The Darkest Secret: A New Adult Romance Novel Read Online Free Page A

mother, once one of the original riot girls and the voice of the anti-establishment, was now so Hollywood that even Everglade called her Kiersten. The first time I met her she offered me a cigar and then told me - no holds barred - about Everglade's conception, in Paris on an iron-framed bed, with a now dead junkie boyfriend who was 'trying out the Jim Morrison thing'.
    "He killed himself when I told him I was pregnant," she said. "Or that's what the coroner's report said - suicide. They wanted to make it less embarrassing for his family; it was actually auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong."
    "Amazingly they managed to keep that secret for all of about four weeks," said Everglade. "Which is like some kind of record for Kiersten."
    "I'm a very open person, baby. You know I like to share."
    "Yeah - the trouble is you share everyone's shit and not just your own. Most times without asking permission." She jerked her head towards the door and I got up from the garden table where I'd been sitting. "Sorry, Amber. I guess now you not only know my dead Dad wasn't circumcised but that he also had a Prince Albert, right?"
    I followed her back into the house where the college prospectuses waited.
    "Is she always like that?" I asked.
    Everglade pulled a face and yanked open the fridge.
    "Nope. Sometimes she's worse. You want OJ, milk or a beer? 'Cause Kiersten doesn't give a shit."
    We pored over the prospectuses for hours, learning where to get the best kimchi in San Francisco or where to find the best thrift shops in Portland. Nothing much further east than Nevada - but Everglade said if we wanted to go to Vegas we could just go. No point signing up for four years then discovering that it sucked. Everywhere else we looked at was within shaking range of the San Andreas - it was like we were rooted to the crack in the earth we called home.
    "San Diego," she said. "Wasn't that where they filmed that old movie - back when men were men and vampires were vampires?"
    "What movie?" I said, pushing aside a UCLA prospectus. They had some interesting electives but I knew if I looked into it I'd never get out of the house. I wanted to live on campus. I wanted the real world experience, outside of the celebrity bubble I'd lived in my whole life.
    "You know. Kiefer Sutherland." She took a long pull of beer and slammed the bottle down hard on the table. "The Lost Boys," she said, triumphantly. "Eighties movie; there's like a hot biker vampire gang and a giant fairground on the boardwalk." She sighed hard enough to ruffle the pages on the table. "I was so born in the wrong decade."
    "That was San Diego? I thought it was Santa Barbara?"
    "Nah. SD, I'm sure of it. We should go. Check it out."
    "All I know about San Diego is the zoo."
    "Babycakes, that's not a zoo. That's what they call the University." She grinned like an alley cat. "All the more reason to take a look, wouldn't you say?"
    The next weekend we packed our bags and headed down the coast. A quick internet search revealed that Santa Cruz was the place where they'd filmed the movie, but I'd seen a psych program I wanted to check out and Everglade grudgingly agreed the San Diego boardwalk was probably 'okay', even if it wasn't the glorious, vampire-ridden funfair of Santa Cruz.
    It was better than okay; it was awesome. We got henna tattoos and ate cotton candy. At one point the tattoo artist looked at Everglade and said "Don't I know you from somewhere?" but it turned out he was only harmlessly hitting on her and not about to start yelling that she was Kiersten Rowe's daughter.
    As we were walking back along the boardwalk, in search of one the bars we'd read that were popular with USD students, we passed a stall selling biker scarves and goth jewelry. "Wait," said Everglade, and dragged me over to look at these pewter dragon pendants - kind of tacky actually, but that was what she liked. The woman behind the stall was a ruined beauty - you could see it in the streaked curls of her thick hair and