Against the Clock: A J. Carter & Associates Novella

By T. M. Carper

TICK.

It starts innocently enough. Then, Neil Pearson's world is turned upside down when his girlfriend is kidnapped by an old classmate with a vendetta. The clock is ticking on her life -- Lara Murphy's been buried alive. He's got less than two hours to decode the clues before she suffocates.

TOCK.

Waking up in a coffin wasn't part of her plan. But Lara's not your average damsel in distress. She's not about to lie around and wait to die, regardless of what her faceless captor thinks. There is a way out -- and she'll find it -- or die trying.

TIME'S UP.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T. M. Carper
• Release date: Mar 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476141893

T. M. Carper

I'm the author of several thrillers featuring the employees of J. Carter & Associates, a firm that specializes in everything outside the law. Among those at J. Carter are a profiler, a con artist, an ex-FBI agent, computer hackers, and accomplished killers. STEAL YOU AWAY is my first standalone romantic suspense novel. It loosely ties into the J. Carter & Associates series.

Book preview

That doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you play along.

Play along? You’ve gotta be kidding me, Lara muttered.

Listen up and save your breath. You’ve got maybe… three hours tops before you run outta air. If you’re lucky, your boyfriend will find you before time runs out. If not…

Wait… what? Where’s Neil?

The strange man laughed. That doesn't matter. You should just save your strength. You’re not getting outta there. Enjoy what’s left of your life.

Static filled the small space.

Who are you? What do you want?

Against the Clock:

A J. Carter & Associates Novella

T. M. Carper

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012, 2017 by T. M. Carper

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SOLE SURVIVOR: A J. Carter & Associates Novel

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STEAL YOU AWAY

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

Against the Clock:

A J. Carter & Associates Novella

Chapter One

Saturday – 12:02am

It was a quiet, moonless night as he pulled the old Mercedes Benz around the circular driveway. The headlights turned off, leaving the two passengers in relative darkness.

Thanks for dinner… it was great to not have to cook for once, the woman in the passenger seat said, her light eyes sparkling even in the dim glow of the porch lights.

Anytime, Neil Pearson said, smiling at her. It was hard to believe that the skinny girl he used to play cops and robbers with as a child had blossomed into a brunette beauty. If he closed his eyes, he could still see his childhood best friend, not the woman she had become.

You have no idea how nice it was to have real adult company for once. You’re so lucky you have sisters.

C’mon, Kieran and Kaden aren’t that bad… they aren’t two anymore… he teased, knowing that her identical twin younger brothers, often collectively called the Ks, drove her crazy. Like him, they knew all the right buttons to push. He also encouraged them, having known her entire family since birth.

That's what happened when your fathers were best friends. While she wasn't exactly the girl next door, he didn't remember a time where he didn't know her. Where he wasn't at her house as much as his own. Where her father wasn't his honorary uncle and his father the same to her.

Even as children, there had been something between them—a magnetic attraction. Of course, he’d been the one to ruin their friendship as a teenager. Neil let his peers manipulate him into turning on her. It took years of silence from them both before maturity allowed them to repair their fractured friendship.

Now they sat in his car, in the dark, parked in front of a house he knew as well as his own.

I’m glad we did this, Lara Murphy said, tucking a lock of her curly hair behind her ear.

"Me too. I missed this… I