DoubleDown V Read online

  JournalStone’s DoubleDown

  Series, Book V

  Secrets

  By

  John R. Little

  Outcast

  By

  Mark Allan Gunnells

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Contents

  Secrets

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About John R. Little

  Outcast

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue: July

  About Mark Allan Gunnells

  Secrets

  JournalStone’s DoubleDown Series, Book V

  By

  John R. Little

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Copyright © 2014 by John R. Little

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  JournalStone

  www.journalstone.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-940161-60-0 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-940161-61-7 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-940161-62-4 (hc – limited edition)

  JournalStone rev. date: August 22, 2014

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942804

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Design: Denise Danial

  Cover Art: M. Wayne Miller

  Cover Photograph © Shutterstock.com and © iStock.com

  Edited by: Dr. Michael R. Collings

  Endorsements

  "John R. Little, author of Miranda and The Memory Tree, has penned yet another seminal masterpiece of altered time. Secrets runs the emotional gamut, from suspenseful and wondrous, to poignant and bittersweet; an enduring tale that embeds itself, not in the psyche, but in the soul, and remains." – Ronald Kelly, author of Undertaker's Moon, Fear, and Restless Shadows

  "Little returns with a vengeance. A twisted, voyeuristic tale of dark secrets, sex, and violence, that stays with you long after the final page. You simply can't look away." – Nate Kenyon, award-winning author of Diablo: The Order and Day One

  "John R. Little has gained a deserved following for his dark fiction dealing with time, and now Secrets joins Miranda, The Gray Zone, and Dreams in Black and White as the latest of his mind-blowing time trips. Secrets is also the darkest and most unnerving of the stories as it examines both the small crimes we all hide and the larger ones that only villains like Secrets’ Bobby Jersey are capable of. Secrets is startling, thoughtful, and riveting throughout." – Lisa Morton, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Summer’s End and Malediction

  This story is dedicated to the girl of my dreams, Fatima Monteiro.

  I want to thank my pre-readers, every one of whom told me the ending to this story sucked and made me work to come up with a much better one: Tod Clark, Dave Solow, Debbie Pfeiffer, and Glenna Gavigan.

  Thanks to Chris Payne at JournalStone for the opportunity to be part of this amazing series of books, and to Mark Allan Gunnells for writing the wonderful story to be a companion to my own.

  Secrets

  Prologue

  Karen looked down at the closest tombstone. She’d been walking for almost an hour and still hadn’t found what she’d been looking for.

  For that matter, she wasn’t sure she even knew for herself exactly what she was seeking. The one she was looking at now had a woman’s name followed by:

  Born July 4, 1960, Died December 10, 1999

  Beloved Mother and Artist

  She Brought Life to Those Close to Her

  A gust of wind blew some loose strands of Karen’s long blonde hair so they covered her view. She pushed them back behind her ears.

  “Is that the one?”

  The voice behind her was gentle but insistent.

  “Are you getting tired of looking?”

  Karen smiled as she turned to face Bobby. He stood a respectful two feet behind her, as if he were trying to give her all the privacy she might need while still being there to offer any emotional support.

  Not bloody likely, she thought.

  Bobby was nineteen years old, just like she was. Somehow, though, he looked older. If she didn’t know better, she’d peg him at about twenty-five. He was tall, rugged, and handsome, exactly the kind of guy who would turn girls’ heads wherever he went. His deep voice made her wonder if he could have had a future in radio.

  Karen, on the other hand, knew she barely looked seventeen, let alone nineteen. She was slim and short and never seemed to fill out like other girls her age.

  “Sorry, I didn’t intend to sound impatient,” he said. “Take all the time you want. Time is the one thing both of us have lots of.”

  Karen nodded. “I just need to find the right one.”

  Bobby smiled. “I know. Really, it’s okay.”

  “I’m not sure anything will be okay ever again.”

  Bobby didn’t answer. What could he say to that?

  Karen looked at him with the hint of emotion in her eyes, but she was determined not to let a single tear drop. She tried to detach herself and just concentrate on Bobby’s face—the dark brown eyes; the pitch-black, curly hair; the dimples she knew would appear when he smiled.

  She exhaled a long breath and turned back to the headstone. “I wonder what kind of art she practiced.”

  “Do you want to check? You can Google it on your iPhone. Shouldn’t be hard to find if she really accomplished anything.”

  Karen shook her head. “In a way I’d rather imagine my own truth. I think she loved to put together collages from nature, picking up stray oak and maple leaves wherever she went and then spending hours rearranging them to tell a story.”

  She knelt and touched the granite stone, feeling the etchings of some of the letters.

  “This isn’t the one,” she said finally.

  Bobby joined her as she walked past a few more tombstones. None of them interested her. Only a few had called to her so far.

  The sun was starting to set behind them, casting a long shadow through the graveyard. Karen knew Bobby just wanted her to find the right damned stone so they could leave, but it wasn’t that easy. It had to be the right one.

  If she couldn’t find it, she’d come back tomorrow, and the day after that.

  “Did you know there’re two thousand people buried here?” asked Bobby.

  She ignored
him. A cool breeze blew, and she felt goose bumps rise on her arms. All of a sudden she moved to her right and fell to her knees in front of an old weathered stone.

  “This is the one,” she said. “I found her.”

  She exhaled a long breath and turned back to the headstone. “I wonder what kind of art she practiced.”

  “Do you want to check? You can Google it on your iPhone. Shouldn’t be hard to find if she really accomplished anything.”

  Karen shook her head. “In a way I’d rather imagine my own truth. I think she loved to put together collages from nature, picking up stray oak and maple leaves wherever she went and then spending hours rearranging them to tell a story.”

  She knelt and touched the granite stone, feeling the etchings of some of the letters.

  “This isn’t the one,” she said finally.

  Bobby joined her as she walked past a few more tombstones. None of them interested her. Only a few had called to her so far.

  The sun was starting to set behind them, casting a long shadow through the graveyard. Karen knew Bobby just wanted her to find the right damned stone so they could leave, but it wasn’t that easy. It had to be the right one.

  If she couldn’t find it, she’d come back tomorrow, and the day after that.

  “Did you know there’re two thousand people buried here?” asked Bobby.

  She ignored him. A cool breeze blew, and she felt goose bumps rise on her arms. All of a sudden she moved to her right and fell to her knees in front of an old weathered stone.

  “This is the one,” she said. “I found her.”

  Chapter 1

  Karen Richardson was one month past her fourteenth birthday when time stopped in the middle of dinner.

  It didn’t scare her anymore. Not like the first time it’d happened when she was eight. Now, it was just another part of her normal life, different than everyone else—at least she’d been pretty sure of that; however, her perception on that front was about to take a big left turn—but what the heck. It was her life, and the hand she’d been dealt was no better and no worse than her friends’. Just different.

  She glanced around the table at Mom and Dad. Tina was out somewhere, probably letting that idiot Jimmy Berenstein cop a feel (or more) at the back of Oak Park, a few miles down the road. Jimmy kept borrowing his dad’s beat-up Toyota, even though the old man gave him shit every time. At least that was what Tina told her.

  Dad was in the middle of lecturing about some election or other and how it was every citizen’s obligation to VOTE. Karen could hear the capitalization in his voice. Mom had her head down and was intently studying the mashed potatoes on her plate. Although Dad was supposedly talking to Karen, she knew he was actually including Mom, who didn’t give a rat’s ass about politics.

  Karen didn’t either, so she was relieved when time stopped.

  Dad’s mouth was open, the last words out of his mouth being, “and the sheep in this town…,” when his voice stopped like the words had hit a brick wall.

  She hadn’t been paying attention, but Karen recognized the cone of silence immediately and popped her head up to check Dad’s frozen face. She could see a stringy bit of ham peeking out of his mouth. His eyes bulged, which seemed out of character, but she’d never paid much attention to him when he was on a rant.

  Mom’s head was lowered, her eyes staring at the mushy potatoes on her plate. She looked like she was in prayer, possibly asking the Almighty to shut her damned husband up. Her arms hung beside her, and for a moment, she looked off balance, like she could topple over at any second.

  The radio had been playing “Payphone” by Maroon 5 when Karen had been mercifully pulled out of the lecture, at least temporarily.

  She had been trying to calculate the minimal amount of food she’d have to eat before being allowed to leave the table. Now, she just let go of her knife and fork, which dutifully levitated in midair, not caring that she was giving them a reprieve from gravity.

  Maybe Mom’s prayer actually worked, but only for Karen, not for herself.

  She dabbed her mouth with her napkin, a habit long instilled into her by her mother, who always worried that Karen would leave the table covered in food and that everybody who saw her would stare and wonder what she’d been eating.

  Truth was, it’d been several minutes since any food at all had found its way into Karen’s mouth, but she used the napkin without even realizing she’d done so and then folded it neatly in half and placed it beside her plate.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said to herself. As she pushed the chair back and slid out, she tried to think back to when time had last frozen for her. Two weeks ago?

  “Three,” she decided. “Tina’s birthday.”

  She remembered it because time froze while Tina was swinging a baseball bat to smash the ridiculously oversized piñata that Dad had hung in the middle of the back yard. He’d had to rig a complicated set of guy wires, but Tina was useless at hitting it. The display became one of the more boring things Karen had ever had to sit through. When things froze, Karen took advantage, grabbed the bat from Tina’s hands, and took a swing herself, ripping a hole in the piñata. When time started again a while later, it looked like the giant stuffed elephant had just decided to shit candy, as it rained down in the middle of the lawn, six feet away from where Tina was swinging.

  “This time, I just want out of here,” she said. The day had been wasted, listening to several of Dad’s rants. She tried to hide in her bedroom at one point, but it was a shared room with Tina, who was there getting everything just so for her hot date with Jimmy.

  “Some date,” Karen had muttered, but that only got her a glare from Tina.

  “You’re just jealous, little girl.”

  “Yeah, right. Like I want that asshole poking me with his dirty little prick.”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  Tina had been prancing around the room in her bra and panties, painting her nails and mucking with her hair like she was the freaking queen of Siam or something.

  Karen left to go downstairs, figuring that even being lectured at was better than watching Tina get ready for her fuck-fest.

  As she walked downstairs, she could hear Tina singing softly.

  Maybe I am jealous, she thought. Just a little.

  * * *

  Now she left the house and started to walk down to the beach. It was usually a forty-five minute walk, and it still felt that way to her, but of course no time at all had actually passed by the time she arrived.

  “Free time,” she called it. Time that nobody else had and she cherished.

  Well, nobody else except Bobby Jersey, but she didn’t quite know that yet, not in the front of her brain where she did all her conscious thinking; but maybe deep down in some hidden chamber of her stinky subconscious, she had a clue. It’s why she kept being drawn to the beach whenever she had her free time show up.

  The weather was perfect. The sun was shining on Laguna and the waves were rolling in just high enough to allow kids to body surf.

  Now, though, the waves were frozen, random spikes sticking up from the water. Karen kicked off her running shoes (she’d forgotten to change into her flip-flops) and walked to the water.

  Out of habit she glanced around, but of course there were only manikins lying on the beach—at least that’s what it always looked like. She walked around a group of teenaged boys and glanced down at them.

  “Jeff?”

  She stopped and stared, but of course Jeff didn’t answer back, nor did he glance in her direction. He’d never know she’d been at the beach that day.

  Like every tenth-grade student at Central High School, she had a secret crush on Jeff Amsters. He was the guy that everyone noticed. He was tall and had perfect brown hair and a smile that seemed to target any girl nearby. He was the quarterback of the football team and already had college scouts checking him out.

  Karen inched closer. She didn’t recognize the two guys he was sitting with, and she igno
red them. She couldn’t help moving closer and finally crouched onto her knees on the sand in front of him.

  “You’re beautiful,” she whispered. She felt guilty, like she was doing something wrong. I am, she knew. I shouldn’t be doing this.

  But she moved even closer, so her eyes were only a couple of inches from his. And his lips. She wet her own lips and leaned over to kiss him.

  She closed her eyes and imagined him kissing her.

  After a few seconds she pulled back.

  “That was my first kiss,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Her face turned red, and she stood up and walked away from the threesome. As she walked to the water, she wished that some part of Jeff would remember, but she knew that was just a fantasy.

  The water was cool on her toes as she felt sand squish through them. The sun beat down on her, and beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

  Should I?

  Karen had sometimes walked along the beach on hot days, knowing this was her own personal space and that it was impossible for anybody to ever see her, but she’d never had the courage before.

  “Fuck it,” she said.

  She turned her back to the manikins and pulled her blue I heart L.A. T-shirt over her head. She did it as fast as she could so she wouldn’t have a chance to change her mind. Next came her shorts.

  As she stood watching the silent waves in front of her, she took a long breath and unhooked her bra. She held it along with her other clothes as she stepped out of her panties.

  Can’t believe I’m actually doing this.

  Out in the water were dozens of swimmers. She could see the ones close to her, but as the water got deeper, she only saw motionless heads rising above the surface. Below the surface were bodies frozen in time but still alive.