Too Lost (A Morgan Stark FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 4)

By Rylie Dark

When lab researchers and scientists are discovered murdered, Morgan Stark, brilliant doctor-turned FBI agent, is summoned to decode the medical clues. What is the connection between these people? And who is next?

“A brilliant book. I couldn’t put it down and I never guessed who the murderer was!”
—Reader review for Only Murder
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TOO LOST is book #4 in a new series by #1 bestselling and critically acclaimed mystery and suspense author Rylie Dark, whose books have received over 2,000 five-star reviews and ratings. The series begins with TOO LATE (book #1), a free download.

Morgan Stark is a renowned surgeon, acclaimed by his colleagues for his brilliance as a diagnostician. But when his close friend and protégé resident is murdered, Morgan feels compelled to help the FBI decipher the trail of medical clues and bring the killer to justice.

FBI Special Agent Danielle Hernandez, 28, a rising star in the BAU, equally esteemed by her colleagues for her brilliance and determination, is not used to turning to a doctor for help in solving crimes. This unlikely partnership, though, may just surprise them both.

A cat-and-mouse thriller with harrowing twists and turns and filled with heart-pounding suspense, the MORGAN STARK mystery series offers a fresh twist on the genre as it introduces two brilliant protagonists who will make you fall in love and keep you turning pages late into the night.

Book #5—TOO BROKEN—is also available.

“I loved this thriller, read it in one sitting. Lots of twists and turns and I didn’t guess the
culprit at all… Already pre-ordered the second!”
—Reader review for Only Murder
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“This book takes off with a bang… An excellent read, and I'm looking forward to the next book!”
—Reader review for SEE HER RUN
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“Fantastic book! It was hard to put down. I can’t wait to see what happens next!”
—Reader review for SEE HER RUN
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“The twists and turns kept coming. Can't wait to read the next book!”
—Reader review for SEE HER RUN
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“A must-read if you enjoy action-packed stories with good plots!”
—Reader review for SEE HER RUN
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“I really like this author and this series starts with a bang. It will keep you turning the pages till the end of the book and wanting more.”
—Reader review for SEE HER RUN
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“I can't say enough about this author! How about ‘out of this world’! This author is going to go far!”
—Reader review for ONLY MURDER
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“I really enjoyed this book… The characters were alive, and the twists and turns were great. It will keep you reading till the end and leave you wanting more.”
—Reader review for NO WAY OUT
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“This is an author that I highly recommend. Her books will have you begging for more.”
—Reader review for NO WAY OUT
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Rylie Dark
• Release date: Mar 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781094379722

Book preview

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T O O   L O S T

(A Morgan Stark Mystery—Book 4)

R y l i e   D a r k

Rylie Dark

Bestselling author Rylie Dark is author of the SADIE PRICE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); of the CARLY SEE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); of the MIA NORTH FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); of the MORGAN STARK FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); of the HAILEY ROCK FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); and of the TARA STRONG MYSTERY series, comprising five books (and counting).

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Rylie loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.ryliedark.com to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2023 by Rylie Dark. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Raggedstone, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY RYLIE DARK

TARA STRONG MYSTERY

GIRL WITHOUT A CHANCE (Book #1)

GIRL WITHOUT A HOME (Book #2)

GIRL WITHOUT A TRACE (Book #3)

GIRL WITHOUT A NAME (Book #4)

GIRL WITHOUT A PRAYER (Book #5)

HAILEY ROCK FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

BEHIND YOU (Book #1)

BESIDE YOU (Book #2)

AFTER YOU (Book #3)

WATCHING YOU (Book #4)

JUDGING YOU (Book #5)

SADIE PRICE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

ONLY MURDER (Book #1)

ONLY RAGE (Book #2)

ONLY HIS (Book #3)

ONLY ONCE (Book #4)

ONLY SPITE (Book #5)

ONLY MADNESS (Book #6)

MIA NORTH FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

SEE HER RUN (Book #1)

SEE HER HIDE (Book #2)

SEE HER SCREAM (Book #3)

SEE HER VANISH (Book #4)

SEE HER GONE (Book #5)

SEE HER DEAD (Book #6)

CARLY SEE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

NO WAY OUT (Book #1)

NO WAY BACK (Book #2)

NO WAY HOME (Book #3)

NO WAY LEFT (Book #4)

NO WAY UP (Book #5)

NO WAY TO DIE (Book #6)

MORGAN STARK FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

TOO LATE (Book #1)

TOO CLOSE (Book #2)

TOO FAR GONE (Book #3)

TOO LOST (Book #4)

TOO BROKEN (Book #5)

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Diane Siegel drained the last few drops of champagne from the flute she was holding, savoring the tiny bubbles that disappeared in seconds on her tongue. With the exaggerated care of a person who had drained a few too many flutes that evening, she set the flute down on the granite-topped counter. She rarely overindulged, but this time she had. The room swam around her a bit.

That was okay. She deserved it. She’d earned it. She looked out over the railing at her sunken living room. The kitchen and dining room were on her level. Home offices were the next level up, and their bedroom was at the tippy top of the house, making her feel like she was going to sleep in a treehouse every night. Down in the living room, her colleagues were all there celebrating. Everyone from her lab techs to the CEO of Medtheon, Inc. was there. Honestly, they were celebrating her as much as her accomplishments. There’d been round after round of toasts earlier, extolling her vision and intellectual curiosity and the patience with which she ran her lab. She smiled.

She deserved that too.

She’d worked so hard for this moment. For fifteen years, starting with the research she’d done for her doctoral dissertation and continuing until the present day, she’d been working on a vaccine to prevent spondylococcal varicella. Today, the FDA had announced its approval of the vaccine that she’d developed. It would take a little while for manufacturing to ramp up and for distribution lines to be established, but within a year, Diane’s work might be able to eradicate spondylococcal varicella completely. It could go the way of smallpox within a decade, relegated to a sample or two kept in a secure lab.

It wasn’t the most common disease in the world. There were only around 800,000 cases per year. Of those cases, however, one in five would have complications that could plague them for the rest of their lives. One in ten would die. Those were not good odds.

From down in the living room, her husband caught her eye and lifted his glass of champagne to her, a smile spreading across his handsome face and pride glowing from his hazel eyes. Damn. He still looked good to her. She blew him a kiss, swaying a little as she did. This was his celebration too. A lot of female scientists didn’t have the kind of home support system that she’d had. Paul had truly been a partner to her, each of them helping the other as their careers progressed. Him in law, her in medical research. They were far from done too. They had years ahead of themselves. How many more diseases would she be able to eradicate? How many more people’s rights would Paul be able to protect in his work? They weren’t crusaders. You’d never find them up on soapboxes or screaming over someone else as a talking head on a news program, but they’d both dedicated themselves to the greater good. They were making the world a better place. Together, they’d built an amazing life for themselves too. They truly had it all. Jobs they loved that felt important. A comfortable place to live. And, of course, each other.

Their home was beautiful. A modern split-level on close to two-acres of property in Virginia. It hadn’t been cheap to have it designed by an architect and then custom-built, but it had been money well spent. They had the money, after all. Both of them had been very well compensated for their work.

Truth be told, she’d have done the work anyway.

Oh, she was more than happy to cash her paychecks, drive a nice car, and live in an elegant home, but the real impetus behind her work was a bright and happy young woman who would never have the chance to live up to her potential.

Diane had been nineteen, a sophomore at Brown, when her roommate Sarah had gone to bed with a headache and a rash and had never woken up. Diane had found her unresponsive the next morning and had called 911, but it had been too late. Sarah was dead less than twenty-four hours later.

The sound of Sarah’s mother wailing echoing down the hospital corridors was something Diane would never forget. Ever.

Diane pinched the bridge of her nose, willing back the tears that stung behind her eyelids as she remembered the anguish of a mother who had lost a child. She wasn’t usually this sentimental. That champagne had really gone to her head. She needed some air.

She turned her back on the group of people clapping each other on the back, hugging, and clinking glasses and made her way to the sliding glass doors that led from the kitchen to the deck out back. It was dark out, and with the bright lights inside, she saw only her own reflection approaching the glass. Stumbling, she caught herself on the counter to steady herself. Wow. She’d really had too much.

She stepped out onto the deck without turning on any lights, the chill air hitting her face and making her blink as her eyes watered a bit more. She shut the door behind her. The sound of the party inside abruptly cut off. Those triple-pane windows they’d sprung for definitely did their noise cancellation job. No neighbors would be calling the cops on them if the party went on too long.

Her eyes began to adjust. The moon slipped out from behind a cloud, turning everything outside silver. A shadow passed over as a barn owl swooped out from the trees, hooting as it went.

The sound was both beautiful and lonely and tugged at something deep in her gut, something nameless and universal. She wrapped her arms around her middle, both to keep herself warm and to comfort herself. Today was a victory, but it was bittersweet. Wasn’t that always the way? A lot of people had lost their lives to this disease and nothing she could do would bring them back. Sarah’s mother would never help her daughter get dressed for her wedding or cradle a grandchild. Some other mother would, however, get to do those things because of this vaccine. Diane blew out a breath, watching it condense into fog in the air.

Suddenly, she was stumbling forward. Something had slammed into her from behind. Hey!

Before she could turn to see what had bumped into her, whatever it was had shoved her even closer to the railing of the deck and the twenty-foot drop from its edge to the wooded area below.

Was this someone’s idea of a joke? Had someone from the lab snuck out here to pull some kind of prank? She grabbed the railing to steady herself and whirled around. This isn’t funny! What do you—

What she saw made her words die on her lips. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to scream. Moonlight glinted off the silver blade that plunged toward her. Once, twice, three times it plunged into her abdomen and then another shove sent her over the railing.

The last thing she saw was the silhouette of the man who had killed her passing between her and the moon.

CHAPTER ONE

Dr. Morgan Stark hobbled into his dorm room and collapsed into the office chair in front of his pressboard desk with a groan. Once down, he unlaced his running shoes and kicked them into the corner. His damp sweatshirt followed immediately after.

He’d thought he was in pretty good shape. Then his application to the FBI Academy at Quantico was fast tracked, and he wasn’t so sure anymore.

He wasn’t entirely wrong. He was in pretty good shape—for a civilian in his mid-thirties. For a newly minted FBI agent? Not so much. He had a ways to go yet and watching the fresh-faced recruits in their early to mid-twenties come close to lapping him on the morning run wasn’t doing wonders for his self-esteem.

Dread filled him every time he thought about the Yellow Brick Road, the nickname for their last fitness test. A 10K that included cliff faces and walls, army crawls under barbed wire, and windows that had to be jumped through. He was bound to be the last one in. The thought didn’t thrill him.

He had a few other things over on those youngsters, but those things didn’t show up quite as sharply as a six-minute mile.

Slumping down in the chair, he woke up his laptop. There was an hour before he had to be at class. He’d take a few seconds to check his email and then he’d shower.

There was plenty of the usual in his email inbox. A few newsletters on topics in law enforcement he’d signed up for, some notices about continuing education opportunities for doctors, and solicitations for charitable and political contributions.

Then about a quarter of the way down, he spotted something he’d tried to keep himself from hoping for too much and his breath quickened.

An email from Sergeant Tamsen Stewart from the Frederick, Maryland, Police Department. He clicked on it.

Hello, Dr. Stark,

I received your inquiry regarding Anna McCleary. May I ask why the FBI is interested in this case?

Her signature line had a phone number listed. He hesitated for no more than a second. It was early. She might not even be in the office yet. That was okay. He could leave a voicemail. He picked up his cell phone and dialed. The situation was all a little too complicated to explain in an email. Actually, it would probably end up being a series of emails as Sgt. Stewart was more than likely to have some follow-up questions before she would cough up the information he wanted. Given his current schedule as an FBI recruit-in-training, that kind of exchange could stretch to weeks. There was no way he could wait that long. He’d waited so long already.

He was in luck. Stewart here, a brusque voice said.

Sgt. Stewart, this is Dr. Morgan Stark. I emailed you regarding Anna McCleary. He pulled a pen and a notepad out of the desk drawer, hoping he’d hear something worth taking notes on.

Right. Dr. Stark, can you fill me in on why the FBI wants to know about this case? What precisely is their interest?

Morgan considered how to reply for a moment. He figured the truth of the matter would come out sooner or later, and he might as well start out on the right foot with Stewart as he hoped to have her help. Strictly speaking, it’s not the FBI. I do consulting work for them and am currently training to become an agent. I have some personal reasons for my interest in the case.

Personal reasons? Her voice went from brusque to suspicious. We’re done here.

Wait! Morgan yelled. Please don’t hang up. Please hear me out. Anna McCleary’s abduction is a lot like the abduction of Fiona Stark twelve years ago in Pennsylvania. If I’m right, there might be other cases that are also connected, but no one’s put them together yet.

Stewart said nothing. He could hear her breathing, so he knew she was still on the phone. Then he heard the sound of typing. Fiona Stark. Age sixteen. Abducted on her way home from school in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Any chance the last name being the same as yours is a coincidence?

No coincidence. Fiona is . . . was my sister. Like I said, I have some personal reasons for my interest in Anna McCleary’s case. Morgan strove to keep his voice calm and reasonable. He had a sense that appealing to Stewart’s emotions wasn’t the way to go here.

There was another pause, then she said, I’m sorry, but I really don’t see how I can help you or why you feel these are connected.

Twelve years ago, my sister Fiona Stark was abducted. She was sixteen years old, white, with dark hair and blue eyes. She’s never been found. Although, a few days after she disappeared, they did find her backpack tossed into a tree near where she was last seen. Morgan stopped, giving Stewart a second to process what he’d said and how it connected to her case. Anna McCleary also was white, sixteen, had dark hair and blue eyes, and had disappeared on her way home from school. Her backpack had also been found tossed in a tree several days after