PRAISE FOR BRIAN FREEMAN

“Reads like a whirlwind . . . brilliantly crafted . . . highly recommended for those who enjoy their psychological thrillers infused with plenty of smarts and nonstop action.”

—Bookreporter on Thief River Falls

“Freeman does a masterful job creating a nightmare scenario of never-ending darkness, roads that go nowhere with bogeymen at every intersection. A disturbing yet compelling thriller.”

—Booklist on Thief River Falls

“This is a thriller that will keep you up all night. And even the most perceptive crime novel fan will be stunned by the cliff-hanger conclusion.”

—Pioneer Press on The Crooked Street

“Excellent . . . A cleverly constructed, page-turning plot and fleshed-out primary and secondary characters make this a winner.”

—Publishers Weekly on Alter Ego (Starred Review)

“Freeman’s latest psychological thriller is sure to seize readers and not let go . . . Gripping, intense, and thoughtful, The Night Bird is a must-read.”

—Romantic Times on The Night Bird (Top Pick)

“If there is a way to say ‘higher’ than ‘highly recommended,’ I wish I knew it. Because this is one of those thrillers that goes above and beyond.”

—Suspense Magazine on Goodbye to the Dead

“Writing and storytelling don’t get much stronger . . . and thriller fiction doesn’t get much better than The Cold Nowhere.”

—Bookreporter on The Cold Nowhere

“My discovery this year has been the Edgar-nominated crime writer Brian Freeman . . . Fleshed-out characters, high tension, and terrifying twists put Freeman up there with Harlan Coben in the psychological crime stratosphere.”

—London Daily Mail on The Burying Place

“Spilled Blood is everything a great suspense novel should be: gripping, shocking, and moving. Brian Freeman proves once again he’s a master of psychological suspense.”

—Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Spilled Blood

“Brian Freeman is a first-rate storyteller. Stalked is scary, fast paced, and refreshingly well written. The characters are so sharply drawn and interesting we can’t wait to meet the next one in the story.”

—Nelson DeMille, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Stalked

“Breathtakingly real and utterly compelling, Immoral dishes up page-turning psychological suspense while treating us lucky readers to some of the most literate and stylish writing you’ll find anywhere today.”

—Jeffery Deaver, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Immoral

ALSO BY BRIAN FREEMAN

STAND-ALONE NOVELS

Thief River Falls

The Deep, Deep Snow

Spilled Blood

THE FROST EASTON SERIES

The Crooked Street

The Voice Inside

The Night Bird

THE JONATHAN STRIDE SERIES

Funeral for a Friend

Alter Ego*

Marathon

Goodbye to the Dead

The Cold Nowhere

Turn to Stone (e-novella)

Spitting Devil (e-short story)

The Burying Place

In the Dark

Stalked

Stripped

Immoral

THE CAB BOLTON SERIES

Season of Fear

The Bone House

*Cab Bolton also appears in Alter Ego

ROBERT LUDLUM’S JASON BOURNE SERIES

The Bourne Evolution

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

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 © 2021 by Brian Freeman

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

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781542023863 (hardcover)

ISBN-10: 1542023866 (hardcover)

ISBN-13: 9781542023870 (paperback)

ISBN-10: 1542023874 (paperback)

Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

First edition

DEDICATION

For Marcia

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

START READING

I

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

II

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

III

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

START READING

One world at a time.

—Thoreau, on his deathbed

I

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

“We’re very sorry for your loss, Mr. Moran,” the cop told me as he handed me a white foam cup filled with coffee. He already had his own coffee in his hand, and he was eating a powdered doughnut that left a dusting of sugar on his mustache like fresh snow on a lawn.

I said nothing. I felt dazed and numb, as if I were in a coma from which I wasn’t sure I would ever awaken. The chill made me shiver. They’d taken away my soaked, dirty clothes and wrapped a wool blanket around my naked body, but it didn’t help. A policewoman who lived nearby had offered to wash and dry my clothes and bring them back to me before morning. The deep cuts on my arms and legs had been disinfected and bandaged, but I felt a stinging pain regardless. I kept coughing, and when I did, I could still taste the river.

It tasted like death.

“Feast or famine,” the cop said.

He was probably about forty years old, with a round face and not much brown hair left on his head. He had a large mole in the seam of one of his nostrils, which was the kind of thing you couldn’t stop looking at. He was plump, clean, and dry, a cop who spent his nights at a desk. Two other cops, young and fit, had found me in the field, with rain pouring over my face along with my tears.

Where was I?

What town was this?

I didn’t even know. The police had driven me here, but I remembered none of it. I only remembered shouting Karly’s name as they dragged me away. She was still down there in the water.

“Feast or famine,” the cop said again. “That’s been us this season. May and June were dry as a bone. Been driving the farmers crazy. Land’s hard as a rock. We get a storm like this, and all the water just runs off into the creek. The banks ain’t made for that much rain that fast.”

He was right. My grandfather grew up in the flatlands of North Dakota, where the waters rose every spring with the snowmelt, and he used to warn me about rivers. Never trust a river, Dylan. Give a river even half a chance, and it’ll try to kill you.

I should have listened.

“Sorry about all the paperwork at a time like this,” the cop continued. I thought his name was Warren, but I couldn’t even lift my head to study the nameplate on his shirt. “I know that’s the last thing on your mind, but somebody dies, we have to jump through a lot of hoops. That’s the law. Like I say, I’m really sorry.”

“Thank you.” I barely recognized my voice. It didn’t even sound like me.

“Can you tell me your wife’s name again?”

“Karly Chance.”

“You and she didn’t have the same last name?”

“No.”

“How old was she?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“And you?”

“I’m thirty-two.”

“The two of you live in Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“What brought you down to this part of the state?”

Dylan, let’s go away for a few days. I know you’re upset and angry, and you have every right to be, but we need to start over.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I said, why were you down in this part of the state?”

“We took a weekend away from the city,” I replied. “A friend of Karly’s has a place in Bigneck.”

“What do you do in Chicago, Mr. Moran?”

“I’m the events manager for the LaSalle Plaza Hotel.”

“And your wife?”

“She works for her mother. She’s a real estate agent.” I added a moment later, “She was.”

Warren popped the last bite of doughnut into his mouth and then rubbed his mustache clean with a napkin. He kept scribbling notes on the yellow pad in front of him, and he hummed to himself as he did. I looked around the police interview room, which had chipped cream-colored paint on the walls and no windows. Warren sat on one side of a rickety oak table that was old enough to still have cigarette burns in the wood. I sat on the other side, swaddled in the blanket like a newborn. I couldn’t trust any of my senses. When I breathed, all I smelled was the dankness of water in my nose. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back inside the car, as the river flipped us like a carnival ride.

“You got a way to get home to the city?” Warren asked me. “Family or friends or somebody who can pick you up?”

I didn’t know what to tell him. I had no family, not really. My parents died when I was thirteen. That’s the clinical way I describe it to people, which is easier than saying that my father murdered my mother and then killed himself right in front of me. After that, I moved in with my grandfather. Edgar’s ninety-four now and doesn’t drive. We get along, but we don’t get along, if you know what I mean. It’s always been that way.

As for friends, the childhood friend who had always bailed me out when things got bad was Roscoe Tate, and he died four years ago after bailing me out. Literally. That was the night I met Karly. I was covered in blood, my arm broken, my leg broken. Roscoe was dead behind the wheel, his neck snapped. I thought I must be dead, too. I stared through the car’s shattered windows and saw an angel staring back at me, her dress billowing in the wind, her hand reaching in to hold mine. Her quiet voice murmured that help was coming, that I was going to be okay, that she wouldn’t leave me.

That was Karly.

And now she was gone. Another car accident.

“I really don’t have anyone,” I told Warren.

“Oh,” the cop replied, his mustache wrinkling. “Well, we can figure something out. Don’t you worry, we’ll get you home.”

“Thank you.”

As we sat there, the door to the interview room opened. The deputy’s face bloomed with surprise, and he jumped to his feet, brushing sugar from his sleeves. A fifty-something woman, trim and small, stood in the doorway. Her size didn’t diminish any of the authority she conveyed. Her blond hair was pulled into a tight bun behind her head, leaving wispy bangs on her forehead. She had polite brown eyes and a calm, neutral expression on her mouth. Her uniform was slightly damp, as if she’d come in from outside, but the creases were crisp.

“Sheriff,” Warren exclaimed. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were coming in.”

The sheriff gave her deputy an impatient look that said he shouldn’t have been surprised at all by her arrival at four in the morning. A river had flooded, and a woman had died in her county. Out here, that was a big deal.

“I’ll take over, Warren.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Warren made a quick exit with a sympathetic nod to me. The sheriff sat down and opened a file folder with a small stack of papers inside. With a glance at the top page, I saw an incident report from the Chicago police. I was pretty sure my name was on it.

“Hello, Mr. Moran,” she said. “I’m Sheriff Sinclair. You have my deepest condolences on the death of your wife.”

“Thank you.”

I realize there’s nothing else for people to say in these circumstances, and it makes them feel better to say it. I’m sorry for your loss. But as the one who just lost everything, I can tell you, it doesn’t help at all.

“I wonder if you could take me through the details of the accident.”

“I’ve already done that, Sheriff.”

“Yes, I know you’ve been through it with my men, and I know how difficult this is, but it would be very helpful if you could tell me again.”

So I did.

I replayed it all like a horror movie that you can’t stop watching. How the two-lane road vanished, swallowed up by inky black water overflowing the banks of the river. How we plunged into the mud-thick current, which wriggled and surged like a sea creature. How we shimmied on the surface like a dancer struggling to do a pirouette, and then the front end lurched downward, and sludgy water filled the car.

“That’s a terrible thing,” Sheriff Sinclair said when I was finished. Her eyes never left me the entire time I was talking. Somehow I had the idea that I was strapped to a polygraph in her mind, with probes tracking my heartbeat with every breath I took. She reminded me of my mother, who’d also been a cop and who’d been able to tell when I was lying as a child just by looking at my face.

“Do you know how fast you were going when you went into the water?” the sheriff continued.

Dylan, slow down.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you know how fast you were going when you went into the water?”

Dylan, please. Slow down.

“No, I don’t know. Too fast, obviously. I didn’t see the flood in time to stop.”

“The car sank immediately?”

“Yes.”

“And you were both trapped?”

“Yes.”

“How is it that you managed to get out of the car but your wife didn’t?”

I twitched. In my head, the car jerked through a somersault under the water. Our bubble of air spilled away. The window near me broke into pieces, and something shot through the space like a javelin.

“A tree trunk came through the car,” I explained. “I was able to pull myself out. I was trying to get Karly out, too, but the car shifted and ripped her away from me.”

“Did you dive back down to find her?”

“Of course I did.”

“At what point did you give up?”

“I didn’t give up, Sheriff,” I snapped back at her. “I lost consciousness. At some point, the current must have thrown me clear. When I came to, I was on the riverbank, and the police were there.”

“I see.” The sheriff pushed some of the papers in the folder with her fingers. Her tone stayed neutral, but I heard an accusation in her voice. “I have a few other questions, Mr. Moran. Had you been drinking before the accident?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all? No liquor, no drugs?”

“Your deputies tested me. The test was negative.”

“Yes, I know. Although to be clear, it took them some time to get the test done, so the results aren’t necessarily reliable. I ran your name through the system. It’s routine in cases like this. You’ve had a history of problems with alcohol, haven’t you? I’m seeing two DUIs in your record.”

“Those were years ago. Yes, sometimes I drink too much, but I wasn’t drinking tonight.”

“Okay.”

Sheriff Sinclair twisted a pencil around in her fingers. Her eyes were still focused on me, as if she were taking the measure of this man in front of her. I’ve always felt that women make rapid judgments about the men they meet, for better or for worse. They decide if they’re solid or not solid in a matter of seconds.

“You have a temper, don’t you, Mr. Moran?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m seeing arrests for assault in your past, along with the drunk driving. Bar fights, that kind of thing. Your record suggests that you can be a violent man.”

“I’ve made mistakes a few times when I was drunk,” I acknowledged. “I deeply regret the things I did.”

“Ever hit your wife?”

“No. I have never laid a finger on Karly or any other woman. Ever.”

“What about verbal abuse? Threats?”

“Absolutely not.”

“How were things between the two of you?”

Dylan, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I made a stupid mistake. Can you ever forgive me?

“What?” I asked.

“How was your marriage?”

“Our marriage was fine,” I lied. Which was a foolish thing to do. People knew what had happened. Karly had told her mother about it. I’d told one of my coworkers. And yet I couldn’t say out loud to this police officer that my wife had cheated on me.

“Your wife came from money, didn’t she? She’s a Chance, as in Chance Properties?”

“Chance Properties is her mother’s real estate agency, yes. Karly worked for her mother. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, Sheriff.”

“I just want to understand what happened. You were driving too fast. Some might say recklessly. You have a history of alcohol abuse and violent behavior.”

My face reddened. I could feel the heat of the flush. “What the hell are you saying? Are you implying that I drove my car into the river deliberately and then left my wife there to die?”

“I’m not implying anything.”

“Well, you seem to think I’m the kind of man who would do that.”

“I have no idea what kind of man you are, Mr. Moran. I’m not saying you were to blame for the accident. It’s simply my job to get the facts.”

I leaned across the table. The blanket slipped down my bare shoulders and I shrugged it back. My voice rose, but with the static of a radio station that’s going out of range. “You want the facts? The fact is, my wife is dead. I loved her. I did everything I could to save her, and I failed. If life handed out second chances, I’d be back in the water right now trying to get to her. Is that clear enough for you, Sheriff?”

Her face softened just a little. “It is. I’m sorry, Mr. Moran.”

“I’d really like to be alone,” I said. “This is all too much. I don’t even know where I am.”

“Yes, of course.”

Sheriff Sinclair closed the folder in front of her. She rolled the pencil back and forth on the table, then slid it inside a pocket. She stood up and went to the door, but as she opened it, she turned around and studied me again.

I knew what was coming.

“One more question, Mr. Moran. According to my deputies, you were mostly incoherent when they found you.”

“Is that a surprise?”

“No. Of course not. But they said you kept talking about seeing a man on the bank of the river near the scene of the accident. You kept asking why he didn’t help you. Why he didn’t try to rescue your wife.”

My throat went dry. This was the part no one would understand.

“I don’t remember saying that,” I replied.

“Did you see someone near the river?” the sheriff asked.

I closed my eyes and inhaled sharply. I felt my lungs screaming for air again, my chest ready to burst as my face breached the surface. I gulped in a breath, and as I prepared to dive back down, I saw him.

A man.

A man stood barely ten feet away on the riverbank at the edge of the rapids. When the lightning flashed, I saw him clearly. There was no mistaking what I saw, and it didn’t matter that what I was seeing was impossible. All I could do was shout to him. Beg. Plead.

That man was my lifeline. I needed him. He could save Karly.

Help me! My wife is drowning! Help me find her!

“No,” I told the sheriff, keeping my voice steady. “No, it was night. It was raining. I didn’t see anything.”

A strange little wrinkle of concern crossed her forehead. She didn’t believe me, that was obvious, but she couldn’t understand why I would lie about something like that. Instead, she gave me another polite smile and left the room and closed the door behind her. It was quiet now. I was alone with the chipped cream-colored paint on the walls and the stench of the river in my head.

Yes, I was lying, but I couldn’t tell her the reason.

I couldn’t tell her about the man I’d seen, because I had no way to explain it to myself. You’ll think I was imagining things, and I probably was. I was panicked and oxygen deprived, and it was night, and it was raining.

On the other hand, I know what I saw.

I was the man on the riverbank.

It was me.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

After the accident, I couldn’t go home. It was too soon. Karly and I lived near River Park in a two-story Chicago apartment house, where I’d grown up with my grandfather. Edgar lived upstairs, and our place was on the first floor. When I walked in, the rooms would smell of Karly’s perfume. Photographs of us would be hung on the walls and in frames adorning the fireplace mantel. Her clothes would be in the closet, her shampoo in the bathroom. I’d see her handwriting on little poems she’d scrawled and left for me on the fridge. In the apartment, my wife of three years would still be alive, and I couldn’t face the fact that she was dead.

One of the police deputies drove me as far as Bloomington-Normal, and I took a train from there into the city. I walked to the hotel where I worked, which was on Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park. I booked a room and got out of the lobby before the staff could fawn over me with their sympathy. I spent the next two days and nights in a kind of hibernation. The phone rang; I ignored the calls. People knocked on the door; I didn’t answer. I ordered room service and had them leave the trays outside, and then I put them back in the hallway later, having eaten almost nothing at all.

Did I drink?

Yes, I drank a lot.

I know what you probably think of me. Dylan drinks. He gets into fights. He is a bad man. I can’t really disagree with you. It’s been that way since the death of my parents, but that’s not an excuse for how I’ve led my life. It simply is what it is. My vices cling to me like boat anchors. Karly told me once that I was always doing battle with another side of myself and that one day I would have to make the choice to cast him aside. But I’ve never known how to do that.

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