Read Last Kiss Goodbye for Free Online

couldn’t remember anything about that fatal night her parents died.
    Except that last kiss goodbye.
    Suddenly another image returned, this one more disturbing. She had been running through the junkyard, had fallen in the mud. A big boy suddenly appeared, piercing her with his dark brown eyes. Bad-boy Matt Mahoney. He reached for her, and she froze in terror, the world spinning and spinning until she spiraled downward into a black abyss of nothingness. The tunnel of darkness sucked her into its vortex, and the memory crashed to a halt.
    The familiar rush of renewed panic that had started after Miss Nellie’s death squeezed Ivy’s chest again. The accompanying light-headedness, the flash of white dots before her eyes, the inability to breathe—she couldn’t control it. A sudden gust of wind rattled the power lines, and gray, mottled storm clouds rolled over the tops of the ridges. Rain splattered the earth, the howling wind blowing leaves and debris across the brown grass. Tree branches swayed with its force, lightning zigzagged across the turbulent sky, illuminating the jagged peaks, which rose like a fortress guarding the town’s secrets. The earth suddenly rumbled, and the ground shook beneath her feet.
    Her heart pounded. What was that noise? An earthquake maybe? A tornado?
    Or the ghosts of the people who had died in the town, the ghosts that Miss Nellie had warned her about? The spirits that wandered the junkyard, trapped beneath the kudzu, begging to escape…
    NIGHT HAD SET IN by the time Matt reached the mountains. Although the majestic scenery and fresh fall air was a welcome reprieve from the city, a storm brewed on the horizon. Thunderclouds rumbled across the sky, and lightning flashed above the treetops. As he neared the hollow, rain slashed the Pathfinder, drilling the ground. It was almost as if Satan had sent this storm to remind him of that awful last night he’d spent in Kudzu Hollow.
    A glutton for punishment, he drove toward the trailer park, unable to face the town just yet. The graveyard for cars still sat in the same location, but weeds and kudzu had overtaken the place. Apparently, no one had kept up Roy Stanton’s business.
    Sweat rolled down Matt’s neck as he bounced over the ruts in the road and neared his old home. His mother’s parting words echoed in his mind: I’m so ashamed of you, Matt. Your brothers are thugs, and I knew you wasn’t any good, but I never thought you’d be a killer.
    She hadn’t believed him innocent any more than the locals had. Her lack of faith had cut him to the core.
    Determined to show her the papers exonerating him, he veered into the parking lot and stopped in front of his old homestead. Weeds filled the yard, and what little grass was left was patchy, with mud holes big enough for a small kid to get mired in. Rust stains colored the silver aluminum, a broken windowpane marked the front, and red mud caked the steps to the stoop. What had he expected? For his mother to have inherited some money and be living in a mansion?
    For her to have hung a Welcome Home banner out for him?
    He cut the engine, inhaled a deep breath, grabbed the papers and climbed out. Ducking against the downpour, he ran up the rickety steps and knocked. His heart pounded as he waited. But no one answered.
    He knocked again, then glanced sideways. Someone nudged the front window curtain back slightly. His mother, years older, and now fully white-haired, with prominent wrinkles around her mouth, peered through the opening. When she saw him, her gray eyes widened in fear.
    “Go away, boy. I don’t want you bothering me.”
    Pain shot through his chest. “Come on, Mom. Let me in. It’s Matt.”
    “I told you to go away. I don’t want trouble.”
    He waved the papers like a white flag, begging the enemy for a truce. “But I’m free. Just read this. The judge cleared me, and these papers prove it. I told you I was innocent.”
    A moment of hesitation followed, then his mother shook