Read the book: «Wild Hearts»

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Epilogue

Copyright

Prologue

Mystic, West Virginia May 1980

The sky was as dark as a witch’s heart, the smells of whiskey and sex as strong inside the titty-pink Cadillac as the vomit in the floorboard behind the driver. The speedometer was pegged out at a hundred and ten, and still the headlights of the car behind them kept gaining.

Eighteen-year-old Connie Bartlett’s fingers were curled around the steering wheel of her brand-new graduation present, her eyes wide and fixed on the white stripe down the middle of the blacktop, and she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Her boyfriend, Dick Phillips, was on his knees, leaning over the seat and looking out the back window. Like Connie, he could see the headlights coming closer.

“Faster, Connie, faster! He’s gonna catch us!”

“It won’t go any faster!” she cried.

She swerved toward the right, then swerved back toward the left, tossing her passengers from one side of the car to the other. She was trying to follow the white stripe down the middle of the highway, but she was driving drunk, something her daddy had told her never to do.

In the backseat, Betsy Parr was three beers and most of a fifth of Jack Daniel’s drunk, down on her hands and knees in the floorboard, puking up her guts. She always felt carsick in the backseat. Being drunk and dancing with death only made it worse.

Her boyfriend, Paul Jackson, was passed out above her, drunk from the other three beers from Betsy’s six-pack and the rest of the bottle of Jack Daniel’s, oblivious to the drama and the danger.

Dick was pounding the seat and crying now. “He’s gaining! He’s gaining! He’ll kill us, too. What are we gonna do?”

Betsy groaned as another wave of nausea swept over her, but before she could follow the urge to puke again, the car fishtailed, throwing her against the door at her back. Too scared to look up, she began beating her fists on the back of Connie’s seat.

“Oh, my God...Connie, stop, please stop! You’re going to kill us.”

“We can’t!” Dick yelled. “He saw all of us. We have to get to the cops first or he’ll finger us for what he did!”

“We’re drunk. They’ll blame it on us anyway,” Betsy moaned.

“Shut up! Shut up!” Connie screamed. “You saw what he did! We all saw it!”

Betsy couldn’t believe this was happening. Twelve long years of slogging through an education all the way to their high school graduation, and three hours after getting their diplomas they were going to die. Her only consolation, even though she’d had to get drunk to do it, was that she wouldn’t die a virgin.

All of a sudden the car began to slide sideways.

“Connie! Take your foot off the gas!” Dick screamed.

Instead, Connie jerked the wheel in the other direction, and suddenly they were airborne. Her foot was still on the accelerator, the engine was roaring like the backwash from a jet, but the sensation of flying, if only for a moment, was real.

Paul Jackson woke up just as the wheels left the blacktop to find Betsy’s foot in the middle of his chest.

“What the hell?” he groaned, and then leaned over and vomited all over the both of them just as the pink Cadillac went nose-first into a tree.

Connie went through the windshield, landing facedown on the hood as steam from the broken radiator rose up around her.

Dick’s head slammed against the dash, cutting a gash across his forehead as he slumped down on the floor, pinned between the dash and the seat as it crumpled around him.

Betsy was ejected through the back window onto the trunk and then bounced off onto the ground a short distance away, awash in the exhaust from the tailpipe.

The back door popped open on impact, throwing Paul out against a nearby boulder, breaking his arm and his shoulder, and cracking his skull.

To add insult to injury, a dead limb knocked loose from the impact dropped, landing on Connie’s back, although it was overkill. She was already gone.

A few moments later, headlights swept across the scene of the wreck as the driver of the other car finally caught up. He slowed down only long enough to assess the scene and assume they were dead, then disappeared into the night.

* * *

Betsy Parr woke up to bright lights and heart-stopping pain. She could hear her mother’s voice; the fear in it was palpable. She heard her father, and then the sound of choking and moaning. It took a moment for her to realize she was the one making that noise. She heard her mother cry out, begging them to do something, and then the pain was gone as she sank into unconsciousness.

* * *

By midmorning, news of the accident spread through town like wildfire. One of Mystic High School’s brand-new graduates was dead, and three more critically injured.

Everyone was in shock, including the driver of the second car, who had been so sure they were dead. He thought about running. He thought about coming out with a story to lay blame on them first, and then decided to wait and see what happened. They could still die.

And when all the shock and drama was over, and the rush of gossip had long since cleared, waiting was what saved him.

Connie Bartlett took what she knew to the grave, and the three others had been so drunk, and then suffered such critical head wounds, that later on when they were questioned, none of them remembered anything after receiving their diplomas. The ensuing three hours of their lives had been erased.

His future had been saved by a quirk of fate, which made everything else he’d done worth it.

One

The cackle of hens and the occasional squawk of a pissed-off rooster were the beginning to Dick Phillips’s day as he went about his morning chores. He opened the coop and began scattering chicken feed, laughing at the rush that ensued as he went in to gather the eggs.

A few years back his wife, Marcy, had got an itch to raise chickens, so he’d built a coop and bought her a few hens to make her happy, and then she died. Afterward, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them, so they stayed. As time passed, the flock grew, and now, with over forty laying hens, he was selling the surplus to regular customers, who came to the farm to pick up eggs for their family use.

He took the fresh eggs down to the barn to what he called the egg room. He was favoring his right shoulder. He’d taken a bad fall last week and was certain he’d torn something vital. He couldn’t lift his arm above his head, and it hurt to carry anything, although there was still work to be done. He stood at the worktable, sorting, cleaning and crating eggs, and then stored them in a small walk-in cooler at the back of the room.

He’d just walked out into the breezeway and was getting ready to feed his cows when he heard a car. He paused in the doorway, absently scratching at the old scar on his forehead, and then raised his hand in greeting when he recognized the driver, then eyed the large sack he was carrying, thinking he was about to make a big sale.

“Hey, how goes it?” he called. “You comin’ after eggs?”

“A couple of dozen, please.”

Dick turned to get the eggs from the cooler, unaware that the man had reached into the sack and taken out a long braided rope with a noose at the end. Dick heard the footsteps behind him, but before he could turn, the noose was around his neck.

The man gave the rope a hard yank, and Dick fell backward, landing hard on the back of his head, and at the same time reinjuring his shoulder and cutting off his air. Dick was in shock, uncertain what was happening. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t think what to do. Unaware of what was happening behind him, he began fumbling with the noose.

The man had tied a weight to the other end of the rope, and when he threw it up, it sailed over the rafter and right back into his hands as if he’d practiced the move for days. Then he took off running toward the loft, and when the rope tightened, Dick was yanked off his feet so hard that he momentarily blacked out.

It was the reprieve the killer needed. He reached the steps leading to the loft and began climbing them hand over fist with the rope in his teeth. He glanced down once, and as he did, his heart skipped a beat. Dick was not only conscious but struggling to get to his feet. With no time to spare, the killer threaded the rope through a step and then jumped.

As he went down, Dick went up, high enough that his feet were dangling almost two feet off the concrete floor below.

Dick was moaning and kicking as the man wrapped the rope once around his waist for added leverage, then pulled Dick even higher as he ran back toward the ladder and tied off the rope.

Now Dick was dangling almost six feet from the ground. His face was turning blue, his eyes were bulging and his arms were flailing as he clawed desperately at the rope, trying to relieve the pressure.

“Die, damn it,” the man muttered. And then, in a fit of impatience, he made a run for Dick’s legs and jumped. As he did, he grabbed hold of Dick’s ankles, and when he came down with all his body weight, Dick’s neck broke with a pop.

It was done.

The killer stepped back, looking all around the area to make sure he’d left nothing of himself behind, then pulled out his pocketknife and cut off the weight, taking it with him as he left.

Long after the sound of his car had faded away, the chickens still clucked, the rooster crowed and the cows were still waiting to be fed.

* * *

Betsy Jakes had her cookbook out, going down the list of ingredients she needed to make her famous Italian cream cake. Tomorrow was her son Trey’s birthday, and it was his favorite dessert. She glanced down at the recipe, writing needed ingredients onto her grocery list, and made a note to stop by Dick’s house to buy eggs before she went home.

She had known Dick for most of her life, and in her youth had even survived a deadly crash with him the night they graduated from high school. His girlfriend, Connie, who’d been driving that night, died in the wreck, while Dick, Betsy and her boyfriend, Paul, survived. Even though life had taken them down separate paths, they remained bonded by the past.

Betsy checked out her appearance, making a note to pick up some hair color. Her roots were beginning to show. Then she combed her curly shoulder-length hair and fastened it off at the nape of her neck. There were a few more wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth where she smiled, but her brown eyes still danced when she was laughing. Her chin had always been a little too square and with age was beginning to take on a bit of a bulldog look. She frowned, thinking she could lose about ten pounds and get rid of that, and then let the thought go. She was a satisfied widow with no desire to ever marry again. Why bother?

After changing from her work clothes into a clean pair of jeans and a yellow pullover blouse, she made the trip into Mystic in fine fashion. She was listening to her favorite radio station, rockin’ to the oldies, when a Bob Seger song came on the radio. Grinning from the memories it evoked, she turned up the volume and sang along.

When she finally drove into Mystic, she glanced toward the police station to see if Trey’s cruiser was there. He had been chief for over five years, and she was proud of what he’d become. He reminded her so much of her husband, Beau, and she wished daily that Beau had lived to see his children grow up. But the cruiser was gone, which meant he was out and about. Maybe she would see him before she left town.

She shopped quickly, rejecting an invitation to lunch with one of her friends because she was anxious to get home and start the cake. Still, she took time to pull into the drive-through of a local sandwich shop called the French Fry to get a cold drink on the way home. While she was waiting for her drink she finally saw Trey drive by and wondered what interesting stuff was going on in Mystic, and made a mental note to call him later.

“Here’s your Pepsi,” the clerk said, and leaned out the window to hand the cup and straw to Betsy.

“Many thanks,” Betsy said, and waved as she drove away.

She was sipping on the Pepsi and listening to the Rolling Stones when she remembered the eggs and turned right at the next section-line road.

Dick’s farm was small, but it was a beauty, backing up to one of the many mountains that surrounded their little town. She eyed the climbing roses on the trellis against the side of the house, remembering how Dick’s wife, Marcy, had loved her flowers. She missed Marcy Phillips. She’d been a good friend.

She parked on the outside of the yard fence and then knocked on the door. When Dick didn’t answer, she looked around to make sure his pickup was out back in the garage, which it was. The front door was unlocked, so she opened it a bit and leaned in.

“Dick! Hey, Dick, it’s me, Betsy! Are you here?”

With no answer from inside, she looked toward the barn. She could hear the cows bawling and nodded to herself, thinking that was where he would be. Still focused on the long process of making that cake, she ran back down the steps and headed toward the barn with long strides.

The barn had been built over a hundred years earlier, in a style similar to Pennsylvania Dutch. The two-story structure loomed against the landscape with a loft as large as the barn itself. It had a fairly new coat of barn-red paint on the outer walls, while the cross-boards on the old shutters had been painted white. The pasture was fenced off from the house and barnyard and spread out toward the trees ringing the mountain at its back.

“Dick! Dick! It’s me, Betsy! Where are you?” she yelled, but got no answer.

She was looking toward the pasture as she hurried along, thinking he would come walking out of the trees any minute. Then she heard a dog bark and frowned. Dick didn’t have dogs. She wondered if someone was hunting on his property and turned her head to look.

Her gaze moved past the breezeway that ran straight through the middle of the barn, and as it did, she saw something swinging in the air above the ground. She stopped, then began to stare, trying to focus on what it could possibly be. No longer interested in the pasture, she began moving toward the barn, but at a slower gait, her mind unready to accept the truth.

She was about twenty yards away, so close she could see his clothing and his shoes and the awful angle of his neck, when her knees buckled, refusing to carry her another step. She was on the ground, rocking and moaning. Twice she tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. She kept trying to make what she was seeing turn into something else instead. But it was Dick Phillips’s lifeless body, swinging slowly in the breeze. The sound that came up her throat was more howl than scream, but it was the impetus she needed to get moving.

Trey! She had to call Trey.

She scrambled to her feet and started running back to her car to get her phone, screaming as she went. When she reached the car, she fell into the front seat, grabbing for the cell phone she’d left in the console. Still sobbing and shaking so hard she could barely breathe, she tried to scroll through her contacts and hit three wrong numbers before she finally got through to Trey. The moment she heard his voice, she started screaming again, and this time she couldn’t stop.

* * *

Trey Jakes was not in a good mood. He and the officer on duty, Earl Redd, had gone to serve an arrest warrant on a guy they had grown up with. The man had turned into a replica of the father who’d raised him: stealing instead of working. Only this time the theft he’d pulled was caught on tape, resulting in a warrant for his arrest. He’d been out of town for almost a week, and this morning the police department had received a tip from a neighbor that he was back. At least when they knocked on his door to serve it, he went with them without a fight.

Trey had just finished the paperwork and was getting up to refill his coffee cup when his cell phone rang. When he saw it was from his mom, he forgot about the coffee. The moment they connected, all he could hear was screaming. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and he began yelling, trying to get her to calm down enough to talk.

“Mom! Is that you? What’s wrong? Where are you? Mom? Mom! For the love of God, what’s wrong?”

It was Trey’s voice that finally pulled her back.

“I need you. You have to come. Oh, dear Jesus,” Betsy moaned, and then got out of the car and dropped to the ground, putting her head between her knees to keep from passing out.

Earl Redd had already come rushing into the room, alerted to the emergency by what Trey was saying.

“Where are you? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?” Trey asked, heading for the door on the run.

“Dick Phillips! Come to his farm! Oh, my God, hurry.”

“Mom! I need to know what happened so I can dispatch emergency vehicles. Who’s hurt? What happened?”

“Dick. He’s dead. Oh God, oh God, he’s dead.”

Trey slid to a dead stop on the sidewalk, and Earl stopped right along with him.

“He’s dead? Are you sure?” Trey asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. He’s hanging from the rafters in his barn.”

The moment those words came out of her mouth, she dropped the phone and started screaming again.

Trey clenched his jaw as he made a U-turn and headed back into the office with Earl at his heels. He found his day dispatcher, Avery Jones, cleaning dead flies off the windowsill.

“What’s up, Chief?” he asked.

“I need you to get on the phone, not the radio, and tell the county sheriff’s office there’s a death at Dick Phillips’s farm. Give them directions and ask if they want you to notify the coroner or if they’re going to do it. Then I need you to call in Carl and Lonnie and tell them I want them on patrol in town until further notice.”

Avery’s eyes widened, but he didn’t question the orders. “Any details you want me to pass on?” he asked.

“Tell the sheriff a man was hanged. We don’t know if it’s a murder or a suicide and I damn sure don’t want that to get out. Dick has a daughter who deserves to know all this first.”

“Yes, sir,” Avery said, then grabbed the phone and a list of numbers. He began making calls as Trey and Earl left on the run.

“God Almighty,” Earl said. “This is awful.”

Trey nodded. “Follow me,” he said, and jumped into his cruiser and ran hot all the way to the Phillips farm.

His phone was still connected to his mother’s call, and he could still hear her screaming, but as he drove the sound became fainter, and then finally it stopped. Even though he kept yelling in the phone for her to pick up, he got nothing.

He was worse than worried. He’d never heard her like that. And even more upsetting, he was going to have to contact the only woman he’d ever loved and tell her that her father was dead. This day just kept getting worse.

Ten minutes later he arrived at the Phillips farm to find his mother in the fetal position next to her car, her hands over her head as if trying to ward off a blow. He knew what she’d seen was shocking, but this reaction was not like the woman he knew. He got out on the run, then scooped her up into his arms and sat her on the hood of her car.

“Mom! Talk to me. Are you okay?”

She was limp, her eyes wide and fixed, and when he spoke, she didn’t respond. He shook her, then put his arms around her waist and pulled her close.

“Mom, Momma, it’s me, Trey. I’m here. I need you to talk to me now.”

He felt her shudder, then take a slow, deep breath. Relief washed over him when her arms snaked around his neck. She was back.

“Mom?”

She pointed toward the barn.

“He’s in there,” she said. “I saw him. Why would he do that? Oh, my God, why would he do that?”

He could hear Earl’s siren.

“I don’t know, but I need you to wait here. Since you’re the one who found the body, you can’t leave. The sheriff will want to talk to you.”

She blinked. “I need to go home. Tomorrow is your birthday. I wanted to bake—”

“Hey, Momma, you know I love you, right?”

She nodded.

“So don’t worry about a cake, okay?”

She clutched the front of his shirt in panic.

She almost looked like a stranger to him.

“Okay, Mom? You have to stay here, understand?”

“Yes. No cake. Stay here.” Then her face crumpled as a fresh set of tears began to roll. “Poor Dick. My heart hurts for him.”

Trey sighed. “I know, but here’s the deal. No need to hurt for him. He’s past concern. You need to be feeling sorry for Dallas. She’s the one who’s been left to suffer.”

And just like that, the mother in Betsy stepped in.

“Oh, Lord, Dallas. I didn’t even think.”

Trey turned around, wondering what had taken Earl so long, and how much of the crime scene his mother might have disturbed.

“Here comes Earl. We’re going down to the barn, and I need you to stay here, remember?”

“Yes, of course I remember,” she said shortly, and combed her hands through her hair. The hysteria was gone, and she was digging out a tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

“I need to ask you something,” he said.

“Ask.”

“Did you drive your car down to the barn?”

“No. I was heading toward the trees, looking for him, when I passed and saw him. I didn’t even go all the way in.”

“Okay, good,” Trey said, and then added, “Oh, don’t call anyone. I don’t want any locals out here in the middle of this investigation.”

“I won’t. I understand,” she said, and then slid off the hood, stumbled up to the house and sat down on the porch in the shade.

Trey frowned. He should have told her to go wait in the car, but it was too late now.

“Hey, Mom, don’t go in the house, just stay on the porch. I don’t want anything else disturbed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think,” she said.

“It’s my fault. Just don’t go any farther,” he said.

She nodded.

Earl killed the siren and lights as he parked beside Trey, and then they started toward the barn.

“What took you so long?” Trey asked.

Earl looked embarrassed. “Gas gauge was sitting on empty. Had to stop and fuel up.”

Trey nodded, and then pointed to the area in front of the barn. “Look for fresh tire tracks or anything off,” he said.

Earl’s surprise showed. “I thought this was a suicide?”

“Until the investigation is over, nothing is certain. And when you hear sirens, run back to the house and stop the crew from the sheriff’s department from driving down here, too. They’ll want to see the crime scene intact.”

“Yes, sir,” Earl said, and followed Trey down to the barn.