The King
Steven James
“James writes smart, taut, high-octane thrillers. But be warned—his books are not for the timid. The endings blow me away every time.”
—Mitch Galin, producer of Stephen King’s The Stand and Frank Herbert’s Dune
Praise for the Novels
of Steven James
Opening Moves
“A mesmerizing read. From the first chapter, it sets its hook deep and drags you through a darkly gripping story with relentless power. My conclusion: I need to read more of Steven James.”
—Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The Drop
“Steven James has created a fast-moving thriller with psychological depth and gripping action. Opening Moves is a smart, taut, intense novel of suspense that reads like a cross between Michael Connelly and Thomas Harris. Young detective Patrick Bowers battles his own demons as he uses his intellect and experience to track twisted killers. Full of twists and enjoyable surprise, Opening Moves is a blisteringly fast and riveting read.”
—Mark Greaney, New York Times bestselling author of Ballistic
The Bishop
“The novel moves swiftly, with punchy dialogue but gruesome scenes. Readers must be ready to stomach the darkest side of humanity and get into the minds of serial killers to enjoy this master storyteller at the peak of his game.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This novel is fresh and exciting.”
—Booklist
“Absolutely brilliant.”
—Jeff Buick, bestselling author of One Child
“Steven James’s The Bishop should come with a warning: Don’t start reading unless you’re prepared to finish this book in a single sitting. Riveting!”
—Karen Dionne, International Thriller Writers Web site chair; managing editor, The Big Thrill
“The Bishop—full of plot twists, nightmarish villains, and family conflicts—kept me turning pages on a red-eye all the way from New York City to Amsterdam. Steven James tells stories that grab you by the collar and don’t let go.”
—Norb Vonnegut, author of Top Producer; editor of Acrimony.com
“Steven James locks you in a thrill ride with no brakes. He sets the new standard in suspense writing.”
—Suspense Magazine
More Praise for Steven James
and His Award-Winning Novels
“Once again, James has given us a rip-snorting thriller with a beating heart.”
—New York Times bestselling author Eric Wilson
“James delivers . . . caffeinated plot twists and intriguing characterizations. Riveting . . . a gripping plot and brisk pacing will win James some fans eager for his next offering.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[An] exceptional psychological thriller.”
—Armchair Interviews
“Brilliant. . . . Steven James gives us a captivating look at the fine line between good and evil in the human heart. Not to be missed.”
—Ann Tatlock, Christy Award–winning author
“Exquisite.”
—Fiction Fanatics Only!
“Best story of the year—perfectly executed.”
—The Suspense Zone (2008 Reviewer’s Choice Award)
“In a word, intense.”
—Mysterious Reviews
“Steven James writes at a breakneck pace, effortlessly pulling the reader along on this incredible thrill ride.”
—Fiction Addict
THE BOWERS FILES
Opening Moves
The Pawn
The Rook
The Knight
The Bishop
The Queen
THE KING
THE BOWERS FILES
STEVEN JAMES
SIGNET SELECT
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA), 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com.
First published by Signet Select, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA).
Copyright © Steven James, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
SIGNET SELECT and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA).
ISBN 978-1-101-61379-5
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
Contents
Praise
Also by Steven James
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
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
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Cha
pter 86
Chapter 87
Epilogue
Special Thanks
Excerpt From OPENING MOVES
To Matt and Shawna
Dum vivimus vivamus.
A Wasp settled on the head of a Snake, and not only stung him several times, but clung obstinately to the head of his victim. Maddened with pain the Snake tried every means he could think of to get rid of the creature, but without success. At last he became desperate, and crying, “Kill you I will, even at the cost of my own life,” he laid his head with the Wasp on it under the wheel of a passing wagon, and they both perished together.
—From Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation by V. S. Vernon Jones, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham (1912)
Prologue
Thursday, April 4
When Corey Wellington woke up at 5:14 a.m., he had no intention of killing himself.
Over the last twenty years the thought of taking his own life had, in fact, crossed his mind many times, but never as clearly, as distinctly, as that first time, when he was a junior in high school and Caitlyn Vaughn stood him up at prom, and everyone knew about it, and it felt like someone had knocked his feet out from under him and hit him with a baseball bat in the gut at the same time.
In retrospect it seemed silly, childish even—feeling so devastated by something so inconsequential—but at the time it’d felt like his entire world had crumbled.
That night he’d gone to his father’s den in the basement and taken the key to the gun cabinet from the desk drawer where his dad kept it, where he’d thought it was safely hidden from his two curious children.
Corey had opened the gun case, loaded one of the revolvers, and then sat at the desk for a long time with the handgun cradled in his hands.
It felt cold and heavier than it looked.
Wonder, dreams, hopes, all those things that make life livable seemed to be slipping away like a stream of spent possibilities. There was nothing he could think of that he looked forward to: not summer vacation or his senior year or seeing any movie or listening to any song or playing any video game or being with any girl.
It was as if everything that lay on the horizon of that moment held nothing but the promise of more rejection and despair without any hope of healing.
Yes, a girl can do that to you. Yes, she can rip out your reason for living, just like that, with one glance, one comment, one prom-night giggle when she blows you off and then jokes about it with her friends.
He’d raised the pistol and slid the end of the barrel into his mouth.
Can you ever really know the reason behind an action? Can you ever really tell for sure why you did one thing instead of another? That, yes, this is why you quit your job, bought the Toyota instead of the Ford, ordered spaghetti rather than pizza, didn’t pull the trigger when you had the chance.
Maybe it was cowardice, maybe it was some strange breed of courage that kept him from putting a bullet in his brain that night, but at last he’d replaced the revolver and ammunition in the cabinet, and no one had ever known that he’d had a gun barrel clenched between his teeth and his finger pressed against the trigger on prom night.
In the months that followed, thinking about how close he’d come to ending it all had frightened him, and he’d found a persistent heaviness lurking on the edge of his thoughts. Eventually, he’d started taking meds to quiet the depression and keep those thoughts of irreversible solutions away, but still, over the years, it had stolen one marriage, two jobs, and any number of friends from him.
But not since that night in high school two decades earlier had the thought come to him as overpoweringly as it did today: Kill yourself, Corey. Take your life. This is something you can do right now. This very day.
5:21 a.m.
He found his way to the kitchen, put on some coffee just like he did every day, drew a hand across his head to calm his tangled mop of slightly graying hair, and ate two doughnuts and an apple whose skin was beginning to wrinkle.
His thoughts chased each other around in an ever-shrinking circle. I wonder what it would be like to be dead. To finally be free of all the hardships and struggles and disappointments of life.
Then another series of thoughts: What disappointments, Corey? Your life is not that bad!
Things at the law firm were good, his health was fine, he hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer or received any other shattering news. But still, for some reason, he found his eyes drifting around the kitchen until they landed on the wooden knife block beside the microwave on the countertop.
Yes, yes, he realized that he really did want to commit suicide, or self-murder, as it used to be so aptly called.
Self.
Murder.
It was true that two weeks ago he’d broken off a relationship with a woman whom he’d been seeing for eight months. Maybe that was causing this. Maybe some form of repressed anger or undealt-with loss was to blame, but he’d realized he wasn’t in love with her anymore, and when he told her, he’d found that, apparently, the feeling was mutual.
He’d dealt pretty well with the breakup, and as far as he knew, his ex-girlfriend was doing alright too.
However, now as he thought of it all again, it was as if part of his mind was trying to use that breakup as a justification for letting him think the final, dark things he was considering.
You can’t make a relationship work, Corey. It’s because of who you are. You can’t change who you are.
5:29 a.m.
He eyed that alluring block of knives. They were certainly sharp enough; he knew this because he’d nearly cut his finger to the bone last month while slicing a tomato for his salad.
Yes, a knife was definitely a possibility—wrists, neck, inside of his upper arm. He didn’t know what that artery in the arm was called, but it was an important one, he knew that, one that was nearly impossible to quell the bleeding of once it was slit.
Maybe.
Stop it, Corey!
His gaze traveled toward the sink.
There was bleach below it. He guessed that if he swallowed a cupful of that, it would burn through his tongue, his throat, his stomach, kill him from the inside out.
A horrible way to die, to be murdered by yourself, but still he went to the sink, pulled out the bottle, and read the warning: Harmful or fatal if swallowed! Call a physician or poison control center immediately. Do not induce vomiting. Seek advanced medical care at once!
Yes, a good long guzzle of that would do it.
What are you even doing here, Corey? This train of thought, you can’t let yourself—
But think of it, though. No more breakups or pain, no more heartache or questions or fear, not ever again.
He dialed off the cap to the bleach, but as he brought the bottle to his mouth, the sharp, acrid smell drew him up short. He couldn’t imagine that liquid inside of him, that chemical killing him in a way he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
But you don’t have any enemies, Corey. You don’t! You need to get ahold of yourself here, you need to—
He returned the bleach to its home in the cabinet but found himself unable to drive the urge away, that unsettling discomfort, that gathering of terrible thoughts coming together like a convergence of vultures inside his head.
A convergence.
Of.
Vultures.
Self-murder. Yes. You can do this. This is something you can do. Today.
There was still climbing rope in the basement from the times he’d gone out while he was in college. There was a chimney on the roof of his house. He could use that. Tie a good strong knot, loop the other end around his neck, get a running start—
Get control of yourself, Corey!
He rubbed his head, then went to the bathroom, took a shower, tugged on some clothes. He checked his e-mail just to do something normal, to think something normal, to try p
utting things back into perspective again.
But all the while, it was as if this idea of suicide had lodged in his brain and grown roots. It seemed like a temptation that he could think of fewer and fewer reasons to resist, something he didn’t simply want to avoid, but something he consciously wanted to do.
5:44 a.m.
A few years ago his psychiatrist had told him that depression was anger turned inward, but Corey knew that wasn’t right. Anger is a symptom of depression, not its cause. Anyone who’s dealt with depression can tell you that.
Depression begins with a small disappointment and spirals downward, inward, out of control, like a blackness circling in on itself, pulling in everything else around it, sucking it all in, funneling it out of sight.
Sometimes anger is your only ally, because it gives you something to feel when the rest of your life turns numb. It gives you something to fight against when you feel like giving up. More often than not, it’s when the anger dissipates, not when it arrives, that you’re in trouble.
And right now, Corey was not feeling angry, but resolute.
It’s just the depression. Fight against it.
No, you’ll lose. It runs in the family, Corey.
Like mother, like son.
Though she’d been dead nearly three decades, he could still remember the desperation he felt whenever his dad would leave on his truck routes, still hear the sound of his mother’s sharp words and the smack of her slapping the face of his older sister, still see her shuffling from the couch to the kitchen to get to a bottle. “Escape in a liquid dream,” she called it.
Often she would lock herself in her bedroom. He could hear her crying in there, sometimes for hours. He would knock on the door and call to her, “Mommy, don’t cry. It’s okay.” He was a seven-year-old, too little to know he was doing no good.
Though his older sister tried to reassure him and told him everything was going to be okay, in the end she’d been wrong. His mother didn’t find escape in a liquid dream. The nightmares that’d haunted her for so long won on the day she swallowed that handful of pills.
5:51 a.m.
Corey felt his heart race.
An inexplicable sense of urgency swept over him.
