Authors: Michael W. Sherer
Blind Rage
Night Drop
“Looking for an adrenaline rush? You'll find that and more in
Night Drop
. Blake Sanders is back, and that means the action is nonstop!”
—Alan Russell, author of
Multiple Wounds
and
Burning Man
“I LOVED this story.
Night Drop
is a fast-paced, tension-filled thriller that will grab you by the throat until the very last page. Blake Sanders is one of the most intriguing characters I’ve read in years. This is definitely Sherer at his best.”
—KT Bryan, author of
Team EDGE
Night Tide
“A great, great read! Even better than
Night Blind
, and that’s not easy.”
—Timothy Hallinan, author of
The Fame Thief
“A cracking good story and a first-rate thriller.”
—J. Carson Black,
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of
The Survivors Club
“A tight, well-constructed story and characters that leap from the page. I’ll definitely be back for more.”
—Robert Gregory Browne, author of
Trial Junkies 2: Negligence
Night Blind
“An appealing, empathetic lead.”
—
Publisher’s Weekly
“This is an exciting, well-crafted thriller and most certainly a satisfying one.”
—
Mysterious Reviews
“Thriller writer Sherer renders a sympathetic lead character and an engaging . . . story line in his latest.”
—Allison Block,
Booklist
“Loved every page of it.”
—Brett Battles
“A tightly paced page-turner that's impossible to put down. Terrific!"
—Allison Brennan
“Pay attention. You won’t want to miss a word."
—J.T. Ellison
“Rich, complex, and deeply satisfying.”
—Bill Cameron
Blake Sanders Series
Night Strike
Night Drop
Night Tide
Night Blind
Emerson Ward Mysteries
Death on a Budget
Death Is No Bargain
A Forever Death
Death Came Dressed in White
Little Use for Death
An Option on Death
Suspense
Island Life
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.
No part of this work 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 written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2016
A
Kindle Scout
selection
Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
For girls everywhere, young and old,
especially mine—
Anne, Megan, and Valarie.
Girls rule.
C
HAPTER
1
Dreams might fade in the light of day, but reality doesn’t disappear behind closed eyes. Tess felt a familiar sense of foreboding wash over her. As hard as she tried to push it away, it seeped into her subconscious, numbing her with fear. If she’d known then what she knew now, she would have changed everything about that day. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, but still saw the same thing.
She leaned over and swiped at her snowboard bindings with her mittens. Normally, they would have popped loose right away, but not this time. She seemed to be all thumbs and she was tired, cold, and wet. Her frustration mounted as her goggles fogged; the tears she’d been holding back spilled unbidden down her cheeks. She yanked the goggles off her face and pulled them back over her head. The gesture was savage enough to take her hat off with the goggles—and along with enough hair to give her a second reason for tears.
Clenching the end of one mitten in her teeth, she pulled out her hand, bent down again, and dug her fingers into the catch of the binding. Wet, slushy spring snow had covered her boots and packed her bindings in ice—Cascade Concrete. Her fingers turned blue as she worked them in far enough to get the leverage she needed. With a mighty pull, she sprang the catch loose and stepped out of the binding. She blew on her cold hand before sticking it back into the mitten, then stamped her boots on the packed slope. Her mother swooped down next to her and skidded on her heel edge to slow. Tess turned her head and swiped at her face with her parka sleeve.
“Gosh, you’re fast,” her mother said, sliding gently to a stop a few feet away. “No way I could keep up.” She looked back up the slope for a moment. “What a great last run.”
Tess picked up her hat and stuffed it in a pocket, sneaking a glance at her mother from under a sheaf of hair the color of a raven’s wing. Her mother had the same hair, the same exotically shaped face and features. But somehow, against all odds, Tess had gotten her father’s blue eyes and a little bit of his nose. The cold had turned her mother into Rudolph, the speed of the run turning her nose cherry red and making her eyes water. Maybe she wouldn’t notice that Tess had been crying.
“So,” her mother said, “any thoughts about where you’d like to eat?”
Tess had a choice of where to go for a celebratory dinner.
Some celebration.
Eating was the last thing she felt like. The day had started out all right. Her parents had offered to take her up to the pass to go boarding after school and then out to a late dinner as a treat for scoring so well on her SATs.
“Not as a reward,” her mother had said, “just an acknowledgement.” Her parents—especially her “Tiger Mother” mom, but even her laid-back skater dad—expected her to get good grades, to get into the best schools, without the promise of any sort of reward. Tess didn’t have a problem with that. She felt naturally driven to do well. Maybe it was the competition at school. After all, Tess was younger than most of her classmates, so had more to prove. Especially since this was spring of her junior year. Her combined 2240 on the college boards would help. So would her 3.98 cumulative grade average. And she could always take the SAT again in the fall and try to raise her scores.
That was all good, but the day had somehow devolved into a mess.
She looked up the lighted slope past her mother without answering. She spotted her father’s plaid parka with the Olympic insignia on the front, the one he said Shaun White had given to him after the 2010 Winter Games. He flew down the slope, carving elegant curves, caught some air going over a small mogul, did a cab 360, then swooped toward them. Gnarly. It came naturally to him—he’d been almost as good a skater as Tony Hawk or Rob Dyrdek. Better than both, some said, even though Hawk was vert and Dyrdek was street. But Tess’s dad had never been interested in going pro. At least that’s what he’d told her. She sometimes wondered. He stopped quickly, showering them with wet snow, his grin stretching from ear to ear. He looked from one to the other, his smile fading like shadows do when a cloud passes in front of the sun.
“What’s going on?” he said lightly.
“Nothing,” said her mom. “Tess is deciding where we’re going to dinner.”
“Really?” her father said. “I could’ve sworn something’s up.”
Her mother flashed a quick smile and said gently, “She’s miffed because I told her she couldn’t invite Toby. I thought it should be just us tonight. I’m being selfish.”
Her father shrugged. “I don’t think that’s selfish.” He turned to Tess. “Your mom’s right. We hardly ever get you to ourselves anymore, kitten.”
Tess looked at her mother with daggers in her eyes, then turned an imploring look on her father.
It just blurted out of her. “She told me I can’t go to prom, Dad!”
Her mother shook her head. “No, I said I didn’t want you to go alone with Toby. I don’t mind if you go with a group of your friends, but you’re not getting into a car alone with someone when you don’t even have your own driver’s license yet.”