Praise for
RICK MOFINA
A lightning-paced thriller with lean, tense writing Mofina really knows how to make the story fly.
Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author on A Perfect Grave
At full-throttle from the first page and doesnt let up till the last.
Linwood Barclay on Every Fear
A snappy action-packed, hard-to-put-down thriller.
Daily Mail on The Dying Hour
Rick Mofina keeps you turning the pages with characters you care about, a believable plot and as many twists as it takes to keep the suspense at a high level until the shattering conclusion.
Peter Robinson on The Dying Hour
It moves like a tornado
James Patterson on Six Seconds
Grabs your gutand your heartin the opening scenes and never lets go.
Jeffery Deaver on Six Seconds
Classic virtues but tomorrows subjectseverything we need from a great thriller.
Lee Child on Six Seconds
Also by Rick Mofina
SIX SECONDS
Jason Wade novels
THE DYING HOUR
EVERY FEAR
PERFECT GRAVE
A Jack Gannon novel
VENGEANCE ROAD
Coming soon from MIRA books
THE PANIC ZONE
vengeance
road
RICK MOFINA
www.mirabooks.co.uk
This book is for Barbara
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, Amy Moore-Benson
My thanks to the New York State Police.
Thank you to Valerie Gray, Dianne Moggy, Catherine Burke and the excellent editorial, marketing, sales and PR teams at MIRA Books. As always, I am indebted to Wendy Dudley. I also thank my friends in the news business for their help and support; in particular, Sheldon Alberts, Washington Bureau Chief for CanWest News Service, Glen Miller, Metro, Juliet Williams, Associated Press, Sacramento, California, Bruce DeSilva and Vinnee Tong, Associated Press, New York. Also Lou Clancy, Eric Dawson, Jamie Portman, Mike Gillespie, colleagues past and present with the Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen, CanWest News, Canadian Press, Reuters, the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail and so many others.
You know who you are.
Thanks to Ginnie Roeglin, Tod Jones, David Fuller, Steve Fisher, Lorelle Gilpin, Sue Knowles, David Wright and everyone at The C.C. I am grateful to Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Shana Rawers, Wendi Wambolt and Melissa McMeekin.
Very special thanks to Laura and Michael.
Again, I am indebted to sales representatives, booksellers and librarians for putting my work in your hands. Which brings me to you, the readerthe most critical part of the entire enterprise.
Thank you very much for your time, for without you, a book remains an untold tale. I hope you enjoyed the ride and will check out my earlier books while watching for my next one. I welcome your feedback. Drop by at www.rickmofina.com, subscribe to my newsletter and send me a note.
I am the man that hath seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath.
He hath led me, and brought me into
darkness, but not into light.
Surely against me is he turned; he turneth
his hand against me all the day.
Lamentations 3:13
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene ii
1
The taxi crawled along a road that knifed into the night at Buffalos eastern edge.
Its brakes squeaked as it halted at the fringe of a vast park.
Jolene Peller gazed toward the woods then paid the driver.
This is where you want to be dropped off? he asked.
Yes. Can you kill the meter and wait for me, please?
I cant, youre my last fare. Gotta get the cab back.
Please, I just have to find my friend.
The driver handed her a five in change, nodding to the pathway that twisted into darkness beyond the reach of his headlights.
Youre sure your friends down there?
Yes, I need to get her home. Shes going through a rough time.
Its a beautiful park, but you know what some people do down there at night?
Jolene knew.
But she was living another life then. If you could call it living.
Cant you wait a bit? Jolene asked.
Not on my time. Gotta get the cab back then start my vacation.
Please.
Look, miss, you seem nice. Ill take you back now. Ill give you a break on the fare because its on my way. But I aint waitin while you wander around looking for your problem. Stay or go? Whats it going to be?
Tonight was all Jolene had to do the right thing.
I have to stay, she said.
The driver gave her a suit-yourself shrug and Jolene got out. The taxi lumbered off, its red taillights disappearing, leaving her alone.
She had to do this.
As she walked along the path, she looked at the familiar twinkle of lights from the big suburban homes on the ridge that ringed the parkland half a mile off. When she found Bernice, theyd walk to a corner store then get a cab to Bernices apartment. Then Jolene could take another one to the terminal, claim her bags and catch a later bus.
But not before she found Bernice.
Not before she saved her.
And tonight, for one brief moment, she thought she had.
Less than an hour ago they were together in a downtown diner where Jolene had pleaded with her.
Honey, youve got to stop beating yourself up for things that were never your fault.
Tears rolled down Bernices face.
Youve got to get yourself clean and finish college.
Its hard, Jo. So hard.
I know, but youve got to pull yourself out of the life. If I can do it, you can do it. Promise me, right here, right now, that you wont go out tonight.
It hurts. I ache. I need something to get me through one more day. I need the money. Ill start after tomorrow.
No!
A few people cast sleepy glances at them. Jolene lowered her voice.
Thats a lie you keep telling yourself. Promise me you wont go dating tonight, that you will go home.
But it hurts.
Jolene seized Bernices hands, entwined their fingers and squeezed hard.
Youve got to do this, honey. You cant accept this life. Promise me you will go home. Promise me, before I get on my bus and leave town.
Okay, I promise, Jo.
Swear.
I swear, Jo.
Jolene hugged her tight.
But after getting into her taxi and traveling several blocks, Jolene was uncertain. She told the driver to go back so she could check on Bernice.
Sure enough, there she was. At the mouth of a dirty alley, on Niagara, hustling a date. The cab stopped at a light, Jolene gripped her door handle, bracing to jump out and haul Bernice off the street.
But she didnt.
To hell with that girl.
Jolene told the driver to keep going to the terminal. She didnt need this shit. Not now. She was leaving for Florida tonight to build a new life for herself and her little boy. Bernice was an adult, old enough to take care of herself.
Jolene had tried to help.
She really had.
But with each passing block, her guilt grew. Soon the neon blurred. Brushing away her tears, Jolene cursed. She couldnt leave Buffalo tonight with that last image of her friend standing in her memory.
Bernice was an addict. She was sick. She needed help. Jolene was her lifeline.
And tonight, every instinct told Jolene that something was wrong.
The driver muttered when she requested he take her back to the alley. But by the time theyd returned, Bernice and the man shed been hustling were gone.
Jolene had a bad feeling.
But she knew exactly where theyd be.
Down here, by the creek.
Funny, Jolene thought, during the day this was a middle-class sanctuary where people walked, jogged, even took wedding pictures near the water.
And dreamed.
Most locals, living their happy lives, were unaware that after dark, their park was where hookers took their dates.
It was where you left the real world; where you buried your dignity; where each time you used your body to survive, a piece of you died.
Jolene knew it from her former life; the life shed escaped when she had Cody. He was her number-one reason for getting out. Shed vowed he would not have a junkie mother selling herself for dope.
He deserved better.
So did Bernice.
Shed been abandoned, abused, but had worked so hard to get into college, only to face a setback that led to drugs, which pushed her here. The tragedy of it was that she was only months away from becoming a certified nurses aide.
Bernice didnt belong in this life.
Date or no date, Jolene was going to find her and drag her ass home, if it was the last thing she did. Jolene was not afraid to come down here at night. She knew the area and knew how to handle herself.
She had her pepper spray.
She arrived at the dirt parking lot, part of an old earthen service road that bordered the pathway meandering alongside the creek. The lot was empty.
No sign of anybody.
As crickets chirped, Jolene took stock of the area and the treetops silhouetted against a three-quarter moon. She knew the hidden paths and meadows, where drugs and dates were taken and deals completed.
Through a grove, she saw a glint of chrome, like a grille from a vehicle parked in a far-off lot. Possibly a truck. Jolene headed that way. She was nearly there when a scream stopped her cold.
Nooo! Oh God nooo! Help me!
The tiny hairs on the back of Jolenes neck stood up.
Bernice!
Her cry came from the darkest section of the forest near the creek. Jolene rushed to it. Branches slapped at her face, tugged at her clothing.
The growth was thicker than shed remembered. Her eyes had not adjusted; she was running blind over the undulating terrain.
She stepped on nothing and the ground rose to smack her.
She scrambled to her feet and kept going.
There was movement ahead, shadow play in the moonlight.
Noises.
Jolene didnt make a sound as she reached into her bag, her fingers wrapping around her pepper spray.
A blast to the creeps face. A kick in the groin. Jolene had done it before with freaks whod tried to choke her.
She swallowed hard, ready to fight. Heart pumping, she strained to see what awaited her. Someone was moving; she glimpsed a figure.
Bernice? Was that her face in the ground?
A metallic clank.
Tools? What was going on?
The air exploded next to Jolene with a flap and flutter of a terrified bird screeching to the sky. Startled, Jolene stepped away and fell, crashing through a dried thicket.
She was unhurt.
The air was dead still.
A figure was listening.
Jolene froze.
The figure was thinking.
Her blood thundered in her ears.
A twig snapped. The figure was approaching.
She held her breath.
It was getting closer.
All of her senses were screaming.
Her fingers probed the earth but she was unable to find her bag. Frantic, she clawed the dirt for her pepper spray, a rock, a branch.
Anything.
Her pulse galloped, she didnt breathe. After several agonizing moments, everything subsided. The threat seemed to pass with a sudden gust that rustled the treetops.
Oh, thank God.
Jolene collected herself to resume looking for Bernice, when she was hit square in the face by a blazing light.
Squinting, she raised her hands against the intensity. Someone grunted, a shadow strobed. She ran but fireworks exploded in her head, hurling her into nothingness.
2
What was that?
The next morning, Jack Gannon, a reporter at the Buffalo Sentinel, picked up a trace of tension on the papers emergency scanners.
An array of them chattered at the police desk across the newsroom from where he sat.
Sounds like somethings going on in a park, he thought as a burst of coded dispatches echoed in the quiet of the empty metro section.
Not many reporters were in yet.
Gannon was not on cop-desk duty today, but hed cut his teeth there years ago, chasing fires, murders and everyday tragedies. It left him with the skill to pluck a key piece of data from the chaotic cross talk squawking from metro Buffalos police, fire and paramedic agencies.
Like a hint of stress in a dispatchers voice, he thought as he picked out another partial transmission.
Somebody had just called for the medical examiner.
The reporter on scanner duty better know about this.
For the last two weeks the assignment desk had promised to keep Gannon free to chase a tip hed had on a possible Buffalo link to a woman missing from New England.
He needed a good story.
But this business with the police radios troubled him.
Scanners were the lifeblood of a newspaper. And no reporter worth a damn risked missing something that a competitor might catch, especially in these days of melting advertising and shrinking circulation.
Did anyone know about this call for the medical examiner?
He glanced over his computer monitor toward the police desk at the far side of the newsroom, unable to tell who, if anyone, was listening.
Jeff! He called to the news assistant but got no response.
Gannon walked across the newsroom, which took up the north side of the fourteenth floor and looked out to Lake Erie.