Look Away

By CJ Lyons

The daughter of a serial killer starts a new life—but is soon drawn into darkness again—in an edgy thriller by the New York Times–bestselling author . . .

After surviving her serial killer father, Morgan Ames has her first chance at a life without killing. Until temptation crosses her path as she’s working at an anonymous call center and realizes someone there is playing vigilante . . . and getting away with murder.

Morgan’s fascinated, unable to look away as the killer grows bolder. Only Morgan sees the pattern, only Morgan has any idea the vigilante exists, and they’re never going to stop killing—unless Morgan stops them.

But should Morgan accept that sometimes the only way to get justice is outside of the law? Should she join forces with the vigilante and return to her old life of murder and mayhem? Or risk her new life trying to stop them?

First featured in the Lucy Guardino FBI thrillers, Morgan Ames returns and takes the lead role in these gripping, inventive novels from award-winning and USA Today-bestselling author CJ Lyons.

Praise for CJ Lyons’ Thrillers:

“A high stakes adventure with dire consequences.” —Steve Berry, New York Times–bestselling author of The Kaiser’s Web

“Everything a great thriller should be—action packed, authentic, and intense.” — Lee Child, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Jack Reacher novels

“Highly engaging characters, heart-stopping scenes . . . one great rollercoaster ride.” —Bookreporter

“A compelling new voice . . . I love how the characters come alive on every page.” —Jeffery Deaver, New York Times–bestselling author of The Never Game

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781939038715

Book preview

Renegade Justice Thrillers, featuring Morgan Ames

Meet Everyone’s Favorite Teenage Psychopath…

Readers fell in love with Morgan in the Lucy Guardino thrillers and begged for more of everyone’s favorite teenaged psychopath…

Renegade Justice

Morgan’s story begins in the second book of the Lucy Guardino thriller series, with Lucy’s husband, Nick, playing a significant role as Morgan tries to shun her serial-killer father’s indoctrination and give up violence.

To see how Morgan’s story fits in Lucy’s world, the stories in order are:

SNAKE SKIN, Lucy Guardino FBI Thrillers Book #1

BLOOD STAINED, introduces Morgan and Jenna

KILL ZONE, features Morgan and Jenna, introduces Andre

The Renegade Justice Thrillers (taking place in the year between KILL ZONE and AFTER SHOCK):

FIGHT DIRTY, Renegade Justice #1

RAW EDGES, Renegade Justice #2

ANGELS WEEP, Renegade Justice #3

LOOK AWAY, Renegade Justice #4

TRIP WIRE, Renegade Justice #5

The Lucy Guardino Thrillers continue, chronicling Lucy’s departure from the FBI and her new adventures at Beacon Falls:

AFTER SHOCK

HARD FALL

BAD BREAK

LAST LIGHT

DEVIL SMOKE

OPEN GRAVE

GONE DARK

BITTER TRUTH

LESSER EVIL

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Thanks for reading! CJ

Chapter One

Morgan Ames was running out of time.

She’d thought—after surviving her serial killer father, being in a coma for almost a month, and relearning how to walk, talk, and think during rehab—that she’d have all the time in the world.

After all, she had plenty of money, no need to worry about shelter or transportation since she borrowed those—always returning houses and cars in better condition than she’d found them—and, most importantly, no enemies left alive to hunt her. A rare occurrence in her fifteen years of life.

The ticking time bomb driving her now had nothing to do with crime or criminals. It was all about a boy.

That fact rankled her more than any of her new assortment of scars. Because the only thing Morgan had ever run from in her life was the truth of who she really was: a teenaged girl with all the drives—and hormones!—of any other normal teenaged girl. Morgan could never be a Norm, one of the faceless Sheep aimlessly wandering the world. She was a Wolf, a predator to be feared as she prowled the night.

But after spending this past year hiding among the Sheep, masking her true nature—and failing miserably—there was now a boy. Someone who trusted in her, who believed in her, who knew her true self yet refused to run and hide.

A boy who made her desperately yearn to be normal. The one thing Morgan could never be…

After almost dying, she’d pushed herself through physical therapy, regaining her dexterity and strength, but now faced a far more difficult rehab: learning how to be herself again. Not just how to use a knife and fork properly or walk a straight line or carry on a conversation without losing track, but more important things like regaining her most essential abilities: how to lie, cheat, steal.

How to inhabit a mask so well that no one doubted. How to read the subtle clues in a Norm’s speech and body language and know when she’d pushed too far.

Pre-coma Morgan had convinced the guards at a maximum-security penitentiary that she was a twenty-two year old paralegal; on the phone she’d successfully posed as everything from a doctor to a forensic specialist to an FBI agent to a bank manager with the ease of a chameleon.

These were Morgan’s basic survival skills, and she wanted—no, she needed—them back before she could return home to Pittsburgh.

There were only five people in the world whom Morgan trusted with the knowledge of who she really was: Lucy Guardino, the FBI agent who’d caught Morgan’s serial killer father; Lucy’s husband Nick Callahan, the psychologist who’d promised to help Morgan find new outlets for the violence ingrained in her psychopathic soul; Jenna Galloway, the former federal agent who’d hired Morgan to work at her security firm; Jenna’s boyfriend, Andre Stone, the one person Morgan could never con; and Micah Chase, the boy Morgan had met while working undercover at a juvenile detention center. That case had been her hardest assignment, playing someone who was basically her own true self.

The self Micah said he’d fallen in love with.

Morgan wanted to dismiss his feelings as the hormonal urges of a seventeen-year-old boy, but something in Micah made her long to be better, to be the kind of girl a guy like Micah could love.

The fact that he saw something good inside her—despite knowing the truth of who she really was, despite having seen her kill up close and personal—left her desperate to prove herself worthy. Lord knew he’d placed himself in harm’s way often enough for her sake.

Micah’s birthday was in six days. And Morgan refused to return to him until she was fully healed—body, soul, and mind. Regaining her old skills didn’t mean she had to return to a life of violence; on the contrary, they were her best bet against being forced to shed blood.

Morgan sat in her car, a 2004 Ford Focus she’d bought for cash off Craigslist when she first came down south, the better to cement her cover ID as Hildy Smith, normal average working girl. She’d never owned a car before, and if she had, she never would have bought such a commonplace, sensible vehicle, but over the past few weeks she’d grown to appreciate the Ford’s invisibility.

She stared up at the building where her new job was located. All American Call Services owned the entire five-story building. They’d built it here in Okatie, South Carolina, off the main highway leading into Hilton Head, close to affordable housing yet out of sight of tourists. It was an ugly concrete and glass building, but compared to its neighbors—a storage facility and a mattress outlet—it appeared stately and dignified.

Originally All American had been created to address the backlash when so many call centers were based in non-English speaking areas. Then the bots and robocallers came, and they changed their motto to The Human Face of Your Business. According to their website, they handled customer service for over a dozen companies in addition to making cold calls for thirty-one corporate clients and seventeen non-profits.

And somehow over the past four years, nine murder victims had made calls to different businesses using All American, all within forty-eight hours of their deaths. Which was why Morgan was here. If she was right—and the thrill electrifying her blood told her she was—there was a serial killer using the call center to find his victims.

Which made it the perfect place to not only fine-hone her disguise as a Norm, but also to confront a fellow Wolf hiding among unsuspecting Sheep. Bringing a killer to justice? The perfect birthday present, definitely worthy of Micah.

Morgan’s scalp itched. She slid off her purple wig and scratched at her short curls. It had been over a month since she’d shaved her scalp to complete her impersonation of a cancer survivor, and her hair was finally growing back, long enough for her to forgo the wig altogether without drawing attention. But she needed the wig’s protection for another few days to cement her new co-workers’ first impression of her as Hildy the cancer girl with the purple hair.

She felt no qualms about posing as a cancer survivor. Far better that people believed the scars covering her body came from caring surgeons rather than the hands of her ruthless serial killer father. People liked to believe lies like that. It made them feel good to be nice to someone like Hildy; made them feel lucky that there but for the grace…made them smile and nod and say So nice to meet you, anything I can do to help? and then do whatever Morgan needed them to do; easy as leading Sheep to the slaughter.

Maybe the killer had done something similar, only with their voice? Led their victims exactly where the victims thought they wanted to go, not realizing until the final moment that they’d been herded like Sheep.

If so, it meant she was looking for someone less like her father—who lacked social finesse to the point where he’d had to use his children as stalking horses to lure his victims—and more like Morgan herself. On one level, it posed an interesting challenge to her newly honed skills and hard-won mental clarity.

On another, deeper level, one she refused to think about, it posed a terrifying question: was Morgan good enough to catch a killer without killing? Because if she couldn’t find a way to outsmart her native instincts to use violence as her first-line coping mechanism, then no way in hell could she return to Pittsburgh and the people she cared about. She refused to put them in danger because of who she was.

Even if it meant never seeing Micah again.

Chapter Two

Morgan squinted into the morning sunshine streaming through the Ford’s windshield and used the mirror to put her wig back on and adjust it. Then she opened the car door, stood, and smoothed the wrinkles from her simple tunic blouse and cotton slacks. Hildy couldn’t afford anything fancy like a suit, not even for a first day on a new job.

She slipped her purple sunglasses on, a gift from Micah. She couldn’t help but smile every time she wore them. Of course she’d modified them—the stems could now be used as lock picks and one of the earpieces concealed a micro-thumb drive loaded with the software she’d need