Authors: Kate Brady
Tags: #Fiction / Romance - Suspense, #Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense, #Fiction / Thrillers / Crime, #Fiction / Romance - Erotica
Where Evil Waits
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For Brady, my true love;
For my parents, who taught me how to recognize true love;
For my children, who are the gifts of true love.
I offer sincere gratitude to my editor, Selina McLemore, for her ever-wise counsel on this manuscript, and my great appreciation to Alex Logan for taking the ball across the finish line.
I continue to exist in a state of astonishment at my good fortune in having caught the eye of agent Jenny Bent, and thank her from the bottom of my heart for hanging in there with both advice and encouragement at every turn.
Anyone who has read this section of my books knows they will see the names Carol Whitescarver and Elaine Sims as two fellow writers to whom I owe much; this manuscript is no different. Those lengthy conversations over Sunday salad bars and late-night reviews have inspired me too many times to count.
I extend my deepest appreciation to Joyce Lamb—author extraordinaire, editor extraordinaire, blogger extraordinaire; personal humorist, cheerleader, and industry consultant. Devoted friend.
I am indebted to my niece, Shannon Dean, who will be in NYC when this book comes out, living in the real
world of editing and publishing. Thanks for honing your skills on this manuscript.
Finally, I thank my wonderful family for letting me spend so much time in a pretend world with pretend people, for listening to me talk about what happens while I’m there, and for loving me anyway.
T
RUTH
.”Sasha Rodin heard the word and stopped behind the gate of the riding arena. He peeked between the slats to watch. Seven teenagers crowded into a circle a few feet away, excluding Andrew Chandler, who had spat the word like the arrogant prick he was.
Sasha sneered, his fingers curling and uncurling on the riding crop in hand. So this was the group he’d been slaving over—stuck-up girls and Chandler-lookalikes who had nothing better to do with their time than take horseback rides and play stupid games, while minions like Sasha catered to their every desire.
“I have an idea,” one of the girls said. Her name was Jessica. Yesterday, while hanging nameplates on the stalls to assign each party guest to a horse, he’d tried to imagine what a ‘Jessica’ looked like: prissy, pale-skinned, and blond, with an air of superiority clinging to her like perfume. Of course, the same could be said for all the guests. Kara
Montgomery, the birthday girl, didn’t know any other type.Not that it mattered who had come to Kara’s party. The only person she would notice was Andrew Chandler. She’d been pining over him for years, since before she even had boobs. Had never even noticed Sasha.
The circle of kids broke. “Okay, Andrew,” Jessica said. “Truth. Which of the girls in this circle do you want to fuck?”
Andrew smiled. No doubt who he’d pick: the pretty heiress to Montgomery Manor. Sweet fifteen and never been fucked? Sasha doubted it. Even so, this was Kara’s lucky day. She was about to get a confession from a boy as rich as she—
“Evie,” Andrew said, and the circle gasped. Evie stood and did a little victory dance, and Kara’s cheeks turned bright red. Sasha smiled. Served the bitch right.
“Your turn, Kara,” a boy named Matthew said. “Truth or dare?”
Kara’s chin went up. This should be good.
“Dare,” she said.
“Go, girl,” Jessica said, and again, the circle gathered tight. A moment later they all moved back out, eyes twinkling mischief. A skinny guy named Anthony looked at Kara.
“You know that guy saddling the horses?” he asked. “That Russian dude?”
“Sasha,” Evie said. “I heard someone call him.”
Sasha stiffened. What the—
“ ‘Sasha?’ ” one of the other kids asked. “That’s a girl’s name.”
“Not for a Russian dude, I guess,” Evie said. “Besides, have you looked at the way he’s built? Trust me, he’s no girl.”
“So, Kara,” Anthony continued. “Go invite him into the tack room. Your dare is to play Seven Minutes of Heaven with him.”
Kara’s cheeks paled. Play around with the son of an immigrant stable hand and an immigrant housemaid? Sasha could see the panic on her face. “He’s old,” she hedged, squirming. “Like, twenty or something.”
“You scared?”
Sasha looked at her. Not scared, he realized. Disgusted was more like it.
“Come on, Kara,” Matthew said. “I heard he was a big, famous baseball player.”
The kids giggled and a red spot of rage came into Sasha’s vision. They were mocking him. He wasn’t a big, famous baseball player, but he should have been. He’d gotten drafted to play ball in the Minor League right out of high school. Had finally made it out of this pit and found a way across the Great Social Divide.
Then one bar fight ended it. Turned out the other player was the grandson of a steel tycoon out of Pittsburgh. Before Sasha knew it, there were lawyers and media, and the League ended his contract.
Dream gone, just like that.
Of course, Sasha hadn’t let it rest. He’d gotten a ski mask and met the tycoon’s grandson in a dark alley one night, pulled a Tonya Harding on him. The man never walked straight again.
After that, though, it was back to Virginia. Back to stringing barbed wire and cleaning up horse shit for Willis Montgomery, whose daughter hadn’t even noticed he’d left. The only thing different now was that during the two years Sasha was gone, Kara Montgomery had grown up.
And she’d grown up nice. Fifteen today, and her father throwing a weekend-long party. He’d fawn all over her, give her a Ferrari or maybe a blooded Arabian. He wouldn’t give her a hug, though. Everyone knew Willis Montgomery preferred a good gelding to his daughter.
Not Sasha. He hated horses. Liked girls just fine. Liked them a lot.
Seven minutes with Kara Montgomery? His mouth went dry. Do it, bitch. I dare you to, too.
She stood and straightened her spine, started toward the gate. Sasha blinked. Jesus, she was coming to find him. Heat surged between his legs and his heartbeat picked up. Seven whole minutes with Kara Montgomery and everybody was going to know what he did to her. They’d expect it, even.
She passed through the circle of her friends, not looking at Andrew. Her cheeks were flushed and knuckles white, but Sasha was most rapt by the way her nipples tightened to tiny little buds beneath her tank top. Her friends giggled—except Andrew, whose humor had faded. They cheered her on as she pushed the arena doors wide.
“Sasha?” she called.
His cock strained against the zipper of his jeans and he didn’t question his luck any further. If Kara Montgomery wanted seven minutes with him, he
wasn’t going to deny her. It was her birthday, after all. And this was the Land of Opportunity.He stepped out. Kara stopped in her tracks. Sasha smiled, his fingers stroking the crop and his gaze skimming her young curves, telling her in no uncertain terms that he knew exactly why she was looking for him.
And he had seven minutes.
1
Seventeen years later…
Thursday, June 20, 7:03 p.m.
Atlanta, Georgia
L
OUIE!”
Kara Montgomery Chandler shouted from deep in her gut but Louie didn’t hear her. Damn it. She wasn’t far away but the space between them churned with noisy fans, security guards, and vendors selling everything from chili dogs to stuffed tomahawks. Streams of humanity poured toward the gates at Turner Field, with Louie and the boys sucked into the current trying to make it to their seats before the first batter came up.
Seven minutes from now.
Kara’s heart beat faster. Dear God, she had to stop them. She had to stop the killing. That thought washed over her in a wave of horror. Nausea rose to her throat and her fingers clenched her cell phone—the keeper of gruesome, inconceivable horrors. She swallowed back bile, struggling to wrap her mind around what was happening. After a year of weird mysteries, a shocking reality had
emerged: Her husband had been murdered. Others were dying. All because of her.
Look what you’ve done
.
She closed her eyes, willing it to be a dream.
Please, let me wake up. Let it not be happening.
Someone bumped into her and she stumbled. “Sorry, lady,” the offender said, grabbing her arms. Kara looked down, checking her hand. Her phone was still there, clamped in white knuckles. No, it wasn’t a dream, it was real.
So catch Louie. Hurry.
She bullied down the panic and pushed to higher ground, scanning the veins of people flowing toward the turnstiles. A flash of red hair bobbed in the crowd.
“Aidan!” she shouted. He stopped and turned, fans edging past him as he searched out the voice. His shoulders slumped and a minute later he and his friend Seth separated from the crowd and moved upstream toward her.
“Mom,” Aidan groaned. Fourteen years old, and out with the guys. The last person he wanted to see was his mother. “What are you doing here?”
She forced a smile. Keep calm; don’t scare him. “I need to talk to your uncle Louie.”
Louie came up between his own son and Aidan. “Wait here, boys.” He took Kara’s arm and walked her several yards out, where the crowd had thinned. “I told you we’d talk later. I can’t bail on Seth and Aidan. They did chores for weeks to buy these tickets.”
“I know,” Kara said. She’d paid them exorbitantly to wash her car and weed the front garden, re-organize a closet that didn’t need it. Then, when Father’s Day came around and they still didn’t have enough for the tickets, she and Louie’s wife threw in the last fifty bucks themselves. She didn’t want them to miss this game, either.
But things had changed. People were dying. She had to make Louie believe her.
“I got another message,” she said, her throat knotting with tension. “I have to show it to you.”
“Not here.”
“Louie—”
“Damn it, Kara, I told you I’d look into it. I pulled the file on Andrew’s accident this afternoon and talked to the chief. I also stuck my nose into the Penny Wolff investigation since you’re so worried about her. There’s a good team working it, but they don’t know where she is. She just vanished.”
“She’s dead.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I
do.
That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I have proof now.” She held up her cell phone. “Right here.”
Louie frowned, then ran his hand over his face, as if he could wipe away everything she’d told him. He glanced at the boys. “Hold on,” he said, digging the tickets from his pocket. He threaded back through the few straggling fans and sent the boys off to find their seats. When they were on their way, he started back to Kara. She turned on her phone to call up the grisly messa—
Crack
. A shot split the sky. Louie dropped.
Kara’s heart went still. She stared and the screams started. One person, then another, and soon people scattered like billiard balls. Some dropped to the ground; others ran for cover. Louie was the only one who didn’t move.
No
. Kara forced her feet into action. She staggered toward Louie, dodging a handful of fans who had hit the ground. They came up as it registered that no second shot had sounded—and by the time she got close to Louie, others were there, too.
She fell to her knees beside him. A bright red stain bloomed on his shirt.
“Dad?” Seth’s voice. He and Aidan pushed through a growing wall of onlookers. Someone’s hand appeared on Louie’s chest and pressed down, and Louie gagged on his breath. A trickle of blood formed at the corner of his mouth.
“Dad,” Seth cried, sinking to the ground. Aidan crouched beside him and they clung to one another as Louie’s eyes rolled, searching for focus. They stopped on Kara, glazed and wide, and his lips moved through a bubble of blood.
She bent down to listen. Only one word touched her ear.
“Run.”
Sasha took Louie Guilford out with the first shot. Good light, powerful scope, no wind, and Guilford made it easy by separating himself from the crowd. One squeeze of the trigger and people scattered like droplets of water on a hot skillet.
And right in the center of it: Kara Chandler.
Fuck
. She shouldn’t have been here.
A knot of rage tightened in the back of Sasha’s skull. He lowered the rifle and looked. Without the scope, the scene was like ants scrambling after someone kicked their mound, but he could still make out Kara. She’d shown up just seconds before he fired. Bitch. This was the second time she’d interfered with his plan. First, a couple of days ago with Penny Wolff. Then, with Louie Guilford.
He took a deep breath, started to count to ten to cool off but stopped at five. Okay: Didn’t matter. Wolff was dead and Guilford—if he wasn’t dead by the time he hit the
sidewalk—would be soon. Problems solved, even though Kara was doing her best to fuck things up. She wouldn’t succeed. And he’d make damn sure she understood that she was the reason people were dying.
She was the reason for everything. And soon, she would know what that meant. She would learn the truth.
Sasha took out his earplugs and unscrewed the scope, his mood lifting as the pain in his head let up. He didn’t like guns—his own brand of killing was much more
personal
—but now he was glad he’d spent time learning to shoot. His father had always said that practice led to perfection. Wouldn’t he be impressed with
this
?
He loaded up the gun, anxious to show off tonight’s handiwork. He wouldn’t be able to get in close and take a nice gory photograph like he had with Penny Wolff but Louie Guilford was a cop and he’d just been shot down outside a Braves game at Turner Field. This would make tonight’s news. The Atlanta PD would go nuts. Maybe Ted Turner would even speak.
Yes, there would be plenty of publicity to share between father and son.
And Kara? He’d have to think about her later. Right now, he needed to get out of here. He was situated on an overpass six hundred yards away—a safe enough distance for a while, but there was no sense in lingering. Authorities were too busy clearing people from sight and moving Louie Guilford to safety to analyze the trajectory of the bullet just yet, but it wouldn’t take long before they did. Within minutes, they’d have choppers in the air and roadblocks surrounding this whole area of the city.
Wouldn’t matter. Within minutes, Sasha would be gone.
Too bad. He’d love to stay and watch Kara suffer.
He shook his head. Patience. Her birthday was right around the corner and now that Penny Wolff and Louie Guilford were out of the way, Sasha could get back to preparations. It was a scheme more than a year in the making, one that had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and taken him all over the country. A plan so Machiavellian it had left even his father slack-jawed.
Only one kill left now—a girl named Megan. Sasha would bring her home tomorrow night. Then all would be ready, just in time for Kara’s big day.
He smiled and tossed one more glance toward Turner Field. Poor Kara. She must be horrified by now, but it was about to get worse. His reign of terror was just beginning and he’d seen to it that there was no one she could turn to for help. Nothing she could do to stop him from making this the party of a lifetime.
Three more days. Happy Birthday, Kara.