The Whole Truth

The Whole Truth So Help Me God Book 2 D F Kennedy This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Copyright © 2023 by DF Kennedy Cover design by Murphy Rae. Cover copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Name: DF Kennedy, author Title: The Whole Truth/DF Kennedy ISBN: 979-8-9860643-3-8 (print) ISBN: 979-8-9860643-4-5 (Ebook) ISBN: 979-8-9860643-5-2 (Hardcover) Created with Vellum Acknowledgments This book is dedicated to two invaluable women I am blessed to call friends. To Emily Hughes Johnson, author of Bird of Paradise, stumbling across MPC changed my life, but friending you is the most memorable part. Once I discovered we shared a love of writing for very personal reasons, I knew we had to be friends. Thank you for answering a stranger’s many questions about becoming an author and for your friendship. Thank you for hours of valuable time and expertise, which made me a better author, and my novels a more enjoyable adventure for my readers. To Jeannie, my BFF of twenty-four years, I’m not sure I would be sane enough to write without your never-ending support and endless hours of conversation. You’ve kept me grounded for years. Look what you helped create. Where to get Help Actual events loosely inspire this book, and the story would not be nearly so honest without disturbing content. Trigger Warnings include violence and abuse, physical, mental, and sexual. Contains references to suicide and rape. If you or someone you know needs help: https://ncadv.org/get-help 1-800-799-7233 (Safe) https://www.acf.hhs.gov/fysb/programs/family-violence-prevention-services/programs/ndvh. 1-800-799-7233 (Safe) nami.org. Text Home to 741741 free, 24/7 (People are encouraged to text if they can’t call and ask for help due to perpetrators being near or close by) samhsa.gov hotline 1-800-662-HELP (4357). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Contents Part One 1. Between The River and Me 2. Confession 3. One Kiss 4. Favorite Crime 5. Hey Hey, My My 6. The Man Part Two 7. Love In The Dark 8. Through The Echoes 9. Falling 10. Bohemian Rhapsody 11. Fingers Crossed 12. The Wolf 13. Nobody Can Save Me 14. Only Love Can Hurt Like This 15. Lose You To Love Me Part Three 16. It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over 17. Chasing Cars 18. Whole Truth 19. The Wedding March 20. The Diary of “Dear Jane” 21. Love Makes You Blind 22. Matilda Author’s Note Whisky Girl Playlist on Spotify Part One Chapter 1 Between The River and Me “Tell…you…whole truth.” Dahlia knows these are not the words of a woman issuing a directive. These words escaped Sylvia’s lips like a jailbreak—a last-ditch effort to free herself of a guilty conscience moments before becoming unresponsive. Sitting in a windowless room, Dahlia prays loudly to drown out the beeping, buzzing, hissing, and whining from the machines keeping Sylvia alive. Dahlia can’t get the sight of the black dahlias spilling, the sound of shattering glass, and the intake of Sylvia’s gasp out of her head. The door to the hospital room opens, spilling light around the man standing in the doorway of the otherwise dark room, bringing Dahlia back from the abyss of her thoughts. She doesn’t want to move; she is finally comfortable; instead, she sighs and smiles as Roland finds his way to the empty chair beside hers and hands her a cup of hot coffee. She whispers a soft thank you in his direction, but he only nods and stares straight ahead. He still isn’t speaking to her. He wants her to tell him what happened at the river. Does she dare? She doesn’t know what happened after she and Sylvia left, and she has no idea who sent the black dahlias. Dahlia needs to consider her words carefully. She doesn’t want to be lied to, left out, or misled; she refuses to treat Roland differently then she expects to be treated. However, something tells her the less he knows, the better. The following morning, leaving the hospital for only a minute terrifies Dahlia, but she and Roland need showers and a change of clothes almost as badly as they need to clear the air between them. While leaving the ICU, Roland is greeted by several staff members and asked to pose for a photo, while Dahlia is assured they will call her with any change in her mother’s condition. Walking out of the hospital and into the parking garage toward Roger and the waiting SUV, she is grateful they are hidden away from the prying eyes and cameras of the news reporters. How did this happen? Who sent the black dahlias? The stress on Sylvia brought on by her health issues, her change in residence, and pending divorce, Dahlia’s novel, kidnapping, and unforgiveness over Sylvia’s lies, Bob’s disappearance, or a combination of all the above led to this. Dahlia knows it. Roger eases the SUV out of the garage and away from Santa Barbara General as Dahlia stares up at the ICU floor and assures herself that her mother is in safe hands. Dahlia needed to turn her cell phone off while in the hospital due to the requests for interviews, news, and social media notifications. Her concern for Daniel’s whereabouts had to take a backseat as she set by her mother’s bedside. Daniel didn’t answer her calls before Sylvia collapsed. Dahlia is positive that he would reach out to her if he has heard the news of her mother. He’s been adamant about staying close to her family even after their divorce. Turning her cell phone on, it rings immediately. Her hope of it being Daniel quickly fades when she sees her interior designer’s phone number, and answers,