Ultimate Crime Thriller Bundle

DARK LIES:

The Killing meets Dublin Murder Squad in this addictive, atmospheric new crime thriller.

At age 39, Logan Cooper’s hard-earned detective career is hanging on by a mere thread. A shocking new case brings his past careening into the present.

Becca was the girl everyone wanted but no one could have—no one but him. They’d loved each other. Her suicide at age 18 broke Logan. The heartache never fully healed. But nothing could have prepared him for the shock of what came next.

Relax, this won’t be so bad.
After all, this isn’t the first time you’ve died.

Reluctantly paired with his new partner, Detective Reggie Hawkins, Logan sets off to unravel the mystery of the woman who died twice. The woman he loved. The detectives are led down a twisty trail brimming with secrets. As evidence in the case begins to fall into place, Detective Cooper is suddenly left questioning his own sanity. The impossible seems possible and everything becomes more twisted than ever.

CRUEL IRONY:

If karma doesn’t get you, someone else will.

Three bodies. One secret that changes everything.

Judge Emmet’s climb up the professional ladder was fast, but his fall was even faster. The brutal murder of the local judge sends shockwaves throughout the community. Detectives Logan Cooper and Reggie Hawkins are on the case. Evidence leads them on a chase full of pulse pounding twists and turns. As the body count climbs, the detectives are under increased scrutiny from the higher-ups. They’re desperate to find the killer. The truth they uncover is deeper and more shocking than anyone could have imagined.

Double Edged:

How do you fix reality when you can’t find the thread that holds you to it?

How do you heal an ache that’s so deep it nearly cuts you in half?

How do you catch killers when they seem to vanish into thin air?

Detective Logan Cooper has monsters to catch, but first, he has to outrun his own demons.

Prologue:

His will be the last face I see.

The monster in sheep's clothing. A true predator. 

I went through all the stages of grief. Whizzed through them in record time. All those times I wondered what it would feel like to sit across from a stone-faced doctor and have him give you the news. It's cancer. Terminal cancer. Only I got the shortened, drive-thru version of that scenario. No cancer. Just assured death. No 'get your affairs in order'. No 'we'll support and comfort you'. Just straight to a nightmare end. 

Denial lasted all of a minute. He used handcuffs, the good ones. None of those playful, fuzzy ones lovers used in a sexy game of submission. I yanked so hard, my arm popped free of my shoulder. The skin peeled away from my hand. Like a glove, I thought. Hadn't there been a book like that, where the person freed themselves from a handcuff by peeling off their skin? Or was I thinking about that story with the guy who'd cut off his arm to save his life? That took far longer than the fifteen minutes I had before water seeped in around me. That ended denial. It was happening. Death was going to meet me at the other end no matter how hard I tried. 

Isolation came next but that was easy. I was alone in the car. The monster stayed on shore, lingering to watch as I drowned. I was absurdly glad his features, his evil smirk were muted by the surrounding night. 

Frigid, slimy water rolls over the tops of the open windows. It pools around my feet, around my flip-flops. They'd find me in flip-flops. Should have worn better shoes. The funny things you think of when it's all going to shit. 

Anger. That was a given. I screamed at him through the half-open windows. Hollow threats that they would get him. That he would be brought to justice. He is smart. True evil requires brains. Bargaining came next but it was fleeting. I begged for my life only long enough to realize that a murderer's version of orgasm was hearing their victim plead. What was a horrific murder without a little begging? 

Will it be called horrific? Will anyone miss me? Have I pissed off enough people to produce a few 'how tragic' comments murmured behind fake tears? 

Cold water pools around my ankles. It's only water but it looks murky and menacing. I swallow and taste the rusty, decaying scent of the water. By morning, the sun will heat the surface of the lake. Boys will come fishing with their dads. Young lovers will tease each other to distraction during a mid-day swim. Birds and squirrels will land on the beach to take sips of the cool water. The water has a musty smell. It reminds me of swimming with friends in the pond behind our house. My hair would smell of moss for a week. 'Becca, you smell like sewage,' Dad would say. He was always a fucker. 

Depression came with its own story. It seems the myth is true. Your life passes before your eyes when you face certain death. Once the true darkness sank in, I was suddenly that girl again, in my small, pathetic hometown. The girl everyone wanted but no one could have. My friends were so envious of my popularity. No one ever asked me if I wanted it. If someone had given me the choice between having my pick of the boys in town or an entirely different family, I wouldn't have thought twice. It would have been the family every time. 

My free hand drags through the water as if I am checking the temperature of bathwater. I am going to miss bubble baths. Maybe most of all. The thin scribble of ink, a tattoo from my teens, is illuminated by the streaks of moonlight. They teased me as the girl no one could have, but there had been someone. Just one. No one knew. I hid the tattoo under a watch. 

The tattoo takes me back again. I can't seem to stay out of my past. Is this part of it all? Part of dying? 

I'm sitting in my dad's big armchair. It smells of his stale cigarettes and the general stench of my hateful old man. Any other day, I never would have sat there. Any other day, he would have yanked me by the arms and thrown me across the room. But that day, the day of my grandmother's funeral, I stared at him as I sat in it, letting him know I was going to sit in his chair and that was that. Nonna was the only person I cared about, the only anchor in my life, and when she died, I was lost, alone. Neighbors and friends floated in and out of the house bringing coffee cakes and casseroles, none of them staying long. They all loved my grandmother. They spent hours quilting and baking and having coffee with her. My parents were better in very small doses, if at all. Through the haze of my grief, I kept staring at Greta Harvey's glasses. They were crooked, leaning severely to the right. I stared at her tilted glasses as she carried a pot of beef stew into the kitchen, as she leaned over to give my mother a stiff hug. I stared at them as she bent down to touch my cheek, her own ample cheeks rolling up into a sympathetic smile. I sat on my hands to keep myself from reaching up and straightening out those damn glasses. The funny things you think about when it's all going to shit.

The water reaches my knees. My feet are numb from the cold. Blood trickles from my torn up wrist, the wrist that is going to be the cause of my death. In tenth grade, Samuel Peters grabbed my wrist. He told me it was so small he could break it into a million pieces with a good squeeze. I dared him to do it. That was me. Not the girl who yanked her wrist free to give him the slap he deserved. I was the girl who dared him to do it. If only Samuel were here now, crushing my wrist so that I could fold my hand and pull it free from my shackle. 

I stare down at my thighs. The blood is mixing with the clammy water. The sliver of moon somehow manages to find me in my watery grave, to illuminate my imminent death. Summer shorts. I am going to die in my denim cutoffs. It is exactly what I would choose to wear if someone told me, 'you're going to die today, choose your wardrobe wisely'. I would have skipped the flip-flops. The funny things you think of when it's all going to shit. 

The water level reaches my belly button. Why is it taking the car so long to sink? Aren't cars impossibly heavy? My heartbeat races as some of the earlier rage reappears. What a bastard. What a goddamn bastard. His image is only a silhouette now, a familiar silhouette. His elbows stick out as his hands casually rest in his pockets as if he is just somebody's dad or thoughtful boyfriend, out for an evening stroll, out to watch the stars peel out of the darkness. The only thing missing is the cup of coffee in his hand. 

The car is filling faster now. Water weight brings it to the bottom of the lake. How deep is it? Will they find me? I hope they don't. I prefer to spend eternity with the fish in the lake. I imagine them using the car as a reef, a coral reef. Did that only happen in salt water? Why didn't he drown me in the ocean where I could become part of a coral reef? The funny things you think of when it's all going to shit. 

I stretch my neck as long as it will go. A bit of denial comes back to tease me, then acceptance washes over me again. Just like the cold, slimy water that has nearly filled the cab. A moment of terror seizes me as I think about what it will be like to have that same slick, mossy water fill my throat, my lungs, my body. Then I remind myself—relax, this won't be so bad. 

After all, this isn't the first time you've died.

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