No good deed lancaster a.., p.1
No Good Deed (Lancaster & Daniels Book 2), page 1
PRAISE FOR THE KING TIDES
“James Swain’s The King Tides is a hundred percent adrenaline rush disguised as a detective novel. Its hero, an ex-detective named Jon Lancaster, is as adept at using the latest digital sleuthing software as he is shooting a gun. The pacing is terrific, the dialogue memorable, and the characters, including a tough-as-nails female FBI agent and some truly frightening serial killers, jump off the page. You will read this book in one sitting. It’s that good.”
—Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Lancaster is a terrific new character and Swain’s writing is better than ever—together they’re smart, tough, suspenseful, and rewarding.”
—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“The King Tides takes off like a rocket and doesn’t ease up until an edge-of-your-seat finale. Swain is a pro at creating memorable characters, but the duo of Jon Lancaster and Special Agent Beth Daniels might be my favorite yet—tough and confident, but utterly fresh and modern. More please!”
—Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author
“The King Tides is crime fiction of the finest vintage—fast and furious, with memorable characters and skillful plotting. Jon Lancaster is a great protagonist, and Jim Swain is a terrific writer. Don’t miss this one.”
—Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author
“Jon Lancaster is a former Navy SEAL and a retired cop, who works rescues of abducted children and is a kick-ass private investigator. Tough as nails, Jon doesn’t take no for an answer when searching for missing kids. As a private investigator he doesn’t have to abide by the same rules of law enforcement officers, giving the perpetrators no rights. Author James Swain has created a protagonist who is real enough to be your next-door neighbor. I have read, and loved, many of Swain’s books over the years, but I think The King Tides is his best work yet. The story is action-packed, tough, and believable. I hope the Jon Lancaster adventures will become a series.”
—Cheryl Kravetz, Murder on the Beach Bookstore, Delray Beach, Florida
ALSO BY JAMES SWAIN
Jon Lancaster & Beth Daniels Series
The King Tides
Billy Cunningham Series
Take Down
Bad Action
Super Con
Jack Carpenter Series
Midnight Rambler
The Night Stalker
The Night Monster
The Program
Tony Valentine Series
Grift Sense
Funny Money
Sucker Bet
Loaded Dice
Mr. Lucky
Deadman’s Poker
Deadman’s Bluff
Wild Card
Jackpot
Peter Warlock Series
Dark Magic
Shadow People
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by James Swain
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542040488
ISBN-10: 1542040485
Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant
First edition
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
PART TWO
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
PART THREE
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
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
The screaming child went ignored by the people in the parking lot as they unloaded their shopping carts and turned a blind eye to the boy’s cries. A horrible crime was taking place in front of them, and they chose to ignore it.
The twisted man had his routine down pat. Inside the store, he’d surreptitiously punched the child in the stomach and knocked the air out of him. Then he dragged his victim out the door by the arm, just the way a parent of a misbehaving toddler might do. When the child regained his voice and started to scream, the man scolded him in a calm voice.
“That’s enough out of you! Now be quiet, or you won’t get any dessert tonight.”
The child kept screaming and kicking the ground. The man came to his vehicle, a ’71 black-over-white Cadillac with a dented bumper, and dug out his keys. He popped the trunk and lifted the child off the ground by the back of his shirt.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll throw you in,” the man threatened.
The trunk’s interior was lined with carpet. On it lay a collection of rusted tools, including a shovel and a machete. Seeing them, the child stopped crying.
“That’s a good boy,” the man said.
The child was fixated on the machete. He had seen landscape crews in his neighborhood use them to prune trees. They were dangerous, and they scared him. “Please don’t hurt me,” the child whispered.
The man laughed under his breath. He didn’t mean for the child to hear him, the sound born out of the sickest of impulses.
But the child did hear him, and screamed even louder.
PART ONE
THE FOURTH DAY
CHAPTER 1
The dead woman in the crime scene photograph had gone down swinging. Her mouth was bloody from biting her attacker, and her knuckles were raw from the blows she’d inflicted. She was at an age when most people didn’t fight back, but that wasn’t the case here. She had put up a hell of a battle, and had the wounds to show for it.
Her name was Elsie Tanner, and she was seventy years old. Her granddaughter, Skye Tanner, was now missing, a victim of ruthless kidnappers. Based upon evidence found at the crime scene, Elsie had tried to save Skye, and paid the price. She could have run, but had fought back instead. That made her aces in Jon Lancaster’s book.
He slipped the photograph back into the string envelope and secured it, then climbed out of his vehicle. The American Legion hall was serving as command center for the search for Skye, and was his first stop.
The hall was as quiet as a tomb. On the first few days of a search, the victim’s memory was still fresh, and the energy level was high. There would be frequent police updates, TV trucks parked at the victim’s home, and volunteers plastering phone poles with posters. No stone was left unturned.
That changed after three days. By the end of the third day, the energy had faded, and most of the volunteers had gone home, leaving the victim’s friends and family to fill the void. The ranks of the police thinned, with officers pulled away to handle new cases. The media moved on as well, needing a new story to keep viewers tuned in.
Most people stopped caring after three days. Lancaster was different that way. It was on the fourth day of a search that he started caring. As a cop, he’d learned that if a person wasn’t found in three days, something terrible had usually happened to them. The missing person needed help, and he was willing to give it to them.
The hall was prefab, with a pitched aluminum roof and a concrete floor. A bar took up the right wall. On the opposing wall, two women sat beneath a giant American flag, answering the phones. With any search, it was standard procedure to set up a hotline where tips could be called in. The women’s task was to field these calls and, if the information was important, get the caller’s name and number and pass it on to the police.
He was being stared at. Behind the table stood a nicely attired redhead with a cell phone glued to her ear. He’d been around enough newspaper reporters to peg her as one. He ignored her, and approached the bar.
The bartender nodded politely. He had sad eyes and hadn’t shaved. Lancaster introduced himself as an agent of Team Adam and ordered two coffees. He asked the bartender what the ladies liked in their coffee. The bartender placed two steamin
“My name’s Russ,” the bartender said. “It ain’t none of my business, but what’s Team Adam? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”
“It’s a special arm of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,” he explained. “We assist in missing kid cases when law enforcement hits a wall.”
“Well, the police sure need your help here. Sheriff’s office can’t get out of its own damn way. An outsider did this, anyone can see that.”
It was common for fingers to be pointed at the police when searches stalled. He’d read the sheriff’s report and thought they were doing a good job.
“Did you know either of the victims?” he asked.
“Elsie was my friend,” Russ said.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Russ pulled out a metal flask and took a swig. He was boiling mad, and the booze soothed his nerves. He offered Lancaster the flask, but he declined.
“Elsie was a fixture in these parts, always helping people out,” Russ said. “My trailer burned down, and Elsie let me stay with her until I got back on my feet. She was into rescuing dogs, kept them at her place. They had to farm them out to families when she got murdered.”
“What can you tell me about the granddaughter?”
“Skye’s a good kid. She moved in with Elsie because of trouble at home. She was a server at G. Peppers and helped out when the lodge had parties. People liked her.”
“You said that an outsider was responsible. Why?”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Fort Lauderdale, born and raised.”
“Keystone’s different. We have the lowest crime rate in the state, hasn’t been a murder or a kidnapping that I can remember. People watch each other’s backs.”
“You lived here a long time?”
“My whole life.”
Lancaster placed a Team Adam business card with his private cell number on the bar. “Call me if you hear anything.”
“Be happy to. Coffee’s on the house.”
“Much obliged. Who’s the looker on the cell phone?”
“Be careful. Her name’s Lauren Gamble. She’s a reporter with the local rag.”
“Trouble?”
“With a capital T. Rumor is, she’s trying to break a big story so she can get a job in another city.”
“I thought Tampa was a nice place to live.”
“It is, if you don’t have stars in your eyes.”
Lancaster crossed the hall and placed the steaming mugs on the table along with the condiments and his business card. The card had a catchy hotline—1-800-THE MISSING—that never failed to get people’s attention.
Their names were Barbara Aderhold and Dawn Thrasher, and they’d been working the phones for twenty-four hours straight. Exhaustion was starting to creep in, their voices cracking. They echoed Russ’s sentiments about Elsie and Skye being good people, and shared his view that an outsider was to blame.
“How are folks dealing with this?” he asked.
“People are staying inside and keeping their doors locked,” Aderhold said. “They’re convinced that what happened to Skye is linked to the other disappearances around the state.”
“There’s no proof of that,” he said.
“You wouldn’t have known it by the number of police that showed up,” Thrasher said, sipping her coffee. “There must have been fifty cops at Elsie’s place after it happened. It was like an invasion.”
“The FBI’s also gotten involved,” Aderhold added. “Their agents hauled in a bunch of my friends, and interviewed them at the Marriott on State Road 54. I hear the agent running things is a real bitch.”
The FBI played rough and mean and had no qualms about trampling on people while carrying out their jobs. He took a slip of paper that contained Elsie Tanner’s address out of his wallet and showed it to the two women.
“Can you tell me how to find Elsie’s place? I’d like to go have a look around. My GPS was worthless once I got into Keystone.”
“Elsie lived down on Woodstock. The marker is impossible to see at night,” Aderhold said. “You might want to wait until tomorrow.”
There was rain in the forecast, and whatever remained of the crime scene would be washed away if he waited until tomorrow. He thanked the women for their time and walked out of the hall.
Standing in the parking lot, he wrestled with his next step. He needed to visit Elsie Tanner’s place to get a feel for what had happened. Every year, a half million kids went missing. The good news was, nearly all came home, safe and sound. But a tiny fraction were never heard from again. Up to now, Skye was part of that fraction, and if he was going to have a chance of saving her, he needed to look at the crime scene tonight.
The warmest summer in the state’s history had ushered in the coldest winter in fifty years, and he shivered while going to his car. A woman’s voice stopped him.
“I can help you.”
A yellow security light illuminated the gravel lot. Gamble had followed him outside, and wore an eager look on her face.
“Do you have information to share?” he asked.
“I don’t know any more than you do,” she said. “I’m a reporter—”
“I know who you are. Your name’s Lauren Gamble, and you’re with the local newspaper. The bartender filled me in.”
“So he did. I can take you to Elsie Tanner’s home, if you’d like. I’ve been there twice. You won’t find it yourself, even in daylight.”
“That’s very kind of you. What do you want in return?”
Her pretty face registered surprise. “Who said I wanted anything?”
“If you didn’t, you’d be home having dinner. Now what do you want?”
“I’d like to interview you for the story I’m writing.”
“Why? I don’t know any more than you do.”
She held her cell phone by her waist. Her eyes darted down to the screen and then back at him. He hated when people glanced at their cell phones during conversations, and he stifled the urge to rip it out of her hand and give it a toss.
“Checking for messages?” he asked.
“I was looking at a story I found about you on Google,” she said. “You helped catch a pair of serial killers a few months ago, among other things. You’re famous.”
“I don’t want to be the focus of your story. This isn’t about me.”
“But people need to know that you’re helping.”
“What good would that do?”
“You heard what those women said. Everyone is scared. Not just in Keystone, but around the state. Ten women vanished before Skye Tanner, and the police don’t have a clue who’s behind it. It will put people at ease knowing that a famous cop was hired to help solve this.”
He felt a raindrop on his head. He needed to see the crime scene before it was washed away. He electronically opened the doors to his vehicle.
“I’ll drive,” he said.
“Do we have a deal?” she asked.
“Yes, but only if you agree not to print anything prematurely.”
“You’re saying that I can’t run my story until you give me an okay.”
“Correct.”
“I can’t do that. My publisher has final say.”
“Then I can’t help you. Good night.”
He got into his car. The best relationships were mutually beneficial. Gamble needed him for her story so she could punch her ticket out of here, and he needed her to be his navigator. But he could always find another navigator, and Gamble would have a hard time finding another investigator who’d be willing to talk with her. As he threw his car into reverse, she rapped her knuckles on his window. He lowered it.
“You win,” she said. “I won’t run the story until you give me permission.”
“I want that in writing.”
“Will a text do?”
He nodded, and Gamble came around the vehicle and took the passenger seat. He gave her his cell phone number, and she sent him a text, promising that her story wouldn’t run until he’d agreed the time was right. He pulled out of the lot, and she told him to turn right on Gunn Highway, which was Keystone’s main artery.
“What’s with the snorkeling gear?” she asked.
A mesh bag containing a mask, snorkel, and flippers lay across the back seat. Beside it, a duffel bag was stuffed with clothes.
“I was planning a trip to Key West,” he said.
“But you came here instead,” she said.
