He knew exactly what touching me in violence would do. The bastard did it on purpose so I’d follow his instructions. Between his threatening touch and his awful, painful truth, I had no choice but to fight him off.
Before I knew what had truly happened, he was dead on the floor, my hands locked in a death grip around his neck. When I came back from the dark place, realized what I’d done, I sobbed, tried to bring him back to life. When it didn’t work, and I began to comprehend the enormity of my situation, what I’d done, I cleaned him, wiped the blood from his face with the dishtowel I’d somehow wrapped around his neck and followed through with the rest of his ridiculous plan to bring these hateful shadows into the light.
I will always be haunted by the knowledge that at the end, when I began to put pressure on his throat, he did not resist me. He wanted his death to be at my hands.
And now I have what some people like to call closure, what he’d always wanted for me. All I ever wanted was to be with my daughter, but I’d never admitted that to him, or even myself. I spent years pretending to be something I was not. Doug kept me at home, dressed me as a boy, educated me himself. When I went out in the world, I kept to myself, made no friends and continued the charade, because I loved him for saving me.
Always on my mind, though, was the child I will never see again.
They are good people, her adoptive parents. Kind. They love her. Though they still don’t seem to realize that locked doors are no match for a true mother’s love.
I am happy she loves them, and they her. She probably won’t remember me when she’s grown, or if she does, she’ll have a foggy recollection of a strange woman who held her close and whispered I love you a thousand times over the course of a starlit night.
Rachel’s bedroom is pink and full of soft things. She sleeps like a lightning bolt, arms and legs spread away from her body at odd angles, the sleep of a child well loved, and safe. I spent the dark hours of that night tracing her limbs under the sheet, looking at the tiny similarities between us—she has my nails, long-bedded and elegant, and my nose and eyelashes and freckles. She has parts of him, too, the broad forehead and cornflower-blue eyes, and while I should hate him for what he did, I smile to see them.
I have forgiven him. I know now why he did what he did, and how his actions, though horrible, saved me from a far worse fate. I am grateful his blood flows through her veins and not the filthy, tainted blood of the killer who should have been her father.
That night, watching my daughter sleep, her rosebud mouth puckered as if she just learned to stop sucking her thumb but it hadn’t forgotten the motion, I knew exactly what must be done. She is so beautiful. So perfect. So clean. I cannot allow anyone else to be sullied.
I am not clean. I am not good. I am a depraved, broken human being who has no right to live. I want things to be all right, to go back to the way they’re supposed to be. If only I had lived in a world where my parents loved me, walked me to the bus stop and met me there when school let out. Parents who made more of an effort to find me when I went missing, and were happy when I was rescued, all these years later.
If wishes were horses, right? Or something like that.
Here is the truth, if you are brave enough to hear it.
There is darkness in the world, a heavy hatred of all that is good and right. You might call it evil, or immorality, or simple a callous disregard for humanity. Some people choose this path through the shadows, their breath hot and frantic on the wind. Their poison spreads, infecting others who also embark on the dark journey.
Curtis is one of these people. Mother to us all, she was bereft of any maternal qualities. She allowed unspeakable things to happen to me. She used me as her personal broodmare. She forced drugs into me and made me listen to her endless ramblings about the mystic cosmos and our place in it. She marked my soul, and my skin, made me her drudge, tortured and humiliated me, then built me up, fed me golden stories and washed my hair and feet like I was a supplicant.
She is a demon, come to earth to punish the wicked.
And because of her, I am so very wicked.
Yet Curtis taught me perseverance, and strength. How to survive, to stay sane in the face of darkness. That the absence of light did not make the person, that only the long wait for a shadow to find you, to cross from the afterlife and attach itself with painful stitches to your soul, makes you whole again. This is the greatest lesson a mother can give to her children. How not to be completely broken by a situation.
Curtis taught me to accept myself, all my faults. To greet my darkness like an old friend rather than an enemy. She saw something in me I’d never known existed in my soul—power. The power to right wrongs, to change things.
My power scared her, made her trap me like an animal, keep me in a cage. She kept me in the darkness until it fed on my blood and gave me back the strength I’d lost.
Adrian was weak compared to me. All he could do was give in to his urges.
Curtis, in all her bizarre, unfathomable glory, taught me how to channel mine. She made me in her own image, yet she was so very wrong.
I am the light, and she is the darkness.
I am the good, and she is the evil.
By blood born, and by blood taken, we move through this life in a fog, briefly touching those around us, imparting wisdom or love, pain or sorrow, or even a mother’s gentle kiss.
We are born alone, and we die alone.
* * *
I stand in the darkness of Curtis’s chamber and watch her sleep. When I move toward her with the blade raised, my breath catches in my throat. I know that I am doing the only thing that is good and right in this world.
Vengeance is mine.
The blade falls.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from EDGE OF BLACK by J.T. Ellison.
Acknowledgments
WHEN SHADOWS FALL wouldn’t be in your hands today without the support of the following people:
Scott Miller—who is more than a wonder agent. He is a friend, a confidant and a trusted member of the familia. Thanks for always happily handling the drama lama from Nashville.
Stephanie Hoover—who is more than the assistant to agent extraordinaire, and a joy to work with.
Nicole Brebner—who saw what the story could be and helped me find the way home.
Laura Benedict—who is my sanity, my daily dose of reality and a brilliant first reader, and always knows exactly how to fix that f-ing plot hole.
Sherrie Saint—who did a ton of research legwork for this book and believed in it from the very first Starbucks pitch.
Paige Crutcher—who teaches me yoga, and so much more, especially for pointing me in the direction of The Farm.
Catherine Coulter—who helped me cook up the cult idea.
Karen Evans—who helps us both when we get off track.
Jennifer Brooks—who reads, edits, cheers and otherwise makes these books what they are.
Del Tinsley—who is my other mother.
Jeff Abbott—who continually steers me toward the correct path.
Erica Spindler—who taught me the real meaning of gratitude attitude.
Alex Kava—who gives such sage advice.
Deb Carlin—who is always such a joy.
Sandra Thomas—who is the harbinger of the scalpel, and helps Sam come alive in the autopsy suite.
Andy Levy—who read a terrible first draft and told me he loved it, despite its flaws.
Joan Huston—who is my grammar goddess extraordinaire (how’s THAT for a promotion?).
Nicole Brebner—who saw what the story could be and helped me find the way home.
Miranda Indrigo—who cheered me on from near and far.
Susan Swinwood—who helped shepherd this baby into being.
All th
e amazing folks at Mira Books—who support the dickens out of me.
Rachel Stevens—who agreed to be murdered (sorry you’re not dead, but only dented about the middle bits).
Anna Benjamin—who touches my heart daily.
Blake Leyers—who helps me be all kinds of girly.
Deanna Raybourn—who is my favorite cheerleader and eighty-year-old Englishwoman (cream tea, dear?).
Chuck Beard—who owns East Side Story, an incredible bookseller as well as a dear friend.
My Nashville Literary Libations Peeps—who manage to meet up every fourth Thursday whether I can make it or not (Ha!).
All the awesome booksellers and librarians who get my work into the hands of my readers.
My readers—who listen to me wail on Facebook, share their love (and hate) of the books and always keep me honest.
And finally,
My mom—who really did ask every day if the words were any good, and probably drove me to peaks of insanity making sure they were all wonderful. Thanks for making sure they all count.
My dad—who is a first reader, an extraordinary man and an unflagging cheerleader for all my words, even the ones that suck.
Randy—who deserves more than thanks, more than words on the page, who cooked and cleaned and read this book three times and managed my world while I tried to make a very close deadline. You have the keeping of more than the words, darling—you have my heart.
“Shocking suspense, compelling characters and fascinating forensic details.”
—Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author
If you loved When Shadows Fall by New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison, don’t miss A Deeper Darkness and Edge of Black in the thrilling Samantha Owens series. Available in ebook format.
Order your ebooks today!
Be sure to also catch J.T. Ellison’s thrilling Taylor Jackson series, available now in ebook format:
Where All The Dead Lie
So Close to the Hand of Death
The Immortals
The Cold Room
Judas Kiss
14
All The Pretty Girls
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Chapter 1
Washington, D.C.
A single beam of light illuminated the path ahead, hovering and bobbing against the concrete walls. The tunnel was narrowing, growing tighter across his shoulder, forcing the joints to compress, pushing on his lungs. His breath came fast. He reminded himself to calm down, inhale through his nose. The mask was making it difficult to see, to smell, anything that might give him a sense of where he was. He paused, counted the number of times his limbs had moved forward. Once, twice, three times, twenty. Roger that. Five more evolutions and he’d be in place.
He squeezed forward, slithering like a snake along on his belly, his legs bunching up behind him, his arms forward, the Maglite in his left hand, his right feeling for the way. Slowly. Slowly.
There. He felt the hinge. Turned it gently, sensed the cooler air blowing up into the vent from below. Reached down into his shirt and pulled out the canister. The gloves made his hands clumsy, but he couldn’t risk contact. He’d die stuck in this shaft, wedged in above the vent, stinking and rotting until someone finally sought the source of the smell.
No one would think to look for him if he were to go missing.
He had no one. He was alone.
He double-checked his mask, made sure he was breathing clean. All systems go.
The clock in his head ticked away, closing down to the final moments.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Time.
With sure hands, he opened the cylinder and depressed the button. The can discharged, spraying silently into the vent.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Empty.
He shook it lightly, but there was nothing else to release. It was done.
He tucked the cylinder back into his shirt and started to move away. He needed to get out of the shaft and back onto the platform, all while avoiding the cameras.
He could do it. He had faith. He’d done three dry runs, and all went according to plan.
He moved out, reversing the slither, arms bunching, forcing his body backward until the resistance ended and he could move his shoulders and hips without constriction. The pipe grew larger, big enough that he crawled onto his knees, turned and faced the exit. He fed a mirror mount down the shaft. No one was around.
Clear.
He dropped lightly to the ground, took three steps to the right to make sure he didn’t accidentally get caught on film, found the metal ladder and began to climb. Higher and higher, his heart lighter and lighter. Success was his.
Below, he felt the first blast of air that indicated a train was coming. The rumbling grew louder, the ladder began to shake. He could have sworn he heard a cough. He paused his climb, held on and breathed into his mask.
This was a better high than you could pay for.
The train passed below him, streaking silver in the dark, rushing the air from the vent toward the platform. He let the rumbling shake his body for a few moments, counting off again, then continued to climb. The exit would be deserted, he’d made sure of that. He had a two-minute window during the shift change to get out.
He set the stopwatch in his head. Two minutes. Mark.
He opened the hatch and climbed onto the deserted platform. Three steps to the right, two steps forward. He’d left his backpack in the trash receptacle. He worked quickly. The mask, canister and gloves went into a sealable plastic bag. His clothes were next: he exchanged the black running suit for jeans and a white cotton T-shirt, pulled on yellow Timberlands. He used hand sanitizer on his arms to eliminate any traces that might have been left behind.
He zippered the bag, tossed it on his shoulder and started walking.
One minute.
The giant disposal catchall was nearly full. As he passed it, he tossed the bag into the depths. He knew they’d be around to empty it in two hours, and all tangible evidence of the crime would disappear into the vast chaos that was the dump.
Now unencumbered, he made better time.
Thirty seconds.
He could hear voices, ahead in the gloom.
Twenty seconds.
He stretched his stride, long legs eating up the pathway.
The elongated shaft of the tunnel appeared before him. His senses were overloaded—orange and blue and white lights, people milling about, yellow hard hats obscuring peripheral vision, getting ready to go back into the tunnels and hammer for the next several hours. He ducked around a column, reversing direction, and slid into the last of the line with the rest of the workers.
Ten seconds.
The first shift ended with a shrieking whistle, and a subway train arrived, rumbling to a stop on the platform. He followed the crowd into the metal tube, took a seat. The rest of the workers filed in behind him, exhausted after their long overnight.
Time.
The train pulled away, building speed, taking him farther and farther from the scene, away, in the other direction, from the canister’s contents.
He was safe.
He risked a small smile. Around him, men’s heads nodded in time as the train rushed along the tracks. He started counting forward, and at ninety-eight, the train began to lurch to a stop.
At exactly one hundred, the doors opened, and he stepped out into the brilliant early-morning sunshine.
Only one thing left to do, th
en he could depart. Leave this cesspool of a city behind.
Glory was his. Glory be. Glory be.
Copyright © 2012 by J. T. Ellison
ISBN-13: 9781460327029
WHEN SHADOWS FALL
Copyright © 2014 by J.T. Ellison
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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