Gone in Seconds
A gripping and addictive crime thriller
Ed James
Books by Ed James
Max carter series
Tell Me Lies
Gone in Seconds
* * *
Scott Cullen series
Ghost in the Machine
Devil in the Detail
Fire in the Blood
Stab in the Dark
Cops and Robbers
Liars and Thieves
Cowboys and Indians
Heroes and Villains
City of the Dead
* * *
Craig Hunter series
Missing
Hunted
The Black Isle
* * *
DI Fenchurch series
The Hope That Kills
Worth Killing For
What Doesn’t Kill You
In for The Kill
Kill with Kindness
Kill the Messenger
* * *
Tooth and Claw
Senseless
Available in Audio
Tell Me Lies (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
*
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 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
Epilogue
Hear More From Ed
Books by Ed James
A Letter From Ed
Tell Me Lies
Acknowledgments
*
To Mark Edwards, for a cracking week in the Pacific Northwest and a character name, though you might regret letting me use your name.
Day 1
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
One
KAITLYN
18:45
Their house glows down below, hidden behind tall walls, brick, ten-feet high and covered in foliage. No signs of life. No cars. But the lights are on full, meaning there’s someone inside.
I walk on, gritting my teeth as the cold wind kicks up from the lake.
A blur of black breezes past me. A Tesla, driving past like a spaceship. His Tesla. My heart’s in my mouth.
Landon Bartlett.
He shouldn’t be here at this time. But he’s long gone. That thing is way too fast to even notice someone on the sidewalk.
He didn’t see me. Right?
I slip into the park. Back in summer, it was all overgrown, but now it’s all bare branches and rotting leaves. The wind making the bare trees creak. Cars swooshing through puddles. Everyday Seattle suburb sounds. Nothing to worry about. Yet another German car passes on the street.
A group of kids lurks by the bench, just goofing around, laughing and joking. A couple of them are singing that song, the one that was on TV for like ever when I was a kid. Taken. I can see Cole Delaney shouting into the camera, his band rocking out behind him. It sends a shiver up my spine.
I shuffle across the damp grass toward the lakeside street and survey the house again. Three stories, ornate as hell, made out of brick. The kids are now singing another of his songs, that reggae one.
The house gates clatter open and a car powers through. Her car, that giant Nissan SUV. Huge and brown, lit up like the fourth of July. Jennifer Bartlett gets out into the cold night. She looks tiny next to her massive car, the engine still running. Dark hair, green dress, steely gray eyes. She wraps a fur coat around her bare arms, her heels clicking as she walks up the drive.
Selfish, entitled, egotistical, vain, spiteful…
Makes my skin crawl just seeing her there.
The house door opens before she gets there and a woman steps out. Their nanny. Jeans, sneakers, same striped shirt I’m wearing. Perfect.
Jennifer hands the baby over. Ky. Six weeks old. His screams bleeding out through the night. “I’m running real late, so I need some help here.” Then Jennifer says something I don’t catch and gets back in her car. She drives off through the gates, still hanging open.
And the rain starts, heavy, thick and fast, drenching me in seconds. The kids by the bench squeal and scream as they run off, heading home to their Xboxes and PlayStations.
But I stand there like a statue, watching and waiting in the rain.
Through an upstairs window—third floor, on the right—there’s a flash of stripes, hooped earrings and a dark ponytail. The nanny putting Ky down. Screaming again, meaning the window’s open.
And just like that, the rain stops.
The side door opens and the nanny slips outside the kitchen. She lights her cigarette and leans against the wall, hiding under the eaves as she sucks deep, probably fearful the rain will start up again.
And she’s left the door hanging open.
Go.
I slip down to the street. The intercom is inset into the wall, some fancy high-end thing made of brass. I press the button and the buzzer sounds from inside the house, leaking out across the front yard’s old cobblestones.
The nanny shakes her head and I see the equation playing out in her mind. Just as easy to come down to the street as to go back inside. And besides, she’d have to extinguish her smoke if she went back in.
Here she comes.
So I dash back up to the park, pocketing my shades, and haul myself up the tree. The bark is slimy from the rain, but I’m over the wall in seconds, and I drop down into the yard.
The nanny’s still talking into the intercom, her voice shrill and distorted. “Hellooooo?”
I dash over and sneak in through the open door, into the bright kitchen.
The house smells the same, those Bed Bath & Beyond candles spreading vanilla talons everywhere. The kitchen wall’s a new color, a soothing lime-green instead of the angry terracotta. Metal pots and pans hang over the stove in the middle, designer cooking equipment they never use.
Through the window, the nanny’s given up on the intercom and is walking back to finish her smoke.
I crouch low and sneak past the kitchen units into the hallwa
y, connected to that huge-ass living room. It’s silent as the grave, so I take the stairs real slow, my damp footsteps squelching on the machined wood. But still quiet. Thank god for those cheap sneakers.
Up on the second floor, I wait in front of the door, my heart thudding in my chest. Knowing what’s behind the wood. And I open it.
The room is bigger than the house I grew up in. Yellow walls, bookcases filled with pretty much every single kid’s book ever published. High-end speakers playing whale song. A fancy crib in the middle.
Ky lies on his back, asleep and cooing, his arms outstretched in a Jesus Christ pose, his tiny fingers twitching. There’s a baby monitor hidden in a bear. No camera in that, though, so I sneak over and stuff another toy bear over the microphone.
The crib’s another matter, though. There’s a camera pointing into it, so I walk behind it and peer through the bars. Ky gurgles in his sleep then licks his lips slowly, the most perfect little boy.
I reach in and scoop him up. He’s way lighter than I expect. It’s like there’s no weight in his lower body, but his skull is real heavy. I coo at him and he blinks hard. Definitely smiles at me.
I swaddle him in his blanket.
Two
CARTER
18:50
The building was barely twenty years old, but it had been done up like it dated from pre-Revolutionary times. Oak paneling and wooden benches everywhere, jarring with Seattle’s new image as a futuristic metropolis, a world away from East Coast decadence.
The side door opened and the judge shuffled through in his long black gown.
“All rise!”
Special Agent Max Carter stood, caught up in the wave sweeping the room, then sat back down again, and whatever the judge said was lost to the noise inside his skull.
In the dock, Mason Wickstrom stood, shoulders slouched, head bowed, his eyes scanning the crowd. Tall, but grayer and thinner, the long months of incarceration had hit him hard. He didn’t see Carter, but he must surely know he was there. Mason had given so much—his freedom, his future—in return for answers, and he was here to pay the price for his revenge.
But Carter wasn’t here for Mason. Those answers weren’t just for him, but for someone else, someone still free to roam the world. As free as you could be with the FBI and Interpol on your tail.
A bang of the gavel hushed the noise in the room.
Mason looked over at the judge, showing genuine contrition.
“Mr. Wickstrom, you stand here accused of one of the most grievous crimes in our nation. Abduction of a minor. Two counts. How do you plead?”
Mason looked across the court and Carter could swear he focused on someone. Maybe even gave them a brief nod. “Guilty.”
Carter’s gaze searched the crowd like a boat’s floodlight through dark sea, but he couldn’t spot her among the many faces.
“And of the murder of Harry Youngblood and Franklin Vance; how do you plead?”
Definitely looking at someone, not too far to the right of Carter’s position. Mason gave another nod, like he was saying his sacrifice was worth it for his revenge, for their revenge. Then back at the judge, jaw clenched. “Guilty.”
A loud gasp came from the right, then a woman stood up and stormed out of the crowded court. Carter watched her go. Not his target, but one of the victims, a poor innocent caught up in Mason’s revenge. Megan Holliday, weeping for the loss of a son. A hundred-year sentence could never make up for that, but the knowledge he’d be going away for at least two life sentences would help in the long term.
Another bang of the gavel. “I will adjourn for sentencing.” The judge banged his gavel one final time, but something made Mason’s eyes widen as the judge left his stage.
Carter rose with the rest of the crowd, still searching the faces.
And there she was, hurrying toward the exit. Wearing a blonde wig, heavy makeup softening her dark skin tone. But definitely Layla al-Yasin.
Every backward glance showed him following her, showed him closing in on her.
Carter put his cell to his ear. “Lori, I’ve got eyes on the prize.”
* * *
19:00
Carter’s feet slapped off the sidewalk, the butt of his handgun rocking against his chest. The wrong shoes for this kind of chase, the wrong holster. He hung a left on Pike and sprinted toward the old market.
But he’d lost sight of Layla.
He stopped, breathing heavily, and put his cell to his ear. “Lori, do you have her?”
“Think so.”
“You think?”
“She’s gone into Pike Place Market.”
“Got it.” Carter swallowed his groan and shot off again, thighs and knees burning. The market was less than a block away, a surviving chunk of old Seattle. A long, low building with a few entrances dotted along its three-block length. A ton of tourists milled around, hitting the market and the first Starbucks, even this late in the day. “Where?”
“Inside. Main entrance.” And her call went dead.
Carter stuffed his cell in his pocket and sprinted on, having to slow at the crosswalk, waiting to weave between traffic, but then he was off again, racing over the brick cobblestones toward the market. He thought he caught a flash of Lori’s blonde hair at the far end, following someone inside.
Carter raced over to the main entrance, drawing his gun as he entered. “FBI!”
The crowd screamed and rushed away from him, cowering and ducking. The guys behind the fish counter stood there, arms raised, maybe used to drug raids. To his right, most people hunkered down, but some raced away from him. The chaos made Lori near impossible to spot. He set off past the other fish stall, then into smells of baking yeast and fresh flowers, the tourists and stallholders peering out from behind the stalls.
And there she was, Special Agent Lori Alves thundering toward him, chasing Layla al-Yasin. Definitely her.
Carter hadn’t dared hope his ploy could work, but the case hitting court had dragged her out into the open, like baiting a fish with a worm.
And she was closing in on his position.
Carter dropped to one knee and trained his pistol on her. “FREEZE!”
In one fluid movement, Layla ducked to the side and grabbed hold of an ice cart, sending it flying toward him.
Carter tried to get out of the way, but he wasn’t quick enough. Ice showered him and the cart hit his leg, knocked him backward. He tried to stand, but slipped on the ice and tumbled over again. He managed to fight the cart out of his way, and used it to push himself up to standing. Then he slipped on the ice again, his ass thudding into the hard floor. This time, he used a post to get upright, his white-knuckled fingers grabbing on tight.
He spotted his piece in amongst the ice and reached for it, scanned the stunned crowd.
No sign of Layla al-Yasin.
Three
CHASE
19:01
Chase Bartlett stood on the stage, his lips moving almost automatically as he recited his speech.
The giant ballroom filled the entire ground floor of the Bartlett Foundation’s office block and was rammed full of local dignitaries. Made Chase think of those ridiculous parties in a Batman movie, where Bruce Wayne would run up against the villain, both of them in disguise. And here he was, front and center. As he talked, he looked through the crowd, focusing on the biggest benefactors. Respectful smiles at the men, winks at the widows like the slut he was.
Chase took a deep breath and pulled himself back to his speech, to making up the last section, the part he’d run out of time writing. “When my brother and I,” he waved to the side of the stage, “when we took over running our family foundation based on our parents’ will, our mission was clear. To help people. And we did, starting out in Oregon and Northern California, the area our mom grew up in. Our treatment centers in Yreka, Eugene, and Cougar Falls are industry-leading, providing the best affordable healthcare to the men and women who served this great nation, overseas and at home. But we want to
expand, we want to do more. And not just to those great heroes, but to everyone else, which is why the Bartlett Foundation is expanding our operations into our home city of Seattle.”
A ripple of applause hit across the room.
“Thanks, bro.” Landon Bartlett joined Chase onstage, slapping him on the back as he swapped places at the microphone. Chase watched from the side now. Landon had a rower’s frame, a wide V tapering down to a slim waist. A thick beard down to his chest masked the model looks Chase hadn’t inherited, but at least he’d escaped the gray hair. The whole image gave Landon the dead-eyed stare of a psychopath.