Storm Season (20 page)

J.T. Ellison is the bestselling author of nine critically acclaimed novels, multiple short stories and has been published in over twenty countries. Her novel
THE COLD ROOM
won the
ITW Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original
of 2010
and WHERE ALL
THE DEAD LIE
was a
RITA® Nominee for Best Romantic Suspense of 2012.

Ellison grew up in Colorado and moved to Northern Virginia during high school. She is a graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman's College and received her master's degree from George Washington University. She was a presidential appointee and worked in The White House and the Department of Commerce before moving into the private sector. As a financial analyst and marketing director, she worked for several defense and aerospace contractors.

After moving to Nashville, Ellison began research on a passion: forensics and crime. She has worked with the Metro Nashville Police Department, the FBI, and various other law enforcement organizations to research her books.

Her short stories have been widely published, including her award winning story "Prodigal Me" in the anthology Killer Year: Stories to Die For, edited by Lee Child, "Gray Lady, Lady Gray" in the anthology Surreal South '11, edited by Pinckney Benedict and Laura Benedict, "Killing Carol Ann" in First Thrills, edited by Lee Child, and "The Number of Man" in the anthology Love Is Murder, edited by Sandra Brown.

Ellison is a member of several professional writing organizations, including International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America and Romance Writers of America. She has an active following on Twitter under the name @Thrillerchick, and a robust Facebook community.

She lives in Nashville with her husband and the ghost of a poorly trained cat, and is hard at work on her next novel.

Taylor Jackson novels:

2007 All the Pretty Girls

2008 14

2009 Judas Kiss

2010 The Cold Room

2010 The Immortals

2011 So Close the Hand of Death

2011 Where All the Dead Lie

Sam Owens novels

2012 A Deeper Darkness 

2012 Edge of Black 

eNovellas:

2011 Slices of Night

2012 Storm Seaons

Anthologies:

2010 Sweet Little Lies

2010 Killer Year: Stories to Die For (editied by Lee Child)

"Shocking suspense, compelling characters and fascinating forensic details. When it comes to fast-paced thrillers, J.T. Ellison always has her game on." ~
Lisa Gardner, #1 NYT bestselling author of CATCH ME

"A DEEPER DARKNESS has everything I love in a thriller: stunning twists and shocks, fascinating forensics, and heroines I deeply cared about. JT Ellison is one of the best writers in the game."~
Tess Gerritsen, NYT bestselling author of THE SILENT GIRL

"Ellison is a genius and should be mandatory reading for any thriller aficionado".~
Romantic Times

Washington, D.C.

A single beam of light illuminated the path ahead, hovering and bobbing against the concrete walls. The tunnel was narrowing, growing tighter across his shoulder, forcing the joints to compress, pushing on his lungs. His breath came fast. He reminded himself to calm down, inhale through his nose. The mask was making it difficult to see, to smell, anything that might give him a sense of where he was. He paused, counted the number of times his limbs had moved forward. Once, twice, three times, twenty. Roger that. Five more evolutions and he'd be in place.

He squeezed forward, slithering like a snake along on his belly, his legs bunching up behind him, his arms forward, the Maglite in his left hand, his right feeling for the way. Slowly. Slowly.

There. He felt the hinge. Turned it gently, sensed the cooler air blowing up into the vent from below. Reached down into his shirt and pulled out the canister. The gloves made his hands clumsy, but he couldn't risk contact. He'd die stuck in this shaft, wedged in above the vent, stinking and rotting until someone finally sought the source of the smell.

No one would think to look for him if he were to go missing.

He had no one. He was alone.

He double-checked his mask, made sure he was breathing clean. All systems go.

Time.

With sure hands, he opened the cylinder and depressed the button. The can discharged, spraying silently into the vent. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Empty.

He shook it lightly, but there was nothing else to release. It was done.

He tucked the cylinder back into his shirt and started to move away. He needed to get out of the shaft and back onto the platform, all while avoiding the cameras.

He could do it. He had faith. He'd done three dry runs, and all went according to plan.

He moved out, reversing the slither, arms bunching, forcing his body backward until the resistance ended and he could move his shoulders and hips without constriction. The pipe grew larger, big enough that he crawled onto his knees, turned and faced the exit. He fed a mirror mount down the shaft. No one was around.

Clear.

He dropped lightly to the ground, took three steps to the right to make sure he didn't accidentally get caught on film, found the metal ladder and began to climb. Higher and higher, his heart lighter and lighter. Success was his.

Below, he felt the first blast of air that indicated a train was coming. The rumbling grew louder, the ladder began to shake. He could have sworn he heard a cough. He paused his climb, held on and breathed into his mask.

This was a better high than you could pay for.

The train passed below him, streaking silver in the dark, rushing the air from the vent toward the platform. He let the rumbling shake his body for a few moments, counting off again, then continued to climb. The exit would be deserted, he'd made sure of that. He had a two-minute window during the shift change to get out.

He set the stopwatch in his head. Two minutes. Mark.

He opened the hatch and climbed onto the deserted platform. Three steps to the right, two steps forward. He'd left his backpack in the trash receptacle. He worked quickly. The mask, canister and gloves went into a sealable plastic bag. His clothes were next: he exchanged the black running suit for jeans and a white cotton T-shirt, pulled on yellow Timber-lands. He used hand sanitizer on his arms to eliminate any traces that might have been left behind.

He zippered the bag, tossed it on his shoulder and started walking.

One minute.

The giant disposal catchall was nearly full. As he passed it, he tossed the bag into the depths. He knew they'd be around to empty it in two hours, and all tangible evidence of the crime would disappear into the vast chaos that was the dump.

Now unencumbered, he made better time.

Thirty seconds.

He could hear voices, ahead in the gloom. Twenty seconds.

He stretched his stride, long legs eating up the pathway. The elongated shaft of the tunnel appeared before him. His senses were overloaded—orange and blue and white lights, people milling about, yellow hard hats obscuring peripheral vision, getting ready to go back into the tunnels and hammer for the next several hours. He ducked around a column, reversing direction, and slid into the last of the line with the rest of the workers. Ten seconds.

The first shift ended with a shrieking whistle, and a subway train arrived, rumbling to a stop on the platform. He followed the crowd into the metal tube, took a seat. The rest of the workers filed in behind him, exhausted after their long overnight.

Time.

The train pulled away, building speed, taking him farther and farther from the scene, away, in the other direction, from the canister's contents.

He was safe.

He risked a small smile. Around him, men's heads nodded in time as the train rushed along the tracks. He started counting forward, and at ninety-eight, the train began to lurch to a stop.

At exactly one hundred, the doors opened, and he stepped out into the brilliant early-morning sunshine.

Only one thing left to do, then he could depart. Leave this cesspool of a city behind.

Glory was his. Glory be. Glory be.