by Mary Stone
Autumn’s Game
Autumn Trent Series: Book One
Mary Stone
Copyright © 2020 by Mary Stone
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.
Created with Vellum
To my husband.
Thank you for taking care of our home and its many inhabitants while I follow this silly dream of mine.
Contents
Description
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
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Description
‘Till death do us part’ has never been so true...
Armed with a slew of advanced degrees and powerful intuition, forensic psychologist Dr. Autumn Trent is ready to conquer the world and touch the lives of its seven billion inhabitants. She’s prepared to fight for justice, right the wrongs...because she knows what it’s like to be wronged.
As a child, a single blow from her father left her changed forever. Her body survived the aftermath, but her brain was altered in ways that were both good and bad. As a freak, she poured herself into her studies, accumulating all the knowledge she could, intent on whipping broken systems into shape. Take down criminals one by one, even if it means putting her own life on the line.
When a brutal double homicide shocks the town of Sawmill, Oregon, the FBI needs Autumn’s specialized assistance. The couple’s daughter, just beginning a life of her own, disappears the same night as their murder. Was she kidnapped by a merciless killer, or is she his equally heartless accomplice? Or worse?
Accompanied by a boss who undermines her instincts and patience at every turn, Autumn soon realizes that their killer has just begun his true mission of punishing parents who break their marital vows. As the body count rises, so do the stakes as the killer escalates quickly. What began as a hunt for a nineteen year old girl turns into Autumn’s game of cat and mouse.
Autumn’s Game, the first book in Mary Stone’s Autumn Trent Series, is a riveting psychological murder mystery that will make you watch what you say behind your closed doors and offers an action-packed ride to the very end.
1
Gina Webster tossed in her bed and punched her pillow. Sleep was being evasive, teasing her with its promise of nothingness once again. Her tears had dried up, but the anger simmering in her veins wouldn’t allow her to close her burning eyes.
Rhythmic music played softly from a small set of speakers tucked against her headboard. As a child, she had gotten in the habit of falling asleep to music. Even now that she was nineteen, being able to listen to music still comforted her, reminded her that things weren’t as bad as they could be. And it usually helped her sleep.
But not tonight.
Tonight had been one grade-A mixture of misery, and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. Because now, her parents were fighting. Again.
It was a few minutes after midnight and the new year had just arrived. She should be celebrating with her boyfriend at a local hotel instead of tossing and turning in her childhood bed. She should be listening to a swing band until two in the morning.
But at ten o’clock, while her parents had still been downstairs, being civil to each other, he’d texted her with an abrupt, Something came up, talk to you soon. And then the asshole had turned his phone off, letting her calls go straight to his voicemail, which she hated with a passion. “Sorry I can’t talk to you right now. I’m out prepping for the apocalypse. Leave a message.”
Beep.
Every time she heard that damn message, she felt like he was hoping the world would end. It was only when the clock ticked midnight and she was still alone that she finally admitted Kyle truly wasn’t coming. She’d been ditched. On one of the most important holidays of the year.
Being stood up always sucked, but tonight was the worst time possible for it. She’d needed to talk to him. Have him hold her tight and promise her that this new year would be different. That he loved her, and everything would be all right.
Plus, she just needed to get out of this house. Her parents were driving her crazy, and she needed to vent. In person. She needed Kyle to hold her, to hear him talk about the future they would create together. Somewhere far away from this little shithole of a town.
Her parents were getting a divorce. For them and her, it was supposed to be a good thing.
Her mother’s voice penetrated the walls of her bedroom, and Gina could just imagine her face covered with tears and snot. “You are not going to take the couch, Marcus Webster! I bought that couch after you fell asleep on the old one while you were high as a kite and set it on fire!”
“What?” Her father sounded angrier than she’d ever heard him. “You didn’t buy that couch! I bought that couch after you had a mental breakdown and puked on the old one!”
It was so sad, and it was also ironic. Their family had survived so much, only to break up now.
Marcus Webster had been a drug addict and had wrecked Gina and her mother’s lives in more ways than one. After putting them in massive debt, he had lost their house and his job and had almost been arrested. Gina couldn’t remember whether he had actually set the couch on fire or not, but she had taken a smoldering cigarette off the fabric more than once during her lifetime.
But it could have also been what her father had said too. Her mother had been so shattered by the revelations of her father’s addiction that she’d had a mental breakdown. Gina wasn’t sure exactly what happened, but Olivia ended up in the mental ward at the local hospital, semi-conscious, seeing things, so dehydrated that it had taken bags of saline to get her to pee again.
Now, at nineteen, Gina wondered if her mom had been bulimic. A little schizophrenic. Neither of her parents had been completely sane, not that she would admit that out loud. Because mental health issues ran in the family…didn’t they?
And she had to be perfect. If any man would ever want her as his wife, she needed to be flawless each and every day. She would need to cater to him. Focus on him completely. She couldn’t nag, couldn’t ever show signs of despair.
Gina hadn’t learned those lessons at home, which was clear by the fighting taking place on the other side of her door. No, she’d learned those lessons at the ripe young age of fifteen, when her parents’ combined mental health issues had landed her in the foster care system for eight months.
“And what about the dining room set?” her father roared, bringing Gina back to her miserable present. “Let me guess. You’re going to claim that it wasn’t you who threw the old one out into the street!”
Gina moaned and tried to smother out their hateful words with her pillow. It didn’t work.
>
“It…had…residue!”
“It was a perfectly good table! You could have just washed it off!”
Gina knew they weren’t really fighting about the stuff. They were fighting about whether they loved each other or not. As far as she could tell, they were both trying to convince each other that they never had.
“Keep the new table, then, if that’s all it takes to make you happy!”
“It’ll take a lot more than a table to make me happy, you bitch!”
Gina just wanted it to be over.
They loved each other, but they weren’t in love with each other anymore. At least that was the spin they’d put on it when they broke the divorce news. Gina knew that her father was willing to wait to try to fall back in love again, but her mother wasn’t. She was done.
To give her some credit, Olivia Webster had waited until Gina graduated to make sure she didn’t have romantic feelings for her spouse—but there was nothing left.
“If you think I’m going to throw away the rest of my life so I can wait for you to succumb to your addictions again, you’re nuts!”
“I am not an addict!”
Olivia laughed harshly. “That’s not what you tell those kids, is it? Once an addict, always an addict!”
“I am not a damn addict!”
But he had been. Her father had dug himself out of addiction, out of debt, and out of unemployment. But the damage had been done. Gina couldn’t blame her mother for wanting a divorce, and now that Gina was old enough to be independent, her mother wanted to be free to find someone she could both love and trust. Her father couldn’t blame her, either. But that didn’t make it any easier for the two of them to end their marriage.
“No? I’ll believe it when I’ve been gone for six months. Didn’t you tell me that I was the only reason you were still clean?”
“Then why are you leaving me?” her father shouted. “What are you going to do without me? Have another nervous breakdown?”
They had been going around and around like that for days. Weeks. Months.
On the other hand, it was still better than when Gina had been in the foster care system. She had only been in the system for eight months and had only been in one foster home. It had been over three years ago.
But it had changed her forever.
Part of her, not exactly rational, was still worried that her parents getting a divorce would mean she had to go back into the system. She was nineteen and too old to get pulled back in. She had a job in an office and had been thinking about moving out on her own anyway. But when her parents had first started talking divorce, she started having bad nightmares about being fifteen again. Sometimes, she had to force herself to wake up from them.
Why did Kyle have to pick that night not to show? Had there been some emergency? Was he okay?
He knew she was upset about her parents fighting. Why did he have to ditch her just when she needed to get out of the house and away from the shouting and recriminations?
She’d thought he loved her. But now she wasn’t so sure.
Gina glanced at the clock. It was eleven minutes after one in the morning—1:11—which meant that the universe was trying to tell her something. She decided it meant that she wouldn’t be able to sleep without help and rolled over to the far side of her bed.
Tucked between the mattress and the headboard, concealed by one of her speakers, was a liter of cheap vodka. Gina had been keeping some in her room lately, for nights just like this. She opened the cap and took a swig. Clamping her eyes shut as she swallowed the not-so-great alcohol, she shuddered from the burning pain as it went down.
She didn’t like to drink. It reminded her of her dad’s addictions, but she didn’t know how else to cope. Closing her eyes against the bitter, complicated tears that burned them, she took another big swallow before putting the cap back on.
She had to get out of the house. Anywhere would be better than this.
Collapsing back on the bed, she tried to bury herself under the covers, pulling one of her pillows over her head, more to feel like she was safe in a cocoon than anything else. She reached under her t-shirt and held her locket, the one that held pictures of her and her parents from happier times. Focusing on it had often helped her get through the present moment.
Fortunately, her parents seemed to be winding down for the night. Now, they were shouting things like “If you’re sorry, I’m sorry!” and “It doesn’t matter now!” The volume was lowering too.
After what felt like forever, she finally drifted off.
A bang from out in the hallway woke her from an almost-doze. It sounded like a kitchen chair falling over.
Great. Her parents must still be fighting.
The clock read 2:22. She must have fallen asleep. For a brief second, she wondered if three 2s were symbolic of anything. She’d have to look it—
A door slammed, almost hard enough to rattle the walls. This time it was upstairs.
“No!” It was her mother’s voice, slightly muffled now, but high-pitched and filled with fear. “Don’t do that. Please, don’t!”
“No!” her father roared, rage making the sound echo through the small home.
Gina bolted upright in the bed, taking several deep breaths, hoping to still her suddenly racing heart. Had her father finally lost it? Had he relapsed?
Listening to her parents argue was one thing, but if her father had fallen off the proverbial wagon, that was something completely different.
Gina threw the pillow across the room and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Quietly, she slipped her jeans on, stepped into a pair of ratty sneakers, and slung her purse over her shoulder. She grabbed her phone off the bedside table, disgusted with herself for not charging it earlier. She’d been so upset at Kyle and her ruined New Year’s Eve that she hadn’t even plugged it back in.
Snatching up her charging cord, she checked that her wallet still held the “mad money” her mother had given her earlier for her date. Forty whole dollars. She checked her car keys. She just had a shitty Honda, but if her dad had relapsed, there was no way her mom would be okay to drive on her own.
“You don’t need to do that!” her mom begged, fear and anguish pouring through the words. “Oh, god, just…put that down. Please.”
“Olivia,” her father shouted, his voice tormented. “Olivia! Please don’t!”
Gina’s heartbeat picked up speed at her father’s words, the pain and fear that filled them. What did he mean? Was he begging her mother to stay?
Afraid to breathe too loudly, Gina tiptoed down the hall, trying not to step anywhere that the floorboards would creak. The door of her parents’ room was closed tight. Gina opened the door softly, in the way that only a kid whose parents fought at night knew how to do, by holding on so the latch didn’t scrape as she turned the handle.
When the door was open only a few inches, she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
Maybe she was still sleeping, and this was part of a dream. A nightmare.
Her father was kneeling on the floor in front of her parents’ iron bedstead, his hands tied behind his back. On the bed, her mother was tied to the bed frame. Through the crack in the door, Gina could only see half her mother’s face. The one eye was wide with absolute terror.
Nobody seemed to notice Gina standing there.
“Please,” her father begged, looking at someone Gina couldn’t see. “Don’t do this. This is not who you are.”
“You should have tried harder!” a male voice screamed from just out of sight.
Gina stumbled back as an arm appeared in her line of vision. She couldn’t see the rest of the person, and she watched in horror as the arm sliced through the air. Gina’s hands went to her mouth. Had the man slapped her mother?
But when the arm pulled back, it was so much worse. Blood gushed from her mother’s throat. It dripped from the long blade pulling away.
Screams pierced the air. From her father. From Gina too.
�
��Shit!” The curse came from the man.
As time seemed to warp and slow, Gina watched her mother’s blood gushing out of her body. The blood was pumping out incredibly fast, jetting into the air like she’d seen in movies.
Gina’s mother struggled for air, gasping and making terrible sucking, bubbling sounds.
Over the roaring in her ears, Gina heard the sound of the floorboards creaking as the attacker came her way. She needed to run. She needed to call for help. She needed to do something, anything, before it was too late.
Gina spun and ran back to her room. She slammed the door and locked it, knowing that it wouldn’t hold the attacker for long. She dug into her purse, pulling the phone and charger out, her hands trembling so badly she could hardly connect the cord.
“Hurry,” she breathed, her voice a raw sob.
She pushed the power button on the phone. The screen flashed on, but it showed the icon of an empty battery with only a thin line of red left. The second she tried to make a call, it turned itself off again.
Gina cursed then spun in terror as the doorknob began to rattle. She screamed at the sound of shoulder against wood.
Thump.
It held. But the house her parents had rented after her father got his life back together again was a cheap one. The door wouldn’t hold for long.
The window was her only chance now.
Thump.
She hadn’t climbed out a window since she had come back home from the foster care system. There had been no need.