* A standalone Psychological Thriller from USA TODAY Bestselling author Lili St. Germain*
GUN SHY
There are two thousand people living in Gun Creek, Nevada.
Only one of them knows what really happened that night.
Only one of them knows what really happened that night.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?
In the
middle of a fierce snowstorm in Gun Creek, Nevada, a teenage girl disappears
without a trace.
The second
girl in nine years.
Identical
cases. Identical conditions. Only last time, the girl was found. Dead, floating
face-down in the creek that feeds the town's water supply.
The killer
was never found.
As the
small town mobilizes and searches for newly vanished Jennifer Thomas, one
suspect comes to the fore. But did he do it? Or is there something else at
play? Something nobody could have anticipated?
For
Jennifer's friend Cassie Carlino, the worst is yet to come. As she pins MISSING
posters to store windows and joins the search, she begins to suspect that
Jennifer's disappearance might be much closer to her than she could have ever
imagined.
CASSIE
The center
of town is teeming with reporters when we arrive. The mood is somber,
self-conscious, even. Can an entire town be collectively self-conscious?
They’re shy, that’s for sure. We don’t get a whole lot of visitors in Gun
Creek. Certainly not ones who stick microphones in your face and blast you with
questions while you’re still half-asleep.
Damon
parks the patrol car right across the front doors of the police station, his
face drawn and tense. It must be a fucking nightmare, being in charge of an
entire town like this. Especially when something like this happens.
I can only
imagine how bad things are going to get at home if they don’t find this girl
soon.
“These
people are fucking vultures,” he mutters, and I make a noise signaling my
agreement. He gets out, opening my door for me.
I muster
up a plastic smile as Damon holds out my purse, the strap dangling on his
outstretched finger.
“Thanks,”
I say, taking the bag and slinging it over my shoulder. I put my oversized
dollar-store sunglasses on my face, the day already too bright for me to bear.
“You
okay?” Damon asks.
“Always,”
I reply, walking away from him before he can say anything else. I should ask
him if he’s okay, but that would mean pretending that I care.
I have
something important that I need, something immediate.
I’m an
asshole because I know I should care about the fact that a girl I’ve grown up
with is missing, but I have more pressing personal matters.
I need to
take care of myself, first. I head for the diner, fifty feet away, already late
for my shift. I push past reporters, hanging eagerly at the doors they’re
forbidden to cross. They have to hover outside in the snow for their pound of
flesh, their soundbites, their newsworthy quotes from Jennifer’s distraught
friends and family. I see Casey Mulligan, a girl I went to school with,
twirling a strand of long blonde hair around her finger as she musters up a
couple of fat tears for a news camera, and it strikes me, just like last time,
that the people who get the most attention in this world are the ones who least
deserve it.
Still, I’m
glad it’s not me. Last thing I want is a camera in my face. I slip by,
unassisted, unseen, an invisible girl with a hollow spot inside me. I notice
the crates of milk that get delivered to Dana’s every morning are still stacked
out front and I grab one as I approach, throwing my purse on top and bracing my
stomach muscles to carry the thirty-odd pounds worth of liquid weight. One of
our regulars holds the door open for me and I smile in thanks, lugging the milk
crate through the diner and toward the cold storage out back.
I’m making
my way down the main entrance, past rows of tables and customers talking
feverishly about Jennifer, my arms full of milk bottles when it happens.
I see him.
Him.
I stop.
My arms
stop functioning. I drop everything; the milk crate, my purse, my practiced
neutral expression. The purse wafts to the floor, the milk bottles hurtle down
with an unceremonious crash, and blue plastic lids burst off and go skittering
in every direction.
I sink to
my knees, in shock. People are looking at me, but I don’t pay attention to
them. I’m too busy fixated on the green-eyed ghost standing in front of me. The
splinters in my knees sting like fire-ant bites, and I curl my legs to the
side, coming to a sitting position.
“Shit!”
Leo says, dropping his backpack to the ground and crouching in front of me.
“Cass. Cassie. Are you okay?”
My entire
body is alight, little pinpricks along my skin that make me dizzy. The feeling
spreads like wildfire, across my chest and through my limbs until I’m
overwhelmed and frozen on the spot, sitting on my ass in the middle of the
diner, voices and whispers all around.
I watch in
fascination as milk spreads in a puddle in front of me, like spilled blood. It
rushes at me like a miniature tsunami as a painful buzz begins in my head.
“You’re
gonna pass out,” Leo says, his words sounding far away as he reaches out a hand
to help me up. “Jesus, Cassie, you’re white as a sheet.”
I hold my
hand out, the conviction in my reach laughable, and it’s like that moment of
electricity that people talk about. I can feel it build in my fingertips, that
arc of some invisible thing that wants to join with his invisible thing, but
then a hand wraps around my wrist and yanks my arm away before I can make
contact with the boy — no, with the man — I thought was still in prison.
“Did he
hurt you?” Damon’s voice in my ear breaks my dream-like state. I open my mouth
to say something and decide against it, swallowing air instead. I shake my
head.
“How’d you
get on the ground?” Damon asks, shaking me a little.
“She fell
down,” Leo says, his arm no longer outstretched. He takes a step away from me,
and Jesus, it hurts. He looks anguished. “She dropped the milk and she fell
down.” I can’t stop looking at him. I can’t bear to look at him.
The milk
has reached me. It seeps across my right knee, curled underneath me; the backs
of my thighs, my palms. It’s ice cold, and I can feel myself shaking.
Damon is
crouched next to me, his hand on my cheek, diverting my attention to him.
“Are you
all right, Cassie?” he asks, helping me to my feet, his tone gathering more
urgency with each question I don’t answer. Amanda is picking up the milk
bottles beside us, piling them high in her arms as I continue to stare at Leo.
He’s…
different. He has tattoos now. He looks exactly the same but entirely
reconstructed. He’s eight years older, I realize. A third of his life, gone. A
third of mine. It feels like it’s been forever. It feels like it’s been no time
at all.
Deputy
Chris appears, looking between me and Leo with uncertainty. Why didn’t anyone
tell me? How the hell did Leo just materialize from thin air in the Grill?
“Cassie,”
Damon snaps, and I know he means business.
I nod.
“I’m fine. I’m okay.” I think of where I was going before I saw fucking Leo.
Pills. Purge. “I need a minute.”
“I’ll take
you home,” Damon says, his hand on the small of my back as he starts to guide
me toward the front doors. I panic, pushing him away.
“You have
a missing girl to find,” I say quickly. “I’m fine, really. I just need some
aspirin.” And a fucking gun, so I can put myself out of my misery.
“I’ll walk
you there,” Damon says, ever the hero. If they only knew, I think to myself, as
Amanda opens the staff room door and ushers us inside.
“Give us a
minute,” Damon says, giving Amanda a concerned look. She nods, closing the door
and waiting out in the hallway as Damon closes the blinds and twists the lock
on the door.
“Didn’t
think he’d have the balls to show his face in public,” Damon says, and that’s
when I understand.
I feel the
blood drain from my cheeks as I realize. He knew. He knew Leo would be here
today. I ask him with my eyes, searching, imploring. His expression tells me
everything.
“You could
have warned me,” I whisper.
His eyes
narrow. “I considered it. Figured it was better you didn’t know in advance.” He
pauses. “Didn’t expect you to fall to your knees in front of him.”
“Fuck
you,” I seethe.
Damon’s
jaw twitches. “I’m sorry,” he offers, almost as if he’s suggesting an apology
rather than delivering one.
I reach
for the lock, twisting it and cracking the door open. The temporary quiet we’ve
had is pierced by the excited noise of a diner who’s just witnessed the tragic
reunion of two star-crossed lovers, or maybe they’re all just gossiping about
the missing girl.
“Jennifer,”
I hiss at Damon. One word. It works. He shakes his head, his blue eyes fucking
burning with anger, but he leaves.
Holy shit.
As soon as he’s gone, I close the door again. I don’t bother locking it — who’s
going to find me in here? Leo’s long gone if he’s got any sense, and as much as
I don’t care about anything, the thought of Amanda having to mop up the milk I
spilled makes me so fucking guilty I can barely breathe.
Pills.
Purge. Yes.
I go into
the staff bathroom, a small tiled square off the main staff room, and start to
throw up as soon as the door is closed. I don’t even need to stick my finger
down my throat — I’m so full of adrenaline from seeing Leo, I just open my
mouth and everything comes out. It’s the kind of vomit that gets in your nose
and burns behind your eyes and makes you cry with the way it chokes you.
When I’ve
emptied my stomach and I stop gagging, I clean myself up, my head feeling like
it might split in two. I’m so hot I think I might burst into flames. I take off
my cardigan, my fingers clumsy and damp, and use it to wipe my face.
Pills.
Yes. I go back out to the staff room, seeking whatever pharmaceutical bliss I
can rummage up from my staff locker. I didn’t switch the overhead lights on
when I first came in, and the windowless cave is dim, the only illumination
coming from the slightly ajar bathroom door and the fluorescent strips that
line its ceiling.
The staff
room is empty. Except… it’s not.
Leo. He’s
here. Somehow, the only person here with me is the one person I shouldn’t be
anywhere near.
He looks
at me with eyes that have seen violence since I last gazed into them. I know
because I recognize the hardness inside his soul; it matches mine.
My face is
a blank canvas, but inside I’m screaming.
Not with
fear. With longing. And shame. I want the boy who destroyed everything to pick
me up and take me into the bathroom and put his hands all over me. I want him
to erase every trace of the last decade. Under my shirt, my nipples stiffen,
and shame pools in my belly.
I
shouldn’t want to be anywhere near this boy after what he did, but I do.
“I’m
sorry,” Leo says. His voice. Oh, God. I don’t remember his voice being that
fucking beautiful. It’s deep and full and if it were a food, it’d be honey.
He’s not a boy anymore. He’s a man now. A stranger.
His face
falls as he gestures to my stomach, concerned. “You have blood on your shirt,”
he says, pointing from a safe distance. “Did you cut yourself when you fell?”
He looks remorseful. Like he thinks the blood on my shirt is his fault.
My heart
sinks. I shake my head tightly, tears springing to my eyes.
“Not my
blood,” I say, my voice coming out like a squeak. Leo looks confused.
“The dog,”
I stammer. “Rox. She — she—”
“I saw her
yesterday,” Leo says, his eyes wide as he looks from my eyes to the blood on my
shirt. I didn’t even realize it was there. I’d been wearing my sweater until I
took it off just now.
“She’s
dead,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Leo takes
a step back. Something passes over his face, a darkness, a fleeting suspicion.
“How?” he asks.
I don’t
know how to answer that. So I don’t. I push past him and start walking to the
kitchen, as fast as I can, because I don’t have an answer for him. My shoulder
burns from where I grazed his arm on the way out of the staff room. He might
have ruined my life, destroyed my family, taken my future in one careless night
— but Leo Bentley still makes me burn like hellfire.
Lili
writes dark, delicious romance full of love, lust and revenge. Her USA Today
Bestselling Gypsy Brothers series focuses on a morally bankrupt biker gang and
the young woman who seeks her vengeance upon them. The Cartel series is a
trilogy that explores the beginnings of the club, published through
HarperCollins.
Lili quit
corporate life to focus on writing and so far is loving every minute of it. Her
other loves in life include her gorgeous husband and beautiful daughter,
excellent coffee, Tarantino movies and spending hours on Instagram.
She loves
to read almost as much as she loves to write.
Connect
with Lili
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