Deep (Heavy Hearts Book 2) by Sarah Duncan (reading tree txt) 📕

DEEP

HEAVY HEARTS BOOK 2

SARAH JANE DUNCAN

Copyright © 2021 Sarah Jane Duncan

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9945177-2-2

ASIN: B08WKN2F3V

PA’s: Affinity Author Services (Bibiane Lybaek & Ashton Reid)

Cover by YETI Book Services (Fiverr) – vikncharlie

Photographer: Alexander Krivitskiy

For my mum

A woman who fought her demons daily, bet the odds so many times I lost count, and endured unimaginable pain that couldn’t always be seen.

She was a woman who knew strength and never gave up fighting.

Here’s to you mum!

“Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

Christine Filmer

1947-2008

CHAPTER ONE

Peering through the sheer curtain, my eyes lock onto the car parked in the shadows outside my house. It’s been there for a few minutes, and no one has climbed out. Whoever parked the car there is still inside.

“Can you see it?” Valarie’s voice reminds me I still have her on speakerphone.

“Yep Val, I can see it. It’s different from the one last night, though.” I’ve deliberately left my bedroom light off to make it harder for whoever is out there to see me as I spy.

“It’s different, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that car before Lexi.” Valarie huffs into the phone. I can just imagine her stretching up on her toes, trying to get a better view of the car from her vantage point in her bedroom next door.

Straining my eyes in the darkness, I try to get a better look. The car does look familiar.

“I think it’s the one I saw drive off early on Sunday morning, but now that I think of it, that’s not the only time I’ve seen this car.” Valarie’s small twelve-year-old voice raises in pitch.

“Are you sure, Val? I need to be sure before I go out there.”

“What?” Valarie shrieks through the phone. “You can’t go out there, Lexi. There have been different cars each night. We don’t know who it is. For all we know, it could be Mike or his creepy friends.”

My twelve-year-old neighbour is both a pain in my arse and the closest thing to a loyal friend I have right now. She was the one who filmed the abuse, my half-brother, Mike, dished out on me a couple of weeks ago and alerted the police. I won’t lie. I’m still pissed about that because I didn’t want the world to know. In saying that, I don’t hate her for it. She technically did the right thing, which is more than I can say for most of the people in my life.

When I dragged my sorry self back home on Saturday after leaving Ayden’s dad’s apartment in the city, Valarie was the first person to see me approach my house. Of course she was. That kid is the street sticky nose!

I’d been standing on the path, staring at my beige rendered two-story house, trying to figure out if it was safe to go inside, when my nosey little neighbour dragged her mum out to see me. It’s then that I found out that Valarie’s mum, Shen, had the locks changed on the house, and had also cleaned up inside. Shen even filled my freezer with frozen meals so that I’d have food for when I came home. If I hadn’t been so consumed with anger from everything that had happened, I most likely would have cried.

Apparently, after seeing a car drive off early Sunday morning, Valarie stayed up late on Sunday night to investigate. It had confused her when she discovered a car parked out the front again that night because it was different from the car she saw that morning, but the problem was still the same. Someone had parked their car outside my house and stayed in it all night, only to drive off as the sun rose over Fox Pines the next morning. Valarie alerted me to the situation once she realised it was actually a situation.

It’s now been five days since I’ve been back home, and each night this week a different car has parked outside my house. Whoever is in the car doesn’t get out. They stay inside until sunrise the next morning when they drive off.

It’s creeping me the fuck out!

Tonight, however, just as Valarie said, the car does seem familiar.

“Val, if it’s the same car that I think it is, then it’s not Mike or his friends. Tell me where you think you’ve seen it before?”

“I feel like it’s the same car that drove past the night that Mike attacked you. I noticed it because it was going really slow as it drove past. Then it went around the corner, and a minute later, two boys came sneaking up to your house and snuck in the front door.” Valarie explains.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Lexi, who...” I cut Valarie off by hanging up, and my phone immediately starts buzzing with another incoming call from Val. I ignore it because I know all she’s going to do is try to talk me into staying inside my house.

Letting the curtain fall back in place, I push down my nerves and walk silently down the stairs to the front door. I’m nervous, but not because I’m about to leave the safety of my house to approach a suspicious car in the dark. My heart is racing for another reason. It aches just thinking about Ayden and the possibility that he might be sitting outside my house right now. I haven’t spoken to him since he told me to leave him alone.

“You asked me to tell you if I