Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

© 2006

Dear Reader,

I was one of those good little girls. Really. I thought if I told a lie, my young world would end, and that my existence depended on the Everlasting Goodness of Me. (It made sense at the time.) But the heroine of this book, Karin Sommers? Her growing-up years depended on just how well she could lie, deceive, playact and lead adults around by the nose.

You get the idea. If there were ever two people with more disparate personal foundations…

Okay, part of me is hoping that you won’t notice that Karin is so real to me that I just referred to her as an actual person. But the rest of me hopes that in reading this book, you’ll experience the same sense of discovery I did as I wrote it. The “Oh, wow, this is what it would be like…” experience. As well as the profound sense of pride in Karin as she discovers who she really is. And those con game details that I so gleefully worked up? Just don’t tell my mom, okay?

Doranna

I made up some of the tech in this novel, but from the looks of things it’ll be real by the time the book reaches the shelves… But yes, there is a water tower on North Payne Street!

Thanks to:

The Things That Go Bang regulars The Alexandria & Scotch Connection Greg Davis, Associate Chief Medical Examiner, Commonwealth of Kentucky

Karin Sommers’s Journal, March 12

Dear Ellen-

Happy birthday. I miss you terribly, and I’m sorry you’re dead.

I wish it weren’t my fault.

February 17, previous year

Karin Sommers twisted in the front seat of the Subaru Outback, reaching for the bag of pretzels perched precariously on the clothes crammed behind her. Every nook of the car held the carefully chosen belongings she and her older sister, Ellen, had extracted from Karin’s small California apartment. Extracted, piled on and driven casually away as if it weren’t the biggest breakout since the Birdman of Alcatraz.

But she wasn’t looking at her things, and she wasn’t really looking for the pretzels. She looked back at the dizzying curve of road disappearing into the darkness behind them. The sign for the Kentucky state line was already hidden behind a jut of construction-cut mountainside. The coal truck riding their bumper quickly lost ground as they hit this latest series of severe asphalt curlicues.

Have we made it yet?

“You’ll get carsick if you keep that up.” Ellen plied the wheel expertly, familiar with the abrupt and narrow Appalachian roads. “Besides, we’re two-thirds of the way across the country. If dear old stepdad had a clue where you were, he’d have been breathing down our necks a long time ago.”

Karin settled back into place, smoothing the seat-belt strap as she reached for the warm pop in the cup holder. Sleet rattled against the windshield, then eased into spattering rain. “We’re not safe yet. If it occurs to him that you and I have been faking estrangement, he’s going to come looking.”

“He doesn’t care about me,” Ellen said calmly. “He’d never even consider I could have the nerve to help you break away.”

Have we made it yet? Am I almost there?

But Karin had to grin at her sister-so alike in looks and close in age that they were often taken for twins, so dissimilar in temperament. They were still sisters at the core. They watched out for each other as they could, right up until the point Ellen had declared herself outta there and their stepfather Gregg Rumsey had declared himself glad to see her go.

And Karin had stayed behind with Rumsey, trapped by years of control and entanglement in scams and petty schemes and thievery-starting in her childhood, taking advantage of her steady nerve, cultivating and training her natural ability to lie, cry on cue and play her mark. She’d had no way to understand the unusual nature of her life. By the time she had understood the true consequences of her actions, by the time she’d realized she hadn’t merely been playing games and skirting legalities at no real cost to anyone else, she had been irreparably tangled in her stepfather’s activities. And when she’d wanted to quit anyway, he’d had plenty to hold over her head. Quit, he’d told her, and you go straight to jail.

And I can return the favor, she’d retorted-but had pretended to settle back into their routine. Unlike Rumsey, she hadn’t been gathering incriminating evidence. She had no doubt he’d play the legal system as easily as he played his marks, and that she’d end up in jail while he went free.

Still, she’d always intended to leave. She’d contacted Ellen on the sly, made plans, skimmed Rumsey’s takes and bided her time. She’d limited her involvement to the Robin Hood scams-steal from the rich, pay the bills, squirrel away some of the take. And that had been enough. It had worked. Until now, when Rumsey had finally crossed her admittedly flexible line by killing an elderly couple who’d caught on to his latest investment scam. Until she’d suddenly wondered if this was the first time.

Until she had wondered if she might one day be just as disposable.

And then she and shy, nervous Ellen had finally colluded on her departure. Her breakout.

The car swooped around another curve. On the other side of the guardrail, Pine Mountain plunged down to the Russell Fork in a drop steep enough to earn the area its nickname-the Grand Canyon of the South. Under any other circumstances, it would be a place at which to stop and marvel and snap endless touristy photos.

But there’d be no stopping just now. She and Ellen wouldn’t slow down until they reached the Blue Ridge area just west of Roanoke. Ellen’s new home after years in Alexandria.

Almost there.

Actually, another six or seven hours of driving to go. And then she’d hide at Ellen’s little farmhouse until she could make her new life, using the money she’d taken from Rumsey. Money she’d earned. She’d leave Karin Sommers behind and become someone else. But still…she was so close. Seven hours. Compared to the years it had taken to make the break, compared to these past few weeks of heart-thumping stress…

Yeah. Almost there.

Karin laughed out loud, drawing Ellen’s bemused gaze-just for an instant, because in the darkness on these roads, no one could dare more. “Just thinking about the look on his face if he knew you’d helped me.”

“Probably similar to the look he had when he first plugged me into a scam and I threw up all over him,” Ellen said drily.

Karin crunched into a pretzel bow. “I only wish I’d thought of that. But no, I had to make it fun. A great big game.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ellen said, unexpected fierceness in her voice. “You’re the one who got us through those years, by playing his games.” She slowed the car, flicking off the brights as the sleet came down heavy in a sudden gust.

“Hey,” Karin said, deliberately light in tone. “We should thank the old bastard. If he hadn’t taught me so well, I wouldn’t have been able to play him these past weeks.”

Ellen snorted. “Don’t give him any credit. If he hadn’t been jerking us around, you’d not only have finished high school, you’d have been grabbing all the drama club’s juiciest parts. You’re a natural.”

“Tsk.” Karin waved a pretzel in false admonition. “He ‘saved my ass from jail’ too many times to count. He told me so, after all, so it must be true-look out!”

Ellen spit a panicked expletive as a deer exploded into motion from the darkness. She hit the brakes, cranking the steering wheel as they spun over the narrow, slushy asphalt. The car slid sideways, its four-wheel drive futilely hunting a grip-and then gently bumped to a stop against the guardrail.