The Darkest Joy Read online

  Praise for

  A TERRIBLE LOVE

  “Romantic, edgy, angsty, and thrilling.”

  —Bookish Temptations

  “Intense, sexy, and intriguing.”

  —The Autumn Review

  “I’m speechless! This book was unstoppable.”

  —Book Crush

  “Eros very much has this sort of skat, rat-a-tat, jazzy improvisational writing style. . . . It gives her whole entire work real character.”

  —Contagious Reads

  “A beautiful tale of redemption, full of suspense and mystery.”

  —A Book Vacation

  “Eros’s dark and twisty prose adds a depth and dimension that is addictive.”

  —Martini Times Romance

  “This story had a cup of dark, a quart of thrilling, and a damn pound of super freaking sexy!”

  —LipSmackin GoodBooks

  “A completely terrifying, gut wrenching, and beautiful story.”

  —The Little Black Book Blog

  “Between the suspense, intrigue, and volatile romance, I could not put this one down.”

  —Books Unhinged by Stacy Hgg

  “This is a great curl up on the couch with your favorite liquid date on a weekend night and enjoy kind of read.”

  —Flirty & Dirty Book Blog

  “The chemistry between Jess and Devin is off the charts hot, and the sex is drop-your-drawers amazing. . . . The danger element just makes the story that much better, and leaves you on the edge of your seat dying to see what happens next.”

  —Always YA at Heart

  Thank you for downloading this Gallery Books eBook.

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  Beth Dean Hoover

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  About Marata Eros

  PROLOGUE

  “Brookie,” Mom begins in a warning tone. I sigh but obligingly pop my earbud out of one ear. I have to actually pay attention, because somehow moms can sniff out half attentiveness like last night’s rotting dinner, even across a crackling cell connection.

  “Yes, Mom,” I say with resignation. I lightly tap the brakes, trying to survive the treachery that is I-90 from Spokane to Seattle. And like any other college sophomore, I’m aching for home and hearth, especially Mom’s cooking. I survey the slick, stupid mess of the highway. I’d hoped to beat the rush.

  Not going to happen.

  I downshift, keeping one hand on the wheel with one ear pressed to the cell as to assist my brakes as the blue and red strobes pulse along the banked snow at the sides of the road.

  What the hell? Great, I think.

  “Be careful, honey, I-90 is sloppy right now. Your father and I have been listening to the weather reports for the Snoqualmie Pass—”

  I roll my eyes. “Mom,” I interrupt, trying to be the Good Daughter and missing it with the irritation in my voice. “There’s been an accident up ahead . . .” I squint my eyes as I take in the pileup. Medics are already swarming the vehicles.

  “What?” Mom asks anxiously and I can see her put her hand to her heart. Drama R Us.

  “Not me, Mom.” I look ahead. “There are three cars ahead of me, but . . . I won’t be home for supper. There’s no way.”

  “It’s more important to have you home safely than for you to be reckless.”

  Like that would ever happen, I think.

  “Did you remember your sheet music?” Mom asks as I watch the police officer’s hands, his orange baton guiding our slow progress around the crunched cars in my lane. My eyes sweep the wreckage and I swallow, my stare shifting to the blooming red that spreads underneath the huddle of medics, so red against all the snow.

  Blood.

  I shiver, setting the phone on my seat, Mom oblivious as my hand lands on my binder of sheet music on the passenger seat without looking. It’s full of music I practice, music I’ve written . . . audition scores as well. I’m more likely to forget my purse than to leave my music binder somewhere. I hear her tinny voice and scoop up the cell again.

  “Yes . . . right here,” I say, distracted by the scene reflected in my rearview mirror.

  “Good, because Aunt Millicent is coming to hear you play for Christmas, dear.”

  Christ, I think, mentally rubbing my head. My great aunt is 120 at least. She’ll never die because she’s from Alaska. She was one of the early pioneers of that area back in the forties with a bunch of other salty old crabs as she calls them.

  Aunt Milli never lets us forget it. Y’know, the old story: When we were kids we walked to school backward in ninety-mile-an-hour winds in ten feet of snow.

  My eyes drop to the odometer. Shit . . . thirty miles per hour. At this rate I’ll be home by New Year’s. The dark night crowds in around my Scion as Mom talks about how much Aunt Milli appreciates my piano-playing talent; she claims music runs in the family.

  Uh-huh. Blowhard.

  I scowl, thinking about the piano-playing puppet I’ve become to the family.

  I guess it’s better than being that Asian kid who could speak four languages by the age of five. But not by much.

  My parents have pushed me because I’m the local piano prodigy.

  I’m just a girl. I never tell anyone what I can do.

  What I’m compelled to do. It’s kind of embarrassing. As soon as someone knows my talent with the keys of a piano, it defines me. I wish it didn’t. I just want to be Brooke Elizabeth Starr.

  Mom asks me a question. Twice.

  Oops.

  “Yeah?” I say, my eyes trained on the road, the yellow dashes making me nauseous as huge snowflakes fall. I feel like I’m trapped inside a snow globe.

  “I need to let you go, honey. You don’t need the distraction of talking on your cell.” That’s Mom, conservative to the core.

  I hear a chime in the background. Our doorbell.

  “What’s that?” I ask anyway.

  Mom hesitates. “I don’t know, we’ve kept our calendar open; just your brother, Dad and you tonight. Oh . . . and Aunt Milli.”

  I give a small groan at that.

  “Bill?” I hear Mom ask in a loud voice from what I know is the kitchen. I can see her in my mind like a painted picture. Her back leans against the wall, a finger twisting the long cord of our 1980s vintage wall phone. The guts show through the clear acrylic housing. It lights when it rings.

  I can tell Mom’s holding the phone against her shoulder as she calls out to Dad.

  There’s a muffled noise . . . then a shuffle.

  Those old phones are archaic as hell but they convey sound very well.

  “Mom?” I ask because it’s odd that she’s not responding. I sit up straight in my seat as the hot air blowing out of the heater vent becomes suf
focating.

  Then I hear a sliding crash that sounds like a load of glass falling onto the tile floor. My memories of our home floor plan go into overdrive.

  Trophies . . . my piano trophies are on that glass tabletop in the foyer.

  I unconsciously clench my cell.

  A car behind me honks and my eyes dip again to the odometer. Twenty miles per hour.

  I don’t accelerate.

  Sweat breaks out on my upper lip as my hands begin to shake.

  “Mom!” I scream

  A gurgle that makes my stomach drop greets me as I hear the receiver bang against a hard surface.

  It’s so loud it almost causes me to drop my phone.

  The driver behind me lays on his horn, passing on the left, taking the icy road at forty miles per hour.

  He flips me off as he does.

  I hear the phone clunk against the wall. I see it in my mind’s eye like a movie, unwinding at the end of its long cord, spinning . . . hitting the wall with a hollow slap of plastic. . . .

  Then nothing.

  A piercing scream fills the receiver and I gasp, a sob erupting from my mouth. I know that scream.

  Joey!

  I put on the brakes in the middle of the highway, my ear pressed to the cell, as my hand leaves the steering wheel and covers my mouth.

  Cars pile up behind me, some drivers leaning on their horns.

  I hear the phone stop banging, then something dragging.

  Like a body.

  This isn’t real, my mind numbly says.

  Thunk.

  Someone taps on my window as I begin to lose circulation in my ear.

  Breathing. That’s what I hear now. Every sense I have goes off-line except for my ear against that cell.

  It’s all I hear.

  Someone is breathing into the receiver.

  Then they slowly hang it up in its cradle.

  Click.

  My cell phone silences.

  It drops to the floorboards of my car, sliding underneath the gas pedal.

  Someone opens the door.

  It’s the police officer who was directing traffic.

  It can’t be, that was hours ago, I think.

  “Miss . . . ?” He looks at me and I stare back.

  I can’t think. Feel . . . move.

  Mom was just asking me when I was coming home.

  I’m sure she’s fine. Something just fell.

  She’s not dead. Nobody’s dead.

  My body begins a fine quaking that I’m helpless to quell.

  Aunt Milli is there . . . being the old-relative cheek pincher she is.

  Everything’s fine. Everything’s . . . definitely not fine.

  Just breathe. Breathe.

  “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of your car.” A flashlight moves over my face and I don’t blink, his voice sounding like it’s underwater.

  I don’t move, I can’t move. Because all I hear is breathing.

  It’s so loud it drowns out my thoughts.

  The cop moves toward me and I pitch forward face-first.

  Darkness greets me where consciousness had been.

  Sometimes that is the mind’s only way to protect itself.

  Two weeks later

  He’s hunkered down in front of me. My mind is searching, searching . . . Oh yeah, Decatur Clearwater.

  FBI. That’s right. The memory sluggishly plugs into place in the slow-moving river of my mind.

  The debris of my grief makes it crawl.

  Marshal Clearwater gives me a sad smile of sympathy, his eyes flicking to the sheen in mine. “I know this is difficult, Miss Starr . . .” he begins slowly, spreading his hands out to his sides as he balances on his heels.

  My gaze shifts to his, traveling from orbs so dark they almost blend with the pupils, to a fresh-looking scar that stands at ugly attention at his throat. It’s bright pink, angry.

  Somebody did that to him.

  Suddenly the violence of that wound reminds me of my family and I swallow hard past the lump in my throat.

  I’m not going to lose it yet again, I tell myself.

  I bite my lip until I taste the metallic flavor of my own blood. Then take a deep breath.

  I nod, my hands clutching the Christmas gift that Aunt Milli had brought me. I close my eyes, the vision of her frail broken body softer than the reality.

  The Feds had told me just enough to fill in the visual gaps.

  Clearwater stands and presses his card into my hand. “If you need anything, I’m here.”

  I think people just say those things. They know that people for the most part inherently do not want to impose on others. Especially families like mine: upper-class white—prestigious. No, we white-bread snobs don’t inconvenience others with our dirty laundry.

  I look again at Clearwater, whose dark skin signals his mixed ethnicity. He returns my stare with level, honest eyes. He doesn’t see me as a white rich girl, with that critical gaze fueled by the common assumption that I’m privileged, spoiled. Marshal Clearwater is color blind. Don’t ask me how I can tell, but I just can.

  He turns to his partner, a tall, tattooed Fed with cool eyes and an indifferent disposition. Tough. He wears a suit, they all do . . . but it doesn’t cover his neck. Ebony ribbons of ink circle his thick throat and I swallow.

  A small hand squeezes my shoulder.

  Lacey. I cover her hand with my own.

  “It’ll be okay,” she says in a whisper. The empty sentiment runs off my consciousness like water off a duck’s back. Lacey is the last bit of glue from the remnants of a childhood now gone. The one thread in the fabric of my past that’s been there since the beginning. I can’t think of a time in my life when she wasn’t a part of it. Her eyes tell me it’ll be okay.

  But nothing will be okay. Ever.

  I try to keep my focus narrow but it widens as I sit there. The Feds pick up small plates filled with appetizers provided by our upscale neighborhood in Magnolia.

  A house isn’t a home without your family.

  I clutch the gift tighter.

  Our neighbors use the china Mom kept locked behind glass cabinet doors. I take a deep, shuddering breath as I see the slim, delicate plates being passed. Cups of real espresso are next, the creamy porcelain moving in a parade of hands.

  Suddenly, the background of murmured condolences, china and glass clanking . . . my home full of strangers, is too much.

  I stand. All I see is black. I can’t see the colors of my family for the sea of black-clad mourners who fill every corner of my house.

  I choke on my grief.

  Marshal Clearwater sees me, his eyes meet mine.

  No one else does.

  His face grows alarmed as he sets his dish on the edge of the coffee table. Black eyes grow larger as he draws nearer, weaving through the bodies in black. My breath comes hard and fast.

  “Hey,” he says as he moves between the last people blocking his way to me.

  I can’t breathe; something heavy is on my chest.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I hear Lacey ask in a tight voice, her concerned hazel eyes above mine.

  I’m on the ground now, a tight wheeze the only breath that comes through.

  People crowd.

  “Step back,” Clearwater says in a voice like a bell.

  “Deca—” the big Fed begins.

  “Hyperventilating,” Clearwater says in terse reply.

  My eyes roll to that package from Aunt Milli. It tumbles from my fingers. My panic rises in my eyes, tightening my chest further.

  “I’m here, Brooke,” Marshal Clearwater says, those dark eyes never leaving mine. “Breathe slowly . . .”

  He sees me glance at the package.

  Clearwater picks it up and sets it in my hand. Tears squeeze out of my eyes, running down each side of my face, pooling in my ears.

  “Jesus . . . Brooke,” Lacey says, dabbing at the tears, her own mingling with mine as she gives Clearwater a dark look, like h
e’s the enemy, not my grief. Always ready to champion me, defend me against all comers.

  I stare into Marshal Clearwater’s eyes. Thanking him without speaking.

  The corners of the Fed’s eyes crinkle as he looks into mine. “You’re welcome.”

  My hand holds the small package tighter as my breath comes in a sudden whoosh.

  “There you go,” Clearwater says as eyes stare at me as I lay on the floor of our living room, needles from the Christmas tree making it smell like pine.

  I take another breath . . . Another. They hurt.

  He holds out his hands and I take one, Lacey takes the other.

  They pull me up. I turn and scoop up the package again.

  I steady myself, slightly dizzy. Feeling like the lamest of fools. “I need some air,” I say, head down.

  Clearwater nods. His partner’s root-beer brown eyes follow me out to the patio that overlooks Puget Sound. I let the smell of the sea overwhelm me as I lean against the railing, Lacey at my back.

  “Brooke . . .” she begins and I hold up my palm. She continues anyway. “They mean well.” Lacey looks at me as she always does: determined to fix my problems, or just determined.

  I nod. I know.

  I look over the water. How everything around me appears so normal. People walking in the chilled rain. Leaves lingering in trees too stubborn to release them.

  The waves churning in angry abandon.

  None of it cares that time doesn’t move forward for those who grieve.

  My chin dips to my chest and I sit down on the patio furniture, the temperature too cold for my light outfit of a simple black wrap dress, heels, and thin nylons. It’s what I can manage.

  All I can manage. Oh yeah, I brushed my teeth. I give a little hiccupy laugh.

  Slowly, Lacey lowers herself opposite me. I look at her, round eyes meet mine, dark blond hair frames a face I’ve known since infancy, through dolls, makeup, boyfriends and now—death. “You don’t have to do this, y’know.”

  I nod. I know.

  “The police have handed it over to the Feds . . . and they don’t have any questions for me. I’ve been cleared,” I say and laugh. “So . . . it’s time.” Time to escape the inescapable; my guilt will get packed along with the rest of my emotional baggage. I take it wherever I go.