Title: PROMISES TO KEEP
(Sabrina Vaughn Book #3)
Author: Maegan Beaumont
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Release Date: August
Author: Maegan Beaumont
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Release Date: August
8th, 2015
For
three years, Michael O'Shea has been forced to act as a
personal assassin for
Livingston Shaw, the cold-blooded puppet master who controls
the remote
bioweapon implanted in Michael's back. When Shaw offers to
release him if he
can recover a kidnapped child, Michael works with every
ounce of his being to
put the pieces together before all the witnesses are
murdered.
Meanwhile, police Inspector Sabrina Vaughn--the woman
Michael passionately
loves but has been kept from seeing--discovers the body of a
little boy that
bears a striking resemblance to the missing child. Against
all his instincts,
Michael must draw Sabrina into his life as one of the
world's most notorious
assassins if he's to overcome the legacy of his bloodthirsty
past.
Sabrina's heart slammed into her throat. She unsnapped
her holster as quietly as she could, and shot a look over
her shoulder.
Strickland had seen it too. He drew his weapon and nodded.
She lifted her SIG
P220 off her hip and took aim at the curtain.
“SFPD—I know
you’re back there. Come out with your hands where I can see
them,” she said in
a tone that gave little doubt as to her intent if her
command wasn’t followed.
No response,
just the slight flutter of the curtain that told her that
who or whatever was
behind it was still
there.
“I said,
A pair of
feet appeared, nothing more than the tops and toes. They
were small and pale in
the steady beam of her flashlight.
Holy shit. It was a kid.
She changed
tactics, softened her tone but still held firm. “It's okay,
you're safe. I'm a
police officer—it's okay to come out now,” she said but
didn't lower her gun.
There was a chance the child behind the curtain wasn't
alone.
Small feet shuffled closer and a hand peeked out from
the split between the curtains. The opening was pulled wider
to reveal a white
face—dark, vacant eyes and a sharp nose set in a face that
was painfully thin.
Equally thin shoulders and torso appeared as the kid moved
forward slowly. Just
like the dead boy upstairs, he was
naked.
“Are you
alone back there?” she said. The kid didn't answer, just
stared at her with
those empty eyes. She motioned the child closer. “Come here,
it's okay.” She
looked at Strickland and tipped her head in the direction of
the curtain. He nodded
and moved forward, gun raised.
Sabrina
reached out and latched onto the boy's arm, pulling him
toward her. The second
her fingers made contact, he went crazy—swinging and
shouting in a language she
didn't understand.
She dragged
the boy clear of the curtain. He fought against her grip,
screaming and
flailing, while Strickland did a sweep of the room behind
it. He came out a few
seconds later. “Nothing. Just a mattress, TV and another
camcorder.” he said
over the din of the boy's screaming. “What the hell is he
saying?”
She shook
her head and looked at the boy, saw his face, white and
stretched thin with
terror. He wasn't speaking English but his fear was obvious.
“Shhh, shhh—it's
okay. We're here to help,” she said, hoping her tone would
convey the message
her words couldn't.
The boy
darted away from her, nothing but a pale blur as he bolted
toward freedom and
she started after him, pounding up the steps, Strickland two
strides behind
her. She reached the top of the stairs and saw him running
down the darkened
hallway, darting this way and that.
“Stop him,”
she shouted, hoping the uniform at the front door would be
quick enough to
catch him.
The boy cut
to the left and she followed, through the living room
doorway. He saw the
uniform, blocking his way out and he darted to the left
again, cutting across
the room to the other side of the house. Toward the room
where the dead boy
probably still lay stretched out on the
floor.
“Don't go in
there,” she said, even though he didn't understand her. He
disappeared through
the doorway seconds before she reached it. She skidded to a
stop, blocking the
doorway. The coroner, Mandy Black, hunkered down next to the
body on the floor
but the whole of her attention was concentrated on the boy
who just burst into the
room. He was crouching in the corner furthest away from the
doorway, knees
drawn tight against his chest by arms so thin and pale they
looked like twigs,
bleached white by the
sun.
He started
rambling again, eyes, like miniature black holes, aimed at
the body on the
floor. She started to cross the threshold but Mandy threw up
a hand and shook
her head. Sabrina stalled out mid-stride and watched as
Mandy stood, crossing
the room on slow and steady feet. She said something in what
sounded like the
same language the boy was speaking and as if Mandy had
thrown a switch, he
stopped talking.
Sabrina
watched and listened. Mandy got closer and closer, still
speaking the strange
language in a low, easy tone that seemed to sooth the boy.
It sounded
Slavic—maybe Russian. Strange coming from the woman crouched
on the floor. She
must've asked him a question because the boy nodded, eyes
suddenly flooded with
tears. He started to speak again but his speech had lost its
hysterical edge.
Mandy got close enough to reach out and touch him but she
didn't. She kept her
hands at her sides, shaking her head as she crouched low and
slow in front of
him. She kept talking. The boy kept
listening.
“What. The.
Fuck,” Strickland said behind her. “Coroner Barbie speaks
gibberish.”
“It's not
gibberish, dickhead. It's Russian,” Mandy said without
looking up.
She felt a
prickle, like electricity dancing along her skin. What was a
Russian boy doing
in an abandoned house in San Francisco? One that had
obviously been held
against his will?
She looked
away from the boy crouched in the corner to the one dead on
the floor.
“Ask him if he knows the victim,” she
said.
Mandy spoke
quietly and the boy answered, shaking his head. “No. He said
he’s never seen
him before.”
Sabrina
studied the boy on the floor. He was small and blond. She
entered the room and
squatted down next to the body. She peeled back a lid and
looked at his eyes.
They were milky but she could see enough of the iris to know
they were light in
color.
She
stood. “I need some air,” she said, brushing past Strickland
on her way out the
door. She could feel him watching her and she silently urged
him not to follow.
She didn't
need air. She needed to call Ben, because there was a very
real chance that
she'd just found Leo
Maddox.
Carved in Darkness (Book
#1)
Past horrors bleed into a present day nightmare
Fifteen years ago, a psychotic killer abducted seventeen
year old Melissa
Walker. For 83 days she was raped and tortured before being
left for dead in a
deserted church yard... But she was still alive.
Melissa begins a new life as homicide inspector, Sabrina
Vaughn. With a new
face and a new name, it's her job to hunt down murderers and
it's a job she
does very well.
When Michael O'Shea, a childhood acquaintance with a
suspicious past, suddenly
finds her, he brings to life the nightmare Sabrina has long
since buried.
Believing that his sister was recently murdered by the same
monster who
attacked Sabrina, Michael is dead set on getting his
revenge--using Sabrina as
bait.
Sacrificial Muse (Book
#2)
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She is his muse, and the
fates require sacrifice.
San Francisco Detective Sabrina Vaughn is able to shrug off
the nine red roses
being delivered to her office every day. But when only eight
roses arrive on
the same day a Berkeley student's mutilated body is found,
Sabrina fears that
the killer is taunting her. Forced into a partnership with a
deceitful reporter
who somehow remains one step ahead of her, Sabrina discovers
that she's the
object of a psychopath's twisted delusion . . . and there
may be no escape.
Maegan
Beaumont is the author of CARVED IN DARKNESS, the first book in the
Sabrina Vaughn thriller series (Available through Midnight
Ink, spring 2013). A
native Phoenician, Maegan’s stories are meant to make you wonder
what the guy
standing in front of you in the Starbucks line has locked in
his basement, and
feel a strong desire to sleep with the light
on.
When
she isn’t busy fulfilling her duties as Domestic Goddess for
her high school
sweetheart turned husband, Joe, and their four children, she
is locked in her
office with her computer, her coffee pot and her Rhodesian
Ridgeback, and one
true love, Jade.
Twitter ~ Blog ~ Goodreads
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