.
ears ached in the back of his throat
and hazed his vision as he fumbled at the button. His fingers, which
were normally deft, were shaking and, instead of turning on, the
flashlight popped from his grip, hit the dirt floor and rolled. He
grabbed for it, lost his balance and sprawled forward, skinning the
palms of his hands. Simultaneously, the trapdoor banged shut behind him,
plunging him into darkness.
A sharp, metallic rap told him that the
flashlight had rolled through the open cellar hatch and hit the rungs of
the ladder. Raw panic spasmed, making him feel physically sick. If he
took the flashlight back to his stepmother, Eloise, broken-
The flashlight hit the floor with a
clunk and, miraculously, turned on. Light washed up through the hatch,
turning the pitch-blackness soupy.
Relief flooded Etienne. He had to find
Charles, but there was no way he could go any further without a light,
even knowing that his twin was down here somewhere.
Holding his breath against the acrid
smell that permeated the wood floor, he got to his feet and started down
the ladder, gripping each wooden rung with his bare toes and keeping his
gaze fixed on the burning incandescence below. Even though he could
breathe, he felt like a diver descending. Logically, he knew that the
only difference between down here and outside was lack of light, but a
part of him still wanted to bolt. The heavy blackness reminded him of
the Lassiter River after a storm-the water thick with mud and so murky
it was like swimming in black tea.
Once he had the flashlight in his hand
he felt steadier. He would never admit it to either his stepmother or
his brothers, but he had always been scared of the dark, and not just
ordinary scared. He would rather be beaten black and blue than be locked
down here. In the old days when the Dexter family had had money, the
cellar had been used to store blocks of ice in summer and apples in
winter but nowadays the only things the cellar stored on a regular basis
were worms and mice and a whole lot of darkness.
He swung the light around, orienting
himself. The walls were lined with stone blocks, apart from one section
at the rear, as large as a small doorway, where the blocks had been
systematically removed and placed to one side. He aimed the beam down
the tunnel his twin bother had spent the summer excavating. Distantly,
he could hear scraping sounds.
As he started down the narrow tunnel,
Etienne's eyes widened with shock when he saw how much Charles had done.
The last time he'd ventured into the cellar, Charles had only just begun
digging; now the tunnel stretched out, straight as an arrow until it hit
a boulder and took an abrupt turn to the left.
He rounded the corner and saw Charles
standing in a pool of light cast by a kerosene lamp, ankle deep in mud
and perched on a mound of dirt, systematically scraping. Filled buckets
of dirt were lined up against one wall, ready to be taken outside and
dumped.
For long seconds, disbelief drowned
Etienne's fear and the shock that had sent him running in the first
place. "What are you doing?"
"Heading for the river."
Etienne blinked at the sheer scale of
the project. The river was more than a quarter of a mile away; it would
take Charles years to dig that far. He stared at his twin. "You're
crazy."
Charles's gaze was oddly blank. "You'll
see. The tunnel's going to be way cool."
"What if Eloise finds out?"
He shrugged. "She won't do anything.
Haven't you noticed? She's scared of the dark. That's why she thinks
it's such a big deal locking us down here." He smirked. "I like it."
Cold gripped Etienne's spine. Even
though they were identical twins and looked as alike as two peas in a
pod, there had always been differences between them. He liked apples,
Charles liked oranges. He was fascinated with models and construction,
and it was a fact that Charles was more interested in breaking what
Etienne made than building anything himself. At school, Etienne achieved
good grades, but the only thing Charles seemed interested in was making
trouble and trying to lay the blame on Etienne.
When they'd been five, switching places
and bamboozling people had been fun; now, the way Charles played the
game, it had become a nightmare.
Eloise had always picked on Charles
more than any of them. Unlike Etienne, Charles hadn't learned the art of
being invisible; he always had to answer back. He seemed to delight in
pushing Eloise into a rage, especially when she'd been drinking. Lately,
he had become her main target.
Once Eloise had locked him down here
for a week, feeding him pig scraps every second day. The first two days
Charles had gone crazy, clawing at the trapdoor and screaming until he'd
lost his voice. Then he had gone quiet. When she'd finally let him out,
he had been different in a way Etienne couldn't define. Charles used to
be as scared of the dark as he was, but not anymore. Now he seemed to
like being under the ground better than being outside in the sun, and he
cared even less about upsetting Eloise.
Charles dumped another bucket beside
the wall and brushed a lock of black hair out of his face, leaving
behind a smear of dirt. "What're you being so prissy about, anyway? This
is our way out."
Reality reasserted itself, and with a
heavy dose of dread. "You've got to come now."
"Why?"
The scorn in his voice was biting. Once
Charles wouldn't have argued, he would simply have fallen in with
Etienne's plans, but now it was almost as if Charles had turned on him.
Misery squeezed at Etienne's chest,
along with a replay of the numbing shock he'd felt when he'd found his
father lying face down at the kitchen table, his eyes half open, his
skin cool to the touch. "It's Dad-"
A high-pitched voice echoed down the
tunnel.
Charles's mouth curled. "Well, whaddaya
know? It's that little worm, Stephen. C'mon." He slipped past Etienne,
taking the lamp. "We can't let him see the tunnel."
Etienne followed. As they emerged from
the tunnel entrance into the cellar, he turned off his flashlight and
hid it behind his back. He noticed that as Charles went up the cellar
ladder, he didn't bother to conceal the lamp. Lately he was becoming
increasingly cocky. Now, when Eloise hit him, he'd begun to laugh.
Charles pushed the trapdoor wide and
stepped through, deliberately shouldering Stephen. When the younger boy
reeled back, a mud-coated hand shot out to steady him, leaving a large
smear on his shirt. Charles leaned in close. "What do you want, worm?"
Stephen shrank from the contact, his
gaze sliding nervously to the mark on his clean shirt. Despite the heat,
Etienne noticed Stephen was dressed in long pants, with socks and shoes,
his hair neatly combed as if he was going to church-only Eloise never
took them to church.
Stephen stared into 'the pit' as
Etienne stepped through, his eyes wide. He was too scared to venture
beyond the cellar hatch, and there was no way he could see the tunnel
entrance, but Etienne didn't trust him an inch. Charles might be weird
about a lot of things, but he was right about Stephen. The kid was only
seven, but already he was a snake and a snitch. He was Eloise's son and
her pet. When Stephen did something wrong-which wasn't very often,
because he was so busy sucking up-Etienne and Charles usually got to
pay.
As the trapdoor fell shut, a shadow
slid through the sunny door of the barn. A split second later, Eloise
appeared, the thick outline of her body visible through the cotton of a
shapeless sundress, blond hair tangled and trailing around her
shoulders, her face bloated and red, as if she'd been sitting in the sun
drinking.
She blinked, adjusting to the gloom of
the barn, and her expression sent a shiver down Etienne's spine. Her
mouth was curved in a smile that people in town never got to see, and
her eyes almost seemed to glow in the shadows.
She crossed her arms over her chest,
and her smile grew. "Your father's dead."
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