Bloody River Blues: A Location Scout Mystery (37 page)
Read Bloody River Blues: A Location Scout Mystery Online
Authors: Jeffery Deaver
Gasping for breath through the tears, Alissa was saying, “You told me . . .”
But the lifter was ignoring her, looking at his watch and placing a call, I deduced, to the man in the
decoy car, followed by my protégé, fifty miles away. He didn’t get through. The decoy would have been pulled over, as soon as our crash registered through the mobile phone call.
This meant the lifter knew he didn’t have as much time as he would have liked. I wondered how long I could hold out against the torture.
“Please,” Alissa whispered again. “My mother. You said if I did what you wanted . . . Please, is she all right?”
The lifter glanced toward her and, as an afterthought, it seemed, took a pistol from his belt and shot her twice in the head.
I grimaced, felt the sting of despair.
He took a battered manila envelope from his inside jacket and, opening it, knelt beside me and shook the contents onto the ground. I couldn’t see what they were. He pulled off my shoes and socks.
In a soft voice he asked, “You know the information I need?”
I nodded yes.
“Will you tell me?”
If I could hold out for fifteen minutes there was a chance local police would get here while I was still alive. I shook my head no.
Impassive, as if my response were neither good nor bad, he set to work.
Hold out for fifteen minutes, I told myself.
I gave my first scream thirty seconds later. Another followed shortly after that and from then on every exhalation was a shrill cry. Tears flowed and pain raged like fire throughout my body.
Thirteen minutes, I reflected. Twelve . . .
But, though I couldn’t say for certain, probably no more than six or seven passed before I gasped, “Stop, stop!” He did. And I told him exactly what he wanted to know.
He jotted the information and stood. Keys to the truck dangled in his left hand. In his right was the pistol. He aimed the automatic toward the center of my forehead and what I felt was mostly relief, a terrible relief, that at least the pain would cease.
The man eased back and squinted slightly in anticipation of the gunshot, and I found myself w—
JEFFERY DEAVER, a former attorney and the
New York Times
bestselling author internationally hailed as “the best psychological thriller writer around” (
The Times
, London), has most recently added to his myriad literary achievements as the author of the newest James Bond adventure,
Carte Blanche
. He is the originator of the acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme, featured in nine hit novels, including
The Bone Collector
—which became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. His numerous stand-alone novels include the page-turner
Edge
;
The Devil’s Teardrop
, which became a Lifetime Television movie; and
The Bodies Left Behind
, winner of the 2009 Best Novel of the Year award from the International Thriller Writers organization.
He’s been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award, and a Gumshoe Award, and was recently short-listed for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He has also won a Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year for
Garden of Beasts
and a Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association.
The Cold Moon
won a Grand Prix from the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association and was named Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan.
Visit
www.jefferydeaver.com
.
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UDIO
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AUTHOR PHOTO © ISABELLE BOCCON-GIBOD
A
LSO BY
J
EFFERY
D
EAVER
Carte Blanche
The Burning Wire*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009
(Editor)
The Watch List
(
The Copper Bracelet
and
The Chopin Manuscript
) (Contributor)
Roadside Crosses**
The Bodies Left Behind
The Broken Window*
The Sleeping Doll**
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two
The Cold Moon*/**
The Twelfth Card*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories
The Vanished Man*
The Stone Monkey*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil’s Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer*
The Bone Collector*
A Maiden’s Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death
Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star
Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell’s Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories
(Editor)
A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime
(Editor)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(Introduction)
*Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs
**Featuring Kathryn Dance
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1993 by Jeffery Wilds Deaver
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
This Pocket Books paperback edition June 2011
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ISBN 978-1-4516-2169-3
ISBN 978-0-7434-2402-8 (ebook)