Last Kiss Goodbye

“MOMMY!” EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Ivy Stanton stared at the blood on her hands in horror. There was so much of it. All over her. Her mother. The floor.

“Ivy, Jesus, look what you’ve done!” Her daddy’s gray eyes seared her like fire pokers. Outside the wind howled, rattling the windowpanes and metal of their trailer. The Christmas tree lights blinked, flashing a rainbow of colors across the room.

“She’s dead,” her daddy said, “and it’s all your fault.”

Ivy shook her head in denial, but he shoved her blood-soaked hands toward her face, and she started to cry. Then she looked down at the knife on the floor. And her mother’s lifeless body sprawled across the carpet. Her pretty brown eyes stared up at the ceiling, icy now.

No! Her mama couldn’t be dead. If Ivy just kissed her, she’d wake up. Then she’d smile and hug Ivy and tell her everything was going to be all right. That tomorrow they’d finish decorating the Christmas tree and wrap the presents.

Ivy pressed her lips against her mama’s cheek, but it was so cold and stiff, she shivered.

Then her father yanked her up by the arm. “You’re poison, Ivy. You’ve ruined this family.”

“No!” She struggled against him, but he shoved her so close to her mother, Ivy saw the whites of her mama’s bulging eyes. Ivy’s stomach cramped, and she coughed, choking. All that blood. So red.

No, not red. The color faded. Just yucky brown.

Even the colored Christmas lights disappeared, turned to black dots before her eyes.

He snagged her hair and flung her backward. Pain exploded in her head as she hit the wall. She scrambled to her knees, tried to run toward the door, but he lunged after her, grabbed her ankle and twisted it so hard she thought she heard it snap. She cried out and kicked at his hands until she was free. A bolt of thunder jolted the trailer, shaking it as if a tornado was coming. Two of her mama’s ceramic Santa Clauses crashed to the floor.

Ivy crawled across the glass, felt shards stab her palms. She had to save the Santas. Save them for when her mama came back.

Her daddy reached for her again. No. No time to get the glass Santas. She had to escape.

She grabbed the cloth Santa instead, the new one her mama had just sewed from felt scraps. Clutching it, Ivy vaulted up and out the trailer door. Her ankle throbbed as she hobbled down the wooden steps and darted toward the junkyard. Her father chased her, his screech echoing over the wind. Tree limbs reached like claws above her in the shadows. Lightning flashed in jagged patterns.

It was dark, and she could barely see. She tripped over a tire rim. A stabbing pain shot through her ankle and leg, and she had to heave for air. But she forced herself up, fighting the wind. It was so strong it hurled her forward. Rain began to splatter down, mud squishing inside her sneakers. Behind her, her father shouted a curse. His bad knee slowed him down.

Her chest ached as she dashed through the rows of broken-down cars. Ones people didn’t want anymore.

Just like her daddy didn’t want her.

He’d told her so dozens of times.

Ivy’s legs gave way again, and she collapsed on the soggy ground. The Santa flew from her hands. Mud soaked her clothes, splashed her face.

Then someone grabbed her from behind.

Flailing, she yelled and kicked.

“Stop fighting me, dammit.”

He released her, and she scrambled away on her knees. It wasn’t her father. Bad-boy Matt Mahoney was standing in the shadows. He stood motionless, his chin jutting up, a pair of ragged jeans hanging off his hips. He was soaked with rain and smelled like car grease. And he was so muscular and big he could stomp her into the ground. His black eyes tracked her as if she was an ant he wanted to kill.

“Dammit to hell, Ivy.” He launched forward with one giant step, picked her up, then the Santa, and carried her toward a rusty van. Kudzu vines covered the roof and dangled over the windows, blocking all light.

Ivy shuddered. It was pitch-black. She knew the nasty things men did to women in the dark. Had heard her daddy and mama. And those other men from Red Row.

Knew what bad boys like Matt wanted.

He opened the door, then shoved her on the bench seat in the back. With one hand, he untied the bandanna from around his head and wiped at the blood on her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. He was going to choke her just like the kudzu choked the wildflowers in the yard.

Suddenly he yanked a knife from his pocket. The blade shimmered in the dark as he ripped away the front seat cover. His expression changed as he gently spread it over her. Then he pushed the cloth Santa back into her hands. “Shh, no one can see you in here,” he murmured softly. “It’s a good place to hide. Rest now, little Ivy.”

She searched his big black eyes. She knew what he saw. She was covered in mud and leaves and blood. A bad girl just like her daddy said.

She willed away the memory. Told herself it wasn’t true. Her mama hadn’t died. She would come back tomorrow. Glue the Santas together. Pick Ivy up and kiss her again. And this time her mama’s lips would be warm.

Ivy’s head spun, and the bloody red color faded to brown again. She didn’t want to remember. To see the red. Not ever again.

No, she had to forget….

She closed her eyes, dragging the makeshift blanket over her head to shut out the night and the grisly images.

CHAPTER ONE

Fifteen years later

“DON’T GO BACK to Kudzu Hollow, Ivy. Please. I’m begging you, it’s too dangerous. There’s nothing but evil and death in that town.”

Ivy squeezed her adopted mother’s hand, then bent to kiss her cheek, her cool leathery skin reminding her of the time she’d kissed her birth mother goodbye.

The day she’d died.

In fact that kiss was the last thing Ivy remembered about that horrible night. That and the terrified cries echoing in her head. Her mother’s. Her own. She couldn’t be sure which. Or maybe it was both, all mingled together, haunting her in the night.

Miss Nellie wheezed, cutting into Ivy’s morbid thoughts. Her adopted mother was close to death now, too. She’d suddenly taken ill a few days ago, and had gone downhill fast. She claimed she’d made peace with her maker, but Ivy wasn’t so sure. Sometimes she saw doubt, worry, secrets in Miss Nellie’s eyes. Secrets the woman refused to share.

Secrets that told her Miss Nellie had a dark side.

“I have to go back, Miss Nellie,” she said in a low whisper. “I…I’ve been having nightmares. Panic attacks.” And sometimes I see images from the past in the night, monsters that can’t be real. Cries and whispers of death. Screams of ghosts and spirits crying out for salvation. And I’m lost in the middle….

Miss Nellie’s hand trembled as she lifted it to brush a strand of hair from Ivy’s cheek. “Forget about the past, dear. You have to let it go.”

“How can I?” Fading sunlight dappled the patchwork quilt in gold and created a halo around Miss Nellie’s face. Ivy stood and faced the bedroom window, the scents of illness and dust surrounding her. She hated to lose Miss Nellie, but the elderly woman had looked so pale and her cheeks were sallow. The doctors weren’t certain what had caused her illness, but they’d said she wouldn’t make it another week, much less to Christmas.

Christmas—the Santas…

Ivy shuddered and fought against the fear that gnawed at her at the thought of the upcoming holidays, with all the twinkling lights, festive ornaments and decorations. Snowmen and reindeer, and of course, the Santas. Those Santas were the only thing she had left of her mother. Dozens of them. Soft ones sculpted from fine red-and-white velvet, with tiny black boots and belts and long cottony beards. Crystal and homemade crafted Santas with glass eyes and painted smiles. Wooden ones carved from bark and painted in a folk art style. Ivy kept them boxed up, though, couldn’t bear to look at them.

Just as she couldn’t look at Miss Nellie now. She’d always felt Miss Nellie held something back, some part of herself she kept at a distance from Ivy. She knew it had to do with Nellie losing her own son when he was small, but her foster mother refused to talk about him or even show Ivy pictures.

A sob built in Ivy’s throat. Miss Nellie was all she had. Another reason she wanted answers. When Miss Nellie passed, she’d take her secrets with her to the grave. Just as Ivy’s parents had.

And Miss Nellie had secrets.

“Please tell me what you meant in the journal, Miss Nellie. How did you come to get me?”