Gone Dark Read online

  Gone Dark

  a Beacon Falls Mystery featuring Lucy Guardino

  CJ Lyons

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Copyright © 2017 by CJ Lyons

  Edgy Reads

  cover design by: Toni McGee Causey

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CJ Lyons and Thrillers with Heart registered Trademarks of

  CJ Lyons, LLC

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  Library of Congress Case # 1-5739917141

  Contents

  Praise For CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About the Author

  Praise For CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  "Everything a great thriller should be—action packed, authentic, and intense." ~#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

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  "A compelling new voice in thriller writing…I love how the characters come alive on every page." ~New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver

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  "Top Pick! A fascinating and intense thriller." ~ RT Book Reviews

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  "An intense, emotional thriller…(that) climbs to the edge of intensity." ~National Examiner

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  "A perfect blend of romance and suspense. My kind of read." ~#1 New York Times Bestselling author Sandra Brown

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  "Highly engaging characters, heart-stopping scenes…one great rollercoaster ride that will not be stopping anytime soon." ~Bookreporter.com

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  "Adrenalin pumping." ~The Mystery Gazette

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  "Riveting." ~Publishers Weekly Beyond Her Book

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  Lyons "is a master within the genre." ~Pittsburgh Magazine

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  "Will leave you breathless and begging for more." ~Romance Novel TV

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  "A great fast-paced read….Not to be missed." ~Book Addict

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  "Breathtakingly fast-paced." ~Publishers Weekly

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  "Simply superb…riveting drama…a perfect ten." ~Romance Reviews Today

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  "Characters with beating hearts and three dimensions." ~Newsday

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  "A pulse-pounding adrenalin rush!" ~Lisa Gardner

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  "Packed with adrenalin." ~David Morrell

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  "…Harrowing, emotional, action-packed and brilliantly realized." ~Susan Wiggs

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  "Explodes on the page…I absolutely could not put it down." ~Romance Readers' Connection

  CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  To download the complete list in PDF click HERE or visit CJLyons.net

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  LUCY GUARDINO THRILLERS:

  SNAKE SKIN

  BLOOD STAINED

  KILL ZONE

  AFTER SHOCK

  HARD FALL

  BAD BREAK

  LAST LIGHT

  DEVIL SMOKE

  OPEN GRAVE

  GONE DARK

  BITTER TRUTH (coming 2018)

  RENEGADE JUSTICE THRILLERS, featuring Morgan Ames:

  FIGHT DIRTY

  RAW EDGES

  ANGELS WEEP

  FATAL INSOMNIA MEDICAL THRILLERS:

  FAREWELL TO DREAMS

  A RAGING DAWN

  THE SLEEPLESS STARS

  HART AND DRAKE MEDICAL SUSPENSE:

  NERVES OF STEEL

  SLEIGHT OF HAND

  FACE TO FACE

  EYE OF THE STORM

  SHADOW OPS, ROMANTIC THRILLERS:

  CHASING SHADOWS

  LOST IN SHADOWS

  EDGE OF SHADOWS

  CAITLYN TIERNEY FBI THRILLERS:

  BLIND FAITH

  BLACK SHEEP

  HOLLOW BONES

  ANGELS OF MERCY MEDICAL SUSPENSE:

  LIFELINES

  WARNING SIGNS

  URGENT CARE

  CRITICAL CONDITION

  YOUNG ADULT THRILLERS:

  BROKEN

  WATCHED

  CO-WRITTEN WITH ERIN BROCKOVICH:

  ROCK BOTTOM

  HOT WATER

  SINGLE TITLE STANDALONES:

  LUCIDITY, a Ghost of a Love Story

  BORROWED TIME

  Introduction

  With almost a million copies sold, readers can’t get enough of Lucy Guardino, everyone’s favorite Pittsburgh soccer mom turned kick-ass FBI agent!

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  Don’t miss any of Lucy’s adventures:

  SNAKE SKIN, a USA Today Bestseller

  BLOOD STAINED, a USA Today Bestseller

  KILL ZONE, a Suspense Magazine Book of the Year

  AFTER SHOCK, a novella

  HARD FALL, Winner of the 2015 Thriller Award

  BAD BREAK, a novella

  and Lucy’s NEW Beacon Falls Mysteries:

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  LAST LIGHT

  DEVIL SMOKE

  OPEN GRAVE

  GONE DARK

  Everything a great thriller should be—action packed, authentic, and intense.” ~Lee Child

  Want to be the first to have a chance to read the new books? Sign up for my Thrillers with Heart newsletter HERE—and you’ll also get a free copy of the first Lucy adventure, SNAKE SKIN!

  Be sure to open the Thrillers with Heart emails; they’ll arrive every few weeks with info on contests, new books, and exclusive offers for my readers!

  Chapter One

  October 17, 2006

  Craven County, TN

  * * *

  Between the weight of Hank’s body and his blood slicked over my eyes, nose, and mouth, I couldn’t breathe. Actually, I didn’t care about breathing. What I really wanted to do was scream.

  I opened my mouth, and the stench of blood mixed with gunpowder made me retch. I locked my jaws, teeth grinding, to hold back soured orange juice vomit. Swallowing burnt my throat but helped me ignore the blood.

  My elbows ground against the rough concrete floor as I heaved Hank off me. I heard a moan—not from him—and dropped the gun. It clattered against the floor, sliding under a coffee table strewn with playing cards, cigarette butts, a glass bong shaped like a dragon, red plastic cups, and the vodka bottle, all now speckled red with blood.

  Music swelled, competing with the storm outside as it
pounded against the cinderblock walls. Led Zeppelin, Jack had told me. Something about a hangman. Definitely not the kind of music we listened to at my gran’s house—she was partial to Merle Haggard and George Strait. The thought of Gran, of what she would think had happened here tonight, of telling her…it was unbearable. I closed my eyes, took another breath, forcing myself not to gag, and opened them once more. Please, God, let Jack be okay.

  I couldn’t make it farther than my knees, not without my vision going swimmy and dark. I crawled the few feet to where Jack lay. It was obvious his one eye was gone—a cavernous black-rimmed hole brimming with blood was all that was left. But he wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. His hand flapped toward me, landing in my lap like it had earlier in the night, but this time I didn’t slap him away. This time I grabbed him and held on tight.

  “It’ll be okay,” I kept saying. I knew I should say something else, comfort him, make everything right—as if words could ever fix what had happened here tonight—but my brain was sticky with cobwebs and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Hank,” he mumbled. “Where’s—”

  I swiveled my body to block any chance of him seeing his twin brother; or what was left of him. Hank’s face was pretty much gone, but worse was what was oozing out the back of his head. Despite the miserly light provided by a few bare bulbs swinging from the rafters, I could still see way too much. My stomach heaved and kicked, but Jack clutched my hand so tight all I could do was turn my head away, close my eyes against the sight of Hank’s faceless body, and vomit in the direction of the floor drain. From the burn, I guessed maybe there’d been vodka in the OJ—I knew there’d been something, the way my brain felt lighter than air and my lips were numb and I couldn’t think through the cotton candy fuzz filling my head.

  The twins had promised it was only orange juice, promised I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want, promised I could stop anytime and they’d take me home… They’d lied.

  But that didn’t mean they deserved to die.

  “Cherry,” Jack called to me as if I weren’t mere inches from him, “I can’t see.”

  “Hang on.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

  I needed to call for help. I glanced around the small office—the twins had taken it over as a sort of clubhouse, but there was no phone that I could see. It wasn’t even a proper office, just a corrugated tin roof over four concrete block walls set on a cement slab with a drain in the center—that drain now slick with undigested pretzels and clumps of OJ and mucus, but I couldn’t help but wonder what that drain was there for, given that the massive barn the room connected to had once been a slaughterhouse. That’s what the Kutlers were known for—beef. The best in Craven County, enough to feed hordes of hungry copper and coal miners, iron workers, truck drivers, and railroad men.

  Of course, now all the mines and forges are closed, and with them the trucks and trains have gone as well. Along with the cows. The Kutlers still own the land, now used for four-wheeling and paintball wars. Somehow, despite the rest of the county losing just about everything, they still managed to thrive. Not by much, but so far ahead of the rest of us that everyone ducked their head in a nod of respect when the Kutlers passed by.

  All night long Jack kept making the joke, over and over, until even Hank stopped laughing at it. C’mon, Cherrygirl, let me show you my beef.

  As the words flew through my head, I gagged. Tried to throw up some more, but all that came out was bile. My body heaved, Jack’s moans punctuating my coughing. Help; I needed to get help.

  The cheap door rattled and the tin roof pinged, the storm outside still lashing wind and rain against the building. There were no windows, and I had no idea what time it was—time seemed muddled, filled with gaps I couldn’t connect.

  I remembered school, riding my bike home when the storm hit, pumping my legs as hard as I could up the steep switchbacks; then the roar of the truck, my scream when it almost hit me, skidding through the mud and gravel and into the kudzu and scrub oaks lining the side of the road. Hank tossing my bike into the back of the pickup like it weighed nothing, me climbing into the front seat between him and Jack, their legs pressed against mine, both so warm. Hank shoving Jack away from me as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed, told me everything was going to be okay, my bike wasn’t hurt that bad and he could fix anything, I’d see…

  Gran had bought me that bike last Christmas, used at the St. Vincent’s, but she’d painted it, made it look all shiny and new again. She’d kill me if anything happened to it. Gran—where’s Gran? Right. In the hospital. Part of the reason I’d ended up here to start with. She’s gonna be so mad at me. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help but glance at Hank’s body. Everyone will be. Think, Cherish, think. Help. Call 911.

  One of the twins—it took me a moment to remember which one—had slid my phone out of my coat pocket the first time I’d asked to leave. Jack; it had been Jack, I was almost sure, my memories of just a few hours ago already faded and worn as thin as the frayed holes in my jeans. I was only fourteen, had never been drunk before—I guess I’d thought throwing up would help clear out the alcohol or something, but it was still hard to think straight. Phone. Right. I need a phone. Even if not mine—well, Gran’s, really. She’d bought it so they could call her into work when they needed extra help at the chicken plant over in Cleveland. Before she got sick.

  Phone. Jack had one. Both twins did—those fancy, slimmer, shiny ones that did so much more than just make calls. Gingerly, I patted his pockets, sliding one hand beneath his butt—something that normally would have thrown me into a panic attack. Me, Cherish Walker, trailer-trash freshman nobody, daring to touch the great and mighty senior all-star wide receiver Jack Kutler’s butt? Probably the most coveted ass in all of Craven County. Well, tied with his identical twin quarterback brother Hank’s, that was.

  Now, of course, none of that mattered, but I couldn’t stop the thought, and thinking it had me giggling in a weird half scream, half crying way. I felt a hard slab of plastic and slid it free from his pocket. The screen blinked to life, and I dialed.

  “911. What’s your emergency?”

  “Someone’s been shot. The old Kutler slaughterhouse.”

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Cherish Walker. Please hurry.” I turned my head away from Jack, facing the puddle of my expelled stomach contents and Hank’s lifeless body, and whispered, “I think he might be dying.”

  Chapter Two

  Eleven years later…

  * * *

  Lucy Guardino steered her Subaru over the steeply curved country road south of Pittsburgh, the car’s headlights carving a white blare through the pitch black. She should slow down—hitting a deer at this speed would be a death sentence. But the churning anxiety tugging at her stomach wouldn’t let her.

  “Are you there yet?” her husband’s disembodied voice asked via the car’s speakers. Nick was at a traumatologist conference in Orlando, leaving Lucy alone to deal with…well, whatever the hell this was. Probably nothing; hopefully nothing.

  “No.” Her tone was clipped, and she worked to soften it. It wasn’t Nick’s fault. “Almost.”

  “I keep trying their landline but no answer. Should I call the police?” His voice tightened with fear.

  “It’s unincorporated county land. This time of night, any calls would go to the Staties. I’m closer.” She jerked the wheel and hit the brakes. There was a narrow lane up ahead—or was it just a gap in the trees? No, it was definitely a road—not paved, gravel. She glanced at her nav screen. All it showed was a mass of green. Then her headlights caught the glint of a mailbox.

  “I found it.” She turned down the drive. The first quarter mile she couldn’t see anything through the thick forest, but then the trees gave way to reveal a wide lawn and buildings. A large barn and a few smaller outbuildings along with two houses—one a traditional farm house that looked like it could have
been there for a century or more, the other a sprawling modern ranch all glass and sharp angles.

  An assortment of vehicles was parked on the drive and grass, clustered in front of the newer house. Music pulsated through the sweltering July night.

  As Lucy pulled up and parked, she spotted several couples in various states of undress making out in the cars. She grabbed her phone, switched the call over, and exited the Subaru.

  Her hand went to her hip, where her Beretta 9mm was holstered on the waistband of her jeans, checking that it was still secure. Despite the fact that she’d left the FBI earlier in the year, after fifteen years with the Bureau, old habits wouldn’t die—especially not with her daughter involved. She tugged the hem of her faded Penguins tee back over the semi-automatic; almost thought twice about carrying the weapon into a house filled with drunk, partying teenagers. But her daughter was somewhere inside—along with who-knew-what.