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Big Little Secrets (Binge-worthy domestic psychological thrillers)
Big Little Secrets (Binge-worthy domestic psychological thrillers) Read online
Contents
ADVANCED REVIEWS
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
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PROLOGUE
CLINT
NELLI
CLINT
NELLI
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NELLI
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ALSO BY A.B. WHELAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOOK DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
ADVANCED REVIEWS
From Goodreads
"A gritty, intense, fast-paced, riveting, artful melding of stunning psychological thrills and nail-biting suspense."
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"An edgy mystery full of dark secrets, shocking plot twists and pulse-pounding, palpable tension."
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"A MUST for fans who thrive on superbly-written, unputdownable thrillers!"
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"What an amazing book!"
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"A fast-paced thriller which kept me guessing until the end!"
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"Highly recommended!"
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"This is an interesting and fast-paced mystery about a group of teens whose lives have been ruined because of a secret."
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"Another winner!"
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"Oh. My. Goodness!!! What an atmospheric and twisty read!"
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"I flew through this book and I could not put it down!"
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"I stayed up way too late at night but I had to finish this book."
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"At one point I was almost crying and throughout most of the last 60% of the book my heart was pounding so hard!"
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"For the love of reading!!! A.B. writes another great book. I did nit want to put it down."
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"An exceptionally intense read."
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.
© 2022 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.
Big Little Secrets: a novel / A.B. Whelan
Psychological thriller
Suspense, Thriller & Mystery
Domestic suspense
Atmospheric thriller
Europe
For Pheadra
Friendship knows no distance
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
This story is loosely based on a school trip I took to Vienna in high school. During those few days, my friends and I thought we were as free as a bird and nothing could hurt us.
I still think of those memories with fondness.
Now let me take you to Vienna and Hungary.
Happy reading!
A.B. Whelan
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PROLOGUE
NELLI
Science says that the prefrontal cortex—the decision-making part of the brain—isn’t fully developed in teens. Until the age of twenty-five, we rely on another part of the brain called the amygdala, which is associated with emotions, impulses, aggression, and instinctive behavior, in our decision-making. Our parents not only provide us with food and shelter, but they are also responsible for guiding us and making decisions for us until our brain is fully developed and able to make rational decisions. I’d like to believe that this family system works and children can grow up without making devastating mistakes that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. But that’s not reality, is it? Some of us draw the short stick, and one decision, one moment, defines the rest of our lives. Why these things happen to some people but not to others is a mystery we may never solve. Life is a gamble, and it’s rarely fair. Some people do nasty things to others, are greedy, and stomp all over people who trust them to get what they want, and life rewards them handsomely for their unethical behavior. While others step one foot over the line and the consequences destroy their lives. Sometimes the punishment comes later when it’s the least expected. Some people go through life looking over their shoulders, expecting the past to catch up to them, for the police to knock on their door, for the life they built to collapse around them like a tower of cards.
I was one of those teenagers who made one stupid mistake and got away with it. Actually, it wasn’t only me. It was a group of us.
Now the past is behind us, the memories buried deep.
Over the years, we’ve drifted away from each other. We pretend that night wasn’t real. Most of us ran from the origin of our guilt—some farther than others. I moved to the other side of the globe to get a fresh start. But there will always be this secret between us. This big, unspoken secret that binds us together in an eternal covenant. Because if one of us talks, then we all will have to pay the price, with interest.
Sometimes I wish we had faced the music when we were still kids. Before I built a life for myself. A life I fear to lose. A life I’m prepared to protect. But just when I thought I was in the clear, the invitation arrived.
CLINT
At the thrilling melody of my alarm, I swing my arm over with a groan to silence my phone. My life has become a sequence of last-minute trips and high-roller partying interrupted by my desire for peaceful family time. The irregular wake-up times and the uncertainty of where I’ll set my head on a pillow can be exciting, but I find it challenging to cope with at times.
Back in our former home in winter-wonderland Telluride, Colorado, my life was a catalog of prearranged, recurring events. I woke up at the same time every morning at five thirty to open shop before the pillow-wrinkled-faced zombies started banging on the door, demanding their first dose of caffeine and sugary pastries to get them through the next few hours. The busy executive moms in yoga pants who can’t put down their cell phones for a minute to flavor their coffees, acting as if the world would stop if they didn’t handle business on their family vacation. The retired high-level officials and corporate CEOs who are too snobby and grumpy to ask for things nicely and are rather settled in the comfortable role of bossing around my employees as if they work for them. The health freaks who run here from their hotel or cabin in the thirty-degree weather, all too eager to share their pictures of black bears they encountered with anyone who will pay attention. Their stories of facing danger like an expert wilderness explorer would silence the room.
Closer to noon, rich families with spoiled children would swarm the shop. Kids dressed identical to their parents in Eddie Bauer and Patagonia, frowning at the selection of pastries stacked neatly behind glass panels.
After t
he lunch rush, I usually had time to go home and make love to my wife, Nelli, before I had to get back to manage the dinner rush. More endless hours of telling tourists about the must-see places and attractions or listening to regulars (who own multimillion-dollar second homes wedged in the mountains) as they entertain their table guests with stories of their remarkable adventures around the world.
My wife, Nelli, was born and raised in a small town in Hungary, where the sharply distinct four seasons transform the land and the residents’ lives every three months. She felt at home in those evergreen mountains split with rapid rivers and vast grasslands where free-range cows grazed. But she detested the pompous people who thought they were above everybody else because they made millions from exploiting other people or ripping off the government.
I earned enough money as a restaurant manager to afford a comfortable but simple life for my family, and Nelli worked at the local library and organized book clubs to bring home some extra cash. She didn’t have to work, but after Ryan, our son, started school, Nelli went looking for something to keep her busy during the morning hours.
She has always been an energized woman who needs to keep her hands and mind busy and prefers being around people over being alone, despite her quiet and seemingly introverted demeanor.
In the past fifteen years of our marriage, I’ve witnessed her letting go of her ambitions to work in her profession and settle into the life of a dedicated mother and wife with silent resolution. She never complained. Never suggested that her bachelor’s in business could have been put to better use in her home country. If she ever regretted moving to the States, she hid it well, because I never suspected a thing.
I don’t even know why I ponder over this after so many years of marriage with this beautiful woman, but I still do. Maybe because she often looks at me with mysterious eyes, glazed over with secrets, making me feel like a stranger in my own marriage. I’d do anything to get a glimpse of that secretive mind of hers.
Even now, in our new home in Las Vegas, when I set my cell phone back on the nightstand, I feel her eyes on me.
I turn to look at my wife. Her right cheek lies on the pillow, and her big round eyes are fixed on me. Before we left Colorado, we had a routine that my job dictated, but now our life is an unorganized mess, and she has this “What’re your plans for today?” look on her face every morning that makes me feel guilty.
There is a visceral yearning inside of me hoping to pull her into my embrace to spoon until the sun rises and the warm sunlight caresses our naked skin, but I have a flight to catch, so no time for tenderness.
As much fun as I used to make of those rich people back in Telluride for wearing their wealth on their sleeves, I had become one of them.
Two years ago, a patron called Don Carthage approached me at the restaurant and asked me to hook his clients up with some exclusive local ladies, as if I were a concierge of special requests. I wasn’t in the business of pimping out prostitutes. Still, when you’ve worked in the service industry in an expensive, high-traffic tourist town like Telluride for a decade, you get familiar with how things work after the sun sets and unlimited money starts floating around. So, I hooked the guy up with a buddy of mine who had a cousin who knew someone. You know how it works.
The next day I organized a VIP rock-climbing tour at the Via Ferrata for Don’s wealthy clients. The next day he asked me to help them mingle with people of influence and money to network.
By the end of the week, he acted as if I were his personal assistant. It was a gig I enjoyed and that paid well.
The day before his trip had come to an end, Don asked me if I was ready to use my people skills and connections to make real money instead of wasting my life taking food orders. We talked all day and night, draining bottles of expensive Macallan whiskey. He promised me a ten-thousand-dollar advance and invited Nelli, Ryan, and me to his mansion in Las Vegas.
Two years, three months, and five days later, my family and I are still living here.
Don has a profitable business formula in place. He makes his money from creating innovative companies and applying for government grants. He works with law firms that specialize in creating portfolios for the latest batch of funds the current administration throws at people if these business plans use the right words and promise the right outcomes while greasing the right pockets.
Don had just started his twenty-second company before we met in Telluride, the same company that employs me. This one specializes in solving social issues and preventing global warming with a focus on businesses moving away from fossil fuels to electric-operated inventions and a side branch dedicated to AI in workplace education to create the “future workforce.” This description alone should have made me run the other way, but Don is great at what he does, and he is a master manipulator.
Once the company receives approval for these grants, we use the money to hunt down every millionaire and billionaire philanthropist to whom we could gain access to get them in early on the next big thing.
Don presents himself as a visionary businessman who knows everybody worth knowing. His convincing stories swept me off my feet, too. I wished for a life he led—traveling the world, meeting famous people, attending parties on yachts, going to billionaires’ private islands.
Nelli never liked the guy and was against moving to Las Vegas from day one. I can still sense the aura of resentment she wears around me to this day.
“This place is not suitable for raising a child,” she would tell me every time we argued, which is often lately. I had tried getting her to come with me on some of these all-inclusive trips to see how amazing our life could be, but she was never into it. Her paranoia about being on social media borderlines an illness. The mere thought of her appearing in pictures online gives her anxiety, and since these events are aimed to go viral, appearing in pictures is unavoidable. I gave up on asking her to join me at work.
I don’t particularly enjoy living in Vegas either. It’s a desert of light, heat, noise, and drugs. You can’t even see the stars in the night sky from the city lights. Finding a moment of peace is nearly impossible. And I’m getting tired of it all. The initial excitement of foam parties and sushi boats, the VIP concert tickets, the drug-induced meditation retreats with shamans have already lost their appeal to me, but I’m in it all neck-deep now, and without Don and the company, I have nothing.
“We just need a little more seed money, and then we can start the projects Don’s been talking about,” I would tell Nelli when she asked me why all we do is travel and talk at summits. “Then we will be richer than you can imagine. I’ll move wherever you tell me to. We could buy a mansion somewhere along the California coast. Or move to a beachside villa in Florida. Whatever you and Ryan want.”
At first, she believed me and we would start making plans, but now she falls silent and walks away when I mention it.
Nelli has always been mysterious. I can never figure out what is going on in her head. Not because of any language barrier between us, but because she has this quiet sadness about her, like someone who suffered from childhood abuse or trauma. My theory fell apart when Nelli’s parents visited us in Colorado. I watched their gentle and respectful interactions, which made it clear that I was wrong to assume her dad or mom would ever harm a hair on her head.
But there is still something mysterious about my wife I can’t put my finger on. Most Hungarians Nelli talks about who live in the US will visit their home country at least once a year. Nelli hasn’t been back since she left. And it’s certainly not a monetary issue.
“I need to get going. My flight is at seven,” I tell my wife as I brush loose strands of hair back from her face.
My statement is countered with silence. I can tell that the wheels of her mind are spinning, but she won’t let me in. I wish I could get in her skull and have a tool that would help me shuffle through her thoughts. I think a lot about creating a machine that would project her thoughts like a movie where I could skip back and forth, f
inding the information I need. I’ve been mulling over this idea so much that I already shared it with Don. He has someone working on the plans to pitch it to his billionaire clients.
I crawl out of bed and get in the shower. A networking weekend in Tulum, Mexico, should sound exciting, but I’m starting to get weary of talking at speaking engagements and listening to Don telling the same old stories at every social gathering. We have a rehearsed routine. I’m to bring up topics that allow Don to outshine anyone else at the table. Two years ago, I once screwed up our plans as a rookie. I made the mistake of engaging in a conversation about a topic someone at the table knew more about than we did, and she made Don look like a fool. That night my boss had a massive fit in the hotel room, like a spoiled, raging child who was denied ice cream before dinner. With Don, it’s learn fast or be left behind.
As I finish dressing, Nelli finalizes my suitcase and starts zipping it up. I have a feeling I am disappointing her. Again.
“I’m flying to Budapest today,” she says without looking up.
My hands stop buttoning my shirt, and I sense my shoulders tense. “What? Why? Did someone die?” My shock must be apparent, but I never thought I’d hear these words from my wife’s mouth.
She shrugs with the slightest shake of her head. “There is a high school reunion at my old school I must attend.” Her face is emotionless, blank as a virgin canvas. Dammit, woman! Give me something!
I take her hands and search her face. “For years, I asked you to go back home and visit, but you were never interested. Why now? Where is this coming from?”
“I received an invitation a few weeks ago, and I decided to go.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“Yeah, but why didn’t you tell me that you received an invitation weeks ago?”