Annabel Lee (Coffey & Hill Book #1) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Mike Nappa

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187 pages

English

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Description

Fourteen miles east of Peachtree, Alabama, a secret is hidden. That secret's name is Annabel Lee Truckson, and even she doesn't know why her mysterious uncle has stowed her deep underground in a military-style bunker. He's left her with a few German words, a barely-controlled guard dog, and a single command: "Don't open that door for anybody, you got it? Not even me."Above ground, a former Army sniper called The Mute and an enigmatic "Dr. Smith" know about the girl. As the race begins to find her, the tension builds. Who wants to set her free? Why does the other want to keep her captive forever? Who will reach her first?Private investigators Trudi Coffey and Samuel Hill need to piece together the clues and stay alive long enough to retrieve the girl--before it's too late.With its stunning writing and relentless pace, Annabel Lee will captivate readers from the first page.

Sujets

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	23 février 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493401758
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2016 by Nappaland Communications
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2016
Ebook corrections 09.23.2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0175-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
This book is published in association with Nappaland Literary Agency, an independent agency dedicated to publishing works that are: Authentic. Relevant. Eternal. Visit us on the web at: NappalandLiterary.com .
Endorsements
“Mike Nappa’s Annabel Lee is a fast-paced thriller, filled with unexpected twists and peopled by unique and memorable characters. From the first chapter on, I found it impossible to put down.”
—Lois Duncan, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master and New York Times bestselling author of I Know What You Did Last Summer and Killing Mr. Griffin
“ Annabel Lee is compelling, fast-paced, and filled with fascinating characters. One hopes that Mike Nappa’s eleven-year-old wunderkind from the title will reappear in future novels of this promising new suspense series!”
—M.K. Preston, Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning novelist, author of Song of the Bones and Perhaps She’ll Die
“A relentless surge of suspense and mounting tension coupled with an engaging mix of characters. With Annabel Lee , Mike Nappa skillfully sets the stage for an irresistible series of Coffey & Hill thrillers.”
—Jack Cavanaugh, award-winning author of twenty-six novels
Dedication
For Ja n Hummel who makes things happen!
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Endorsements
Dedication
Epigraph
1. Annabel
2. Trudi
3. The Mute
4. Annabel
5. The Mute
6. Annabel
7. Trudi
8. Annabel
9. Trudi
10. Annabel
11. The Mute
12. Trudi
13. Annabel
14. Trudi
15. Trudi
16. The Mute
17. Trudi
18. Annabel
19. Annabel
20. The Mute
21. Annabel
22. Trudi
23. The Mute
24. Trudi
25. The Mute
26. Trudi
27. Annabel
28. Trudi
29. Annabel
30. Trudi
31. The Mute
32. Annabel
33. Trudi
34. Annabel
35. Trudi
36. Annabel
37. The Mute
38. Trudi
39. Trudi
40. Annabel
41. Trudi
42. The Mute
43. Annabel
44. Trudi
45. Trudi
Epilogue: The Mute
Excerpt from the Next Novel in the Series
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Ad
Back Cover
Epigraph
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee . . .
—E DGAR A LLAN P OE
1 Annabel
Date Unknown
Uncle Truck keeps a German shepherd on his farm that’ll eat human fingers if you feed ’em to it just right.
I know this because I have seen that dog. And I have seen them fingers.
Truck keeps the dog—house and all—in a chain link cage out behind the big red barn on the property, just down from the winding, dirt-road driveway. The cage ain’t very big, but it’s long and narrow like a practice track, and it gives the dog a place to run. Except when the dog gets to the end. Then it has to almost stop and put its paws up on the corner of the fence so’s it can turn around quickly inside that small space.
Sometimes I think that dog is crazy, runnin’ up and down that grass-patched cage. Runnin’ like no one is looking. Like it’s got to run or else, well, or else it’ll go crazy. It ain’t the barking kind of dog, though.
I mean, isn’t . Isn’t the barking kind of dog.
I am an educated girl. I don’t use words like ain’t , not no more. Not anymore.
I’m not school-educated, no. Uncle Truck says that’s a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. But he also says he won’t have no stupids in his house neither. That’s why I got books all over this place. Any kind of book I want, Truck’ll get for me. He says that’s my education and I better make the most of it. I don’t mind, though. I like books. I like reading. I like that Truck makes time for me to read each and every day of the week, no matter what. I like that at least twice a week—and sometimes more—Truck pulls a language book off the shelf and drills me on German verbs or Arabic phrases or Italian fairy tales or whatever. I like knowing there’s something else out there to discover beyond just the acres of this farm, outside the closed-up community of Peachtree, Alabama. And I like it when Truck says I’m real good at learning and a “supernatural” at picking up different languages.
What I don’t like is that dog.
It don’t bark at me, not ever. But it growls. I can almost feel the rumbling in its throat before I hear it with my ears. Whenever the dog sees me, the growling starts. Sometimes Truck’ll tell it to shut-up-mutt and swat it across the nose. But most times Uncle Truck don’t even hear it. Most times it’s just the dog and me, even when Truck or one of his farmhands is there.
The dog looks me dead in the eye. Never wags its tail. Never moves off its haunches. Just looks at me and growls, low, deep, and regular. It reminds me of some story out of a fairy tale, except the magic here is real, and bad. Like that dog was once an evil warlock vanquished by a handsome prince, and as his punishment, he was transformed forever into a dog that eats fingers and lives in a cage. Something like that.
I make my hands into fists whenever I have to be near that dog.
I asked Truck once why he fed fingers to the dog. He looked at first like he was gonna laugh. Then he got a serious layer onto his face.
“Just testing the limits,” he said. “Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Annie-girl.”
“But where’d the fingers come from?” I wanted to know.
Uncle Truck didn’t answer.
Kenny, one of Truck’s oldest hands on the farm, told me later that the fingers came from a medical research facility in Tuscaloosa, that they was from cadavers dedicated to science and that one of Truck’s old army buddies got ’em while he was working out there as a lab assistant after the second Iraq war. Kenny said Uncle Truck knows people all over Alabama, all over the world. And because of that, Truck can’t talk about everything he does or everyone he knows to a little girl with a big imagination. But Kenny said he only knew Truck and Peachtree, AL, so he could talk to whoever he wanted whenever he wanted, and that included me.
I like Kenny. But I worry about him sometimes. Even I know it ain’t— isn’t —good to let your mouth run off too much. Truck says that’s what killed my parents. I think he may be right.
Peachtree ain’t but a fourteen-mile drive from our acreage on the edges of the Conecuh National Forest, so that’s where we go to get most of our supplies and to find out the gossip of the world. I saw a man once, down at Kelly Supply store in Peachtree, who had two fingers missing from his left hand. His pinky and his ring finger both was gone down to the nub. Truck was over in the leather section looking at a saddle, so I took a chance.
“What happened to your fingers, mister?” I asked the man.
He looked down, grinning. “Well, aren’t you a cutie,” he said.
I find grown-ups like that annoying.
I got long brown hair, just enough curl to make it nice, I guess. I got green eyes and a lean, horse-riding frame that older women tell me is gonna turn into a “man-killa” someday, whatever that means. I wear boots most days and a dress on Sundays. But I didn’t ask this man to judge whether or not I was cute. I asked about his messed-up hand. Seems disrespectful not to answer a person’s question when it’s asked straight on at you, so I tried again, pointing at his nubs for emphasis.
“What happened to your fingers?”
This time he raised his hand and looked at it like it was the first time he’d seen he was missing something there.
“Lost ’em when I was about your age,” he said. “Stuck ’em under a lawnmower by accident.”
“Did you feed ’em to a dog after?”
He cocked his head like he wanted to tell a secret but wasn’t sure if I knew it already. I decided not to make him spill something private, so I changed the subject.
“How you gonna get married without having a finger to hold the ring?”
He laughed at the question. “I guess that’s a problem,” he said, patting his belly, “but first I gotta find me a woman who don’t mind that her man eats too much and exercises too little.”
I seen Uncle Truck comin’ over then. I figured it was time to wrap up.
“Bye, mister,” I said. “Good luck finding your woman.”
“Thanks,” he said. Then he followed my gaze and saw Truck was headed our way. His whole manner changed. His eyes darted all over, looking for exits, and his back stiffened like he wanted to run. He didn’t wait around. He turned and walked the opposite direction, around a display of feed grain and then out the door of Kelly Supply. A minute later Truck was standing next to me, looking after the eight-fingered man.
“Who was that?” he said to me.
I shrugged. “Just some man.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Nothing,” I lied. But I was thinking about Truck’s dog.
“Good,” Uncle Truck said to me. “Come on, I need to get some rope before we go.”
Unlike that eight-fingered man, most people in Peachtree greet Uncle Truck like he’s their best friend. Wherever he goes, they call out his name, clap him on the back, and tell stories about off-the-wall adventures. But when Truck ain’t looking, I see them sometimes show a little something they don’t want him to see. They get this wary gleam in their eyes and fidget around a bit like they’s in a spotlight and can’t wait to get out of it again.
Afraid.
Makes sense to me.
Truck gets good deals on stuff wherever he goes. The man at Kell