by David Bell
PRAISE FOR
Layover
“David Bell takes what could have been a fleeting moment between strangers to tell a whirlwind story about secrets, regrets, and sacrifice. Layover is a deliciously infectious thriller.”
—Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of The Wife
“I flew through this twisty, riveting psychological thriller at breakneck speed, hooked from the first page right up through the book’s breathless conclusion.”
—Cristina Alger, national bestselling author of The Banker’s Wife
“In the hands of a master of suspense like Bell, a chance flirtation at an airport leads to a fast-paced novel filled with turbulence. Make sure your seat belt is fastened and enjoy! Bell is at his best.”
—Kaira Rouda, USA Today bestselling author of Best Day Ever
“David Bell once again plunges the Everyman (or -woman) into situations both ordinary and extraordinary. Subtle, insightful, and very human, Layover brings to mind the best of James M. Cain.”
—Christina Dalcher, national bestselling author of Vox
“An ingenious setup. . . . Smart and highly addictive, this one should come with a warning: Don’t start until you’re prepared to read straight through.”
—Kimberly Belle, national bestselling author of The Marriage Lie
“A killer premise kicks off David Bell’s twisty, breakneck thriller and has you tearing through the pages to a shattering finale.”
—Louise Candlish, international bestselling author of Our House
“A terrifically tense thriller with a femme fatale who will keep you guessing until the very end. The perfect airplane read!”
—Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Time I Lied
PRAISE FOR
Somebody’s Daughter
“A tautly told, heart-pounding read . . . a page-turning whodunit where every character’s a suspect and no one can be trusted.”
—Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Every Last Lie
“A compulsive, twisty, race-against-the-clock thriller . . . also a sensitive meditation on what connects us to each other—and what we’ll do to hold on when life tears us apart. Don’t miss this smart and unrelenting page-turner!”
—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of The Red Hunter
“Bell escorts readers on a ride-along through twelve adrenaline-charged hours as his characters track multiple leads in the search for a missing child . . . [a] heart-poundingly addictive thriller until the final page.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“[A] riveting thriller. . . . Bell turns an ordinary life into a tense roller-coaster ride filled with unexpected twists and turns.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Bell puts a new twist on the missing-child theme in this fast-paced narrative that spans just twelve hours.”
—Booklist
“A stunner, full of twists and turns and duplicitous motivations. Bell’s solid storytelling is as sharp and scary as ever. Fans of Harlan Coben will love this one.”
—J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Lie to Me
“Hooks you from the start and draws you into a tale of secrets, lies, and lives haunted by the past. A suspenseful—and poignant—thriller.”
—Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award–winning author of Into the Black Nowhere
“Both plausible and pulsating, a psychological thriller that hits perilously close to home.”
—Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries
“Razor-sharp prose and a satisfyingly twisty plot . . . an intense, emotional thrill ride readers won’t want to miss!”
—Karen Dionne, international bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter
“Compulsively readable, with surprises that gripped me from start to finish. With nerve-shattering suspense, this well-crafted tale builds to an unexpected, chilling ending.”
—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of Not a Sound
“Stunningly effective . . . a noirish tale culled from the suburban nightmare world of Lisa Gardner and Harlan Coben.”
—The Providence Journal
ALSO BY DAVID BELL
CEMETERY GIRL
THE HIDING PLACE
NEVER COME BACK
THE FORGOTTEN GIRL
SOMEBODY I USED TO KNOW
SINCE SHE WENT AWAY
BRING HER HOME
SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
Copyright © 2019 by David J. Bell
Readers Guide copyright © 2019 by Penguin Random House LLC
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Names: Bell, David, 1969 November 17– author.
Title: Layover / David Bell.
Description: New York : Berkley, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018053560| ISBN 9780440000860 (hardback) | ISBN 9780440000884 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Contemporary Women. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3602.E64544 L39 2019 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053560
First Edition: July 2019
Cover art: woman by Raul Belinchon/Gallery Stock; airplane by Genja/Shutterstock Images; airway by Martin Hospach/Getty Images
Cover design by Emily Osborne
Title page art: woman leaving airport by Rob Wilson/Shutterstock Images
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
In memory of Mary Ellen Miller
Teacher, poet, friend
Contents
Praise for David Bell
Also by David Bell
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part OneChapter 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
&
nbsp; Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part TwoChapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Part ThreeChapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Acknowledgments
Readers Guide
About the Author
Prologue
The nurse opened the curtain around my bed and said there was somebody who wanted to see me.
I tried to read the look on her face. She cut her eyes away from mine, busying herself with the chart that hung on the wall and then asking me to lean forward so she could examine the back of my head. She wore a colorful smock decorated with Disney characters, and when she came close I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke clinging to her clothes. It almost made me gag.
“Everything looks good,” she said, her voice flat. Her shoes squeaked against the floor. “How’s the pain?”
“Throbbing mostly,” I said.
“That’s not surprising,” she said. “You have a mild concussion. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. Most people who get hit the way you were end up with staples in their scalp.”
“Who wants to see me?” I asked. Each word required effort, like I was pushing it out of my mouth.
I pieced together the previous few hours from the fragments of my concussed memory. The amusement park. My face in the rich, damp earth. A cop standing over me, shining a light in my eyes, snapping his fingers as if I were a fighter down for the count. And then the ambulance ride to the hospital, winding through the county roads, nausea rising with each turn and bump.
I knew I was in Wyckoff, Kentucky, the little college town ninety minutes northwest of Nashville. And I knew what I’d come there for.
And who I’d come there for.
And I knew no one else in town, so if someone wanted to see me . . .
Could it be . . . Morgan? Coming to check on me?
The nurse slipped out through the privacy curtain. I heard the sounds of the emergency room around me. The chatter of doctors and nurses. A machine beeping nearby, tracking the rhythm of someone’s beating heart.
On the other side of the curtain, a man’s hoarse voice muttered in response to a doctor’s questions. “No, sir. No, sir. I wasn’t drinking. No, sir.”
The lights above me were bright, making me squint. I needed to use the bathroom, the pressure in my bladder increasing. And a wave of nausea swept through me again, roiling my stomach like a rising tide.
Then a woman pushed aside the curtain the nurse had just exited through. She wore a business suit—tan pants and jacket, a white shirt. She held an iPhone, and the overhead lights flashed off the gold badge clipped to her belt. The glinting hurt my eyes, and I turned away, wishing I could bury my face in the stiff pillow that supported my head.
“Mr. Fields?” she asked. “Joshua Fields?”
“That’s me,” I said, eyes squeezed shut. It felt like a strange statement, announcing my own identity to a stranger. But did I really know who I was anymore?
“How are you feeling?” she asked. She cocked her head, one corner of her mouth lifting. She had a friendly face with big, sympathetic eyes, but her voice was strong, each word landing with certainty and force.
“My head hurts.” I looked down. The blanket came up to my chest, and I appeared to be wearing a flimsy hospital gown with a strange geometric pattern on it. I wasn’t sure if I still had my boxers on. “And I don’t know where my clothes are.”
“They’ll give those back when the time comes,” she said. “I’m Detective Kimberly Givens with the Laurel Falls police. We spoke on the phone earlier. You remember that, right? I need to ask you some questions, and they’re fairly urgent. Do you think you’re up for that right now?”
It didn’t sound like a question. My heart started to race at a rate that matched the thumping in my head. If I’d been hooked up to one of those machines that monitored my pulse, I suspect it would have beeped like a video game. Detective Givens lifted one eyebrow, and that gesture served as a repetition of her question.
Was I up for that right now?
Did I have a choice?
“Can you dim the lights?” I asked. “Maybe this overhead one can be turned off.”
The detective looked around on the wall for a moment and flicked a switch with her index finger.
Instant relief. The lower-wattage recessed lights in the room provided gentler illumination. I breathed easier, stopped squinting.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yes.” My mouth felt like I’d been chewing felt. I looked around for a drink but saw none. No way that nurse was coming back while the detective was with me.
“Do you know how you ended up here?” Givens asked. “Do you remember where we found you?”
I closed my eyes again, saw a replay of the same images. The amusement park . . . my face in the dirt . . . the cop shining a flashlight in my face . . . the ambulance ride . . .
Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. Are you with us? Can you hear me?
“Somebody hit me,” I said. “I think.”
“You weren’t alone out there, were you?” she asked.
“No.”
“There was another man on the ground near you. Someone had hit him. Likely more than once. Do you remember that?”
I looked down. Even in the dimmed light, I could see my right hand resting on the white blanket. My knuckles were scraped and raw like they’d been dragged across concrete. I felt an ache like I’d punched a rock. I didn’t try to slide my hand under the covers. Givens followed my gaze, staring right at the scraped knuckles, and her eyebrows rose again.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
Givens held my gaze for a moment, and then she said, “Who else was out there with you?”
My lips were as cracked as crumbling plaster. I ran my tongue over them, trying to generate some mo
isture.
“Mr. Fields? Who else was out there with you?”
I returned her gaze and didn’t blink. “You must know who.”
“Tell me where she went,” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“Here’s what happened,” she said. “The police arrive at the scene. We find two unconscious men. Both with hands that look like they’ve been in a fight. Oh, and did I mention . . .” She paused so long I thought she was finished speaking. She drew out the moment, holding her words back, letting me stew. But then she said, “You know, we found other evidence out there as well. Very interesting evidence.”
“What kind of evidence?” I asked, my voice cracking like my lips.
She chose not to tell me. “So, what can we conclude, Joshua? You’re the only one left to explain it all.”
For the first time in my life, I wondered if I needed a lawyer.
So I remained quiet.
“Tell me, Joshua. It’s time.”
The machine kept beeping. A siren rose and fell in the distance.
“You’re not going to tell me how that man is doing?” I asked.
“I really don’t know. But if you start to answer my questions, I can see what I can find out.” She took a step closer to the bed. “See, I bet you’re the kind of guy who cares how that man is doing. Especially if you’re the one who hurt him. You’re a nice guy, right? Not the kind who gets involved in crimes like this. Right?”
The pain at the back of my head came back in a rush. Even with the lights dimmed, I felt the need to squint. But I couldn’t pull the covers over my head and I couldn’t walk out, not with a detective standing over me. Not without any clothes. I had no idea where my car was. I was very far from home.
And alone.
I was in over my head. And the hole was likely getting deeper.
“Morgan Reynolds, Joshua,” Givens said. “Tell me how you met her. Tell me the whole story.”
I sighed. I was tired. And I hurt.
“It began at the airport, during a layover. . . .”
PART ONE
1
We ended up next to each other in the airport gift shop.
Fate. Chance. Randomness.