City of the Lost (Casey Duncan #1)(14)
It’s dawn when Diana begs me to let her look into her impossible town. For both of us. Just let me ask my contact. You don’t have to do a thing. I won’t tell anyone your real story. We’ll make something up. I’d never put you in danger, Casey. Never. I know it’s a risk, but … Graham. And now Leo Saratori. I need to be safe, Casey. I need you to be safe, too.
I know this town isn’t real. But the only way she’ll accept that is to find out for herself.
I say yes.
KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the internationally bestselling author of the thirteen-book Women of the Otherworld series, the Nadia Stafford crime novels and a new series set in the fictional town of Cainsville, Illinois, which includes the novels Omens, Visions and Deceptions. She is also the author of three bestselling young adult trilogies, and the YA suspense thriller, The Masked Truth. She lives in rural Ontario.
PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA Copyright ? 2015 K.L.A. Fricke Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2015 by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House company. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
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Armstrong, Kelley, author
City of the lost / Kelley Armstrong.
eBook ISBN 978-0-345-81616-0
Cover design by Terri Nimmo
Cover images: Potapov Alexander / Shutterstock
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the Author
Previously, in City of the Lost…
To cleanse her conscience—and tempt fate—Casey tells her therapist she once killed a man. Abandoned by her boyfriend, Blaine Saratori, grandson to mobster Leo Saratori, left to be beaten nearly to death by the thugs who were out to hurt him, after recovering she tracked down and shot Blaine.
Diana’s abusive ex-husband, Graham, has found her again—and he wants Diana dead. Casey threatens him with a stat rape charge, but Graham won’t be deterred.
Casey spends a passionate evening with Kurt, and when he leaves his apartment to pick up some takeout for them she follows him on a gut feeling he might be in danger. A stranger emerges from the shadows and a gun fires—a “present from Mr. Saratori.” Kurt has been shot.
After a night at the hospital with Kurt, Casey returns to her apartment to find Diana bloody and unconscious. Graham has attacked her.
Diana insists that they need to find the mythical town she’s heard about in her women’s support group that will hide people like her. To save her friend, Casey agrees to disappear too.
One
Three days after Graham beat Diana, she and I are set to meet the people who say they can take us to this magical town where the lost can stay lost. I can’t believe how fast it’s happening, and that’s not a pleasantly surprised disbelief—it’s a growing certainty that we’re walking into a trap. Twelve years of waiting for the worst means I don’t just look a gift horse in the mouth—I want DNA samples and X-rays, and even with those I’ll convince myself there’s a bomb hidden in its Trojan gut.
Diana had started with the woman from her support group. I don’t know where it went from there, but twenty-four hours later Diana got a phone call. Then we scanned and sent supporting documentation from Diana’s hospital visits and official complaints against Graham and newspaper articles on my attack and a copy of the police report on Kurt’s shooting.
Her story is the truth. Mine is that those who attacked me in the alley years ago had mistaken me for someone else, and they continued to stalk me, culminating in the attack on Kurt. Do I expect anyone to believe that? No. If there’s any chance this town is legit, I’m hoping these people will call bullshit on me but grant Diana admission. She’ll be safe, and that’s what counts. Then I’ll transfer to a new city to protect Kurt, and then … well, whatever. The point is that they’ll both be safe.
We meet our contact, Valerie, at 10 p.m. in a random office building. Yes, an office building. She even looks at home there: middle management, late forties, greying hair cut in no discernible style, decade-old suit.
There’s no small talk, no offer of coffee or tea. She ushers us straight into a meeting room that’s as stark and impersonal as my apartment. Rent-an-office? Never knew there was such a thing. It does come with an interesting feature, though: one-way glass. I walk to the mirror and pretend to fuss with my hair. Then I wave, mouth “Gotcha,” and take a seat.