The
Unknown Son
Book Three of the Sable Quinn Trilogy
ISBN:
978-0-936403-09-7
K.
J. Dahlen
Excerpt
Heat Level: 1
Book
Heat Level: 1
FBI agent Sable Quinn has survived several
attempts on her life by members of the Reardon family, serial killers with a
link to her own past. Now another family member has surfaced, an UNKNOWN SON
determined to murder Sable where others have failed.
But Noah must let Sable live long enough to
reclaim a fortune in stolen money, gold, and jewels. Unknowingly, Sable
possesses the key to this fortune: an ivory handled knife taken as evidence in
the murders of her family members.
Excerpt:
With both her life and a fortune on the line,
Sable fights her toughest battle yet. Will she survive the final showdown
against the last serial killer of the Reardon family?
Sable
glanced over at the empty desk in the office and wondered when Max would be
back. The bullet he received from Shawn last week had done a number on him, but
he survived. She had hoped the nightmare of
her past was truly over now but even as she gazed at the open letter on her
desk, she knew she might have one more battle to fight.
The
letter was from Maggie Yost and it had come out of the blue. She hadn’t thought
about Maggie since she’d left Chicago a few months ago. She’d disappeared from
the hospital against medical advice after Micah died. Sable tried calling her
in Cleveland but Maggie had never returned.
Sable learned from Kyle Benson, Maggie’s landlord, she had called him and asked
him to pack her things and put them in storage. She would deal with them later.
That had happened a couple months ago. Since
then he had not seen her or heard from her.
Sable
was surprised by Maggie’s letter, but her surprise soon turned to dismay when
she read what she had to say. The dismay turned to dread when she realized her
nightmare wasn’t quite over yet.
This is the hardest letter
I’ve ever had to write. I’ve never admitted this to anyone else, not even
myself, but I made a very bad mistake twenty two years ago and now that mistake
is going to kill me. I told you I fell in love with Richard at the same time
your mother was with Micah, but that wasn’t the truth. Summer had been with
Micah earlier, almost two or three years earlier. When Micah and Richard came
back and Micah found out about you, that’s when I met Richard.
I fell in love with what I
thought was his bad boy image. I didn’t realize what I thought was an image was
the real deal until it was too late. He was a real bad person. I was caught
between a rock and a hard place. I knew if I left him Richard would track me
down and kill me. He told me often enough when he noticed I didn’t want to be
with him anymore. I thought he was becoming lost to his own reality then he was
dead. When Micah killed Richard, I knew I had to run before he could find and
murder me. I saw the fight they had that day and I was witness to the murder. I
knew the only way he wouldn’t kill me is if he couldn’t locate me. I had to run
away and that’s exactly what I did. I moved around a lot so Micah wouldn’t find
me.
It wasn’t until weeks
later I found out I was carrying Richard’s child. At first I didn’t know if I
wanted to keep the baby or not, but in the end I couldn’t harm my baby. My baby
was the only innocent one out of the bunch of us. It was hard to be alone and
pregnant, but I knew I couldn’t go home. My family would never have understood my
relationship with Richard, and I wanted to keep my baby. When my son Noah was
born, I tried to forget his father. I had hopes he would become my son and not
a reflection of Richard.
We struggled but we had
each other. Noah was such a happy child and he became the love of my life.
After awhile, I guess I had forgotten about Micah. I thought I dodged the worse
but all that changed when my son was ten. He became secretive and sneaky and he
began looking at me with mistrust. I tried to get him to talk to me but he
wouldn’t tell me what I’d done wrong. It never dawned on me I could lose him;
especially not to the one person I had learned to fear more than Richard. Noah
spent a lot of time away from home but he wouldn’t tell me where he was or who
he was with. Then when he was fourteen he ran away. It was several weeks before
I realized he was running straight to Micah.
Micah sent me a postcard
about three weeks after Noah disappeared. He told me not to worry about my son;
Noah was with him and he would raise him to be a man, just like his father was.
He told me he would be back to settle the score with me at a later date. Every
day for the last nine years I’ve had to live with the fear that one day Micah
would just show up at my front door. I moved from town to town hoping to avoid
the confrontation I knew was coming.
When you found me, I was
almost relieved. I’m only sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, the whole truth
but I had to keep certain things from you. I still had to protect my son. I
prayed Noah wasn’t with Micah and for a moment I thought he wasn’t. When Micah
took me to the well, he told me Noah had become the man he had hoped. He said
Noah took to the life better than Richard had and if by some chance Micah died
in the final battle between the two of you, it would be Noah that would finish
his work; Noah, Sam, or Shawn.
I’ve been running for
awhile now but it hasn’t done any good. No matter where I go I can still feel
him right behind me. I don’t know if he’s really there or not but someone has
been watching me. Maybe it’s only my conscience making me feel this way, but
the other day I saw someone standing on the corner staring at me. I came to La
Crosse to get lost in the crowds but I think Noah has found me again. I know
after all I’ve done to you, you have no reason to help me but I’m begging you
to please help me. I don’t want to die by my son’s hand.
Even as I write this
letter I can feel him getting closer. I received a call late last night. When I
picked up the phone, I heard a voice I barely remembered. He told me he was in
town and wanted to stop by and say hello. When I told him I didn’t believe him,
he told me I shouldn’t. He said he was here to tie up loose ends. He said he
had a job to finish and Micah was counting on him to finish it.
“Nick,”
she called out.
Nick
lifted his head from the report he was reading. When Sable held up the letter
she received in the morning mail, he pushed back his chair. Walking over to her
desk, he took the letter and began reading it. A moment later he lifted his
eyes from the paper and looked at her. “Are you kidding?”
Sable
shook her head. “Apparently this nightmare isn’t quite over yet.”
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