Cross Your Heart: A Broken Heart Novel

by Michele Bardsley

  I could not unravel the past and weave it into a more beautiful representation of my life. What was done was done, for me and for the other Elizabeth. Sometimes, no matter how badly you wanted to, you couldn’t stop what had been set into motion. The inevitability of Elizabeth’s life, and her death, made me want to weep.

  With my heart in my throat, I turned to the next marked section. Elizabeth apparently settled into her role as a wife and mother. She was scared of her husband, and suspected him of “unsavory acts.” She’d heard rumors in town about Jeremiah pursuing the affections of married women. Because he owned most of the buildings, and had loaned money to nearly everyone within a ten-mile radius, no one challenged his ill-behaved ways.

  Then one day, Paul returned. He kept his presence in town a secret. He told Elizabeth an incredible story. He’d been shanghaied by some of Jeremiah’s cohorts and taken to the Gulf of Mexico, indentured on a ship to pay off a debt Jeremiah had owed. He’d been gone six long years, imprisoned, forced to work every day until the debt was repaid. It had certainly suited Jeremiah’s streak of cruelty to make his wife’s former fiancé suffer, and get a financial reward as part of it.

  Together, they made plans to leave, and take the children. Elizabeth snuck out food and supplies. They waited until the evening of the party to put their escape into motion—Elizabeth believed that no one would notice she and her sons were missing until it was too late.

  She’d written it all down in an incriminating diary. Maybe she needed the outlet since she had no one to whom she could tell the secret. Maybe she kept it so that if she came to harm, people would know of her fear of Jeremiah. Maybe she was just naive.

  Little had she known, her husband was not as ignorant of her activities as she’d hoped. The night of the party, she’d followed him into the attic at his request because she was trying act as if everything was normal. What would her life—not to mention my life—had been like if she’d escaped with Paul?

  “Well, that’s not depressing at all,” I whispered. I put the journal back into the box. The spirit of Elizabeth had shown me how her plans had turned out. Her husband had taken her to that awful room—and revealed the demon spellwork he’d performed. What nefarious purpose did he want fulfilled? Was he really a serial killer?

  Jeremiah strangled his wife. Maybe he’d done it because he was obsessed with her, and his brand of suffocating love couldn’t tolerate the idea of her running off with her soul mate. Maybe he’d done it because he was a coldhearted killer and used Elizabeth’s infidelity as an excuse to end her life. Or maybe she became the required sacrifice to Mammon.

  What a bastard.

  I was glad to know his blood did not run in my veins. Josiah had been his biological son. Thank heavens the man had never married or procreated. Who knew what terrible things lurked in the Silverstone DNA?

  I could feel it getting close to sunrise. Soon, I would go to vampire slumberland whether I wanted to or not. Tez had not yet returned from his mysterious errand and I was feeling anxious.

  I dug into the box and plucked out a folded sheet of paper. I scanned through the elegant masculine lines scrawled on the yellowed page, and felt cold shock sweep through me.

  In the month of September, on the day of the 17th, in the year 1894, we five judged and convicted Jeremiah Silverstone of murdering Elizabeth Silverstone, Catherine Allen, Mary McCree, and Cora Clark. We confess that it was us, and us alone, who meted out his justice. Should there be consequences, either from the law or from God, we willingly accept them.

  We kidnapped Jeremiah from his mansion, bound him, gagged him, and took him to Sean Mc-Cree’s barn. We forced him to his knees and beat him. It was Dennison who knocked him in the head with a board. Finally, Jeremiah admitted to being in league with the devil. He said it was his demon servant who killed our women as sacrifices to the prince of evil, so that Jeremiah could continue to prosper.

  He showed no remorse for his crimes, and he refused to tell us where Elizabeth was buried. He was a hateful man, evil to the core. He brought to us only pain and suffering, and cursed us all with his greed.

  Killing him was a mercy—and a necessity. Surely he was not a man, but himself a demon, and no one would be safe for so long as he lived.

  We made a noose and strung the rope over the rafters in Sean’s barn. As we placed the noose around Jeremiah’s neck, he cursed us all, and swore that he would have his revenge, and that the demon who served him would never relent.

  We hung him, and bore witness to his last breath on this earth. Then we removed his head and cut the rest of his body into four pieces. We each took a part of his body, which we agreed to bury on each of our properties.

  Then we went to the attic, to that terrible place evil had created, to deal with the demon. We are Christian men, but we took part in Paul’s heathen rituals—using things he’d learned from his time in Mexico—and called the demon into his circle, binding him to it. Paul sealed the doors with black magic. Then we boarded up the room, and prayed none would ever discover it.

  We hope that the spirit of Jeremiah burns in hell. We believe the best course of action is for Paul to “die” and be reborn as Jeremiah Silverstone. We will bury his coffin in the cemetery, along with this confession of our deeds. Paul will raise the young sons of his precious Elizabeth. He has promised compensation from Silverstone’s coffers for our losses, though no amount of money can replace the women we loved so well.

  Jeremiah wished for our town to be called Silverstone Shadows, but we will never honor that man’s memory. We’ve agreed the name should be Broken Heart, a testament to the loss of our beloved wives, and a reminder of our sins.

  We write these words as penitent men, and pray that when Judgment Day comes, God will have mercy on our souls.

  Signed,

  Paul Tibbett

  Dennison Clark

  Michael Allen

  Sean McCree

  Jonathon LeRoy

  Chapter 17

  “I can’tbelieve this,” I whispered. I laid the letter on top of the other items. “It’s like the Pandora’s Box for Broken Heart.” I scooped the letter up again and stared at the signatures.

  Four victims.

  The demon had been obsessed with the number five, but he’d only gotten four women before he’d been bound into the circle.

  Then when he’d been released from the attic prison, he’d just started all over. Except no one had actually died yet. Would he keep trying? And what about Jeremiah? If his ghost was attacking me, then . . . where had he been all this time? Trapped with the demon? Or called back from the other side when his pet was unleashed again?

  All the questions swirled and tumbled until I couldn’t think about it anymore. Instead, I wondered how in the world they’d gotten away with simply switching out Jeremiah with Paul Tibbett. Surely other people noticed? Or maybe he’d been such a terror, they didn’t care someone else had taken over his identity. The town started to really prosper after Jeremiah’s death. I bet Paul was generous with the purse strings; he’d funded Jonathon LeRoy’s newspaper—and he’d probably invested in the other men’s endeavors, too. How had the story about Mary McCree gotten started? Had they done that to throw off suspicion? Or had some pioneer gossip started the tale?

  Broken Heart really had been cursed. By Jeremiah Silverstone.

  Obviously, my grandfather and his brother had discovered the truth. Surely the information had driven my grandfather, Stephen Silverstone, to Tulsa to begin a new life while his brother felt somehow compelled to stay in the mansion. Why had Josiah suddenly decided to abandon the house in the 1950s? Did he have a run-in with Jeremiah’s spirit? At least I knew why he had never wanted another Silverstone to occupy the place; he was trying to protect his family. Biologically, he was the last Silverstone. I wondered if he’d chosen to not to marry or have children because he was afraid he might be more like his father than he could help? The very idea that my great-uncle could have serial-killer impulses froze me to
the bone.

  Poor Josiah could’ve never foreseen his great-niece would become a vampire. Nor could he have known it didn’t matter who lived in the house. No one could be protected from Mammon’s shadow, or Jeremiah’s vengeful spirit.

  It was enough to make my skin crawl.

  My phone rang, and I lunged for my purse. I took it out and said, “Hello?”

  “I’m turning down the street to your house,” said Tez.

  “Not going to make it,” I said, yawning. “I’m this close to passing out.”

  I checked the curtains on the windows again; the thick fabric covered them quite well. Then I pulled the draperies on the bed shut again, glad there was an extra precaution against errant sunlight. I didn’t think Martha would be pleased to find a pile of ash smeared on her freshly washed sheets.

  “How did your errand go?” I said, trying to keep the petulance out of my voice. “At six a.m.?”

  “The store I went to isn’t the kind of place that closes, princess. I’ll show you all the goodies tomorrow evening when you rise from your coffin.”

  “Oh, ha, ha.”

  “I’m parking. Then I’m running into the house. Bet I get there before—”

  I yawned again, falling back against the pillows. “Before what?”

  “You’re not gonna believe who’s sitting in the damned driveway.” I heard him turn off the car and open his door. “Tawny. What the hell are you doing here? Hey!—” Tez’s shout ended abruptly and the dial tone buzzed in my ear.

  Tawny? I couldn’t drum up the necessary energy to get out of the bed. “Tez?”

  Darkness crimped the edges of my vision and I struggled to stay awake because Tez was in trouble with a real man-eater.

  That was my last thought before I passed out.

  When I awoke, I was tucked in up to my chin, the items that had been on the bed cleared away.

  Tez had not crawled in beside me, and the memory of his exclamation and sudden end to his phone call filled me with dread. He’d left with Tawny?

  Not willingly. Not unless something had happened to Calphon, or she’d kidnapped him at gunpoint. If Tez wasn’t here, then it meant Martha had been the one in my bedroom checking on me and doing her duties.

  I feared she might’ve read the damning items in that box, and then I calmed down. She would never commit such an impropriety. However, she might’ve noticed I wasn’t breathing. Good Lord.

  I pulled back the curtain and scrambled off the bed. My iPhone had been put into its charger, no doubt by the ever-efficient Martha. I unplugged it and dialed Damian immediately.

  “Ja.”

  “Have you seen Tez?” I asked. I wiggled out of my nightie and dug through my suitcase for a bra. “That sounded rude,” I said, rushed. “I’m so sorry. But have you, I mean? Seen Tez?”

  “No, Liebling. He is missing, too?”

  Something in the tone of his voice made me pause. “Are you going to tell me someone other than Phoebe had disappeared?”

  “Eva has disappeared from her cell,” he said. “And we cannot find Dr. Clark. He dropped Marissa off at Lenette’s, but he never showed up to the hospital.”

  I couldn’t manage the phone and the bra, so I dropped the bra and found a pair of jeans. I shoved my legs through them. “Damian, we’re not looking for Paul Tibbett. The shadow demon was called by Jeremiah Silverstone.” I summarized the contents of the box, telling him about the confession of the five men, and how I believed the shadow was trying to complete his purpose—the sacrifice of five.

  “We are searching every inch of Broken Heart. We discovered the empty coffin of Mr. Tibbett. It appears it was opened some time ago.”

  That would explain why my grandfather had the confession—and the skull. Had he dug it up to make sure he kept the Silverstone fortune? Or was he only trying to keep the secret of Broken Heart?

  “The shadow’s targeting descendents.” I paused, one shoe dangling from my foot. “Phoebe is an Allen, Eva is a LeRoy, Marissa is a Clark—”

  “He did not take the daughter,” said Damian. “He took her father. He’s the Clark. Darlene married into his family.”

  “Oh. Right. Hang on.” I put down the phone and quickly put on my bra and one of Tez’s T-shirts. Then I grabbed the phone and headed into the bathroom. “Do you know where Jessica is? She’s a McCree.”

  “At her home with the children. Darrius and Drake are with her. That just leaves you, Elizabeth. You remain unprotected.”

  I ran a brush through my hair as I replayed the conversation with Tez the night before. You’re not gonna believe who’s sitting in the damned driveway. I swear I was going to rip out Tawny’s hair by the roots! “I’m coming back to Broken Heart.”

  “And Tez?”

  “I know where he is,” I said grimly. “I’ll handle it.”

  “Check in when you return to town,” said Damian. “If Jeremiah wishes to harm to the descendents of the ones who killed him, you are not safe.”

  “No one is,” I said. “That’s the real curse of Broken Heart.”

  I hung up with Damian, grabbed the box of evidence, and hurried out of the bedroom. My mouth tasted tinny and felt fuzzy, but I’d wasted enough time already, and didn’t even want to take thirty seconds to brush my teeth. If it were possible for me to do the zap-home magick, I would’ve done it already. Unfortunately, I had to drive really, really fast.

  Martha waited in the foyer. She handed me two Tupperwares, a pack of peppermint gum, and the keys to my father’s Mercedes.

  “How do you always know?”

  “It’s my job,” she said. “I noticed Tez had already left. The dessert is for him. Chocolate raspberry and cherry cobbler. There’s plenty of gas in the tank, and you know your father won’t care if you keep the Mercedes for a bit.” She kissed me lightly on the cheek. “By the way, when were you going to tell me you’re a vampire?”

  Startled, I nearly dropped the Tupperware. “Never,” I managed, feeling the same I did when I was five years old and she’d caught me eating chocolate-chip cookie dough straight out of the mixing bowl. “How’d you know?”

  She arched a silver brow. “I figured it out when I noticed you weren’t breathing. And the curtains were drawn on the windows and the bed.”

  “You seem to be rather accepting.”

  “My grandson was Turned a few years ago,” she said. “He runs a night club in Miami, Florida. You wouldn’t believe how many vampires live there.”

  “In the Sunshine State?” The idea boggled my mind.

  “I think it’s the night life they’re interested in.”

  “So, you’ve known about vampires all this time?”

  “You might be surprised at how much us humans know about the supernatural.” Martha narrowed her gaze. “I found blood on the library carpet.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m terribly sorry.”

  “I taught you better table manners,” she agreed mildly. “You’re meeting Tez, right?”

  “Uh, yes. Yes, I am.” I hugged her quickly. “I hope you understand why I didn’t tell you about my undeadness.”

  “Of course. And no, I will not tell your parents. I believe your mother still labors under the hope you will have children.”

  “I’m a little past child-bearing years. Technically, I’m forty-eight.”

  “Not to her, dear.” She nodded toward the door. “Go on, now. I’ll see you soon.”

  I hurried out the front door. As I suspected, she’d already parked the Mercedes in front. I really don’t know how my mother would live without Martha. She was a one-in-a-million lady.

  I opened the door, piled everything into the passenger seat, put on my seat belt, popped a piece of gum, and started the Mercedes. My urgency had me peeling out of the driveway.

  Oops.

  The usual two-hour drive took me a little more than an hour. The minute I hit the open highway, I rammed down the accelerator. I had no intention of stopping for the police if they attempted to pull me over. Luckily,
there was little traffic and no cops.

  The second I hit Broken Heart’s borders, I phoned Damian to let him know I was back in town. Then I headed for the were-cat colony. The Mercedes offered a smoother ride than Tez’s Honda, but it was still bumpy, and very dark.

  Even with my vampire vision, I had to hit the high beams and drive more slowly than I wanted. After a few minutes, the headlights illuminated the single long building. This time it looked even more austere and unwelcoming. I parked and got out of the car.

  Belatedly, I thought of a weapon. I didn’t have a gun, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to use it—unless I drew upon the lessons learned from the Lethal Weapon movies. I didn’t have knives, and I really didn’t want to have to dig out the tire iron.

  Well, then. I was a vampire. I had speed, strength, the ability to control minds, and I could make beautiful jewelry. Ah, yes. No reason to be nervous, Elizabeth, maybe you can whip up some shiny trinkets and trade ’em for Tez.

  I pocketed my iPhone and the car keys. I activated the locks manually because I was too afraid that the beep of the alarm might alert the were-cats of my arrival. Not that I was being all that particularly stealthy.

  I heard the snap and snicker of fire. As I crept along the side of the building, rhythmic drumming started. The soft, primal beats were accompanied by chanting. Heart in my throat, I dared a peek around the corner.

  Just like the evening before, a bonfire raged. The drumming was courtesy of two women on the far side of the flames. They were naked, their bodies painted. Three other women, also naked, their bodies painted with different colors and patterns than the drummers, swayed and chanted. I couldn’t understand the words, but they were rife with sorrow.

  I didn’t see Serri among any of these women. Nor did I see any men featured in these proceedings. But I did see Tawny. She was naked, too, and did her own dance on the opposite side of the chanting women. Her dance was far more sensual than grief-filled, however.