His smile is a crime.
Emerson May is “the good girl.” She’s the perfect daughter, the caring friend, the animal shelter volunteer. But when her best friend’s brother breaks into her room, his hands covered in blood, she doesn’t scream or call the cops. Because when Deacon smiles at her, Emmie doesn’t want to be good…
The whole town believes notorious troublemaker Deacon is guilty of assaulting his father. Only Emmie knows a secret that could set him free. But if she follows her heart, she could be trusting a killer…
You can’t always trust the boy next door.
“Emmie?”
My name lands somewhere between a hiccup and a sob, and my feet stall out on the sidewalk in front of my house. I adjust my grip on the phone, hoping I misheard her tone. This doesn’t sound like Chelsea. This voice is breathless.
Frightened.
“I’m here,” I say. “What’s up? You don’t sound right.”
“I’m not.” She takes a shuddery breath.
My shirt’s sticking to my back and cicadas are click-buzzing the end of another blistering day, but I go cold. Something’s wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“It’s my dad, Emmie,” she says. I can tell she’s crying.
I grab my chest. It’s too tight. Burning. “What happened?”
Her words all tumble out on top of one another, interrupted by shaky breaths. I try to pick out pieces that make sense. “He’s hurt—bleeding—we’re behind the ambulance and I can’t—he’s not—someone attacked him.”
I start climbing the porch steps, because she’ll need me. I’m her best friend, so I should be there. I need to change clothes and go. “You’re on the way to the hospital, right? They’ll help him there.”
Another sharp breath. “I don’t know if they can. He’s so bad. So bad.”
My heart clenches. “Where are you?”
“We’re almost there. Joel’s with me.”
“Okay, good. I’m coming,” I say, crossing my porch and hauling my front door open. “Let me just call Mom. I’ll borrow the car.”
Chelsea’s still crying when I storm down the hallway toward my bedroom.
“Emmie, I can’t find Deacon…”
“Your brother never answers his phone,” I say, pushing open my door. “I’ll run by the docks first and—”
“No. No, he was there. He was at the house.”
Chelsea makes a strangled sound, and I notice the liquid-thick heat in my bedroom. The kind of heat that tells me the air conditioner is broken. Or my window is open.
My gaze drags to my fluttering white curtains, to the dark smudge on the windowsill.
Chelsea’s voice goes low and raspy. “He ran, Emmie. God, he was there with Dad. He was in the house, but he ran.”
I swivel with an invisible fist lodged in my throat. My bathroom door is open, a red-black smudge beneath the knob.
My mouth goes dry, my pulse thumping slower than it should. Then I see the blood on the floor by my sink, and my heart tumbles end over end.
“We’re here. I’ll call soon,” Chelsea says and hangs up.
I see him, his back to my tub and his dark head bowed on one bent knee. Oh God.
He’s covered in blood. It’s on his legs, his hands. Dripping onto my white tile floor. He looks up, and my heart goes strangely steady.
I take a breath that tastes like purpose. “Deacon?”
Top 5 things you couldn’t live without (aside from the necessities of course)
There’s nothing better than lists! Okay, so my please-don’t-leave-me-on-my-island-without-these-things things would have to be:
- And no ordinary chapstick will do. I’m a huge fan of vanilla mint Eos and Jack Black lip balms with sunscreen. I usually like mint flavors, because they burn and trick me into thinking they’re healing my poor dry lips.
- This is such a first world thing to say, but I really do treasure my pricey, frilly coffee. I don’t have Starbucks every day, but after a few days without, I’m always itchy to get my hands on a tall peppermint mocha. (Iced mocha in the summer)
- A sound machine or fan to sleep with. I have wretched, ridiculous insomnia. I swear, in order for me to sleep, the tide has to be right and the moon in a certain position. It’s ridiculous. And I need background noise. Silence feels way too loud to me. It’s like I can hear the blood (or maybe that’s the stress!) rushing around behind my ears.
- My Snuggie. Mock me if you will (I’d mock me—heck, I DO mock me) but I live in Ohio, yo! It gets cold writing in the middle of winter and I need a really ridiculous backwards robe with arms that’s long enough to cover my feet. Yeah. Snuggie. I’m owning it.
- The CH foods. Namely, Chocolate, Cheese, and Chipotle. What? Chipotle is a restaurant, not a food? Whatever, I want my steak burrito bowl and that’s a fact.
Natalie D. Richards won her first writing competition in the second grade with her short story about Barbara Frances Bizzlefishes (who wouldn’t dare do the dishes.) Now she writes about awesome girls, broody boys, and all things dark and creepy. When she’s not writing or shopping her manuscripts, you can probably find her wading through the towers of dog-eared paperbacks that have taken over her bedroom. Natalie lives in Ohio (Go Bucks!) with her techno-wiz husband, three amazing kids, and a seventy pound dust-mop who swears he’s the family dog.
i always loved misery
I liked The Cove (by Catherine Coulter)
One of my fav thrillers is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series
He Found Me was really good but hard to pick one favorite!