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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF LYNN HIGHTOWER
“Lynn Hightower is a major talent.” —Jonathan Kellerman, New York Times–bestselling author
“Hightower is a writer of tremendous quality.” —Library Journal
PRAISE FOR THE SONORA BLAIR MYSTERIES
Flashpoint
“Diabolically intriguing from start to finish.” —Publishers Weekly
“Miraculously fresh and harrowing.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Rings with gritty authenticity. You won’t be able to put it down and you won’t want to sleep again. Riveting.” —Lisa Scottoline, New York Times–bestselling author
Eyeshot
“Hightower has invented a heroine who is both flawed and likeable, and she knows how to keep the psychological pressure turned up high.” —The Sunday Telegraph
“What gives [Eyeshot] depth and resonance is the way Hightower counterpoints the murder plot with the details of Sonora’s daily life in homicide.” —Publishers Weekly
No Good Deed
“Powerful, crisply paced.” —Publishers Weekly
“Refreshingly different … A cracking tale told at a stunning pace.” —Frances Fyfield
The Debt Collector
“Hightower builds the suspense to an almost unbearable pitch.” —Publishers Weekly
“Well-written and satisfyingly plotted. Best of all is Sonora herself—a feisty babe who packs a red lipstick along with her gun.” —The Times (London)
PRAISE FOR THE ELAKI NOVELS
“The crimes are out of The Silence of the Lambs, the cops out of Lethal Weapon, and the grimy future out of Blade Runner … Vivid and convincing.” —Lexington Herald-Leader
“One of the best new series in the genre!” —Science Fiction Chronicle
Alien Blues
“Hightower takes the setup and delivers a grittily realistic and down-and-dirty serial killer novel.… Impressive … A very promising first novel.” —Locus
“Brilliantly entertaining. I recommend it highly. A crackerjack novel of police detection and an evocative glimpse of a possible future.” —Nancy Pickard, bestselling author of I.O.U.
“[The] cast of characters is interesting and diverse, the setting credible, and the pacing rapid-fire and gripping.” —Science Fiction Chronicle
“An exciting, science-fictional police procedural with truly alien aliens … An absorbing, well-written book.” —Aboriginal Science Fiction
“Truly special … Original characters, plot twists galore, in a book that can be enjoyed for its mystery aspects as well as its SF … A real treat.” —Arlene Garcia
“Hightower shows both humans and Elaki as individuals with foibles and problems. Alien Blues provides plenty of fast-paced action.… An effective police drama.” —SF Commentary
“Hightower tells her story with the cool efficiency of a Mafia hit man.… With its lean, matter-of-fact style, cliff-hanger chapter endings and plentiful (and often comic) dialogue, Alien Blues moves forward at warp speed!” —Lexington Herald-Leader
“A great story … Fast and violent … Difficult to put down!” —Kliatt
“An intriguing world!” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Alien Eyes
“Alien Eyes is a page-turner.… Fun, fast-moving … A police procedural in a day-after-tomorrow world.” —Lexington Herald-Leader
“Hightower takes elements of cyberpunk and novels about a benevolent alien invasion and combines them with a gritty realism of a police procedural to make stories that are completely her own.… A believable future with a believable alien culture … Interesting settings, intriguing ideas, fascinating characters [and] a high level of suspense!” —Turret
“Complex … Snappy … Original.” —Asimov’s Science Fiction
“The sequel to the excellent Alien Blues [is] a very fine SF novel.… I’m looking forward to the next installment!” —Science Fiction Chronicle
The Debt Collector
A Sonora Blair Mystery
Lynn S. Hightower
For the world’s best son,
Alan Hightower, USMC
SEMPER FI
1
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When it was all over, or as over as such a thing can be, Sonora could look back and pinpoint the precise moment when everything went wrong. There were times that she wanted to blame the case, times she thought that if she and Sam had not been on call that summer-soft night in March, things would be different, things would not have gotten so out of hand.
And other times she thought, no, she had handled other cases, some as bad, if not worse. The problem, maybe, was her. Maybe she was vulnerable then. Or maybe it wasn’t her, who the hell knew, because life, when you come right down to it, life is a journey. You put one foot in front of the other and you choose a path, and stuff happens, good, bad, there aren’t any guarantees. It’s just a journey. A trip you’ve got to take.
Starting, as it often does in police work, with the ring of the phone.
She had dreamed the night before, a premonition, maybe, of something evil and old as original sin. But when the phone rang, Sonora, deep in a book, had forgotten the dream. She was tucked up on the couch reading The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer, the smell of pork roast baking in a mustard-barbecue sauce warming the kitchen. She had cooked. A miraculous event. Clampett, the three-legged dog, lay in front of the stove, guarding the roast, all one hundred and six blond pounds of him.
The roast was safe.
Heather, sixth grade, and Tim, newly seventeen, were watching television, reruns of Home Improvement. The Simpsons up next.
No doubt they had homework. Sonora had looked up from her book twenty minutes ago at Tim, propped on couch pillows that trailed clumps of foam like popcorn, and Heather, legs dangling over a beanbag chair they’d bought at a garage sale for her birthday, and had chosen peace and quiet over proper parenting.
It was a good decision. A moment that came and went like such moments do, you could no more keep it than you could hold water in your hand.
She put the book down, not wanting to let go of the story, thinking it was past time to put together a salad. She got up to turn the rice down and saw that Tim was handing her the portable.
“For you,” he said.
She was not sure who was more surprised. She leaned up against the countertop, nudged Clampett with a toe. He gave her a doggie smile. Drool had puddled on the floor. A tribute to her cooking.
“Blair,” she said.
“Sonora?”
“Sam. Darlin’. Haven’t seen you for a whole two hours.”
“You want me to pick you up in the company car, or you going to meet me there?”
Something in his voice. “Where is there, Sam?”
“You’ll never find it. Let me come get you.”
“What we got?”
His tone went flat. “Home invasion.”
Sonora put the phone down. Looked at the kids, who watched her. Seasoned cop kids. They knew something was up.
“Going to work?” Tim asked. She had only a sliver of his attention. Knew he would be on the phone the minute she walked out the door.
“Yeah,” she said. “Eat without me, and be sure to leave the kitchen cl
ean. You hear me, Tim?”
He nodded.
“Can I paint my toenails?” Heather asked.
“In the bathroom, not in here.” Not that it mattered, except on principle. Sonora glanced at the couch. Dusty rose, cushions stained with ink, coated in dog hair.
She got her purse. Turned off the TV. The children gave her looks drenched with annoyance.
“Go ahead and have your supper. Make a little plate of roast for Clampett. Heather, you take care of that.” She knew Tim would forget. “And keep the doors locked. Did you hear me?”
Tim nodded. “Eat and lock up. You load your gun, Mom?”
“Sam’s picking me up, I’ll do it in the car.”
“Turn the TV back on,” he said.
“Turn it on yourself.”
She grabbed her all-purpose black blazer and the tie she had draped over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, retied her left Reebok, and she was out the door, standing in the twilight, waiting for Sam.
2
Home invasion. It was the kind of call Sonora dreaded, the kind of call no homicide cop, no matter how experienced or jaded, could approach without a flutter of dread; unhappy butterflies low in the belly.
She stood to one side of the porch, just at the edge of her garage. One of her neighbors pulled into the driveway across the street, raised a cautious hand. In a community of young families, all couples with small children, a widowed homicide cop with teenagers was an object of dread and fascination. She could not blame them. Teenage boys with loud bass throbbing from car speakers used to make her nervous, before she got one of her very own.
Sam hadn’t given her the address of the call, but it would be a house just like that one across the street, just like the one next door.
Some cops made fun of John Q. Public for his naïveté, scorned parents who did not see a pedophile on every corner (fewer and fewer every day), people who could not fully comprehend the concept of two-legged evil. Sonora knew this copper’s disdain was nothing less than envy.
She never told anyone, not even Sam, how routinely she hit that book of mug shots, known child molesters who stalked the streets of Cincinnati. There were times of great private embarrassment when she saw a familiar face, say, in Dairy Mart, or taking the kids to Graeters. And she’d be unable to remember if the familiarity of that face came from a chance meeting at a PTA Open Parent Night or a mug shot of a guy in and out of jail for raping eight-year-olds.
She glanced over her shoulder at her own house, curtains still open in the living-room window, Heather curled up on the couch, Tim pacing the hallway, talking on the phone. It seemed so bright inside, cozy, as sunlight drained away and motes of darkness grew thick in the air.
She felt off, somehow. Maybe it was just the sense she had, looking into that living-room window, that her babies were growing up and away, that dawning knowledge you gain as you get older that life cannot be static, that everything changes just as you manage to take hold, and you have to let go, whether you want to or not.
She had a peculiar feeling, like homesickness, only she didn’t know where home was. She pressed into the warm scratchy brick front of her house, looked down the road. The gold Taurus crept around the street corner and turned into her driveway, car lights milky in the dusk. She could barely make Sam out, there behind the wheel of the car.
She did not move. She had a bad feeling, like if she didn’t turn around and go back inside the house, make some kind of excuse—she was sick, something, anything—that if she didn’t she would go and come back and things would be different. Nothing would ever be the same.
She sensed, rather than saw, Sam looking at her. Listened to the engine idling. Knew Sam was wondering why she did not leave the hard comfort of faded red brick against her back. Sonora slung her purse over her left shoulder, the weight of the Beretta soft on her hip, and went to work.
3
“It’s in Olden,” Sam told her, something like regret in his voice. His clothes looked tired—khakis wrinkled at the waist and knee, tie knot slipping, blue cotton shirt billowing from the waistband, collar unbuttoned and loose. He had run a comb through his hair, straight, brown, and baby fine, parted to one side, slipping over one eye. He was past the need for a shave.
Sonora frowned, mind suddenly flooded with dream images from the night before. Peculiar things, dreams, wild animals of the mind. Try to force them and they would hide and disappear. But relax, let them come forward on their own, and your conscious thoughts would be inundated with images, feelings, and memories, as if dreams had to be coaxed out when you were not looking, as if they had to choose the time and place.
She had dreamed of her brother, Stuart, dead now these last four years—had it been so long? He had died at the hand of a small blond sociopath who had been playing games of death with Sonora. Hazard of the profession, but it was not supposed to spill over on the family, inept evil that would not stay in the lines, and it had taken her brother.
The grief thing. Business as usual.
“Sonora? You okay over there?”
It was not normal for the two of them to be so quiet. Sonora gave him a sideways look, wondered if he was fighting with his wife again or just tired.
“Sam, do you dream much?”
He looked at her. “Do I dream?”
“Yeah. Dream.”
That he was not surprised or perturbed by her question was a sure sign that they had been working together too long.
“Only when I have hot peppers on my pizza. Or if I eat chili.”
“Chili makes you dream?”
“Among other things.” He turned the Taurus into the entrance of a new subdivision, passing a small pond. “This is it. This is Olden.”
So many things Sonora saw here, senses raw, hair stirring on the back of her neck, that cop instinct and edginess keeping her alert. “Pretty here” was all she said.
Sam nodded. “I got a cousin lives two streets over.”
“Really?” Sonora said.
“No, I made it up.”
“Like you’re going to make up a cousin?”
“Lives two streets over, on Canasta.” Sam eased his foot over the brakes, bringing the Taurus almost to a stop, to let five ducks cross the road to the water. Sonora had never noticed before how they scrambled over curbs, pulling themselves up with their neck muscles.
Sam checked his rearview mirror. Turned on his left indicator. “You know this area?”
“Nope.”
“You will.”
Streetlights, halogens, cast a muted aura over fledgling trees, concrete curbs that were white and crisp, houses trim with new paint and shiny siding—all the chirp and promise of raw wood and new construction.
Today was the third in a trio of sweet-summery days, winter hopefully no more than memory. The novelty of sunshine brought people out of their houses. A man in loose green scrubs walked a chesty golden retriever beside a woman pushing a dark blue stroller. The lawn of the house on the corner of Trevillain and Olong had been mowed for the first time of the season, and a spray of freshly clipped grass fanned up and down the edges of the sidewalk. The front-porch light was on, though it was sandy-dusk out and light enough to see. Three children in corduroys and sweatshirts rolled over the newly trimmed grass down the small hill. The air was just going crisp and chill. Tomorrow the children would wake up with raw throats.
Sam turned right and the neighborhood changed, houses smaller, trees larger, providing actual shade, everything well kept, lawns edged, landscaping minimal but precise. The cars in these driveways ranged in age from three years to twelve, not so many four-wheel drives and imports, just solid Ford Probes and Crown Victorias, with the occasional Firebird or Trans Am that bespoke a teenage population.
Someone had called the fire department. People were heading down the sidewalk, a few clutching the hands of children, looks of easy curiosity that made Sonora sure they were drawn by the crowd and ignorant of realities.
Two paramedic units flank
ed the fire truck, lights flashing, crews standing close together, talking, smoking.
“No survivors,” Sonora said.
4
The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac—436 Edrington Court. The dormant grass had stirred and grown and was ready for its first trim. It was not yet out of hand. It could wait a week, unless they got a lot of rain.
Sonora paused at the front walk, barely aware of the crowds on the circle of asphalt, the fire truck, men in blue shirtsleeves. She made note of the cars in the driveway—an older-model Saturn, much dented, wedged next to a maroon Chrysler LeBaron.
She looked over her shoulder, counted three patrol cars, parked out of the way of the ambulances. Uniformed officers kept everyone a few feet from the curb, their voices on the edge of polite.
She moved ahead slowly, concentration wrapping her like cotton. The noise dimmed, in her ears, anyway, and she moved with a methodical, unhurried precision like a diver at the bottom of the sea—it was the working mode, a rare stance for her, usually type A and manic about the small things of life.
She paused at the bottom of the driveway, looking at the mailbox. The flag was up. The Stinnets was painted in white letters on matte black, and there was a decal of a redbird with a yellow beak.
Sonora slipped a pair of latex gloves out of her purse, turned her back discreetly to put them on, and opened the mailbox. Nothing inside. She heard the thrum of an engine and heavy tires. The Crime Scene Unit van crept into the cul-de-sac, driver wary of the ambulance and the children running amok.
She glanced back at the upright red flag on the mailbox, looked inside one more time. Something—a rock or a small gray pebble. Sonora slipped it into an evidence bag and left it. Crooked her finger at a crew-cut boy in uniform. He glanced at the ID on her tie, the gloves on her hands, and moved out smartly.
“Yes, ma’am?”
She checked his name tag. “Officer Byrd? Stay by the mailbox, will you, and ask one of the techs to give it a good dusting.”
The Debt Collector Page 1