Darkest Night

By Bill Craig

After catching a brutal serial killer known as The Butterfly Killer in The Butterfly Tattoo, Joe Collins walked away from being a cop. In Paradise Lost, his former partner lures Joe back into police work to solve a string of serial kidnappings. But what happened to Joe in between? After a sound man is murdered on a movie set in Thousand Islands State Park, Joe is hired to find out who killed him and why. What he finds is that in the movie business, nothing is what it seems. A movie based on a teen literary series titled Darkest Night, steeped in voodoo lore is suddenly under attack by a mad voodoo priest who will stop at nothing to make sure the film is DOA before it can finish filming, and Joe Collins might be the only one who can track the madman down and stop him before more dead bodies show up...

• Language: English
• Publisher: AbsolutelyAmazingEbooks.com
• Release date: Jul 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311588852

Bill Craig

Bill Craig taught himself to read at age four and began writing his own stories at age six. He published his first novel at age 40 and says it only took him 34 years to become an overnight success! He has been publishing steadily ever since that first book Valley of Death and now has 27 books in print or ebook. Bill is the proud father of four children ranging in age from 38 to almost 8. He has 7 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. Mr. Craig has worked a wide variety of jobs over the years from private security and corrections work to being a grill cook and dishwasher. He has been a news reporter, done factory work and even a stint as a railroad clerk. He currently does customer service work to support his writing addiction. His ultimate goal in life is to break the record held by pulp author and creator of The Shadow, Walter B. Gibson, for writing the most works in a single year!

Book preview

Darkest Night

Bill Craig

A Joe Collins Mystery

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING eBOOKS

Published by Whiz Bang LLC, 926 Truman Avenue, Key West, Florida 33040, USA.

Darkest Night copyright © 2014 by Bill Craig. Electronic compilation/ paperback edition copyright © 2014 by Whiz Bang LLC.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized ebook editions.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents. How the e-book displays on a given reader is beyond the publisher’s control.

For information contact:

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For Tracy Boche and Suzy Barr, both huge fans of Joe Collins.

And for my children always, with much love…

Chapter One

Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge, South Florida

Don Talbot awoke to the sound of drums. Deep and throbbing they seemed to echo through the night. Snarling a curse he threw off the thin blanket and rolled off his cot, wishing that he had not volunteered to stay on the set and get the sound system ready for the next day’s filming. A storm had just started blowing in as he had finished getting everything set up, but he was pretty sure that he had not forgotten to turn the recorded voodoo drums off. The wind was causing the palms to rustle overhead and leftover raindrops were falling from the waving fronds. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Talbot slipped his feet into the well-worn Crocs next to the bed.

Talbot reached over and scooped up a bottled water that sat on the stand next to the bed. The trailer shook under the buffeting of the wind. It reminded him of how much he hated location shooting. Talbot chugged some water and then recapped the bottle and replaced it. He wasn’t happy about the movie, a low-budget piece based on the latest teen literary craze about voodoo in a small southern town. Then somebody had as a half-assed joke left a burnt-around-the-edges voodoo doll on the steps of his trailer this morning. Talbot fished a pack of Marlboro’s off the table and shook one out. Running his fingers through his short brown hair, he stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and grabbed a lighter, flicking it to life. Touching the end of the cigarette to the flame he inhaled, drawing the fire into the tobacco and smoke deep into his lungs.

Talbot exhaled, smoke shooting from his nostrils like from some ancient dragon. The drums seemed to get louder and the windows vibrated between the drums and the wind. Talbot picked up a flashlight and flicked it on, checking the brightness of the beam then standing and heading for the door of the trailer.

The wind drove raindrops into his face as he stepped outside. Chain lightning flashed across the sky. Talbot wished he had worn a hat as the rain put his cigarette out. He spat the sodden paper out on the ground, mumbling a curse as he headed for the sound trailer where the controls for the drums were located.

The crash of the surf on the beach was barely audible through the pounding of the drums. It was giving him a headache. Halliday was going to have to pay him more to put up with shit like this! He shook his head, thinking about the tightwad producer. Given how cheap the man was, it was a wonder that the whole thing wasn’t being shot on a freaking sound stage! He must have been able to get the park people to let him use the island pretty cheaply. The beam of the flash cut through the darkness like a white knife, allowing him to stay on the trail. Thunder crashed in the sky above, the only thing that seemed to be louder than the incessant pounding of the drums.

Water