CJ Lyons - Blind Faith

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 superbriveting dramaa 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 upkeeps you on the edge of your seat." ~Roundtable Reviews

"Explodes on the pageI 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 authors 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

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 faade 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 Joshbut 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.