Thomas Kies [Kies - Darkness Lane

The First Geneva Chase Mystery

Kies debut mystery introduces a reporter with a compelling voice, a damaged woman who recounts her own bittersweet story as she hunts down clues. This suspenseful story will appeal to readers who enjoy hard-nosed investigative reporters such as Brad Parks Carter Ross.

Library Journal, starred review/debut of the month

Kies tells a taut, fastpaced tale, imbuing each character with memorable, compelling traits that help readers connect with them those who enjoy J.A. Jances Beaumont series or Sue Graftons Kinsey Milhone will appreciate Geneva Chase.

Booklist

A hard-living newspaperwoman juggles multiple men and battles the bottle on her way to redemption via a high-profile murder story. Kiess fiction debut lays the groundwork for an entertaining series.

Kirkus Reviews

The bad choices made by Geneva Genie Chase, the narrator of Kies arresting debut, have landed her back in her hometown of Sheffield, Conn., working for the local paper. When a multiple murderthe six victims were all members of a sex club, and the murder site was their clubhouseis discovered in a Long Island Sound mansion, Geneva is the only reporter on the scene. Kies has created a likable if flawed heroine readers will want to see more of.

Publishers Weekly

Its a page turner, quick to draw the reader in as they search for answers alongside the dysfunctional, yet remarkably endearing, Geneva Chase.

Carolina Shore Magazine

Copyright

Copyright 2018 by Thomas Kies

First Edition 2018

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954236

ISBN: 9781464210013 Hardcover

ISBN: 9781464210037 Trade Paperback

ISBN: 9781464210044 Ebook

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Poisoned Pen Press

4014 N. Goldwater Blvd., #201

Scottsdale, AZ 85251

www.poisonedpenpress.com

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

For Jessica and Joshua, Alexander and Jessy,

Thomas and Gillian, Henry and Jake,

and Cindy and Lilly.

Acknowledgments

Id like to thank my publisher, Barbara Peters and my editor, Annette Rogers, from Poisoned Pen Press, who were there to help me make this book a much stronger story. You ladies are terrific to work with. Your advice is always spot on.

Id like to thank my fabulous agent, Kimberley Cameron, for pulling me out of the slush pile and matching me with a wonderful publisher. Through your incredible patience, grace, and friendship, youve changed my life. Ill always be grateful!

Id like to thank Judie Szuets and Debra Hanson, two wonderful people I used to work with back in my newspaper days. Your voices are inside my head when I write dialogue for Geneva Chase.

Id like to thank Dawn Brock from Coastal Press who, when I needed yet another hard copy of the book to work from, would drop everything and print a copy.

Thank you, Allie Miller, for the authors photo and making me look good.

Id like to thank my incredible wife, Cindy Schersching, for her love, encouragement and patience. You give me the confidence to keep on writing.

And finally, Id like to thank everyone who read Random Road and told me how much they enjoyed spending time with Geneva Chase. Writing can be a lonely, solitary endeavor. Hearing your compliments makes it all worthwhile.

Epigraph

Sadness flies on the wings of morning,

and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.

Jean Giraudoux

Chapter One

I was nearly done editing Darcies piece on last nights particularly gruesome homicide over on the east side of Sheffield. A forty-three-year-old woman, claiming to have been routinely abused over the course of her twenty-year marriage, waited until her husband, Jim, had gotten blind-ass hammered and passed out in their bed. Then she calmly poured gasoline over his entire body while he snored away and lit a match.

By the time the fire department got there, the house was completely engulfed in flames, and he was long past screaming. The police found Betsy Caviness standing on the curb watching the fire department vainly attempt to extinguish the fire.

She was calmly drinking merlot out of a plastic cup. Im just toasting my husband, she told them sardonically.

Thats my headline.

I pulled her mug shot up on my computer. Mrs. Caviness looked like someone had worked her face over with a meat tenderizer. One eye completely swollen shut, her skin mottled purple and black, her lips cracked openit was a Halloween mask of pain and terror.

I know she had options other than roasting her husband alive and Im all for due process, but I felt pity for that woman. Twenty years of physical and mental torment can make for a whole lot of crazy.

I also know, because Id written a story about Jim Caviness last year when I was still on the crime beat. He wasnt a nice guy. Hed been arrested in December for trafficking minors for sex. He beat the charge when the three girls hed victimized disappeared, seemingly off the face of the earth.

I finished the edit on the Betsy Caviness piece and pushed the button to send it to the computer geeks in composing, when I saw my resident millennial, Darcie Miller, standing in the doorway of my cubicle, her emerald eyes wide, expression somber.

Genie, better take a look. Got a missing fifteen-year-old. She pointed to the computer screen on my desk. Isnt that how old your daughter is?

Icy fingers brushed the back of my neck while the constant clattering din of the newsroom seemed to go preternaturally silent.

I turned, quickly found her entry in the queue, and brought it up on my screen.

Police Ask Help in Locating

Missing 15-Year-Old Girl

SHEFFIELD, CT-Authorities are actively seeking the whereabouts of Barbara Leigh Jarvis, last seen in the vicinity of West Sheffield High School on the morning of Monday, October 17.

According to the Sheffield Police Department, Miss Jarvis left her grandmothers home at 1217 Bedford St. to walk to school. School officials report that she never arrived and didnt attend any classes that day.

Barbara (Bobbi) Jarvis is 5 feet-6 inches tall, weighs 110 pounds, has brown hair, brown eyes and was dressed in a purple and white long-sleeved shirt, black windbreaker and blue jeans. She was carrying a black backpack.

Anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts should call the SPD at 1-800-555-6565.

Adrenaline hit my nervous system hard. Bobbi Jarvis was Carolines best friend.

Instinctively, I reached into my oversized bag hanging from the back of my office chair. Taking out my cellphone, I brought up the family locater app. It allows me to track where Caroline is in real time. A tiny street map appeared with an electronic pushpin stuck firmly where the high school was located.

Carolines in school, right where shes supposed to be.

I was still new at this mothering thing. Ive never actually had kids of my own so raising a teenager was a fresh and exasperating experience. Worrying all the time was becoming the new normal for me.

I looked at the police press release again.

Ive been writing stories for newspapers and magazines for eighteen years, mostly on the crime beat covering murders, assaults, rapes, arsons, robberies, sex scandals, and fraud. If it was ugly, I wrote about it.