Last Kiss Goodbye

“I was thinking about featuring Appalachian folklore and ghost stories. That would fit with the Halloween theme.”

He plucked at his beard again as he chewed over the idea. “That could work. Do you have a specific place in mind?”

“Kudzu Hollow.”

He frowned. “I thought Miss Nellie convinced you not to go back there.”

The television droned in the background, but Ivy froze, momentarily caught off guard when a special news segment flashed on the screen. Abram Willis, the lawyer who’d been working on Matt Mahoney’s case, appeared in front of a massive stone, columned structure, a flock of reporters on his heels. The courthouse in Nashville.

A tall man with thinning hair and a tanning-bed-bronzed complexion stopped in front of the lawyer, blocking his exit. “This is Don Rivers reporting to you from C & N News. We have a live interview with Abram Willis, the nationally acclaimed attorney, currently fighting to free falsely accused prisoners.”

“Ivy—”

“Shh.” She pushed past George and turned up the volume, her eyes glued to the set, her adrenaline churning. The distinguished attorney paused to address the group, absentmindedly straightening his tie, which matched his streaked gray hair. But it was the man beside him who captured Ivy’s attention.

Well over six feet tall with jet-black hair, and eyes so dark brown they looked black. His powerful body exuded pure raw masculinity, as well as bitterness and anger. The scar that zigzagged down his left cheek added an air of brutality that bordered on frightening. But something about his darkness drew her, made her wonder if he really was the hard, cold man he appeared on the surface. Pain radiated from his body, and his eyes held such deep sadness that Ivy literally trembled with compassion.

For a fleeting second, another image passed through the far recesses of her brain, the image of Matt Mahoney as a teenager. He’d been fierce, angry, frightening. But all the teenage girls had wanted him, had whispered about the girls he’d taken in the back of his daddy’s ’75 Chevy.

Now he looked exhausted, half-dead from defeat. Yet a small spark lit his eyes—relief at his sudden and unexpected freedom.

“Mr. Willis, is it true that the court overturned the ruling on Mr. Mahoney’s murder conviction?” Rivers asked. “That he spent fifteen years in jail for a crime that evidence now proves he didn’t commit?”

Willis nodded, puffing up his chest as he straightened his suit jacket, but Matt averted his face as if shying away from the camera. “That’s correct,” the attorney said. “Justice has finally been served. Mr. Mahoney has been cleared of charges and has been pardoned.”

The reporter shoved a microphone in Matt’s face. “Mr. Mahoney, tell us how it feels to be free.”

“What are you going to do now?” another reporter shouted.

A chorus of others followed. “Are you receiving monetary retribution for the past fifteen years?”

“Are you going home?”

“If you didn’t kill that family, do you know who did?”

Ivy pressed her hand to her mouth, waiting for his answer. But Matt scowled at the camera, pushed the microphone away with an angry swipe of his hand and stalked through the crowd without responding.

“What the hell is it, Ivy?” George said, sliding his hand to her waist. “You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She gestured toward the screen with a shaky hand, the black hole of her past threatening to swallow her. “That’s the man who was convicted of killing my parents.”

MATT INHALED THE CRISP fall air as he walked away from the courthouse, barely noting that the smells of grass, honeysuckle and clean air that he’d craved were missing, that the city with its concrete buildings and sidewalks had destroyed those things, just as prison had decimated his dignity. Goddamn bloodsucking reporters. He’d half wanted to use them as a tool to vent his case, since they’d sure as hell done a number on him years ago. But he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

And what could he say?

That he was bitter. That he hated the system that had failed him. That he despised the citizens who still stared at him as if he was guilty. That he wished he had a nice home to go to. Someone waiting on him. A family. A loving wife or lover. Anyone who cared about him. A future.

He didn’t.

In fact, going home meant facing the very people who’d condemned him. The neighbors and family who’d gossiped about his family, testified against his character, thrown him away and forgotten about him.

The ones who believed he was a murderer.

But he would face them, anyway. Because someone in Kudzu Hollow knew the truth about the Stanton slayings and had allowed him to take the fall.

One last glance at the columns of the courthouse and its stately presence, and he remembered all he’d learned in prison. Laws varied, depending on a person’s financial status. For the poor, the old adage “innocent until proven guilty” didn’t matter one iota. In fact, it was the opposite—you were guilty from the beginning, and nothing you said made a damn bit of difference. From the moment the sheriff had slapped handcuffs on him, Matt had been labeled a killer. Not one person in Kudzu Hollow had spoken up to defend him.

Then in prison…hell, everyone screamed they were innocent. He’d had a hard time telling the difference himself. He’d met men bad to the bone, some meaner and more depraved than he’d ever imagined. But other innocents like him, convicted by bad cops, seedy lawyers, piss-poor judges and shoddy crime scene techs, filled the cells, too. Trouble was, once the prisoners were all thrown in there together, fighting for survival took priority.

And they all became animals.

Sweat beaded his forehead at the memory of the acts he’d committed in the name of survival.

His life would never be the same. He’d lost his youth, and for a while his chance for an education, although the last few years he’d pulled himself together and had been studying the law. One day soon, he’d obtain his license and take the bar exam. Become a respectable citizen and prove to the world that it had been wrong about him. Maybe he’d even work with Willis to help free other innocents.

Matt’s chest squeezed, though, as he climbed into the lawyer’s black Cadillac. Now only one thing drove him—bittersweet revenge on the man responsible.

If only he knew his identity.

That fateful night raced back as Willis drove through Nashville, Matt’s mind wandering back in time as the sea of cars and traffic noises swirled around him.

Fifteen years ago, he’d been up to no good, stealing tires from the junkyard, when he’d spotted that little Stanton girl running for her life. Hell, he’d felt sorry for the kid. They’d both grown up in the trailer park that backed up to the junkyard. He knew the kind of life she had. Had heard folks in town gossiping that her mother liked the men, that if she wasn’t married she’d be shacked up in one of Talulah’s Red Row trailers making money on her back. And some said that she did spend her days there with her legs spread wide, entertaining customer after customer while her old man sold car parts and pedaled junk for a living. And Matt had finally learned that was true, although he wasn’t proud of the way he’d found out.

Old man Stanton had beat his wife. They were white trash just like his family. Ivy had been such a puny little thing, with bundles of curly blond hair and those big green eyes that he hated to think of her big-bellied father taking his fists to her. The poor kid didn’t have enough meat or muscle on her to fend off a spider, much less a drunk, two-hundred-pound, pissed old fart who wreaked of whiskey and a bad temper.

When Matt had seen all that blood on her hands and shirt, the devil had climbed inside him. He’d wanted to kill her bastard daddy. Teach him to pound on somebody his own size. And he had gone to the trailer, the one with the torn, yellowed curtains, the broken-down swing set and the beer cans smashed against the porch.

But he hadn’t killed anyone.

No, her mother had been dead when he arrived. A vicious slaying, as if animals had been at it. Matt had damn near lost his dinner seeing all the blood on the floor, like a fucking river. And her daddy had been found later, buried beneath the kudzu, his body slashed and bloody, his face carved as if an animal had ripped him apart.

Not that Matt’s pleas of innocence had mattered.

The sheriff had found his boot prints, his damn fingerprints on the doorknob, and he’d been railroaded to jail for the crime, anyway.

Craving fresh air, and suddenly claustrophobic as prison memories assaulted him, Matt cranked down the window, uncaring that the air that assaulted him was tainted with smog and exhaust fumes. It spelled freedom.

He was thirty-one now. Thirty-one with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and not a soul in the world who gave a damn that he was out. Thirty-one and so damn scarred inside and out that no sane woman would ever want him.

All because he’d had a tender streak for a little girl who hadn’t bothered to show up at his trial and defend him.

Damn fool. That’s what he was. What he’d always been.

But never again.

The sun warmed his face as Willis wove through the heavy rush hour traffic. Matt dragged his mind from the depths of despair where he’d lived for so long, and tried to soak up the changes in the city. New businesses and skyscrapers had cropped up on every corner, rising toward the heavens. Car horns and humming motors of SUVs and minivans whizzing by bombarded him, as did the loud machinery on a construction site. The sight of modern vehicles, the styles so different from fifteen years ago, reminded him of all that he’d missed.

“How about a motel on the outskirts of the city?” Willis asked. “There’s a used car lot across the street, and a motor vehicle place a few blocks away so you can renew your driver’s license tomorrow.”

Matt nodded. “Sounds good.” Willis pulled into a Motel 6 and cut the engine. Matt turned to him, forever grateful. “Thank you for all you did for me, Abram.”

A smile lifted the older man’s lips. “Just don’t make me regret it.”

Matt’s gaze met his, and he nodded. He just hoped he could keep that promise.

Willis handed him an envelope. “Here’s some cash from your account and a credit card. I’ll let you know when the state compensation comes in. It won’t be near enough, but it should help you get started.”

Matt accepted the envelope. “Thanks again.” He shook Abram’s hand, then climbed out, smiling at the fact that he could step outside alone. Then he went inside and registered. A few minutes later, he walked across the street to the Wal-Mart, bought a couple of pairs of jeans and T-shirts, along with some toiletries—all mundane tasks that felt so liberating. Like a kid, excitement stirred inside him as he stopped at the Burger King and ordered a couple of Whoppers and fries. He grabbed the bag, inhaling the smell of fast food with a grin, then walked to the convenience store on the corner, bought a six-pack of beer and headed back to the motel for his celebration.

He had to go back to Kudzu Hollow and face his demons soon, but not tonight.

Tonight he’d celebrate his freedom. Tomorrow he’d renew his driver’s license, buy a car and a used computer, then locate Ivy Stanton. And when he found her, he’d surprise her with a little visit.

Unlike the day the police had questioned her about her parents’ murders, this time she wouldn’t claim she didn’t know what had happened.

This time, she’d damn well do some talking.

ARTHUR BOLES WAVED his son into his office with a glare, popped an antacid tablet into his mouth and released a string of expletives. “Dammit, Crandall, I’ve paid you a small fortune to keep that Mahoney boy in jail. How did you let that confounded fool Willis get him free?”

“Listen, calm down, Arthur,” his attorney screeched over the telephone line. “I did everything I could. By all rights, the boy should have been paroled years ago.”

“But you managed to keep that from happening, so why couldn’t you stop this disaster?”

“I’ve used up all my favors and jeopardized my own reputation for you,” Crandall snapped. “Now I’m through, Arthur. Through doing your dirty work for you, through putting myself on the line. I fully intend to salvage my career and wash my hands of the whole mess.”

Arthur ran a palm over his thinning hair, watching as his son, A.J., paced the room like a caged animal. The boy was nervous. Hell, they all were.

“You can’t walk away from me now, Crandall.”

“I can and I will,” the lawyer snapped. “And if you dare try to use what I’ve done to blackmail me, I will expose you and your son.”

Crandall slammed down the phone, and Arthur cursed again, then raked a hand across his desk, sending papers flying in fury. Crandall wouldn’t reveal a damn word. Arthur would see to that.

“Dad,” A.J. said in a worried voice as he paused, jerked open the liquor cabinet and grabbed a fifth of bourbon. Tipping up the bottle, he drank straight from it like a heathen, the brown liquid dribbling down his chin. Just as he had fifteen years ago. The night the trouble had started.

“What in the hell are we going to do?” A.J. swiped a hand over his mouth. “Mahoney’s out. And you know the first place he’ll come.”

Traces of desperation and fear lined A.J.’s face, suddenly aging his son another ten years. Arthur’s own panic gripped his chest like a vise, but he stalked toward A.J., took the bottle from his hand. “I’ll take care of things. Don’t worry.”

A.J. relaxed slightly, but remnants of memories lingered in his eyes. The same ones that troubled Arthur. They both had made mistakes fifteen years ago. But they’d survived this long without anyone knowing.

And those mistakes would go with them to their graves.

Even if Arthur had to kill Crandall and Mahoney to keep them buried.

IVY HAD BEEN ALONE FOR SO LONG.

His dark eyes skated over her, and her body tingled in response. She wasn’t a cold fish. No, she craved his touch. Could not get enough.

His shaggy black hair nudged his collar, the desire in his dark eyes nearly bringing her to her knees. She reached for him, but he shook her hand away and made her wait. With one finger he flicked the buttons on her shirt free, the corner of his mouth twitching as he peeled it from her shoulders. Cool air brushed her skin, and her nipples budded beneath the flimsy lace of her bra. A hot look of hunger colored his irises, but he still didn’t move to kiss her. He simply stood stone still, watching her chest rise and fall as he slid her panties down her thighs. She stepped out of them, suddenly feeling shy.

But the hiss of his breath was so erotic that all shyness fled.

He smiled, then cupped one hand behind her neck, lowered his mouth and claimed hers. Her heart pounded as he tasted and explored, teased her lips apart and thrust his tongue inside. Then he trailed kisses down her neck and lower, to her breasts. Pleasure rippled through her. She had been waiting all her life for this moment. For his touch. His lips. His hands.

His fingers slid along her spine, over the curve of her hips, then lower to her blond curls that were already wet from wanting him. A groan erupted from his throat as he pulled back and looked at her. A fierce need glimmered in his eyes, making her ache to strip him and touch him all over.

But when she reached for him, he drifted away, swallowed by the darkness….

IVY JERKED AWAKE, panting and sweating, the sheets twisted around her legs and arms where she’d rolled from side to side as waves of erotic satisfaction splintered through her. She wasn’t the cold fish George had accused her of being. She was starved for love, for a man’s comfort, for his touches and kisses.

And the man in her dreams…this time she had seen his face.

And that face had belonged to the man who’d been imprisoned for killing her parents—Matt Mahoney.

God. She dropped her head into her hands, trembling. Matt Mahoney was not a man she would ever have sex with. Not a man who would want her.

The dark coldness of the room closed around her, suffocating her. The screams of terror suddenly exploded in her head again, and her heart pounded. A monster’s face replaced Matt’s, and she saw the blood. Brown, not red. Floating like a river around her mother’s body. A wail lodged in Ivy’s throat as the smell of death bombarded her. She had to run but her legs wouldn’t move. The silent voices screeched in her ears.

Run like the wind. Run from the monster or he’ll get you again.

Just as she had fifteen years ago. Anything to escape the horror.

Or he would kill her, too. And there would be no tomorrow.

TOMORROW WAS THE beginning of another bad day. The beginning of the end for some in Kudzu Hollow.

For years now, the dark cloud, as Lady Bella Rue called it, had hovered about the small mountain community, floating away only occasionally, only long enough to give the locals a momentary reprieve. But before hope could be rekindled, the cloud returned with a vengeance to dump more sorrow and misfortune on the town.

Lady Bella Rue gathered her shawl around her trembling shoulders, fighting the wind as she walked outside and descended the steps to her root cellar. Storm clouds brewed above, the smell of rain and trouble filling her nostrils, a streak of lightning splintering off the mountain ridges. Thunder followed like an unwelcome guest announcing its arrival.

The frizzled hen she kept in the yard scratched at the ground, a reminder of the West African legends. She had learned from the best. And she had visited the crossroads and prayed to the devil for nine days and nights to strengthen her powers.

But she did not practice evil sorcery, as the locals said. Neither was she a lady of darkness as the kids had taunted when they’d dubbed her Lady Bella Rue years ago. No she desperately wanted to save the town.

Thunder rumbled again, growing louder, and the impending pain and fear of what was to come pierced her heart, settling so deeply in her bones that she could almost feel the brittle edges poking through her paper-thin skin. Folks whispered that the evil had started the day the Stanton family had been murdered. Others thought that Lady Bella Rue was the cause. That she had killed her own child and cast a wretched spell on the town years ago, beginning a vicious cycle of family members turning on one another.

But they were wrong.

The gods and goddesses of the rivers, mountains and land were angry at the people, and fought the devil at every turn. Just as she did.

And the ones who’d lost family over the years were trapped here, just as she was herself. Forced to listen to her baby’s cry at night as it echoed in the wind from the tangled vines of the kudzu. As long as she was alive, she would visit her son’s grave and pray for his spirit.

She touched the red flannel charm bag she kept tucked inside her blouse, hoping the mixture of Jerusalem bean, devil’s shoestring, High John the Conqueror root, bloodroot, snakeroot and Adam and Eve root would be strong enough to stave off the evil when the rain came. After all, how could she protect the town if she was dead herself?

Methodically, she gathered the roots and ingredients for the protection spell she hoped would help stave off the dangers. She would need eggs, candles, sulfur and chimney dust. She also needed graveyard dust, so she climbed the steps from the root cellar and headed toward her son’s grave. There, she would pray and chant and maybe be able to see the future. If she knew the man who brought danger this time, the man already possessed, perhaps she could make a spell to strip the devil from his soul before the killing began.

If not, God help them all. More would die.

And Satan would win again.

CHAPTER TWO

KILLING CAME EASY for some.

And some were punished for it.

But not him.

He had escaped. But his soul was weak, and he craved another just as he craved the satisfaction of sex from the women he took to his bed. The one beside him flicked her tongue across his belly, and his muscles clenched. She had power over him now, but only because he’d allowed her the momentary privilege. Her breath bathed his skin, and he tunneled his fingers through her hair, pushing her head south.

Now he had the power, and she would do as he said.

And she would never tell anyone about their rendezvous.

Since Matt Mahoney’s release, people might ask questions. Maybe look into the past.

A new investigation or anyone snooping around would be a problem.

Oblivious to his thoughts, the whore glided her hands over his stomach and stroked his erection as she flicked her tongue along his length. He relinquished himself to the pleasure as she captured him in her mouth. One stroke. Two. Her tongue worked magic.

Energized now, he jerked her up to straddle him, then slid his hands along her spine, angling her hips so he could sink himself into her. She scraped his chest with bloodred nails and released a low moan, then lowered her tits and brushed his mouth with her nipples. He licked the pointed tips, suckled her like a baby, watched her throw her head back in wild abandon. Her cries lit a fire inside him, and he thrust harder, then flipped her on the bed and climbed above her, shoving her hands up and hammering into her. She dragged her legs up, her stiletto heels dangling as she raised her lush hips to meet him.

He closed his eyes and stripped away her face. Saw another woman’s instead.

Blond hair. Sparkling, innocent green eyes. Lips begging for him to fuck. Her voice telling him no. Her eyes screaming in terror.

Release splintered through him, mind-boggling in intensity. He pumped harder, groaning as the woman below him dug her sharp heels into his buttocks and cried out her own pleasure.

“God, baby…”

His chest was dewy, his arms shaking as he opened his eyes. But the face that he’d imagined with his climax had disappeared. The whorish, made-up woman had replaced her. Mascara streaked her eyes, and her ruby-red lips had faded to a dull smudged pink.

They would be pale blue in death. Icy cold. Not smiling.

The mere thought gave him pleasure.

And his cock stiffened again.

He took her once more, this time flattening her on her stomach, with her face stuffed into the pillow. She was helpless. Begging him to stop. Begging him to continue. Her gasp as he shoved himself up her was his undoing, and he imagined his hands sliding around her throat, choking her.

One kiss. Two kisses. Three kisses.

Sigh.

Four kisses. Five kisses. Six kisses.

Cry.

Seven kisses. Eight kisses. Nine kisses.

Die.

One last kiss

and then goodbye.

For a brief second, he thought he’d done it. Plunged the knife into her. Watched the life spill from her. Then the blackness faded, and he found himself lying on his back as he had so many times in the past.

She raised up and kissed his neck. “Honey, anytime you want a little fun, you call Chantel.”

He nodded, threw a hand over his forehead, panting as she stood, picked up her red teddy and slid it on. The past fifteen years he had had his share of women, but none as gorgeous as Chantel.

Well, there was one….

His first. But no one knew.

The door slammed as Chantel left, and he sat up, grabbed the half-full bottle of bourbon from his nightstand and took a swig, the woman already forgotten.

More important matters to attend to now. He had seen the news report, watched Mahoney being released from prison, recognized the fury in his expression. Mahoney wanted revenge. Wanted answers. Wanted the real killer behind bars.

His stomach knotted. All that he’d worked so hard to attain the last few years might slip through his fingers if the truth was revealed. That truth had to remain hidden.