Look Away Read online

  Look Away

  a Renegade Justice Thriller

  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 # 1-5888583381

  Contents

  Praise For CJ Lyons’ Thrillers with Heart:

  Introduction: Renegade Justice Thrillers, featuring Morgan Ames

  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

  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

  Introduction: Renegade Justice Thrillers, featuring Morgan Ames

  Meet Everyone’s Favorite Teenage Psychopath…

  Readers fell in love with Morgan in the Lucy Guardino thrillers and begged for more of everyone’s favorite teenaged psychopath…

  Morgan’s story begins in the second book of the Lucy Guardino thriller series, with Lucy’s husband, Nick, playing a significant role as Morgan tries to shun her serial-killer father’s indoctrination and give up violence.

  To see how Morgan’s story fits in Lucy’s world, the stories in order are:

  SNAKE SKIN, Lucy Guardino FBI Thrillers Book #1

  BLOOD STAINED, introduces Morgan and Jenna

  KILL ZONE, features Morgan and Jenna, introduces Andre

  The Renegade Justice Thrillers (taking place in the year between KILL ZONE and AFTER SHOCK):

  FIGHT DIRTY, Renegade Justice #1

  RAW EDGES, Renegade Justice #2

  ANGELS WEEP, Renegade Justice #3

  LOOK AWAY, Renegade Justice #4

  OVER KILL, coming 2018!

  The Lucy Guardino Thrillers continue, chronicling Lucy’s departure from the FBI and her new adventures at Beacon Falls:

  AFTER SHOCK

  HARD FALL

  BAD BREAK

  LAST LIGHT

  DEVIL SMOKE

  OPEN GRAVE

  GONE DARK

  BITTER TRUTH, coming 2018!

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  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

  Morgan Ames was running out of time.

  She’d thought—after surviving her serial killer father, being in a coma for almost a month, and relearning how to walk, talk, and think during rehab—that she’d have all the time in the world.

  After all, she had plenty of money, no need to worry about shelter or transportation since she “borrowed” those—always returning houses and cars in better condition than she’d “found” them—and, most importantly, no enemies left alive to hunt her. A rare occurrence in her fifteen years of life.

  The ticking time bomb driving her now had nothing to do with crime or criminals. It was all about a boy.

  That fact rankled her more than any of her new assortment of scars. Because the only thing Morgan had ever run from in her life was the truth of who she really was: a teenaged girl with all the drives—and hormones!—of any other “normal” teenaged girl. Morgan could never be a Norm, one of the faceless Sheep aimlessly wandering the world. She was a Wolf, a predator to be feared as she prowled the night.

  But after spending this past year hiding among the Sheep, masking her true nature—and failing miserably—there was now a boy. Someone who trusted in her, who believed in her, who knew her true self yet refused to run and hide.

  A boy who made her desperately yearn to be normal. The one thing Morgan could never be…

  After almost dying, she’d pushed herself through physical therapy, regaining her dexterity and strength, but now faced a far more difficult rehab: learning how to be herself again. Not just how to use a knife and fork properly or walk a straight line or carry on a conversation without losing track, but more important things like regaining her most essential abilities: how to lie, cheat, steal.

  How to inhabit a mask so well that no one doubted. How to read the subtle clues in a Norm’s speech and body language and know when she’d pushed too far.

  Pre-coma Morgan had convinced the guards at a maximum-security penitentiary that she was a twenty-two year old paralegal; on the phone she’d successfully posed as everything from a doctor to a forensic specialist to an FBI agent to a bank manager with the ease of a chameleon.

  These
were Morgan’s basic survival skills, and she wanted—no, she needed—them back before she could return home to Pittsburgh.

  There were only five people in the world whom Morgan trusted with the knowledge of who she really was: Lucy Guardino, the FBI agent who’d caught Morgan’s serial killer father; Lucy’s husband Nick Callahan, the psychologist who’d promised to help Morgan find new outlets for the violence ingrained in her psychopathic soul; Jenna Galloway, the former federal agent who’d hired Morgan to work at her security firm; Jenna’s boyfriend, Andre Stone, the one person Morgan could never con; and Micah Chase, the boy Morgan had met while working undercover at a juvenile detention center. That case had been her hardest assignment, playing someone who was basically her own true self.

  The self Micah said he’d fallen in love with.

  Morgan wanted to dismiss his feelings as the hormonal urges of a seventeen-year-old boy, but something in Micah made her long to be better, to be the kind of girl a guy like Micah could love.

  The fact that he saw something good inside her—despite knowing the truth of who she really was, despite having seen her kill up close and personal—left her desperate to prove herself worthy. Lord knew he’d placed himself in harm’s way often enough for her sake.

  Micah’s birthday was in six days. And Morgan refused to return to him until she was fully healed—body, soul, and mind. Regaining her old skills didn’t mean she had to return to a life of violence; on the contrary, they were her best bet against being forced to shed blood.

  Morgan sat in her car, a 2004 Ford Focus she’d bought for cash off Craigslist when she first came down south, the better to cement her cover ID as Hildy Smith, normal average working girl. She’d never owned a car before, and if she had, she never would have bought such a commonplace, sensible vehicle, but over the past few weeks she’d grown to appreciate the Ford’s invisibility.

  She stared up at the building where her new job was located. All American Call Services owned the entire five-story building. They’d built it here in Okatie, South Carolina, off the main highway leading into Hilton Head, close to affordable housing yet out of sight of tourists. It was an ugly concrete and glass building, but compared to its neighbors—a storage facility and a mattress outlet—it appeared stately and dignified.

  Originally All American had been created to address the backlash when so many call centers were based in non-English speaking areas. Then the bots and robocallers came, and they changed their motto to “The Human Face of Your Business.” According to their website, they handled customer service for over a dozen companies in addition to making cold calls for thirty-one corporate clients and seventeen non-profits.

  And somehow over the past four years, nine murder victims had made calls to different businesses using All American, all within forty-eight hours of their deaths. Which was why Morgan was here. If she was right—and the thrill electrifying her blood told her she was—there was a serial killer using the call center to find his victims.

  Which made it the perfect place to not only fine-hone her disguise as a Norm, but also to confront a fellow Wolf hiding among unsuspecting Sheep. Bringing a killer to justice? The perfect birthday present, definitely worthy of Micah.

  Morgan’s scalp itched. She slid off her purple wig and scratched at her short curls. It had been over a month since she’d shaved her scalp to complete her impersonation of a cancer survivor, and her hair was finally growing back, long enough for her to forgo the wig altogether without drawing attention. But she needed the wig’s protection for another few days to cement her new co-workers’ first impression of her as Hildy the cancer girl with the purple hair.

  She felt no qualms about posing as a cancer survivor. Far better that people believed the scars covering her body came from caring surgeons rather than the hands of her ruthless serial killer father. People liked to believe lies like that. It made them feel good to be nice to someone like Hildy; made them feel lucky that there but for the grace…made them smile and nod and say “So nice to meet you, anything I can do to help?” and then do whatever Morgan needed them to do; easy as leading Sheep to the slaughter.

  Maybe the killer had done something similar, only with their voice? Led their victims exactly where the victims thought they wanted to go, not realizing until the final moment that they’d been herded like Sheep.

  If so, it meant she was looking for someone less like her father—who lacked social finesse to the point where he’d had to use his children as stalking horses to lure his victims—and more like Morgan herself. On one level, it posed an interesting challenge to her newly honed skills and hard-won mental clarity.

  On another, deeper level, one she refused to think about, it posed a terrifying question: was Morgan good enough to catch a killer without killing? Because if she couldn’t find a way to outsmart her native instincts to use violence as her first-line coping mechanism, then no way in hell could she return to Pittsburgh and the people she cared about. She refused to put them in danger because of who she was.

  Even if it meant never seeing Micah again.

  Chapter Two

  Morgan squinted into the morning sunshine streaming through the Ford’s windshield and used the mirror to put her wig back on and adjust it. Then she opened the car door, stood, and smoothed the wrinkles from her simple tunic blouse and cotton slacks. Hildy couldn’t afford anything fancy like a suit, not even for a first day on a new job.

  She slipped her purple sunglasses on, a gift from Micah. She couldn’t help but smile every time she wore them. Of course she’d modified them—the stems could now be used as lock picks and one of the earpieces concealed a micro-thumb drive loaded with the software she’d need to gain administrative access to the All American computers. Sad to say, they had better cybersecurity than most law enforcement agencies—although that alone had raised a red flag and made her wonder if the killer were someone in All American’s IT department. They could be scanning calls for their next victim and using the info in the database to cyberstalk them.

  Across the parking lot, the glass doors leading into the office building slid open and a man approached. He was black, in his mid-forties, with a short afro and a wide grin. And was riding a unicycle.

  “Hildy Smith? I’m Gavin, Gavin Schultz. Welcome to All American.” His voice boomed across the empty space between them, carrying with it a bonhomie she could tell was genuine. Despite herself, she smiled. He circled her, then pulled up in front of her. “What, they don’t have ride-your-unicycle-to-work days where you come from?”

  Before she could reply, he dismounted and took her hand. “Nice to meet you, Hildy. I’ll be your official tour guide for the day.”

  “Does everyone here ride—” She gestured at the unicycle, suddenly fighting the urge to ask him for lessons on how to ride it. Gavin made it look like fun. Morgan couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something just for fun—other than killing, that was.

  His laugh was as deep and rumbling as his voice. “I’m a bit ahead of my time, I guess. Hasn’t really caught on with other folks.”

  “It must take a lot of strength and balance. Not to mention courage to try the first time.” They strolled through the parking lot to the building’s entrance. Once beneath the awning, Morgan removed her sunglasses.

  “Not if you have a good teacher. Happy to give you lessons, anytime.” His gaze caught on her purple wig and pale skin. “That is, if, I mean—”

  “I’m pretty much back to healthy, according to the doctors. And I might just take you up on that. Unicycle riding lessons sound like fun.”

  “Cool.” They entered the reception area—which was not at all what Morgan had expected. Unlike the sterile, institutional architecture outside, the building’s interior was a riot of splashes of happy color. The only hint of white came from large hand-lettered aphorisms covering the walls as well as the ceiling—uplifting sayings attributed to authors whose names she didn’t recognize. Except one. “Laughter builds the bridge past anger and pai
n,” she read. “Gavin Schultz. Is that you?”

  “They’re all us. Anyone can add one—only rule is to keep it clean since this is a public lobby.”

  “This isn’t what I expected. I mean, I’ve heard—”

  “Horror stories about modern-day sweat shops? Don’t worry, that’s not All American. We’re not your typical call center—in fact, don’t let the boss, Mr. Kagan, hear you call it that. We’re a ‘care center,’ not a call center.” He used finger quotes to emphasize. “Things are a lot different around here than those cubicle farms designed to suck the life out of workers.”

  He parked the unicycle against the wall and nodded to the receptionist, an older woman with white hair and penciled-on eyebrows who was on the phone but smiled back and handed Morgan a pass. Behind the reception desk was a door leading to a stairwell, but instead Gavin led her to a bank of elevators with smiley faces painted across the doors.