Gone Missing: A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked

by T. J. Brearton

  “I drank coffee before my run that morning,” she said. They sat together at the stone-topped kitchen island. “Not supposed to do that.” She smiled and took a sip.

  David grinned and then looked around. “You should have seen this place. Overloaded with people, at some points. There was this one woman, Laura Broderick, with DEC. She was something. You’d like her.” He took a sip of his own coffee then gripped the mug in two hands and looked into the liquid. “She drew a map. Want to see it?” He gave her a compassionate look. “You don’t have to.”

  Katie took a deep breath. Let it out. “Yeah. I want to.”

  He left to the study where he kept his musical instruments and came back a few seconds later with a topo map and spread it out over the island.

  He pointed to a red line, sidewinding through squiggly contours. West Canada Lake Wilderness and Black River Wild Forest. “This is the best guess of your route. Since you came out, DEC found a couple of your campsites. And from what you’ve described, here and there, Broderick put this together.”

  Katie focused on a spot near Indian River. She’d described the rapids she’d come across at one point. It looked like the biggest river in the region, so that must’ve been it. Haskell Road was on the other side. Dotted lines indicated it wasn’t a paved road. Likely just a logging road, no more than a couple of wheel ruts through the brush.

  “And this is the marshy area you talked about,” David said. “But this section here – see where it says ‘wilderness boundary’? That’s Little Rock Lake. They’re pretty sure you were in here, and this is where you really got turned around.” His eyes found her. “Broderick said anyone would have gotten turned around in there.”

  She blew out some air and rolled her eyes, attempting levity. But it was hard to shake the guilt. The guilt about approaching the minivan. Taunting Carson. What he’d done to her. What she’d done to Hoot.

  “I should’ve just stayed at Hoot’s cabin,” she said. She looked at the red circle by Twin Mountain, and her heart broke. Both for Hoot – Barry Turner – and herself. And everyone. All the people involved, lives disrupted. She planned to write a letter to every single searcher who’d spent time away from their families to try and find her.

  David was shaking his head. “The investigators found evidence that John Montgomery doubled back to the cabin before he walked off again into the woods and died. You would have confronted him.”

  They stared at each other over the map.

  “No, things happened the way they did for a reason. You’re alive.”

  He dropped his gaze. “And here is where you came out. Fayle Road. That little bridge is a restored bridge. The kids who found you, Ryan and Noah, they came to the hospital to try and see you. Couple of maniacs, those kids. Honestly, them driving you into Hoffmeister was probably the most dangerous part of the whole ordeal.”

  She laughed in the midst of drinking from her mug, and had to put a hand over her mouth. She blotted her lips with a napkin, gave the map one last look. “I gotta say, that was one hell of a run.”

  “Yeah,” he said, folding up the map. “I think that’s a record distance for you.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Justin Cross.

  She’d heard about him dozens of times. Apparently he’d been to the hospital, twice, but she’d been sleeping. Another investigator, a woman named Gates, had questioned her when she was more lucid, but she hadn’t seen Cross yet. Not as a conscious human being, anyway.

  From what David said, it was Cross who’d zeroed in on where she was. While they hadn’t found her, it certainly wasn’t his fault. He’d gotten them closer than anyone else had.

  They turned into the small brown house where Cross lived and parked in the driveway.

  David glanced over at her. “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll get the crutches.”

  He banged out of the vehicle, full of energy, opened the hatch, and retrieved them. Two months since the abduction, and she was still using walking aids. She had physical therapy three times a week. Ob-gyn visits once every two weeks. Two ultrasounds already.

  Katie looked down at her stomach: just beginning to show.

  David opened the door, helped her out, and she slid the crutches under her arms.

  As they walked up to the front door, it opened. A man she’d never seen before, with wavy brown hair and a dusting of freckles high on his cheeks, walked out to greet them. He was dressed casually in jeans and a flannel shirt.

  Katie smiled, shook his hand, and he led them inside. As she walked through the front door she glimpsed a couple of little girls watching from the window. Then a woman appeared, very pretty, wearing a nice-looking suit. “Hi, I’m Marie Cross.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Marie showed Katie to a couch and urged her to get comfortable. David sat beside her.

  The little girls sat on the carpet, both staring.

  “Did you get lost in the woods?” the elder asked. Katie knew her name was Patricia.

  “I did.”

  “Wow. I got lost in the woods once.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. Mommy was yelling for me, ‘Petrie! Petrie!’ I was hiding behind a rock.”

  “Oh. Hiding. So you weren’t lost. You knew where you were.”

  “Yeah.” Petrie grinned adorably and bobbed her head. Then she turned to a pile of beads and string and started working on a necklace.

  The smaller girl, Ramona, just kept clocking Katie, sucking on her fingers.

  Katie turned to Cross, who’d sat in a chair beside the couch. Marie came in with a tray of cheese and crackers. She set it down on the table between the couch and chair.

  Ramona immediately went for it.

  “Hey, those are for us,” Cross said to her.

  “Snack,” Ramona said. She took a handful of crackers and hurried away.

  Katie watched the girls. Ramona neared her sister, and Patricia snatched a cracker from the girl’s hand. Ramona yelped then stuffed the two crackers she had left into her mouth.

  Marie was talking, Cross was talking, David responding, but Katie just looked out the window a moment.

  “You have a nice view,” Katie said.

  She stared off at the mountains.

  “Yeah,” Cross said. “I like it.”

  * * *

  If you enjoyed Katie’s fight for survival and Cross’s desperate mission to find her, you’ll love Buried Secrets by T.J. Brearton, a gripping crime thriller following newlyweds Brett and Emily, whose dream home turns into a nightmare when they find human bones in their garden. Get it now!

  Buried Secrets

  Get it here.

  * * *

  Newlyweds Brett and Emily Larson have just moved into a new home deep in the countryside, and are overjoyed when Emily finds out she’s pregnant.

  * * *

  Then they discover human bones in their garden.

  * * *

  As the police start to investigate, three things become clear:

  * * *

  The bones are recent.

  They are not here by accident.

  They are a message.

  * * *

  When the police put three photographs of known criminals on the Larsons’ kitchen table, the couple realize the danger may be closer to home than they think.

  * * *

  As the situation escalates, can Brett and Emily keep one step ahead to protect themselves – and their unborn child?

  * * *

  Fast-paced, compelling and full of twists, this heart-pounding thriller will keep you turning the pages until the very end. Perfect for fans of Rachel Abbott, Robert Dugoni and Linwood Barclay.

  Hear more from T.J. Brearton

  If you enjoyed Gone Missing, and want to keep up-to-date with all T.J. Brearton’s latest releases, sign up to his email list here. Your email address will never be shared, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  Also by T.J. Brearton


  BURIED SECRETS

  DARK WEB

  DARK KILLS

  GONE

  HIGH WATER

  GUNPLAY

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  The Titan series:

  HABIT

  SURVIVORS

  DAYBREAK

  BLACK SOUL

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  Tom Lange series:

  DEAD GONE

  A letter from T.J. Brearton

  I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read Gone Missing. If you did enjoy it, and want to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  There’s a little bit of me in each of the main characters in this book, and I bet you saw some of yourself, too. The way David fights for his spouse, the way Cross feels when he’s missing his family, the way Katie persists – even the way she argues with herself. Both writing and reading a book, then, is partly cathartic; a journey – when Katie was in those woods, we were in those woods with her. Like David says, we were keeping her company.

  I think there’s some magic in that.

  I hope you loved Gone Missing, and if you did, I would be very grateful if you could write a review. It would be great to hear what you think, and it makes such a difference helping new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.

  I love hearing from my readers – you can get in touch on my Facebook page, through Twitter, Goodreads, or my website.

  * * *

  Warm regards,

  T.J.

  tjbrearton.com/

  Acknowledgements

  Once again I need to thank Trooper Kristy Wilson, who likely had to let a few speeders pass while she responded to my endless texts and emails about state police procedure. Please credit her with technical accuracies. For any mistakes, look no further than yours truly.

  I’d like to thank Leslie Brodbeck with New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. Leslie shared both her firsthand experience and in-depth knowledge of the Adirondack Wilderness, crucial to the writing of this book. Not to mention she knows how to turn a poignant phrase: “Unfortunately, it is usually not ’til disaster strikes that people begin to see and respect the power that is found in the wilderness.”

  Thanks to Corey Fehlner for introducing me to Leslie, and for his own contributions as an experienced outdoorsman and an interior outpost caretaker.

  Thank you to Steven Lucas, who showed up in my life at just the right time to help me understand the intricacies of prison administration. Steven has twenty-five years of experience as a corrections professional with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He’s also a great guy to be seated next to at a wedding.

  Many thanks to my editor, Abigail Fenton, who guided me through to the final realization of this story with her usual smart and judicious insights. Abi’s good humor, her canny ability to take the sting out, are exactly what this emotional writer needs. Thanks to DeAndra Lupu for catching all the potentially embarrassing errors and shining up the manuscript; thanks to Oliver Rhodes, Lauren Finger, the illustrious Kim Nash, and all the talented staff at Bookouture, not to mention the gang of brilliant writers who are always ready to commiserate and offer words of encouragement.

  Finally, I can never thank my wife enough for her contributions to this ridiculous obsession I have with writing books. And for this one, I have to be straight up: She really deserves credit for inspiring the whole thing. Every book starts out somewhere, and this one started in her mind. Then it was up to me to do the dirty work. Thank you, Dava.

  Without these people, this book would not have been possible.

  Published by Bookouture in 2017

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  An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.

  Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0DZ

  United Kingdom

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  www.bookouture.com

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  Copyright © T.J. Brearton 2017

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  T.J. Brearton has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78681-279-7