Broken Pieces Read Online Free Page A

believed her birthday was in two months’ time, but the truth was she’d turned fifteen three months ago. Only one other person knew the true date of Kelsey’s birth … exactly nine months to the day following Mariah’s rape.
    Mariah had always feared that one day she’d have to come back here and she’d never wanted anyone to know that Kelsey had been conceived by someone in this town.
    Mariah’s best friend in the whole world, the nurse who had taken her in when she’d been eight months pregnant and living at a shelter, had not only helped Mariah in a home birth but had also fudged the dates of the blessed event. Fifteen years ago it had been easier to pull off such a feat than it would be today. Mariah had obtained a birth certificate and Social Security number based on the falsified record of Kelsey’s birth date.
    It had been important to Mariah, a way to distance the daughter she loved from the act that had resulted in her birth.
    She quickly changed from her slacks and blouse into her pale blue silky nightgown and then went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.
    When she returned to the bedroom, she turned offthe light and went over to the window. The storm was upon them, lightning streaking across the sky as the wind shrieked around the eaves of the house.
    It had been easy to focus on her dysfunctional relationship with her parents, so much easier than dealing with what had happened the night beneath the trees while a storm raged overhead.
    There were moments of that night that were burned into her memory, forever a part of her nightmares. The weight of the man on top of her, the slickness of the bag against her face as she tried to scream, still lived in her as if the rape had happened mere hours before instead of years ago.
    But there were also moments of that horrendous event that were vague, moments that she felt if she could just focus in on, then she would know who had attacked her. And even after all these years she wanted to know.
    She leaned her head against the window and listened to the wind. It sounded like the screams that had been trapped inside her on that night so long ago.
    She was back.
    He’d watched her get out of her car and go into the Chinese place on Main, a quivering fear coupled with an edge of excitement racing through him.
    He’d thought of her so many times over the years. She’d been his first, but certainly not his last.
    That first time had been magical to him, an epiphany of sorts that had forever changed his life.
    Now standing in the grove of trees on her property, he stared up at the darkened window on the second floor. He’d thought about her often, wonderedif she’d ever return to Plains Point and what he would do if she did return. She was a joker in his house of cards.
    Over the years he’d grown smarter, been more careful to make sure that nobody would ever be able to identify him and connect him with his crimes.
    But with her he’d been less careful, made mistakes that had haunted him over the years. She’d never reported the crime … not that night and not in the weeks following. Then she’d simply vanished.
    And now she was back and he wasn’t sure what that meant for him. For the moment he’d watch and listen and if he felt that she was a threat, he would deal with her.
    He’d learned a valuable lesson since that first night with her. He’d learned that dead girls couldn’t tell; especially dead girls whose bodies were never found.

Chapter 3
    M ariah was up before dawn and in the kitchen to tackle the mess. Sleep had been a long time coming the night before. Along with the storm came the haunting of ghosts to keep her awake.
    Many nights she’d fallen asleep listening to her father practicing his Sunday sermon, his deep voice booming from the basement of the house to the rafters overhead.
    Even though she knew that he was dead and in his grave, his voice had filled her head until finally she’d slipped from her bed and gone