Jeffery Deaver: The Never Game

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Gunner Publications, LLC 2019

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Jeffery Deaver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008303723

Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008303747

Version: 2020-04-28

‘ The Never Game is the very definition of a page-turner’

IAN RANKIN

‘Terrific writing, vivid and raw, Deaver grips from the very first line and never lets up. He is, hands-down, one of the finest thriller writers of our time’

PETER JAMES

‘As always, Deaver gets you in his stealthy grip on page one, and then takes you on a wild and inventive ride … this time with new star character Colter Shaw. No one in the world does this kind of thing better than Deaver’

LEE CHILD

‘Masterful storytelling – The Never Game is Deaver’s most riveting, most twisty, most unputdownable novel yet’

KARIN SLAUGHTER

‘Lightning-fast and loaded with twists, The Never Game is a thrill a minute from one of the best. Don’t miss it’

HARLAN COBEN

‘Jeffery Deaver scores yet again with a fascinating new detective, Colter Shaw, and a plot as full of thrills and twists and turns as you would expect from him. With The Never Game you know you are in the hands of a master. But be warned – don’t start this too late in the evening because sleep would be an annoying interruption once you’ve started reading!’

PETER ROBINSON

NOVELS

The Lincoln Rhyme Series

The Cutting Edge

The Burial Hour

The Steel Kiss

The Skin Collector

The Kill Room

The Burning Wire

The Broken Window

The Cold Moon

The Twelfth Card

The Vanished Man

The Stone Monkey

The Empty Chair

The Coffin Dancer

The Bone Collector

The Kathryn Dance Series

Solitude Creek

XO

Roadside Crosses

The Sleeping Doll

The Rune Series

Hard News

Death of a Blue Movie Star

Manhattan is My Beat

The John Pellam Series

Hell’s Kitchen

Bloody River Blues

Shallow Graves

Stand-alones

The October List

No Rest for the Dead (Contributor)

Carte Blanche (A James Bond Novel)

Watchlist (Contributor)

Edge

The Bodies Left Behind

Garden of Beasts

The Blue Nowhere

Speaking in Tongues

The Devil’s Teardrop

A Maiden’s Grave

Praying For Sleep

The Lesson of Her Death

Mistress of Justice

SHORT FICTION

Collections

A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor)

Trouble in Mind

Triple Threat

Books to Die For (Contributor)

The Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor)

More Twisted

Twisted

Stories

Ninth and Nowhere

Captivated

The Victims’ Club

Surprise Ending

Double Cross

The Deliveryman

A Textbook Case

To M and P

Gaming disorder is defined … as a pattern of gaming behavior (“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.

—THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about rock ’n’ roll.

—NINTENDO GAME DESIGNER SHIGERU MIYAMOTO

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for The Never Game

Also By Jeffery Deaver

Dedication

Epigraph

Level Three: The Sinking Ship

Level One: The Abandoned Factory

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Level Three: The Sinking Ship

Level Two: The Dark Forest

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Level Three: The Sinking Ship

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Author’s Note

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

Sprinting toward the sea, Colter Shaw eyed the craft closely.

The forty-foot derelict fishing vessel, decades old, was going down by the stern, already three-fourths submerged.

Shaw saw no doors into the cabin; there would be only one and it was now underwater. In the aft part of the superstructure, still above sea level, was a window facing onto the bow. The opening was large enough to climb through but it appeared sealed. He’d dive for the door.