The recording played. Blythe moved slowly toward the electronic device, and Tom got to his feet. For about a minute they stood side by side, listening.
Skokie’s voice said, “. . . because of my interest in preserving the deserved reputation of an A1 statewide prosecutor? So maybe her husband fucked up. Maybe he got greedy with a little insider trading. Maybe he was sloppy, left things for a Vasquez private investigator to pick up on. What he did was before he ever met her. This world we live in today — Jesus. You do something a hundred years ago and it comes back to bite you.”
Blythe turned her head and looked at Tom as they listened through to the end.
“Hey,” Tom asked. “How is Guttridge’s family? They okay?”
“Being moved today. We’re keeping watch on them. I heard the daughter is a little upset about having to leave her classmates, but she’ll adapt.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “She’ll adapt.”
Blythe slapped him on the butt and strode toward the stairs. “Sit tight, Lange. I’ll be in touch. Looks like Ed Skokie has a lot to answer for.”
“Old people forget about technology,” Tom said.
She called from halfway down the stairs. “I’m not old.”
“I didn’t mean you.”
The door opened and when it didn’t close, he moved to the top of the stairs and looked down.
Blythe stood in the doorway. “What’s this mean now?”
“What’s it mean?”
“You gonna make a girl ask? Tom, there’s got to be something you can do with us. Don’t make me . . . This isn’t my style.”
“I know. You’re one of a kind.”
She waited, looking up at him, eyebrows raised.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “I’ll think about it.”
Blythe, as ever, didn’t betray any feeling with her face. Just watched him another second and then closed the door.
Tom moved back into the condo, speaking to no one. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
THE END
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book wouldn’t have happened without Sergeant Andrew Smith at the Collier County Vice Narcotics Bureau, or Lee Clark, who introduced us. Lee provides a loving home to foster children who flourish under her care. She continues to inspire me every day.
There would be no southwest Florida stories at all if it weren’t for my father, James Brearton, or the encouragement of Jasper Joffe to write more stuff with swamps and alligators. Thanks to Ed Handyside for asking the right questions, Laura Coulman for his copyedits, and thanks to all you wonderful readers who read the first two Lange books and asked for more.
Now, sometimes you hand a friend a manuscript and they know it’s a troubled mess — that’s why you’re asking. But they read it anyway and basically save your butt. For me, that person is Geoff Pierce. Thank you, old pal, for putting the holes in the Swiss cheese.
I started and stopped writing this thing half a dozen times. You never know where something is going to go. So, lastly, thank you to my family for loving me while it gets there.
ALSO BY T.J. BREARTON
Titan
Book 1: HABIT
Book 2: SURVIVORS
Book 3: DAYBREAK
Book 4: BLACK SOUL
Special Agent Tom Lange
Book 1: DEAD GONE
Book 2: TRUTH OR DEAD
Book 3: DEAD OR ALIVE
Kelly Roth
Book 1: THE HUSBANDS
North Country Books
Book 1: DARK WEB
Book 2: DARK KILLS
Book 3: GONE
Book 4: WHEN HE VANISHED
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AVAILABLE NOW: GONE
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How can an entire family disappear into thin air?
An empty house on the edge of a small town . . . a teddy bear abandoned . . . a half drunk glass of wine . . . the TV left on and all the computer equipment missing. Where have Hutchinson Kemp and his wife and two children gone?
Detective Rondeau doesn't think they left by choice. However he is on the verge of cracking up as he pursues the trail of the film-maker and his family who have disappeared without a trace. Rondeau discovers disturbing evidence that big money and government might have something to do with the chilling crime, but no one seems to believe him anymore. Ignoring his sceptical police colleagues, he puts his life at risk as he races to find the family in this twisting-turning crime thriller. Are the family even still alive, and what are their abductors trying to hide?
DARK KILLS
Who is murdering female college students and can they be stopped?
The only link between the victims is their participation in an unusual psychology experiment. Leading the investigation is Detective Dana Gates. She has a past no one talks about and a husband and daughters she hardly ever sees. She’s a dedicated, by-the-book investigator. And now a serial killer is ripping through the local college campus, and everything she knows is going to change.
Robert Hamill, her police partner, is a wild card. Unmarried, no kids, Hamill is Dana’s polar opposite. But as the case progresses their differing methods threaten to tear them apart. Hamill breaks with procedure to uncover a list naming potential victims, but the two detectives must work together to stop any more girls from turning up dead.
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Shocking family secrets come to light when a young woman is murdered
Amy Hill, a nineteen-year-old student, is strangled and her body dumped on open ground in the city. New police partners, D.I. Jim Neal and D.S. Ava Merry are called in to investigate this brutal crime. The last person to see Amy alive was Simon, the son of a family friend, but before he can be properly questioned he disappears.
Detectives Neal and Merry are led on a trail of shocking family secrets and crimes. Can this duo track down the murderer before anyone else dies? Stopping this tragic cycle of violence will put D.S. Merry’s life at risk in a thrilling and heart-stopping finale.
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DEAD SECRET is the first in a new series of detective thrillers featuring D.S. Ava Merry and D.I. Jim Neal. Ava Merry is a young policewoman, recently promoted to detective sergeant. She is a fitness fanatic with a taste for dangerous relationships. Jim Neal is a single dad who juggles his devotion to his job with caring for his son.
Set in the fictional Northern city of Stromford, this detective mystery will have you gripped from start to shocking conclusion.
THE LADY VANISHED
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Carmen Langborne is a woman who no one seems to like very much, and now she's gone missing. But there is no body, no leads and no real suspects. And the police have stopped investigating her disappearance.
Carmen's stepdaughter Florence hires private detective Tyrone Swift to find the missing woman. If the body is found, Florence will inherit half of a very valuable house. As Swift delves deeper into the family’s affairs, he discovers dark family secrets that threaten the reputations of powerful people. Will Swift get to the truth before those with much to hide stop him?
A bag of severed fingers is found in a playground. . .
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First a shooting, then a grisly discovery on the common . . .
Police partners, D.I. Calladine and D.S. Ruth Bayliss race against time to track down a killer before the whole area erupts in violence. Their boss thinks it’s all down to drug lord Ray Fallon, but Calladine’s instincts say something far nastier is happening on the Hobfield housing estate.
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Glossary of Police Departments
Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), also called the “state bureau”
- Investigation and Forensic Sciences (IFS)
- Governor Protection (GP)
Everglades County Sheriff’s Department
- Criminal Investigation Division (CID)
- Crime Scene Bureau (CSB)
- Vice Narcotics Bureau (VNB), also just called “vice narcotics”
Other law enforcement bodies referenced:
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- U.S. Marshal Service
Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set Page 83
