DoubleDown V
Authors: John R. Little and Mark Allan Gunnells
Series, Book V
Secrets
By
John R. Little
Outcast
By
Mark Allan Gunnells
JournalStone
San Francisco
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.
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JournalStone
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
"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.
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.”
