Abandoned: A Thriller Read Online Free PDF

to join the FBI.
    He also shares my gift: the ability to understand the dark things. Like me, he can sidle up against the hissing and the slithering and the sticky, he can smell the smell and taste the taste, and come away changed but intact. Much as I dislike him sometimes, when I need someone to commiserate with about the mind of a killer, James is my invaluable and constant companion.
    I look out at the attendees, seated in their plastic folding chairs. There aren’t all that many. Callie’s parents aren’t here; they weren’t invited. She’s never forgiven them for forcing her to give up Marilyn. Alan’s wife, Elaina, is there. She smiles at me, a crinkling of the eyes. I smile back. Elaina is one of the few truly good people I’ve ever met.
    I view almost everyone with a cynical eye. I’m too familiar with the secrets people keep behind their cloaks of decency and their bright-toothed smiles. Elaina is different. She’s not perfect, not Pollyanna. She can get angry and she’s had moments of poor judgment, like all of us. But Elaina is the one who came to see me in the hospital after Sands’s attack, when I was lying there in my shock and agony, staring at the white ceiling tile and listening to the cold beeps and hisses of the medical machines. She pushed the protesting nurse aside, and she came and gathered me up in her arms and both made and let me cry. I sobbed myself out against her until I literally passed out, and when I awoke, she was still there.
    I love her. She’s like a mother to me.
    AD Jones, my boss, is seated next to her. He seems to be tolerating being here, but no more than that. I guess getting married and divorced two times would do that to you. His smile is more of a scowl, and he keeps sneaking glances at his watch. AD Jones has been my longtime mentor, sort of my professional rabbi. He’s too much of a leader to be a real friend, but he’s a great boss.
    There are others in the audience: Sarah, now nineteen. A man had chased her through her life, killing anyone and everyone she ever loved. Theresa, her foster sister, sits next to her. Both have suffered more thanI have in their short lives, which gives me pause. Perhaps that’s why Bonnie feels such a kinship with them.
    The chairs are filled with ex-victims and hunters and a mix of the two. People who deal in suffering and death. I glance at Bonnie again and stifle a sigh.
    This is my life. It’s not perfect, but this is my life. And she is loved. I recite the words and even believe them. Mostly. My cell phone chirps, signaling the arrival of a text message. “Turn that off!” Bonnie whispers, outraged.
    “Can’t, honey,” I murmur, plucking the phone from where I’d stuffed it in the bouquet I’m holding. She grumbles something by way of reply and stares daggers at me.
    I open the phone and freeze as I read the message.
    I’m sending something to you, Special Agent Barrett.
    I look up and around, scanning the crowd and surrounding area. I see a couple walking on the beach who’ve stopped to take in the wedding. A dedicated surfer is paddling out in what has to be freezing cold water. The hotel nearby has people coming in and out, but I don’t see anyone stationary.
    Could have rented a room. Could be watching us from a window.
    I look up, but the windows are one way, and besides, the hotel has ten stories and four sides. I close the phone and put it back into the bouquet.
    Sending me something? What? And now or later?
    I’m more afraid than angry. He knows my cell phone number—not an easy trick—and he might be watching us right now. Us, including Bonnie. I look at her and find her staring right at me, assessing my state of mind with those too-old eyes.
    “You okay?” she asks me.
    Time to compartmentalize. I can stand here and worry about something beyond my control, or I can do what I’m here for.
    I free a hand from the bouquet and touch her cheek. “I’m fine, honey. Where the hell is Callie?”
    We left her