Tears in the darkness, p.1
Tears in the Darkness, page 1
Tears in the Darkness
IZZY LLEWELLYN SMALL TOWN SUSPENSE SERIES
BOOK SIX
ZARA EVANS
Chapter
One
The world swam back in fragments—harsh light bleeding through her eyelids, the taste of copper and chemicals coating her throat. She fought to open her eyes, but they felt weighted. Her head lolled against something rough. Cracked vinyl. The realization came slowly, like pushing through knee-deep snow.
A van. She was in a van.
Pine air freshener assaulted her nostrils, the artificial forest scent so thick it made her stomach roll. Beneath it lurked something worse—that sharp, medical smell that belonged in hospitals. And under that, fainter but unmistakable, the metallic tang of fear. Her own, she realized. She could taste it with every shallow breath.
The vehicle swayed, taking a turn. Her body shifted with the motion, but something held her in place. She tried to sit forward. Couldn’t. Panic flared through the fog in her skull. She pulled harder. The restraint bit into her chest.
Focus. She needed to focus.
Her vision cleared in patches. Two rows of vinyl seats. Gray. Everything gray except for the darkness pressing against the windows. Tinted. The glass was tinted so dark she couldn’t see out, couldn’t tell where she was, where they were taking her.
A curtain hung between the passenger area and the front of the van. Cheap fabric, papery, like her grandmother’s skin. The curtain had parted in the middle, the gap widening with each bump in the road. Through it, she caught glimpses of the driver. Just his profile—ordinary, forgettable, a face without features, except for the aviator sunglasses that turned his eyes into mirrors.
Bright light blazed through the windshield, bouncing off those lenses in harsh flashes that made her squint. Afternoon sun. Had to be. The color was all wrong for morning. As if the atmosphere were different here, than … where? She felt like she hadn’t seen this light in a while. How long had she been here? The question floated through her mind without finding purchase.
She pulled against the restraint again. Her fingers found the edge of it, followed it across her chest. Seatbelt. Just a seatbelt. The relief that flooded through her was immediately replaced by a deeper dread. Why couldn’t she remember getting in? Why did everything feel so wrong, so thick and slow?
The driver’s head never turned. His hands stayed steady on the wheel. She could see his knuckles, pale where they gripped. He knew she was awake. Had to know. But he kept driving, maintaining his speed, signaling his turns like this was any other delivery.
Delivery. The word echoed in her skull, bringing with it a wave of nausea.
She shouldn’t be here. The certainty of it crashed over her, urgent as a scream. She shouldn’t be here, but she couldn’t remember why, couldn’t remember anything before the pine and the vinyl and those mirrors where eyes should be.
The van slowed. Traffic light maybe. She could hear other engines idling nearby, the distant pulse of music from someone’s radio. So close to normal life, to people who could help if she could just—
The impact came from nowhere.
Metal shrieked. Glass exploded in a constellation of shards. The world tilted, spun, slammed sideways. Her body flew against the restraint, then whipped toward the window as the van tipped. The seatbelt caught her, held her suspended as everything turned on its axis.
The van hit the ground on its side with a sound like thunder. An unnatural grinding crunch that seemed to go on forever.
Silence rushed in after, broken only by the tick of cooling metal and a hissing that might have been steam or air or her own ragged breathing. She hung sideways in her seat, the seatbelt cutting into her shoulder. Blood ran warm down her temple. When had that happened?
Glass. Everywhere glass. It covered what had been the side of the van and was now the floor. The curtain had torn free, tangled around the gear shift. Through the space, she could see the driver slumped against his door, his sunglasses gone, revealing eyes that were startlingly pale and unfocused.
Move. She had to move.
Her fingers found the seatbelt release. Such a simple thing, that button. Red. Plastic. She pressed it and gravity took her, dumping her onto the bed of glass below. Pain sparked along her palms, her knees. Bright, clean pain that cut through the fog better than anything else.
The rear doors. In the crash, they’d sprung open. The light here was muted, the shadows somehow more inviting. She crawled toward them, glass crunching beneath her weight, each movement sending fresh sparks of clarity through her nervous system.
Outside. She had to get outside.
She pulled herself through the opening and tumbled onto hot asphalt. The roar hit her immediately—not ocean waves but traffic, the endless river of cars on the freeway that ran overhead. She knew that sound, knew these streets, somehow, even if she couldn’t place them exactly. The familiar yet foreign scent of the city wrapped around her. Hot pavement, grilled meat, urine. She clambered around the van, propping against the roof that was now the side.
“Help me.”
The voice came from inside the van. She moved around to peer through the shattered windshield, to see the driver trapped in the cab. He looked perfectly normal, like her driving along, except the world had turned ninety degrees on its axis..
“Please.” His pale eyes fixed on her with desperate focus. “You have to help me. My leg—”
Did she know him? The question floated through her mind as she stared at his unremarkable face. Something about him felt familiar, but the vague memory brought no joy.
He fumbled for something, his movements frantic. An envelope appeared in his hand. He shoved it through the broken windshield toward her.
“Take it. It’s yours if you help me. There’s five grand. Just pull me out. Quickly. We need to get out of here.”
Her hand moved without her permission, closing around the envelope. It wasn’t sealed, the flap just tucked in around a thick wad of cash. The money was real. She could smell it, more cotton than paper, dense and somehow obscene. Five thousand dollars. Enough to disappear. Enough to start over. Enough to …
To what? The thought dissolved before it could form.
The driver’s fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Good. Good girl. Now help me. I just need you to pull the dash—”
She jerked away from his grip and scrambled backward. Her body knew what her mind couldn’t grasp—this man was danger. Whatever fog filled her head, whatever drugs coursed through her system, her instincts had been honed over the years and they screamed at her to run.
“Wait! You can’t leave me here!”
But she was already moving, the envelope clutched against her chest as she stumbled to her feet. The world tilted dangerously, but she forced herself forward, away from the van, away from those pale eyes and reaching hands.
The street stretched before her. She knew these buildings, these signs, but couldn’t name them. Everything felt like a copy of itself, slightly wrong, as if someone had rebuilt her world from memory and gotten the details wrong.
A word pushed through the chaos in her mind. Darkness. It pulsed with each heartbeat, urgent and meaningless. Darkness. She shaped it with her lips, tasted it on her tongue. Darkness. A place? A person? A warning?
She didn’t know, but it pulled her forward like a rope around her ribs.
Her feet found their rhythm, muscle memory taking over where conscious thought failed. She passed people without seeing faces, dodged cars without registering their colors. The envelope stayed pressed against her stomach, the money inside it both real and impossible.
How long she walked, she couldn’t say. She came out from under an overpass into the unrelenting light. Her throat burned with thirst. Her feet ached in shoes she didn’t remember putting on. She realized she was wearing a cotton jacket that she didn’t recall at all. Still, she moved.
The plaza opened before her. Too many people. Too much noise. The crowd pressed in from all sides—tourists with cameras, vendors with carts, some people lounging against hot walls and others who moved with a purpose she couldn’t fathom. The sensation overwhelmed her, sent her stumbling toward the edges where shadows gathered between buildings.
Better. The darkness felt better. Safer.
She pressed her back against a concrete pillar and slid down until she hit the ground. The envelope crumpled in her grip. She should count it. Should find somewhere safe to hide it. She patted her jacket, then her blouse. She opened the jacket and found a small pocket, barely big enough to hold half the envelope.
“Darkness,” she mumbled to a woman passing by. The word felt important, vital. “Darkness.”
The woman hurried past without answering.
“Darkness.” Louder this time, to a man in a suit who stepped around her like she was debris. “I need … I need to find darkness.”
They all moved past her, a river of faces that wouldn’t focus, wouldn’t slow. The diesel fumes from passing buses made her stomach revolt. The press of bodies, the cacophony of voices in languages she couldn’t parse—it all crashed over her in waves.
Sleep. She wanted to sleep. Her eyelids felt like lead weights, and the concrete behind her was almost soft, almost welcoming. She could close her eyes right here, let the darkness she kept mumbling about take her.
No.
The thought came sharp and sudden, cutting through the exhaustion. She couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t stop. Something deep in her gut, deeper than memo
She forced her eyes open, pressing her hand against the lump in her jacket. The money was real. The danger was real, even if she couldn’t give it a name. Just a feeling. Darkness.
She just had to find it before the fatigue and whatever was in her system dragged her under completely.
The sun continued its descent, painting the city in shades of gold and amber. She pulled herself to her feet, using the pillar for support. One step. Then another.
She had to keep moving. She had to.
The crowd parted around her as she stumbled forward, her arm wrapped around herself, the envelope hidden beneath, her lips still shaping that single word like a prayer. Behind her, sirens began to wail. But she didn’t look back. Couldn’t look back.
Only forward, toward darkness, toward whatever salvation or damnation that word promised.
Chapter
Two
The Masonic Hall hummed with conversation and laughter, the kind of comfortable noise that came from people who’d known each other for decades. Izzy stood near the entrance, her sheriff’s uniform marking her as separate from the crowd even as she was part of it.
The potluck spread covered three folding tables along the far wall. Pyrex dishes and aluminum pans crowded together in no particular order—Maria Ramos’s green chile casserole next to Sharon Green-Davies’ apple pie, Erica’s famous cornbread still steaming in its cast iron skillet. The competing aromas should have clashed, but somehow they blended into something that smelled like community itself.
“Sheriff Llewellyn.”
Pedro Martinez approached through the crowd, his wife Elena at his side. His uniform was pressed like the first day of school, the new sergeant stripes on his sleeve still bright against the darker fabric. He stood straighter than usual, the promotion adding inches to his five-ten frame. Beside him, Elena wore a flowing blue dress that complemented her olive skin, her dark hair pulled back in an elegant twist.
“Sergeant Martinez.” Izzy nodded, allowing herself a small smile. “How’s it feel?”
“Like I owe you a debt I can’t repay.” Pedro’s voice carried that earnest quality that made him such a good cop. “Without your recommendation—”
“You earned those stripes.” Izzy kept her tone professional despite the warmth behind it.
Elena stepped forward, taking Izzy’s hand in both of hers. “Thank you. This means everything to us.”
Before Izzy could respond, two other deputies appeared at Pedro’s shoulder, pulling him into their conversation about local softball. He threw an apologetic glance back as they steered him toward the drinks table.
Elena watched him go with an expression that went beyond simple pride. She practically radiated happiness, her whole body seeming to shine from within.
“You look good,” Izzy said. “Really good. You’re positively glowing.”
The words left her mouth before she could stop them. She recognized that particular kind of radiance, had seen it enough times. Her mind immediately began constructing an apology, but Elena’s smile widened, her hand moving unconsciously to her stomach.
“The extra money will come in handy,” Elena said softly.
“I didn’t know.”
“No one does yet. Except Dr. Barrow, of course.” Elena’s eyes tracked to where her husband stood laughing with the other deputies. “Not even Pedro. Tonight is his night. Tomorrow …” She shrugged, the gesture encompassing all the ways a baby would change their world. “Tomorrow life changes.”
Elena squeezed Izzy’s hand once more before moving back toward Pedro, slipping her arm through his. He turned immediately at her touch, his face softening in a way that made Izzy’s breath catch with something she didn’t want to name.
Her gaze drifted across the room to where Cole stood with her grandfather. He’d forgone his usual baseball cap, his brown hair slightly mussed from him unconsciously running his hand through it while he did paperwork. The sleeves of his button-down were rolled to his elbows, revealing tanned forearms. He gestured animatedly as he spoke, probably about the Raiders’ chances this season based on Joe’s enthusiastic nodding.
Cole caught her looking and winked. The simple gesture sent an unwelcome flutter through her stomach.
She turned away, her mind shifting to safer territory. Pedro would make a good sheriff someday. He had the temperament for it, the ability to see all sides of a situation without losing his decisiveness. Unlike some people.
Her eyes found Dale Hawkins across the room. The undersheriff stood with a cluster of deputies near the dessert table, his posture relaxed but somehow still at attention. The election had been brutal—Hawkins played the political game well.
In the aftermath, there had been some resistance, so she had laid down the law—she wanted him on her team, but he needed to accept that she was the boss. Since then, she’d expected sabotage, malicious compliance, maybe even resignation. Instead, Hawkins had returned to work as if nothing had changed. Professional. Competent. Waiting.
“—and then little Marcus asked if volcanoes were just Earth pimples that needed popping!”
Tamara’s voice carried across the room, followed by delighted laughter from the group of parents surrounding her. She wore one of her signature sundresses, this one covered in tiny sunflowers, her hands moving expressively as she launched into another classroom story.
Izzy moved through the room, stopping to chat with ranchers about the drought, listening to concerns about teenage vandalism on the park bathrooms, accepting congratulations on Pedro’s promotion as if she’d orchestrated it personally. Each interaction felt both genuine and performed, like she was playing the role of sheriff rather than simply being one.
The deputies relaxed more as the evening wore on, their conversations becoming looser, punctuated with more laughter. Thompson was telling the story about the tourist who’d called 911 because a roadrunner had “stolen” his sandwich. Even Hawkins cracked a smile at that one.
This was good. This was what community looked like—people gathering to celebrate one of their own, sharing food and stories, kids chasing each other between the adults’ legs while their parents gossiped and planned and complained about the heat.
So why did she feel like she was waiting for a bomb to go off?
The thought crept in despite her efforts to push it away. Every moment of peace felt borrowed, temporary. Like she was standing on a fault line, feeling the first tremors that no one else noticed yet. It was always there, that certainty that something would shatter this.
She found Cole deep in discussion with Mr. Bryant from the hardware store about defensive formations. “Getting late. We should head out.”
Mr. Bryant’s face fell. “Already? All work and no play, Doc.”
“It’s Martinez’s party,” Cole said easily. “Time for the boss to exit stage left.”
They collected her grandfather and made their way outside. The air had cooled to something almost pleasant. The last glow of light outlined the peaks of the Sierra Nevadas that forever remained on watch. Izzy slipped her arm through Joe’s, feeling the slight tremor in his gait as they navigated the gravel parking lot. Cole’s truck sat near the road, that perpetually dusty Dodge Ram that had probably seen every back road in the county.
The screech of tires on asphalt made her look up. Elliot Wahlberg’s patrol SUV tore past the Masonic Hall, light bar painting the buildings in alternating red and blue. The vehicle skidded to a stop behind a Greyhound bus parked on the shoulder of Highway 395, just outside the post office.
Her phone rang before she could process what she was seeing.
“Sheriff, we got a medical situation here.” Elliot’s voice was tight with urgency. “Is Dr. Barrow with you?”
“We’re on our way, Elliot.”
She glanced from the flashing lights toward Cole. He was already moving, not waiting for her to relay the message. He opened the rear of his truck and pulled out a black backpack, his entire demeanor shifting from relaxed to focused in an instant.
“I can take Joe home.” Tamara appeared at Izzy’s elbow, slightly breathless from hurrying after them. “You two go.”
