Fatal Option Read online

  Advance Praise for Fatal Option

  “A sharp, intelligent thriller…there's no easy way out, and fate isn't always kind. Really top notch.”

  –Neely Tucker, author of Only the Hunted Run

  “A wintry tale of violence and redemption, artfully balanced by a touching portrayal of a family in crisis.”

  –Peter Swanson, author of The Kind Worth Killing

  “A story about the devastating moral consequences of a dangerous choice. Relentlessly suspenseful, with brisk pacing and intrigue on every page.”

  –NORB VONNEGUT, bestselling author of Top Producer and The Trust

  “Emotionally visceral. The violence and action sequences really gripped me and I loved the strength of the teenage girl, Sara. I loved the ending too. What subtlety! There’s a sense of the world restored but not quite. Not sugar-coated and not expected either. Completely real.”

  –JORDAN DANE, bestselling author and recipient

  of Publishers Weekly Best Book and Readers Choice Awards

  “Fatal Option grabs you from the first page as a complex tale about a family in crisis and murder. Plan to stay up late.”

  –KATHLEEN ANTRIM, Co-President,

  International Thriller Writers and author of Capital Offense

  Praise for Double Abduction

  “With a child in jeopardy, a suspect with secrets, and a killer watching every move, Double Abduction, by new author Chris Beakey, has it all in a fast-paced thriller.”

  –ROBERT K. TANENBAUM, New York Times bestselling author

  “A living nightmare that will be hard for readers to shake off.”

  –PETER BLAUNER, Edgar Award winner

  “If you’re looking for a fast, smart thriller, with an intricate plot and an interesting cast of troubled, all-too-human characters, you can’t go wrong with Chris Beakey’s clever debut novel, Double Abduction. It’s a tense, emotionally charged book, with strong visual imagery and a lot of imagination, and the surprises just keep on coming.”

  –BART YATES, Alex Award winner and author of

  The Brothers Bishop and Leave Myself Behind

  A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

  Published at Smashwords

  Fatal Option

  © 2017 by Chris Beakey

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-68261-154-8

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-155-5

  Cover Design by Christian Bentulan

  Interior Design and Composition by Greg Johnson/Textbook Perfect

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Post Hill Press

  Posthillpress.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Part One: The Day Before

  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

  Part Two

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Three

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part Four

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Saturday: One Week Later

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A few years ago I drove down a winding road through a dense forest on a cold winter night. The darkness had come unexpectedly early, and with it a sudden drop in temperatures and a patch of black ice that sent me into a skid when I took a curve just a bit too fast. For an instant—as the back end of my Jeep went into a terrifying sideways slide—I was certain that my life was going to end in a violent smashup of glass and metal and old-growth trees.

  Thanks to the absence of oncoming traffic and just enough roadway I spun around and stopped without hitting anything. Yet it only took a moment to imagine something worse than my own death, coupled with circumstances that would have turned me into a pariah for the rest of my life.

  That’s where this began, as a story about a man who does a very bad thing for very good reasons. It took many, many more drives down that dark and winding road to get the story right. Fortunately, I was blessed with good friends and guidance at every turn; first from Deb Rohmann, my first fan, who reads hundreds of thrillers a year, and always with a keen eye that’s yielded plenty of lessons for me. Second, through bestselling writers who offered advice and praise. Third, with support from Michael Weider and the rest of my family, who expected me to hold the knife to my own jugular every time I sat down to write.

  Now that the journey’s over I welcome conversation with readers who want to share their feelings, observations, and perhaps even a moral slap on the hand if the notion strikes them. That’s what I’m expecting, because of the choices I’ve made in telling this story as it is.

  You can find me online in all of the usual places, where I’ll welcome comments and conversation about what’s happened here.

  The blizzard winds hit the bedroom windows with brute-force, the wump sounds registering in the recesses of Stephen Porter’s mind as he hugged the extra pillow and yearned for a blackout sleep to take the sad night away. His arms and legs were heavy, his sinuses swollen from the emotions that had struck the moment he had climbed into bed. From downstairs he heard the chimes of the grandfather clock—a lonely sound resonating through the sparsely furnished rooms of his sprawling suburban house.

  Wump

  The windows shuddered again as he slipped into a deeper doze. He sensed a vague threat in the sound—a notion the glass might break as it persisted—

  WumpWUMP

  —louder now, nudging its way into the dream-space between wakefulness and sleep, still a part of the physical world of his bedroom and his house…but with a reverberation of the past.

  No, he thought.

  Not again—

  Not tonight—

  He tightened his hold on the pillow, as if it would slow the backsliding feeling; tried to move against the solid weight on his chest as the sound and the memories took him back to another kind of storm, with gusting winds and thunder and lightning shattering the heat of an August day. Back to the rapid-fire deluge of rain on the roof. And the sight of it overflowing the gutters and pooling in the streets. And the conversation at the front door, riddled with assurances that did not ring true.

  “It’s 8 o’clock.”

  “But I have to go—”

  “It’s not safe
—”

  The voices had a tinny, ethereal tone, and gave way to images triggered by both certainties and imaginings of what must have been:

  The Lexus, silver-gray in the steely downpour, backing up and driving away.

  The rain obscuring visibility as it traveled from the neighborhood streets to the highway and then toward the mountain to the north.

  The Lexus moving too quickly for the weather or the narrow road as it climbed, up and up toward the mountain’s highest perch.

  The Bluetooth ringing, the calls ignored as the speedometer needle swept higher, and higher—

  50

  60

  70

  “STOP!”

  He felt a jolt in his neck as his eyes flew open, the sound of his voice—either imagined or spoken—still echoing through his mind as he sat up—

  And heard the ringing phone, a dislocated sound amid the nightmare images still flickering through his mind as he looked at the clock:

  12:13

  He rubbed his eyes as the room began a slow turn around him, and listened as the next ring was interrupted by the click of the answering machine kicking in with his own recorded voice:

  “You’ve reached the Porters. We’re not here right now—”

  His temples throbbed as he reached for the receiver, and knocked it to the floor.

  He groaned as he picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  He heard nothing in response. The connection had broken. He thought of his son, Kenneth, soundly asleep in his room down the hall, and his daughter, Sara, at her friend Madison’s house, just four blocks away.

  Nothing to worry about. He sucked in a deep breath, willing his mind to calm. Everybody’s okay.

  He gazed at the empty space beside him as the phone rang again.

  There was a mild tremor in his hand as he answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Daddy…”

  The line filled with static as the windows shuddered from another gust of wind.

  “Sara?” He pressed the phone against his ear and spoke louder. “I can barely hear you.”

  “Something happened—”

  There were several seconds of silence before her voice came through again.

  “—scared. I don’t know how—”

  He heard a dial tone. His heartbeat quickened as he turned on the bedside lamp. His cell phone was on the dresser, plugged into the charger. He scrolled to Sara’s number, and went straight into her voice mail.

  The landline rang again. He snatched it up.

  “Sara, what’s wrong?”

  He heard more static. “The Jeep won’t start—I’m stranded. Can you come pick me up?”

  Stranded? The word hit him wrong. He remembered she had driven to Madison Reidy’s house; remembered cautioning her about the icy roads. But if she had had car trouble it would have taken no more than five minutes to walk back home.

  “Is Madison with you?”

  Sara sniffled. “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I’m somewhere else. I really need to get out of here.”

  “Where’s Madison? Where’s her mom?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not with them.” She paused, and took a deep, audible breath, as if mustering her composure. “I’m really sorry daddy—”

  And then she started crying—with hard sobs that made it sound as if she was struggling to catch her breath.

  Stephen pressed the phone harder against his ear as he opened the bedside table drawer and scrambled for a pen.

  “Sara, tell me where you are. What’s the address?”

  “I’m…at a house, with a boy from school. It’s 4334 Rolling Road. Off 15 North. Up on the mountain. Can you please hurry?”

  And then they were cut off again.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to process what he had just heard. Sara was not with her friend Madison. She had lied to him about where she was going. And now she was stranded, at a house on the mountain.

  On Rolling Road

  Images from the nightmare rushed back—with memories of that same narrow, two-lane roadway, hemmed in on both sides by towering trees, undoubtedly coated with snow and ice—

  “Hell,” he whispered, his heart racing as he reached for his jeans and pulled on a heavy corduroy shirt. On the table next to the bed was an empty glass, a reminder of the last shot of straight bourbon; one on top of way too many before. He remembered sitting alone and sipping it slowly, doing his best to blot out the sadness that had followed him up to his room.

  It had been less than an hour since that last drink and he knew it was still coursing through his system as he went into the adjoining den where he kept his computer. He turned on the overhead light—a bright white flash that sharpened the pain at his temples—went to Google, and typed in the address.

  A map came up. He recognized the arc of Route 70 and the bisecting line of Route 15, and then the turnoff to Rolling Road, a zigzagging thoroughfare that led up to the top of the mountain.

  The address Sara had given him—4334—was marked by a green arrow on the screen. He stared at it for a long moment, wondering how tonight—of all nights—she had found her way there.

  And then he got moving, returning to the bedroom, where he pulled a pair of woolen socks from the drawer and took a wintergreen Life Saver from the bedside table, the taste reminding him of the antacids that he had been downing almost every day. A wave of nausea made him gag as he moved out to the hall and down the curved stairway. Into the foyer with its green marble floor. Through the kitchen of granite and steel. Into the two-story family room, where the air had grown chilly in the deepening night.

  He scribbled a note—GONE TO RESCUE YOUR SISTER IN THE SNOW—on the family message board on the extremely unlikely chance that Kenneth would wake up and come downstairs before they got back, then grabbed his barn coat from the mudroom and stepped into the garage.

  Harsh overhead lights flickered on as he pushed the button for the automatic door. It rose a few feet and came to a squealing stop halfway up. He cursed and hit the button again. Like every other upgrade in the new house, the mechanized door had been installed by the builder. It had been on Stephen’s mental list of things that needed to be fixed for over a month but he still hadn’t found the time.

  A gust of wind blew a spray of snow into the garage as the door finally rose all the way. He took the shovel from its hook on the wall and moaned, “Good God Sara, you’re gonna kill me,” and stepped out into the brutally cold air to clear a path from the driveway to the street.

  He was panting and sweating when he finished, his vision vibrating as he reached for the handle of the driver’s side door.

  You drank too much, he thought. Shouldn’t drive.

  He swung the door open anyway, dropped heavily into the seat of the Ford Explorer and turned on the ignition, then backed slowly down the sloped driveway and tapped the brake, which sent the car into a sideways skid before stopping at an angle just before the sidewalk.

  It’s a blizzard.

  Nausea crept up the back of his throat.

  Probably even worse, at the top of that mountain.

  He sat for several seconds before another option came to mind, then reached into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet, wincing at the dull twinge of pain that the shoveling had brought to his lower back. He turned on the Explorer’s overhead light and sifted through the unorganized jumble of credit and business cards until he found the worn membership certificate for AAA. The print was small, blurry in his vision, readable only when he squinted.

  He tapped the number into his phone and cleared his throat as he looked out at the snowbound night. There were five other houses on the street, all equally grand and new, and all lived in, Stephen expected, by middle management executives who had migrated
to the outermost suburbs in the quest for bigger houses, better schools, and safe distance from urban problems. After five months he still knew his neighbors solely by sight since most, like himself, left by 7 a.m. and returned after dark as a result of monstrous commutes to work.

  He felt a twinge of loneliness as his gaze came back to his own house, and as he thought of the all the empty rooms inside.

  The operator from AAA sounded harried when she finally answered and he had the feeling she was only half-listening as he told her about the disabled Jeep and gave her the address Sara had called from. There wasn’t a trace of give in her voice when she told him there was absolutely no chance of getting it towed any time soon.

  His offer to pay a premium was answered with a weary sigh.

  “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do. We have three tow truck operators in your area and all are backed up with calls because of the storm.”

  Stephen cleared his throat, conscious of the tightness of his grip on the phone.

  “Look, I’m really worried. My daughter’s only seventeen. She was very upset when she called me. She was crying—scared. I think she’s in trouble.”

  “Then maybe you need to call the police.”

  He shook his head. The idea of cops going to Sara’s rescue made him even more uneasy. He wanted to believe her crying was an overreaction, perhaps to the heavy snow and the lateness of the hour and the fear that she was going to be in trouble for lying to him.

  “You have to help her,” he said.

  The dispatcher hung up.

  “Shit!” He punched his fist against the seat as a hard gust of wind hit the Explorer, blowing the snow sideways and nearly obscuring the sight of the house at the top of the long driveway. He narrowed his eyes, saw a double image of the gauges on the dashboard, and swallowed back the sickly-sweet blend of wintergreen and the lingering taste of alcohol in his mouth; the sensations hitting him like a warning, urging him to heed the dispatcher’s advice.