Rita Herron - Last Kiss Goodbye

Ivy Stanton’s face flashed in his head. She had been so little then, just a scrawny, knock-kneed kid with a gap-toothed, crooked smile. But now she was a woman.

His sex stirred again just thinking about Lily Stanton. Would Ivy be as tasty as her mother had been?

He cursed himself, fighting the desperate urge to find out. He couldn’t think with his dick right now. His future might be in trouble.

And he’d do whatever necessary to make sure it didn’t explode in his face.

IT TOOK MATT A WEEK to start acclimating into the world, renew his license, buy an SUV and track down Ivy Stanton. Apparently she worked at a small magazine called Southern Scrapbooks, a publication that showcased regional and small-town folklore, sites, restaurants, entertainment venues and other unique attractions, especially mysteries or oddities associated with small Southern towns.

As he knocked on the door to her home in downtown Chattanooga, he studied the Victorian house she’d rented near the river. The scenic, homey-looking place robbed his breath for a minute. A fall wreath made of fake leaves decorated the door, while a bird feeder swayed in the breeze in a nearby dogwood tree. White wicker rocking chairs flanked the doorway, and a chaise sat kitty-cornered beside a tea table, as if inviting someone to lounge for a lazy afternoon with a glass of sweet iced tea beneath the twirling ceiling fans on the porch.

Bitterness swelled inside him.

The beauty around him once again reminded him of the life he’d been denied. Latching onto his anger, he knocked on the door a second time, but no one answered. Irritated, he climbed back in his car and drove toward the magazine office. It was only a few blocks away, a nondescript, small building that was much older than Ivy’s house, tucked in a historic area that held many small businesses.

Five minutes later, he sucked in his breath as he strode into the office. A hum of voices swirled from a back room. In the outer area, a rail-thin brunette leaned over a table studying what seemed to be a photograph layout of restaurants and cafés.

He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but where can I find Iv—Ann Ivy?”

The woman pursed her lips and glanced at him, and he was grateful he hadn’t completely slipped and used her name instead of the pseudonym she’d adopted for the magazine.

“She’s not here. I’m Miss Evans. Can I help you?”

“I really need to talk to Miss Ivy myself,” Matt said. “When will she be back?”

“I’m not sure. She went out of town to research a story.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek. “She contacted me about an upcoming issue, and I need to discuss some layouts with her.”

The woman’s cell phone rang, and she glanced at it, then back up, looking harried. “Listen, I’m really busy—”

“If you can just tell me where she went, I’ll track her down.”

“She’s on assignment. Some little Appalachian town called Kudzu Hollow.” Miss Evans reached in her pocket and handed him a business card. “Here’s her cell number.”

He pasted on a phony grin, then thanked her and left, his stomach churning.

Ivy had gone back to Kudzu Hollow. That was the last place he’d expected to find her. Why had she returned home now? And why would she do a story on the town?

Unless she’d seen the reports of his release…

Had she actually returned to talk to him?

Or did she believe he was guilty? If so, was she trying to find a way to put him back in prison?

His chest tightened at the mere thought. He’d die before he’d go back inside.

An hour and a half later, he was coasting up the highway toward eastern Tennessee, growing nearer and nearer his destination. A few phone calls, and he’d discovered Ivy had rented a cabin on the mountain. He’d reserved a cabin beside her.

Horns blared, a siren wailed in the distance and rap music pounded through the speakers of the black pickup in front of him. An eighteen-wheeler nearly cut Matt off, boxing him in next to a cement truck.

His claustrophobia mounted.

One day the real killer would know what it was like to lie in a cramped, six-by-six cell and piss in a pot in front of strangers. He would know what it was like to suffer.

To lose everyone he cared about. His entire future.

Yes, Matt Mahoney had been innocent when he’d gone to jail.

But he wasn’t innocent any longer.

Now he would finally confront Ivy Stanton and force her to admit the truth about what had happened that night. Find out why the hell she hadn’t spoken up years ago and defended him.

Then he’d make her pay for keeping quiet.

THE VOICES WOULDN’T BE quiet.

And the color red was back.

But only in Ivy’s dreams.

They had become more frequent since she’d seen that newscast of Matt Mahoney’s release. And even more intense since she’d come to Kudzu Hollow the week before. Nightmares of blood and screams, of that last kiss goodbye, the cold unbending skin of her mother’s lips, the eyes wide open in death…

Ivy shivered, willing away the vivid images as she clutched the metal fence surrounding the junkyard, but the photos and article chronicling her parents’ brutal murders remained etched in her mind forever.

There was no turning back now. She’d come here for answers and she couldn’t leave until she had them. The only way for her to move forward in her life was to travel backward in time.

She’d spent the last week incognito, using her pseudonym, Ann Ivy, so the locals around Kudzu Hollow wouldn’t know her true identity. She’d driven the countryside and town taking photographs and studying the people. Soon, maybe she’d gather enough nerve to approach the locals about her parents’ murders.

And to visit their graves.

But one step at a time.

Having finally gotten up the courage to stop by the junkyard today, she studied the landscape. Rusted and stripped vehicles of all sizes and models filled the overgrown yard, everything from Corvettes to pickups and broken-down school buses that had transported their last group of kids. Weeds choked the land, and kudzu climbed like snakes up the broken windows, over tires and hubcaps and scattered car parts. Tall trees dropped dead leaves, adding a layer of brown and gold to the dilapidated site, a reminder that winter was on its way. Winter and death.

Ivy tried to banish her anxiety, then imagined her father working the lot, selling off parts as needed, trying to rebuild an engine in the station wagon he’d kept, huddling with a cigarette as he swiped at grease on his coveralls. That brief memory seemed to stir the pungent air with the scent of those filterless Camels he liked so much, the smell of his booze, the sound of his angry booming voice as his boots pounded on the squeaky floor of the trailer.

She shuddered and clutched her jacket around her, willing other memories to follow, but the door slammed shut with a vicious slap, and there was nothing but emptiness. And the sense that she had run from the trailer to the junkyard more than once. Taken solace in the rusted old cars. Pretended they weren’t broken, that they could magically transport her far away from her miserable home.

Frustrated, she yanked her gaze sideways, beyond the junkyard to the trailer park where she’d lived. Weeds choked the brown grass, and the trailers were faded and rusted, although families still dwelled in some of the same single-and double-wide mobile homes that had stood for twenty years. A few new ones had been added, she noted, although the rain had washed mud and leaves onto the aluminum sides, aging them automatically. Several small children in ratty jackets and jeans played chase in the yards just as she had probably done, and two neighborhood women sat on a sagging porch, chatting. Tricycles and plastic bats and toys littered the ground, and a couple of stray cats slept beside a double-wide while a mangy dog scrounged for food in the overflowing garbage.

Although the scenery seemed familiar, Ivy couldn’t remember anything about that fatal night her parents died.

Except that last kiss goodbye.

Suddenly another image returned, this one more disturbing. She had been running through the junkyard, had fallen in the mud. A big boy suddenly appeared, piercing her with his dark brown eyes. Bad-boy Matt Mahoney. He reached for her, and she froze in terror, the world spinning and spinning until she spiraled downward into a black abyss of nothingness. The tunnel of darkness sucked her into its vortex, and the memory crashed to a halt.

The familiar rush of renewed panic that had started after Miss Nellie’s death squeezed Ivy’s chest again. The accompanying light-headedness, the flash of white dots before her eyes, the inability to breathe—she couldn’t control it. A sudden gust of wind rattled the power lines, and gray, mottled storm clouds rolled over the tops of the ridges. Rain splattered the earth, the howling wind blowing leaves and debris across the brown grass. Tree branches swayed with its force, lightning zigzagged across the turbulent sky, illuminating the jagged peaks, which rose like a fortress guarding the town’s secrets. The earth suddenly rumbled, and the ground shook beneath her feet.

Her heart pounded. What was that noise? An earthquake maybe? A tornado?

Or the ghosts of the people who had died in the town, the ghosts that Miss Nellie had warned her about? The spirits that wandered the junkyard, trapped beneath the kudzu, begging to escape…

NIGHT HAD SET IN by the time Matt reached the mountains. Although the majestic scenery and fresh fall air was a welcome reprieve from the city, a storm brewed on the horizon. Thunderclouds rumbled across the sky, and lightning flashed above the treetops. As he neared the hollow, rain slashed the Pathfinder, drilling the ground. It was almost as if Satan had sent this storm to remind him of that awful last night he’d spent in Kudzu Hollow.

A glutton for punishment, he drove toward the trailer park, unable to face the town just yet. The graveyard for cars still sat in the same location, but weeds and kudzu had overtaken the place. Apparently, no one had kept up Roy Stanton’s business.

Sweat rolled down Matt’s neck as he bounced over the ruts in the road and neared his old home. His mother’s parting words echoed in his mind: I’m so ashamed of you, Matt. Your brothers are thugs, and I knew you wasn’t any good, but I never thought you’d be a killer.

She hadn’t believed him innocent any more than the locals had. Her lack of faith had cut him to the core.

Determined to show her the papers exonerating him, he veered into the parking lot and stopped in front of his old homestead. Weeds filled the yard, and what little grass was left was patchy, with mud holes big enough for a small kid to get mired in. Rust stains colored the silver aluminum, a broken windowpane marked the front, and red mud caked the steps to the stoop. What had he expected? For his mother to have inherited some money and be living in a mansion?

For her to have hung a Welcome Home banner out for him?

He cut the engine, inhaled a deep breath, grabbed the papers and climbed out. Ducking against the downpour, he ran up the rickety steps and knocked. His heart pounded as he waited. But no one answered.

He knocked again, then glanced sideways. Someone nudged the front window curtain back slightly. His mother, years older, and now fully white-haired, with prominent wrinkles around her mouth, peered through the opening. When she saw him, her gray eyes widened in fear.

“Go away, boy. I don’t want you bothering me.”

Pain shot through his chest. “Come on, Mom. Let me in. It’s Matt.”