The Edge of Alone - 07 Read online

  The Edge of Alone

  A Ryan Lock Novel

  Sean Black

  SBD

  Contents

  About the Book

  Also by Sean Black

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Get a free book

  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

  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

  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

  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

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Sean Black

  About the Book

  An isolated school for troubled teens. A series of mysterious deaths. A father frantically trying to rescue his daughter before it's too late.

  But when the law won't listen, who can he turn to?

  ‘Sean Black writes with the pace of Lee Child, and the heart of Harlan Coben.’ Joseph Finder, New York Times Bestseller

  ‘Ace. There are deservedly strong Lee Child comparisons as the author is also a Brit, his novels US-based, his character appealing, and his publisher the same.’ Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller

  Also by Sean Black

  Lockdown: The First Ryan Lock Novel

  Deadlock: The Second Ryan Lock Novel

  Gridlock: The Third Ryan Lock Novel

  The Devil’s Bounty: The Fourth Ryan Lock Novel

  The Innocent: The Fifth Ryan Lock Novel

  Fire Point: The Sixth Ryan Lock Novel

  Lock & Load: A Ryan Lock Story

  Budapest/48: A Ryan Lock Story

  Post: The First Byron Tibor Novel

  Blood Country: The Second Byron Tibor Novel

  Also available to readers in the USA and Canada:

  Ryan Lock Bundle 1 : Lockdown; Deadlock; Gridlock

  Ryan Lock Bundle 2: The Devil’s Bounty; The Innocent; Fire Point

  For Lee and Patsy

  First published in 2016.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2016 by Sean Black

  The moral right of the author had been asserted.

  All right reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

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  1

  When people asked Brice Walker what he did for a living, he told them he was a deliveryman. It saved a long, potentially awkward conversation. And, it wasn’t a lie. Well, not exactly.

  As an answer it also had the added bonus of making his occupation sound boring. Which closed down having to deal with any more questions.

  In reality, Brice’s profession was far from boring. Most people had no idea it even existed. Or that it was, despite what they might have believed, completely legal.

  Brice, along with his business partner, Mike, both of them former bail bondsmen, did collect packages, transport them across the country, and drop them off at a pre-designated location. So, calling himself a deliveryman wasn’t that far removed from the truth.

  The aspect of the job that made it hard to explain to people was that he and Mike collected, transported, and delivered human beings from one location to another. More specifically, children and teenagers. The youngest being eleven and the oldest being seventeen, both boys, girls, and increasingly, young people who described themselves as transgender. In fact, the fastest growth area for their business the twelve months had been transgender young people.

  Personally, Brice didn’t see what the big deal was if a kid was gay or transgender. But he wasn’t the one paying top dollar to move these kids around, so he tended to keep his own views on the subject to himself. After all, he and Mike were only deliverymen, and they had just arrived at their pick-up for the day.

  Sitting in the passenger seat next to him, Mike jabbed a finger at the corner of the map he was holding. “This is it,” he said to Brice. “Laurel Avenue.”

  Brice slowed the truck, and spun the wheel. “What’s the number?”

  Mike peered down at the piece of paper containing the collection instructions. “4218. Should be two blocks down. The cross street is 3rd.”

  “You forget your reading glasses again?”

  Mike scowled. “I don’t need ‘em.”

  “Sure you don’t,” Brice told him.

  Mike’s eyesight was a running joke between the two of them. Brice knew he couldn’t read for shit without glasses, and Mike was too damn vain to use them. It was like he was trying to deny the fact he was getting older by ignoring the changes that came with it. Other than that, they got on pretty well. Which was just as well, because they spent a lot of time in each others’ company.

  A few moments later, Brice pulled the truck into a space opposite the address. It had been Mike’s idea to swap out the car they’d been using for an old UPS delivery truck that he’d spotted in an online auction. He might have shitty eyesight and not want to admit it, but making collections in an actual delivery truck had been a stroke of genius. The truck blended in. And once they had their cargo safely stowed in back there was way less chance of anyone seeing it. The sound proofing was better too. They’d had to make some adjustments to the rear cargo area to make it comfortable for longer journeys, but overall it made the job a lot easier.

  Brice switched off the engine and killed the headlights. “What time you got?”

  Mike dug his cell phone from his front pants pocket and checked the display. “Zero three fifty three.”

  “Good. That means we can be on the road well before sunrise.”
>
  “If she doesn’t give us a problem,” said Mike.

  Brice shrugged his shoulders. “What kind of problem is a fourteen-year-old girl going to give us?”

  “You forgot about that kid in El Segundo?”

  The kid Mike was talking about had pulled her boyfriend’s gun from under the bed when they’d walked into her room. Thankfully the safety had been on otherwise they might not have been here right now.

  “That was a one off,” said Brice. “This kid doesn’t seem like the type who’ll give us too many problems.”

  Mike eyeballed him. “If she wasn’t a problem, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Brice, reaching back behind his seat and pulling out a holdall. He unzipped it and quickly checked that everything they might need if she was a problem was there.

  Mike ran through the equipment list. Brice found the item in the bag and called it out. Mike put a line through that item. El Segundo was also the reason they’d tightened up their procedures, including running through the checklist before every collection.

  “Okay,” said Mike. “Let’s see here,” he said, squinting at the list. “Pepper spray? Two canisters.”

  Brice dug around the bottom of the bag. He found the spray, took one for himself and handed off the other to Mike. Mike struck a line through that item and moved on.

  “Handcuffs. Two pairs.”

  With jacket collars turned up, and baseball caps pulled down low over their eyes, the two men walked quickly towards the front door. They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. They both knew the drill. Plus, they wanted to make as little noise as possible on entry.

  Coming out might be a different matter. Sometimes they got a screamer or someone else in the house flipped out: a brother, a sister, another family member, the family dog.

  If they didn’t shut up when Brice asked them to, that was when the pepper spray came out. Usually the threat of it was enough to quieten someone down. They only used it when they absolutely had to. They preferred speed and surprise, hence the early hour.

  Brice turned the front door handle. It hadn’t been locked. As arranged.

  He stepped into the front hallway, Mike a few steps behind him. Mike closed the front door behind them and they started up the stairs towards the target’s bedroom. It was the second door on the left hand side.

  Ideally, they would have someone else posted outside the house, usually beneath the target’s bedroom window to prevent them escaping. Brice could have posted Mike there, but ever since the gun incident back they had adopted a two man protocol.

  For one thing it was safer. Two pairs of eyes. Two pairs of hands. Two pairs of cuffs. These were all better. But there were a couple of other reasons.

  A child or teenager was less likely to think they had a chance against two fully grown men. And, crucially, Brice having Mike there meant that they could counteract any allegations that might be made after the fact. It was why two person teams were deployed in this line of work. It provided deniability against any suggestion of impropriety.

  They climbed the stairs, making sure to minimize any noise. The last thing they wanted was the target waking up before they got into the room.

  They reached the landing and walked towards the bedroom door. It was closed. There was a sign on the door that read: “Adults: Keep Out.”

  Too bad it wasn’t going to work, thought Brice. Over half the time there was either a sign like this on the door, or the door was locked from the inside.

  He glanced over at Mike. Mike nodded. Brice slowly turned the door handle, as Mike’s hand slipped down to his pepper spray. They both started as a black cat streaked past them, heading for the stairs.

  The two men walked into the bedroom. It took a second for Brice’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. Looking around, Brice felt like he had seen this room a thousand times before. Cluttered. Clothes strewn all over the floor even though there was a hamper for dirty laundry over by the window, lying empty.

  Posters featuring moody, long-haired indie bands or green cannabis leaves were tacked to the walls. The smell of incense hung in the air, just below the general stink of teenage funk.

  In the far corner, a desk was covered with books, make up and colored pens. Next to it was a dresser, every drawer at least partially open with clothes spilling out over the edges.

  Brice navigated through the minefield of crap until he reached the bed. Their target lay in the middle, the comforter pulled up over her head, her knees pulled up to her chest. Mike had already moved to the other side of the bed, ready for Brice’s signal.

  They had this part perfectly choreographed. Mike pulled a single leather glove from his jacket pocket and slipped it on. Occasionally they got a biter, almost always a girl, and the glove prevented too much damage.

  If there was a struggle, Brice would take the legs. Control someone’s upper body and then pin down their legs and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot they could do about it. When they were assured of cooperation they could relax their grip. If the target decided to go back on their word, well, that was what the pepper spray and handcuffs were for.

  2

  Ruth Price couldn’t breathe. She was stuck inside a water-filled quarry. She couldn’t remember how she’d got there, or how long she’d been trapped, but trapped she was.

  She scrambled frantically to the side, but every time she tried to get a hand hold to pull herself out, she lost her grip, fell back in, and her head went back under the water. She tried to stay calm, to conserve her energy, but it was no use. She rose to the surface one more time. She opened her mouth to take a breath and tasted something solid pressing against her tongue.

  She could hear voices. Men’s voices. Low and soothing. But she couldn’t see anyone. There was only the water all around her and the steep, jagged quarry walls.

  Finally, her eyes snapped open. The quarry disappeared. So did the water.

  Oh, thank God.

  A dream. A nightmare. She was in her bedroom at home.

  But the thing pressing against her mouth was still there. A man’s face was staring down at her.

  Her heart pounded. Fear jolted its way up her spine. Her body spasmed with terror.

  She tried to get up. She kicked out her legs. They wouldn’t move. They were pinned down by a heavy weight.

  The man’s eyes stared down at her.

  “Ruth,” he said. Low. Soothing. It was the voice she’d heard a moment before when she had been on the edge of waking.

  How did he know her name?

  Was this a nightmare within a nightmare?

  It had to be.

  That was the only explanation.

  A cruel trick of her own mind.

  Wake from one horror to another.

  Only this seemed real.

  “Ruth,” the man said again. “My name is Michael. My partner here is Brice.”

  Ruth followed the man’s gaze down the bed, slowly realizing why she wasn’t able to move her legs. They were pinned down.

  Sleep fell away. This wasn’t a dream. This was real. This was the here and now. Her bedroom at home. The middle of the night. With two men holding her down, and about to do what?

  “We’re sorry for waking you like this, but believe me, it’s the safest way for everyone.”

  She didn’t understand any of this. They were sorry for breaking in to her and her mom’s house? Sorry for sneaking into her bedroom in the dead of night and waking her up with their hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream?

  What was safe about any of this?

  “Ruth, I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth so you can breathe a little easier. I just didn’t want you hollering the place down. Okay?”

  Ruth swallowed hard. The whole thing still seemed unreal to her. But it was real. Very real.

  She nodded. Or moved her head up and down as much as the man’s grip allowed her to.

  “Good. That’s good,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt you. Or for you t
o hurt us. Do you understand that?”

  She moved her head again. She felt his grip relax a little.

  “Okay, Ruth, I’m going to take my hand away now. And Brice here is going to let you get up. If you try to resist, or you scream, or attempt to resist in any way it’ll go very badly for you. We’ll have to restrain you, which we don’t want to do. Unless you don’t give us a choice.”

  He unclamped his hand from over her mouth. She struggled to breathe. Her heart was still thumping out of her chest. Thumping so hard that she could actually hear it.

  Her breathing came fast and shallow. She felt like she was about to have an asthma attack. She hadn’t had one of those in over a year. She didn’t even know where her inhaler was. The thought that she could’t find it made her panic even more.

  The man’s hand fell onto her bare shoulder where her t-shirt had fallen down. The sensation of him touching here there creeped her out. “Take it easy, okay. We’re here to help you. Not to hurt you.”

  Not here to hurt her? Was this guy for real? They’d almost scared her to death. And they were touching her.

  She could think of a thousand things to say to that. But she knew better. Not when she was still lying down, half-naked, with them standing over her.

  She would play along. When she could, when she actually had some air in her lungs, she would scream and make a break for it.

  Ruth closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. It was hard.

  “That’s better,” Mike said.

  “Okay,” Ruth finally managed to say. “I understand.”

  “That’s good,” said Mike. “Now, we want you to get up, and throw some clothes on over what you already have on. Then we’re going to walk you outside.”

  What the hell? Walk her outside?

  I’m being kidnapped.

  These two guys have broken in and they’re going to kidnap me.

  She managed to get to her feet. “Can you at least give me some privacy to get changed?” she asked them.