One Kick: A Novel

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  Dear Reader:

  If you’ve read Chelsea Cain in the past you know she is a writer whose fearless look into the dark reaches of the criminal mind is matched by her electric prose, intricate plot twists, and delicious disregard for the rules of the genre.

  If you’ve not yet read Chelsea Cain, I am pleased to introduce you to one of your new favorite thriller writers.

  I’ve been a fan of Chelsea’s ever since she burst onto the scene in 2006 with her New York Times bestselling debut, Heartsick. I followed her career and her rapturously reviewed books, marveling at her originality and her courage, and her incomparable ability to create nightmare-inducing terror while making her readers laugh. Yes, laugh. As a fan and as her editor, I am proud to be presenting to you Chelsea’s superlative new thriller, One Kick, the first in a brand-new series we will publish at Simon & Schuster.

  One Kick introduces a badass new heroine named Kick Lannigan who, after surviving childhood abduction, has become a woman who will never be victimized again. She can defend herself using her hands, her feet, her knife, and her gun—and she knows five ways to kill a man using a piece of clothing. Move over, Lisbeth Salander.

  One Kick is one of the freshest, most original, and most chilling thrillers I have read in years. My colleagues at Simon & Schuster share my excitement, as does Sara Colleton, formerly the executive producer/creator of the television series Dexter, who is developing One Kick into a series. I am, perhaps, biased but I think this is Chelsea Cain’s best novel yet. It is also what the author herself calls her “PG-13” series. Think: all the same chills and thrills with a softer touch when it comes to anything graphic.

  If I could include a money-back―or, in the case of this ARC, a time-back―guarantee with this novel, I would do so in a heartbeat. If not by the end of the first page, then by the end of the first chapter you’ll surely be hooked on One Kick, on Kick Lannigan, and on Chelsea Cain, thriller writer extraordinaire.

  I would love to know what you think of this book. Please don’t hesitate to contact me.

  My best,

  Marysue Rucci | Vice President and Editor-in-Chief

  (212) 698-1234 | [email protected]

  “Chelsea Cain has staked her claim to new territory with One Kick, which heralds an exciting new series. Fresh, original, engaging and tension-filled, this is a perfect introduction to Kick Lannigan, whose quest for justice you’ll champion.”

  —Sue Grafton, #1 New York Times bestselling author of W is for Wasted

  “Author Cain has done it again. One Kick is superb! From its breathtaking opening sequence, through scenes of wrenching evil and heart-clutching emotion to its roller coaster finale, this novel will stay with you for a long time. And what a heroine . . . Here's hoping for more Kick Lannigan soon!”

  —Jeffery Deaver, author of The Skin Collector

  A sizzling new thriller series from the New York Times bestselling author who has been called “one of the most frightening writers in the genre” (The Louisville-Courier Journal), “brilliant” (Bookreporter.com), “wonderfully over the top” (USA Today), “superb” (Booklist, starred review), and whose novels have twice been included in Stephen King’s 10 Best Books of the Year (Entertainment Weekly).

  Everyone thought Kick Lannigan was dead.

  Kidnapped by strangers at age six, she became the poster child for every parent’s worst nightmare. Her rescue five years later shocked the world and she became an international news sensation. Kick has spent every minute since trying to escape her past. Now twenty-one, she has trained herself to be safe. She is a crack shot, a lock picker, an escape artist, a knife thrower, and a student of martial arts, among other pursuits.

  Self-reliant and sharp-tongued, Kick isn’t exactly a “people person.” But when an enigmatic former weapons dealer named Bishop approaches her with a proposition, Kicks agrees to help him investigate two recent child abductions. Bishop has law enforcement contacts, a seemingly limitless fortune, and more secrets than Kick does.

  Armed with a Glock 37, half a lifetime of therapy, and an impressive array of criminal skills, Kick will do whatever it takes to rescue the missing children in time. Little does she know that the answers she and Bishop seek may be hidden in the dark corners of her own mind.

  From the New York Times bestselling author whose writing Stephen King calls “excellent”, One Kick announces the arrival of a blistering new series by a stunning talent in the thriller realm. A heart-stopping thrilling ride with an extraordinary heroine who battles the shadows of her past, One Kick is unlike anything you’ve read before.

  Chelsea Cain is the author of the New York Times bestselling Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell thrillers Heartsick, Sweetheart, Evil at Heart, The Night Season, Kill You Twice, and Let Me Go. Her Portland-based thrillers have been published in twenty-four languages and recommended on the Today show, appeared in episodes of HBO’s True Blood and ABC’s Castle, and named among Stephen King’s top ten favorite books of the year, and they are included in NPR’s list of the top 100 thrillers ever written. According to Booklist, “Popular entertainment just doesn’t get much better than this.”

  ALSO BY CHELSEA CAIN

  Let Me Go

  Kill You Twice

  The Night Season

  Evil at Heart

  Sweetheart

  Heartsick

  Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Verité, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition August 2014

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  Interior design by Robert E. Ettlin

  Jacket design by

  Jacket art by

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  ISBN 978-1-4767-4978-5

  ISBN 978-1-4767-4988-4 (ebook)

  For Marc Mohan and Eliza Fantastic Mohan,

  and for Lucy McGillicutty Kazootie, my Monster

  I fear not the man who has practiced

  10,000 kicks once, but I f
ear the man who

  has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

  —Bruce Lee

  PROLOGUE

  THEY HAD TOLD HER what to do if the police ever came. They had run drills—first thing in the morning; in the middle of the night; halfway through a meal—until she could get to the trapdoor in the closet from anywhere in the house in under a minute. She was an agile kid, and fast, and she practiced. When her father clicked the stopwatch and gave her a proud nod, she felt a heat of happiness burn in her chest.

  She knew that he did it all for her. She saw the toll the stress took, the creases at the corners of his eyes, the gray strands in his gold hair; the pink of his scalp showed through where his hair was thinning on top. He was still strong. She could still count on him to protect her. Their property was in a rural county, miles from the nearest house, and he said he could hear a car coming as soon as it turned onto the gravel lane. This is where he had taught her to shoot. How to plant her feet so the .22 would feel steadier in her hands. He told her that if the police ever came, and he wasn’t home, that she should shoot anyone who tried to keep her from getting to the trapdoor. He had walked her around the house, showing her where every gun was stashed, making her say the location of each out loud so she would remember. “Under the kitchen sink.” “Dining room buffet drawer.” “Behind the books on the bookshelf.” She wasn’t scared. Her father was always home. If anyone needed shooting, he’d do it for her.

  Rain battered the fragile farmhouse windows, but she felt safe, already dressed for bed in her cotton nightgown with the giraffes on it, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders. The smell of jar spaghetti sauce and meatballs—her favorite meal—still hung in the air, along with the burning wood crackling in the fireplace. The dining room table had been cleared. Her mother had disappeared into the kitchen. The Scrabble board was set up and she and her father studied their tiles. They played every night after dinner. It was part of her homeschooling. The fireplace in the living room flickered with a warm, orange glow, but they played at the dining room table. Her father said it was better for her posture. He picked up a wooden Scrabble tile and moved it onto the board. C. He grinned at her, and she knew that look, knew he had a good one. He put another tile down. A. He was putting the next tile down when the sound of someone pounding at the front door echoed through the house. She could see the fear on his face, the way his eyelids twitched. He dropped the tile. K.

  Her mother materialized in the kitchen doorway, a yellow dishrag still in her wet hands. Everything went still. Like the moment when a photograph is taken—that pause when the whole world waits, trying not to blink.

  “It’s Johnson,” a familiar voice shouted from outside. “Storm put a tree down on my power lines. Phone’s down. Everything. Can I use yours to call the sheriff?”

  Her parents exchanged a tense glance and then her father tightened his fists on the table and leaned over them, not even noticing as he knocked over his Scrabble rack and all his tiles skidded across the tablecloth. Her mother had embroidered that tablecloth with bluebells and lupins. The K tile from her father’s rack sat right there, on a bluebell, right in front of her. That tile alone was worth five points.

  “I want you to go to the side window by the piano,” her father told her. He said it in the serious whisper voice he used when she was to follow his instructions and not ask questions. His eyes darted toward her mother and then he put his hands through his fine fuzz of hair, so different from her own thick dark mop of tangles. “You should be able to see the Johnson place down the hill just past the lake,” he told her. “Tell me if you see any lights on.”

  This was different from the drills. She could see it in the way her parents looked at each other. She wondered if she should be frightened, but when she inventoried her body for signs of fear, she found none. Her father had taught her the importance of preparation.

  She calmly pushed her chair away from the table, stood, let the quilt fall onto the floor, and made her way barefoot from the dining room into the living room. The fireplace cut an orange circle out of the darkness. She tiptoed alongside her mother’s piano and tucked herself between it and the wall. Then she turned her gaze outside the water-streaked window into the blackness beyond. The cold air seeping in from outside made her forget about the fire. She peered in the direction her father had indicated. But there were no lights—only her own faint reflection flickering like a dying ember. She craned her head back toward the dining room. “I don’t see any lights,” Kick reported. “It’s dark down there.”

  Her mother said her father’s name, a little sound followed by a gulp, like she was swallowing it. Her father cleared his throat. “I’ll be right with you!” he hollered toward the door.

  She heard the grate of the chair legs as he got up from the table, and watched as he made his way to the dining room cabinet and withdrew the Colt from the drawer next to the good silverware. He tucked the gun in the back of the Wranglers her mother had bought him at Walmart.

  She saw her mother back slowly into the kitchen.

  It was cold by the window. The rain tapped like fingers against the glass. The man was still pounding on the door. She felt something in her hand, a hard square inch of wood, and was startled to see the K tile clutched between her fingers. She didn’t remember grabbing it.

  Her father scooped her quilt up off the floor and carried it over to her. He draped it around her shoulders, and to her immediate shame she hid the Scrabble tile in her fist, not wanting him to be disappointed in her thievery. He fixed his eyes on hers and put his face so close that she could smell the spaghetti sauce on his breath, the cooked ground beef. “Stay where you are for now,” he whispered, his voice cracking. A glint of flame reflected off his eyeballs in the dark. She tightened her fist around the Scrabble tile, its corners digging into her flesh.

  As her father crossed the living room toward the door, she saw him touch the butt of the gun at the small of his spine, like he was making sure it was still there. He was wearing the beaded moccasins that he had bought the summer they lived in Oklahoma, the ones made by real Comanche. The soles were animal hide, soft and soundless.

  He didn’t look back at her as he went through the door to the front hall, but he left the door open a crack. She heard the front door open and the slap and squeak of the aluminum screen slam shut. She heard her father’s voice, fake-friendly, and she heard the stomp of Johnson’s boots on the welcome mat as he apologized again for being a bother.

  Her body relaxed, and she let her grip on the quilt around her shoulders loosen.

  She did not have to run.

  Their neighbor would use the phone. They would finish their Scrabble game. She leaned against the wall, fingering the Scrabble tile, wondering how long she was supposed to stay there while the men stood around talking about the storm. The flicker of her own reflection caught her attention. She studied it in the wavy farmhouse glass. Her dark hair disappeared until she was just a face in the window, a glint of eyes and teeth. She got closer until her nose was so close to the glass she could feel the air get colder. This close, she could make out her eyes in detail. Every eyelash. Until the images reflecting back at her began to merge together and overlap.

  That’s when she saw the light.

  She stepped back, startled, and blinked hard. But when she opened her eyes, she still saw it. This wasn’t firelight. It wasn’t a reflection. She stared at the single blurry dot of brightness down the hill, across the lake, trying to puzzle it out even as her heart fluttered. A light. They had a few lights like that on their property, affixed to the top corners of outbuildings. Those lights had motion detectors that sometimes got set off by passing cats or raccoons. Her father had taken the bulb out of one on their property, because it kept coming on outside her window and waking her up at night.

  Their neighbor was lying. He still had electricity.

  She needed to tell someone. But her father had told
her to stay where she was. She looked back at the kitchen door, but there was no sign of her mother. The men’s voices still boomed from the front hall—her father laughing a little too loudly.

  She could hear the screen door banging in the wind. Johnson hadn’t pulled it closed all the way. The screen would rip in the storm. She felt like a knot that someone was pulling tight, her whole self contracting, the air squeezing out of her lungs.

  The screen door banged.

  The sound was like an openhanded slap. Her lungs expanded, taking in air, lifting her to the balls of her feet. The Scrabble tile dropped from her hand onto the floor.

  And she ran. She scurried across the dark living room, the quilt flapping behind her like a cape, and wrenched open the door to the front hall. Her father looked at her, eyebrows lifted, mouth open. He was so tall—he could lift her up to touch the ceiling. Mr. Johnson’s back was to her, just a normal-size man. His wet boots sat neatly together just inside the door. His wet raincoat was on the coat tree. He was standing on the rug, drying himself off with the towel her father kept by the door.

  “I saw a light,” she said, out of breath.

  Her father went gray.

  The screen door banged again, and the front door burst open like a thunderclap. Her father stumbled back as the men forced their way into the house. They didn’t bother to take off their boots or dark jackets. Water flew off of them, spattering her. They were shouting, barking orders at her father, who cowered in front of them. Someone was trying to pull her backward, away from him. She yelled to be let go and saw her father reach for his gun. But the men had guns, too, and they saw him and yelled “Gun!” and their guns were at eye height, so that everywhere she looked she saw the barrel of one pointed at where her father shrank at the base of the stairs, his Colt trembling in his hand. His eyes were frantic, glistening with tears. She’d never seen him cry before.