9 More Killer Thrillers

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9 More Killer Thrillers Page 205

by Russell Blake


  His hand on my back moved back and forth. “Square breathing, okay? In, one, two, three, four. Hold, one, two, three, four. Let the breath out, one, two, three, four. Hold, one, two, three, four,” Jordain intoned. It was an exercise that most therapists use. Focus. Breathe. Relax. I’d taught it to him. Now he was using it to help me.

  I did not know how I had gotten outside, how long I’d been sitting on the ground, how long Jordain had been sitting next to me, or when he had taken me in his arms. Nor did I know when my cheeks got so wet.

  Finally, I stopped crying and my breathing had slowed down.

  “I need to go back in there. Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

  I nodded.

  “I won’t be long,” he said.

  I panicked as soon as he left me, though. Turning, I watched his back retreating into the house, repeating his last few words over and over. I won’t be long. I won’t be long.

  Once he was back inside, I took a deep breath. I had to calm down. Everything was all right now. Five men were alive. Even Daphne’s wound was not life threatening.

  Reaching into my bag—how did I still have my bag? I couldn’t remember, maybe Tana or Perez had given it to me—I pulled out my cell phone and called Dulcie. I didn’t think about why I needed to do that or what time it was or interrupting either her classes or rehearsals.

  She answered on the third ring.

  “Mom?” She’d looked at the caller ID.

  I put my knuckle into my mouth and bit down to force myself from sobbing.

  “Hi, sweetie.” I was surprised how shaky my voice sounded and was suddenly sorry I’d called. The last thing I wanted to do was worry her. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head, realized she couldn’t see me. Using all my effort and what few acting skills I had, I forced a matter-of-fact voice. “No. Nothing. I just was thinking about you. Wanting to make sure you were fine. You are fine, aren’t you?”

  “That’s soooo weird.”

  “Why?”

  “For absolutely no reason my shoulder hurts. Not bad. But enough for me to have to take some Tylenol.”

  “When did it start?”

  “About a half hour ago.”

  “You sure? You don’t need to go to the doctor?”

  “Yes, Mom, I’m sure,” she said in that thirteen-year-old you-worry-too-much-Mom voice.

  “Nothing happened? It just started hurting out of the blue?”

  “I guess. Maybe I bumped into something. I don’t know. But it’s okay now.”

  I felt the pain throbbing in my own shoulder. I did have to go to the doctor. I didn’t believe in coincidences, so how was it possible that we’d both hurt ourselves in the same place on the same day?

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetie.”

  “I have to go. They’re waiting for me.”

  After we said goodbye, I held the phone in my hand for a few seconds, just staring at it. It was so difficult to focus. There was another call I needed to make. There were other people who needed to know what I’d found out. Not the wives and girlfriends and families of the men who had been found, the police would tell them. But the other women, the secret sisters who cared in their own way. They deserved to find out, too, now, from me, not from some television report or newspaper article tomorrow.

  Shelby Rush answered right away, and without going into too much detail—because I didn’t think the police would want me to do that—I told her what had happened.

  Once in group, Shelby had said she could not yet feel grief for the men who had died—worry, despair, confusion, anger, yes—but she couldn’t cry for them.

  Now, finding out that they were alive, she burst into tears. And I sat and listened to her sobs.

  “How did she manage to keep them there?” Shelby finally asked.

  “They were drugged. Enough, it looked like, to keep them in a zombie-like state. But probably not so much that they couldn’t eat or drink.”

  “She tied them down, didn’t she? She left them there. Under her control.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s like a game we played in the society.” Shelby’s voice quavered. “But we never hurt anyone. We never did anything to hurt anyone. You said they are all alive. You said that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. It looks like she took care of them. In her own strange way,” I added.

  “It’s so awful. Five men. Trapped. Like animals. For weeks.”

  “Shelby, I need to go. But I wanted to call. And to ask you to let everyone know.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “One more thing—can you do me a favor and call Liz first?”

  “Yes, but why?”

  I couldn’t tell her—that would be breaking a confidence. It was going to be up to Liz to explain it all to Shelby, and I was certain she would. Liz was a talented woman who had work to do on her self-esteem but she’d get there.

  I couldn’t have known then that Jordain had already asked Tana Butler to call Liz, or Betsy, as the police knew her, and give her the promised exclusive and that she was driving up to Greenwich even now.

  The final story in the series would be hers. The one story she could write without the police censoring her. That she would, in fact, write with their help.

  My last call was to Nina.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked after I’d explained what had happened. There was no sign of anger in her tone anymore, only concern. Nina was the closest thing I had to a mother and this is how mothers react. They forget and forgive everything you’ve put them through when your safety and well-being is at risk. Something I knew better from being a mother than a daughter.

  “Well, I’m in one piece. My shoulder’s a little banged up, but it’s nothing. I can wait till tomorrow to deal with it.”

  “You’re not alone there, are you?”

  “No, Noah is with me.” I looked over. He was a few feet away, talking to Butler, glancing back at me every few minutes.

  “I want to talk to him. You need to go to a hospital now and be checked out. I’ll go to the theater for you and get Dulcie later. Did you call her?”

  I told Nina about the coincidence. “How can that be?” I asked.

  “Love does that. It connects us in ways that sometimes defy logic. Now,” she said, “I want to talk to Noah about taking you to the hospital.”

  “Nina, please. I’ve been through hell and I know I’ve been banged up a little, but I don’t need the hospital. A doctor tomorrow. I’ll do that. I really am fine.”

  And I was.

  Wasn’t I?

  “Yes, sweetie, you are. You’re smart and brave. And I’m proud of you.”

  What had she heard in my voice? How nervous I was? How distraught? All the emotions I’d been hiding from Dulcie, from her?

  Jordain returned just as I was getting off the phone.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  I nodded and he helped me up. Keeping hold of my arm, we began walking down the steps, away from the house.

  The stench of the dungeon had not dissipated. I gulped at the air, taking in huge breaths, struggling to clear the scent; still the odor persisted. I inhaled again, more deeply, more desperately.

  “What are you doing, Morgan?”

  As I told him about the smell, the tears flowed again. He reached out and wiped them away but his gentleness only made me cry harder.

  He opened my bag and found my roll of peppermints and put one in my mouth.

  I was like a rag doll. He could move me and sit me and stand me up and feed me. It didn’t matter. Who had I been fooling? I couldn’t do it all without any help. When would I learn that sometimes I had to let the people close to me in a little bit closer.

  Dulcie. Nina. Maybe … even Noah.

  To learn that I might have to accept that one day I could wind up needing more than what I got back or wanting more than anyone could give. I might wind up being disappointed and let down. I might.

  Bu
t if my thirteen-year-old daughter could learn that lesson, certainly I could make an effort to learn it too.

  I just wasn’t as optimistic about how good a student I was going to be.

  We were on the path now, walking through the elaborate English garden I’d admired the first time I’d come to Greenwich three weeks earlier. Most of the flowers had long since stopped blooming, except for some daisies and one of the rosebushes. I leaned over the last of the season’s full, old-fashioned, pink roses. I breathed in. The perfume was almost too heavy. Too sweet.

  Taking a step back I crushed some of the daisies. The white and yellow flowers were bright and too cheerful. It made me sad that I had crushed them and the tears came again. From where?

  How could there be so many?

  Jordain’s arm led me farther down the path. Crimson and scarlet, lemon and russet and rich brown leaves from the oak, maple, and birch trees sprinkled this part of the walkway. We passed wide hosta beds, the leaves still full but yellowed and withering.

  Growing among these plants, towering over them, were butterfly bushes. The one plant that I knew the most about. The purple, lavender, and white flowers were mostly gone, except for three or four that had bloomed late. When the first frost came, they would freeze.

  That was when I saw her. Fragile, strong, and so beautiful.

  How long had she been there feeding? Was she even real? I stopped moving and beside me, so did Jordain. The brilliant monarch couldn’t be a hallucination because he was staring at her, too, watching her fold her orange, red, and black wings up behind her black body and continue feeding.

  We stood side by side without saying anything.

  The butterfly took her fill of the last of the season’s nectar, spread her wings, lifted up and hovered in the air for ten or twenty seconds.

  I held my breath.

  She was hesitant at first, trembling on the wind, waiting for some mysterious clue from the breeze to tell her what direction would speed her onward to her destination. Still tentative, she circled the bush once more and then suddenly, somehow instinctively sure of where she was going, she took flight and soared.

  And then Jordain took me home.

  * * * * *

  Also by MJ ROSE

  Fiction

  THE HALO EFFECT

  LIP SERVICE

  IN FIDELITY

  FLESH TONES

  SHEET MUSIC

  Nonfiction

  HOW TO PUBLISH AND PROMOTE ONLINE

  (with Angela Adair-Hoy)

  BUZZ YOUR BOOK (with Douglas Clegg)

  Acknowledgments

  To the whole team at MIRA from Donna Hayes, Dianne Moggy, Margaret O’Neill Marbury to everyone in the sales force, art department, editorial department, marketing department, publicity department and mail room. What a wonderful home, I have. Thank you all for your hard work, creativity, and warmth.

  To all my friends and associates but with special thanks to Lisa Tucker and Doug Clegg, two amazing authors, and the indefatigable Carol Fitzgerald—the trio who talk me through my books and hold my hand the whole time.

  To Mara Nathan who is my key to Morgan Snow’s world and my Nina. To Randi Kraft for her eye and her friendship.

  To Chuck Clayman who tried to keep me from mistakes with legal issues. (My failures are not his.)

  To Gigi, Jay, Jordan, Daddy, Ellie, Doug and Winka too, for all the love, with love.

  Go back to the Features Index

  Go back to The Blurbs

  Table of Contents

  The Blurbs

  JET Russell Blake

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Irretrievably Broken Melissa F. Miller

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Never Go Home L.T. Ryan

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Other Books by L.T. Ryan

  The Critical Element John L. Betcher

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12
<
br />   CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  EPILOGUE

  The Dark Path Luke Romyn

  Prologue

  Chapter One The Dark Man

  Chapter Two Unwanted Memories

  Chapter Three Only Second Best

  Chapter Four Chapel

  Chapter Five Entering the Path

  Chapter Six Squirrel

  Chapter Seven The Avun-Riah

  Chapter Eight A Roman Holiday

  Chapter Nine Two Journeys

  Chapter Ten Reflecting Evil

  Chapter Eleven The Angel of Death

  Chapter Twelve Know Your Enemy

  Chapter Thirteen The Velearstk

  Chapter Fourteen Heaven and Hell

  Chapter Fifteen Death

  Chapter Sixteen Unexpected Allies

  Chapter Seventeen Embrace Your Enemy

  Epilogue

  Thirteen to None Claude Bouchard

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

 

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