Title: PROMISES TO KEEP (Sabrina Vaughn Book #3)
Author: Maegan Beaumont
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Release Date: August 8th, 2015
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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.
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.
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 ~ Website ~ Facebook
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