Kelley Armstrong - The Secrets Ebook Bundle

TESS SNEAKED OUT of the orphanage a couple of hours before dawn. That was the best time to meet Billyeven on a Sunday he needed to deliver the bread before six. As Tesss dreams got worse, she found herself getting up earlier and earlier anyway, so she was happy for the excuse to avoid sleep.

The smell of freshly baked bread led her across the town park. As she drew near, Billy held out a hunk of it, letting wisps of cinnamon and yeast waft her way.

Works better than a trail of bread crumbs, he said.

Tastes better too, she said as she took a bite.

The orphanage never got the cinnamon-raisin loaves. Mrs. Hazeltonthe matronsaid it wasnt healthy. It tasted healthy enough to Tess.

Mom mixed in extra cinnamon for you, Billy said.

Tess mumbled her thanks through a mouthful of bread. His mom wouldnt have said outright that shed done that for Tess. No one was supposed to know they were meeting in the middle of the night. Everyone did anyway. It was the worst-kept secret in Hope, and for good reason.

Tess had first seen Billy in town over a decade ago, but shed only really met him five years later, when shed been put in charge of bakery runs. Actually, that had been another girls job, but Tess had bribed her into switching. Her scheme had worked for two years, until the matron realized Tess had almost every job that involved going to town. It wasnt that there was much to see in Hopeit was just a change of scenery, and Tesss soul ached for change of any sort.

Tess and Billy had become friends. Thered been hints that he wanted to be more until last summer, when he met a boy at camp and figured out why hed never actually tried to kiss Tess. Shed been relieved. She didnt think of him that way and had been dreading his overture. Now, to keep his secret, they met a couple of nights a week, and everyone in town assumed they were dating.

That suited Tess just fine. Whenever she started thinking one of the local boys was growing up awfully cute, she reminded herself of Cricket, an older girl at the Home. Cricket used to keep scrapbooks of all the places she wanted to see once she turned eighteen and left the orphanage. Then she met a boy who wanted to stay in Hope, and now Tess would see her out walking their baby and watching the train bound for Toronto. In just over a year, Tess would turn eighteen, and shed be on that train. She wasnt letting anythingeven cute boysstop her.

Mom told me to give these to you, Billy said as they settled onto the dew-damp grass. He passed her a paper bag. Suze left them behind when she went to college.

Tess opened the bag and gasped. She reverently pulled out a glossy copy of Vogue. Last summer, Tess had accidentally ripped one of her skirts and altered it into a mini. Just being frugal. Mrs. Hazelton hadnt been fooled; shed bought her a new long skirt and left Tess to dream of minis and knee-high boots.

Theyre a little old, Billy said. The magazines were dated 1963last year.

Theyre newer than anything I have. Thank you. Tell Suze Ill sew her a Tess caught a whiff of something on the breeze. Do you smell that?

Might be sourdough rye. Mom was going to try a new recipe.

No, it smells like

Tess scrambled to her feet. Smoke. She smelled smoke. Beside her, Billy rose, saying, Somethings on fire.

He wheeled toward the town. She looked toward the imposing manor that had been her home for as long as she could remember. The Benevolent Home for Necessitous Girls. Smoke curled from two second-story windows.

Tess dropped the bread and ran.

Fire. The house was on fire. As Tess raced back to it, thats all she could think.

My home is on fire.

There were no flames yet. But that smoke meant flames were coming, and she had to get up there, wake the others, make sure everyone got out.

As soon as she neared the house, she realized no one needed her to raise the alarm. The procedure for a fire had been drilled into all of them, and the older girls were getting the younger ones onto the main level and checking to be sure everyone was there. When they discovered Tess was missing, one of the girls might go back upstairs and try to find her. A friend risking her life for Tess, because she wasnt where she was supposed to be. Because shed snuck out. Again.

Tess yanked open the side door without even checking to see if the handle was hot. Luckily, it wasnt. Not yet.

Tess ran in. The lower level had only begun to fill with smoke, tendrils creeping along the ceiling. She kept running until she reached the others. Someone grabbed her arm and said, Thank God. We were just going to look for you, but before Tess could even see who it was, she was swallowed by the rush of girls coming down the stairs and getting into formation.

Tess grabbed younger girls and hurried them to the line. As she did, she kept scanning faces, ticking them off a mental checklist. One was missingthe girl Tess looked for the hardest, the one she feared wouldnt be there. Eleven-year-old Maggie, who devoured novels as fast as Tess did and had started on Tesss own library, which the matron deemed a little too old for the younger girl. Tess disagreedthere was nothing truly scandalous in those books. So shed let Maggie read them on the understanding that she do so in private, which she often did at night, curled up with a flashlight in the closet. Whenever Tess returned from visiting Billy, shed check that closet and shuttle Maggie off to bed if shed fallen asleep.

When Tess didnt see Maggie, she bolted up the stairs. The higher she climbed, the thicker the smoke. She remembered what the firefighter had said during their last fire drill, and she pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose to breathe through it. By the time she reached the top, though, it was like stumbling into a campfire, thick smoke everywhere, heat enveloping her, flames crackling.

She followed that crackling and saw flames. On the ceiling. Licking at it. She glanced back at the stairs.

No. Not yet. Dont panic. Just move.

She ran bent over, mouth and nose covered. She kept her eyes slitted, but it didnt help. The smoke set them stinging and watering, and soon she just closed them and felt her way along the wall.

Second door. She needed the second door.

She passed the first. It seemed to take forever to reach the next one. She fumbled for the knob and

Her fingers gripped white-hot metal, and she fell back with a yelp. Pain ripped through her hand, and she stood there, shaking it, fighting against the pain, trying to concentrate. A deep breath didnt help. Even through the shirt she tasted smoke, and it made her cough. That cough helped her forget the shock of grabbing the scorching doorknob, and she used her shirttail to cover her hand as she turned it. She could still feel the heat stinging her burned hand, but she managed to get the door open.

She dropped onto all fours then and crawled. That was better; the smoke was light enough at floor level for her to see her way to the closet. Through the crack in the door she could make out the faint glow of Maggies flashlight, dropped when the girl had fallen asleep.

Tess covered her hand again, rose onto her knees and opened the closet door. The flashlight rolled out. She caught it and then raised it to see Maggie sound asleep, wrapped in a blanket, on the closet floor.

She grabbed Maggies shoulder and shook her. The girl didnt stir. Tess shook harder, her heart pounding now as she realized something was wrong, horribly wrong.

The smoke. There didnt seem to be much in here, but it had drifted through the cracks in the door. How much had Maggie inhaled? Tess struggled to remember what the firefighter had said about smoke inhalation.