by Jan Coffey
Thanksgiving in Connecticut
Made In Heaven
Ghost of the Thames
Scottish Dream Trilogy
Dreams of Destiny
Captured Dreams
Borrowed Dreams
Secret Vows
The Rebel
The Promise
Tess and the Highlander
Highland Treasure Trilogy
The Firebrand
The Enchantress
The Dreamer
Flame
The Intended
Macpherson Trilogy
Beauty of the Mist
Heart of Gold
Angel of Skye
Thistle and The Rose
Arsenic and Old Armor)
Writing As Jan Coffey:
Road Kill
Mercy
Aquarian
Blind Eye
The Puppet Master
The Janus Effect
Cross Wired
Silent Waters
Five in a Row
Tropical Kiss
Fourth Victim
Triple Threat
Twice Burned
Trust Me Once
And for everyone who asks how we write together:
Marriage of Minds
Writing Exercises for twenty-first century:
Step Write Up
Read an excerpt of Blind Eye
Counting down to a Chernobyl-scale disaster, the clock starts now...
Tick...
Scientist Marion Kagan is the sole survivor after gunmen attacked the facility where her team was working on a top-secret project. Wounded and trapped in a collapsed building, Marion must stop radioactive testing samples from leaking out and killing millions
...Tick...
In a Connecticut psychiatric hospital, Marion's twin sister, who has been in a coma-like state for years, begins to thrash violently in her bed. When an experimental program is used on her to read the images of her brain, researchers are shocked at what they find.
...Tick...
An American soldier just back from Iraq is searching for direction in his life. While he watches the news about the research facility explosion, he is unaware that fate has just chosen a direction for him—straight into a deadly game of international corporate intrigue.
...Tick...
CHAPTER 1
St. Vincent’s Hospital
Santa Fe, New Mexico
“You’re awake.”
Lying on his side, Fred Adrian first became aware of the sensation of movement before knowing where he was. The starched white pillowcase was cool against his cheek. The smell of plastic registered in his brain.
The gentle roll of the bed along a smooth floor, the blink of the lights overhead, the words on the intercom that he couldn’t exactly make sense of, they all made him want to go to sleep.
“You were a trooper during the procedure,” the same woman’s voice said cheerfully.
Then he began to remember. The hospital. He was in for the procedure. He was lying on a hospital gurney. Fred’s mind was slow to catch up, but things were starting to make sense. He was in to have a routine colonoscopy.
“I’m nervous about it.”
“No reason to be nervous. It’s over.”
“When do you start?” he asked.
She chuckled. “It’s all over. You’re done.”
He wasn’t hearing her right. He wanted to go to sleep. “What time is it?”
“It’s ten past eleven,” the same voice, pushing the gurney along the corridor, told him.
Eleven. Last time he’d checked the clock it was a few minutes past eight. He couldn’t remember anything after that. He lifted his wrist to check the watch. He wasn’t wearing it. Fred held his hand up against the passing lights on the ceiling. They were so bright.
“Easy now. You’re still hooked up.”
He squinted at the IV hanging from a shiny chrome hook near his head. The tube snaking down from it disappeared and then reappeared just before terminating under some tape on the back of his hand. His first time under anesthesia. He’d put off having the colonoscopy for a very long time.
“I made it. It’s over,” he said to the voice, as if that should be news to her.
“You made it through with flying colors,” the woman said in an entertained tone.
She slowed down to negotiate a turn.
“I’ll be fifty-nine next week,” Fred said to her.
“Happy birthday.”
The bed bumped its way through a door. Fred didn’t mind. The residual mellowness from the anesthesia was taking the edge off of every sensation. His hand flopped onto the pillow and he slipped it under his head. He looked up at the ceiling. He couldn’t quite focus yet.
“I’m the first one of us to reach the age of fifty-nine,” he told her.
“The first one?” she asked.
They made it through the door, and the nurse parked him. He wanted to talk, to tell her how special this was. His mind was slow to keep up, though. He didn’t know if she’d asked the question now or at eight o’clock this morning. He decided to say it, anyway. He had to share the news.
“I’m the first male in my family…” he chuckled, remembering how nervous he’d been before today. He was sure this would be it. Today he’d die. “I’m first one to reach age of fifty-nine. My father…he was forty-two when he died. Brother…fifty. Now maybe I live to be sixty. My daughter is getting married next year…and I’ll be sixty.”
There were two other patients in the room. Fred looked over. Another bed was rolled in after him. Or maybe he was there before him. He was an old man, sound asleep. Fred was tired. Maybe he should sleep, too.
“You’re just starting to wake up, but there is no hurry,” she told him. “Do you have someone waiting for you in the reception area?”
For the first time he saw his nurse. She was moving the IV from a hook on the gurney to some stand next to it. She was young, not too pretty. She could be, he thought.
“I need a date for my daughter’s wedding,” he told her.
“Do you have someone in the waiting area, Mr. Adrian?” she asked again. She wasn’t smiling now.
“Yeah…she should be out there.”
“She?” the nurse picked up a chart and read something on it before putting it back down. “Why don’t you rest, and I’ll go and get Mrs. Adrian? But don’t try to get up or move until I come back to take out the IV, okay?”
“Rest…” he whispered under his breath. His throat was dry. He wanted something to drink. He stared at the table with rolling wheels beside his bed. There was a cup sitting on top. He wondered if there was something in it to drink. The nurse had said not to move.
The guy next to him was snoring. Fred wondered if he’d been snoring while under anesthesia. He’d made it. Made it.
Five minutes later…or three hours. He didn’t know. Fred opened his eyes and saw her coming into the room.
“I made it,” he said, yawning and closing his eyes.
“You did,” the woman said in a low voice. “Your nurse said as soon as you’re awake, they’ll bring you some coffee and a piece of toast.”
“I’m thirsty. Hand me that cup of water.” His hand hung in the air.
He heard a soft plastic-sounding snap near his head. She was standing too close to the bed. Fred could smell her perfume. He opened his eyes and saw her take something out of the tube going into his arm.
“What was that?” he asked.
Her hand moved to his forehead and she closed his eyes. “Why don’t you get some rest until it’s time to take you home?”
The other patient was still snoring. He didn’t want to sleep. Fred felt his limbs getting heavy.
“Take me home…I can sleep there.”
“Shh…soon.”
His heartbeat started drumming in his ears. Suddenly, he wasn’t feeling right. There was something different. The right side of his face was feeling numb, like he’d been slapped.
“Is he ready for some coffee?’ Fred heard the familiar voice of the nurse coming back into the room.
Coffee…yes. He wanted to wake up. He wanted to get out of here. He wanted to answer for himself. His tongue felt swollen in his mouth. His eyelids were too heavy to lift. He opened his mouth but he could push no sound out.
Something wasn’t right. She’d put something in the tube in his arm.
Then, in a moment of clarity, he thought of Cynthia. He thought of the box he’d shipped his daughter.
“I think he’s fallen back to sleep. Should we give him some time?”
“That’s fine. Come and get me when he’s awake.”
No, he wanted to wake up now. He wanted to live. He’d be fifty-nine next week. He needed to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Fred lifted his hand off the bed to tell the nurse to stop, but cold fingers took hold of his and pressed them down into the sheet.
The kick of his foot at the table was a feeble effort, at best. Like a last gasp for air before drowning.
“Is he okay?” he heard the nurse’s voice from far away.
“Yes, he’s fine. I’m the klutz. I just leaned against the table.”
Vaguely, he heard the sound of footsteps moving away. Hope slipped away like a lifeline through his fingers and was gone.
Read more of Blind eye
Road Kill
by
Jan Coffey
PROLOGUE
Northwest Connecticut
April, 1997
Washing down the Xanax with a long swig of vodka, Lacey felt like from now on, every day would be a Saturday.
She tried to focus on the joint she’d dropped on her faded jeans. With an effort that almost made her laugh out loud, she finally trapped it between her fingers and lit it. The acrid smoke curled down her throat.
As Lacey stared into the blue and yellow flames licking the wood in the bonfire, figures took shape with sudden clarity. People. Trapped there in the fire. A man and a woman, screaming at each other. The man’s arm snapped out like the crack of a whip, striking the woman across the face. As she dropped to her knees, he kicked her in the stomach.
“No you don’t, you bastard.” Lacey reached into the flames to squash him. Her hand burned. She pulled back and stared at it. Her fingers were matchsticks—five of them.
Last week, she couldn’t find a lighter in the bathroom. Well, she’d never have to worry about that again. She spread them out against the dark sky.
A scream down by the beach sliced through the edge of her consciousness. The matchsticks hissed and disappeared, and her fingers returned. She sat bolt upright. The moon was gleaming off the waters of Sherman Pond.
A skin-and-bones girl sat across the way, plugged into her Walkman, on the other side of the fire. Lacey remembered her name was Liz. She was rocking to some tune, and everyone else had disappeared.
There was that scream again, muffled this time. Lacey tried to concentrate on the laughter coming from the beach. It would be so easy to faze out again.
That girl Stephanie must have gone with them.
Lacey was only here because she’d run into Michael Phoenix and his friends at the donut shop. Those guys were all seniors at the high school. Stephanie was only a sophomore, like Lacey. But Michael had promised some good shit if she’d go to the door at the nice house and ask for Stephanie. So she’d done it. No big deal.
That seemed like an eon ago. Lacey looked back into the fire. There’d been an Easter wreath hanging beneath the fancy brass lantern beside Stephanie’s front door. Bunnies and colored eggs and purple flowers arranged in the woven branches. Her family never had anything like that. They’d never celebrated any Easter, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas. Holidays like that would mean there was something good in life. Lacey couldn’t even imagine it. Not in their house.
As soon as Stephanie climbed into the van, it’d been clear she was hot for Michael. They hadn’t even pulled away from the curb before she’d had her hands all over him.
The muffled cry from the beach again broke through the fog.
“Did you hear that?” Lacey looked across the fire at Liz.
Liz pulled her ear buds. “No.”
“Where is everybody? I heard something.”
“It’s nothing.”
Lacey’s stomach got queasy. She really didn’t know any of these kids. Since moving to the area in January to live with her sister and her grandfather, she hadn’t made any friends. These guys were older, and it was the first time anyone had taken her partying with them. Still, it was better than sneaking money out of her sister’s wallet and buying the stuff.
“Sounds like somebody’s in trouble.”
“Aren’t you from Chicago or someplace?”
“Cleveland.”
“Whatever,” Liz snapped. “Don’t they party there?”
“Yeah, but that—”
“Just cool it. Your friend Stephanie knows what she’s doing.”
“She’s not my friend.”
“Better for you.”
“But is she down there with all the boys?”
“I said, cool it.” Liz threw her Walkman on the ground next to her. “Fuck. You really know how to ruin a good buzz.”
The cries and laughter grew louder as Lacey struggled to her feet. The sharp pain in her hip shot straight down her leg. She’d left her cane behind in the donut shop. She didn’t want it. Didn’t need it.
It sounded like the boys were chanting. But another voice was drowning out the others. Her father’s shouts. The crash of furniture. Her mother begging, pleading for him to stop. Lacey’s head was spinning. She tried to take a step but couldn’t get her bad leg to work. She almost staggered into the fire.
“Sit down!” Liz snapped. “It’s none of your fucking business.”
Lacey could hear her mother screaming. He was hitting her.
“No!”
Lacey lurched toward the beach, but the girl cut her off. Her face loomed over her in the dark.
“I said it’s none of your fucking business.”
Lacey felt the prickly heat of panic wash through her, and she scrambled away.
Silhouetted by the fire, Liz was watching her go. “Yeah, bitch. Just keep going.”
Lacey limped off, moving as quickly as she could through the dark woods. Pine branches whipped at her face and body. Missing a step, she went sprawling flat on her face. The smell of cold, damp earth filled her nose.
Lacey needed to get her mother out. She could see his crazed eyes, the rigid mask of rage stretched across his face. He wasn’t stopping. He couldn’t. Her mother was huddled against the wall by the stove. Next time he’d kill her, he screamed, going after her again. Lacey believed him.
Fear propelled her to her feet as she struggled against the pain in her hip and leg.
Lacey hobbled as fast as her feet would move. The cracked yellow walls of their kitchen vanished, replaced by darkness and the smell of night. Her breaths stuttered in her chest.
Suddenly, the trees thinned and she found herself standing at the edge of the lake. Across the way, a solitary red lantern shone at the end of a dock, reflecting a blur of deep crimson on the water.
The voices and laughter were clearer here—goading, encouraging, taunting—and on the beach she caught glimpses of Stephanie’s white skin writhing amidst the dark shapes. One figure was standing back, watching the others. His cigarette glowed in the dark.
“Stop, you bastards!” she shouted. “Let her go!”
Her cry did nothing. No one turned. The chants became louder. Lacey felt in her pocket for the cell phone and dialed.
“Hello?” Her sister Terri’s voice was cool, calm. Like the coo of a dove. She would know what to do. Terri was older, smarter. She had just been accepted into the police academy.
“It’s me…Lacey.” Her tongue was a wad of cotton in her mouth.
The guttural sounds from the beach tumbled across the water. There was something nasty
in the tone. Sick. Satisfied.
Lacey saw the dark solitary figure step forward, joining the others.
“I need help,” she pleaded into the phone. “There’s a girl here. She’s—”
A scream cut through the laughter…and then there was silence.
Deep, thick silence.
And then only the sound of the water lapping the rocks at her feet.
CHAPTER 1
Sixteen Years Later
“We celebrate the life that never dies and the love that lives forever. We celebrate that Terri’s life with God is one without suffering or pain. It is an eternal life of joy and bliss.”
Gavin MacFadyen leaned against the heavy wallpaper in the reception room and let the words of the minister drift past him.
They’d been partners for a dog’s age. Hundreds of stakeouts. Scores of murder cases. He remembered every one. And he remembered how he used to kid her about the meticulous record-keeping she was fond of, the anal way she liked to organize their workload. Man, the endless arguments they used to have over nothing, just for the sake of arguing. He and Terri had been paired up for over ten years. He’d been on the force for ten years prior to that. That made him the senior partner, but he’d admit to anyone—except her—that she was better at the job than he was. She was tougher, meaner, more dedicated, and she made a habit of getting so deep into every case that it became personal.