As Sick as Our Secrets Read online

  From the author of the best selling 14 Days to Die comes a fast-paced thriller with strong characters for fans of The Girl on the Train and Big Little Lies.

  Praise For

  14 Days to Die

  "This may be called 14 DAYS TO DIE but it only took me one and a half days to read it. I was hooked from beginning to end."

  —Sue and her Books

  "Whoa...I was not prepared for this. This is a gripping thriller full of twists and turns.”

  —Michelle Only Wants to Read

  "Talk about a fantastic plot and premise for a thriller! Not only was this one fast paced, it had exceptional character development… Overall a fantastic read that I highly recommend!"

  —Suspense is Thrilling Me

  "I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to psych thrillers (probably because I read so many of them), so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this one."

  —Kelly and the Book Boar

  "You will NEVER see the ending coming and if you are anything like me...that ending will totally piss you off. AB Whelan...that ending knocked me on my behind and left me speechless and ready to scream! BTW...I LOVED THIS ONE BIG TIME!!"

  —Jamie Submits to Books

  Advanced Praise For

  As Sick as Our Secrets

  “As Sick as Our Secrets was a fast-paced psychological thriller that kept me gripped right up until a very satisfying ending.”

  —Dee’s Rad Reads and Reviews

  “A devious thriller that’s as chilling as this never-ending winter.”

  —Suspense is Thrilling Me

  “As Sick as Our Secrets by A.B Whelan is going to be one of this year's best psychological thrillers! … It is dark and real, with windows of light to make the book very close to perfect.”

  —Cloud of Thoughts

  “An enticing, thrilling mystery with fantastic heroines.”

  —Kate, CreateSpace

  “This was a dangerously addictive thriller that I read with my mouth wide open at times as things started to take some unexpectedly nasty turns! It may not be everyone’s cup of tea due to some scenes of sexual violence, but nothing was so graphic that it spoiled my enjoyment of the powerful narrative and immersive plotline, which I have to say reminded me of “Big Little Lies” at times. Well worth a look!”

  —My Chestnut Reading Tree

  Read more reviews on Goodreads.com

  Click here

  AS

  SICK

  AS OUR

  SECRETS

  A psychological thriller

  A.B. Whelan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Andrea Bizderi Whelan

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  As Sick as our Secrets: a novel / A.B. Whelan

  Psychological thriller

  Suspense, Thriller & Mystery

  Female friendship

  Serial killer

  Sexual abuse

  “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.”

  –Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat

  Part One

  Who Is Skyler O’Neill?

  Twenty-Seven Years Ago

  My fingers tighten around her neck, and my thumbs push against her windpipe. Her hands pound on my chest. Her nails claw my arms, my neck. My skin throbs alive with a pulsing burn where her broken, jagged-edged nails penetrate my skin. I understand why she tries to resist me, but her efforts aren’t enough to stop me. I will no longer allow her to push me around like a mindless dummy. I see more clearly now than ever. My self-confidence peaks to incredible heights. I’ve never felt this strong before, with so much power coursing through my muscles. I’m a mountain of man, indestructible, and instead of pulling away, I lean into her resistance.

  The swollen face I’m forced to stare into looks different from the image of her I have in my head. Her face is no longer flushed with the healthy pink tone of a superior, confident young girl who thought she had the upper hand. “You fucking idiot! You dumb loser!” she had screamed at me only a few minutes ago. Who is the loser now? Huh?

  I gave my heart to this girl. I treated her like a lady, the way my mother taught me: “Be polite. Be kind. No means no. Don’t use girls. Don’t hurt their feelings. Don’t ever force yourself on a girl.”

  But my mother was wrong. These girls at school don’t want a gentleman. They take kindness for weakness. What they need is a tough guy who slaps them around, pins them to the wall, and fucks them hard.

  Blinded by anger and disappointment, I push down harder on her throat. Her pulsing blood drums under my fingertips. She looks sick and weak with bloodshot eyes that spill tears and purple lips that tremble. I like her better this way. Focused. Silent. Submissive. I know that I won’t let go of her neck until all evil leaves her body through those sharp blue eyes and thin lips.

  Sometimes, when I’m blinded by anger, my head starts buzzing—like it’s buzzing now. In those moments, my inner voice urges me to break something, to hurt someone. But I’ve never gone this far before.

  I won’t deny that I’ve thought of slapping some sense into Caroline on other occasions—like when she asked me to pick her up at seven o’clock sharp, yet when I arrived at her house, she wasn’t ready. She made me wait in the car for half an hour. Punctuality is essential when it comes to relationships. Making your boyfriend wait for thirty minutes is rude. Caroline is a rude girl.

  I should have realized how bad she really was after our first few dates together. Like when I brought her a sandwich for lunch and she told me she hated ham and threw the whole thing in the trash can at the school cafeteria. Or how she made me pay for every movie ticket, every meal, every special order she’d send back with the waitress at least twice just to humiliate her.

  I wish my mother had done a better job preparing me for these real-life, self-absorbed drama queens. The idea of dating she gave me was a fairy tale.

  As the minutes roll on, I become aware of the pressure inside my right knee as it digs deeper into Caroline’s chest. I want this nonsense to be over, but she refuses to apologize to me. Why can’t she understand that I can’t let her go until she does? Her pleading words of “Please, don’t!” and “Help!” and “Let me go, please!” are now replaced with gurgling sounds. Just say you’re sorry, and I’ll forgive everything you’ve done to me.

  Caroline turns out to be a stubborn bitch. Not even pain and fear can make her humble.

  I stare deeper into those once glistening but now bulging and damp eyes. Who’s the loser now?

  Only a few minutes ago, her eyes were rolling with disdain and pity as she tried to break up with me. But instead of gently letting me go without hurting my feelings, she unleashed the monster inside of me. After that, it was easy to overpower her and pin her to the ground. Now I’m here to witness the light slowly diminishing from the mirrors of her dark soul as her eyes turn into dull, lifeless orbs, a pair of tacky glass marbles.

  Why aren’t you laughing now, bitch? I hear the words in my head, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of knowing how much she hurt me with her words.

  She tries to kick me, but I notice her ridiculous attempt in time to move my right knee over her stomach. I force all my weight
onto this one spot, right below where her ribs meet, and that’s more than enough to pin her down. All she can do is flap her skinny arms like an anemone in a current, a desperate effort to find and strike a weak spot in me. She doesn’t know that all my weak spots are inside of me and that she has already torn through most.

  I’m the victim here. I’m the one who got hurt. But I’m too strong now to let my weaknesses get the better of me. It’s my responsibility to make her understand that she can’t antagonize people the way she does. Boys have feelings too, and contrary to the common misconception that those feelings include only hunger, thirst, and the need to fuck, we do have more refined feelings.

  I lean closer to her face. “You’ll never hurt me again!” I whisper.

  She can’t or doesn’t want to reply, and her mouth hangs open like a blow-up doll’s. I can smell on her breath the chocolate strawberries she ate moments before she broke up with me. What kind of person eats her boyfriend’s ten-week anniversary present and then tells him that she doesn’t want to be with him anymore? Caroline is evil, and I will stop her from casting her malicious spell on anybody else. I will choke the bad out of her if it takes me all night. I’ll do that for her because I care.

  I loosen my fingers to allow her to catch her breath. Hope returns to her eyes, but her lips are still shaped downward in fear and loathing. My job is not done yet, but there is time for a short break to stretch my fingers and loosen up a few muscles in my arms and legs. Maybe the consequences of her actions will enlighten her and she’ll start properly apologizing to me. She owes me one heartfelt and honest apology.

  Earlier tonight, I picked Caroline up at her house and drove her to my place. Like so many times before, we walked straight to the guesthouse—located at the south side of the property, past the pool, behind the rose garden—without disturbing my mother in the main house. But tonight’s date was special because it marked the ten-week anniversary of our secret romance. I prepared for this special occasion with a sea of candles and rose petals sprinkled on the hardwood floor and a box of chocolate-covered strawberries.

  As far as the preparation went, I really outdid myself because this ten-week milestone not only symbolized my deep, emotional relationship with Caroline, but it also marked my longest relationship to date. I wanted to show my dear Linnie how special she was to me, how much our relationship meant to me.

  In the car on the way to my mother’s estate, Caroline was moody and looked tired, but I was sure that once she saw the extra mile I went for her, she’d lighten up.

  I opened the door wide for her, expecting her to jump out and throw her arms around my neck and kiss me all over with her sweet lips, but instead she sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re too sweet to me,” she said, taking the biggest strawberry from the box on the silver tray I held up for her. She nibbled the chocolate off and discarded the rest back onto the tray. Then she sat the tray on her lap like a petulant child and said, “I can’t be with you anymore.”

  I stood in front of her like an idiot, words lost to me, holding the platter of neatly arranged berries like a loyal butler. This was not how this night was supposed to go.

  She took another strawberry and bit into it. “Why don’t you say something?” she demanded, glowering—a very unladylike response—and tossed the bit-off stem, sticky with her saliva, at me. “You’re so weird sometimes, you know that?”

  “Did I do something wrong?” I implored, feeling a mixture of humiliation and confusion colliding inside of me.

  She rolled her big azure eyes at me. Only yesterday, those eyes were elated and dazed with pleasure as she sat on my lap in the back of my car. I knew she wanted to be with me, but I couldn’t allow our first time to be in the back seat of a car, even if I had spent hours polishing the leather for her.

  Caroline deserved more than that. She deserved candles, flower petals, and chocolate-covered strawberries. I was going to give her all of that: things girls dream about in their fluffy beds; things girls whisper to their plush animals.

  Tonight was supposed to be our big night. I was going to make love to her. I had it all planned.

  She flung herself onto my couch—the couch where I kissed her every night for the past seventy days—and harrumphed. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m just so over this. I need some space.” She said it easily, as though we were nothing. She tossed the words at me like unwanted clothes onto her bed—clothes that don’t fit her anymore because they are too old, too worn. That’s who I am to her? A worn-out piece of clothing she’s grown tired of?

  I should have let her break up with me, should have taken it like a man, but her words were too cold and unexpected, and I couldn’t breathe. Tears pressed against my eyes. Showing weakness infuriated me. The worst thing I could do was weep like a girl in front of her, especially after she used the word “sweet” to describe me. I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand to save what dignity I had left.

  “Don’t act like you’re so heartbroken,” she sneered, tapping the spot next to her on the couch, inviting me to sit down. Who is this girl? What did she do to my Caroline?

  “I’m heartbroken,” I managed to say. I kept my distance from her. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself with her. “I thought you loved me.”

  “Come on, honeybun, there are plenty of girls out there for you. You should be happy that I’m releasing you and allowing you to go out and experiment with other girls.”

  I clenched my jaw. I was not going to respond to her ridiculous offer. “You said we’d always be together. You promised,” I pleaded.

  “Don’t be an idiot. We’re both going off to college soon. This thing. Us. It wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

  She reached out like an octopus reaching for its prey, grasped my shirt, and pulled me onto the couch on top of her.

  I let her.

  She didn’t waste a second as she leaned into me teasingly, bit down on my lower lip, and pulled on a chunk of it with her teeth. I didn’t taste her. I tasted blood.

  “I’ll miss our little games, though,” she teased.

  I pushed myself away from her and dabbed at the bloody cut on my lip with my finger. “Don’t play stupid games with me, Linnie. You know I hate them.”

  “Fuck off, asshole!” she bellowed, shoving me hard with both hands. I fell back and hit the back of my head on the edge of the coffee table. A candle toppled over and spilled hot wax onto the cracked and aged wood tabletop.

  “Now look what you did!” I shouted, holding the back of my head, which was throbbing and burning. Mother always says that the most important parts of the brain are in the back and that I must protect them by any means. A curtain came down in front of my eyes, and I became trapped in a dark place, overwhelming and cold.

  Breathing heavily, I looked at the smoking wick of the knocked-over candle. I’ll never be able to scrape the wax out of the cracks of the hardwood. Mother will kill me. Anger heated up inside me. As if it wasn’t enough that she disrespected me, that she hurt me, and that she might have done permanent damage to my brain, but she had no respect for my mother’s stuff either. What a bitch!

  As my eyes focused on her startled face, the only thing I could think about was shaking this monster out of the Caroline I loved.

  I sprung to my feet. “You’re not giving me freedom. You’re fucking that new guy, Blake, aren’t you?” The words rushed out of my mouth, jagged and dangerous. “I should have known.”

  Images of my sweet Linnie wrapped in Blake’s arms, naked, smelling of sex, and glowing with perspiration tainted my mind. The pictures were so real and painful that I couldn’t bear to watch them. I began banging my forehead against the wall until I saw stars. I wanted to black out. I wished to die. Without my love for Caroline I had nothing. Facing tomorrow without a purpose was threatening, a dark tunnel with no light at the end.

  “Stop being so dramatic. We had a good run. It was fun, but now it’s over.” She was back on her feet, standing in front of the sofa, fix
ing her skirt into place. I wanted to rip the buttons off her blouse, tear off her tiny lace panties, and violate her.

  Why is she leaving me? Wasn’t I good enough for her? I should have been tougher. I should have pushed her against the wall on our second date and fucked her like those fictional alpha males in those stupid romance books she reads. That Blake dude was a jackass. Is that what she wants? I can give her that. I can be rough.

  I launched myself at her and took down her lanky body that had never seen a day in the gym. We landed painfully on the couch.

  She slapped me hard across my face. Not the usual playful way she would do sometimes. This was a real slap, an angry one. How can she go from love to hate so fast?

  Only last week she told me she loved me. We were lying on the hood of my car, staring at the starry sky and drinking Coca-Cola from the bottle; we were dreaming about the future. Now there was only disgust and fear in her eyes. I held her down steadily. As strange as it felt, I became aroused from the way she struggled underneath me. She noticed my erection and spit in my face.

  I ripped her blouse open. The plastic black buttons popped and landed on the wood floor around us like firecrackers.

  “You fucking idiot! Get off me, you asshole. You’re a fucking loser. I hate you!” she screamed, squirming in my clutches. Her name-calling was fuel on the fire and made me want her more.

  My fingertips came alive as I groped under her skirt. I became aware of every texture I touched. The soft fuzzy hair on her upper thigh. The shaved skin between her legs. Her wetness.

  A hot tingling started in my groins and began spreading to my legs. Warmth crawled up my spine. The rush of blood in my head made me feel dizzy.

  She slapped me again, this time harder and with better aim.