The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (37 page)

*****

Soren arrived back at his office to find Terry and Glen waiting for him.

“Do you guys live here now or what?” he asked.

“Well, my uncle does own the place,” Glen said.

“Last I remembered, he gave it to me,” Soren said.

Terry eyed him curiously.

“And is our agreement back in place?” he asked. “Are you going to be using this office again?”

Soren nodded. “Soren Chase Investigations is open for business.”

“And does that business include committing suicide?” Glen asked.

Soren chewed his lip and then smiled. For the first time in two months, he felt like himself again. And strangely, he had more of a sense of just who that was. Not the old Soren Chase, but a new one, one who could do things the old one had never dreamed of.

“No, I’m done with that,” Soren said. “Sara had a chance to kill me and she didn’t take it. If she can live with me, I can live with myself.”

Terry stood up from behind the desk and gestured to it.

“Then this is yours once again,” he said. “I will leave you and Glen to it.”

Terry started to walk to the door, but Soren put a hand on his arm.

“Not so fast,” he said. “I’m pulling you out of retirement.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I can’t do this alone, Terry,” Soren said.

“Hey! I’m sitting right here,” Glen complained.

Soren inclined his head toward Glen.

“
We
can’t do it alone,” he said. “I know you’re holding stuff back. And I need answers. When Sara died, I . . . remembered things. It was only for a moment. But it was like seeing in color and now I’m back to black-and-white. I recall bits and pieces, but it’s all jumbled together.”

“Remembered what things?” Terry asked, the interest plain on his face.

“More about Falk,” Soren said. “Friday told me there was a pretender named Magnus, the leader of his people. She told me Falk killed him. But at the end, I realized they were the same person.”

“Ah, the old Obi-Wan Kenobi trick,” Glen said. “What Friday said was true, from a certain point of view.’”

Soren nodded.

“For a moment, I was Falk again,” he said. “But I don’t know how to explain it—I wasn’t completely him. I cared for Sara and Alex, for one. I don’t think the real Falk would have given a shit about either of them. Still, I knew things about him. Yes, he was ruthless, cruel, vicious, but I think I’ve been overlooking how intelligent and strategic he was.”

“And?” Terry asked, eying him pointedly.

Soren took a large breath. He’d been mulling this over in the car since seeing Alex in the hospital. The boy was doing remarkably well. Doctor Cortez called it a miracle. Soren didn’t know how much Alex knew. He claimed not to remember anything, though Soren had his doubts about that. Still, it had been wonderful to see him alive again. Sara had even allowed him in the room. As he’d left, she’d grabbed his arm.

“I wanted to say thank you,” she said. “I know Alex wouldn’t be okay if you hadn’t saved him.”

He wasn’t sure if this meant that they were friends again now—he didn’t know if that was even possible—but it was a promising start.

Back in the car, though, he’d been left wondering what it all meant. He had two concerns. And though he had reservations about Terry, he was the only one he could ask.

“Two months ago, when I learned who I really was, I thought Falk just attacked John and Soren by happenstance,” Soren replied. “I thought that pretenders were evil, and that Soren and his friends were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I don’t think that anymore. Falk wasn’t there by accident. And whatever happened in that cabin at Grayslake, I think something went wrong.”

“Like what?” Terry asked.

Soren shook his head and then gestured at himself.

“You think this was his plan?” he asked. “I’m still Soren Chase. You want to explain to me how that’s possible?”

“I wish I could,” Terry said.

“But you knew something was up, right? That’s why you’ve been helping me. Because you knew I wasn’t just some splintered pretender waiting to be woken up again. Something happened in that cabin, didn’t it?”

“I don’t know. The only one who does is you.”

“And I don’t remember,” Soren said. “But I think Falk went to Grayslake for a reason. He wanted something. And I need to know what it is. I have a feeling . . .”

He drifted off until Glen audibly cleared his throat.

“You have a feeling?” he prompted.

Soren nodded.

“Whatever Falk was up to, I think a lot of lives may depend on it,” he said. “So I think I know what my next case is. It looks like I need to solve my own murder.”

THE END

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Soren Chase will return in
The Woman in the White Mask
, available in fall 2016. Be sure to sign up
here
to be notified of its release!

For more on Soren, also be sure to check out these two novellas:

When a mysterious white-haired man tries to kidnap Sara Ignatius’s son and then vanishes before her eyes, Sara knows there’s only one person who can help her: Soren Chase, one of the country’s best supernatural investigators.

For Soren, the case is personal. Sara’s fiancé was John Townes, Soren’s best friend who died in a supernatural attack several years earlier. Soren will do anything to save Sara’s son, but he must act fast because the kidnapper has a mission of his own, and he’s willing to destroy anyone who gets in his way . . .

You can get
Closed at Dark
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here,
or by buying it on Amazon
here
.

And be sure to check out another Soren adventure in
Carnival of Stone
, available now!

When a small town is under siege from a horrific monster, only one man can help . . .

 Supernatural Investigator Soren Chase is having a rough day. He narrowly avoids being murdered by a pair of trigger-happy leprechauns (yes, leprechauns) before taking a case to investigate the disappearance of a graduate student in the mountains of Virginia.

But when Soren arrives in the normally sleepy hamlet of Hilltop, he finds the situation is far worse than he imagined. He's up against a creature unlike anything he's encountered before and it will take all his skills—and working with an unlikely ally—to survive.

Buy it on Amazon
here
!

And for another great series (that shares connections with this one), check out
The Sanheim Chronicles
, Rob’s highly rated bestselling supernatural suspense novels for Kindle. Available also on
audiobook
.

This novel owes a tremendous debt to three women.

The first is my wife, Maia, who saved it when I was completely lost and didn't know where to go next. The problem was not a lack of ideas—in fact, I had too many of them. The result was a confusing jumble of plot elements and complete frustration on my part. I make it a point never to reveal what happens in my novels to anyone, even Maia, before I write the first draft. But this book was an exception by necessity. When I realized I was hopelessly stuck, I sat down with Maia and started laying out what I had. She helped me figure out what I should keep, what plot elements I should drop, and where to go next. Together we hashed out what is now the first third of
The Pretender
. After that, the book largely wrote itself. While I usually praise Maia in the acknowledgments for helping me, her assistance here was so invaluable I’m not sure if the book would exist without that conversation.

I’m also grateful for the help of my editor,
Evelyn Duffy
, who once again did a terrific job critiquing the novel and suggesting improvements. Evelyn is tough but fair, always letting me know when I’ve hit the right notes or wandered too far afield.

Additionally, I’m grateful to a fellow author and friend,
Melissa F. Olson
, who critiqued
The Pretender
. She combed through this novel line by line, excising anything and everything that didn’t belong there. The result is a far trimmer and substantially improved product. I deeply appreciate the help. Melissa is a fantastic urban fantasy writer, so if you enjoyed this novel (or even if you didn’t), do yourself a favor and check out her books
here
.

I’m also grateful to my beta readers: Brian Gill, Dan Gasink, Erik Brandt, and Daniel Wolfe. It’s wonderful to have a stable of friends willing to drop what they’re doing to read your latest work and provide you with honest feedback. Additionally, I’d like to thank
Travis Pennington
for another terrific book cover.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank the editors at Kindle Press, including Megan Mulder and Paul Ridge, and copyeditor Ivan Kenneally. They’ve been a pleasure to deal with, and their support for the Soren Chase novels has been outstanding. Partnering with Kindle Press has opened up new doors for me, and I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity to work with them again.