Thicker Than Blood - The Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy

INTRODUCTION

Thicker Than Blood is the definitive volume of the Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy, containing Desert Places, Locked Doors, Break You, and a host of bonus material never before released, including massive alternate endings to both Desert Places and Locked Doors.

Andrew Z. Thomas is the character that made my writing career—a horror novelist thrown into a nightmare world more terrifying than the books he wrote. His moral journey, from a novelist who writes horror fiction to someone who must finally question whether the words they write are actually a deeper reflection of the soul within, has been a wild ride, and I've loved every second of it—from the moment I started Desert Places in the summer of 1999, up until last month when I completed the double novel, Serial Killers Uncut, with J.A. Konrath, featuring many of the characters contained within these pages.

If you've never read my work before, this is a great place to start. If you've read any of my other books, you may have an idea of what you're in for—a blistering thrill-ride into hell.
 

Thanks for coming along...now hold on tight.

Blake Crouch

May, 2011

Durango, Colorado

FOREWORD TO DESERT PLACES

I first became aware of Blake Crouch in 2005, when a friend of mine said, "You should read him. He writes wicked stuff like you do."

So I read
Desert Places
, and realized my friend was sugar-coating it.

Wicked? Crouch was one of the most intense, no-holds-barred, in-your-face writers I had ever come across.
Desert Places
was an adrenaline-fueled nightmare, which moved so fast I had to hold onto the book with both hands.

But underneath all that intensity beat the heart of a damn fine writer. Someone who could turn a phrase, slip in some subtext, make the reader really care.

Desert Places
will give you nightmares. But it will also move you in ways you didn’t expect.

How much do I admire his work? After I became a fan, I sought Blake out and we’ve worked together on several projects, with more planned for the future.

If this is the first time you’ve read
Desert Places
, I envy you. You’re in for one helluva ride.

Jack Kilborn, author of Trapped, Afraid, and Endurance

DESERT PLACES

* * *

"Greetings. There is a body buried on your property, covered in your blood. The unfortunate young lady's name is Rita Jones. In her jeans pocket you'll find a slip of paper with a phone number on it. Call that number. If I have not heard from you by 8:00 p.m., the police will receive an anonymous call. I'll tell them where Rita Jones is buried on your property, how you killed her, and where the murder weapon can be found in your house. (I do believe a paring knife is missing from your kitchen.) I strongly advise against going to the police, as I am always watching you."

Andrew Z. Thomas is a successful writer of suspense thrillers, living the dream at his lake house in the piedmont of North Carolina. One afternoon in late spring, he receives a bizarre letter that eventually threatens his career, his sanity, and the lives of everyone he loves. A murderer is designing his future, and for the life of him, Andrew can't get away.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars — on stars where no human race is

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

— ROBERT FROST, "DESERT PLACES"

I

1

ON a lovely May evening, I sat on my deck, watching the sun descend upon Lake Norman. So far, it had been a perfect day. I’d risen at 5:00 A.M. as I always do, put on a pot of French roast, and prepared my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and a bowl of fresh pineapple. By six o’clock, I was writing, and I didn’t stop until noon. I fried two white crappies I’d caught the night before, and the moment I sat down for lunch, my agent called. Cynthia fields my messages when I’m close to finishing a book, and she had several for me, the only one of real importance being that the movie deal for my latest novel, Blue Murder, had closed. It was good news of course, but two other movies had been made from my books, so I was used to it by now.

I worked in my study for the remainder of the afternoon and quit at 6:30. My final edits of the new as yet untitled manuscript would be finished tomorrow. I was tired, but my new thriller, The Scorcher, would be on bookshelves within the week. I savored the exhaustion that followed a full day of work. My hands sore from typing, eyes dry and strained, I shut down the computer and rolled back from the desk in my swivel chair.

I went outside and walked up the long gravel drive toward the mailbox. It was the first time I’d been out all day, and the sharp sunlight burned my eyes as it squeezed through the tall rows of loblollies that bordered both sides of the drive. It was so quiet here. Fifteen miles south, Charlotte was still gridlocked in rush-hour traffic, and I was grateful not to be a part of that madness. As the tiny rocks crunched beneath my feet, I pictured my best friend, Walter Lancing, fuming in his Cadillac. He’d be cursing the drone of horns and the profusion of taillights as he inched away from his suite in uptown Charlotte, leaving the quarterly nature magazine Hiker to return home to his wife and children. Not me, I thought, the solitary one.

For once, my mailbox wasn’t overflowing. Two envelopes lay inside, one a bill, the other blank except for my address typed on the outside. Fan mail.

Back inside, I mixed myself a Jack Daniel’s and Sun-Drop and took my mail and a book on criminal pathology out onto the deck. Settling into a rocking chair, I set everything but my drink on a small glass table and gazed down to the water. My backyard is narrow, and the woods flourish a quarter mile on either side, keeping my home of ten years in isolation from my closest neighbors. Spring had not come this year until mid-April, so the last of the pink and white dogwood blossoms still specked the variably green interior of the surrounding forest. Bright grass ran down to a weathered gray pier at the water’s edge, where an ancient weeping willow sagged over the bank, the tips of its branches dabbling in the surface of the water.

The lake is more than a mile wide where it touches my property, making houses on the opposite shore visible only in winter, when the blanket of leaves has been stripped from the trees. So now, in the thick of spring, branches thriving with baby greens and yellows, the lake was mine alone, and I felt like the only living soul for miles around.

I put my glass down half-empty and opened the first envelope. As expected, I found a bill from the phone company, and I scrutinized the lengthy list of calls. When I’d finished, I set it down and lifted the lighter envelope. There was no stamp, which I thought strange, and upon slicing it open, I extracted a single piece of white paper and unfolded it. In the center of the page, one paragraph had been typed in black ink:

Greetings. There is a body buried on your property, covered in your blood. The unfortunate young lady’s name is Rita Jones. You’ve seen this missing school-teacher’s face on the news, I’m sure. In her jeans pocket you’ll find a slip of paper with a phone number on it. You have one day to call that number. If I have not heard from you by 8:00 P.M. tomorrow (5/17), the Charlotte Police Department will receive an anonymous phone call. I’ll tell them where Rita Jones is buried on Andrew Thomas’s lakefront property, how he killed her, and where the murder weapon can be found in his house. (I do believe a paring knife is missing from your kitchen.) I hope for your sake I don’t have to make that call. I’ve placed a property marker on the grave site. Just walk along the shoreline toward the southern boundary of your property and you’ll find it. I strongly advise against going to the police, as I am always watching you.