They Won't Be Hurt Read online

  PURSUED BY A KILLER

  Laura pressed harder on the accelerator. She hit an ice patch and felt a little skid that made her stomach lurch. But she kept a tight, white-knuckle grip on the wheel until the car seemed to right itself. Then she signaled.

  In the side mirror, she noticed the BMW speed up.

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered, pressing harder on the gas. The pedal was almost against the car floor. She was running out of road ahead.

  The engine roared as she turned the wheel and swerved in front of the pursuing BMW. The snow hurtled toward her windshield almost faster than the wipers could brush it away. It felt like the tires were gliding on ice—toward oncoming traffic in the other lane. Laura was certain she’d smash into an SUV heading her way. Squinting at the headlights, she rode out the skid and moved back in her lane. All the while, her heart felt like it was about to explode in her chest.

  Laura glanced at the rearview mirror again. The BMW was closing up the small gap between them.

  It was the same car she’d seen at the gun store in Monroe, the same car she’d seen by Martha’s townhouse on Lopez Island. Laura was almost certain now . . . Was she slated to die in some “accident” on Stevens Pass?

  The fire that swept through Eric Vetter’s cabin last month and killed him—that had been an accident, too.

  These people were experts . . .

  Books by Kevin O’Brien

  ONLY SON

  THE NEXT TO DIE

  MAKE THEM CRY

  WATCH THEM DIE

  LEFT FOR DEAD

  THE LAST VICTIM

  KILLING SPREE

  ONE LAST SCREAM

  FINAL BREATH

  VICIOUS

  DISTURBED

  TERRIFIED

  UNSPEAKABLE

  TELL ME YOU’RE SORRY

  NO ONE NEEDS TO KNOW

  YOU’LL MISS ME WHEN I’M GONE

  HIDE YOUR FEAR

  THEY WON’T BE HURT

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  KEVIN O’BRIEN

  THEY WON’T BE HURT

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  PURSUED BY A KILLER

  Books by Kevin O’Brien

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 Kevin O’Brien

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are 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.

  ISBN: 978-0-7860-3885-5

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-3885-3

  First Pinnacle printing: August 2018

  First electronic edition: August 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3886-2

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-3886-1

  This book is for the wonderful and talented

  Jennie Shortridge

  and the talented and wonderful

  Laurie Frankel

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My gifted editor and friend, John Scognamiglio, is once again at the top of my thank-you list, and right up there with him is everyone at Kensington Publishing Corporation. I’m so lucky to be working with such a terrific group of pros.

  Another great big thank-you goes to Meg Ruley, Christina Hogrebe, and the brilliant team at Jane Rotrosen Agency. You guys are wonderful.

  Thanks also to the cool dudes in my Writers Group: David Massengill, Garth Stein, Colin McArthur, and John Flick. And speaking of writers, I’m so grateful to my fellow Seattle 7 Writers for all their support, especially the core members: Garth, Jennie and Laurie (again), Dave Boling, and Suzanne Selfors—and a special shout-out to Erica Bauermeister and Carol Cas-sella, who have my long overdue thanks. Erica was a tremendous help, providing some terrific ideas I used in my previous thriller, Hide Your Fear, and Dr. Cas-sella helped me with some medical questions in Tell Me You’re Sorry. About time I got around to acknowledging those contributions!

  I’d also like to thank the following individuals and groups for their support, encouragement and friendship: Dan Annear and Chuck Rank, Jeff Ayers, Ben Bauermeister, Pam Binder and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association, A Book for All Seasons, The Book Stall, Amanda Books, Marlys Bourm, Terry and Judine Brooks, George Camper and Shane White, Barbara and John Cegielski, Barbara and Jim Church, Anna Cottle and Mary Alice Kier, Tommy Dreiling, Paul Dwoskin, the folks at Elliott Bay Book Company, Bridget Foley and Stephen Susco, Matt Gani, Cate Goethals and Tom Goodwin, Bob and Dana Gold, my friends at Hudson News, Cathy Johnson, Ed and Sue Kelly, Elizabeth Kinsella, David Korabik, Stafford Lombard, Paul Mariz, Roberta Miner, Dan Monda, Jim Munchel, Meghan O’Neill, the wonderful people at ReaderLink Distribution Services, Eva Marie Saint, John Saul and Mike Sack, John Simmons, Roseann Stella, Dan Stutesman, George and Sheila Stydahar, and Mark Von Borstel.

  Finally, thanks so much to my family.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Saturday, November 25—1:43 A.M.

  Lopez Island, Washington

  “Huh, someone left the gate open,” Jae observed from the passenger seat.

  Wes Banyan had already lowered the driver’s window to punch in the six-digit code on the little box at the start of the driveway. The frigid night air drifted into his rented Ford Fiesta. After two days and nights of driving in and out of the Singletons’ compound, Wes now knew the front gate’s code by heart. The property was surrounded by a tall fence with barbed-wire trim along the top. Jae referred to the house—nestled on a huge wooded lot overlooking Lopez Sound—as the “family cabin.” After hearing her call it that for the last few days, Wes had been expecting a cottage with a potbellied stove, maybe some bunk beds in a spare room and an outhouse in back. Instead, it was a freaking six-bedroom mansion.

  That was just like her. Jae Singleton was full of surprises, not all of them good.

  Wes was determined to break up with her tonight. And if he was going to do it, he needed to do it now, before he dropped
her off at the house.

  They’d met at a frat party three weeks ago. They were both freshmen at the University of Washington. Wes had seen her around Alder Hall and been immediately attracted to her. Jae was a gorgeous blonde with big green eyes and a lithe body. She smelled nice, too. She actually asked him out, which left Wes a bit stunned, because he knew he was hardly anybody’s idea of a stud. Pale and skinny, he shaved only twice a week. A friend of his sister’s once deemed him “geeky cute.” He figured that was a fairly accurate compliment, and about the best he could hope for—at least until he started shaving more often. Girls who looked like Jae Singleton didn’t usually date geeks.

  Wes had friended Jae on Facebook, and he noticed she posted something on her timeline about their upcoming dinner date:

  Going out to dinner at The RAM tomorrow night with a cute guy named Wes. We’re just getting to know each other. He’s super-smart, funny and really nice. He probably doesn’t know yet that I adore flowers. Flowers, flowers, flowers!

  “Gee, you think she expects you to bring her flowers?” his roommate, Steve, asked him. “I mean, could she be any more obvious? You should post something on there saying you like blowjobs. Blowjobs, blowjobs, blowjobs.”

  Steve also mentioned that he knew a girl who posted stuff on Facebook about her dates to make an ex-boyfriend jealous: “She might be using you, man. I mean, just saying . . .”

  Wes tried not to pay too much attention to his roommate, a chubby, sarcastic know-it-all whose chances of getting a girl—any girl—were in the vicinity of zero. Steve seemed to assume the two of them were in the same boat, just a couple of losers. He also wrongly assumed that Wes was only out to get laid. In truth, Wes was still a virgin, and the impending date with Jae left him breathless and scared. Here was this beautiful young woman who made him feel so important. He didn’t want to screw it up.

  Wes brought Jae mini carnations when he came to her dorm room for their date the following night. Over dinner, she seemed interested in everything he said. And at the end of the evening, when he walked her to her door, she gave him a slightly wet kiss on the mouth.

  It was one of the best nights of his life.

  On their second date, Jae told him about the guy she’d recently broken up with: a junior in a fraternity, Carson Something—one of those last-name-first-name guys. Wes pictured a cocky, rich party boy, the type who smoked cigars and hit golf balls at the range after class—sometimes in his plaid bathrobe, because that was just the way Carson rolled. He probably had one of those perfect five-o’clock shadows if he went a day without shaving.

  From the way Jae talked, it was pretty obvious she still liked him. But it was too late for Wes. He’d already fallen for her. Smitten, his grandmother might have said. It didn’t matter that his roommate was right about her Facebook posts, which went on and on about how she’d never been out with a guy who was so nice and considerate, “so much nicer than you-know-who!” she wrote. If Jae was trying to convince Carson that she was in love with someone else, Wes didn’t mind being that someone else.

  On date number three, they’d made out furiously, and she’d even let him feel her up. She didn’t pull away or anything—so he must have been doing it right. The whole experience was pretty intoxicating for him.

  Then, like an idiot, he told Steve about it.

  “Some over-the-bra action, big whoop,” Steve replied. “That’s all you’re probably going to get, considering who her old man is.”

  Steve acted as if Wes was an absolute moron for not knowing that Jae’s father was Scott Singleton, the former Seahawks linebacker. Wes had to go online to find out more about him. After discovering God, Scott had become a self-ordained minister and started his own religious sect: the Church of the True Divine Light. Handsome and youthful-looking, he wanted to outlaw all abortions, advocated conversion therapy for gays (including electric shock, ice baths, and verbal admonishment—anything as long as it got the job done), and he firmly believed that a wife should be subservient to her husband. When a fellow NFL player was suspended for beating his girlfriend, Scott caused a brief uproar by telling the press: “Sometimes there are reasons for these things between couples—and it’s not always bad.”

  Headquartered near Spokane, the Church of the True Divine Light had over 480,000 followers across the country. Scott Singleton had gotten rich in the religion business, and he had a lot of political pull.

  Jae had told Wes that her father was in public relations. Small wonder she’d lied about her old man—especially at progressive University of Washington, where Scott Singleton might as well have been a card-carrying neo-Nazi.

  Wes didn’t much agree with anything Scott Singleton and his church stood for. But Jae wasn’t shoving her father’s beliefs down his throat. So he decided not to hold it against her.

  Besides, she’d invited him to spend Thanksgiving weekend with her at her family’s cabin on Lopez Island. “I’m a good cook, you’ll see,” she told him.

  Wes couldn’t afford to fly home to the Chicago area, and he’d figured he’d be stuck in the near-empty dorm for the holiday. But Jae had thrown him a lifeline. Hell, she was offering him a dream come true: four nights alone with her in a cabin in the woods. He got butterflies in his stomach just thinking about it. He wondered why she wasn’t spending Thanksgiving with her family, but decided it really didn’t matter. Why even bring it up?

  It wasn’t until after Wes had rented the car for their trip that Jae told him “some family” would be at the cabin, too. And it wasn’t until they were on the ferry to Lopez that Jae found out the entire family was coming—her mom, dad, and all four siblings. None of the kids—apparently, that included Jae—wanted to double up, so there wouldn’t be any room for Wes at the island house. At the last minute, he had to book himself a single queen room at the Lopez Islander Resort for the next four nights. It would take a huge bite out of his savings.

  Wes realized it would have been cheaper for him to have flown home and celebrated Thanksgiving with his own family in Winnetka.

  And he would have had a hell of a better time, too.

  He spent the first two days of the extended weekend running errands for Jae’s mother, a beautiful but bossy platinum-haired woman in her late forties. His roommate, Steve, would have called her a MILF. The caretaker’s minivan was in the shop, so all chauffeuring duties fell upon Wes. A cook, a maid, and a woman who served the dinner had to be shuttled around on Thanksgiving Day, from the ferry to the “cabin” to the hotel. The three women had rooms just down the hall from him at the Islander. He was staying with the help. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

  Wes was also in charge of picking up Scott Singleton on Thanksgiving afternoon. Scott arrived by seaplane and talked on his phone the whole time Wes was driving him to the compound. He appeared a bit older in person, and had silver streaks in his curly brown hair. But he was still ruggedly good-looking. He just wasn’t too friendly.

  “Do me a favor and get my bag for me, will you, Brad?” he said distractedly when Wes pulled up to the house.

  Wes was in good company. Singleton couldn’t get the name of their caretaker right either. Apparently, the guy was new. He was a handsome, nervous-looking, wiry guy in his early twenties. He lived in a small apartment above the three-car garage, which was separate from the house. He must have been hiding in there most of the time while Wes was busting his ass for the Singletons. The caretaker’s name was Joe. But at the beginning of the meal, when Singleton called the help into the dining room for a solemn Thanksgiving prayer, he twice referred to the guy as “Jim”—and Mrs. Singleton corrected him both times.

  Wes actually felt sorry for Joe—and for the three other servants. They looked so downtrodden, standing there in meek silence while Singleton prayed at the head of the big table, elegantly set with flickering candles and a cornucopia centerpiece.

  Wes sat between Jae and her sixteen-year-old sister, Willow, who had a raging cold. She kept coughing and blowing her nose throughout
dinner. Wes was convinced he’d be deathly ill before the week was out. The youngest kid, eleven-year-old Connor, was nice to him. But the older brother was a jerk. And the oldest sister ignored him. He didn’t much like the family.

  After a couple of days, he wasn’t sure he much liked Jae either.

  She was nasty to her sisters and constantly arguing with her mother. Plus, she’d barely paid any attention to him throughout the trip.

  The two of them had just come back from a party at the house of one of her “island friends.” It was a snotty, cliquish group. Jae kept disappearing, leaving him to stand there alone with his beer. At one point, she told him she might go back to Seattle on Monday with one of her friends. Would he mind terribly?

  Yes, he minded. It broke his heart. It proved he wasn’t really important to her after all.

  But Wes said it was fine with him. He said he might just leave tomorrow morning and save a couple of hundred dollars on the hotel room cost. Maybe he could get some money back for taking the rental car back early.

  Jae barely even blinked. It was as if she didn’t care that he was leaving early, or that he’d spent a small fortune on this trip and had an utterly miserable time.

  That was the moment Wes decided he had to break up with her. And he had to do it tonight—before he dropped her off at the family compound. If he waited until they got back to school, he’d chicken out or talk himself out of it. He was tired of feeling like a chump. What had he been thinking? He’d known from the start she was out of his league. If he broke up with her tonight, he would return to the dorm tomorrow with a clean slate.