by Mary Stone
Cold Revenge
Ellie Kline Series: Book Seven
Mary Stone
Donna Berdel
Copyright © 2020 by Mary Stone
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, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Mary Stone
To my husband.
Thank you for taking care of our home and its many inhabitants while I follow this dream of mine.
Donna Berdel
First, a big thank you to Mary Stone for taking a chance on me by collaborating on this story. I’m honored and indebted!And, of course, to my husband. Thank you for being you. You’re my rock.
Contents
Description
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
Ellie Kline Series
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Description
Revenge is a dish best served cold...
Since she was fifteen years old, one man has hovered in the background of Charleston Cold Case Detective Ellie Kline’s life, like a sinister ghost watching from the shadows. She nearly caught him once. Instead, she maimed him. Badly. As a result, Dr. Lawrence Kingsley retreated underground to lick his wounds and transform into a new façade of evil.
Ellie always knew that, sooner or later, the murderous psychiatrist would reappear. That time has come.
When his former assistant goes missing from federal protection, Ellie races to Oregon in a desperate attempt to locate Kingsley before the killer can spill more blood. Will Ellie track him down in time, or will The Master once again declare victory in his game of life and death?
Just when you think you’re safe from the evils of the world, Cold Revenge, the seventh book of the Ellie Kline Series, will remind you of just how flimsy the locks on your doors really are.
1
Maribel Green snuck a hunted glance over her shoulder, checking to make sure none of her coworkers in the Arlington, Virginia United States Marshals office were watching before slouching low into her government-issued desk chair. With her heart clamped in an invisible vice, she tapped at her phone, but her hands shook so much that she hit the wrong app. Facebook popped open, filling her screen with a political rant by a woman she’d gone to high school with and had never spoken a single word to since.
“Dammit.” She flinched as the whispered curse came out louder than expected. After a frantic look toward her boss’s office to make sure he hadn’t noticed her outburst, Maribel closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose the way every yoga instructor over the last ten years had taught her.
One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five…
At the last one thousand, she released the air through her mouth. It took Mirabel ten repetitions before her hands ceased the worst of the trembling. This time, she managed to tap the correct icon. The encrypted messaging app she’d been instructed to download popped open, displaying a single new message. Mirabel opened it, and a link appeared. She held her breath as she clicked.
Please, please, please…
As promised, a video popped up, and Mirabel struggled to recognize anything in the dimly lit room. Her pulse threatened to sputter out. Where? Where were they?
Just as her hand started trembling again, the lighting improved, and she spotted the two small forms huddled together on a weathered cot in the far-right corner. The video zoomed in, showing the zip ties binding their wrists and ankles and the blindfolds swallowing half their faces. After squinting long enough to ensure their chests were rising and falling, Mirabel nearly sagged onto the floor in relief.
Her babies. Her babies were still alive.
As Mirabel reached a shaky finger to touch little Ava’s face through the screen, her phone buzzed. She jumped, making her chair lurch forward while she swallowed a startled scream. A new message appeared, catapulting her heart into her throat.
As you can see, the little darlings are still fine…for now. How long that lasts is up to you.
She muffled an escaping sob with her hand. She needed to pull it together. Focus. Remain calm. Hysteria would only serve to get her children killed.
On the bright side, the kidnapper didn’t have any new instructions for her, which was one of the things she’d feared. That happened too often, she’d learned in her role with the Marshals. A kidnapper started by demanding one thing before asking for a second and a third.
For now, it appeared that her children’s kidnapper merely wanted to remind her what was at stake if she failed to meet his demands.
Merely.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up Mirabel’s throat as the absurdity of the situation hit her. She clamped her lips together to hold it in while her hands clenched into fists. She worked for the U.S. Marshals Service, for heaven’s sake. Why was she following the instructions of some lowlife scumbag who’d kidnapped her kids and held them hostage when help was only steps away?
All she had to do was march around the corner to her boss’s office and tell him what was happening. Within seconds, Seth Conway, the Assistant Director of the U.S.M.S. Witness Security Program, would spur the marshals into action. Mirabel didn’t have to do this alone.
She was halfway out of her chair before fear shattered her newfound resolve like a hammer splintering her office’s glass wall. She sank back into her seat as the kidnapper’s message from earlier that morning flitted through her head.
Be warned. I’m listening to every word you say. I watch every move you make. I’ll know the second you mess up, and poor Liam and Ava will be the ones to pay the price.
Mirabel knew he was telling the truth about monitoring her because she’d already tested him once. In a panic, she’d started to dial Seth’s number, but a new message popped up before she could finish.
I see what you’re doing.
Mirabel shivered. That was all the kidnapper had said, but it was enough to convince her. If he wasn’t lying about his ability to monitor her every move, then she had no choice but to believe him when he said he’d take any of her mistakes out on her children.
Her sweet, precious babies, all bound up like criminals in that dark room. How terrified must they be? Mirabel opened the video again. Her spine straightened, even as her stomach turned.
She didn’t want to steal the highly classified information the kidnapper demanded, but she would. In Mirabel’s mind, a choice between handing over names of people in the WITSEC program and forfeiting her children’s lives was no choice at all.
Now, she just needed to wait for the right time.
Mirabel pretended to be engrossed in a memo on her monitor while the minutes ticked by. After what felt like hours, a flicker of motion in the hallway caught her eye through the glass partition. Right on time,
her boss walked past her office on his way to the conference room for a scheduled meeting.
This was it.
Mirabel watched the time on her monitor like a hawk. When exactly five minutes had passed, she gathered a stack of folders as cover, stood up from her chair on trembling legs, and headed toward her boss’s empty office. She kept her head down and exhaled a sigh when she reached his desk without interruption. Her gaze fell on Seth’s computer.
I can’t do this. I can’t.
Before she realized it, she’d stumbled back a step. She tightened her fists and fought against the instincts urging her to turn and flee.
If she did that, Liam and Ava were as good as dead.
That was all the reminder Mirabel needed. Skirting the edge of her boss’s desk, she sank into his chair and clicked the mouse. She entered the passcodes stored in her head from all the years of working with him. A few clicks led her to the file she needed.
WITSEC
There they were. The real names of the people currently in the federal witness security program. Their aliases and contact information. All she had to do was write them down.
Just three of them, she reminded herself.
Three names in exchange for her two beautiful children.
What else could she do?
Mirabel reached for her pen to jot the information onto the paper she’d brought along with her, but her hand refused to budge. She wasted precious seconds reminding herself that the majority of people on that list were criminals. Scumbags who had only escaped federal prison by cutting a deal and ratting out someone who was even more awful. The most terrible of bad guys.
Not innocents, like her babies.
With a trembling hand, her pen scratched across the notepad as she jotted down the information the kidnapper had requested on the three names. When she finished, she glanced at the page, startled to find that the cursive didn’t look familiar. No tidy, flowing letters. Instead, her handwriting looked like the wobbly attempts of a second grader.
She shook her head to clear her scattered mind. Forget the cursive. What mattered was that she’d retrieved all the information he’d demanded. All she had to do now was get out of there without being caught.
Mirabel logged out of the computer, replaced the mouse where she’d found it, and pushed to her feet. With all the calm she could muster, she called on her dwindling reserve of self-control to force her legs to walk out of the office, instead of the full-out sprint her nerves demanded. Once she arrived at her desk without incident, she collapsed into her chair, gripped the edge of her desk until her knuckles turned white, and waited for her pulse to stop its frantic drumbeat in her ears. Everything would be okay. The hardest part was over, and no one was the wiser.
Yet.
When her heart no longer threatened to punch its way out of her chest, she tapped out a text: Got the info you requested. Can we meet now?
Mirabel’s eyes never left her phone as she waited for a response.
Wait for GPS coordinates. Don’t do anything foolish in the meantime.
Before she could set her phone back down, an image popped up, a close-up of her babies’ sweet, sweet faces as they slept.
A reminder of everything at stake.
Goose bumps erupted all over Mirabel’s skin, and she rubbed her arms to chase them away. She didn’t know how she would make it through the rest of the workday without having a mental breakdown, but she needed to figure it out, and fast.
The rest of the day dragged by. Mirabel checked the time so often that the numbers swam before her eyes, dissolving into meaningless symbols. Even the tiniest, unexpected noise caused her to jump in her chair. She stared sightlessly at the file open on her monitor, unable to focus on anything other than the names on the paper she’d tucked into her pocket. That, and her children.
Thunk!
Mirabel yelped and jerked in her chair, causing an unpleasant screeching noise. She swiveled to discover her boss looming in her doorway with his fist still mid-air from where he’d rapped on her window. Deep creases lined his broad forehead.
Oh god. Did he know she’d accessed his computer? Her legs quivered while her brain performed frantic calculations of her odds of darting past him and making it to her car.
“You okay in here? You’ve barely poked your head out all day.” Seth’s gravelly baritone sounded the same as always.
Mirabel’s chest eased a little. “I’m fine, thanks. Just not feeling one hundred percent.”
Her boss’s too-sharp gray eyes inspected her. “You look pale, like you’re coming down with something. That stomach flu has been going around, so if you’re not feeling better tonight, take tomorrow off.”
Tomorrow off.
Yes, that was precisely what she needed. After this, Mirabel wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to let her kids leave her sight again.
She forced her lips into a semblance of a smile. “Thank you, I’ll do that.”
“Good.” He jerked his head toward the hall. “Why don’t you go ahead and leave a few minutes early?”
Before she could respond, Mirabel’s phone buzzed in her lap. She knew without looking who it was, and the smile froze on her face, though she forced her voice to remain calm. “Yes, I think I’ll do that. I’m pretty beat.”
Please, leave already.
“Feel better.” Seth nodded, and to her immense relief, turned and headed back down the hall. She waited until he disappeared from sight to open the new message.
I was worried you were being foolish, but you kept your mouth shut, good girl.
How? How could this stranger know that? Either he had a bug in her office, or he could hear via her cell phone.
The how didn’t matter right then, though. All that mattered was what she needed to do next.
Bring the information, drive straight to the coordinates below, and wait. It would be unfortunate if you made any mistakes now, when you’re so close to being reunited with your children again.
A pin appeared, providing blessed directions to a spot on the map a little over thirty miles away. She hurried into her coat, snatched up her purse, and rushed into the hallway. Taking in a calming breath, she forced herself to slow to a brisk walk. She couldn’t let her actions be memorable. Nothing to see here, folks.
Almost there, almost there.
The chant accompanied her down the hallway, into the elevator and out through the lobby area. She exited the building into a world freshly blanketed in a dusting of white. Frigid gusts of wind chafed at her already winter-dry cheeks, and she welcomed the awakening slap it provided.
Only last week, the temperatures had been unseasonably warm for December, sunny and in the low seventies. Mirabel had begrudgingly given in to her kids’ whining and taken them on a bike ride. Guilt swelled in her throat at the way she’d initially resisted. At the time, she’d been tired from a long week at work.
She shivered and quickened her pace to the parking garage. The beep-beep of her remote echoed through the deserted building, and lights flashed, leading her to the white Buick Enclave. She flung open the door, lunged into the seat, and shoved the key in the ignition.
Once Liam and Ava were home safe and sound, she’d take them wherever they wanted to go. They could build a snowman. Make hot cocoa and watch holiday movies. Mirabel vowed never to take them for granted again.
BEEP!
Mirabel yelped and slammed her foot down on the brake so hard that her head whipped forward an instant before the back of her skull smacked the headrest. She winced, rubbing her neck while her heart continued to race. A glance in the rearview mirror reflected the silver SUV she’d come within inches of backing into, along with a woman Mirabel didn’t recognize flipping her off.
Mirabel weakly fluttered her fingers at the pissed-off driver. “Sorry.”
Her hands tightened their grip around the wheel before she relaxed, releasing an unsteady breath. So stupid. Now wasn’t the time to let her focus wander, not when she was so close to having
her babies back safely in her arms.
Once the SUV cleared the path, Mirabel scanned both ways before easing her foot onto the gas. She exited the parking garage and followed the directions dictated by her GPS.
The first thirty minutes were excruciating as traffic moved at a crawl. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one off work early. She switched on the radio, scrolled to a classical station she normally found soothing, but punched it off again a minute later. Each note was like a hammer on her taut nerves.
She finally cleared the D.C. traffic when the GPS navigated her off the highway and onto back roads. Soon, she was winding her way down unfamiliar streets. White flakes fluttered onto her windshield like ash, and when Mirabel passed a car smashed into a fence on the shoulder, she eased her foot off the accelerator.
Another ten minutes passed before the GPS guided her down a deserted road that Mirabel was sure she’d never been on before. The longer she drove, the more the acid ate at her stomach, burning as it attempted to rise up her esophagus. The sun was getting close to sinking from the sky, and she hadn’t passed another car in a while.
“Turn left.”
Mirabel did as the robotic voice instructed, then breathed a sigh when she was informed that she was only point two miles from her destination.
“Thank God.”
Mirabel squinted through the falling snow, attempting to spot a building or structure of some kind.