Short Ride to Nowhere by Tom Piccirilli Page A

land.   The lobster and crab legs quieted my stomach and loosened the knot there   I listened in to the families around me, the children laughing and whining, the parents humorous and warm and short-tempered.  
    The wind picked up and it started to rain harder again.   Streams of saturated moonlight did wild endless shimmies against the glass.   I drank a cup of coffee every twenty minutes until the place closed, then I sat out at the beach again until the bluster passed.  
    It took me three minutes to get into the screw’s house.   I stood in the master bedroom and watched as he and his wife spooned in their sleep.   She was lovely with a tussled mound of hair that glowed a burnished copper in the dark.   One lace strap of her lingerie had slipped off her shoulder, and the swell of her breast arched toward me.  
    I found his trousers and snatched his wallet.   He had a lot of photos of his children.   I left the house, drove to the water, and threw his wallet into the whitecaps.   I didn’t want his money.   I didn’t want to know his name.   I didn’t even especially want to hurt him.   I was testing myself and finding that I’d both passed and failed.  
    I was still a good creeper.   The skills remained.   My heart rate never sped. I didn’t make a sound.
    I hadn’t broken the law in five years, not so much as running a yellow light.   My chest itched.   My scars burned.   The one where Collie had stabbed me.   The one from my broken rib.   And the largest one made up of Kimmy’s teeth marks from the last time we’d made love.   She bit in so deep under my heart that she’d scraped bone.
    I drove home through the storm thinking of the ghosts I had made.  

About the Author
     

Tom Piccirilli is the author of twenty novels including SHADOW SEASON, THE COLD SPOT, THE COLDEST MILE, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN.  He's won two International Thriller Awards and four Bram Stoker Awards, as well as having been nominated for the Edgar, the World Fantasy Award, the Macavity, and Le Grand Prix de L'imagination.
     

"Tom Piccirilli straddles genres with the boldness of the best writers today, blending suspense and crime fiction into tight, brutal masterpieces."
    —JAMES ROLLINS, New York Times bestselling author of The Judas Strain

    Don’t miss any of these acclaimed novels by Tom Piccirilli
    Available in paperback and e-book

    Shadow Season
    ~International Thriller Writers Award nominee

    “One of the most chilling thrillers of the year…[Piccirilli] does a convincing job of portraying the life of a man who can’t see, adding a unique and inviting twist to what is already an exciting plot.”— Chicago Sun-Times

    An ex-cop, Finn was left literally blinded by violence. The one thing he can still see is the body of his wife, Dani, and a crime scene that won’t fade from his mind’s eye. Now a professor, Finn never would have guessed that an isolated girls’ prep school could be every bit as dangerous as city streets. Especially when he stumbles upon a local girl lying in a graveyard in the middle of a raging blizzard. A group of innocent students has been put in harm’s way by a pair of vicious criminals stalking Finn for unknown reasons. Secrets are creeping from the shadows around him—the kind that even a man with perfect vision never sees until it’s too late. They’re about to become terrifyingly clear to Finn—and it all begins with the scent of blood.

    978-0-553-90634-9 e-book / 978-0-553-59247-4 paperback

    The Coldest Mile
    ~Winner of an International Thriller Writers Award
    ~A Deadly Pleasures Best Mystery/Crime Novel
    ~Sequel to The Cold Spot

    “Pedal to the metal for 352 pages. Don’t miss it.”— Booklist

    Raised to be a thief and getaway driver, Chase left the bent life after he found his true love, Lila. For ten years he walked the straight and narrow—until Lila was murdered. Now Chase is looking for his grandfather Jonah, the stone-cold-killer con man who