by CJ Lyons
OTHER TITLES BY CJ LYONS
Lucy Guardino FBI Thrillers:
Snake Skin
Blood Stained
Kill Zone
After Shock
Caitlyn Tierney FBI Thrillers:
Blind Faith
Black Sheep
Hollow Bones
Hart and Drake Thrillers:
Nerves of Steel
Sleight of Hand
Face to Face
Shadow Ops Thrillers:
Chasing Shadows
Lost in Shadows
Edge of Shadows
Angels of Mercy Novels:
Lifelines
Warning Signs
Urgent Care
Critical Condition
AJ Palladino Novels (cowritten with Erin Brockovich):
Rock Bottom
Hot Water
Other Thrillers:
Borrowed Time
Lucidity
Farewell to Dreams
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 CJ Lyons
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477825785
ISBN-10: 1477825789
Cover design by Inkd
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014939863
CONTENTS
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
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
NOTE TO READERS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
Even as she fell, arms flailing against gravity, cereal, milk, and orange juice tumbling with her, she thought she was dreaming.
Ever since she’d arrived at the ReNew Adolescent Treatment Center, most of her dreams ended this way: a nightmarish hurtle through space, followed by jerking awake, eyes wide, gasping for breath, heart pounding so hard her pulse throbbed from fingers to toes.
A stunned hush filled the room as fifty-one other adolescents watched her fall to the floor, creating a colorful collage of her breakfast. One knee hit the blue linoleum. Hard. She bit her tongue against her cry of pain.
Rule Number One: No Names do not speak unless they are spoken to.
Her hand slapped onto a mushy pile of cornflakes and OJ, saving her from slamming face-first, but even the pain couldn’t breach the numb exhaustion that made her brain clumsy and slow to admit reality.
This is all just a dream, a seductive voice whispered. Any second now, her alarm would go off, Mom would shriek at her to get her lazy ass out of bed, Now!, or best of all, Dad would be home, rumbling at Mom, telling her to take it easy on the kid.
How could it be a dream? The thought as sluggish as the rest of her body.
Rule Number Seven: No Names do not sleep without permission.
The other kids were a khaki blur surrounding her. Like her, they had no name, no identity, no reason to exist. Beyond them brightly colored posters mocked her with exhortations to “ReJoice!” and “ReFresh Your Spirit!”
Chairs scraped back and footsteps thudded, bloodred spots appearing in her peripheral vision as she thought about getting up, but the idea felt too far away to actually do anything about it. Part of her wanted to roll over, pull warm, soft covers up over her head, and ignore the dream.
Another part of her, the area of her brain in charge of survival, shouted at her that this wasn’t a dream and she needed to move, to run, run, run!
Rule Number Four: No Names do not leave or enter a room without permission.
Laughter cut through the fog. She looked up. Surrounded by a sea of red. Too late to save herself. Because this was no dream.
This was hell.
CHAPTER 1
The prison guard pressed his palm against Morgan’s ass as he waved his wand over her body. She smiled. It wasn’t an “Oh baby, so very glad you pulled me aside for this special security screening” smile—although, sheep that he was, he obviously thought so. No, she smiled because she knew that if she wanted, she could kill him.
“You sure you’re a lawyer, Ms. Wilson?” he asked, his palm sliding over her hip. The name on her ID was Amy Wilson, twenty-two, residing at 515 Gettysburg Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15206.
Her real name was Morgan Ames and her real age was fifteen. So she waited, assessing her avenues for escape. The guard’s next words would decide if he lived or died.
They were in the administrative section of Rockview State Penitentiary’s maximum-security wing. There weren’t that many doors between her and freedom. The men guarding them didn’t worry her, not as much as the electronically controlled locks. Men she could kill in seconds, but it would take longer to overcome those damn locks.
After she’d passed through the metal detector and had her bag examined, the guard had ushered her to a private screening room. It was small, no windows, walls made of standard construction materials. If she killed him, she’d have to keep it quiet—sound would carry easily through the walls. Beyond them was the reception area where, even though it wasn’t quite eight in the morning, women and children waited to be allowed visitation time with their own favorite maximum-security inmate.
The guard, oblivious to his precarious fate, held her breast in his hand as he ran the wand over her outstretched arms. She felt his heat through the silk of her bra and blouse, scented his testosterone rising.
A part of her hoped she’d have to kill him. It was the dangerous side of her, the one she was struggling to control so she didn’t end up in a place like this, surrounded by steel bars and razor wire. The part of her that had killed before—and enjoyed it.
“You’re much too pretty to be a lawyer.”
Her smile didn’t waver. His words had just saved his life—although he’d never know it. “I’m just a paralegal. Have to get our client’s signature, so we can meet a filing deadline.”
“I knew it. Like I said, too pretty—and too nice.” He relea
sed her and stepped in front of her. “I get off in a few hours—”
The hard part wasn’t not killing him; it was not laughing in his face. But Morgan was good at what she did. It was why she could as easily pass for twenty as for twelve. It was all in the attitude and the costume. Match them to your audience’s expectations, and no one doubted the rest.
“I’d love to,” she said, raising her left hand to grab her leather attaché, letting the overhead light flick against the gold band on her ring finger. A band that was almost a match to the guard’s own. “But my husband has plans. You might know him. He’s state police, was in the barracks here for a while, Tom Wilson?”
The guard’s leer morphed into a grudging nod of respect. Prison guards depended on state troopers for a lot of things, including saving their bacon in the case of a riot. No way in hell would one ever cross a trooper. “Sure, I know Tom. Tell him I say hi.”
He yanked the door open and escorted her down the hall to the first of several locked sally ports leading to the secure interview rooms. Idiot never looked back. Despite his uniform and swagger, he was just another sheep, milling about, doing what he was told without thinking. Morgan’s smile turned genuine.
The prison corridor was empty except for the two of them and the invisible eyes watching via the cameras positioned overhead. Industrial-grade vinyl flooring and featureless beige walls muted their footsteps. Fluorescent lights flickered above, trying in vain to give the appearance of cheerful sunlight, but the feeble attempt was overwhelmed by the all-consuming stink of sweat and desperation that wept from every surface.
He unlocked the steel door to an interview room. The room was the size of a walk-in closet, no windows except the one in the door, the only furniture a steel table bolted to the floor—a bar running across its top on one side—and two lightweight chairs. There was a bright-red panic button on the wall beside the door and another on the visitor’s side of the table. Otherwise the walls were bare.
“He’s on his way,” the guard said, his tone now surly, as if she’d purposely wasted his time. “You know about Caine, right? He used to take girls like you, hold them captive underground in the dark, torturing them, raping them—you name it, he did it.” His eyes tightened, holding back his own rapacious fantasies. “He’s gonna love you; you’re just his type.”
With that he left, locking her inside to await the arrival of a serial killer.
Morgan played her role for the overhead camera—video only, audio recordings weren’t permitted, a violation of prisoners’ rights. Funny world where men like Clinton Caine had rights. That’s what happened when you let sheep run things.
She sat down and smoothed out her skirt, a lovely teal and charcoal houndstooth wool-silk blend, bought, not shoplifted, from the South Hills Galleria. Now that she was on her own, Morgan was beyond petty thievery.
She’d just unpacked her folders with the fake legal documents when the door opened. A man’s shadow slid into the room even as he remained at the threshold, flanked by two guards, waiting for permission to enter. Permission was granted in the form of one of the guards giving him a shove, forcing him to stumble inside. He wore the orange jumpsuit of a maximum-security prisoner—as if she wouldn’t have figured that out from the handcuffs that restrained his wrists behind his back and the shackles around his ankles.
He must have done something to piss them off. Last time she’d visited, a few months ago, they’d had the handcuffs in front so that he could at least walk upright with some semblance of dignity.
For the first time ever, he looked older than his actual fifty-two. His hair was unwashed, uncombed, silver streaks marring the chestnut-brown curls always certain to attract the ladies. His face was pocked with red sores, pustules with ugly yellow crusts. One guard unlocked one of his handcuffs, swiftly bringing his hands to the front where the cuffs were wrapped around the bar running the length of the table and snapped shut again with a click.
The prisoner sat down, his gaze never leaving Morgan. His eyes. They hadn’t changed. Two holes burned into the darkest night sky. Glaring, blazing, yet absolutely indifferent.
Clinton Caine knew what it cost Morgan to come here, to allow herself to be locked inside a cement-block room, trapped behind the razor wire and steel fences surrounding the state penitentiary’s maximum-security housing unit. He didn’t care. Clint didn’t worry about anything except Clint and his ridiculous fantasies of regaining his own freedom.
He remained silent until the guards left and the door closed behind them. Then he leaned forward as if reading the papers she slid across to him. “What’cha bring me, little girl? Better be something worth the cavity search this visit’s gonna cost me.”
Morgan hid her cringe. His tone was the same one he used when goading fish—his word for the women he kidnapped and killed. A tone that promised no amount of effort would ever be enough to earn a reprieve. His way of reminding her that she existed solely to please him.
He didn’t realize that only two things kept him alive: the prison guards monitoring them outside the interview room and Morgan’s promise to herself that she’d give up killing.
Good thing, because there was no one she’d rather see dead than this man. Clinton Caine. Her father.
His gaze flicked from the papers to her suit. “Better not be using my hard-earned money for all that fancy crap. This new lawyer is already costing me plenty.”
How easily he forgot that while he’d enjoyed himself torturing fish, it was Morgan who had taught herself the skills needed to steal identities and get them money to live on. Didn’t matter. To him, it was all his. The world belonged to Clinton Caine, along with everyone and everything in it.
“If you’d stop firing your lawyers—” she protested.
“That’s got nothing to do with you,” he snapped. “What I want to hear from you is some good news.” He shook his head, mocking her. “You don’t call, you don’t write. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d forgotten me, were gonna leave me here to rot.”
He reached a hand to take the pen she was holding, caressing her palm intimately, reminding her of what they’d shared. All those women . . . all that blood.
Morgan looked past him, counting the blocks in the concrete wall. Her therapist had taught her to focus on what she wanted long term rather than giving in to her immediate impulses. Delayed gratification. As she counted, imaginary blood sprayed the whitewashed blocks. A pretty arterial spray in the shape of a butterfly.
Wouldn’t that be lovely?
“Why did you call me here?” she asked, blinking hard to erase her bloodstained fantasy.
“My smart new lawyer says the same as the other two, that those damn witnesses could sway a jury. Poison them against me.” Clint bent closer to her, his breath wafting across the steel table between them, bringing with it the stench of rot and decay.
She pulled her pen from his grasp and tapped the stack of folders before her, redirecting his attention, hiding her disgust.
Masks. Morgan was a pro at slipping masks on and off at will. Clint didn’t even notice the mask she wore now. Not that of a bored paralegal sent to do her boss’s dirty work. No. Right now she was concentrating on not jabbing her pen into his jugular.
Veins were better targets than arteries. No muscle in their walls. Hit them, wrench your blade back and forth to shred them, and no amount of pressure would stop the gush of blood that followed.
“You listening to me, girl?” Clint demanded.
Morgan peered through her vision of gorgeous scarlet ribbons flowing from his neck, clashing with the orange prison jumpsuit.
“Sorry,” she muttered. Only Clint could make her feel weak or the need to apologize for it. No one else. With the rest of the world she was fearless, relentless, capable of anything.
To Clint she was his little girl, eager to please and obey.
“I said start with
those two Feds,” he snarled, a spray of saliva accompanying his words. She kept her gaze focused on the table, didn’t remind him that he’d gotten caught not by brilliant police work but by his own greed and refusal to curb his sadistic impulses.
“Jenna Galloway and Lucy Guardino.” He savored the names of his targets, a smile growing like a cancer on his face. “Start with them, and this will all go away. We can go back to having fun. Just a dad and his baby girl going fishing.”
Clint’s victims, his fish, they weren’t people, not to him—not to Morgan, either. But she was out of the fishing business. For good.
No way in hell was she going to end up trapped in a steel and concrete cage like Clint. Morgan twisted her fingers around her pen until her nails blanched white. No. Way. In. Hell.
It was the reason she’d given up killing. Too risky, even if her last few kills had been bad guys.
The rush of power that came with taking a life, that hadn’t changed—in fact, it had gotten stronger, like an addiction, especially when added to the glow of satisfaction when she’d saved Jenna Galloway’s life a few months ago. Clint didn’t know that little detail. No way was Morgan going to tell him. About how she’d inserted herself into Jenna’s life or that she was seeing Lucy Guardino’s husband, Nick Callahan, for counseling as she embarked on her new path of self-restraint and nonviolence. Well, maybe violence if circumstances called for it, but definitely nonkilling.
“You can do it.” Clint’s head bobbed, eyes half-closed as he imagined Morgan carrying out his orders. “Get close. Use your blade. Have fun like I taught you.”
His voice turned to singsong. Good thing his hands were cuffed to the metal bar at the tabletop, otherwise they’d be down at his crotch.
“I have to go,” she said, shuffling the folders and pushing the button to summon the guard.
He didn’t answer, his eyes now totally closed, head weaving in time with invisible screams. Then he jerked his chin once more and opened his eyes, his stare resting on her with the pull of the sun. No way to avoid it, no way to break free.
