Cold-Blooded Read online

  Cold-Blooded

  Lisa Regan

  Published by Prodorutti Books, 2015.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  COLD-BLOODED

  First edition. December 10, 2015.

  Copyright © 2015 Lisa Regan.

  ISBN: 978-0996715911

  Written by Lisa Regan.

  In loving memory of Walter Conlen and for Shilie Turner

  NOTE TO READERS: Many of the places mentioned in this novel are real places, businesses, et cetera in Philadelphia. I try to make the setting as authentic as possible. However, sometimes it is necessary to fabricate certain things. For example, Dirk’s Gameplex is fake, and Franklin West, the high school mentioned throughout this book, is complete fiction. I made it up and all of the events that took place within it. Franklin West figures heavily in another novel, HARM, unrelated to this book, which will be released in 2017. It is in that book that the 2006 school shooting mentioned herein occurs. Also, in service of the story, I have occasionally taken liberties in order to move the plot forward. So if you find yourself saying, “That’s not entirely accurate,” you would be right. This is, after all, a work of fiction.

  COLD-BLOODED

  By Lisa Regan

  Copyright © 2015 Lisa Regan

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover Design by Forward Authority Design Services

  Interior Design by Integrity Formatting

  PRAISE

  PRAISE FOR COLD-BLOODED

  “Cold-Blooded is the embodiment of a top-notch, great thriller. Lisa Regan will make you thankful for your safe, comfortable bed while you’re hiding under the covers reading this quintessential, calculated, maniacal masterpiece. Cold-Blooded is a mix of gripping terror and tension.”—Dana Mason, Author of Dangerous Embrace

  ALSO BY LISA REGAN

  PRAISE FOR HOLD STILL

  “Hold on tight when you read Hold Still, for the Lisa Regan roller coaster has taken thrill rides to a whole new level! She sends you up that first hill and then just drops you into a twisting, turning maelstrom of breathtaking suspense! Hold Still is one of the most captivating books I’ve ever read!”—Michael Infinito, Author of 12:19 and In Blog We Trust

  “Tense, harrowing, and chillingly real, Regan weaves yet another engagingly sinister tale that will leave your nerves on edge right up to the frightening end.”—Nancy S. Thompson, Author of The Mistaken

  PRAISE FOR FINDING CLAIRE FLETCHER

  “Readers should drop what they’re reading and pick up a copy of Finding Claire Fletcher.” —Gregg Olsen, New York Times bestselling author

  “Author Regan keeps the tension alive from the first page. Her psychological insight into her characters make the story as intriguing as it is real as today’s headlines. This is a well-written and thought-provoking novel that will keep you riveted until the conclusion.”—Suspense Magazine, Sept/Oct 2013 issue

  PRAISE FOR ABERRATION

  “With Kassidy Bishop, Lisa Regan has created a character that’s not only smart, but vulnerable. It’s that kind of complexity that lifts her novels from others in the suspense genre.”—Gregg Olsen, New York Times Bestselling author.

  “Aberration is a sophisticated and compelling suspense novel. Just when you think you know what’s next, the story whips you around a corner into shocking new territory and you discover nothing is quite what it seems. Aberration will keep you reading, and guessing, until the very end, when not one but two shocking twists await the reader. Lisa Regan has also created that rarity, a wonderfully original and complex heroine in Kassidy Bishop, who is a tough and bright FBI agent but also refreshingly human. Someone to root for, fear for, and hope we meet again in another Lisa Regan novel.”—Mark Pryor, author of The Bookseller (Hugo Marston series)

  In loving memory of Walter Conlen

  and for Shilie Turner

  Dedication

  Note to Readers

  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

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Many of the places mentioned in this novel are real places, businesses, et cetera in Philadelphia. I try to make the setting as authentic as possible. However, sometimes it is necessary to fabricate certain things. For example, Dirk’s Gameplex is fake, and Franklin West, the high school mentioned throughout this book, is complete fiction. I made it up and all of the events that took place within it. Franklin West figures heavily in another novel, HARM, unrelated to this book, which will be released in 2017. It is in that book that the 2006 school shooting mentioned herein occurs. Also, in service of the story, I have occasionally taken liberties in order to move the plot forward. So if you find yourself saying, “That’s not entirely accurate,” you would be right. This is, after all, a work of fiction.

  May 9, 2000

  She’d gotten a late start. It was a quarter after seven as Sydney Adams jogged that evening along Boxer’s Trail, a path for runners that meandered through Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park east of the Schuylkill River and looped around the outside of the park’s athletic field. But it was May, and the sun still strained on the horizon, not willing to give up the fight, even at this late hour. Soon though, night would descend. She didn’t like to start so late, but her grandmother had made breaded pork chops, and Sydney had gorged herself until she felt bloated and lethargic. She’d almost skipped the run. Track and Field season was nearly over. What was one practice run?

  But she needed to think. She needed to be alone.

  Columns of sunlight filtered through the thick copse of trees on her left. The air had cooled since that afternoon but only slightly. It had been a nearly ninety-degree day, and she’d sweated it out gracelessly with the rest of her classmates at Franklin West High School. Now the humidity lingered, clinging to her bare thighs, condensing into a fine sheen of perspiration.

  Sydney
pushed herself, running faster than usual. She passed a couple jogging with their dogs—a greyhound and a husky—a bicyclist, and then a knot of teenage boys whose catcalls trailed after her. She picked up her pace, ears pricked to any sounds behind her that might suggest someone approaching. The tension in her body eased when she’d gone another quarter-mile without incident. The light was seeping away, the shadows around her lengthening. All she could hear now were the sounds of her raging heartbeat, her labored breath, and her sneakers pounding the trail.

  None of it drowned out thoughts of him—of what had happened between them.

  Mentally she calculated the days. It had been twenty-one days since he had kissed her, touched her, taken her. She had let him. There was no denying that. She could have stopped him at any time. She should have. He was older. He was married. And he was white.

  And yet . . .

  She willed her burning leg muscles to move faster, harder. Her entire body was slick with sweat. It ran in fat drops down her face and neck, pooling between her breasts, sliding down her spine and gathering at the cleft of her ass.

  What would Lonnie think?

  A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed quickly. Her boyfriend would never know. No one would ever know. Only the two of them. It had happened one time because they both wanted it, and now it was in the past. She might be a teenager, but she was far from naïve. She knew exactly how scandalous the situation was, and she had no interest in continuing with it. She had a future. She had Lonnie and Georgetown and a grandmother she didn’t want to disappoint. A grandmother who had worked hard to raise her and her sister after her parents had died. A grandmother who had moved heaven and earth so Sydney could afford to go to college in the fall.

  Their flirtation, or whatever it was, had to be over. Still, she thought of his hands gripping her hips, his breath hot and rapid on the back of her neck. His mouth—

  She stumbled, crying out as her left foot tangled with a rogue tree root poking up through a crack in the concrete. Her hands shot out, prepared to break her fall, but her legs stuttered, almost of their own volition, finding purchase. She stopped, leaning against the offending tree. Her chest heaved. Sweat ran down her forehead and into her eyes, irritating them. Laughter erupted from her diaphragm. How many times had she run this path? Hundreds. Sprained ankle by way of tree root was a rookie move. This was exactly the problem. This distraction.

  Pop.

  It sounded like a firecracker and registered as a searing, stabbing pain in the back of her right thigh. Like a hot poker. Before she could react, another pop sounded, this one closer. Then two more. She suddenly tasted dirt in her mouth, and her temple was resting on that damn tree root before she could even begin to process what was happening to her. Her legs wouldn’t work. Panic, hot and frenzied, closed in on her. What was happening?

  “Help,” she said, but her voice came out small and squeaky. She thought she heard footsteps approaching from behind. Sydney willed her legs to move, to stand, to scramble, to run. She reached forward with her right arm, feeling for the base of the tree. She had to get up. As her surroundings began to fade to an inky, charcoal blackness, she felt a tug on her lower body.

  “Please,” she croaked.

  Then the darkness swallowed her.

  October 14, 2014

  It was the Tuesday after Dorothy Adams’ funeral. Knox woke up with the hangover of the century, which was saying a lot, considering how much and how often he drank. He was facedown on the couch in the same clothes he’d been wearing for the last three days. As he raised his fuzzy head from the couch cushion, which bore a Rorschach of foul-smelling drool, he realized he was starting to smell. The putrid scents of Chinese takeout, moldy coffee, and stale beer were all in attendance. He peeled himself off the couch and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The phone was ringing. His landline. But he couldn’t find it.

  “Moira,” he called before he was fully awake enough to remember that his wife had left him almost ten years earlier. This wasn’t even the home they’d shared. It was a low-income apartment he’d rented . . . he couldn’t remember when. But evidently he’d had a landline installed. Or it had come with the place.

  He reached toward one of the end tables and pushed aside a stack of unopened mail. The envelopes fluttered to the floor, along with two crushed beer cans. Pabst Blue Ribbon. Nausea assailed him at about the same time that something inside him thirsted for one. The digital clock on his cable box said eleven fourteen in the morning. The ringing was making his head rattle. Finally, his hand closed over the receiver. He pressed it to his ear.

  “Knox,” he said.

  Jynx Adams sounded like she was out of breath. Then again, she was eight months pregnant and looked like she was carrying around a litter. Everything made her out of breath. “It’s Jynx,” she said. “Why aren’t you answering your cell phone?”

  “I dropped it in a puddle when I was leaving your grandmother’s funeral. Haven’t had it fixed yet.”

  “Oh. Well, do you think you can come out to her house? There’s something you need to see. It’s about Sydney.”

  “Sure,” Knox said, glancing at the wallet-sized photo of Sydney Adams that her grandmother had given him fourteen years earlier, after her murder. It sat in a tiny frame on his coffee table—a reminder of his greatest professional failure. He managed to keep the trash that accumulated on his coffee table away from the photo. He had to have focus. Sydney Adams’ unsolved murder had ended his marriage and his forty-year career. Well, his ex-wife would say it wasn’t the murder itself, but his obsession with it, that had done him in. What he had now was this photo.

  “Knox,” Jynx said, drawing him out of his mental fog.

  He reached up to his forehead. Pain pulsed behind both his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “This is important.”

  In other words, don’t show up drunk. The Adamses knew him well, and they never judged.

  “Yep,” he said. “I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  He hung up, stood and stripped out of his smelly clothes before heading to the shower. Afterward, he found a pair of slacks and a black button-down shirt that wasn’t too dirty. He bypassed the refrigerator and the twenty or so cans of Pabst sitting in it. Outside, the sun was bright and prevented his eyes from focusing right away. Where the hell is my car? Nothing but blinding white light filled the designated parking spot where his car was supposed to be. Knox’s head swam, and he swayed as a wave of nausea churned through his stomach. He thought of returning inside for just one beer. But Jynx had said it was important. The beer could wait.

  A stroll around the parking lot left a fine sheen of sweat on his brow, in spite of the cool October air, but brought him no closer to finding his vehicle. With a heavy sigh, he hobbled the three blocks to one of his neighborhood’s main thoroughfares, Ridge Avenue. Public transportation would get him to Dorothy Adams’ house in less time than it would take for him to figure out what happened to his car. The bus ride didn’t help his nausea.

  Dorothy had raised her two granddaughters in a small row house on Dauphin Street in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood of Philadelphia. She had been able to support them working as a secretary at Swartz Camp & Bell, a defense firm in center city. Dorothy had always spent whatever money she brought in on her girls, leaving her house dated and in ill-repair. Dark, faux wood paneling covered the walls. The carpets were worn threadbare from decades’ worth of foot traffic. Sydney’s room, which was where Knox found Sydney’s sister, Jynx, hadn’t changed all that much in the fourteen years since her death. Dorothy had gone through Sydney’s things and given most of them away after her death. The furniture remained—a twin bed stripped to its mattress, an empty nightstand, and a dresser. Sydney’s bed and dresser had become a sort of storage area for Dorothy and Jynx’s things—holiday decorations, rarely used kitchen implements, and folding chairs. It looked as though Jynx had been packing everything into boxes.

  Knox sat on the bed, wiping the sweat from his fo
rehead with a crumpled tissue he pulled from his pocket. It wasn’t hot in the house, but he couldn’t stop sweating. Jynx had opened almost all of the windows to let the crisp fall air in. She stood near the nightstand. Knox watched as she leaned back, both hands at her lower back. She blew out a breath, then moaned. She wore a forest green cotton shirt and tight, black stretch pants. There was nothing elegant or dressy about her ensemble. It clung to every curve of her body, and there were plenty. She looked even more pregnant than she had at Dorothy’s funeral, and that had been less than a week ago.

  Jynx caught him staring and raised one brow, twisting her lips in what Dorothy always referred to as Jynx’s “oh no you didn’t” look. She said, “If you ask me about twins, I will knock you down.”

  Knox’s gaze flitted to the floor. He scratched his nose to hide a smile. “That’s not what I was going to say,” he lied.

  She kneaded the muscles of her lower back and rolled her eyes. “Really?”

  Knox stood and walked over to the cherry dresser, which was nicked in about a hundred places and covered in a quarter-inch-thick layer of dust. He touched its edge, dislodging a clump of dust and leaving half a hand print. He studied the photos atop it. Dorothy and Sydney. Dorothy and Jynx. Sydney and Jynx. The girls together and apart as teenagers, their eyes bright, their faces wide open, unguarded, unlined by the travails of living. It was hope, Knox realized. He was staring at hope in its purest form. That was the transcendent quality he saw in both their faces. Everything was in front of them. Nothing had gone wrong yet, and everything was possible. They had no idea the world was about to reach out with its nasty, unforgiving talons and snatch one of them up, destroying the beautiful hope that marked them.

  “Knox?”

  He turned toward Jynx, feeling dizzy and disoriented. “Yeah.”