Season of Fear
Chapters (67)
Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
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
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
PART TWO
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
PART THREE
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
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Title Page
Copyright Page
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
55 Baker Street
7th Floor, South Block
London
W1U 8EW
Copyright © 2014 by Brian Freeman
The moral right of Brian Freeman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78206 896 9 (HB)
ISBN 978 1 78206 897 6 (TPB)
ISBN 978 1 78206 898 3 (EBOOK)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Also by Brian Freeman
Spilled Blood
The Agency (writing as Ally O’Brien)
THE CAB BOLTON SERIES
The Bone House
THE JONATHAN STRIDE SERIES
The Cold Nowhere
The Burying Place
The Watcher
Stalked
Stripped
Immoral
Turn to Stone (A Jonathan Stride novella)
Spitting Devil (A Jonathan Stride short story)
For Marcia
and in memory of
Ali Gunn
Sin crouches at your door.
It desires you, but you must overcome it.
Genesis 4:7
PROLOGUE
Ten Years Ago
He marched through the orange grove in quick, angry steps, crushing the litter of fruit that sweetened the night with a citrus perfume.
The sandy soil, still damp from the afternoon rain, modeled the design of the hard rubber treads on his boots. He made no effort to hide his trail. In the days ahead, they would follow his footprints back to where he had parked the stolen pickup truck. They would take photographs and make casts and review dozens of brands of footwear. They would tell the world that he bought Herman Survivors at Wal-Mart, like thousands of other hunters. They would find the GMC Sierra abandoned in the parking lot of a Sonny’s Real Pit Bar-B-Q in Haines City, and the truck would lead them to the garage of a 1950s-era bungalow half a mile from the Gulf in Indian Rocks Beach. The owner, a snowbird from Wisconsin who spent his winters on the Florida coast, would be unaware that the truck was missing.
None of it would make any difference at all.
They would never find him.