Dark Hearts by Sharon Sala Page B

looking at the house in which he’d grown up. God, how he wished his mom would come running with that smile on her face and her arms wide-open. He could almost hear her voice.
    Welcome home, Sammy, welcome home.
    He locked the door behind him, and then turned up the thermostat as he shed his coat. He turned on lights as he went through the house, noticing the changes that had been made and checking where everything was before he began a real search. There was new carpet in the bedrooms, and the hardwood floors in the rest of the house had been refinished. Some of the furniture was unfamiliar, but it fit.
    When he walked into his mother’s room, the scent of her perfume still lingered. It was hard not to be angry that the scent of her perfume was still here but she was not.
    He headed for the kitchen—not because he thought he would find any clues there, but because he remembered his mother’s penchant for baking when she was bothered and wondered if he might find evidence of her state of mind.
    There was a pie in the refrigerator that hadn’t been cut and a cookie jar half full of oatmeal cookies. It was as he’d expected. His vision blurred as he put the lid back on the cookie jar, and then walked to the kitchen window to look out at the mountain behind the farm. So many memories...
    He turned away.
    â€œOkay, Mama, I’m about to put my investigative skills to the test. If you left messages, I will find them, so forgive me for any trespasses along the way. We need to keep Trina alive.”

Seven
    S am began searching the kitchen and found nothing written down but a partial grocery list. He moved into the living room, going through his dad’s metal desk, through his grandfather’s antique secretary, through the tables at both ends of the sofa.
    He was digging through the hall closet when he suddenly paused, then pulled out his dad’s old rifle. It used to be in his parents’ bedroom. She’d moved it closer to the front door, and it was loaded. He thought of her being nervous enough about her own safety to do that, and felt sad all over again as he set the rifle back in the closet and walked away.
    When he got to the bedrooms, he searched Trina’s first, although he didn’t expect to find anything. If his mom was keeping any secrets, this room would have been her last choice.
    Trey’s old room was across the hall. He dug through the drawers, the closet and then under the bed but found nothing.
    When he walked into his mom’s bedroom, he started with her dresser, then went from there to the bedside tables. There were a journal and a pen inside the drawer closest to the phone, but the journal was new, with only a couple of pages used. He could almost hear her talking as he read through what she’d written, but none of it was relevant, so he slipped the journal back into the drawer and continued the search, but with no luck.
    The only room left other than the utility room was his old bedroom at the far end of the hall, and as he started toward it, he began to feel as if he was entering a time warp. He’d walked this way so many times before that when he opened the door, he almost expected to see his stuff still sitting around the room.
    But he was wrong.
    His high school things had been packed away. The bedspread was blue. The curtains white. It looked nondescript and appeared to be a guest room now.
    He started digging through the drawers without expectations and found nothing. He continued moving through the room, looking through books on the shelf, then inside the closet. He glanced at his old desk and started to pass it by, then out of curiosity opened the front drawer.
    Seeing his name in his mother’s handwriting on the outside of a small padded envelope gave him a chill. It was a message from the grave. He sat down on the side of the bed, then hesitated before he finally opened the envelope.
    A tiny jewelry box fell out, and when he opened it he