Someone Must Die
Authors: Sharon Potts
P
RAISE FOR
S
HARON
P
OTTS
“This is thriller writing the way it is supposed to be.”
—Michael Connelly,
New York Times
bestselling author, on
In Their Blood
“Rich with high-concept, captivating characters, and a relentless plot that simply won’t go away.”
—Jeffery Deaver,
New York Times
bestselling author, on
The Devil’s Madonna
“A complex plot that builds believable suspense on every page.”
—
Sacramento Bee
on
In Their Blood
“With lean, spare writing that maintains suspense throughout, the author deftly weaves the various characters’ stories into a plot that explodes in revelations.”
—
San Francisco Book Review
on
Someone’s Watching
OTHER TITLES BY SHARON POTTS
In Their Blood
Someone’s Watching
The Devil’s Madonna
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Sharon Potts
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503936676
ISBN-10: 1503936678
Cover design by Jason Blackburn
To my family—Joe, Ben, and Sarah.
Nothing matters to me more than you guys.
C
ONTENTS
C
HAPTER
1
The centrifugal force hit her harder than a couple of Cuba Libres on an empty stomach. Diana Lynd gripped the rim of the giant teacup as it spun around so fast she became queasy and disoriented. On the other side of the cup, her six-year-old grandson, Ethan, howled with delight, his golden curls flying out like a halo.
The booths, rides, crowds, palm trees, and blue sky rushed around her in a blur, the carny music earsplitting. She focused on the white steeple of the local church as it went past, like a ballerina spotting her mark, but it didn’t help her dizziness.
“Please stop,” she muttered, not sure how much more she could take. She was a sixty-three-year-old grandmother, a retired physician, for God’s sake—no longer a daring, adventurous girl.
The music became funereal and sour as the teacup finally slowed, then came to a jerky halt. Ethan tugged on her fingers. His hand was sticky with the ice cream she had tried unsuccessfully to wipe off. “Come on, Grandma. Let’s go to the fun house.”
Diana stood, her legs wobbly. The air smelled like cotton candy and corn dogs, but then she caught a whiff of vomit. Apparently some other grandmother had succumbed to all this fun.
“Are you okay?” Ethan’s dark-brown eyes were wide and serious. His New York Mets baseball cap had left a faint indentation in his forehead. He’d finally surrendered it to her on this last ride, worried it might fly off. She had tucked away the worn, dirty cap in her hobo bag.
“I’ll be fine, honey,” she said. “But let’s take a little break.”
He frowned like a grown-up, old beyond his years, just like his dad used to when he was a little boy. Kevin. She was sorry she had given her son so much to frown about.
“We can go home now if you want, Grandma,” Ethan said, his crystalline voice trembling. “I had a wonderful time.”
She laughed.
Irresistible child.
How happy and grateful she was that Kevin and his wife, Kim, had accepted her back in their lives after that awful misunderstanding about her illness and their wedding. But how she wished she had seen her only grandchild take his first steps, had heard him speak his first words, and had been there for his first day of kindergarten.
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” she said. “We don’t have to leave yet.”
He grinned, a child once again. He had lost one of his upper baby teeth, and there was a ridge from the adult tooth pushing through.
She reached into her bag for her phone. “Let me take your picture.”
“Again?”
“Just one more.” She had taken a dozen since his maternal grandparents had dropped him off in Miami yesterday. The Simmers had helped Ethan settle into his dad’s old bedroom, with barely a glance in Diana’s direction, while the chauffeur waited in their limo to drive them to their winter home in Palm Beach. Diana knew Kevin’s in-laws carried a grudge against her over missing the kids’ wedding and didn’t approve of Kevin and Kim’s decision to let Ethan stay with her. She had been careful not to say or do anything that might give them an excuse to flee with Ethan in tow, and had let out a big sigh of relief when they had finally left.
“How’s this, Grandma?” Ethan posed, wrinkling his nose—a natural ham. He was wearing the sky-blue T-shirt she’d gotten him. It had a picture of a jumping dolphin. She hoped it would remind him of her when he was back home in New York.
She took the photo, then Ethan came around and snuggled into the crook of her arm. She marveled at his complete acceptance of her, a grandmother he hardly knew.
“You can take a selfie of us,” he said.
“A
selfie
?”
“I do it all the time. I’ll show you.” He examined her iPhone with adult concentration, then pressed something on the screen. “Hold your arm like this,” he instructed, demonstrating, “then touch the circle.”
She stretched out her arm, and the two of them came into view on the small screen.
“Well, aren’t you smart?” she said. “Smile.”
She took the selfie and studied it. Ethan resting against her white blouse, the roller coaster, merry-go-round, and carnival booths with crowds of people in the background. Her shoulder-length dark hair, caught by a gust of wind, obscured part of her smile. One of the ticket takers had mistaken her for Ethan’s mother, but maybe he’d just been flattering her.
Then again, perhaps her bliss was apparent to others.
After years of bitterness toward Larry for discarding her like a broken car, she finally had everything she wanted in life. A man she loved who also loved her, time for herself since retiring from her medical practice, reconciliation with her son, and the joy of being with her grandson. If only her daughter weren’t going through her own difficulties, everything would be perfect.
“I’m going to text this to your Aunt Aubrey, then we can go to the fun house.”
“Do you need help?”
Diana laughed again. “Thanks, but that much I know.”
She tapped out a quick message to her daughter.
At a church carnival. Having a lot of fun. I love this child.
She started to smile at him, but he was no longer standing in front of the teacup ride.
Her heart stuttered, and she spun around.
“Ethan?”
A group of boisterous children darted in front of her, balloons bobbing behind them.
“Ethan!”
“Here, Grandma.”
She turned toward his voice, her legs shaking, as she released a sigh of relief.
Her grandson stood beside a booth a few feet from her where a bearded man with tattoos covering his arms was throwing darts at balloons. Dozens of gray stuffed animals hung from the rafters.
She hurried over to him. “You can’t run off like that.”
“I didn’t run, Grandma. Look. They’re dolphins.” He pointed up at the hanging stuffed animals. “Can we go swimming with the dolphins?”
She had overreacted. Ethan had been nearby the whole time. She took his hand, fear evaporating. “Of course I’ll take you to swim with the dolphins.”
Her phone pinged. Probably Aubrey texting back. She glanced at the screen. Her daughter had written,
U r both beautiful. Makes me very happy.
Diana wished Aubrey could be here with them, but she had to stay up at Brown to prepare for the classes she would be teaching. The winter semester began this week.
It saddened her that Aubrey was dealing with her rat boyfriend alone. Diana well understood betrayal and could have offered advice, or at least empathy, but Aubrey had always been stoic and didn’t like burdening others with her problems.
Ethan tugged on Diana’s hand and pulled her along through the crowd. They passed booths of local sponsors handing out pamphlets, balloons, T-shirts, and hats—Bob’s Flooring, Tia’s Latina Café, Dr. Gary’s Bright Smiles. But Ethan was focused on getting to the fun house, a one-story building painted neon-pink, green, and blue, with the mouth of a giant laughing face as its door.
When they reached the entrance, he dashed over to a placard of a measuring stick with the admission requirements:
U
NDER
36
INCHES
—W
AIT UNTIL YOU
’
RE TALLER
.
36–48
INCHES
—C
OME INSIDE
.
Ethan stood beside the measuring stick, making himself as tall as possible. He put his hand on his head, then stepped away to look back at his hand. It almost reached the forty-eight-inch mark. “See, Grandma? I can go inside.”
Several young children ran up the ramp leading to the laughing face. A group of adults watched them, but Diana wasn’t about to let her grandson go by himself.
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
“It’s okay. I’m a big boy now.”
Diana had occasionally been accused of being overprotective with her own two kids, but she’d worked long hours then and had needed strict rules for when she wasn’t around. She didn’t want to be unreasonable with Ethan.
Still . . .
“Pleeese.” He held the
e
like his dad used to do, then pointed to twin boys around his age who were climbing the ramp to the fun house. One wore Harry Potter glasses. “I can go with them. I promise I’ll stay with them.”
“That’s fine, but I’d like to go, too.” She would give him a little space but make sure he stayed within her sight.
“Okay, Grandma,” he said, catching up to the twins.
She handed the man at the doorway their tickets, then stepped through the gaping mouth a little behind Ethan and the two boys.
Cacophonous organ music punctuated by fake screams played too loudly from speakers. She blinked to acclimate to the darkness, then followed Ethan’s blue dolphin shirt into the first room.
The floor shifted beneath her feet—a fun-house gimmick, not her own instability. She struggled across the moving floor as quickly as she could, but Ethan and the twins were already exiting the other side of the room.
A group of children came toward her, going the wrong way. She tried to push past them—she didn’t want Ethan to get too far ahead of her. But when she finally got out of the room, he was gone. No sign of him or the twins in the giant barrel that spun slowly on its side.
Diana ducked into the barrel, the only way to the next room, grabbing at the inside walls to keep from falling. Dizziness and disorientation similar to what she’d experienced on the teacup ride returned. This time it felt like her old inner-ear injury acting up, the debilitating vertigo that attacked when she was stressed or some fresh trauma disturbed the balance in her life.
I need to get out of here.
She made it through the barrel, but everything around her was still spinning. At the end of a narrow hallway, she pushed through a curtain of leather strips into a pitch-black space. She stumbled forward, reaching for the walls, but her hands touched nothing.
“Ethan,” she called over the screams and too-loud music, hoping he would hear and wait for her.
Ahead, she could see red-and-yellow lights flickering. She entered a small room where flames licked the walls and the sound of explosions shook her to the core. A wave of nausea rushed over her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block the memory of the worst day of her life.
Jets of hot air spat up through the floor, shocking her into action. She ran out of the fiery room and through winding hallways of distorting mirrors. Images of herself bounced back at her—bloated, emaciated, stretched out, shrunken. With each mirror she passed, her terror grew.
“Ethan!” She ran forward into blackness. Her hands touched something hard, then a door flew open. Bright light blinded her. She blinked until her vision cleared.
She was out.
Safe.
She drew the fresh air into her lungs and almost laughed with relief.
She looked around for her grandson. Children everywhere—running, eating cotton candy and ice cream.
“Ethan?”
There was no sign of him, but the twin boys stood by a woman, probably their mother. Diana hurried over. “Excuse me. The little boy who went in with you. . . do you know where he is?”
The twins shrugged. “Don’t know,” the one with the glasses said.
“He didn’t like the mirrors,” the other boy added.
“He’s my grandson,” she told the mother, not sure why she felt the need to explain. “He ran ahead of me in the fun house. Did you see him come out? Curly blond hair, blue T-shirt with a jumping dolphin. This tall.” She gestured to the top of her chest.
“I saw a little boy come out by himself.”
“Where did he go?” Diana could hear the panic in her voice.
“I don’t know. A few kids came out. Most of them went over there.” The woman pointed to a group of adults near the exit door, then put her hands on the twins’ shoulders and led them away.
Something crawled through Diana’s gut. She returned to the exit, watching as other children streamed out. Could Ethan have somehow gotten lost in the fun house? She caught the door as a couple of kids came out and stuck her head in.
“Ethan?” she called into the darkness. “Ethan!” she repeated, her voice rising.
But he couldn’t be inside. She would have passed him on her way out.
She walked around the side of the fun house to the rear of the building where a number of electrical cables snaked across dirt and brown grass toward the temporary carnival booths. A few cars and trucks were parked in the alley. A sickly stench rose from a nearby dumpster.
He wouldn’t have come back here, but she called his name anyway, listening for his voice. Nothing except the distant shrieks of children and off-key organ music.
It had been almost fifteen minutes since she’d lost sight of him.
The booths, cars, cables, and dumpster whirled around her as though she were trapped inside a tornado.
Fifteen minutes.
So much could have happened in that time.
