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  BLIND FAITH

  CJ Lyons

  PRAISE FOR CJ LYONS:

  "Adrenalin pumping." ~The Mystery Gazette

  "Riveting." ~Publishers Weekly Beyond Her Book

  "Smart and intriguing, and her character development is so incredible that she leaves me literally breathless waiting to see what will happen next." ~Becky Lejeune, Bookbitch.com

  Lyons "is a master within the genre." ~Pittsburgh Magazine

  "Breathtakingly fast-paced." ~Publishers Weekly

  "A winner!" ~Romantic Times, Top Pick

  "Simply superb…riveting drama…a perfect ten." ~Romance Reviews Today

  "Characters with beating hearts and three dimensions." ~Newsday

  "A pulse-pounding adrenalin rush!" ~Lisa Gardner

  "Packed with adrenalin." ~David Morrell

  "Engrossing, intriguing..." ~Heather Graham

  "An adrenalin rush and an all-around great read." ~Allison Brennan

  "…Harrowing, emotional, action-packed and brilliantly realized. CJ Lyons writes with the authority only a trained physician can bring to a story, blending suspense, passion and friendship into an irresistible read." ~Susan Wiggs

  "Simply exceptional. The action never lets up…keeps you on the edge of your seat." ~Roundtable Reviews

  "Explodes on the page…I absolutely could not put it down." ~Romance Readers' Connection

  "A perfect blend of romance and suspense. My kind of read." ~#1 New York Times Bestselling author Sandra Brown

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2010, CJ Lyons

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Library of Congress Case # 1-273031561

  BLIND FAITH

  CJ Lyons

  CHAPTER 1

  June 6, 2007: Walls Prison Unit, Huntsville,Texas

  Sarah Durandt watched as the faded blue-checked gingham curtains rattled open, revealing the prisoner strapped to a gurney.

  A woman behind her gasped. Sarah leaned forward, one hand resting on the glass separating her from a monster. She breathed through her mouth. The air in the tiny cement-walled room felt too heavy, so thick it needed to be choked down.

  She and the other witnesses gathered behind glass that cast halos around the edges of the brightly lit objects in the white-tiled execution chamber on the other side. Bulletproof glass. Who did they think would be doing the shooting? The condemned man already woozy from sedatives or those who had come to watch him die?

  Sarah curled her hands one into the other and held them still on her lap, shivering as the air-conditioning blew a frosty stream down on her. Seven others crowded into the room with her. She barely noticed them. All her attention was focused on the prisoner beyond.

  His arms were extended, needles inserted into veins on both sides of his body. Seven leather straps crossed his body and limbs, holding him in a position eerily reminiscent of a crucifixion. This man was no Messiah.

  This man was the devil incarnate.

  Damian Wright was a medium-sized man, one who would not stand out in a crowd with his bland face, blander features.

  Sarah knew better. She knew the cunning; she knew that hidden behind his façade of normalcy lay a sick desire to torture and maim.

  Damian's sweat-beaded skin glistened as he lay beneath a large round surgical light, his eyes squeezed shut against its unflinching illumination. The warden nodded to a black-suited man with a small silver cross on his lapel. The man stretched his hand, his wedding ring shimmering as it passed through the beam of light, and pulled a black microphone down. Sarah rubbed her own ring finger, tracing the plain band Sam had placed there six years ago.

  Uncoiling like a cobra, the microphone bobbed hypnotically above Damian's lips. A click, like a muffled gunshot, echoed through the witness room as the warden switched on the intercom. The scratchy sound of Damian's breathing filled the room to the breaking point, forcing its way into a space already brimming over with the sobs and sighs of his victims.

  Sarah found herself inhaling in time with Damian, could almost smell the antiseptic and surgical tape and the stench of sweat and nerves filling the room beyond the window. Alan Easton, who sat beside her, gave her hand a comforting squeeze.

  "You okay?" he asked, his tone that of a friend rather than her lawyer.

  She nodded, her attention focused on the events beyond the glass. The execution chamber held only three men: the warden in his navy suit, bleached white shirt and narrow tie, the black-suited minister, and Damian Wright, the man who had destroyed her life.

  If Sarah was describing the Death House to her sixth-grade students back home, she would have said that the theme of the room, of the entire building set far apart from normal prison confines, was containment.

  Nothing was meant to ever escape from this tiny building with its cement walls painted an institutional green. The utilitarian execution chamber beyond the viewing window made no efforts to soften or hide its purpose. A flat surgical table, arms splayed wide, bolted to the floor was its only piece of furniture.

  "Any last words?" the warden asked the condemned man.

  Sarah came to attention. A fly had trespassed into the profane proceedings and beat its wings against the cage shielding two flickering fluorescent light bulbs, its buzzing deafening. Damian Wright, convicted murderer and child rapist, opened his rheumy eyes and stared directly at her. She pulled her hand from Alan's, fisted it tight.

  Tell me. Say something. Give me a clue.

  Her prayers went unheard. Damian remained silent, muscles slack, not fighting his restraints. Only his chest moved, rising and falling as if he were counting down to his last breath. Sarah's lungs squeezed tight, ready to burst from pressure. The minister intoned from his Bible, his eyes never rising from the written word to gaze upon the lost soul he prayed over.

  The words of the Psalm, words that twenty-two months ago would have brought Sarah comfort and solace, were now reduced to meaningless noise with less significance than the buzzing of the fly. She pressed her palm flat against the cold glass, more intent on gleaning some unknown message from Damian than listening to the word of God.

  She'd spent her entire life listening. Where was God when she'd needed him most? Where was He when her husband and son needed him?

  "I'm sorry we couldn't stay the execution," Alan whispered. "I know how much you hoped—"

  She shrugged his hand and his words away, her entire universe consisting of the gaze of a killer. The man who had confessed to killing Sam and Josh—but who refused to tell her where they were buried. Refused to grant her even that small comfort.

  For a year and a half she had fought. Fought Damian Wright's silence, his refusal to see her. Fought the new Texas law that allowed executions to be "fast-tracked" with an unprecedented efficiency. Fought her own desire to see Damian die. A desire superseded only by her need to find her husband and son.

  The warden strode forward, reading from a document in a monotone that floated just beyond the periphery of Sarah's awareness.

  Where are they, you sonofabitch? Sarah tried to broadcast all her loathing and hatred into her glare, hoping to loosen Damian's tongue in these, his last seconds on this Earth. Her fist pounded against the thick glass, creating only the smallest of muffled thuds.

  The killer didn't flinch or look away from her. Nor did he speak. Instead he gazed at her with an expression approaching pity. As if she were the one condemned, not him.

  The warden finished and
removed his glasses, aiming a small nod in the direction of the executioner's booth. Behind the one-way mirrored glass, an unseen man flipped a switch. Medication flowed into Damian' veins. First more sedatives, then a paralytic, finally the potassium chloride to stop his heart.

  Time stopped. Sarah didn't blink. Damian didn't blink.

  Three minutes later, the minister stood aside as a man clad in a white coat stepped forward and listened with a stethoscope. He straightened, reached a hand out to Damian' face and closed the killer's eyes.

  The blinds snapped shut.

  A collective sigh swirled through the room as the other witnesses shifted in their seats. Through the haze filling Sarah's vision she heard several women and a man sobbing, felt the rustle of their movements as the room emptied. She remained frozen, eyes burning as she fought to break through the barriers between this world and the next.

  Alan touched her elbow, pulling her fist away from the glass, and drew her up onto unsteady feet. "We have to go now," he murmured.

  She kept her face craned toward the darkened window until the last possible moment. Finally, Alan led her out into bright sunshine, Texas heat and humidity bearing down on her with the intensity of a ten-ton truck.

  The air was too heavy to breathe, and for a moment she felt as if she were suffocating under the weight of paralyzed lungs. Her chest tightened and for an instant it was her heart that stopped.

  She blinked and pain returned. An ice-pick stabbing behind her eyes, her constant companion for twenty-two months, unmitigated by any sedatives or hope of release. Unlike Damian Wright's pain.

  And she knew she was alive. At least her body was. Her mind was. Her soul—that was buried in some unmarked grave back home, up on Snakehead Mountain.

  Alongside Sam and Josh.

  Alan Easton wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief, folded it, and slid it back into place before snapping his Gucci sunglasses open to shield his eyes from the Texas sun. He inhaled thick, humid air and counted his blessings.

  The execution chamber was housed in a separate building from the main prison. Visitors had only a short distance to walk between the door and their viewing area. Still, he was glad to be out of the Death House. It reeked of sweat and fear and desperation, all things that Alan despised and refused to tolerate whenever possible.

  He escorted Sarah to their rental car and helped her into the passenger seat. She'd held up better than he expected. A little wobbly towards the end, but not too bad.

  As he crossed to the drivers' side of the rented Mercury Sable, wind blew whirling dervishes from the hard packed red clay, smearing the high gloss sheen of his Ferragamos. He darted a glance toward the now closed door. A guard stood before it, hands on his hips, eyes hidden by impenetrable dark shades.

  Alan had thought Wright might spill it, there at the end. For a second it seemed like the bastard was looking straight at Sarah, ready to talk. Thank God for strong drugs.

  Alan, his back to the car and Sarah, smiled.

  He'd taken a gamble helping Sarah get inside there today, but it was the best way to speed things along. Almost two years he'd worked her, but he was a patient man. Now with Wright's death, the coast was clear.

  Come out, come out wherever you are, the children's sing-song whistled through his mind as he opened the car door and slid inside its heat-baked embrace.

  Forty-two million dollars. Two years of work. Six years of searching. All almost over. He turned on the engine, cranked up the AC, and looked over at the woman beside him. Sarah was leaning back, her eyes shut, arms crossed over her chest as if she were cold.

  Compared to the sun-kissed, surgically enhanced West Coast beauties Alan was used to, she wasn't all that much to look at. Nice figure, curves in all the right places, but a bit muscular for his taste. Her hair was reddish brown, full and shiny, falling past her shoulders, but she never did anything with it except to occasionally yank it back into a ponytail. And she never wore any make up that might make her full lips stand out or highlight her rich, chocolate doe-eyes that made a man think bedroom thoughts.

  He figured it must have been those eyes—eyes hidden from him now as Sarah seemed to deflate, collapse in on herself—those eyes must have been what caught Sam Durandt. Alan licked his lips, imagining Sarah hot, wet, naked. Staring at him with wide, wide eyes, as she opened those rich, full lips and lowered her head...

  Ahhh...soon. He'd maneuvered things perfectly, put himself in position to play the charming, ever-patient suitor now that she'd found her closure. Once he married her, the forty-two million was as good as his.

  Then he could end this charade, could have any woman he wanted. He pulled the car up alongside the guardhouse, waited for them to inspect the undercarriage with their mirrors and check the trunk for unofficial passengers, then drove through the gate. Sarah made a soft, mewing noise like a child caught doing something it shouldn't and she curled up in her seat, her back to him.

  The noise stirred his desire. The fan ruffled the hem of her dress. It wasn't black. Sarah never wore black, refused to accept widow's weeds, even today on this grim occasion. Instead she wore a navy blue dress bought off the rack from the Target down in Merrill, the closest "real" town to Hopewell, twenty-eight miles away through New York's Adirondack mountains on twisty, turning roads designed by a lunatic with a death wish. Her dress had tiny polka dots scattered all over it in some silky material that clung to just the right places. In front there were two dozen buttons that would drive a man wild trying to get her out of it.

  A vision of his hands grabbing the material, buttons flying in every direction, filled his mind. Sarah crossed her arms tighter, shivering, her eyes still closed.

  He wondered if she ever thought of him that way, wondered if she anticipated their first night together like he did. The hem of her dress slipped, offering him a glimpse of well-tanned thigh.

  Soon. If she was as good as he imagined she might be, he might even let her live for a while. A few months after the honeymoon, maybe. Then a quick "accident" and he'd be free to claim the forty-two million dollars that asshole husband of hers had stolen.

  It's over, it's over, it's over...the words threaded themselves through Sarah's mind, spinning a cocoon that blocked out all feeling, providing a soft, safe place to hide. A place where there was no need to think, to do, to react. To be. It's over, it's over, it's over...

  Sarah hugged herself tighter and leaned against the car window, her back to Alan. She'd promised herself that no matter what, she wouldn't break down, at least not in front of anyone.

  But Alan wasn't anyone. Alan understood—he'd been through it himself. His wife had been killed by a drug addict who stormed their house looking for cash. That was why he'd left his corporate law practice to focus on victim's rights, to help people like Sarah.

  The tires hummed as they spun against the highway, carrying her away from Damian Wright and her last chance to find Sam and Josh. It's over, it's over, it's over...

  Her body sagged against the doorframe, her right hand automatically reaching for the single ring on her left. She had no engagement ring. Instead, Sam had given her his most valuable possession, a guitar pick used by the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughn, and promised that when he sold his first song, he'd replace it with a diamond. Seven years later, the pick still sat in its black velvet jewelry case on her dresser.

  Her hand felt cold but her gold wedding band radiated warmth, as if she were touching Sam. She spun the ring in time with the words weaving their way into her soul, inviting her to surrender. It's over, it's over, it's over….

  No! It can't be. Not like this.

  Tears pressed against her closed eyelids, burning as they fought to escape. Sarah's grip on the plain, gold band tightened. Her last link to Sam, and through him Josh. She was tired, so very tired. She should give up. What more could she do?

  After all, she had a life to live. Sam would want her to be happy. Someday. A ragged breath tore through her and she felt Alan stir beside her. Alan
—could she imagine a future with a man like him? A man who'd devoted almost two years of his life to guiding her through this morass of pain and grief, who'd brought her back into the light, had given her this one last chance.

  Last chance, last hope, last rites.

  It's over, it's over, it's over.

  Sarah straightened, opened her eyes and blinked against the harsh Texas sun. She uncurled her legs, stared straight ahead at the black highway stretching hypnotically into the future.

  "You all right?" Alan's gaze left the road to stare at her for a long moment.

  A small smile curled Sarah's lips. "Yes. I'm fine."

  It's over, it's over, it's over...the words sang through her mind, pounding insistently like a toddler throwing a tantrum, banging his head against the floor when he didn't get what he wanted. Josh had thrown a few of those in his day. Until he learned that when he did, he never got what he wanted.

  It's over, it's over, it's over!

  Sarah's smile widened and she gave a small shake of her head—the only warning Josh needed now. She'd shake her head, smile and he'd leave his whining behind, take her hand and snuggle against her. "Sorry, Mommy. I forgot."

  But I haven't.

  It's over, it's over, it's over...No. It's not.

  It's just begun.

  CHAPTER 2

  Wednesday, June 19, 2007: Quantico, Virginia

  Supervisory Special Agent Caitlyn Tierney didn't look up at the tentative knock on her open door. Instead she raised a hand, in the universal palm forward gesture of "wait," and kept reading the report on her computer screen. Her latest group of NAT's was in their final week of training. Nerves were frayed as they waited to learn their field assignments, so this hadn't been the first interruption of Caitlyn's morning.