by Pamela Crane
My hands slid down his thick, muscular arms, savoring their power. When I reached his groin, I tenderly palmed him through his pants, then tucked my fingers under the hem of my shirt. Slowly I raised my arms and lifted the shirt up and off, to Brad’s delight, then unclipped my bra. I’d never felt so bold, so liberated.
He didn’t mind, to say the least.
Instead of staring at my scar, he lovingly kissed what I had formerly despised. His passion for me never wavered—if it had, I would have sent him packing. But no, he loved me, scars and all.
Tipping my chin up to hold my gaze, he examined me, penetrating me with those brown eyes that had wooed me from the moment we first met.
“Hey, you know I love you—every part of you, right?”
“I do now,” I said.
“So then, I need to know something.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, you never told me what this rose tattoo was all about.”
He pressed his lips to it, moving upward to a spot along the base of my neck where he tongued the flesh until it tickled. I squealed and squirmed away from him until I broke free.
“Fine! I’ll tell you. I’ve never told anyone this before, though. Pinkie swear you’ll keep this between us.” I held out my pinkie.
Brad grumbled. “What are we—five?”
“Play nice … or I’ll put the girls away.”
“Fine, you win.” He entwined his finger around mine.
“The secret handshake among women. This is some cloak-and-dagger stuff here. I feel privileged to be inducted into it.”
“Okay,” I said, resting my head against his chest. “I trust you. My grandmother’s name was Rose, and I loved her dearly. She even helped raise me after my father passed. But after my grandfather died, she just became a basket case. My mom and I took care of her, which was a job. I mean, I had to change her diapers and she went to adult daycare because she couldn’t be trusted home alone.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah. She almost burned down the house one time by leaving a rag on the gas stove while it was on. Short story long, she had dementia and eventually died from its complications. Not physically—at first. But mentally, she had no idea who I was. I never told anyone how much it broke my heart to see her like that—the woman who cared for me as a child had become one herself. I loved Grandma Rose so much, so my tattoo was kind of a tribute to our shared suffering and to her life. With Grandma Rose I could be anyone I wanted to be—a better version of myself, because Grandma Rose didn’t judge me, didn’t notice my flaws, you know? All she saw was a beautiful flower in me, even though the thorns were there.”
I wiped away a tear that threatened to fall and swallowed the nostalgic lump in my throat.
“That’s really sweet,” Brad said with a light peck on my chin. Then another. And another. “You wanna know how I got my frog tattoo on my thigh?”
“Let me guess. You had one too many drinks with the boys in college and ended up at the mercy of a tattoo artist with a cruel sense of humor?”
“Bingo!” Brad laughed. “It’s almost as if you were there. Maybe I’m not the only stalker among us.”
“You got me,” I said with a giggle as I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him on top of me. “Now take me like you mean it, you fool,” I playfully ordered.
And he obeyed … boy, did he obey.
Chapter 39
The Triangle Terror’s Final Act
Durham, NC
In a stunning turn of events on Thursday, Durham native Landon Worthington professed to being the Triangle Terror moments before taking his own life.
“After receiving a 9-1-1 call from his mother, officers found a white male identified as Landon Worthington laying on the floor after stabbing himself," Detective Evan Williams stated in a press release.
Beginning with the murder of his sister, Alexis Worthington, twenty-two years ago, Worthington was responsible for the deaths of four known victims, including Violet Hansen, Gina Martinez, and Amy Watson, and possibly several others. His latest victim, Lilly Sanderson, survived but is being treated for emotional trauma at an undisclosed location.
Dr. Avella Weaver, a Hillsborough psychiatrist, sheds light on his mental condition after interviewing the last person Worthington spoke to before his premeditated suicide.
“Based on an analysis of his symptoms—blacking out, insomnia, mood swings, and auditory hallucinations—it’s likely Mr. Worthington suffered from an oft disputed mental illness called dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder.”
While authorities are uncertain whether the diagnosis is credible, Dr. Weaver goes on to explain that “dissociative identity disorder is a severe form of dissociation where a lack of connection occurs in a person’s thoughts, feelings, or actions. Case studies reveal that it stems from trauma and can be a coping mechanism as the person dissociates himself from an experience that's too painful to assimilate with his conscious self. It’s a mystifying disease, and one that is difficult to diagnose or treat.”
Authorities believe the murders of five other local girls between 1993 and 2008 are also attributed to Worthington, though evidence has yet to prove his ties to the victims.
The witness, Mia Germaine, who heard Worthington’s private confession, says it’s likely the true scope of who he was and what he’s done will never be known.
“There are secrets that my son took with him,” his mother Jennifer Worthington says, “but no matter what he’s done, he was my son and I love him. And he paid the price for his crimes with his life by his own choice. In the end, he did the right thing.”
Epilogue
Two months later …
Following Landon’s death, I had kept in contact with Jennifer Worthington, dropping by for the occasional cup of tea to catch up and make sure she was all right. Losing both her daughter and her son to death, and her husband to jail, I couldn’t imagine how she coped. But with each visit she seemed to be healing more and more, giving me reassurance that she’d survive.
And I’d be there when her days got dark. After all, we were now family.
But the day I got her frantic phone call would be a day I’d never forget.
I had been at my office when my cell phone rang, and I immediately recognized her picture when it popped up on my caller ID.
“Hey, Jennifer. What’s up?”
“I have the most incredible news, Mia. Can you come over to my house after work today?”
With it being a Wednesday, I had nothing planned other than a quiet home-cooked dinner with Brad, so I promised to stop by on my way home from work.
Gratefully, the media circus was mercifully short-lived and my fifteen minutes of fame were long gone, but the unwanted reporters shoving mics in my face every time I stepped foot out my door had given me a greater appreciation for nights at home. If I had ever dreamed about being a movie star, after the past few weeks I was glad that fantasy never came true.
“Can you give me a hint of what it’s about?” I probed.
“Nope,” she said firmly. I imagined her graying bob swaying as she shook her head—a haircut decision she had agonized over for two weeks. When she admitted that she needed a change to get her out of her emotional rut, I suggested a fresh hairstyle could do the trick. Plus a visit with Dr. Avella Weaver. Jennifer took my advice on both counts and thanked me a million times over for recommending Avella, the heart healer.
“Just come over when you can. I’ll be home all day. All I can say is this is big with a capital B.”
Intrigued, I rushed through the rest of my editing projects so that I could beat the traffic. I arrived at her house a few minutes after four o’clock. I had barely made it to the door when Jennifer opened it.
“C’mon in, honey. I’ve been dying to tell you the news.”
“Wow, this must be important,” I oohed, tossing my purse on the coffee table as I sat down. She poured me a cup of chai tea—my favorite. A dollo
p of cream and two spoonfuls of sugar later and it was perfection.
I sipped, anxiously waiting for her to spill all.
“So? Tell me!” I scolded playfully.
“Dan is getting released from jail!” Jennifer nearly screeched.
“What? Is his time up? I thought he had a few years left—or did he make parole?”
“No, better than that. He’s being exonerated.”
I set down the teacup and waved my hand. “Wait—back up a bit. Exonerated? You mean he didn’t do it?”
“That’s right. I’m not sure who did the crime, because I only heard the basics from the district attorney, who swore me to secrecy until the hearing is over, but he told me I’ll have my Danny back by the end of this month. And his record will be cleared! But you can’t tell a soul—not until this is over. The DA doesn’t want the media catching wind just yet, since it could screw up the investigation.”
I felt my jaw drop in amazed joy. Dan, innocent after all. But the bigger question remained to be asked.
“What prompted them to open this case back up, twenty-two years after the fact?”
Jennifer beamed. “Landon. My darling Landon went to Evan with some information he found out before he died. Apparently it involved proving faulty eyewitness testimony, which was a good enough tip that Evan presented it to the district attorney before he resigned, God bless him. Evan really came through for us, considering what he’s going through now.”
I remembered that his vehicular manslaughter trial was coming up. I hoped he’d catch a break, considering he came clean on his own.
“So,” she babbled on like a bubbling brook, “the DA agreed to look into it more. They’ve spent the last two months digging into its validity and found some evidence that clears Danny. How about that, my Landon, a hero after all!”
The elation I felt for Jennifer overwhelmed me. She needed this. Something good, finally, coming her way. Months ago I would have been wary about Dan’s freedom, but not now.
While the prodigal Dan of the past returning home would not have been welcome news, the new Danny whom she’d been writing to and visiting in jail was a transformed man. Jennifer spoke of him in a girlishly giddy way, and she had shared with me the long love letters he’d written her, in which he’d taken responsibility for his bad life choices, which was the biggest step anyone could take on the path toward personal growth. Whoever said people don’t change was full of it.
He was a slice of sunshine in her gray life. It was time she basked in the sunlight with the rest of us. This was welcome news, and I knew life was turning around for this woman who had lost everything.
I couldn’t wait to hear the details.
Heck, maybe Alexis and I could be of service.
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A Secondhand Lie
If you enjoyed A Secondhand Life, uncover the truth of what put Dan behind bars in the companion book A Secondhand Lie.
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Author’s Note
A couple years ago I met a man who had undergone a lung transplant. After a risky, painful surgery that kept him bedridden for several weeks, doctors warned him that things would change. “Take it easy,” they reminded him. No more sports with the kids. Keep stress triggers to a minimum. No air travel for the foreseeable future. Even day-to-day details would never resume to “normal” as he relied on oxygen support every few hours to sustain him.
Yet the daily life changes weren’t all he endured. Never would he have guessed how one lung transplant would forever impact who he was—both inside and out.
It started with a distaste for foods he used to love. Then television preferences. Not long afterwards he had dreams—odd dreams that didn’t belong to him. Upon sharing his experiences with me, it sparked my curiosity. What could possibly be causing my friend to “lose himself”? Was it possible it had something to do with the organ transplant? Because it sure seemed too coincidental.
That’s when my research led me to the scientific phenomenon called “organ memory”—a theory that our organ cells retain “memory” from the original owner, which can be passed on to an organ recipient.
A Secondhand Life, inspired by my friend’s personal experiences after his lung transplant, is based on this theory of organ memory—a “what-if” exploration of the aftermath when a murder victim’s organs are donated to another. Some may call it science fiction or pseudoscience, but countless others who have shared similar life changes would call it reality.
I hope you enjoyed the tale and will stick around for the novella that reveals what really happened to put Dan behind bars.
And for those of you who want to leave a legacy after you depart this world, consider becoming an organ donor. You never know how you’ll impact another person’s life and live on in a powerful way …
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Want more from Pamela Crane?
The Little Things That Kill Series
The Scream of Silence
The Art of Fear
The Death of Life (coming soon)
The Mental Madness Series
A Fatal Affair
The Admirer’s Secret
The Killer Thriller Series
A Secondhand Lie
A Secondhand Life
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A Fatal Affair
In this mesmeric prequel to Pamela Crane’s best-selling psychological thriller The Admirer’s Secret, Hollywood icon Allen Michaels reveals the gory secrets of his mysterious past. When love leaves him battered and broke, how far is too far to avenge the promise of “til death do us part”? Unleash Allen’s hidden demons in this darkly riveting novella as he takes justice into his own demented hands …
A preview of my latest release, The Art of Fear…
Prologue
Durham, North Carolina
April 2016
Death is a beautiful thing, if you think about it. Elegant, even. That moment when every touch, every taste, every teardrop electrifies each cell. Imagine it—delicate crimson droplets and bruised hues of purple and yellow all creating a palette of color on an endless hide canvas. Then there’s the sweet smell of sweat as panic sets in and the pungent coppery tang that accompanies that first slice of flesh. The soothing sound of a blade working its way through a crackle of skin, then sinking dully through fatty tissue, at last finding its resting place in the slosh of blood.
Mere minutes after the penetration is the calming realization that the end is near. A peaceful cocktail of reflection and fear.
Then serenity.
The ultimate freedom from the taut restraints of life. The bindings that hold one back from experiencing true sovereignty. You become the master of your own fate through death. There is nothing more comforting than that.
How is that not eminently exquisite?
And
more to the point, will you not find it equally magnificent when I intimately introduce you to it—death?
Even years after I first laid eyes on you, I still find you captivating. Your high cheekbones and contemplative eyes like shiny pennies drew me into the artful composition that was your face. Your features promised a hopeful future of attraction and self-worth. It was my appreciation for beauty and art that slaughtered my resolve to kill you back then.
Words like slaughtered make me tingle. Not in the sense of a sociopath hungry for blood. I’m no sociopath. In fact, I love what I do. I feel joy in opening these gifts given to me—gifts that keep on giving as they free me to free them. It’s all about them, really.
These pretty creatures turned ugly by life. Disfigured by pain.
Now, however, no amount of outward loveliness can save you, for I know your blemished heart. Only I can save you now.
I close my eyes, letting the visions engulf me. I imagine every heated moment as I first slip into your home. It’s dark and empty, but I smell you. Not the vanilla lotion you lather all over your skin, but an intoxicating earthy scent of grit and determination. I snake around your sparse living room furniture, padding across the dull carpet, heading into your bedroom. There I open your closet door, my fingers frisking the mixture of cotton and polyester clothing hanging from a metal bar, all cheaply made garments that scratch my fingertips.
Pushing the hangers aside, I slither against the wall, adjusting the fabric to hide me. I gingerly close the bifold door behind me, peeking through the slats into the gaping darkness as evening falls heavily. There I wait, my breaths shallow and calm, belying the anticipation that sets my heart pumping excitedly.
