Long Gone
Authors: Marliss Melton,Janie Hawkins
LONG GONE
________________________
MARLISS MELTON
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This book is a work of fiction and is a product of the author’s imagination or is used fictitiously. Names, characters, places and incidents in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone, living or dead, bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual, known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention from the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
©James-York Press, P. O. Box 141, Williamsburg, VA 23187
All rights reserved.
First James-York Press electronic edition: October 2012
Edited by Sydney Baily-Gould and Rachel Fontana
Cover Design by Wicked Smart Designs.
ISBN-10:
1938732057 (
digital)
ISBN-13: 978-1-938732-05-
8 (
digital)
ISBN: 10: 1938732065 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-938732-06-5 (paperback)
FOREWORD
The characters and premise for this novella were born out of my Nov. 2008 release, TOO FAR GONE. At the end of that book
Skyler
and Drake were separated, their blossoming relationship cut off prematurely with
Skyler’s
departure into witness protection. Readers have often asked me whatever happened to this couple. Read LONG GONE and you’ll find out!
Prologue
Stepping out of the employee elevator,
Skyler
hurried down the hotel corridor toward the housekeeping cart being pushed by her colleague,
Jamila
. The Sea Dip Hotel stood nearly empty on this weekday morning with scant guests visiting the ocean so late in the season.
At the sound of her approach,
Jamila
glanced back, slowing the cart to wait for her. “Caroline!” Her face reflected surprise. “What are you
doin
’ here, girl? I thought you were off today.”
“I was off,”
Sklyer
conceded, catching her breath and tying the loose string on her apron. “But Nadia called this morning to say she wasn’t feeling well, and she talked me into taking her shift.”
“Shoot, she
ain’t
sick.”
Jamila
rolled her eyes. “You know she just drank to
o
much last night, right? You shouldn’t let her use you like that.”
“I know, but I need the money.”
Jamila
ran an assessing gaze over
Skyler’s
petite figure. “What’s a classy girl like you doing
workin
’ in a place like this, anyway? You should be
sellin
’ time shares or
somethin
’, not
cleanin
’ up other people’s messes.”
“It’s as good a job as any,”
Skyler
insisted. “I don’t need to be rich.”
She’d been wealthy all of her life up until four years ago. When wealth came at the expense of other people’s fortunes, it was an empty luxury. Her father, head of the Centurion mob headquartered in Savannah, Georgia, had taught her that bitter truth. Luckily for
Skyler
, she’d inherited not only her mother’s decency but also her journals detailing her husband’s crimes. The journals had been her only weapon against her father, and she’d used them to send him to prison. Or rather one handsome FBI agent had used them.
“True, but it
ain’t
no
sin to use what God gave you,”
Jamila
said with a pointed once-over. “With a face and body like that, you could snag a rich
ol
’ man and never have to work another day again.”
Skyler
shook her head. “I like to work,” she insisted. It made the time go by faster. Besides, her face and body were the last things she wanted anyone to take note of, lest she be recognized. Being in WITSEC, the U.S. Marshal’s witness protection program, she had adopted a whole new identity and look, coloring her golden hair auburn and wearing it long instead of short. WITSEC told her where to live, and in places like Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a menial job was the only one she could find with her degree in interior design.
In many ways, being in WITSEC was like having made a pact with the devil himself.
Skyler
pulled the master card-key from her apron pocket and picked up a stack of freshly folded towels. “I’ll take this side,” she offered, ignoring
Jamila’s
shrug as she knocked on the door with the
Make Up
sign hanging on the doorknob.
“Housekeeping.”
As expected, the room was empty with the curtains flung open and sunlight streaming in. Throwing herself into the mindless task of stripping the bed, she realized she’d been cleaning rooms at this mid-price hotel for almost five months now. Little chance of her running into her father’s entitled friends in a place like the Sea
Dip, that
was certain.
It beat her first job in Omaha, inspecting cans in a food processing plant. The best job she’d found so far had been in Portland working as a veterinarian’s assistant, but she couldn’t stay there, either. It was all WITSEC could do to stay one step ahead of the Centurions. While her testimony had put hundreds in jail, there were others who’d escaped imprisonment because her mother’s journals proved insufficient evidence. It was those men who kept
Skyler
on the run.
The
wages of my father’s sins are still being paid
, she reflected, using a razor blade to scrape purple bubblegum off the bathroom tiles.
The debt was a heavy one.
Heavy and lonely.
Especially lonely.
Chapter One
It was something she had yet to get used to—sitting at a public bus stop in a tourist town without fearing that she’d be recognized. Listening to
Jamila
jabber nonstop about the trials of raising teenage boys,
Skyler
leaned back against the wooden bench and forced herself to relax.
No one here knows who I am
, she assured herself.
It was mid-afternoon on a weekday. Tourists streamed out of the hotels to enjoy the mild September weather and teenagers, already out of school,
cruised
the strip in their
souped
-up cars, windows lowered and music blasting. The sun was warm, the air blessedly cooler than it had been in August.
Skyler
tipped her head back, drew a deep breath, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was looking straight into the eye of a high-powered, telephoto lens, aimed down at her from a hotel balcony across the street.
She sat up straight and looked around. What could the photographer possibly be taking pictures of but the ugly parking area and the bus stop where she sat? With a stab of suspicion, she peered back up at him. At her intent stare, he swiveled toward his room and disappeared.
Skyler’s
scalp prickled.
Why would he have taken pictures of the bus stop?
To capture the lifestyle of the working class in Myrtle Beach?
Or to positively identify her?
“Caroline?
Hey, there!”
Jamila’s
face swam into view. “You’re looking all peaked, girl. You best not be
gettin
’ that flu. You know your friend Nadia won’t be working her sorry ass for you, not even if you were
dyin
’!”
“I know. I’m fine, I’m just…”
Scared.
And
probably
paranoid.
But this was how it always started. Men she’d never seen before started taking an interest in her, following her around. It had happened twice before. When she’d caught one man filming her with his cell phone, she’d told WITSEC, and they’d moved her the very next day. Another time she’d been chased down a dark alley on her way home from work. That same night, WITSEC had made her pack a bag and they’d moved her clear across the country. “You’re right. I’m really not feeling well.”
“Don’t breathe on me, honey,
cause
I don’t have time to be sick.”
Jamila
put a good foot between them on the bench.
