“That’s it. Take what you want, what you need,” she encouraged.
He took another step, then several more until he reached the shed again. The blisters along his feet had been rubbed raw yesterday morning. He’d had no choice but to continue to move on and through the woods. He’d needed to distance himself as far as he could from the burning house. By now, the authorities would know what Rodney and Adeline had done. Whether Rodney survived, he didn’t know. He was hopeful, though. As much as he’d gladly slit Rodney’s throat with the switchblade, he wouldn’t risk captivity to hunt the man down and kill him. After having been bound to a bed for days, the subject of Rodney and Adeline’s experiment, he would die before ever being imprisoned again.
“No thoughts of dying,” Adeline said. “You’re a survivor. A born hunter. A killer.”
She was wrong. He somehow knew he’d never killed before, but what he did know? When he’d twisted the man’s neck, Adeline had quieted. While he’d used the woods and darkness as his shield, she’d stayed quiet for hours. But yesterday morning, she’d awoken. Hungry. Encouraging him to push forward, to reach an unknown destination and take shelter, to regain his strength and tend to his wounds.
To kill. Without reason, without mercy.
Her laughter filled his head. “You know me so well, lover. I am hungry. And look what’s on the menu.”
An old man in a pair of coveralls stepped onto the slanted porch, a pipe dangling from between his lips. “Breakfast will be done right shortly,” a woman called from the house. “Don’t be lightn’ that pipe now.”
The man waved a hand, then struck a match. “I hear ya’, Ma,” he replied, then lit the pipe anyway.
“Go for it, lover. Take their food, their lives, their money. I’m so hungry,” she screamed, piercing his head, fracturing his mind. “Do it. I created you. Now give me what I need. Show me. Don’t stop until you’re done.”
He leaned against the shed and pressed his hands to his ears. Pain shot through his skull when the heels of his hands brushed against the wounds he’d sustained from the chain. He needed her to stop. To shut up and leave him alone. Breathing hard, his head filled with her endless taunts, he dropped his hands. He shoved away from the shed, then stepped out from behind it and started for the house.
Time to feed the bitch inside him.
To be continued…
* * *
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Look for Harrison’s story January 2016…
Perfectly Tortured
Book Three of C.O.R.E. Above the Law
Perfectly Twisted
Book One of C.O.R.E. Above the Law
What do you get when you mix a snake-handling reverend, a necrophiliac, a cop and an ex-con? Something perfectly twisted…
Sound like the start of a bad joke? Not to Shane Monahan. The ex-con and newest recruit to the underground criminal investigation group, ATL or Above the Law, has it bad for Collier County Deputy Beth Price. But ex-cons and cops don’t mix, especially when this particular ex-con is looking at going back to prison for his involvement with ATL.
All Beth wants is a fun distraction from the stress of her job and law school. She thinks she's found that when she meets Shane during an airboat tour through the Florida Everglades. But Shane’s a felon, a man who could destroy her career as a deputy, and jeopardize her future as an attorney. She doesn’t know what to do—until dead bodies start showing up around the county.
When three abused corpses are found with snake remains inside them, the discovery brings a murderer out of retirement. The Reverend, as he calls himself, doesn’t like his kills being mimicked, especially by a man who abuses the dead—after all, the Reverend does have a reputation to uphold and a congregation to scam. Now it’s time to teach his copycat a deadly lesson…
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Other C.O.R.E. Titles Available (listed in order) by Kristine Mason
Shadow of Danger
Book One of the C.O.R.E. Shadow Trilogy
Beware of what lurks in the shadows…
Four women have been found dead in the outskirts of a small Wisconsin town. The only witness, clairvoyant Celeste Risinski, observes these brutal murders through violent nightmares and hellish visions. The local sheriff, who believes in Celeste’s abilities and wants to rid their peaceful community of a killer, enlists the help of an old friend, Ian Scott, owner of a private criminal investigation agency, CORE. Because of Ian’s dark history with Celeste’s family, a history she knows nothing about, he sends his top criminalist, former FBI agent John Kain to investigate.
John doesn’t believe in Celeste’s mystic hocus-pocus, or in her visions of the murders. But just when he’s certain they’ve solved the crimes, with the use of science and evidence, more dead bodies are discovered. Could this somehow be the work of the same killer or were they dealing with a copycat? To catch a vicious murderer, the skeptical criminalist reluctantly turns to the sensual psychic for help. Yet with each step closer to finding the killer, John finds himself one step closer to losing his heart.
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Also available as an audiobook!
Shadow of Perception
Book Two of the C.O.R.E. Shadow Trilogy
What happens when negligent plastic surgeons receive a taste of their own medicine…?
Chicago investigative reporter, Eden Risk, receives an unmarked envelope containing a postcard ordering her to watch the enclosed DVD…or someone else dies. No Police. After Eden watches the DVD, a gruesome, horrifying surgery, she turns to the private criminal investigation agency, CORE, for help. Only she hadn’t expected that help to come with a catch. Her former lover, Hudson Patterson, has been assigned to the case.
Hudson would rather have another CORE agent handle the investigation. Two years ago, he’d screwed things up with Eden…bad. And as more DVDs arrive, Eden and Hudson find themselves not only knee-deep in a twisted investigation, but forced to deal with their past, and the love they’d tried to deny.
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Shadow of Vengeance
Book Three of the C.O.R.E. Shadow Trilogy
Welcome to Hell Week. You have seven days to find him…
At Wexman University, male students will do anything to get into a top fraternity. They’ll prove their worth during Hell Week by participating in various physical, psychological and even juvenile pranks. But those shenanigans aren’t so funny when pledges start disappearing. What kind of evil has stalked this small Michigan university for the past two decades? Theories range from obscene scientific experiments to grotesque satanic killings…but they’re all wrong. The murdered boys serve a single purpose…the ultimate revenge.
Rachel Davis, forensic computer analyst for the private investigation agency CORE, has been itching to leave her desk behind and work in the field. When her brother Sean, a student at Wexman, is found beaten and his roommate kidnapped during Hell Week, she gets her chance. Only her boss insists former U.S. Secret Service Agent, Owen Malcolm, helps her with the investigation. Owen is the last person she wants on this assignment. She’d been secretly half in love with him for over four years, until the night he’d crushed her ego and destroyed her hopes for any kind of future with him.
For his own reasons, Owen refuses to risk becoming involved with a coworker. Now that he and Rachel are stuck working side-by-side to solve this perverse investigation, he’s having a hard time fighting his attraction to her…an attraction he’s tried to deny from the moment they met. But time is ticking. They have seven days to find the missing pledge and catch a killer. Seven days before the body count rises and the pledge ends up another victim of Hell Week.
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Ultimate Kill
Book One of the Ultimate C.O.R.E. Trilogy
When the past collides with the present, the only way t
o ensure the future lies in the ultimate kill…
Naomi McCall is a woman of many secrets. Her family has been murdered and she’s been forced into hiding. No one knows her past or her real name, not even the man she loves.
Jake Tyler, former Marine and the newest recruit to the private investigation agency, CORE, has been in love with a woman who never existed. When he learns about the lies Naomi has weaved, he’s ready to leave her—until an obsessed madman begins sending her explosive messages every hour on the hour.
Innocent people are dying. With their deaths, Naomi’s secrets are revealed and the truth is thrust into the open. All but one. Naomi’s not sure if Jake can handle a truth that will change their lives. But she is certain of one thing—the only way to stop the killer before he takes more lives is to make herself his next victim.
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Ultimate Fear
Book Two of the Ultimate C.O.R.E. Trilogy
When a deranged mother’s grief drives her to replace her dead son over and over, obsession leads to murder…
Chicago detective Jessica Donavan will never stop looking for her missing daughter. Her obsession has destroyed her marriage, but the search is the only thing that helps keep her sane and her mind off of everything she’s lost—her husband and her baby girl. When she uncovers a string of unsolved disappearances and reappearances of a number of baby boys, Jessica turns to her soon to be ex, Dante Russo, a former Navy SEAL turned investigator for the private agency, CORE, to help her fit together the pieces in this perplexing puzzle. But as Dante helps her, she realizes just how much she still craves his support—and his touch.
Dante is still in love with his wife and would do anything to have her back in his life again. He’s been miserable since she left him to deal with the grief over their daughter’s abduction, never understanding how much he grieves as well. When Jessica tells him about the case she’s working, he jumps at the chance to take part in her investigation. He’s hoping not only to save their marriage and ease his personal pain over the loss of their daughter, but to stop a serial kidnapper from taking another victim.
As Jessica and Dante work side by side, pregnant women begin to turn up missing or dead, and they start to uncover the consequences of another woman’s unfathomable grief. The childless mother doesn’t just want a baby. She wants a newborn straight from the womb.
And when forced to confront the dark and twisted perversion of a mother’s obsession, can Jessica and Dante find their lives again…or merely more death?
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Ultimate Prey
Book Three of the Ultimate C.O.R.E. Trilogy
When the hunter becomes the hunted…who will become the ultimate prey?
CORE agent Lola Tam has two things on her mind, quitting her job as a criminal investigator and baking a frozen pie for Thanksgiving dinner without burning it. But a midnight call forces a change of plans. Her boss and future stepfather, Ian Scott, has been kidnapped from his Florida vacation rental—along with her mother. The kidnapper’s plan? Drop Ian and her mom in the Everglades and hunt them like animals. Terrified for her mom, Lola takes the bait and travels to Everglades City, Florida where she’s determined to end the hunt before it begins.
Ryan Monahan, former Navy SEAL turned airboat captain is used to taking tourists through the Everglades, not guiding a sexy agent on a rescue mission. After spending years dealing with a past filled with guilt and regret, he needs a little action and adventure in his life—he needs to prove he could still be a hero. What he doesn’t need? Falling for a woman he has no business wanting, especially when the hunt takes a deadly turn…
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Psychic C.O.R.E. Series
Celeste Files: Unlocked
Book 1 Psychic C.O.R.E.
Some secrets should remain locked in the past…
Celeste Kain hasn’t had a psychic vision in two years. After being brutally attacked while helping criminal investigation agency CORE stop a serial killer, her mind repressed her clairvoyant abilities. Married to CORE agent, John Kain, mother to their toddler, Olivia, and owner of an up-and-coming bakery, Celeste has been doing fine psychic-free. Only now the dead are using her body to tell their stories again…putting her new life and family at risk.
Haunted by a murdered woman, Celeste turns to a psychic mentor to learn how to control her gift, protect her family and bring justice to the dead. But the more she digs into the dead woman’s past, the further she slips into the unknown, unlocking secrets literally worth killing for. As the body count rises, it becomes clear: someone in the dead woman’s family is deeply, violently wrong. And Celeste needs to be careful, before she loses something more precious to her than her life.
Celeste Risinski, the heroine of Shadow of Danger (Book 1 C.O.R.E. Shadow Trilogy), is back with her own series. Join her as she learns how to deal with being a wife, mom, baker and…psychic investigator.
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Celeste Files: Unjust
Book 2 Psychic C.O.R.E.
Dealing with the dead is murder…
Psychic Celeste Kain has two things on her mind, relaxing for a week in Florida with her husband, John, and making a baby. But a fishing trip turns her vacation into a nightmare when she reels in the body of a dead boat captain and accidentally unleashes an evil ghost who has one thing on his mind…revenge.
As the dead boat captain haunts Celeste, she looks deeper into his past and discovers that his murderer had done the world a favor. The ghost tormenting Celeste doesn’t see it that way and will go to any length to avenge his death. If Celeste won’t give him what he wants, he will take over her body and use her as a weapon…to kill her husband.
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Contemporary Romances by Kristine Mason
Kiss Me
Pick Me
Love Me
About Kristine Mason
Kristine Mason is the bestselling author of the popular romantic suspense trilogies C.O.R.E. Shadow and Ultimate C.O.R.E. She is currently working on her next trilogy, C.O.R.E. Above the Law, along with a series of Psychic C.O.R.E. novellas.
Although Kristine has published a few contemporary romance novels, she focuses most of her energy on her romantic suspense stories, which she loves for their blend of dark mystery/suspense and sexy romance. She is fascinated with what makes people afraid, and is famous for her depraved villains whose crimes present massive obstacles for her heroes and heroines to overcome.
Kristine has a degree in journalism from Ohio State University and lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, four kids, and two dogs. If she’s not writing, she’s chauffeuring kids, gardening, or collecting gnomes. Oh, and she makes a mean chocolate chip cookie!
Connect with Kristine on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kristinemasonauthor, Twitter https://twitter.com/KristineMason7 or email her at [email protected]. You can also find out more about Kristine’s books at http://www.kristinemason.net
Table of Contents
PART I
PART II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
PART III
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
PART IV
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
EPILOGUE
Sneak Peek—Perfectly Twisted
Other C.O.R.E. Titles by Kristine Mason
Contemporary Romances by Kristine Mason
About Kristine Mason
Table of Contents
PART I
PAR
T II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
PART III
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Perfectly Toxic Page 38