Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Excerpt from Protected, Book 2 in the Watched Series
Chapter One
Praise for Watched
“I’m prone to read murder mysteries by James Patterson and this kept me just as enthralled as his books.”
—Sarah McClure Amazon
“This story is entertaining, with twists and turns that keep the reader guessing up the very end.”
—D.N.Giles author of the Sharp Edge of a Knife
“Good, clean book that keeps you engaged.”
—Cathy Jeppsen reviewer
“Cindy M. Hogan writes brilliantly.”
—Kitty Bullard GMTA reviewer
“One of those books that I started reading and didn’t put it down.”
—Aimee Brown reviewer
“As an educator, I’m always on the lookout for books to put in classroom libraries…great for grades 7-12 and adults, too.”
—Canda M. educator
“I can see this book as a movie.”
—Lindsay reviewer
“I stayed up all night to finish it.”
—Fire and Ice reviewer
“Fast paced suspense. Characters are well fleshed out with realistic emotions and feelings.”
—C.K. Bryant author of Bound
“Gripping!”
—Mom506 Amazon
“A page turner.”
—Gloria Clark Amazon
“The story was well thought out and really unpredictable and emotional. I don’t know how you did it, but you made me cry.”
—Aubrey Ahlstrom Amazon
“I could not put it down.”
—Leilani Purcell Amazon
“One of the best books I’ve read. It sends a good message.”
—Marcia Marshall-Amazon
“Suspenseful, new twist on a murder plot.”
—Princesazz5 Amazon
Watched
Cindy M. Hogan
Copyright © 2011 Cindy M. Hogan
O’neal Publishing
Layton, UT
All rights reserved. Second Edition: June 2011
No part of this book, including the cover, may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission in writing from the author. All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Summary: When fifteen-year-old-Christy witnesses the murder of a Senator’s aide, she finds herself watched not only by the killers and the FBI but also by two hot boys
.
Library of Congress Number
2011909217
ISBN: 0615493386
ISBN-13:9780615493381
For Hensley and Hannah, whose eager requests for
“The next chapter” pushed me to complete it.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Also by Cindy M. Hogan
About the Author
Chapter One
I plastered a smile on my face, trying in vain to stop the shiver that traveled with slow determination up my spine.
None of the other seven in my student tour group seemed to have a problem with the Hotel Norton’s dark gray stone exterior. Six sat on its wide steps, chatting away, while one, the boy who made my heart all but stop, ventured inside the hotel to see if the bathrooms were ‘suitable’ for us to use. No one seemed ready to walk the four or five blocks back to our hotel just to use the bathroom and no one wanted the fun night to end.
“Get over here, Christy,” Marybeth called from the steps, her extra long, brown hair blowing lightly in the cool breeze as she patted the empty spot next to her.
“In a minute,” I said, unsure if I would be able to keep that promise and hoping Alex would come out and tell us the bathrooms in that hotel had dripping faucets, doors that didn’t close and those awful cloth towels that went round and round in the dispenser, getting dirtier and dirtier with each pull. At least then we’d have to go to another hotel. And maybe, just maybe, the hot rock in my stomach would go away.
I kept my eyes fixed on the hotel door, wanting Alex to appear so I could feel the soft tingles he always gave me. It had been five long minutes since he’d gone inside, and the sprinkling of goose bumps on my arms seemed to grow with each passing one. It didn’t make any sense, but something felt wrong.
Sneaking out of our safe, inviting hotel at ten at night to explore Washington, D.C. had been the scariest thing I’d ever done. I may have come from a small town, but I still knew that D.C. boasted one of the highest crime rates in the U.S. Unfortunately, I had this maddening drive to be accepted by this group of kids and I wasn’t going to let a few statistics prevent it. So, I had ignored the warning voice in my head and snuck out with them, down the back stairs of the hotel and into the cool, sticky, night D.C. air.
I had no interest in politics. I had come to get away from home to change who I was. Was I asking too much of a high school student political trip? Could my life change in two short weeks? I was counting on it, praying for it.
Nothing bad had happened to us as we roamed around the last two hours, but that little voice, not so little now, screamed at me to head back to our hotel. It felt like that voice had the power to root me to my spot. I couldn’t even go over to my new friends, a mere twenty steps away. Instead, I leaned against a no parking sign in the grassy strip next to the street.
An eternity seemed to pass before Alex slinked back out the massive, dark wooden doors of the hotel. Right on cue, my heart started pounding.
“This place is perfect,” he called out, walking toward the others, a roguish look dominating his face and sending a speeding freight train barreling through my chest. “It’s a bit creepy inside, too,” he said, flashing a perfect set of teeth. I hadn’t met anyone who could resist Alex’s charm and all six on the steps stood, as if in a trance, to follow him inside. I, on the other hand, despite the butterfly wings tickling my stomach, still couldn’t seem to move.
Book after book I’d read told this exact story: unsuspecting girl loses her brain when perfect boy enters her life. I always considered the girls in those stories weak or silly, until Alex happened to me. Heck, my heart skipped a few beats just looking at him, and my mind turned to jelly. There was no rational explanation. After only a few days in D.C., I’d already learned that feelings could easily control the mind if you let them. I felt helpless and an unknown part of me liked it—a lot.
To get my feet to move, I tried to convince myself it was the Ritz inside that dark, foreboding hotel. It didn’t help. A desperate panic filled my gut as all seven went in without me. Any hope I’d dredged up the last four days of becoming a new person, accepted and liked, drowned in a flood of horrible memories: sitting alone at lunch, being taunted, being picked last for teams and never being invited to anything. None of the others even noticed I hadn’t gone in with them.
I tried to slow my frantic heart by taking deep, long breaths, leaving my mouth dry. No one but adults ever noticed anything good about me at home, and I’d been determined not to repeat that cycle here in D.C. Yet here I stood, the forgotten one, in front of a horrible hotel. I didn’t want to be that person again. I willed my legs to move, but like my feet were encased in cement, I couldn’t.
As the seconds ticked by, I felt more and more alone. Then, Rick and Marybeth opened the door and came to my rescue.
“Are you crazy?” Rick said, his arms out to his sides, palms up as he walked toward me.
“Yeah,” Marybeth said, her dark brown eyes creased with worry. “You can’t stay out here by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”
I heard an odd chuckle escape my lips. Relief or perhaps renewed fear. I felt liked, but not safe.
I sighed, glad that I hadn’t looked like a total loser. Rick and Marybeth had this insane idea that I was being brave, just waiting outside for everyone to get back. Were they out of their minds? Who would do that in this city?
They each looped an arm through mine and led me to the door, my legs no longer protesting. Inside, the large foyer split into two wide sets of stairs that wound around a huge center column that housed an elevator in the middle. I couldn’t see where the stairs ended. They seemed to go on forever. Dark wood and stone lined the walls from floor to ceiling, reinforcing the ominous feel of an old medieval castle.
“Alex said to hug the wall while going up the stairs,” Marybeth whispered. “The girls’ bathroom is on the left at the top. Once you reach the last step, peek around the corner. If no one’s looking, go on in. Just follow me. Okay?”
“Yeah, but why are we sneaking in anyway?” I whispered, touching her arm. “Why can’t we just ask to use the bathrooms?”
“Alex thinks it’s more fun this way, I guess,” Rick said, rolling his eyes, a tone of disbelief in his voice.
“I’d rather just ask,” Marybeth said. “All this sneaking around gives me the creeps.”
“Me, too,” I said. It had escaped my lips even though deep down I knew Alex’s adventurous side was a large part of what attracted me to him. I felt a bit hypocritical but still said, “I can’t wait for this to be over.”
I watched Rick’s sandy blonde hair disappear around the curve of the stairs. Marybeth followed him, and I followed her, all the while that voice in my head screamed for me to stop. I took a deep breath, focusing on Rick and Marybeth coming out to get me and how great that had felt. Besides, I couldn’t turn back now. Not after they’d come back out after me. I had to watch my breathing; it seemed too loud. I felt warm, the chill from outside melting away. The pungent smell in the air, however, made me want to hold my breath. Marybeth rounded the corner and disappeared. I was certain that if she could make it to the restroom, I could as well.
I took the last step up the stairs, taking one last deep breath, and peered around the corner. A shallow gasp escaped my lips looking at the scene before me. Shiny black barrels of large guns poked below the dark leather coats of two men standing next to the front desk. They seemed relaxed, talking to the tall, wickedly pretty receptionist. They weren’t like regular guards with handguns in a holster on their hips, though. They had serious firepower.
Were they the reason Alex had had such a mischievous look on his face or was it just the medieval feel of the hotel that attracted him? I suspected both. I felt a tension in the air that wouldn’t allow me to quickly draw my eyes away. Maybe some important people were staying here and needed protection. On the other hand, maybe all hotels in D.C. had similar armed guards. I hadn’t seen any at our hotel, but then again, I’d never been in the lobby past eight o’clock at night, either.
Why hadn’t the guards or receptionist noticed eight high school kids dashing for their restroom? Perhaps most, or all of their guests would take one look at the long staircase and take the elevator instead. I would have. If they didn’t hear the ding announcing the arrival of the elevator, they wouldn’t pay attention to what was going on around them. Or, maybe they were simply distracting each other and we’d been lucky. My heart thudded against my ribcage urging me to move. Despite the massive twinge of fear I felt, I headed for the door marked, “Ladies”.
Wow! This was one elegant bathroom. Alex had chosen well. No wonder they didn’t want just anyone to use it. Real towels and miscellaneous personal products like cologne and powder sat neatly on the marble counter next to the old fashioned looking faucet. There were two large stalls inside, kind of like office cubicles with walls of marble that didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling, but with real doors—no peeking sides like stalls in normal public bathrooms.
I waited my turn with Marybeth, playing with the products on the counter, until both Summer and Kira came out. As I was about to use the toilet, I heard muffled voices above me.
Remembering that some guy had been caught taking pictures of girls in bathrooms near my hometown, I glanced up to see if I could find an offending camera. I couldn’t see any, but I still heard voices and noticed a large vent just below the ceiling on the wall. I couldn’t even think of using the toilet until I’d taken a look, just to ease my mind. My heart started to pound again as I climbed onto the back of the toilet, prepared to catch some pervert on the other side of the vent.
I stood on tip-toe, straining to keep myself up high enough to see through the vent. I looked down onto some sort of large ballroom, the glossy wooden floor shining up at me, although the scene below had nothing to do with dancing.
The same type of guns the men in the lobby carried were in the hands of six men whose bodies and heads were draped in flowing robes like middle easterners’. They surrounded a rectangular table where four other men sat. The two facing me wore the same type of robes as the guards that surrounded them, but the other two looked like American businessmen with suits and short cropped hair, their backs turned toward me.
These people were way below me—at street level—I guessed. We had climbed all those stairs to get to the bathroom. I was concentrating so hard, trying to make out what was happening down there, that I almost fell when Marybeth asked, “Are you almost ready, ‘cause I don’t want to go out there alone.”
“You startled me!” I whispered back down at her.
“What are you doing up there?” she asked, brushing strands of light brown hair over her shoulder, her soft, pretty face looking up at me in surprise.
“I heard voices and wanted to make sure some perv wasn’t trying to look at us or take pictures of us while we’re in here,” I whispered.
“Perv?” she asked, crinkling her perfectly shaped nose.
I guessed in Iowa there weren’t any perverts. I climbed down and opened the stall door.
“Take a look. Something weird’s happening.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“No, really, you’ve got to see this.”
I pushed her toward the toilet until she relented and climbed up to look. “What’s going on?” she whispered after looking.
“You’ve got me.”
“Let�
�s get out of here,” she said. “They might see us.”
“That would be impossible. We’re up too high and they can’t see through this vent like we can.” I said, as I climbed up next to her. “Let’s just find out what they’re saying. Can you hear them?” My body tensed. We both looked through the vent, squished against each other, trying not to fall off the back of the toilet.
Not one minute had passed before Marybeth whispered, “I know that voice! It’s Senator Randolph—on the right.”
“Senator Randolph?”
“He’s one of Iowa’s senators,” she explained. “My dad says he’s going to save the farmers in our state and is a blessing from heaven. We listen to his every last word every time he speaks.”
“He doesn’t look like he’s in heaven right now,” I said, my stomach now a roiling ocean.
“Shhh! I can’t hear.” She urged me to silence.
This was the most forceful I’d ever seen Marybeth, and so I listened as hard as I could. Slowly, the words started to make sense.
“You failed…Senator,” the robed man on the right, who appeared to be the leader, said. “What… to impress on you the absolute …of a favorable result in this matter? The news…tell only of …death of the bill…told you had the votes.” I had to concentrate on their mouths to help make out the heavily accented words and the man’s large crooked nose kept distracting me, twitching every time he started a new sentence.
“We do!” the Senator said. “…them… bill will pass.”
“…not want all this attention…it. ..late,” the robed man on the right continued.
“No, No!” stammered the man next to the Senator louder than the others. “You’ll see. We have won.”
“…nothing!” The robed man on the right, said.
With those words, another guard, standing behind the Senator, raised his arms into the air. Only then did I realize that instead of a gun, his hands were wrapped around a long, thick shiny sword. The light reflected harshly off it. With a loud “Arhhhh!” the robed man whipped the sword through the air and through the neck of the man sitting next to Senator Randolph.
Watched (The Watched Trilogy) Page 1
