Sarah's Secret

By Danielle Nicole Bienvenu

Sarah Marshall was molested as a young girl. Betrayed by her parents, she runs away to start a new life. Now as a successful social worker with Child Protection Services Sarah vows to save as many young lives as she can. She'll soon learn that she must face her past or her past will face her.

Sergeant Elijah Ryan joined the United States army when his parents died. He's angry with a God he doesn't even know. It's kill or be killed in the desert and he simply wants to get out alive. That was before he received a letter from a woman would would lead him to the answers he was searching for.

Bienvenu brings the haunting realitites of war and the struggle to overcome one's past that will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Danielle Nicole Bienvenu
• Release date: Dec 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465746429

Danielle Nicole Bienvenu

At 29, Danielle is a professional author and poet of 16 published novels. She wrote her debut novel, "Against All Odds: The Ruby Princess" at 14 years old and published it at 17. She became a professional model in print and on runway at 10. Danielle became a professional actress at 12; doing commercials, theatre, and acting in a pilot series with Haley Duff and Shelly Duval. She has won many international pageants. A former dance teacher, she has been dancing from an early age, winning awards for her choreography and dancing while performing internationally. Like the characters from her first novel, at 18 she received her Coat of Arms from France. Her full name is Danielle Nicole Bienvenu, Lady of Estons.Danielle began song-writing at the age of 6 and writing stories at 10. Danielle has her Master's from Oxford Brookes University in England in International Law and International Relations (focus on human rights), two certificates from Harvard University in Justice and National Security and a certificate in Counter-Terrorism from Georgetown University. She also holds two Bachelor's degrees from Lamar University in Political Science and French with a minor in Creative Writing. A former French teacher, Danielle is fluent in French as well as English but she also dabbles in Spanish, German, American Sign Language, Hebrew, and Mandarin. After living abroad in Europe, traveling around the world, and teaching English in China, she decided to return to her native Texas.Danielle is a seasoned missionary who likes beads and feathers. She enjoys playing guitar to her own beat, dancing in grocery store aisles, and singing whenever the urge strikes. She is often found with pen in hand. She has two furry babies, her Golden Retrievers: Duchess Annabelle and Toby Maximus. Danielle is outspoken about being a voice for the voiceless whether it may be human or animal, and is a motivational speaker on overcoming depression and suicide. She adamantly volunteers to help victims of domestic violence and rape. A lover of history, she has dedicated countless hours to preserving historical museums in her native area. It isn’t uncommon to find her in a recording studio or performing her music in her spare time. She loves to read as much as she enjoys writing.Danielle is also a member of Faith Writers, an online forum for Christian authors. She is best known for her mystery and psychological thrillers, romance novels, poetic symbolism, and works against social injustices. Her genres range from thrillers, mystery, romance, historical fiction, drama, young adult, paranormal, comedy, poetry, nouveau romain, Christian and novellas.

Book preview

Elijah licked his chapped lips. Dirt and grime caked them. Heat waves born down on his exhausted body. The desert was no place for an easy rider and Elijah Ryan was certainly no easy rider. He squatted and brought his rifle to him. He scanned the horizon for any unwanted visitors. Six years in the United States army and nothing ever prepared him for the possibility of being overcome by invaders. Elijah spotted his pal Mitch hiding behind a bush and nodded. Mitch nodded in return. He understood. It was almost time to go in the mud caked shack and look for terrorists. Six years and the adrenaline pumping through Elijah’s veins never ceased to amaze him. Elijah refilled his rifle with ammunition then snapped it shut and waited for the right second to break through the doors with his tent mate, Mitch. A full squad was on the back side of the shack and would cover him and Mitch if needed.

Elijah stilled himself. Once he had been eighteen years old. He was just a kid full of ideas and dreams, dreams of a peaceful world. Ideas of protecting home and making everyone he ever cared about proud. And they would have been proud if they were still alive.

Elijah swallowed hard as the memory of home penetrated his senses. They were bittersweet memories of his father playing catch with him. His mother was gone, killed by a drunk driver when she and his father were bringing Elijah’s birthday cake home. Somehow his father managed to survive. Elijah was seven years old. Guilt engulfed him just for a moment and just like boot camp, Elijah pushed himself through the pain and focused on his dad. He’d been bound to a wheelchair as a result of the accident. There wasn’t happiness and smiles that day, no mother to share the birthday cake with. There was just emptiness. It didn’t matter how many years passed since the day he lost his mother. Elijah could still see the ache in his father’s eyes. He’d never forget the look of desperation, not as long as he lived. It was something Elijah grew accustomed to seeing in Afghanistan. Soldiers fighting for freedom, fighting to protect the country they honored and the family they loved while being racked with desperation to return to them. It was desperation to survive. Everyone in the desert had something to live for. The terrorists had their dreams for murdering innocent lives in the name of their god. They were determined to bring down the infidel. Elijah’s buddies had their dreams to get the job done and return home to their wives and kids. But Elijah had no one to go home to. And so he fought.

And for what? Sometimes he wondered why he cared so much when all he read were newspapers and magazines spitting venom through the pages declaring the American government to be war mongers, eager to murder innocent women and children. But no matter how many times Elijah read along those lines he still knew there had to be a purpose greater than himself. There had to be a God. Soon it became easier to stay in the desert guarding his buddies than returning home for leave. Life was simpler that way. After all there were other reasons why he joined the army in the first place. His father was gone, his best friend. He had no brothers and sisters, no cousins to speak of. There was nothing left for him back home, except a dream. A dream of belonging somewhere. A dream of protecting a people, half of which no longer wished to be protected. But when he saw the faces of the Afghani children and their parents eager to greet him and his fellow troops, Elijah knew he was no longer an eighteen year old child fighting for his own identity and he was no longer a bright eyed child living in an illusion. He’d seen too much death and suffering to ever return there. No. He was a man. A man caught in a violent tempest who couldn’t bring himself to shoot to kill. A man who let his mates do the killing because he couldn’t stand to see another life robbed.

Elijah licked his lips once more as Mitch motioned toward him. Elijah nodded and rose. It was time to save a world that claimed it didn’t need saving. It was time to take up arms and investigate, try not to kill and try not to be killed. Was there a God? What could he possibly have to say about this? People died. Good, solid, wholesome people. People unlike himself. Why was it that God did not choose to save them? And why would God choose to save him? Surely there was no justice in a god like that.

…………………………

Hours later Elijah lay in his tent. The heat of the desert cradled his body. The Afghani desert was different from his boyhood home. He mused over the obvious differences. Here there were dunes of scolding hot sand and gnats that gnawed at you. In his childhood the only time he’d ever seen sand was on the beach of Alabama’s shorelines. The humidity of the south had at least partially prepared him for the onset of desert life’s pressing heat but he’d yet to see any sign of fireflies or muddy water creeks. How he’d loved swimming as a boy. He and his friends would create games out of climbing the tallest rock over the creek and jumping off it into the murky water. Sure, they ran wild but boys never minded so long as there was adventure. And there was. It was a craving he’d never quite quenched; one that often got him in trouble. After all, it was his quest for adventure that led him to this place. Without it he might never have become his own person. He’d grown in ways he never would have back home.

Elijah flexed his muscles. He hadn’t had these when he left home at eighteen years old to save the world. No, he’d acquired his muscle mass along with his military know how in the last three years. No one would ever recognize him if he returned home and besides, he had no family to speak of. He became a family of one once his father died from the stroke. His father did not deserve what happened to him. He didn’t deserve his wife dying a tragic death. He didn’t deserve being put in a wheelchair. His father didn’t deserve raising his son alone. Why would God allow someone to live in such pain? There was no order in that and certainly no mercy like many Christians claimed. But Elijah also knew the image of a hateful god the Muslim extremists painted could not be true either. What was true? So many times he’d seen right and wrong cross over to where they were no longer identifiable. His mother had been a Christian. So had his father. His mother, Anna, read him bedtime stories about King David defeating Goliath with stones he collected from a stream. Maybe that’s why a warrior spirit was instilled inside of him from such a young age. His mother had called him her Little Warrior. And fought he did.

Elijah jolted back to the present when the flap of his tent rustled open. On instinct, Elijah reached for his gun beside him then relaxed when he saw it was Mitch. Mitch smiled at him and pointed at the cot adjacent to Elijah.

You gonna sleep on that or what?

Elijah shook his head and leaned on his elbow, Nope.

Mitch eased over to the cot and plopped down. Moonlight entered through the cracks in the tent. There was nothing like desert moonlight, not even back home. Mitch studied Elijah for a moment then said, You alright?

Elijah shook his head, Nah, not really.

There was no need to ask why. Mitch knew why. Routine had gone awry that afternoon. An Afghani man jumped at one of the American soldiers during their search and out of panic one of their mates fired his gun in defense. The Afghani man died. Elijah hated days like that. No one should die; this he knew. But he had no answers and that left him pondering on evenings like tonight. Mitch didn’t like the loss of life anymore than Elijah did but he also knew one had to defend himself. And in a war zone it was kill or be killed in a situation like that.

I just keep thinking one day it will be me, Elijah’s deep voice spoke in a near whisper. It was the fear of every soldier no matter how young or old. No matter if it was spoken or unspoken. Death was a way of life here. One learned to live with it.

You think you’ll die here? Mitch shifted on the cot. You’ll make it. We’ll both make it.

No, I mean I keep thinking one day it will be my turn to pull the trigger on someone else.

Sure, Elijah had pulled the trigger countless times in training, drills, and on the war zone. But if he were being completely honest he never shot to kill, only to wound or slow his adversary down. Who was he to say who lived and who died? Yet if he were in the same place as his mate he also knew he would have pulled the trigger. It was a war within one’s self, one that never ceased.

Try not to think about it. Elijah nodded at Mitch’s advice. He knew. He’d suck it up like every other soldier out there.

Elijah attempted to take Mitch’s advice. He’d become his confidant, his brother. But as Mitch dosed off on his cot, Elijah cleared off his own cot and tried to nod off. He only ended up staring at the tent’s thin ceiling, his dusty arms folded behind his head. Baths were precious. Sweat continued to bead on his chest. Memories of his childhood returned to him. He saw himself and his childhood friends from the neighborhood gathered around an injured baby bird.

It was a blue jay. It wailed and squawked unlike any bird they’d ever heard before. It had fallen from its nest and appeared to have broken his wing. It was contorted. One of its little legs was also turned disproportionate. It had managed to break its leg as well as its wing in its attempt to fly for the first time. They waited for a few minutes. They waited for the mother bird. She never came. There were plenty of cats in the neighborhood any of which must have ended the mother bird’s life. They’d seen enough feathers in grass to know that. The boys took turns running to their houses asking their parents what to do. Finally one of the parents suggested they kill it and put it out of its misery. None of them wanted to do it but the baby bird was too far gone. So they Paper Rock Scissored it. Elijah was the unlucky one. Dylan, his childhood friend from next door, handed him a BB gun and everyone ran for their own homes. It was just Elijah and the baby bird. His hand shook. Terror engulfed his young body. The baby bird was alone. He had no mother. Elijah had no mother. He was hurt. Elijah was hurting. He would die a slow, painful death and nothing Elijah could do would save him. He wanted to save him. He wanted to runaway. But he couldn’t because Elijah lost fair and square. He was to kill him. And so he did. He lifted the BB gun. It wavered in the air for half a second before he pulled the trigger. Elijah took in the baby bird’s fear. He thought of his pain. And then the shrieking stopped. The baby bird was dead.

Somewhere between Paper Rock Scissors and lifting the BB gun, Elijah drifted into a restless sleep. But sleep was sleep and Elijah would take what he could get.

CHAPTER 2

Sarah Marshall thrust a plethora of files in the passenger seat of her car. It was another long day on the job. Sarah slipped into the driver’s seat and buckled herself up. Safety first. Not that being safe had gotten her anywhere. She backed out of her parking space at the local Child Protective Services office and forged her way onto the road. She glanced to the stack of files resting in her passenger seat. They were children referred to as numbers. Many of which were foster children, displaced souls with no one willing to help them. They were alone and they needed help. Sarah knew all too well exactly how that felt. She would pour over their cases tonight when she ought to be asleep. Tomorrow she would look further into them and hopefully she could make a break enough in their cases to actually do something to help. Maybe she would get lucky and be able to do searches and actually be able to rescue some children. That was what she lived for… that and her relationship with Christ.

Sarah knew exactly what people saw when they looked at her. They saw a platinum blonde workaholic with too much time on her hands. Most people did not take their jobs at the CPS office as seriously as she did. She had her reasons for that. She was fighting ghosts, the very demons that ruined her own life. She wouldn’t let anything that happened to her happen to another child. She would do all she could to make sure of it even if she had to take children in herself. It’s not like she had family of her own. They left her a long time ago. They had once been her everything, that was until they shunned her. She had been her parents pride and joy, her, the same one who was now just an ugly skeleton full of embarrassment they kept hidden in their pretty closets.

Sarah pushed a strand of white blonde hair behind her ear and at bringing the car to a stop, took a right at the stop sign. She was almost home. At first she tried to avoid her ghost. She put on a great act pretending nothing had ever happened. That was until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Today, she knew better. She came clean with the truth to her family then was forced to move away if she was to have any hope of normalcy. And that’s what she wanted: to be normal. Not that she was normal before. There was a time so long ago when Sarah actually lived a normal childhood. The problem was the memories of that life were so vague she could hardly remember them. Instead, her first vivid memory was of something so traumatic it still made Sarah sick to think of it. Her stomach coiled in knots as she pulled into her driveway. She cut the ignition and brought her hands to the top of the steering wheel. Sarah leaned her head on her shaking hands. It was all she could do to keep the past in the past. She was not her past. She was a new creation. Please God, no.

But it was back. Sometimes she could go as long as two months without remembering it then all of a sudden wham; it hit her with a terrible thud. Sarah’s head spun with a violent dizziness. Not again. She was there. Sarah was a five year old girl giggling as she ran out of her grandmother’s bathroom in her new swimsuit. Sarah’s biggest growth spurts took place during the summer so her mother took her shopping at the beginning of each summer for a new swimsuit. This year she let Sarah pick out any swim suit she wanted. Sarah had been so overjoyed. She loved shopping with her mother like any little girl did. She had picked out a green swimsuit with yellow polka dots. Sarah’s mother, Margaret, painted Sarah’s nails bubble gum pink the day before and Sarah was still enthralled by the rosy hue. She was such a typical girl, full of sweetness and innocence. Until… Sarah shook her head but it did no good. She was still there, running out of her grandmother’s house toward the back yard.

No, don’t go… Don’t go. Stop. But Sarah’s younger self couldn’t hear her. Sarah could still see her tiny feet carrying her to the pool side. The deep end of the pool was closed off. Her Mommy and Daddy were inside with her Aunt Linda and grandmother. Sarah’s pig tails flopped against gravity. She was so happy that summer until…

Sarah saw her cousin Lyle sitting on the shallow end steps. Why wasn’t he swimming? Sarah climbed into the pool, her tiny legs dangling over a step. She held on to the railing and slid closer to him. They had always played together as little kids. Their birthdays were celebrated together and they were only a year difference in age. Instead of one small birthday party their family celebrated with one gigantic cake and ice cream celebration. Sarah looked forward to her birthday parties. She usually received a new Barbie doll or a Troll. She loved playing with Barbie’s. But everyone always bought Lyle GI Joes or Nerf balls.

What’s the matter? Sarah asked, afraid of the answer. He looked like his puppy just died. Sarah couldn’t stand the thought of a puppy dying. If her puppy died she would cry all day and maybe never stop.

He said nothing.

Lyle, don’t you wanna swim? They always swam. And soon her grandmother, Aunt Linda, Mommy and Daddy would be outside to swim too, wouldn’t they?

Sarah grew nervous. What was wrong with him? Why wouldn’t swimming make him feel better? Maybe he needed ice cream. Maybe his puppy really did die. Lyle’s little hand stretched toward her. She thought he was going to help her into the water. But he wasn’t.

Let me see yours.

My what? Sarah cocked her head. Her little heart beat faster. Something wasn’t right. What was it? Why wasn’t Lyle smiling?

Before Sarah could say anything else Lyle shoved his hand in her bottoms. Sarah wanted to scream. She wanted to run away but she was too afraid to move. Where was her Mommy? Where was her Daddy? Why didn’t her grandma come out? They were supposed to be here to protect her. Sarah looked around for her parents. She watched the door, hoping they would come out. Why was Lyle doing this to her? She thought they were friends. She didn’t know how to make him stop. He didn’t care that she didn’t want to. He was hurting her. She was so afraid. Lyle grabbed her hand and forced it toward his pants. Sarah squirmed. Sarah felt like she did when she got sick and Mommy made her chocolate pudding even when her stomach was twisting. It was definitely twisting now like it did before she threw up. She tried to get up but couldn’t until Lyle finally let go of her hand. He said something as Sarah got up to leave, but she didn’t care. She wanted to get away from him. He hurt her even if she didn’t understand how. Sarah ran toward the back door. Before she could go inside, her Aunt Linda came barreling out the doorway carrying ice cream and smiling a grin the shape of a half moon. She looked to Sarah then Lyle, her son.

Sarah couldn’t remember what she said. She just remembered her Aunt looking so happy. Sarah was too afraid and felt too guilty to make her Aunt sad. She’d never known that feeling before… guilt. She only knew she didn’t like it. Besides, Sarah didn’t know what had really happened. Sarah felt sick again. Lyle walked up behind her and took an ice cream sandwich from Aunt Linda. He glared at Sarah but Aunt Linda didn’t seem to notice. Sarah understood. Whatever had happened was really bad. Scary bad. And Sarah was scared. She was supposed to tell her Mommy and Daddy everything but Lyle didn’t want her to tell. She would be in trouble. Because whatever happened must mean Sarah was a bad girl too. Sarah wanted to cry. She didn’t want to be a bad girl. She wanted her Mommy and Daddy to be proud of her. She ran inside the house, past her Aunt Linda and past her cousin Lyle.

She just wanted her Mommy and Daddy. She wanted everything to be how it was before she came outside in her green and yellow polka dot swimsuit. She wanted Lyle to be happy so he wouldn’t be mean to her and force her to do things she didn’t want to do. Sarah hid in a corner of the living room behind her grandmother’s recliner. She heard her parents laughing with her grandmother in the kitchen. They were probably eating ice cream. Sarah slid further behind the recliner. She wanted to go home. She wanted it to be over. She began to chew on her bubblegum pink nail polish. Her slender arms and legs shook. Her stomach was filled with terrible butterflies. She closed her eyes. Maybe if she closed her eyes and wished herself home like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz she would be home. She whispered it. Nothing happened. Sarah felt like she was going to throw up. She tried again, There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home. But with each time she whispered it, Sarah’s hope of being home grew dimmer and dimmer.

CHAPTER 3

Sarah pulled herself together. She wasn’t that little girl anymore. Birds chirped outside her car. She could see them flapping their wings on a perch far into the tree outside her home. Blue jays, no less. Could there be a happier bird? Sarah shook her head at the irony of it all and composed herself enough to grab her purse, keys, and the files taking over her passenger seat. She locked her car door and strode toward the front door of her house. It wasn’t much but