Left To Die (56 page)
Authors: Lisa Jackson
Tags: #Suspense Fiction, #Traffic accidents, #Montana, #Police, #Mystery & Detective, #Serial murder investigation, #Fiction, #Serial murders, #Crime, #Psychological, #Women detectives - Montana, #Thrillers, #Police Procedural
She’s got it in CHOSEN TO DIE, where she is face-to-face with a sick killer. All the usual crazies and suspects from LEFT TO DIE will appear again, including Nate Santana, the man Regan hates to love, as well as the deputies and detectives of the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department and all the eccentric locals in the area that give them fits. I hope you’ll have as much fun reading Regan’s story as I had writing it. Look for it next summer.
And, in the meantime, I’ve got other exciting projects. First, let me tell you about WICKED GAME, the story I co-wrote with my sister, Nancy Bush. It’s set in the Pacific Northwest, back at St. Elizabeth’s parochial school, which was first introduced in MOST LIKELY TO DIE, a book I wrote with my friends Beverly Barton and Wendy Corsi Staub. There’s more trouble at the site of Saint Lizzy’s where a body is recently discovered, presumably the skeleton of a girl who disappeared years before. The case has gone stone cold, but now is the focus of a new investigation that includes a group of friends who seem to have a murderer in their midst. WICKED GAME will be available in February 2009, so give it a look.
In March the mass market paperback edition of my
New York Times
bestseller LOST SOULS will be on the stands. This is Kristi Bentz’s story, a thriller set at All Saints College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. All Saints is Kristi’s alma mater, where she’s attending grad school while writing her first true crime book centering on the disappearance of coeds at the school. As she investigates the missing girls’ lives, she becomes embroiled in a secret vampire cult and catches the attention of a twisted psychopath. Soon, the hunter becomes the prey and Kristi’s running for her life! LOST SOULS leads into my new hardcover, MALICE, available in April 2009.
MALICE is Rick Bentz’s story. Detective Bentz, a man thoroughly based in reality, thinks he’s being haunted by the ghost of his first wife, Jennifer, who died years before. Or at least he thinks she died. But his visions of Jennifer are so real, so vivid, he can’t help but feel that Kristi’s mother is very much alive and teasing him. He becomes obsessed with finding out the truth, even going so far as to reopen the investigation into her supposed suicide. Did she take her own life? Was she murdered? Or did she somehow survive the automobile crash and if so, who is the woman interred in her grave and why is she choosing now to haunt him? MALICE is a roller-coaster ride of insinuation and innuendo, where the lines of truth and lies blur and Bentz’s life is suddenly not what it seems.
I loved writing this book. It was one that literally haunted me for years. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Keep Reading,
Lisa Jackson
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Lisa Jackson’s
CHOSEN TO DIE,
coming in August 2009!
“Oh God, save me,” a frightened female voice whispers through the darkened hallways as I finish my exercise routine.
Ninety-three. Ninety-four. Ninety-five.
I count off each of the push-ups as sweat runs into my eyes and my arms start to shake, my hands flat against the cold stone floor, the fire hissing and casting the room in shifting golden shadows. Outside the night is raw, a storm howling through this solitary canyon, hard beads of snow adding to the feet that have already accumulated.
“Please, help me…”
I hear the desperation in her cries and it’s soothing to me even as it breaks my concentration.
Ninety-six. Ninety-seven.
My form is military perfect, my back level, my muscles gleaming with sweat, my shoulders and arms screaming, but the pain feels good, the sweet torment of my muscles straining, of mind over matter.
Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.
She’s crying now. Mewling and whimpering in the small bedroom. Like a lost kitten whose eyes have not yet open, searching in the darkness, calling out to the mother cat.
How perfect.
I pause, but only for a second as I savor the last push-up, slowly, painstakingly lowering my body until my chest nearly brushes the floor, then just as determinedly, shoving my weight upward. I hold my body in the final, perfect, suspended position and study my reflection for a minute. Flawless, strident muscles, thick hair, a handsome face staring back at me, veins bulging with the effort.
One fucking hundred.
“Someone, oh please…can anyone hear me?” she moans.
It’s time.
I release the pressure on my muscles and silently roll to my feet. From the back of a chair I retrieve my towel and dab away at the sweat as I listen to her cry. The longer she waits and worries, the more quickly she’ll learn to trust me.
I’m coming
, I think, knowing I must respond, play my part, act as if I truly care. I’ll give her comfort and pain killers, offer her hot tea and a kind embrace, so that she will want more, will turn to me for comfort, to save her. She will be difficult, I know, a stubborn, intelligent woman not easily turned, but I’ll find a way to break her, to make her trust me, to give herself body and soul to me.
Not that I’ll accept it.
Still, she will beg for me to take her, to hold her, to whisper that I love her, when, of course, I will not. I imagine the hope in her eyes, the quiver of her full lips, the touch of her hand as it slides slowly down my body in seductive invitation.
But I’ll resist.
As I always do.
I add another log to the fire, sparks spraying, hungry flames licking the dry wood, coals glowing blood red and giving this primitive cabin a warmth, a coziness. I head to the small bathroom, walk quickly through the shower, soaping off evidence of my workout, then slip into jeans and a sweater.
She’s sobbing quietly in the other room as I walk barefoot to the tiny kitchen where hot water is already steaming on the woodstove.
Perfect.
I pour a cup, add a tea bag and watch as the water turns the color of tobacco. A faint memory flits through my mind. It’s a picture of a woman long ago as she dunked a tea bag into a chipped cup. She’d been a pretty woman with pillowy breasts and lips always colored a shimmering peach and forever turned down at the corners. She’d smelled of cigarettes and perfume and had pretended to be my mother.
But she, like so many others, had been a fraud.
Quickly dispensing the ugly memory, I carry the cup through the living area where I’ve just finished my routine and down the hallway to my captive’s door. She’s quieter now, as if trying to disguise the fact that she’s been crying. As if she’s trying to pull herself together.
Which she never will.
I tap lightly on the panels and open the old door slowly, a crack of light cutting into the dark interior.
She’s lying on the bed. Frightened. Her eyes wide. Tears visible, tracking down her cheeks.
Am I her sinner or saint?
Her savior?
Or the embodiment of evil?
Soon, she’ll know.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
850 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2008 by Susan Lisa Jackson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 1-4201-0633-3
Table of Contents
Chapter One “Goddamn, son of a bitch.” Ivor Hicks usually didn’t mind the
Chapter Two Alvarez ignored the bite of the wind as she surveyed the crime scen
Chapter Three “Rise and shine,” Regan Pescoli ordered from the open doorway of
Chapter Four Naked, I stand at the window. Alone. Waiting. While
Chapter Five “You suck!” Bianca grumbled under her breath as Jeremy lay on the
Chapter Six Alvarez was naturally suspicious. But then again, it came with
Chapter Seven Scccrratttch! The match head scrapes loudly aga
Chapter Eight The FBI agents weren’t anything like they were portrayed in the m
Chapter Nine “So you don’t know where your sister might be,” Pescoli clarified,
Chapter Ten Alvarez offered the woman a cup of coffee and tried to keep her exp
Chapter Eleven MacGregor’s question hung in the air between them while the dog,
Chapter Twelve Through the icy window, Regan saw Lucky’s pickup roll up the lan
Chapter Thirteen In the task force room, most of the team had assembled by the
Chapter Fourteen Jillian glanced at the clock in the bookcase. Battery powered
Chapter Fifteen Jillian heard the sound of boots on the front porch and she ten
Chapter Sixteen Where am I? Jillian’s eyes flew open and for
Chapter Seventeen Help me! Oh God, please, someone hel
Chapter Eighteen Crack! The sound of a rifle’s report ricoche
Chapter Nineteen Jillian had never been so cold in her life. Teeth chatter
Chapter Twenty “I don’t care what the doctor says, I need to be released and I
Chapter Twenty-One “MacGregor’s not our guy,” Pescoli ground out as she parked
Chapter Twenty-Two “My son?” Pescoli repeated. Her heart nearly dropped ou
Chapter Twenty-Three MacGregor wanted to crawl out of his own skin. Sittin
Chapter Twenty-Four “Are you all right?” Zane asked, and she shook the cobwebs,
Chapter Twenty-Five It took Jillian nearly two hours to secure her release from
Chapter Twenty-Six “So what is it you want to say, Detective?” Cort Brewst
Chapter Twenty-Seven The problem with returning to Spruce Creek was that it was
Chapter Twenty-Eight Mason Rivers was under the radar. Not at his office,
Chapter Twenty-Nine What was the line from one of the old Airplane movies? This
Chapter Thirty Jillian had forgotten how heavenly civilization could be. F
Chapter Thirty-One MacGregor knew it was him. The man who showed up at the
