Dead Ringers 1: Illusion

By Darlene Gardner

A paranormal mystery serial for young adults on up. All nine 25,000-word volumes now available in boxed sets and a complete collection!

Jade Greene remembers nothing from the time she went missing except a blinding headache and an evil clown with a syringe. Not exactly the stuff to convince others of her sanity.

Nobody at the summer carnival where she works even believes Jade was abducted except her secretive co-worker Max Harper. When Jade and Max stumble across a body on the beach, only two things are certain. People in town aren't who they seem to be. And things for Jade are about to get much, much worse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darlene Gardner
• Release date: Aug 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301204861

Darlene Gardner

While working as a newspaper sportswriter, Darlene Gardner realized she'd rather make up quotes than rely on an athlete to say something interesting. So she quit her job and concentrated on a fiction career that landed her at Harlequin/Silhouette, where she's written for Temptation, Duets and Intimate Moments as well as Superromance. Visit Darlene on the web at www.darlenegardner.com

Book preview

DEAD RINGERS

ILLUSION

Volume One of the Dead Ringers Serial

Darlene Gardner

Dead Ringers Serial

All nine volumes now available

The complete collection: 1-9 boxed set

Volumes 1-3 boxed set

Volume. 1: Illusion

Volume. 2: Invertigo

Volume 3: The Spider

Volumes 4-6 boxed set

Volume 4: Shell Game

Volume 5: Pitfall

Volume 6: Tilt-A-Whirl

Volumes 7-9 boxed set

Volume 7: The Mentalist

Volume 8: Freak Show

Volume 9: Hall of Mirrors

Other books by Darlene Gardner

Romantic Comedies

Three’s Comedy (boxed set)

The Misconception

Bait & Switch

Snoops in the City

Three For All (boxed set)

Clash of Hearts

Baby It’s You

Her Very Merry Mistake

Forget Me? Not

Once Smitten & Twice Shy

Contemporary Romance

The Christmas Cupid

Winter Heat

To The Max

Romantic Mysteries

Sound of Secrets (A Saltwater Romance)

Lowcountry Lies (A Saltwater Romance)

Copyright 2013 Darlene Gardner

Cover by P.K. Gardner

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. Except for the use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means is forbidden without permission in writing from Darlene Gardner.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To my multi-talented daughter P.K. Gardner, who listened to the germ of an idea for this serial and helped make it a reality. I couldn’t have done it without you. You’re not only well loved, you’re amazing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ILLUSION

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Afterward

More Dead Ringers

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About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

Four months ago

When the police find me, I’m stumbling out of a deserted carnival. The place is boarded up for the season, awaiting the fresh swarms of tourists who descend on Midway Beach every summer like Alfred Hitchcock’s birds.

I trip on a crack in the pavement and pitch forward onto my knees. The sound of laughter resonates in my ears and the back of my head throbs. I reach up to touch my skull, half-expecting my hand to come away bloody, but the wound’s nothing more than a bump.

The dizzying spin of police lights and the accompanying thud of footsteps against the frosty ground intensify my headache. I wrap my arms around myself to try to stop my shivers. It may be North Carolina, but even southern beach towns feel the chill in February.

You’re not supposed to be here. A flashlight shines in my eyes before angling back to the ground as the cop bends down to put a hand on my shoulder. The voice is much softer as he takes in my state. Are you all right?

It’s a fight to force the words past my chattering teeth. H-h-how did I get here?

Another beam of light hits me in the face as a second, shorter cop jogs up behind the first. Hey, Wainwright? Isn’t that the Greene girl?

Why would a Midway Beach cop know who I am? The answer slowly penetrates my fuzzy brain. My stepfather’s a felon now, and these must be the two cops who came to the house asking questions about him. The surge of anger is preferable to the headache, but only barely.

Yeah, it is, Wainwright says. He’s so ripped he looks like he’s wearing a muscle suit. He loops a strong arm under my shoulder and helps me to my feet. The ground spins, but he doesn’t let me fall. Your name’s Jade, right? What are you doing here, Jade?

I was walking to Becky’s house. I’d set out for my best friend’s house at dusk, but judging by the darkness shrouding our surroundings it seems much later than that now. And then I was here.

A terrible realization sweeps over me. I’m missing time. It’s the sort of thing that happens in movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. For all I know, there’s a pod Jade hiding in the carnival, waiting to invade our peaceful little town.

What happened to me? Where have I been? I ask the cops.

Wainwright peers over my head at his partner. We better take her to the hospital. Looks like she has a whopper of a concussion.

At the hospital, I discover things are worse than I thought. Much worse.

I haven’t just lost hours. I’ve been gone for days.

CHAPTER TWO

Present Day

Until I vanished into thin, sea-scented air, I considered myself an average eighteen-year-old. Sure, the funky atmosphere in the beach town where I live is in danger of obliteration, the stepfather who raised me is in prison and my mom’s massively screwed up. But everybody has issues.

Hardly anybody gets selective amnesia, though.

That’s pretty much what happened to me on the wintry night I set out for my best friend Becky’s house after my stepdad pled guilty to holding up a liquor store with a gun that wasn’t even loaded. How’s that for dumb and dumber? Mom wasn’t even around to lie and say everything would be all right. She’d taken off a few months earlier.

I remember the wind whipping at my face and turning the tears that dripped down my cheeks to ice as I hurried down the dark sidewalk and then... nothing. Until forty-eight hours later when I turned up confused and disoriented at the carnival on the beach.

The carnival was closed for the season, not teeming with people and noise and music like it is now. Just about every teenager in Midway Beach, including me, works summers either at the carnival or one of the other businesses along the boardwalk. Think Coney Island on a smaller, shabbier scale. We have an arcade, tacky souvenir shops, greasy pizza joints and a wooden pier with an open-air bar that hosts some epically terrible music.

This is my third straight year working as a ride operator although I wasn’t supposed to be at the carnival this summer. My plan was to line up a job at a daycare center. But that was before my life went off track, back when I thought I’d be heading to the University of North Carolina on a full academic scholarship and majoring in elementary education.

I couldn’t swing the UNC tuition after my grades tanked and I lost the scholarship. But as much as that hurts, the scholarship isn’t what I want back most.

What I want back are those two lost days.

Hey, Jade, Roxy Cooper, my boss, bellows at me as she approaches the Wild Mouse roller coaster. She’s a powerfully built platinum blonde somewhere between thirty-five and fifty. The line of teenagers part like the Red Sea to let her through. How many times you gonna let those cars go ’round?

I’m supposed to keep it to a three-lap limit. Some of the riders look green from all the tight, flat turns and switchbacks so I’m probably over that. The controls aren’t automated but antiquated, like everything else at the carnival. I yank up the long lever that operates the skid brakes, and the coaster groans like it’s dying.

You okay? Roxy asks me that question at least once a day, like she’s really concerned. I know better. After the cops figured out I was missing time, they’d investigated where I’d been for the previous two days.

According to Roxy, the spineless liar, I’d been with her. She claimed to have dropped me off at my house shortly before the cops found me. Of course she insisted she had no idea how I ended up at the carnival.

I’m just peachy.

Her jaw works as she