The Ghost of Days Past

Read the opening

Rain hammered the pier in wild, slanting sheets, turning the wooden planks slick beneath Frank Calder’s boots. The storm had swallowed the coastline, the sky a bruised mass of thunder and rolling black clouds. Every flash of lightning carved the world into stark white for a heartbeat, then plunged it back into darkness. The salt spray stung Frank’s face, mingling with sweat beneath his collar. His hands were numb — whether from cold or adrenaline, he couldn’t tell anymore. Ten years. It had taken him ten years to arrive at this moment, this slick wooden pier jutting into a black ocean on a night when the world itself seemed to be tearing apart. Ten years of hunting, of following threads through the darkness that Adrian Kade had woven across three states. Ten years of sleepless nights, of casework that had metastasized into obsession, of the kinds of questions that don’t let a man rest. Frank had given those years willingly, then grudgingly, then with the grim acceptance of a man who realizes he has no choice — that some compulsions aren’t choices at all, they’re destinies wearing the mask of free will. The gun felt right in his hand now. That was the thing that frightened him most. Not the weight of it, but the way it had become an extension of something dark in him. A tool for a man who’d slowly transformed into a tool himself — a instrument of justice? Vengeance? He’d stopped trying to distinguish between the two somewhere around year five. Frank moved forward, gun raised, breath sharp and uneven. His coat clung to him, soaked through, heavy as guilt. The pier groaned…

The sample pages on this site continue the opening — and the full book is available in print.