First Thrills, Volume 4

by Lee Child

  No, there it was again, slow and hesitant—the soft groan of floorboards. Someone else was in the cabin.

  She didn’t dare sit up. Couldn’t move if she wanted to, paralyzed by fear. Her mind reeled. Had she locked all the doors? Yes, as soon as she’d arrived. But maybe not the porch door when she stumbled to bed.

  Oh God, had she left it unlocked?

  She strained to hear over the thump-thumping of her heart. Her eyes darted around the room. She had left her backpack and everything in it in the other room.

  Minutes felt like hours. She willed herself to stay very still. She kept the sheet pulled up to her chin. Her hands were shaking. She could do this, she told herself, and tried to focus. She could ease off the bed and roll underneath.

  Moonlight filtered in past the tree branches and illuminated the bedroom. Now was not a good time. She wanted to pull the curtains shut. Darkness was the only weapon she had. But she couldn’t risk moving. Couldn’t risk making a sound. So instead, she kept still. She would pretend to be asleep. Could she do that and not scream? Would it matter?

  With the power still out there were no electrical whines of appliance motors turning off and on. She held her breath, straining to listen. She heard a distance train whistle. Leaves rustled in the breeze outside the window. A whip-poor-will called from the other side of the lake. No footsteps. No groaning floorboards. Had she imagined it? Was that possible? Oh God, maybe she was going mad.

  Maty glanced at the clock and continued to lay still. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. It felt like a week. Twenty minutes. No footsteps. The thumping of her heart quieted. The banging in her head grew. Too much wine. Too much stress. And she’d forgotten to take her medication last night. Was that all it was?

  She watched the darkness turn to dawn. The night shadows started to fade and disappear from the bedroom walls. When Maty finally convinced herself that her imagination had gotten the best of her, she eased out of bed. Still, she monitored her movement, stopping and waiting, listening. After a few minutes of tiptoeing she felt ridiculous.

  She stopped at the bathroom then marched into the kitchenette. She’d brought the staples for breakfast, had loaded the small refrigerator. Even without electricity everything was still cold. Her backpack sat on the counter where she’d left it. She poured herself a glass of orange juice and turned to go out onto the porch. That’s when she saw the shadow of a man was standing by the door.

  Maty gasped and dropped the orange juice, glass shattering.

  “You forgot to take your pills last night,” William said, walking into the middle of the room where she could see his face.

  “You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here?”

  “I reminded you.”

  It was like he hadn’t heard her. He looked tired. His clothes were wrinkled and damp. His shoes muddy.

  “How long have you been here? How did you get in?”

  “You drank a whole bottle of wine.” he held up the empty bottle she had left on the porch. “But you forgot to take your pills.”

  “William, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m not really here,” he said this with a grin. “I’m checked in at a conference in Kansas City. I did that yesterday morning. Everyone thinks I’m in my hotel room, behind the do-not-disturb sign, preparing my presentation. My car’s in the hotel’s parking lot. I rented one to come back.”

  “But I don’t understand. Why are you here?”

  “Because I had a feeling you wouldn’t take your fucking pills.”

  “William?”

  “I changed them out, you see. A nice little concoction that wouldn’t go so well with alcohol. Actually it probably wouldn’t go so well with anything, but the alcohol would just be another indication of you going over the edge.”

  He tossed the bottle aside and that’s when Maty noticed he was wearing gloves. And in his other hand he carried a knife, a wide-bladed hunting knife that he held down at his side as if he didn’t even realize he had it there.

  Panic forced Maty to step backward, slowly away from him until the small of her back pressed into the countertop. Trapped. There was nowhere for her to go.

  “I don’t understand,” she found herself saying out loud. It only seemed to make William grin more.

  “Of course you don’t. You’ve been so self-involved in your own stressed-out madness that you haven’t noticed anything or anyone around you. Where’s your pill bottle?”

  “But if you haven’t been happy—.”

  “Where the hell are your pills, Madeline?”

  In two steps he grabbed her by the hair and shoved the knife to her throat. His breath hot in her face, his eyes wide. He smelled of sweat and mud. He looked like a madman.

  “It was you. Last night in the woods,” she whispered and felt the metal press against each word. “Why?”

  This time he laughed.

  “I had to make sure you took them, that it looked like you’d gone over the edge. Everyone was supposed to be gone, but that boy ranger was still here. He saw me.”

  “Oh my God. William. What did you do?”

  “The son-of-a-bitch would have ruined it all. Then after the storm when I came inside and found you still breathing…” He dragged out the last word like it disgusted him.

  “You’re the one who took the key from the park office door.”

  “I knew you’d stop at work. It gave me plenty of time to get here.”

  “You called me from here. The train whistle…”

  “Make it easier on both of us, Maty. Where are your pills?”

  He yanked her head against the cupboard and she thought she might black out.

  “Okay,” she managed. “Stop, just let me get them.”

  He let go. Shoved her away and backed up.

  Maty rubbed at the back of her head and the tangled knot of hair. She eased herself toward the other end of the counter, hanging on for fear her knees might give out. She kept an eye on William even as she opened the zipper of her backpack and dug her hand inside. He stayed put, waiting, looking tired, impatient. She hardly recognized this man, his hair tousled and face dirty. He wasn’t her husband anymore. No, he was some deranged madman who had killed the park superintendent and was about to kill her.

  When Maty pulled the Colt revolver from her backpack William’s eyes grew wide. Before he could react, before he could move, Maty shot him twice in the chest. The blasts made her jump each time.

  She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. Her hands weren’t even shaking.

  She laid the revolver on the counter. Stepped back, opened the refrigerator and poured herself another glass of orange juice. This time she sat down. She wondered if this was what it felt like for her grandfather when the madness took over.

  She sipped the juice and said to herself, “Now, where to dump the body.”

  * * *

  ALEX KAVA has built a reputation writing psychological thrillers full of authentic details that blend fact with fiction. In Kava’s words, “If readers can’t tell where the facts left off and the fiction begins, I’ve done my job.” She is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels featuring Special FBI Agent Maggie O’Dell, as well as two stand-alone thrillers. Before writing novels full-time, Alex Kava spent fifteen years in advertising, marketing, and public relations. She divides her time between Omaha, Nebraska, and Pensacola, Florida.

  DEB CARLIN spent twenty-five years in the hospitality business, ranging from bars and restaurants to hotels, retiring with a stellar fifteen years at Darden Restaurants, where she helped write technical manuals and nonfiction business articles. She is the owner of eWebFocus, where she consults on business strategies for online presences. Her foray with After Dark is her first fiction endeavor, and she has plans to continue.

  Eye of the Storm

  JOHN LUTZ and LISE S. BAKER

  In the dimness of the depths, Rob McKenzie felt a tug at his air hose. Turning, he couldn’t believe his eyes. A giant hundred-pound squid
was doing the dance of death with him at sixty feet below. Then, as if in ghostly display, another fifty squid circled behind their comrade.

  Red Devils. Rob recalled reading about this phenomenon. But he had never seen anything like this, right off the coral reef of Key Largo. It had something to do with global warming, climate imbalance, and the increasing number of tropical storms and hurricanes.

  Well, this is sure proof, he thought. He wouldn’t have to write his local politician, since he was the Keys’ congressman.

  The squid nudged him again, this time tapping on his face mask. Rob felt a thrill course through his body. It was a will-I-survive moment and possibly the diving experience of a lifetime.

  Maybe the end of a lifetime. For a split second he thought about the good times with Mira, and the bad times. The better times with—

  A ripple of bubbles, one final push, and the entire school of squid was gone.

  Rob shook his head in disbelief, the adrenaline still pumping. This was going to be a great story to tell at work next week. He didn’t want to head for the surface yet, but knew he should. Mira, his wife, had been increasingly irritated with his ocean forays lately. Had she clued into the fact that his midnight swims had become something more?

  Engrossed in thought, Rob failed to notice he now had another visitor. This time it was in human form. Another diver, armed with a razor-sharp fish-gutting knife, was swimming up behind him. And yet another form swam behind that diver.

  * * *

  Mira McKenzie had just driven in from the deserted boathouse out on Shell Road. Sometimes she went there to think, other times for assignations with her pool boy. Fighting fire with fire regarding her failed marriage hadn’t worked. It had only served to make her feel bitter and cheap. Now she climbed the stairs to the third floor of a faded pink-stucco office building a block off Highway One. She was wearing spike heels. She tried to tell herself it was a good workout for her calves and not for her vanity.

  The frosted glass door was exactly as she had pictured it, like something out of a tawdry detective novel.

  L. S. CRUM

  PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  The office smelled faintly of mildew and rot, an odor redolent of the Keys. On a corner of the ancient wood desk was a seashell ashtray full of bent and broken cigarette butts that made Mira think of maggots. A stout woman sat behind the desk, sorting through file folders. Mira’s eyes caught one with her name on it. A word careened through her mind: Evidence.

  “I need to see Mr. Crum,” she said. “I’m a client.”

  The woman put the folders down, clasped her hands in front of her, and checked Mira out up and down. Her expression suggested she was confirming what she’d already figured out. It made Mira uncomfortable for a few seconds, then she decided what the hell did it matter?

  “There is no ‘Mister,’” the stout woman said.

  “I spoke to a man on the phone when I first hired your agency,” Mira insisted. A framed certificate on the wall caught her jumpy gaze. Florida Highway Patrol, it read. Lucy S. Crum. It was dated ten years previously.

  “That was my ex. He keeps the books and signs up the cases. I’m the detective.” The woman puffed out her massive chest like a strutting peacock.

  “I’m Mira. Mira McKenzie.” Mira had one hand in her purse. “I wanted to thank you for the job you did.”

  “Ah, the wayward spouse case.” Crum got up from behind the desk. She was a good six feet tall and three feet wide.

  Mira shuddered, but she’d be damned if she’d let this mountain of a woman make her feel small. “You got me the proof I needed. I don’t know why, but I had felt it was my imagination.”

  “Nope, it was all too real, Mrs. McKenzie. Sorry. They did a lot of diving together, and more than that.”

  “It’s a funny thing, but somehow I felt like everything that had happened was my fault.”

  “Lots of women in your position feel that way. A victim mentality, we call it.”

  This was Rob’s fault, all of it, thought Mira. She had divorced herself from emotion, instead of actually divorcing him. It would be cheaper that way, she reasoned. “I came to give you a bonus.” Mira pulled out her nine millimeter Glock handgun with a silencer.

  Crum was quick as well. She hadn’t spent a lifetime on the Florida Keys roads without developing an intuition for people. Trouble was, she’d seen too often the aftermath of bad decisions. This time, she was a second too slow as Mira shot her three times as if she was target practice.

  I’ll show you victim mentality, Mira thought. You’re the victim. She shoved the file into her purse and set out to look for the cabinet where Crum kept her DVD master copies. And don’t forget the computer backup file, the hard little voice inside her that she was coming to know so well told her.

  Once she destroyed the file, the only link between her and her husband’s death would be gone. The pool boy she’d hired to kill Rob had been paid off in untraceable cash, left for him to pick up where it was hidden in the deserted boathouse. By this evening he’d be California-bound. They would never see each other again. That was the deal, and he’d stick to it because he had no choice. He was the actual killer.

  * * *

  Mira’s BlackBerry rang just as she was turning her Mercedes convertible into the red paving stone driveway.

  The house on Key Largo’s Millionaires Row was picture perfect. The manicured St. Augustine’s grass, the sheltering oleander hedges, the hibiscus trailing in front of the white shutters. There was also the massive party barbecue area out back where scores of famous people had been wined and dined. And of course there was the requisite yacht, a forty-foot Sea Ray, Second Chance, tied up at the private dock. Rob’s Jaguar was still in the garage. A nice reminder of the fact he hadn’t surfaced for air since yesterday. Mira silenced the ring tone: Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough.” She smiled.

  You got enough, Rob.

  “Is Dad home?” Mira winced at her stepdaughter Trisha’s voice on the cell phone. Then she steeled herself. It was time to make life go on as if everything was normal. The only difference was she’d be twice as rich and Rob was swimming with the fishes.

  “Your dad didn’t make it home last night, sweetie,” Mira said innocently.

  “Where is he?” There was a plaintive note in Trisha’s voice that Mira had heard all too often. Trisha was obviously upset. Mira was unconcerned.

  “Have you tried calling him?”

  “I did. I left two messages. I failed the GMAT.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Mira unlocked the front door and got the burglar alarm shut off all in one practiced movement.

  “I really need to talk to Dad.”

  “Well, as soon as I see him or hear from him, I’ll make sure he calls you.”

  There was a silence on the other end. Trisha knew all was not right with her father. He had a definite eye for the ladies. Mira was his fourth wife. And his last.

  The shamus’s videos depicted Rob in a dark, shadowy Key West dive bar having cocktails with a healthy looking blonde young enough to be another daughter. She’d been identified as a grad student majoring in marine biology, and she was a member of the Coast Guard Reserve.

  Trisha was speaking … “I need to see this in a different light.”

  “See what?” Mira tried to pay attention. “Sorry, the connection went dead for a minute.”

  “Yeah, the storm will be coming through there soon.”

  “Storm?”

  “Mom, you need to keep up and watch the news. Hurricane Damon. You need to follow the storm warnings. You’re in the Florida Keys, for Chri’sakes.”

  Mira gave a little laugh. “We’ll batten down the hatches like we always do. And I’ll keep a lookout for your dad. Maybe he’s in poker game with his cronies.”

  “I think I’m going to switch to law. Maybe the GMAT was an aptitude test.”

  “Like in that movie with Melanie Griffith,” said Mira. “A mind for business, but a
body for sin.” Mira felt she was blabbing, but Trisha actually laughed before she cut the connection.

  She called me Mom, thought Mira. For the first time she felt the beginning of doubt about her actions. She had always hoped for a relationship with Trisha. She had always wanted a daughter.

  The thought was quickly followed by another: No going back now.

  * * *

  The storm hit at four in the morning. It woke Mira from a troubled dream in which half-decayed humans chased her down an alley. In the nightmare, she had frantically scratched at her arm. When she rolled up the sleeve of her nightgown, she found an oozing bloody tattoo of zombies.

  Still a dream …

  Awake completely now, she lay on the sweat-dampened sheets with her eyes open wide, staring at walls alive with the wild shadows of palm fronds dancing in the storm outside the window.

  She put her sleep mask on, but it didn’t help. It was as if she could still see the shadows. As if they were inside the mask.

  Drenched in perspiration, she listened to the wind howl like banshees and the rain pound at the storm shutters. There was no going back to sleep without help. She climbed out of bed, plodded barefoot into the kitchen, and washed down an Ambien with two fingers of gin.

  The last thing she was conscious of before sleep finally claimed her was the constant roar of the wind.

  When she awoke again at daybreak, she looked outside. She blinked and looked again. The yacht was gone from its moorings!

  The wind was still roaring and Mira felt like going back to bed. Maybe she could go back to sleep and when she woke again it would all be a bad dream. Maybe that was what life really was—dreaming, waking, dreaming, waking. Maybe none of it was real.

  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could choose which dream was real?

  She slipped back into the satin sheets and put her sleep mask back on. For good measure, she slathered on some neck cream. Possibly the storm would serve some type of purpose. She was getting her beauty sleep. And the boat, as she called it, was insured, after all

  * * *

  At one in the afternoon, utter silence awakened her. Yes, this was more like it. But when Mira looked outside for the second time that day, a worse sight greeted her. The yacht was still MIA. But now flood waters had crawled over the pilings and were at the back glass French doors. She pulled on a robe and hurried to check it out more closely.