Dead Run

The author of twenty-five books, ERICA SPINDLER is best known for her spine-tingling thrillers. Her novels have been published all over the world, selling over six million copies, and critics have dubbed her stories “thrill-packed, page turners, white knuckle rides, and edge-of-your-seat whodunits.”

Erica is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. In 2002, her novel Bone Cold won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence.

Also by Erica Spindler

COPYCAT

SEE JANE DIE

IN SILENCE

SHOCKING PINK

ALL FALL DOWN

AUTHOR NOTE

Venturing into the unknown is one of the aspects of novel writing I find the most exciting. And the most frightening. For how does one authentically create that which they have never experienced? Dead Run presented me with several such challenges, ones involving both the corporeal and spiritual realms.

I surmounted these challenges only through the generous help of experts from various fields. These experts gave of their valuable time and expertise with patience and an enthusiasm I appreciated more than I can adequately express. Thank you, one and all. Any inaccuracies are mine alone. At times I bent fact to suit fiction; I hope these do not cause you consternation. To that end, I mixed historical Key West facts with fictional ones for the sake of this story. In addition, by the time this book is published, the Key West Police Department will most probably be housed in its new high-tech police complex. I will miss the charming, slightly dilapidated police headquarters depicted in Dead Run.

Gratitude to my experts in the corporeal realm: Lieutenant Mark Bascle, Louisiana State Police, Bureau of Investigations, Narcotics Division, for the sometimes daily answer to questions on drugs of abuse, police procedure, dynamics, protocol—the list goes on. Dr Douglas Walker, PhD, for information on drugs of abuse related to the psyche and psychosis. Chris Rush, international private investigator, Chris Rush Private Investigations, White Plains, New York for the video surveillance expertise, technical and anecdotal. Brian Osborne, youth director, Hosanna Lutheran Church, for bringing to life the approach of the clinical social worker. Local TV favourite Margaret Orr, WDSU TV, for her assistance with tropical storms and hurricanes.

A special thanks to Cynthia Edwards, Office of Public Information, Key West Police Department, for the tour, the explanations, the many returned phone calls. Everyone I met during my visit to the KWPD was professional, helpful and friendly—Key West style.

And to my experts in the spiritual realm: Brian Osborne again, for spiritual insight into today’s youth. Pastor Anton Kern, also of Hosanna Lutheran Church, for insights into the life and faith of a Christian pastor. The gang at CC’s Coffeehouse for the thought-provoking discussions on faith, Christ and his nemesis Satan. Particular thanks to Diane Cooper and her husband, Pastor Marvin Cooper, and to Adrienne Gilliland.

Finally, gratitude to friends and colleagues for their support and assistance: my editor Dianne Moggy and the entire MIRA® crew. My assistant Kellie Crosby-Bascle. My agent, Evan Marshall. My publicist, Lori Ames. Walton and Johnson, radio gods, whose names I jokingly promised to mention in each of my novels.

And last but never least, my husband and sons, for loving me—even when the words wouldn’t come.

Dead Run

Erica Spindler

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This book is dedicated to the many victims of the

September 11, 2001, terrorist attack upon the

United States of America.

And to all the heroes of that day and its aftermath:

the firefighters, police, emergency medical and

rescue personnel, Good Samaritan citizens and the

passengers of United Airlines Flight 93.

Thank you. God bless.

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

—1 Peter 5:8

PROLOGUE

Key West, Florida Friday, July 13, 2001 11:00 p.m.

Pastor Rachel Howard peered out the bedroom’s rear window, struggling to see past the sheets of rain. Thunder shook the one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old parsonage, followed immediately by a flash of lightning so bright it stung her eyes.

She shrank back from the ground-floor window, retreating to the absolute darkness of the room once more. She didn’t want them, the ones who watched, to suspect what she was up to. They were coming for her. She didn’t know who they were, only that there were many of them.

He was more powerful than she had imagined. Craftier. More vile.

She had underestimated his reach. An error. A fatal one, she feared.

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, words from the Twenty-third Psalm running through her head, comforting her. Drowning out the litany of other voices, ones no one but she could hear.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.

She planned to escape tonight and head to the mainland. Once safe, she would decide her best course of action. If she made it.

A sense of calm came over her; a momentary peace. In death his glory awaited. No matter the outcome of this night, the darkness would not have her.

Rachel opened her eyes and inched toward the window once more, clutching the envelope in her hands more tightly. Her friend would come despite the storm. He wouldn’t let her down.

She prayed he wouldn’t.

And she prayed she hadn’t endangered his life by asking for his help.

She imagined their laughter, their tauntings. She amused them, she knew. Her Lord amused them.

Thunder boomed again, reverberating through her. In the flash of lightning she saw her friend dart across the garden, a shapeless figure in a rain-slicked poncho.

Moments later he appeared at the window. Gratitude and affection flooded her senses; tears stung her eyes. She lifted the window and handed him the envelope.

“Take it. Make sure my sister gets it.” He nodded but didn’t speak. “Now go, quickly.”

He hesitated a moment, then turned and disappeared into the storm.

Rachel wasted no time. She grabbed her raincoat and umbrella, purse and car keys, and slipped out into the night. Flower petals littered the path before her, torn from the canopy of branches above by the wind and rain, the bruised poinciana blossoms forming a kind of bloody carpet.

Her Toyota was parked around the back of the parsonage. She started for it, working to keep her pace leisurely enough not to call attention to herself. She didn’t want them to guess what she was up to.

The rain beat down on her umbrella, sluicing over the sides, splattering at her feet. Her lips moved as she silently spoke the words of the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. I believe in—

She heard a sound from behind her. She stopped and turned, heart thundering in her chest. “Stephen?” she whispered, voice trembling. “Is that you?”

The rain stopped. The wind died. She felt the breath of death stir against her face, its stench as foul as the grave.

With a cry, Rachel broke into a run. The parking area in sight, she stumbled on a loose paver. Her car keys slipped from her fingers, clattering against the walkway. She scrambled to retrieve them.

She closed her fingers around the keys. The bushes rustled; she heard a soft laugh. She twisted her head, looking back. Lightning flashed; she caught the glint of metal as it arced through the darkness.

“No!” She leaped to her feet and ran, tripping once but righting herself.

She reached her car, curled her fingers around the door handle and yanked. The door popped open. She heard them following her. Without looking back, she scrambled behind the wheel and slammed the door shut. She hit the lock and attempted to insert the key into the ignition, her hands shaking so badly it took her three tries.

Finally the engine sputtered, then turned over. Sobbing with relief, she threw the car into Reverse and floored the accelerator. The vehicle shot backward, fish-tailing on the wet pavement.

Rachel shifted to Drive and gunned the engine. As the car leaped forward, she whispered a prayer of thanks. She had done it! She was going to make it.

Rachel dared a glance back, searching for her pursuers, unable to see past the wall of rain. She returned her gaze to the road. Her headlights fell across something blocking her way. A figure, she realized, standing in the middle of the road.

A scream ripping past her lips, Rachel simultaneously yanked the wheel to the right and jammed on the brakes. The car lurched sideways, sliding on the wet pavement, going into a three-sixty spin. Rachel fought to regain control of the vehicle, praying for a miracle. Knowing it was too late.

The vehicle jettisoned off the pavement. A tree rushed up to meet the car. Rachel threw up her arms to shield her face as the impact sent her flying forward.

CHAPTER 1

St. Louis, Missouri Monday, July 16 8:40 a.m.

Liz Ames watched as coffee dripped from the filter basket into the glass carafe. She yawned, cursing snooze buttons, red-eye flights and coffeemakers that brewed at a snail’s pace. She needed caffeine now, not five minutes from now.

She was going to be really late this morning, she acknowledged. What was with her? She used to be so punctual. So … perky. No matter how few hours of sleep she had gotten the night before.

Now she could barely drag herself out of bed.

Jared, her cheating weasel of an ex-husband, had happened to her, she thought, squinting against the light streaming in and around the edges of the closed blinds. And in response, her personal and professional life had taken a quick, sanity-stealing trip south.

Even Rachel had gone south, Liz thought, thinking of her older sister who had accepted the call from a small non-denominational Christian church on Key West right in the middle of the crisis. She shifted her gaze to her answering machine and its frantically flashing message-waiting light.

She really should call her. They hadn’t spoken in nearly a month, and their last conversation had been troubling for many reasons, including the fact they had argued.

Simultaneously, the coffeemaker gurgled, signaling it was in its final throes of brewing, and the phone rang. Liz grabbed her mug with one hand, the phone with the other. “H’lo?”

“Elizabeth Ames?”

The voice on the other end of the line was a man’s. Liz recognized his official tone from the many calls she had made and received in her capacity as a licensed clinical social worker and family counselor.

“Yes,” she responded. “Could you hold a moment?”

Without waiting for a reply, she set down the receiver, filled her coffee mug then added a splash of cream. She opened the cabinet above the sink and took out the vial of antidepressants her doctor had prescribed. Modern medicine’s answer to a cloudy day. She shook one onto her palm, then downed it with the scalding coffee.

Wincing, she brought the phone back to her ear. “Now, how can I help you?”

“This is Lieutenant Detective Valentine Lopez, Key West Police Department. Are you Rachel Howard’s sister?”

Liz froze. Finally, she pulled one of the kitchen chairs away from the table and sank heavily onto it.

“Ms. Ames?” the detective said again. “You are Pastor Rachel Howard’s sister, aren’t you? Pastor Howard from Paradise Christian Church on Key West? She listed you as her next of kin.”

Next of kin. Dear Lord, no. “I am,” Liz managed to say. “What’s … Is Rachel all right?”

“I’m calling because we’re concerned about your sister. Have you seen her recently?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Not since she … since she left for Key West.”

“And that was about six months ago?”

“Yes.”

“When did you last speak with her?”

Liz closed her eyes, remembering. Rachel had been subdued and evasive. When Liz had confronted her, she had denied anything was wrong. She had claimed her pastoral duties had kept her from calling. “It’s been a while. A month or so. We argued. I was angry.”

“May I ask why?”

“It’s personal, Detective.”

“It’s important, Ms. Ames.”

“I’m going through … was going through a divorce. And one of my patients … I needed my sister and she wasn’t available. I was angry.” Her words sounded childish to her own ears and she felt herself flush. “What’s happened? Is Rachel—”

“And that’s the last time you talked with her?”

“Yes, but I don’t understa—”

“So, you haven’t heard from her in the past seventy-two hours? Not by phone, e-mail or post?”

“No, but—” She brought a hand to her pounding head and glanced at the machine’s blinking message light once more. “I’ve been out of town since last Thursday. I planned to get caught up on messages this morning.”

“I’ll need you to contact me after you do.”

The blood rushed to Liz’s head. She tightened her grip on the receiver, suddenly terrified. “I don’t think so, Lieutenant. Not until you tell me what’s going on. Is something wrong with Rachel?”

“Your sister has disappeared, Ms. Ames. We’d hoped you might be able to offer us a clue as to her whereabouts.”

CHAPTER 2

Key West, Florida Wednesday, October 31 1:30 p.m.

Liz stood in front of the Old Town storefront she had rented to serve as both her office and her living quarters. As she watched, the building’s maintenance engineer hung her shingle above the door.

Elizabeth Ames. LCSW. Family Counseling.

She drew in a deep breath, working to quell her sudden attack of nerves. Duval Street, for heaven’s sake. What had she been thinking when she had leased this property? The location was totally inappropriate for a counselor’s office, the rent exorbitant.

The number-one tourist destination on Key West, Duval Street was often described as the longest street in America because it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Liz glanced to her right, then left. People streamed around her, most wearing shorts and sandals, their exposed skin as pink as a well-boiled shrimp. Obviously, sunglasses, baseball caps and fanny packs were di rigueur here. As was transportation by bicycle or motor scooter.

She shifted her gaze to the street. Choked with a mix of bicycles, scooters, automobiles and the occasional Harley, traffic moved with the rhythm of a school of shiny kingfish. They had all come to enjoy paradise, to sample Duval Street’s spicy gumbo of shops, bars, restaurants and art galleries.

Ironically, Duval Street was also home to the oldest church on Key West, Paradise Christian. Rachel’s church. The last place Rachel had been seen alive.

Liz glanced to her right. She could see Paradise Christian’s startlingly white bell towers over the tops of the banyan and cabbage palm trees. A bar called Rick’s Island Hideaway separated her storefront from the church.

A lump formed in her throat. This was the closest she had been to Rachel in nearly a year. She missed her so much it hurt.

“Okay, yes?”

It took a moment to realize the maintenance man had spoken. When she looked at him, he grinned down at her, his teeth bright against the backdrop of his dark, leathery complexion. She guessed he was of Cuban descent, not a huge stretch of logic as Key West was actually closer to Havana than Miami.

“Yes,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Perfect.”

He climbed down the ladder. “Key West, she is like a mysterious woman, she gets in your blood and won’t let you go.” He flashed his startlingly white smile. “Or for you, a potent man. You will be happy here.”

Liz let out a shaky breath and murmured her agreement, feeling like a complete fraud. She hated Key West already. It had taken her sister from her.

He closed the stepladder and hoisted it onto his broad shoulder. “Have a beautiful day!”

Liz watched him walk away, then wandered into the office and busied herself unpacking books and office supplies, filling drawers and shelves, trying to achieve organization out of chaos. Difficult to do when her emotions were more of a jumble than the contents of her moving boxes. One moment found her near tears, the next fueled by an awesome determination.

Her therapist had warned that she might feel this way. He had begged her not to come to Key West. She wasn’t ready, he had insisted. She had suffered a nervous breakdown; she was emotionally fragile. Too fragile to be reliving Rachel’s last days in an effort to discover what happened to her.

Guilt swamped Liz. If only she hadn’t attended that convention. Rachel had called; she had left a panicked, crazy-sounding message. One about having uncovered illegal activities on the island, one that involved a teenager in her flock. She had been threatened. They were watching her, how many of them she didn’t know. She was going for help and would contact Liz soon. She had ended the message by begging Liz to pray for her—and to stay away from Key West.

She fought the guilt. The urge to fall apart. She had completed the application process that validated her license to practice clinical social work in Florida. She had closed her St. Louis practice, rented out her house, stored all but the most essential of her belongings and moved with the rest down here. Ready or not, she had to do this.

Liz crossed the office, stopping at the front window. She stared blindly out at the street, thoughts filled with Rachel.

Where are you, sis? What happened to you?

And where was I when you needed me?

The last cut her to the quick, and Liz swallowed hard, struggling to focus on the facts as she knew them. Sunday, July 15, Rachel had failed to show up for church. Concerned, one of the congregation had gone to the parsonage to look for her. They had found the door unlocked, the house empty.

The police had been called. They had found no evidence suggesting foul play. No body. No blood, overturned chairs or other signs of a struggle. Her car had been missing, but her clothes, toiletries and other personal items had remained.

Because of the lack of evidence, they believed Rachel had either fallen victim to a bizarre accident or suffered a mental breakdown that caused her to run off.

The authorities leaned toward the latter explanation. For if Rachel had been involved in an accident, why hadn’t it been reported? Where was her car? Her plate and license number had been faxed to every law enforcement agency in the state. Every hospital and morgue in south Florida had been sent her picture. Nothing had turned up.

She had been acting strangely, they said. The members of her congregation had reported that suddenly the tone of her sermons had changed from gentle and forgiving to fire and brimstone, all sin and no redemption. The messages had become so frightening that families with small children had stayed away, fearful their children would suffer nightmares.

Liz didn’t buy it. Rachel was the most stable person she had ever known. Even as a kid, her sister hadn’t been affected by life’s ups and downs, not the way Liz had been. Rachel had remained centered no matter the crisis she encountered: a new school, a broken relationship, a failing grade, their parents’ constant bickering.

Not only had Rachel been able to put it all into perspective and move on, she had been there for Liz. Supporting and encouraging her. Shoring her up when fear or uncertainty had overwhelmed her.

Liz had asked once how she did it. She’d answered that her absolute faith in God protected her. She believed in his divine plan. And with believing, with faith, came peace.

So, what had happened to turn her sister from a gentle preacher, one who believed in sharing the story of God’s great love and forgiveness, into the person the police described?

Liz suspected she knew the answer to that. The illegal activities Rachel had spoken of in her message. She had been frightened. She had warned Liz that “they” could be listening. That “they” meant her harm. That she was going for help.

Liz feared the “they” Rachel had spoken of had killed her.

She fisted her fingers. She had shared her sister’s message and her suspicions with the police. Instead of convincing them to reopen their investigation, the information had validated their own belief that Rachel had suffered a mental breakdown.

A burst of laughter jarred her out of her thoughts. A group of teenagers had congregated outside her storefront. They appeared to range in age from early to late teens; one of them carried a baby in a papoose on her back. Unkempt, dressed in ragged jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts, they looked like street kids. Throwbacks to the hippies of the 1960s.

The Rainbow Nation kids, Liz realized. Her sister had told her about them. Unlike sixties-era hippies, however, the Rainbow Nation was a highly organized, international network that even boasted a Web site. They traveled from one warm climate to another, panhandling for a living. Here, they had claimed Christmas Tree Island—an uninhabited spoil island created by dredging refuse and covered with pine trees—as their own. Rachel had wanted to minister to them, had promised herself that bringing them the Word would be one of her missions.

Had Rachel acted on that promise? Liz wondered, moving her gaze over the group, settling on the broad shoulders and back of the tallest of them. Or had her ministry on Key West ended before she’d had a chance?

As if the young man felt her scrutiny, he turned and looked directly at her, his dark gaze uncomfortably intense. A slow smile crept across his face, one that conveyed both amusement and malevolence.

Liz told herself to laugh or shoot him back a cocky smile. She found herself unable to do so. Instead, she stood frozen, heart thumping so hard against the wall of her chest that it hurt.

A moment later he broke the connection, turned and left with his friends.

Liz released a shaky breath and rubbed her arms, chilled. Why had he looked at her that way? What about her had earned his contempt?

She shifted her gaze slightly, taking in her own reflection in the glass. Thin, pale face. Medium-brown hair, green eyes, mouth slightly too wide for her face.

She used to be attractive, she thought. She had possessed one of those bold smiles, the kind that both inspired confidence and put others at ease. People had been drawn to her. They had liked her.

Where had that bold smile gone? she wondered. The self-assurance that had sometimes bordered on cockiness? When had she become so fearful?

No. Liz lifted her chin and gazed defiantly at her own reflection. She wasn’t afraid. She had come to Key West for Rachel. She would discover what had happened to her, with or without the help of the police.

She would do it no matter the cost to herself.

CHAPTER 3