Locked Doors (Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series 2)

Everything had been chronicled: the desert, Orson, the Outer Banks, the Kites, the Kinnakeet. All that remained was to bow and step behind the curtain.

Andrew waded the last few feet to shore and climbed up onto the bank. He pulled his hair into a ponytail, wrapped himself in a towel, and flopped down on a sunwarmed blanket. Violet handed him his pair of sunglasses and he slid them on and lay flat on his back and closed his eyes to the sun.

“How was it?” she asked.

“Amazing.”

“Think I’ll take a dip.” Violet set her son on Andrew’s chest. “Don’t look at my pooch, Andy,” she warned though her belly had nearly contracted back to its pre-baby girth. Violet had given birth to Max just three weeks ago after a long labor at Whitehorse General Hospital. Andrew had not left her side.

Now he stared at the bundled and sleeping infant while Violet stripped.

“All right, I’m going in,” she said.

“It’s warm out in the middle.”

“No peeking.”

She stepped down from the mossy bank and eased into the water, her short hair kindling in the sunlight—champagnecolored and traced with strawberry.

Max woke, emitted a tender microscopic cry.

Andrew shushed him.

The baby yawned, its eyes flittering open, taking in the familiar bearded face.

“God it feels so good in here!” Violet yelled, laughing from the middle of the pool.

Andrew thought of the ending to his book:

Vi’s panic attacks are fewer and farther between, though I occasionally wake up in the night, hear her crying into her pillow. Sometimes she calls for me to come down from the loft and sit with her. Sometimes she wants to cry it out alone. We rarely speak of the Outer Banks. We have no future plans. She needs very much to live in the present. As do I.

What a strange and beautiful summer with Vi in these woods.

I haven’t known peace like this before.

The sky had begun to pale toward evening when they started back for the cabin—a quarter mile hike through the woods on a moose run.

Andrew stayed out to split firewood.

Violet went indoors.

She laid her son down in the crib and sat at the kitchen table with a pen and paper.

Not knowing what to say, she spent most of her words describing Max.

She imagined Ebert and Evelyn in the North Carolina countryside, reading this letter about their grandson. It would be dusk and they’d sit out on the big wraparound porch of their white farmhouse, the pleasant stench of manure present in the mist.

She could smell her father’s pipe, see the long view from the porch—rolling pasture, barns, the soft bluegreen horizon of lush deciduous trees that would not survive one Yukon winter. For a moment, Violet felt as homesick for those eastern woods as she did for her parents.

I miss your trees, she wrote.

Andrew made dinner while she rocked Max to sleep, the cabin filling with the incense of tomatoes and garlic and boiling pasta.

They dined on the back porch, their sunburned faces lit by a solitary candle, its flame frozen on this windless night.

Though it was after ten light dawdled in the sky.

This far north in late summer, true darkness doesn’t come until after midnight.

There had been a passing shower some time ago and the smell of the wet spruce was sharp and clean. Firs crowded the porch, their lowest branches draping within reach.

Andrew set down his fork and took a sip of the excellent Chilean wine.

“I finished the epilogue while you were in the shower.”

Violet stared at her plate.

“Vi?”

When she finally looked at him across the rickety card table, he noticed her hands were shaking.

Andrew had converted the loft into a bedroom, managing to fit a mattress where his writing desk had been.

It was very late and dark and quiet.

Moonlight came through the windows and bleached the floorboards.

Violet had calmed down.

They lay awake, Max between them, the infant snoring delicately.

“Is it hard for you?” Violet whispered.

“What?”

“You know. Lying here with me…doing nothing.”

Andrew smiled.

“Go to sleep.”

He almost said go to sleep angel.

Her head rested in the crook of his arm.

She rubbed her cheek against his.

“What are you doing?”

“Max never had a beard. I like yours. I like how it smells.”

“You gonna keep me up all night?”

“I just might.”

10/14/03

Haines Junction, Yukon

Spent last night at the Raven Hotel. Pricey. Look for something more reasonable this evening. Breakfast at Bill’s Diner. Coffee. Two delicious bearclaws. C$11.56. AT came to the village again in that old CJ-5. (he went to the library) I drove out to his cabin. 5.9 miles down Borealis Road. A one-laner. Rough. Beautiful weather. Cold. Saw his driveway but didn’t turn in. Too nervous. (don’t be such a chickenshit) Think I’ll return on foot tonight and approach through woods under the cover of

The intercom broke in: “At this time, we would like to begin boarding Flight 6346 with nonstop service to Whitehorse, Yukon.”

The tattered purple notebook closed.

On its cover, “H. BOONE” had been neatly printed in black magic marker:

The passenger of seat 14C slipped the notebook into a leather satchel, slung it over his shoulder, and strolled toward the gate.

His hair is blond and short now, but if you look closely, the roots are still black.

Read on for an excerpt from DESERT PLACES, the prequel to LOCKED DOORS, also available on Kindle, but first…

Author’s Afterward

So what's up with this ending? And will there ever be a conclusion to the Andrew Thomas/Luther Kite saga?

I'm good friends with thriller author J.A. Konrath, and our writing has covered many of the same themes of good and evil. I love Joe’s Det. Jack Daniels Series, which showcase his own unique, disturbing take on the serial killer genre.

In 2010, we wrote a novella together called SERIAL UNCUT (available on Amazon), combining some of the characters from his work and my work, including Jack Daniels, Taylor (from AFRAID and TRAPPED, written under Joe’s pen name, Jack Kilborn), and Mr. K. It also features Orson Thomas and Luther Kite from DESERT PLACES and LOCKED DOORS.

Joe approached me with a simple, yet unique, idea: Wouldn't it be fun to have Jack and Luther square off in a full length novel? I was all for it. That novel is STIRRED, which we're currently writing.

If you're new to my books, or Joe's books, and want to get caught up on the entire history of these characters before reading STIRRED, here is the order they go in, along with the characters they spotlight: