LU$T

By Dave Lynch

A New Action Thriller from Dave Lynch.

Florida: home to the glamorous, the devious, and the criminal.
At 22, Laine Tandy is all of these. 
She's far too aware of her sexuality. Preying on the old and weak - a fresh delivery with every cruise ship that enters the Glades - hers is a life of jaded glamour.
But easy living comes at a price. Laine is about to discover that life's not all plain sailing.
In Florida, the hotter the sun, the darker the shadow.

WARNING: CLIFFHANGER AHEAD
This is a short read and introduces some backstory to the forthcoming full length novel. It is a complete read, but there are questions deliberately left unanswered which do not affect this story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ePub Scene
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540149657

Book preview

THANK YOU

Thank you for buying LU$T. I hope you enjoy it!

I also extend my thanks to a few other people without whom this book would not have come into existence.

For their continued belief in, and support of, me and my crazy ideas I want to thank my daughter Emily; and my friends Patti Stafford from Branson, Missouri (someday I hope to visit) and Lisa Melia from Meath.

For taking the time to share his thoughts and process with the world through his writing course on Masterclass.com, I want to thank James Patterson. Even learning from you online was an eye-opener and a joy. I doubt you’ll ever read this, but I can only hope that you end up with a copy of my book in your home since I have a few of yours in mine.

If you’d like to follow me as I further develop my thriller books, you can find me at www.davelynch.info

LU$T

DAVE LYNCH

The author retains the legal and moral right

to the copyright of this material.

LU$T © Dave Lynch

PROLOGUE

Decker burst through the water surface, reaching for the side of his boat. He sucked air into his chest and practically spasmed with adrenaline. Gold! It had to be. He rolled the object around in his hand. It had been only 10 feet down and yet it was solid and heavy: a ring. Not one of those touristy Florida gold gimmicks. This was real. This was going to change his life!

Despite the warm water, Decker felt cold. The faint glimmer he had spotted almost two hours previously had kept him sifting through a constantly changing carpet of silt. In his absence the sun continued its blistering assault on the flaking navy blue paint that he liked to joke held his boat together. He embraced it now for its loyalty, and to keep himself above water.

At seventeen years of age, the Glades were about to become his personal playground. Money, baby, money. I'm the man!

Decker lay one arm over the bow to haul himself aboard the boat that moved and shifted with the tide, when the sound first dawned on him. A distant drone. Familiar, yet foreign now in this quiet lull. It was the sound of a motor getting closer. He peered over his boat and looked to the horizon. It took almost 30 seconds before he could make out the three men in the motorboat. Squinting, Decker tried to gauge the newcomers’ distance. Too hard to tell, but in all the open sea around him, their steady approach in his direction was unnerving.

Moving quickly, he wrapped the gold ring in an oil rag and tucked it under the beers in the cooler he kept beneath a dirty canopy at the fore of the boat. The drone was getting louder. Decker could make out some details of the three men on the motorboat. It wasn't the coastguard, so he breathed a little easier about the beers he had on board. But why in all this open ocean where they coming directly towards him?

Decker felt another cold chill explode through his spine. One of the men held a shotgun; another, a spear gun. The third, manning the wheel, had scars that from a distance seemed to connect every feature on his face. Even without being able to see beneath the man's waist, Decker knew he would have a weapon at