The Darkest Secrets Read online

  The Darkest Secrets

  Heather Wynter

  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.

  Copyright © 2020 by Heather Wynter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published by Willowlake Media

  www.willowlakemedia.com

  ISBN:

  978-1-952217-02-9

  978-1-952217-01-2

  For Ashley.

  Thank you for always encouraging

  me to follow my dreams.

  You make every day brighter

  and the world a better place.

  I’m so proud of you.

  I love you more,

  Mom

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Enjoy this book?

  Also by Heather Wynter

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  February 17, 1992

  At first, I thought I imagined it—the light. Then I heard the steps, thousands of steps. Roaring like a stampede, all coming down the stairs at once. And the screaming. They were all screaming; it was hard to understand what they were saying, who they were. If they were real.

  My mom always called me a dreamer, said I imagined things and wove them into crazy scenarios to occupy my mind. I thought this was all a dream, that my mind was playing tricks on me, so I didn’t even bother to turn over. I guess my imagination—being able to escape into my mind and not fully experience what is happening—saved me.

  Then she touched me. She touched my shoulder. The light was blinding; I did not know how long it had been since I had seen light, weeks maybe, so my eyes would not focus. I don’t know how long it took for me to realize she was a cop. She was there to save me. To save us.

  Chapter Two

  Present Day

  A branch snapped as her foot smashed down on the wet leaves on the stone footpath. Her balance swayed, and she cursed herself for not being stronger. More vigilant. This was why he took you the first time, she thought. So stupid. She caught her balance. She couldn’t afford to slow down.

  She couldn’t see him, but she knew he wasn’t far behind her. Her breath echoed in her head as she concentrated on her foot placement. This is the reason she was a runner. If her kidnapper came back to exact his revenge, she would not be standing still. When he got ahold of her this time, she knew he wouldn’t let her go. She’d be trapped forever. Death at the hand of darkness.

  She could outrun him—she had to. She just had to stay focused. The moon watched overhead. Almost full, it gave her enough light to see through the trees, reflecting off the fog. One wrong misstep and he could pounce.

  Amelia woke gasping for air, her green eyes wide open in terror. Sweat coated her body as she realized she was in her living room. It was the dream, only the dream. It was the fourth time this week she’d fallen asleep on the couch. Her neck ached from what was becoming a permanent kink. She always waited until she couldn’t hold her eyes open anymore to go to bed, afraid of what waited in her dreams. Her nightmares.

  They were often like this. A variation of the same dream of her being chased. The man coming back for her. Getting away couldn’t be that easy. Lately these nightmares were taking place in the woods, where she was originally held when she was kidnapped as a six-year-old.

  Her mother had taken her and her brother to the park. Her brother fell, sending her mother into a frenzy. Since her brother got sick, Amelia had felt she was invisible anyway, so when she spotted a butterfly, she followed it. She wandered into the woods thinking she could catch it and he grabbed her. The stranger she’d always been warned about. She blamed the creature for her entrapment. Blamed her mother. Blamed herself.

  It wasn’t always the woods, though. Sometimes it was the basement. She was back in it. Back with Emma. The dreams in the basement were the worst, so in a way, she felt lucky. I wonder if Emma had the same nightmares, she thought. It would make sense. She was the other little girl being held in the basement. Amelia always found it interesting how small the world really was. That another little girl who was kidnapped and held with her in a basement as a child had become one of her biggest career accomplishments.

  Amelia thought about Emma in the basement, how she cried for hours. A chain-link fence separated the girls, like what they use for dog kennels. Amelia could not comfort Emma, so she sang to her. Emma was odd, and Amelia didn’t understand her. Sometimes Emma would talk to her, other times she’d just cry. But it was better, much better than the third alternative. Sometimes Emma sat there silently for hours at a time. She wouldn’t respond when Amelia tried to talk to her. She wouldn’t make a single noise, and sometimes Amelia worried she was dead. That was worst of all.

  Amelia held onto hope that her mother would save her. Her mother, who was always too busy taking care of her sick brother to watch over her. She let this happen. She hadn’t protected her. Amelia would never forget that. Never forgive that. Her anger was a light when Emma’s darkness threatened to suffocate her. Still, sometimes she couldn’t ignore it. Emma just didn’t react to things like Amelia did.

  She hoisted herself up. A glint of light hitting the glass of water on the end table in just the right direction revealing the thick layer of dust that had built up. She was gross. With the sweat, the mess, the takeout boxes piled up. This wasn’t the life she had planned. Far from the life she wanted. She would fix herself, she swore it. She’d get right on that tomorrow.

  For now, she pried her sticky body from the leather couch. Reached out and caught the case file right before it toppled onto the floor. She’d been reading it before she fell asleep and that was the problem, wasn’t it? She couldn’t let this go. Something was off, and she just couldn’t see it. The likelihood of someone being kidnapped twice was statistically astronomical. Amelia had been poring over Emma’s case every free moment she had. The dreams had gotten worse. The kidnapper had come back for Emma, and they still hadn’t caught him. It was only a matter of time before he returned for Amelia, too.

  Considering their past, Amelia felt some sense of responsibility to solve this case. It was the first time she’d seen Emma since they were children, and a strong desire to protect her had fueled her. If she could protect Emma, maybe she could protect herself.

  Trudging to the kitchen, she reminded herself that the nightmare wasn’t real. Even though they were a lit
tle more realistic each time. There was a reason they took Emma, and not her. She had to keep telling herself that. As unfortunate as it was, Amelia was more prepared and maybe if Emma had her skills, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped again. Amelia was safe. She’d catch the asshole who did this and she would never be caged again, mentally or physically.

  She grabbed a single-serve coffee pod as she waited for the water to heat and glanced at the clock on the microwave. She’d be late for work again, something that used to send her into a panic. Now it had become a habit, and Trent would kill her for it. But what the hell, nothing she could do about it now.

  She sat back down, savored the first sip of coffee, and flipped the file open to where she had left off last night. She’d read this case file hundreds of times over the past year, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something. She knew they got lucky finding Emma, but that was once. There were at least four victims since then, and she felt responsible for them all.

  She winced as her phone vibrated. She was exhausted, it wasn’t even 8 am yet, and she already had a call.

  Chapter Three

  “What do we have?” Amelia asked as she ducked under the bright yellow crime scene tape that surrounded The Porch Cafe and the alley next to it. She stood and tucked a stray bit of brown hair behind her ear. Looking down, she wiped her forehead with her sleeve as she eyed the bulging, black plastic bags. The once scarlet blood that had oozed discreetly out of the bags created black pools, thick and sticky in the shadows beneath them. Her stomach twisted at the sight and smell, and she was grateful she hadn’t had breakfast already.

  A muscular man with sandy blonde hair and brown eyes that might be warm if they weren’t narrowed stood in front of the bags, notepad in hand. Her partner, Trent Stevens. He was usually the first on the scene, and this always took his full focus. She hoped it would distract him enough so he wouldn’t notice that she was late. Yet again.

  “Female,” he said as she stood next to him. “Early twenties and the wounds…from what we can tell so far, it’s bad. A rage killing, maybe? Crime of passion.”

  Amelia didn’t want to know why there was more than one garbage bag with that red liquid oozing out of it. She figured she’d find out soon enough. She took a deep breath. “Okay. Any witnesses?”

  “Just the couple who found the body.” He gestured to a visibly shaken older couple sitting on the metal chairs in the patio area at The Porch. All others had been cleared out. Someone had brought them coffee and muffins, but these offerings lay untouched. “They were walking their dog and Rover there would not leave the bags alone. As they were trying to pull him away, they noticed the blood seeping out and called 911.”

  Trent pointed to the blood splotch on the asphalt as if Amelia couldn’t see it. Couldn’t smell that awful stench of decay. It was a good thing the killer chose a café. Had this been behind a market or a restaurant, the blood could’ve been mistaken for meat and missed altogether. Their killer was either careless or wanted the body to be found.

  “They left the body in plain sight this time,” Trent continued. “So it’s possible it’s not our killer, as the last body was found hidden on that hiking trail.”

  Amelia wanted to believe it wasn’t. Serial killers were difficult because she always felt a sense of responsibility for the string of murders. After just one, it was on them if they couldn’t find the guy, and this guy had been loose forever. Decades even, if it was the original perpetrator who had kidnapped her and Emma. Trent didn’t think it was. The killings had only started last year, but Amelia had her own suspicions.

  Trent watched as she sighed and pinched that little spot right between her eyebrows as a headache threatened to descend upon her brain. She needed sleep. Real sleep. Good sleep. They needed a lead.

  She jumped as her cell phone rang. She usually turned off her phone before heading to crime scenes, but she’d forgotten. She’d also forgotten to call back that attorney who kept leaving her messages. She turned away from Trent to answer.

  “Detective Slate.”

  “Ms. Slate, this is Everett Lassen with the law firm Berg, Lewis, and Traynor. Do you have time to meet with me this afternoon? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you and…”

  “I’m very busy,” she interrupted.

  “I’m aware, but this is very important. It’s regarding your mother’s estate, and if you can’t make time today, I will have to keep reaching out until we can get this settled.”

  She rolled her eyes. She knew he wasn’t lying. He wouldn’t stop trying to contact her, even though she’d made it clear she didn’t want to deal with any of this.

  “Fine. I’ll be there at three. Text me your address.”

  She shook her head as she hung up. She didn’t have time for this kind of thing, and she wasn’t even the least bit interested in whatever mess her mother had left in her departure from the world. She wasn’t there for her when Amelia needed her most, she’d never forgiven her for that. She didn’t need anything from her now, and this afternoon, she would let this attorney know that once and for all.

  “Are you sure you’re ready to come back?” Trent asked as she turned to face the crime scene. The worry in his eyes infuriated her. “I can handle this if you need a few more days. Most everyone would.”

  Amelia looked up at him like he had just punched her in the gut. Didn’t he know how much tougher this would all be if she didn’t have work to distract her? Taking time off now would be detrimental.

  “I’m fine.” She knew she probably wasn’t fine. Exhausted emotionally and physically, she was barely hanging on. She hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night for weeks, but she didn’t want to sit at home by herself two days after burying her mother. She didn’t think Trent would understand that.

  He wasn’t an idiot. He knew she was lying, but he wasn’t about to argue with her. She was the most stubborn woman he knew.

  “We’ve been friends for a long time, Amelia. You know you can trust me.” He wanted to say more, but he had learned the hard way not to press her; she would talk when she was ready.

  She had been through so much, and he was there through all of it. Watching as she’d become hardened to emotions of any kind. None of this stopped him from worrying about her, but he didn’t know how to help. He figured he’d call Brenda later, Amelia’s best friend. Perhaps she could talk to her.

  “I trust you,” she said through gritted teeth. “And I am fine.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hands in defeat. “Well, if you decide you’re not fine, I’m here if you need to talk.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Let’s canvas the area. See if we can get lucky with any security cameras or witnesses.”

  Trent was a nice guy. She did trust him, and she knew bottling up her feelings wasn’t ideal. But lifelong habits are difficult to let go of. And it wasn’t like she was about to open up to him. Maybe Brenda. Or a therapist when she had time.

  She brushed her personal life to the side as an officer motioned them over to where a few uniforms and a CSI tech were standing. “Detectives, you will not believe this.”

  Amelia looked over at Trent with a skeptical shrug, then headed over to see what had everyone in a trance. Trent begrudgingly followed her. She’d long since learned that whenever anyone said they found something unbelievable, there was a 50-50 chance of it being a complete waste of time. Most suspects didn’t leave those huge clues, and, often, even if it looked like they had, they proved to be a dead end after all.

  This time they were right, though. As she stood in front of them, she could not believe it. Right there in plain view was a perfect fingerprint in blood on the sole of the victim’s shoe.

  “Ho-leeee shit!” This was why she loved her job. Things like this always got her blood pumping. Her mind narrowed its focus, leaving everything else behind. “Let’s hope the bastard left us some DNA to go along with that. Did you let the medical examiner know?”

  “Of course,” the CSI tech resp
onded. “If they can get a clear print of it, we should have the results in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

  “Great! Thanks for letting us know. This will be invaluable.” Trent turned back to Amelia. “Let’s go get that canvassing done.”

  Amelia couldn’t help but smile as she turned around. Her whole day was looking up. She was happy, truly happy for the first time since her mother died. This thrill was everything. “Can you believe it? Looks like he finally made a mistake.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he warned, always more cautious than Amelia. “Sure, we might have a lead in this case, but it doesn’t mean it will help us with our serial killer. We aren’t even sure the cases are related. In fact, we have no reason to believe they are. We’ve never seen our killer hack up the bodies before, nor have they ever been left in such an obvious spot. This is a different MO than any of the other murders.”

  “Sure, but they were all young women. This would be the fifth. The others were disposed of differently, but they’ve all been dumped in different places over the last year. When you’re killing a different person once every three months, things are bound to change a little. Emma’s proof of that. She’s alive, and we still think the same killer abducted her.”

  “She’s only alive because of great detective work,” he countered. “She would’ve been corpse number two if she hadn’t had that gym bag with her.”