Three Heart Echo

by Keary Taylor

  Three Heart Echo

  Keary Taylor

  Contents

  THREE HEART ECHO

  Also by Keary Taylor

  Violent Ends

  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

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Also by Keary Taylor

  About the Author

  THREE HEART ECHO

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  KEARY TAYLOR

  THREE HEART ECHO

  Copyright © 2017 Keary Taylor

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  First Edition: September 2017

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Taylor, Keary, 1987-

  Three Heart Echo : a novel / by Keary Taylor. – 1st ed.

  ALSO BY KEARY TAYLOR

  THE HOUSE OF ROYALS SAGA

  THE FALL OF ANGELS TRILOGY

  THE EDEN TRILOGY

  THE McCAIN SAGA

  WHAT I DIDN’T SAY

  "These violent delights have violent ends

  And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

  Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey

  Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

  And in the taste confounds the appetite:

  Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;

  Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."

  -William Shakespeare

  Chapter One

  IONA

  You’ll love me for forever? His voice echoes through my brain as my fingers tighten around the steering wheel. Are you sure?

  I’m sure, I vowed with a smile.

  Promise? He said as he traced his fingers along my cheekbone before tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.

  Promise.

  I rest my elbow on the door of the car beside the window and run two fingers over my lips. One conversation after another rushes into my mind, making it difficult to focus on the road passing beneath my tires.

  The day is dim, another chilly day, the first of February. Clouds hide the sun, casting the world in an icy gray hue. I turn the dial for the heater up a touch more, chasing away the cold.

  I left the nearest city behind twenty minutes ago, and an old map navigates me far away from the rising buildings, gas stations, and all sense of familiarity. I left home nearly two hours ago, with another twenty minutes until I reach the destination that is more of a rumor than a reality; a place without even a name to the modern world.

  The Appalachian Mountains loom ever closer as I cut across the landscape of West Virginia, my home state from day one, with its familiar rolling hills, dotted with endless oak, maple, and beech trees. I race toward the base of the mountains, cutting across an old highway that would certainly be considered the road less traveled.

  A speed limit sign is the only indicator that I am arriving anywhere at all. A decrease from fifty-five to thirty-five. My eyes drift down to the map again and there’s a note written on it to take a left in a quarter of a mile. With not another car in sight, I take the left when it arrives. The highway continues onward, just minutes from climbing the mountains, but I turn onto what looks to be an abandoned road, taking the bumps and potholes carefully in my Chevy Corvair.

  Old growth trees loom over the road, blocking out most of the light. The farther I get down the road, the rougher it gets. My heart races faster the deeper from the highway I get. Considering I couldn’t find the town on the map, I had to go by word-of-mouth directions.

  I’m not certain I’m in the right place.

  Until, finally, there’s a break in the trees, letting in a rare ray of gray sun, and there’s a sign.

  Roselock.

  Established 1762.

  It’s a sad sight. The wood rotten, sloping greatly to the right. Rust from the nails trails down the chipped white paint.

  I roll past it.

  Leaves dot the ground, stuck to the earth in wet, soggy messes. The trees only bear the last few survivors who braved the winter.

  A house looms to the left. It’s obviously old, with a stone exterior, a collapsed roof. No one has lived there in a century, I’d venture to guess. Another house suddenly appears on the right, not in any better shape.

  Another dozen homes line the road before I hit a roundabout. Standing at the center of it are two trees, both of them dead. A crossroad branches off from the intersection, breaking to the west. Looking down that road, I see a few more homes, in various stages of disrepair, every one of them abandoned.

  What are you doing here? My heart pounds. You’re crazy. You’re crazy.

  But I can’t stop. I won’t turn around.

  I continue straight and as I crest the hill, climbing in elevation to the base of the mountain, a steeple comes into view. Quickly I’m granted further view of the old church.

  A cross sits atop a small steeple. An old red metal roof spans the entire building. A big broad porch sits off the very front of the building.

  It’s large, bigger than I think would have been necessary for this tiny failed township. From the main area jut two wings; one to the east, one to the west.

  Climbing up all the sides of the building, there are vines stretching, long and massive, and despite the cold weather, despite the time of year, brilliant blood-red roses bloom all along the vines. Huge blooms, smaller buds, oblivious to the season.

  A gravel parking lot sits beside the church, devoid of a single car. I pull into it and shift my Corvair into park.

  I’ve anticipated arriving here in Roselock for two weeks now, made the necessary arrangements to get work off. But the reality of arriving leaves me questioning my sanity.

  You love me, right? the voice from the past echoes.

  It’s all I need to toss logic aside and step out of my car.

  I pull my jacket tighter around my shoulders, the moist air instantly cl
inging to my skin. My boots splash into a small puddle I didn’t see to the side of my car.

  Looking around, there’s a graveyard behind the church, circling around to the sides, surrounded by a broken-down fence that can hardly hold that title any longer. Grave markers rise out of the ground here and there, each of them looking just as old as the homes that occupy the town. But there looks to be far too many graves for how few homes there are.

  I look forward again, only a dim gleam catches my attention from the damp ground.

  A line of pennies cuts right across my path. It stretches to my right, heading into the graveyard, and to my left, toward a house, cutting behind it.

  My brows furrowed, I step over it, careful not to disturb the strange sight.

  The smell of smoke brings my attention back to the church, and I look up to find a small trail of it coming from the chimney. The first sign of life I’ve yet seen in this place.

  I stand in front of the decaying porch for a moment, taking a deep breath.

  I don’t want to be here. I feel crazy coming here. But I can’t keep living like this.

  I need closure.

  One last, great pull of air, and I take the first step up the stairs. Carefully testing my weight on each one, I make it to the porch and to the front doors.

  I knock.

  Chapter Two

  Sully

  “It’s pointless repairing the roof when no one will occupy the church in just over three months,” I mutter as I replace the bucket, not really caring that I slosh water onto the floor in doing so. I slide in the empty one, looking up at the slow but steady drip that falls into the Sunday School room.

  “This is a house of God,” my father says. “You’ll not upkeep the House of the Lord?”

  “He’s obviously forsaken me. Why spend my last days being his caretaker?” I walk out into the hall, opening the door to the back deck and toss out the water from the rain last night into the overgrown roses.

  “You’ve abandoned this family’s duties before, Sully, don’t give up now. Not on the final stretch.” His tone is pleading, but resolved.

  “It’s been a lovely chat, father,” I say, grinding my teeth as I head back to the east wing, my booted feet clomping over the uneven floorboards. As I push the bedroom door open, my fingers fist around the pendant around my neck. I rip it over my head and forcefully shove it into one of the dozens of tiny drawers that line one wall of my room.

  Three days. Then two, then one. And then the real countdown begins.

  “It’s pointless,” I mutter to myself again. The sound of dripping echoes from the far end of my room, as if screaming out loud just how much decay has overrun the church.

  Decay and ruin.

  The embodiment of everything here in Roselock.

  Angrily, I grab the pruning sheers from the desk under the window, too forcefully. The open blade catches the fleshy part of my thumb, cutting it open.

  Just at the same moment a knock sounds from within the belly of the church.

  Adrenaline instantly spikes in my blood, I can almost feel my pupils constrict, and every muscle in my body tenses as I turn in the direction of the intrusion.

  It’s been three and a half weeks since the last morbid idiot rolled into this abandoned town and started asking questions they couldn’t comprehend the answers to. My teeth grind as my jaw clenches tight. Gripping the sheers tightly, I stalk out the door and down the hall.

  Dim light spills in from the windows, but I duck into shadows and pull the door open leading into the chapel. Past the massive organ that lines the front wall, past the podium. Ten rows of pews reside on either side of the massive space, though some of them are little more than broken planks of wood by this point. As I walk down the aisle, my eyes fix on the scratched and scarred wood of the front doors.

  With the brutal anger of a starved jaguar, I rip it open, nearly pulling the decrepit thing from its ancient hinges.

  A fawn stands there on the sagging front porch. Eyes wide, surprised, big and round. Startled, ready to run.

  That’s the best way I can describe the woman standing outside.

  “What?” I grunt at her, looking around outside to make sure she doesn’t have a camera crew with her like the last one did.

  “I…” she stutters, taking a nearly imperceptible step back away from me. “I’m looking for someone. Sully? Sully Whitmore?”

  The darkness on my face deepens and my fingers curl into fists. Her eyes flick down to the hand with the pruning sheers, fear creeping into them.

  “You’re…” she struggles for words once again. “You’re bleeding. Did you know?”

  I hardly register her words, but I look down automatically at my hand. A tiny puddle of blood now rests on the wooden floor, one slow drip at a time falling from my injured thumb.

  “What do you want?” I say in a low voice, ignoring the injury.

  “Are you Sully?” she asks, still staring at the blood dripping to the floor.

  “I tell every single journalist that rolls through here the same thing,” I say, grabbing the edge of the door and moving to close it. “The story here isn’t one you want on the five o’clock news. I have nothing to say.”

  I’ve just about closed the door, already mentally moved on to the roses that wait for me in the back, when a tiny hand suddenly juts out and prevents it from closing.

  “I’m not a reporter,” she says, her voice pitched and desperate. “I’m not.”

  I back up slightly, my brow furrowed, every bone in me doubtful. Pulling the door open just a few inches, I look back out at her.

  Those fawn eyes look at me, desperate and wide, pleading to me the request she has yet vocalized.

  “Please,” she says. The little quiver in her word softens something in me enough to fully face her once more. “I was told you could speak to the dead.”

  Chapter Three

  IONA

  He stares back at me, those narrowed green eyes stripping away every shred of truth. A blocky jaw covered in a thick and overgrown beard flexes. Every muscle in his body seems poised to snap me, and he could. There’s no doubt about that.

  I’m afraid.

  Afraid of what he might do to me, this strange man who occupies an abandoned town.

  But he’s my only option.

  “Who was it?” he asks. His voice is low, gruff. As tried and tired as the stones behind the church.

  “My fiancé,” I breathe. Ice crackles in my lungs as I let the words escape. Tender cracks splinter just a little wider across every surface of my insides.

  Three beats become seven and eight. On ten, something lifts in his eyes, just as it falls at the same time, reflecting a broken and wild spirit.

  On thirteen he pulls the door open just wide enough for my body to fit through. I don’t hesitate, don’t give him a second to change his mind.

  I step inside, and my eyes have to take a moment to adjust to the darkness.

  Dirty stained glass windows don’t allow much of any light to filter into the large space. Dirt lines the walls, blown up against the pews that are semi-organized in rows, some askew, some broken. Cobwebs cling to the lanterns that hang from the walls, next to the windows.

  But my eyes are instantly drawn to the majestic beast that lines the wall straight ahead.

  Massive pipes and thin, tiny ones are lined up against the wall. Ornate carvings enhance their brass beauty. A keyboard and bench line up in the center of it all. I don’t know much about musical instruments, but this organ is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

  And it’s set among so much decay and ruin.

  “You should know that the dead are not always happy to be brought back into our fallen and depressed world,” the man says as he watches me. He stands with his thick arms folded over his massive chest.

  I turn to look back at him, instinctually shying away from him, just as the lamb shies away from the wolf.

  A set of heavy and thick brown boots cover his
big feet. A pair of dirty and stained jeans hug his legs. A thick green Army-style jacket clings to his obviously heavily muscled body.

  Distrust shades his jaded eyes. Long hair reaches past his shoulders and down a good portion of his back. It hangs unruly and uncombed in brown locks, a slightly lighter hue of brown than my own. Small sections of it are braided, seemingly at random, and are tied back, somewhat keeping it out of his face. His beard is just as wild, nearly touching his chest.

  “He’ll want to talk to me,” I force out around the vice in my throat. “He loved me. I know he’ll talk to me.”

  Three seconds stretch into twelve. He just stares at me.

  “Not today,” he finally says. “The dead have bothered me enough this day.”

  He raises his thumb up to his mouth and he sucks the blood away as he turns from me. His footsteps echo through the cool and damp room. Down the aisle, around the alter, making a direct line for the door to the left of the organ. I follow him, darting across the chapel.