Authors: Lisa Regan
Hold Still
PRAISE FOR LISA REGAN
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
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
ABERRATION
“
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. 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.”
—Mark Pryor, author of
The Bookseller
(Hugo Marston series)
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.
Text copyright © 2014 Lisa Regan
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
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477826416
ISBN-10: 1477826416
Cover design by
the
BookDesigners
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014941744
For Melissia McKittrick and Kerry Graham, my real-life heroes.
CONTENTS
ONE
October 4th
Secrets and lies—even the
most
i
nnocent of lives spring from secrets and lies. Jocelyn Rush’s blood froze in her veins when three-year-old Olivia asked, “Mommy, do I have a daddy?”
Jocelyn was grateful to be driving. Olivia couldn’t see her face from her car seat in the back. She couldn’t see the pallor and the hollow look that came over Jocelyn’s features. To buy time, Jocelyn said, “What did you say, baby?”
She glanced in the rearview mirror. Olivia’s gaze was turned toward the scenery passing by. Her eyelids were heavy, drifting closed and snapping back open every few seconds. Jocelyn was surprised she wasn’t already asleep. They had spent the entire day at Smith Playground, where the two of them had slid down the giant wooden slide so many times, Jocelyn’s ass hurt. Olivia called it “the Whee” because Jocelyn yelled, “Whee!” every time they slid down.
With its indoor playrooms and extensive outdoor playground for children of all ages, Smith was one of Olivia’s favorite places to go on Jocelyn’s days off. Jocelyn liked it too because it was free. She worked full-time as a detective for the Philadelphia Police Department, but raising a child alone was costly. She had to cut corners where she could, and free was always good.
“Do I have a daddy?” Olivia inquired again.
“Everyone has a daddy,” Jocelyn mumbled.
From the day Jocelyn had taken Olivia in, she’d known there would be questions about Olivia’s parentage. Why hadn’t Jocelyn’s sister, Camille, been able to raise her own daughter? Who was Olivia’s father? Why couldn’t she meet him—ever? Jocelyn hadn’t expected the questions to start so soon. She thought she’d have more time. She had imagined a teenager—or a tween, at least—demanding to know who her real parents were. She had envisioned a child old enough to understand violence and junkies. Jocelyn was lucky that no one ever questioned whether or not she was Olivia’s mother. Jocelyn and Camille both favored their mother. Olivia—with her poker-straight brown hair, wide chestnut eyes, and straight nose—could pass as either one of their daughters.
“Raquel has a daddy,” Olivia said. “He’s a ’older.”
“A soldier,” Jocelyn corrected.
“Soldier,” Olivia tried.
“That’s right. Raquel’s daddy is far away in Afghanistan.”
“Aftercan?”
Jocelyn said the word a few more times, far better prepared to answer questions about war in a foreign country than about Olivia’s father. But Olivia’s attention had already waned, sleep finally claiming her. At that moment, Jocelyn felt the tightness in her throat ease as Olivia’s eyelids drooped.
Skirting the edge of Fairmount Park, Jocelyn took Thirty-Third Street to Ridge Avenue. Three-story brick row houses with mansard roofs and dormer windows sat opposite the park, many of which were burned out or boarded up. Some had sagging porches and trash-lined sidewalks. The turrets and columns had long lost their aesthetic appeal. The larger homes gave way to two-story row houses with bay windows, most of which were painted in shades of brown and deep red. She passed Mount Vernon Cemetery and drove down West Hunting Park Avenue, home to a slew of mammoth industrial buildings. Long abandoned, the shards of the broken windows were like fangs glinting at her as she passed. The streets narrowed as she drove down Germantown Avenue, but the houses and businesses looked no less desperate as she approached the Nicetown-Tioga section of the city. She was grateful that the rumble of cobblestones and old trolley tracks beneath her tires did not awaken Olivia. Foliage closed in from both sides of the street as Jocelyn drew closer to the neighborhood where the mother of her best friend, Inez, lived. Inez worked patrol in the Thirty-Fifth District. Her mother, Martina, provided day care for Olivia and Inez’s four-year-old daughter, Raquel, while Jocelyn and Inez worked.
Jocelyn lived in the Roxborough section of the city, but she had to stop at Martina’s house to pick up the treasured blanket that Olivia had left there the day before. They had only discovered it was missing last night. Olivia had thrown the tantrum to end all tantrums before finally falling asleep in Jocelyn’s arms on a wave of hiccupping sobs. There were a few tense moments when Jocelyn almost broke down and called Martina to see if she could pick up the blanket, but she stood her ground. People forgot things, left them behind. Olivia would have to learn that sooner or later. A night without her blankie would not kill her—and it hadn’t. Still, Jocelyn wasn’t about to go another night without it. Raquel was spending the day with her paternal grandparents. With no children to watch, Martina had gone to Atlantic City for the day, but she had promised to leave Olivia’s blankie in a plastic bag between her screen and front doors.
Chew Avenue was a busy street with wide single lanes of traffic in each direction and cars parallel-parked bumper-to-bumper on either side. As usual there wasn’t a parking spot within a three-block radius. Jocelyn pulled over and double-parked with her hazard lights flashing. Cars zipped around her vehicle without so much as a beep. In Philadelphia, double-parking is the norm. The blinkers were an added courtesy that most double-parkers didn’t even bother to use.
Jocelyn glanced at the house. The screen door was cracked just a little, and there was a flash of a yellow plastic ShopRite bag peeking out. She peered back at Olivia and paused a long moment to see if she would wake up now that the car had stopped moving. But the snoring continued unabated. Jocelyn turned away from Olivia, catching her own smile in the rearview mirror. Just looking at Olivia made her grin. Most of the time, she didn’t realize she was doing it. It amazed her that this tiny person could be such a powerhouse of joy.
Unless she doesn’t have her blanket
, Jocelyn thought wryly.
Jocelyn took a quick look up and down the street, gauging how long it would take her to sprint to Martina’s door and back. It shouldn’t take more than ten seconds. As a rule, she never left Olivia alone in the car—not even when she was paying for gas—but the door was only twenty feet away. It would be faster to run for it than to unfasten Olivia’s seat belt and carry her to and fro.
Jocelyn slipped off her seat belt and got out, closing the door softly behind her. She sprinted up the steps and snatched the bag from between the doors. As she turned back to her car, she saw the figure, just a blur in her periphery. Then her Ford Explorer drove off down Chew Avenue with Olivia in the backseat.
Jocelyn leapt off the steps and ran into the street.
“Olivia!” she screamed.
She had never run so fast, and she was only vaguely aware of the other cars whizzing past, beeping and swerving to avoid her, expletives rolling out of the mouths of passing motorists. The Explorer made the first right onto North Twenty-First Street and Jocelyn followed, arms and legs pumping, feet slapping the pavement, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. She reached for her gun but quickly remembered she didn’t have it. It was her day off.
“Dammit.”
She was losing ground as the Explorer turned right onto Conlyn and out of her sight.
“Olivia!”
Every muscle in her body strained and screamed, her lungs burning. She turned the corner and almost wept with relief. The Explorer was stopped behind someone who had double-parked in the middle of the street. There wasn’t enough room for it to pass. The other car’s blinkers were on, the driver nowhere to be seen. For once, Philadelphia’s narrow side streets were a blessing instead of a curse.
Breathing heavily, Jocelyn approached the Explorer from the driver’s side and opened the door. She didn’t look; instead she grabbed and grabbed until she had a handful of clothing. She pulled a skinny punk kid—maybe nineteen or twenty—out of the car by his collar.
His face was pimpled with a patchy five o’clock shadow. His white-blond hair was greasy, a shock of it falling across his coal-dark eyes as he glared at her. “Hey, what the fuck are you—”
The whole world went silent. Jocelyn knew the kid was speaking, but she couldn’t hear anything. Her field of vision narrowed to his face. And when he met her eyes, for a brief, fleeting second, he looked afraid. Then Jocelyn hit him. She hit him again and again. He fought back, but his ineffectual punches glanced off her body, no match for her rage. By the time she was done, she had a few bruises and her right wrist throbbed, but she didn’t remember the particulars. She only remembered hitting him until he lay at her feet, unmoving. Her vehicle had rolled forward, bumping the rear of the car that was double-parked. A few people had come out of their homes. They stood on the pavement and on porches, staring openmouthed.
Jocelyn’s hearing returned slowly. Her labored breath was deafening. She left the kid on the ground and pulled open the back door of the Explorer. There sat Olivia in her car seat, face flushed with sleep. Her little round face was relaxed, her mouth open. A strand of brown hair stuck to one of her cheeks. She sighed softly in her sleep, one tiny hand clutching Lulu, the pink Beanie bear that accompanied them everywhere.
“Oh God,” Jocelyn gasped. She put her Explorer in Park and then sat in the back, weeping uncontrollably. She dialed 911 on her cell phone.
“Nine-one-one. Where’s your emergency?”
Sobbing.
“Miss? Where’s your emergency?”
“Philadelphia. I want to report a carjacking.”