Table of Contents
Praise for the Sabrina Vaughn series
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
Dying to know what happens next?
ONE
TWO
Also by Maegan Beaumont
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Waiting in Darkness © 2016 by Maegan Beaumont. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from the author, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
FIRST EDITION 2016
Book design by Maegan Beaumont
Cover design by Erin Kelly and Maegan Beaumont
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.
Praise for the Sabrina Vaughn series
“Prepare to be overwhelmed by the tension and moodiness that permeates this edgy thriller. Beaumont's ability to keep the twists coming even when the answer seems obvious is quite potent.” —LIBRARY JOURNAL
“Pulse-pounding terror, graphic violence and a loathsome killer.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS
“Beaumont knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat…Buckle up for the ride of a lifetime.” —SUSPENSE MAGAZINE
“…twists and turns along the way that kept me guessing until the very end.”—OPENBOOKSOCIETY.COM
“Beaumont knows how to cook up and serve a dish called revenge, but she doesn't serve it cold. She serves it sizzling hot.”—Vincent Zandri, bestselling author of THE REMAINS
Edge-of-the-seat plotting will keep readers' attention late into the night.”—LIBRARY JOURNAL
“Reads like the transcript of a breathlessly bloody computer game.”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Intricately developed plots, higher stakes, and unlikely criminals that astonish by executing twist after unforeseeable twist.”—Ava Black, CRIMESPREE MAGAZINE
“Maegan Beaumont knows exactly what the reader wants and tantalises them with her seductive writing style until nothing else matters except devouring the story.” - BOOKCHATTER BLOG
“Maegan Beaumont has crafted a superb thriller!”—Les Edgerton, acclaimed author of THE BITCH and JUST LIKE THAT
AUTHOR’S NOTE
A lot of people have asked me, Why a prequel? Why now? The answer, like the question, is twofold. The first—why a prequel?—is fairly simple. This novel has always existed. When I wrote the first draft of Carved in Darkness, I incorporated an alternate timeline, telling Melissa’s story alongside Sabrina’s, weaving it into the present-day story. The problem was that the original version of that novel was 750 pages long. Even as untried and inexperienced as I was, I knew that a 750 page novel from an unknown author would never get published. So, I killed my darlings. And it hurt. So much so that I never stopped thinking about it, which eventually led us here.
The second—why now?—all comes down to timing. The fourth novel in the Sabrina Vaughn series, Blood of Saints, takes her back to the place where she was abducted and held—Yuma, Arizona—and I wanted the opportunity to introduce readers to the people and places in the story beforehand because they’re important to me. If you’re a first-time reader, I hope you enjoy the story enough to continue on and if you’ve been a reader from the beginning, I hope I’ve done right by you, because in the end, to me, that’s all that really matters.
ONE
Jessup, Texas
April ~ 1998
“MELISSA JEAN, I SWEAR that kid’s gonna stare a hole right through your ass,” Terry muttered under her breath as she took a blueberry pie from the glass display case on the lunch counter. “I don’t know how you stand it.” She cut a generous wedge and placed it on a plate for the trucker at table six.
Throwing a cautious glance over her shoulder, Melissa’s eyes flitted over Jed Carson. He was staring at her again. Hiding her discomfort behind a polite smile, she forced herself not to look away when his gaze traveled upward to meet her own.
He didn’t smile back.
Turning, she focused her attention on the task of filling the commercial-sized coffee maker with water. “As long as he stays on his side of the counter and pays his bill before he leaves, he can stare all he wants,” she said. Truth was, she wished he’d leave. Not just the diner. She wished he’d leave Jessup for good and never come back.
“He ain’t going anywhere.” Terri shot another glare his way. “How many times you re-filled his coffee cup?”
Ten. She’d counted. Every time she did he used the opportunity to try and talk to her. Ask her about her grandmother. Her mom. Her brother and sister. Like he cared about any of them at all. Like he cared about her. He didn’t care about her. He wanted to sleep with her. Even at sixteen, she knew the difference. “I don’t know,” she said. “One time or fifty, doesn’t matter.”
“Which makes him no different from the rest of the losers around here,” Tommy said from the service window, a plate in his hand. “Your boyfriend’s order is up,” he said, nudging it toward her with that asshole smirk of his that made her want to slap the eyeballs right out of his head.
“He’s not my boyfriend.” She hissed back, shooting him a glare.
“Does he know that?” Tommy countered dryly, turning toward the flat grill to work over a couple of eggs and a slab of bacon for the trucker at table six.
She snatched the plate off the counter. “I hate you sometimes.”
“Good,” he shot back without looking at her. His tone was hard, like he meant it and she immediately wanted to apologize. Instead, she turned and walked down the length of the counter to where Jed’d parked himself and delivered his food.
“You think I could get a little…” Jed’s words died out as she set the double bacon and cheese with a side of fries in front of him and without a word, pulled a bottle of steak sauce from her apron pocket and set it down in front of his plate.
“Well, look at me, forgettin’ I got the best damn waitress in Texas,” he said, smiling at her. She was sure that any other girl in town would’ve fainted dead away if Jed looked at them the way he looked at her. With his sandy blonde hair and soft hazel eyes, he was easily the best-looking boy in Jessup. He was captain of the varsity football team, Homecoming king and senior class president. All of this and for some reason he wanted her—and she wasn’t the slightest bit interested.
“A refill on the coffee’d be most appreciated, Melissa Jean,” Jed said, leaning toward her just a bit. He did it every time she poured and it’d taken her a while to figure out why. He was smelling her. She could hear his deep in
take of breath near her ear when she bent her head to fill his cup.
Plastering that vague, polite smile on her face, she pretended not to notice. She also pretended not to notice the flask he slipped out of the pocket of his letterman’s jacket or that he added a healthy dose of whiskey to the brew. He’d been drinking for the past hour, steadily moving toward drunk with every refill.
“You get off in an hour. Wanna do something?” Jed said, watching her over the rim of his cup. The burger and fries would go untouched. Just another excuse to talk to her.
“I can’t. Gotta get home.” Her answer was always the same. She never said yes to him but he seemed hurt and confused by her rejection every time.
“It’s Friday night,” he said carelessly, like someone who’d never shouldered a responsibility in his life.
“Sure is,” she said. “Which means I got to be back here at 9AM.”
Jed shook his head, not buying it. “Why do you always say no to me, Melissa? What? I got an ear growin’ out the middle of my forehead or somethin’?” Leaning back from the counter like a sullen child, Jed folded his arms across his chest and glared at her with an insolent pout, better suited for a boy of five rather than eighteen.
“No, what you’ve got is a girlfriend and she ain’t me. Where is Shelly anyway? Why are you here instead of with her?” Throwing his girlfriend into the mix usually worked at getting him to back off but not tonight. The whiskey in his system made him stubborn and she knew from past experience, mean.
“I’m not with her cause she ain’t who I want to be with.” He shot her that winning smile again. “Come on; just let me give you a ride home, what’s the harm in that?”
Plenty. She formed another rejection in her mind, ready to temper it with one of her many excuses but before she could get it out, the bell above the diner door gave a tinkle and Wade Bauer strolled in.
“I knew I’d find you here,” he said, adding a friendly smile as he approached the counter. “Hey, Melissa, how’s things?”
“They’re fine,” she said, barely able to suppress the groan of relief that welled up in her throat. Jed and Wade were nearly inseparable. If anyone could get him up and out of her hair, it was him.
Throwing her a sympathetic smile behind Jed’s back, Wade sat on the edge of the neighboring stool and gave his friend a nudge with his foot. “We’re all hangin’ at Duffy’s house.”
“So,” Jed said, shooting his friend a shrug.
Wade laughed but she could tell his was struggling to keep the mood light. “So, pay the girl and let’s go.”
“I’m busy,” Jed said, his eyes glued to her face.
Wade gave her a nervous glance. Sometimes she got the feeling that Jed’s fixation on her made him uncomfortable. He rubbed the back of his neck and tried again. “Come on, man. Shelly’s waitin’ on you. Been asking for you all night.”
Jed made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “I bet she has.”
“Come on, let’s git before the rest of the guys drain the keg and your girl still has time to get busy before she’s gotta make curfew,” Wade said, clapping a hand on Jed’s shoulder to urge him along.
“I got an idea—how about you go fuck Shelley.” Jed shrugged Wade’s hand away and lifted his cup to his mouth, taking a long swallow before he spoke again. “Because I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Wade cut her a helpless look, quick and sharp. “Come on, man—”
“I said I ain’t leavin’—not without my peach pie,” Jed said, letting his gaze fall, heavy and full of meaning, on Melissa's face.
His words burned red circles on her cheeks and she reached for the coffee pot again, looking for any excuse to move, to disguise the nervous flutter of her hands. “Coffee, Wade?” she said, avoiding Jed’s eyes which were boring holes into her face.
“No thanks—one cup of coffee and the four beers I drank on the way here are wasted,” he said, laughing as he reached across the counter and gave her thick auburn ponytail a playful tug. “Tell you what, hack off a piece of pie for the peach lover here, throw it in a doggy bag and I’ll drag his ass out of here for you.” His mouth grinned at her but his eyes told a different story entirely. He felt just as uncomfortable over Jed’s fixation on her as she did.
Ignoring Wade, Jed continued to glare at her, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest. “What about the half-breed back there? He like peach pie?”
Dread dropped into her gut like a stone. “Jed, please don’t—”
Suddenly he was shoving himself away from the counter and standing, the whiskey he’d been drinking and the sudden movement sending him swaying on his feet. “Hey, Tomahawk,” he shouted. “You like peach pie?”
Looking around nervously, Melissa noted that Terry was gone—probably stepped out back to smoke—and with the exception of a few over the road haulers, and the trucker at table six, the only other person in the diner was a young man who was vaguely familiar, sitting at a booth in the back, near the waitress station. He watched the exchange openly, the paperback he had open in front of him completely forgotten, his eyes, dark and unreadable, zeroed in on her. Melissa felt a ripple of unease but it lasted only seconds before she looked away.
Tommy pushed his way through the swinging door connecting the kitchen to the service area behind the counter, wiping his hands on a dish towel on his way.
“I think Wade’s right,” Tommy said, coming to stand beside her. “It’s time the two of you head out.” Shifting his weight, he leaned against her and with the slightest nudge of his arm against her own, moving her behind him in a protective gesture that was unmistakable. Melissa threw a brief look over her shoulder. The young man in the back booth wasn’t sitting anymore. He was standing, book tossed on the table, watching the exchange. Waiting.
“Oh… is that what you think?” Tommy’s movement grabbed Jed’s attention. He glared at him, eyes narrowed. “You think just because your uncle owns this pile of shit and calls it a restaurant, you actually mean somethin’ in this town?” Jed said, his tone just as nasty as his glare. Suddenly, that glare slid toward her and shifted into something else. Something that made her feel dirty. “You still haven’t answered my question, Tomahawk—you like peach pie?”
“Get him out of here,” Tommy said to Wade, ignoring Jed completely.
Watching the scene play out over Tommy’s shoulder, Melissa saw the way Wade studied him beneath the curly tangle of light brown hair that fell across his forehead. If a punch was thrown, Wade would either drag Jed out of here or double down and it would become two against one. Waiting to see if Wade would decide to play peacemaker or hold Tommy down while Jed threw the punches, Melissa tried to move out from behind Tommy but was sufficiently blocked—his broad, solid back pushed against her, telling her to stay put.
Just when the confrontation seemed to be on the brink of inevitable violence, Wade aimed his gaze past them for a moment. What he saw seemed to make up his mind and he stepped forward, an easy smile aimed her way.
“Now ain’t the time,” he said in a low tone, dropping a hand on Jed’s shoulder before pulling him away from the counter with a laugh. “If you plan on gettin’ any tonight you better hurry—Shelley’s curfew’s in a few hours,” he said, deciding to play the peacemaker after all.
“Yeah... I bet you looove you some peach pie, don’t you, half-breed?” Stepping back from the counter, Jed shrugged into his jacket. “You ain’t shit, Onewolf,” he said, baring his teeth in a vicious smile. “You ain’t never gonna have nothin’ or be nothin’ just like your dead injun’ daddy,” he called out in a taunting voice, still trying, even as he was being pulled out the door, to bait Tommy into a fight.
Tommy’s muscles bunched beneath the thin cotton of his shirt as he readied himself to vault across the counter after Jed. Without thinking, she reached out and laid her hands on his back, silently urging him to resist the bait Jed was dangling.
“See you ‘round, Melissa,” Jed said before being pushed through the d
oor and into the parking lot. A few minutes later Jed’s shiny red convertible sped across the parking lot, spraying dirt and gravel against the plate glass of the diner window, Wade’s pick-up close behind.
Weak with relief, Melissa laid her cheek against Tommy’s shoulder and let her eyes slip shut. He stood stalk still, arms hanging loose at his sides with hands that clenched themselves into fists as he stared out the wide window of the diner. “Don’t,” he said to her, the word slipping past teeth that were clenched too tight and she instantly remembered who and where she was. “Not here.”
“Sorry,” she said, dropping her hands away from his back, stepping away from him.
“I’m walking you home,” he said without looking at her, almost like he was talking to someone else.
Glancing at her watch, Melissa saw that it was just past nine o’clock. She had 45 minutes left on her shift but the diner didn’t close until midnight. “You don’t have to—they’re not coming back,” she said, retying her apron to give her hands something to do. “Besides, I can’t wait that long—I gotta get the twins from Mrs. Kirkland’s in an hour.”
Moving from behind the counter, Tommy walked toward the diner’s double glass doors and flipped the sign to CLOSED.
“Tommy, your uncle is gonna blow a gasket if catches wind that you closed up three hours early,” she said as he moved past her toward the kitchen.
“I’m walking you home,” he said again and his tone left no room for argument.
TWO
IT TOOK NEARLY A half hour to clear the rest of the customers out of the diner. Feeling bad, Melissa placed large slabs of pie into Styrofoam containers while Terri filled large to-go cups with coffee and sent each customer off with an apologetic smile and dessert on the house.
The last to leave was the young man in the back booth. “I thought that was you.” Tommy cut him a grin while he worked the cash register and counted out change. “When did you get back, O’Shea?” he said, dropping a handful of change and a few bills into the guy’s hand.
Waiting In Darkness: A Sabrina Vaughn Thriller (The Sabrina Vaughn Series Book 1) Page 1
