First Girl Gone: An absolutely addictive crime thriller with a twist (Detective Charlotte Winters Book 1)
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First Girl Gone
An absolutely addictive crime thriller with a twist
L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain
Books by L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain
Charlotte Winters Series
First Girl Gone
The Violet Darger Series
Dead End Girl
Image in a Cracked Mirror
Killing Season
The Last Victim
The Girl in the Sand
Bad Blood
Five Days Post Mortem
Into the Abyss
Night on Fire
The Victor Loshak Series
Beyond Good & Evil
The Good Life Crisis
What Lies Beneath
Take Warning
Silent Night
Contents
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
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Epilogue
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A Letter from L.T. and Tim
Prologue
Kara kicked at the wood chips beneath the park bench, flinging flecks of red every which way. Something about the activity jarred her out of a daze, highlighted the level of boredom she’d now achieved.
Christ. This was how she was spending her Christmas break? Sitting on a park bench, kicking wood chips?
The street was dead. This part of Salem Island always was.
Even the air itself seemed lifeless. Overcast sky the gray shade of a stone. No sun. No breeze.
Kara checked the time on her phone again, wondering what was taking Maggie so long. She should have been here by now.
She felt his presence before she saw him. Bodily responses communicating the signs of danger one by one.
A prickling of the hair on her arms.
A chill climbing up her spine.
Her breath hitching in her throat.
Someone was watching her. Someone in the shadows.
Kara locked her eyes on her feet. Searched out of the periphery of her vision.
There was a darkness there. A hulking shape across the street. A man. His broad-shouldered silhouette framed in the doorway of one of the boarded-up shops.
And he stared straight at her.
She fidgeted on the bench. Wished she could keep still. Convey no emotion. Like playing dead.
The last half hour flashed through her mind. She’d wandered down here after the fight with her mom. Stormed out of the house and then circled through town, killing time, smoking cigarettes, cutting through lawns. Waiting for Maggie to come pick her up. So, where was she?
She glanced up, eyes seeking and finding him at last. He turned his head the other direction, overselling the nonchalance.
That chill in her spine grew colder, shooting up her back and hovering between her shoulder blades.
He looked like he could be in witness protection, covered up to the point of ridiculousness. Chunky sunglasses screened much of the face behind sheening black plastic. A Detroit Tigers hat rode low over his brow. His hand rose to cover his mouth, index finger and thumb pinching at his top lip like a crab claw.
She froze. Watched.
After several heartbeats, he spun away and walked off in the other direction.
She held her breath as she watched his figure grow smaller, breathing again only when he disappeared around the corner. Relief.
Her shoulders sagged. Tiniest puffs of laughter exited her nostrils in a staccato hiss.
It was nothing, of course. Just some rando out for a friendly afternoon stare with his best pair of Kim Jong-il sunglasses on.
Her trembling hands peeled the soft pack of cigarettes out of her left hip pocket, adhered the crooked tube of tobacco to her lips. Then she fumbled back into the pocket for the matchbook. Struck one. Brought the flame up under her chin.
She inhaled. Tasted the sweet breath of tobacco smoke. Right away the nicotine calmed her—maybe it was the habit more than the chemical itself.
She texted Maggie.
Hurry up. I’m freezing my ass off.
When the Marlboro was about half gone, she stood, her heart still hammering away inside. Weird. She hadn’t even been that scared. Not really. She’d tell Maggie about it later, and they’d laugh. Kara the paranoid.
She crossed the street. Stepped up on the curb on the other side. The library was only a few blocks away. She could loiter inside until Maggie texted her back and avoid dying of hypothermia. She made sure to avoid the doorway where the creep had stood, reassuring herself in a little whisper that she was overreacting, though she didn’t quite believe her own voice.
The cigarette smoldered between her fingers, mostly gone now. She held off on hitting it again, not quite wanting to let it go as she approached the corner where the man had disappeared.
She chewed her lip. Couldn’t help but picture the man in the black sunglasses lurching out from behind the wall of the donut shop like a mountain lion
leaping for her jugular.
She held her breath as she rounded the corner.
Nothing.
He wasn’t there.
Just another sleepy street on Salem Island.
She crossed to the next block. Jitters still running up and down her limbs.
She lifted the cigarette butt to her lips and hit it. Tasted the caustic tang of melting plastic. She’d burned it down to the filter now.
Shit.
She flicked it toward the storm drain, the cherry detaching upon impact.
She swallowed, and her throat clicked.
He lunged out of the bushes. A ski mask now covered his face, his arms outstretched.
He gripped her around the shoulders. An awkward hug. Forceful. Kara screamed. Threw an elbow into his gut. Heard a woof of breath knocked out of him.
Now she stumbled into a run. Choppy steps. Half-falling.
He leapt after her. Fell flat on the concrete.
His right arm shot out and hooked her ankle. Tripped her at full speed. Thunked her head-first on the cement.
Dark. Stars. All of reality seemed to suck down into a tunnel. The world around her grew smaller. Smaller. A little circle cutout. Dark around the edges now.
He rolled her. Lifted her torso. Hands snaking under her armpits. Each finger pressing into the soft flesh there. And he dragged her face up.
She could hear a choppiness in his footsteps. Hurried and uneven.
Her head lolled. Neck slack.
She watched through slitted eyelids as her limp legs dragged over the concrete behind the two of them, but she couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t feel much.
When he tried to shove her into the backseat of a sedan, she lurched. Clawed for his eyes, for his masked face.
Missed.
He dropped her. The back of her skull thumped down on the asphalt.
Things got far away again. Distant. Quiet. That black circle around the edge of things cinched tighter.
“Enough already,” he hissed between his teeth.
He knelt over her. Picked her head up and slammed it down again. A solid connection of skull and concrete that shot bolts of lightning through her vision.
The last circle of light retreated. The darkness became total.
Chapter One
Misty sobbed in the seat across from Charlotte Winters’ desk, tears tinted with mascara gathering along her jaw.
“Jesus H,” Allie said. “The waterworks came on like she flipped a switch.”
The observation was true enough, Charlie thought, even if it was phrased in Allie’s typically rude fashion. The girl never knew when to keep quiet.
Misty hadn’t managed a word yet. She’d just walked into Charlie’s office, sat down, and started bawling.
Now her face wrinkled up like a Halloween mask, and violent sobs shook her from the center of her torso out. The little pot belly quaked, the shoulders and legs seeming to throb a beat later.
Charlie was so taken aback by the abrupt blubbering that she froze. Lips parted. Watching Misty cry. Not sure what to say or do.
She stared at a strand of clear snot collecting in the center of Misty’s top lip, threatening to rush down into her mouth.
“Get her a Kleenex before I puke, for God’s sake,” Allie said.
Charlie nudged the box of tissues closer to Misty, thanking the universe for the millionth time that no one could hear Allie’s running commentary.
She hadn’t seen Misty Dawkins since high school graduation. They’d been friends back then. Maybe not close, but the kind of friend you paired up with in biology lab and ate lunch with in the cafeteria.
Charlie studied her. Misty looked mostly the same, with her small elfin chin, freckled nose, and kind brown eyes. She spotted a few strands of gray here and there, but Misty’s dishwater-blonde hair hid it well. None of these observations told her why her old friend was in her office or why she was crying. She suspected the two were related.
“Just breathe,” Charlie said, her voice finding that soothing tone two notches louder than a whisper. “Take your time, and tell me what you need.”
Misty nodded, her shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath.
A crying woman wasn’t what Charlie had expected when she arrived at A1 Investigations this morning. Her stomach grumbled, and she couldn’t help but think longingly of the bagel going cold in the other room.
“It’s probably the standard,” Allie said. “Missing cat or cheating husband. No offense, but my money is on the cat.”
Misty smeared a wadded tissue across her cheeks, which had now gone red and splotchy beneath the smudge of makeup.
“I’m sorry, Charlie. I guess I didn’t expect to see you here. I was all prepared to say my piece, and then I came in here to find you instead of Frank, and it just… How long have you been back in town?”
“A few months,” Charlie said, trying to find a comfortable position in her chair.
Misty’s eyes fixed on a photograph on the wall. A snapshot of Charlie, age eight, her twiggy arm slung around the shoulder of her twin sister. The water of Lake St. Clair sparkled in the background, dotted with boats. Misty got the same sad look on her face people always got when they looked at old photos of Charlie’s sister.
“I bet your family is glad to have you back home.”
“Yeah.” Charlie’s chair creaked like an ancient ship as she leaned back. Eager to avoid any further questions about her family, she flipped the question back at Misty. “What about your family? How’s Kenny?”
The furrow between Misty’s eyebrows pretty much answered that question. Charlie should have known better, really. Kenny Barnes, the guy who’d knocked Misty up while they were still in high school, had always been kind of a loser.
“Oh, he left way back, when Kara was five. Got together with a gal down in Columbus. They have a four-year-old now. He sends money when he can. Child support, you know. Tries to call Kara on her birthday and at Christmas.”
Charlie noted the phrases Misty had used: “Sends money when he can…” and “Tries to call Kara on her birthday…”
She was the same old Misty, alright. Still too damn nice for her own good and making excuses for people who didn’t deserve it.
“That’s why I’m here, actually,” Misty said, the words coming out strangely high-pitched and tight.
And then she burst into tears again.
“Damn it,” Allie muttered. “I should have known it would be a deadbeat ex.”
Charlie did her best to block out Allie’s voice so she could focus on Misty.
“I don’t know what to do, Charlie. I’m so scared,” Misty wailed.
Tugging another tissue free from the box, Charlie leaned across the desk and handed it to Misty.
“Why don’t you start by telling me exactly what happened,” Charlie said.
“It’s Kara. She’s missing.”
Charlie flinched at the word “missing,” and goosebumps prickled over her forearms. Her own twin sister had gone missing when she was eighteen, and she’d never been found. The jolt of alarm Charlie got when she heard about disappearances was an old tic she’d never been able to shake. But she’d gotten good at covering the reaction, and Misty hadn’t seemed to notice.
Charlie took a deep breath.
“How long has she been gone?”
Misty’s hands clenched around the handles of her purse.
“Two days. We had a fight… an argument. And she stormed out of the house. I haven’t seen her since.”
“What about her friends?”
Misty shook her head.
“I’ve called everyone. No one knows where she is.”
A montage flashed in Charlie’s head of the early days of her sister’s disappearance. The panicked phone calls. The frantic searching. She didn’t have to imagine what Misty was feeling because she’d been through it all herself.
“Have you talked to the police?” Charlie asked.
Misty nodded.
“Th
ey took down a report, said they’d ‘look into it,’ whatever that means. That’s why I need your help.”
Charlie sighed. She could see the anguish in Misty’s eyes and remembered that feeling, the way not knowing gnawed at your insides until they were raw. But the reality was, a missing persons case wasn’t in her wheelhouse, not with the resources she’d be working with. A1 Investigations was equipped for run-of-the-mill stuff: cheating spouses, insurance claims, worker’s comp fraud, bail jumpers, and, yes, the occasional missing pet.
Folding one hand over the other, Charlie gazed across the desk at her old friend.
“I’m really sorry you’re going through this, and I know how worried you must be. But I’m not quite sure how I can help.”
Misty blinked, letting loose a tear that slid down the side of her face.
“You guys are the best. Everyone says so. My cousin hired Frank when she was going through her divorce. He’s the reason she got sole custody of the kids.”