by C. J. Lyons
Table of Contents
Title Page
Prologue
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
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
THE SLEEPLESS STARS
Fatal Insomnia Book #3
CJ Lyons
Praise for New York Times Bestseller CJ Lyons:
“Everything a great thriller should be—action packed, authentic, and intense.” ~#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
“A compelling new voice in thriller writing…I love how the characters come alive on every page.” ~New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver
“Top Pick! A fascinating and intense thriller.” ~ RT Book Reviews
“An intense, emotional thriller…(that) climbs to the edge of intensity.” ~National Examiner
“A perfect blend of romance and suspense. My kind of read.” ~#1 New York Times Bestselling author Sandra Brown
“Highly engaging characters, heart-stopping scenes…one great rollercoaster ride that will not be stopping anytime soon.” ~Bookreporter.com
“Adrenalin pumping.” ~The Mystery Gazette
“Riveting.” ~Publishers Weekly Beyond Her Book
Lyons “is a master within the genre.” ~Pittsburgh Magazine
“Will leave you breathless and begging for more.” ~Romance Novel TV
“A great fast-paced read….Not to be missed.” ~Book Addict
“Breathtakingly fast-paced.” ~Publishers Weekly
“Simply superb…riveting drama…a perfect ten.” ~Romance Reviews Today
“Characters with beating hearts and three dimensions.” ~Newsday
“A pulse-pounding adrenalin rush!” ~Lisa Gardner
“Packed with adrenalin.” ~David Morrell
“…Harrowing, emotional, action-packed and brilliantly realized.” ~Susan Wiggs
“Explodes on the page…I absolutely could not put it down.” ~Romance Readers’ Connection
CJ Lyons and Thrillers with Heart are registered trademarks of CJ Lyons, LLC
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-except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews-without permission in writing from its publisher.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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.
Copyright 2016, CJ Lyons, LLC
Edgy Reads
Cover Images: NASA/ESA/Hubble
Library of Congress Case # 1-3490426461
THE SLEEPLESS STARS
CJ LYONS
Welcome to the finale of the Fatal Insomnia Medical Thriler trilogy. The adventure starts in FAREWELL TO DREAMS, followed by A RAGING DAWN, and finishes in Book #3, THE SLEEPLESS STARS.
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Happy reading!
CJ
“We are born in debt, owing the world a death.”
~David J. Morris
Prologue
MY NAME IS Angela Rossi, and this is the story of how I die...
I once was a doctor, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a lover... Now I’m a fugitive, hiding from an enemy targeting everyone I hold dear.
This is a story of good and evil, of temptation and betrayal, of love and obsession.
I’m dying and alone, exiled from the people I love most, and this is the story of how I save the world.
At least I hope so.
Because, if I fail, you may be next...
Chapter 1
A TIGER RAGED inside Devon Price. Claws shredding, teeth gnashing, fighting to tear its way out. He desperately wanted to set it free, to give life to his fury and pain as he paced the makeshift dormitory twenty-one children now occupied, trapped below the streets of the city, their families gathered at their bedsides.
As Devon stalked the crowded space the size of a basketball court—best they could do on such short notice with only a few hours’ warning to evacuate and hide twenty-one families from their enemies on the streets above—he tuned out the muffled weeping and anguished, hushed conversations echoing from the concrete walls.
The tunnels stank of damp and disuse. The constant gurgle of water streaming through the pipes overhead combined with the grumble of the air circulators to grate nerves raw, and the bunks and linens were military surplus, not designed for comfort. Yet, no one complained, not about their new accommodations in an underground bunker built to be the last resort in case of a nuclear emergency nor about being driven from their homes aboveground on Christmas Eve.
These families, all residents of the Kingston Tower, had spent their lives at the whim and mercy of gang wars, random and often conflicting government imperatives, and the hopeless grind that came with working as many hours as humanly possible and still being unable to provide for your family. Bunker mentality came naturally.
Devon himself had escaped the Tower a decade ago, fleeing to Philadelphia, where he’d clawed his way up the ranks of the Russian mob—a seemingly impossible feat for a mixed-race gangbanger, but he’d eventually earned their trust if not their respect. Last month he’d left Philly to return home to the daughter he’d never met...only to now be fighting to save her from a disease so rare most doctors had never heard of it.
This was not how his life was meant to be. Devon took care of himself, no one else. He was damn good at it—a trait inherited from his father, Daniel Kingston, even though Daniel had never acknowledged his bastard son.
Devon came to a stop at the bed in the far corner of the room. The one he’d been avoiding—despite wanting nothing more than to throw himself on the small form swaddled in sweat-stained sheets and cradle her in his arms, promise her everything would be all right, that her daddy would fix everything. Empty words from a man emptied of hope.
The overweight Labrador retriever nestled
on top of Esme’s covers looked up at Devon with mournful eyes.
“It’ll be okay, boy,” Devon promised the dog, Ozzie. More lies.
He looked down on the girl twitching in her fever-sleep. The nighttime low-level illumination shadowed her face in shades of red. Devon couldn’t help himself as he crouched beside her and soothed her hair back from her brow. He caressed her cheekbones—so much like her mother’s. Another loved one he’d failed.
This was what love did. Made you weak, exposed, left you vulnerable in places you didn’t even know existed.
“Esme,” he whispered her name like a prayer. Her body calmed, her face relaxed. He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop from promising the impossible. “I’m going to get them, the men behind this. I’m going to make them give me the cure. I’m going to save you. I promise. Whatever it takes.”
Then he stood, finishing his vow in silence: And then I’m going to shred the flesh from their bodies as they scream for mercy.
His fists clenched so tight his palms grew slick. He forced his hands open, surprised to find only sweat and that they weren’t already stained with blood.
“Devon?” It was Flynn, beckoning him to the door. He joined her outside in the empty hallway where they could speak in private. She was dressed all in black, down to the formfitting lambskin gloves that covered her scarred hands. Her dark complexion made it difficult to see where the clothing ended and her flesh began.
“Where do we stand?” he asked, the weight of responsibility settling on him. Twenty-one children and their families to protect against an unknown force with massive resources. Fifty-four people total, most of them women, many elderly, caring for their grandchildren, the generation in between lost to drugs, prison, or worse. Their only advantage was this tunnel complex, and he intended to defend it with everything he had.
“I’ve added extra cameras at all the entrances. You can view the feeds on your phone. I selected a group of parents to monitor them on rotating shifts—they’ll alert you if they see anything suspicious.”
He nodded his approval. Who better to trust with their security than a girl tasked to circumvent the most sophisticated surveillance systems? Thanks to his father, Daniel Kingston, who had trained Flynn in the ways of corporate espionage.
Funny how every person Daniel touched became corrupted: Flynn was still a teenager, her youth twisted by Daniel as he forged her into the perfect weapon; Daniel’s son and Devon’s half-brother, Leo, a brilliant chemist turned sadistic serial killer; and Devon himself...
“Esme?” Flynn asked, interrupting his morbid thoughts. She was as devoted to Esme as he was—they would both die for Esme. Or kill. And they both had no doubt that it would come to that.
“Finally fell asleep.” If you could call that restless twitching sleep. When Angela Rossi told him about her fatal insomnia, he’d studied the disease, fascinated by the bizarre symptoms leading to a horrific death. He’d hated the thought of a friend suffering that—had even once promised her that he’d help her end things if she wanted.
But he never in a million years dreamed he might be facing the prospect of his own child suffering such a cruel and relentless fate.
A shadow flitted across Flynn’s usually neutral expression. “What’s next?”
It took Devon a moment to lock away his anger and focus on logistics. “First, we find anything we can on Almanac Care.” The corporation that had funded the creation of the artificial fatal insomnia. “What else have they been involved with? Any connection to the children and Angela.”
“After losing contact with their lab, they’ll come looking for answers.”
“Let them.” Devon had no remorse for killing the men in the Almanac lab—only that they’d gotten so little information before the building exploded. “When’s Louise getting here? We need her to help Angela.”
“Louise is on her way. Angela’s up at St. Tim’s.”
He jerked to a stop. Angela, with her strange gift of communicating with people in comas, ripping their memories away, was their best weapon. “I told her not to leave the tunnels.”
Flynn shrugged. “What do you want me to do, lock her up?”
“No. We need her cooperation. Keep an eye on her.”
She hesitated, looking past him to the room where the children were.
“The best way to protect Esme is to find the men behind Almanac.” Men like Dr. Tommaso Lazaretto, who’d pretended to be helping the children and Angela while secretly running a lab producing the very prions that had infected them. Tommaso was dead now, taking his secrets with him to the grave. Or wherever Flynn had disposed of his body. “You finished cleaning up?”
Flynn bared her teeth at that, revealing a hint of her own tiger yearning to be set loose. If she’d had her way, she would have tortured Tommaso for the information they needed—only the doctor had stolen her chance and committed suicide first.
“Time to see what secrets Daniel has been hiding.” Their feeble plan to save the children, hell, save the whole damned world. Amazing the things you’d place your faith in when you ran out of options.
“I’ll go get Angela.”
“Don’t let anyone see you.”
She didn’t bother to acknowledge his words, simply slipped into the shadows and vanished.
Chapter 2
I STOOD IN the bell tower of St. Timothy’s Cathedral, watching Cambria City’s faithful stream out after the final evening Mass on Christmas Day. I wasn’t among them—I’d pretty much given up on religion twenty-two years ago when I was twelve and my dad died.
St. Tim’s had thick stone walls and two square towers. The bells were long gone from both—although they were still rung via electronic recordings, calling the faithful to worship. The tower I was in was about fifteen feet square on the interior with a foot-wide, waist-high wall surrounding it. Twenty feet overhead, you could still see the massive iron grid that the bells had been suspended from, but the opening in the floor where their ropes had once dangled was now covered by thick particleboard.
The December-almost-January wind slid across the river to rustle my hair, sending dark curls cascading against my face. If I tried very hard, I could imagine Ryder’s fingers doing the same. The thought made me shiver, an addict past due for a fix.
People will break your heart.
With their cruelty, their thoughtlessness, their narrow-minded blindness. When you’re an ER doc, you’re not surprised by this. But no amount of time can harden you against the most painful heartbreak. The heartbreak that comes from trying your best to save the people you love. And sometimes failing.
A shadow separated itself from the corner where the staircase opened onto the tower. Flynn stepped into the moonlight in that eerie, silent way she had.
“I don’t understand why you torture yourself like this.” Flynn craned her head out over the bell tower’s ledge, appraising the lethal fall to the stone steps below. Her expression was clinical as she added the tower to her catalogue of potential kill sites.
Last night, I’d seen Flynn kill—in self-defense. She’d been efficient and merciless. Rumors were that Daniel Kingston had not only trained her in the arts of industrial espionage—surveillance, hacking, social engineering—but that he’d also turned her into an assassin. After last night, I was beginning to believe those rumors.
“Leaving Ryder was a sound strategic decision,” Flynn continued. “He’s not on their radar. Yet.” She meant the mysterious, unknown people who’d created the fatal insomnia.
If you wanted to create a real-life zombie apocalypse, then prions—which also cause mad cow disease—are the way to go. Abnormal proteins, they can’t be killed because they aren’t alive to begin with. Unlike viruses, they can’t even be sanitized. The only forces known to destroy them are extreme heat, the equivalent of what a crematorium produces, and caustic lye. Neither of which a human can survive.
“C’mon,” Flynn said. “It’s time.”
“No. I just need—” Lean
ing over the railing, sandwiched between two weathered and pock-marked gargoyles grimacing at the worshippers below, I searched the crowd, scanning for one figure who stood out from the rest. I needed to see him, one last time. Know that he was all right. Then I could go, do what needed to be done.
We were at war. Me, Flynn, Devon Price, and my best friend, Louise Mehta, the closest thing to a medical genius I’d ever met.
Four of us up against an unseen, powerful enemy who had threatened the lives of everyone I cared about.
Including Ryder. As I looked down on the people weaving their way down the icy steps of St. Tim’s, the white-gold light of the full moon seemed to favor one figure in particular. His stride appeared slower than I remembered but just as determined. As was his posture. A man who believed, yet who did not rely upon faith or miracles. Detective Matthew Ryder knew better than that. He depended on no one except himself to get the job done.
A lot like me that way—probably why we’d connected so quickly when we’d first met at Thanksgiving in my ER at Good Samaritan. Make that my former ER. Thanksgiving was when I’d held a dead nun’s heart in my hand during a trauma resuscitation and heard her speak to me. Side effect of my fatal insomnia, this strange ability to talk to not-quite-dead-yet people, their memories emptying into my brain.
Now, as I watched Ryder walk down the steps, his overcoat flapping against his legs like a superhero’s cape, I reached for the antique Pashtun pendant he’d given me. Inside a disk of amber as golden as sunshine was a silver tree of life. Touching it calmed me, centered me—but not as much as the man himself. When we were together, my symptoms improved. I could actually, finally sleep. I felt almost...human.