The first in the J.J. Graves series Liliana Hart
introduces
us to a small town mortician/ corner. J.J. (Jaye) comes
home after the death of her parents and takes over the
family business of burying bodies. Jaye had been on her way
to becoming a surgeon when her parents suddenly died and
she is left to deal with the mess they created and all the
bills to go with it. Coming back to the small town of
Bloody Mary population 3000 is hard. Everyone knows her and
knows what her parents did and in this town the sins of the
father are not easily forgiven or forgotten. Jaye does have
her best friend there in the form of the Sheriff Jack
Lawson. They grew up together and have known each other all
their lives. Jack is a former D.C. SWAT officer and
gorgeous as heck at least that's what all the women who
throw themselves at him think. Jaye just see her best
friend and when people start getting killed she knows she
has to help him catch whoever is doing this. A sexy
bestselling author comes into town and soon falls into
Jayes bed. Now she must help Jack, deal with the feelings
for this new man and cope with all the DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS
that are coming out about the towns' people before the
killer decides to make her his next target.
DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS is a grab you and keep you reading
story. Liliana Hart does her research and her best to get
the details of the jobs characters she is working with
right. J.J. Graves is a real woman who works though the
hard times and gives it all for her friends. The people in
the story work together and you can see yourself in this
small town with them as the look to catch the bad guy or
just when they are playing a game of poker. It's a book
you'll enjoy and then make a grab for the next in the
series.
J.J. Graves has seen a lot of dead bodies in her line of
work...
She's not only in the mortuary business, but she's also the
coroner for King George County, Virginia. When a grisly
murder is discovered in the small town of Bloody Mary, it's
up to J.J. and her best friend, Detective Jack Lawson, to
bring the victim justice.
The murders are piling up...
The residents of Bloody Mary are dropping like flies, and
when a popular mystery writer shows up on J.J.'s doorstep
with plans of writing his new book about the Bloody Mary
Serial Killer, J.J. has to decide if he might be going above
and beyond the call of duty to create the spine tinglers
he's so well known for. It only clouds the issue and puts
her reputation on the line when the attraction between them
spirals out of control.
And passions are rising...
J.J and Jack are in a race against time. They discover each
victim had a shocking secret, and the very foundation of
J.J.'s life is in danger of crumbling when it turns out
she’s harboring secrets of her own—secrets that make
her the perfect victim in a deadly game.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Fourth generation mortician. That’s a lot of dead bodies.
I thought I’d be proud to carry on the family legacy, but
that was before I knew the job would be hell on my social
life. I mean, who wanted to date a woman who drained blood
on a regular basis and whose scent of choice was embalming
fluid?
Sure, I got a little lonely sometimes. It mostly happened
when I was preparing a body in the middle of the night
instead of snuggled up next to someone warm with a pulse.
But dead bodies were my business. And I hated every fucking
minute of it. I never wanted to take over the family funeral
parlor. I wanted to be a doctor. Well, technically, I was a
doctor, but I preferred to be one for the living.
My parents died early last year, and the gossip and scandal
involved would have broken someone with a lesser
constitution, but I’d managed to hold my head up. Mostly. It
was because of my parents that I’d had an impromptu career
change. The only thing I had left of them was the crumbling
old Victorian I grew up in and Graves Funeral Home—believe
me, it was a hell of a legacy.
I had little choice but to resign my job at the hospital,
pack my bags and move back to Bloody Mary,
Virginia—population 2,902. The good thing about owning a
funeral home in Bloody Mary was that hardly anyone ever
died, despite the rather macabre name. The bad thing about
it was I had a shitload of student loans to pay back and not
a lot of income.
Did I mention the budget cuts?
Ahh, my life was simple before the budget cuts. The mayor’s
decision to be more fiscally conservative left King George
County without a coroner. So, I, J.J. Graves, in a moment of
temporary insanity, volunteered for the job. In all
actuality, I was strong-armed into taking the position out
of a sense of duty to the community and the guilt of
tarnishing my family’s good name. Well, tarnishing it any
more than it already was.
Which brought me here. Alone in my bed in the middle of the
night. My bedroom so cold white puffs of breath clouded
above my face every time I exhaled because I couldn’t afford
to crank the heater above 65 degrees. My toes wiggled and
fought for release beneath the nubby covers I’d tucked under
the mattress too tightly, and goosebumps spread across the
top of my skull and tightened the skin so much that it felt
as if the follicles might snap off.
I’d been wide awake for more than an hour, thinking of my
family, what was left of my legacy, and how much my life in
general sucked. Not for the first time, the thought entered
my mind that it wouldn’t be so terrible if I just packed a
bag and left everything behind me without a word to anyone.
I didn’t have any family to worry over my disappearance. No
children to leave belongings to. Sure my friends would miss
me for awhile. But eventually the people who’d watched me
grow up would only have passing thoughts about that Grave’s
girl whose parents killed themselves. All the while I would
be starting a new life. Hopefully someplace warm.
But like I always did, I immediately dismissed the thought.
It took more courage than I had to start over and leave
everything familiar behind. I needed something in my life
besides a half-assed career and a mountain of debt. A man
would be nice. A man who’d be willing to have sex would be
even better. But chances of that happening were somewhere
between negative four and zero. Not because Bloody Mary
didn’t have its fair share of men, but because I was just
picky. Bloody Mary wasn’t exactly teeming with single males
under the age of forty who had health insurance and all
their own teeth.
I huffed out another white puff of breath and rolled over,
punching my pillow and clearing my mind of all thoughts that
didn’t involve counting sheep. I’d had trouble sleeping
since I’d moved home. Maybe it was because the house was
empty and made weird noises and my imagination assumed the
cold blasts of air and the rattling pipes were the haints of
all my ancestors shaking their heads in pity. Or maybe it
was because the mattress was old and lumpy. Who the hell
knew? But I’d learned to function on just a few hours of
sleep when I was in medical school, so I was used to having
bags under my eyes and skin that looked like it never saw
the light of day.
The silence of the house smothered me—a heap of decaying
wood and rotting shingles that crushed me with the weight of
neglect and responsibility—so I burrowed under the covers,
searching for peace of mind and the comfortable spot on the
mattress that always seemed to elude me. I’d almost talked
myself into getting up and starting a pot of coffee when the
phone warbled on the bedside table.
I cursed out a mumbled, “shit” in surprise and flailed under
the covers so my sheets resembled something along the lines
of a straight jacket. My pulse jumped and throbbed in the
side of my neck, and each pounding beat marched through the
synapses of my brain until I became lightheaded with
something I recognized as fear. I closed my eyes and let out
a slow breath.
The only time I got calls in the middle of the night was
when someone died. I hated death. I hated that my parents
had left such a massive responsibility on my shoulders. And
most of all I hated that I was the only one the dead could
turn to. I missed the living. The dead made me think of
things I wasn’t quite ready to face.
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