The girl and the silent.., p.1
The Girl and the Silent Night (Emma Griffin™ FBI Mystery Book 17), page 1
The Girl and the Silent Night
Copyright © 2021 by A.J. Rivers
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Twas the night before Christmas…
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
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Author's Note
Also by A.J. Rivers
Jonah
Then
The excitement of Christmas never got old. He was an adult now, but that didn’t matter when the calendar turned to December and it officially became Christmas season. He got the same flutter when he thought about the holiday that he did when he was little. The magic was still real. It was the one time of year when he and his brother could be children again. They didn’t think about the pressures of the rest of the world, of adulthood, of all the changes that were happening around them so fast it was sometimes hard to breathe.
This time of year, they only thought about Christmas.
They still spent the night at their parents’ house for a few days before the holiday and insisted they didn’t fill their stockings or put their presents under the tree until they were asleep. It was silly, but he never tired of the way their mother’s eyes sparkled when they reminded her, or the nostalgia that filled their father’s face when he told them it was time to get to bed just like he had when they were just little boys. The parents enjoyed it just as much as their twin sons. They had no grandchildren yet, so all the sugar, spice, and joyful merriment of the yuletide season went directly to Jonah and his brother, Ian.
This year was the first time there was a reminder that would someday change.
“There’s no way that’s going to fit,” Mariya said, giggling as she cradled a mixing bowl in the curve of her hip and mixed the dough inside.
“It’s going to be fine,” Ian’s voice insisted from somewhere in the depths of the dark green branches. There was a distinct grunt behind the words, and he made a spitting sound like he was trying to get sap out of his mouth.
Jonah laughed at his brother, stepping back to hold the door open further. Ian said that was his job. Jonah offered to help him carry in the massive pine they’d cut down themselves, but Ian was determined to do it himself.
“Just open the door,” he told him. “Hold it open and I’ll handle the rest.”
He was showing off. Not that Jonah could blame him. Mariya laughed again and the sound fell over him, tingling on his skin like fresh snow. It was the first year she was spending Christmas with the family and the seamless way she blended in said it wouldn’t be her last. Soon her last name would be Griffin and she would welcome in the next generation.
She turned to look at Jonah, her wide blue eyes glittering with her silken smile. Her thick eyelashes lowered and she focused on stirring again. The soft pink of her cheeks made warmth spread through his heart and the blue of her eyes made him lose himself in the depths of clear crystal ice.
They’d touched him first. He wouldn’t let go of that, not ever. She saw him first, met his eyes first, smiled at him first. But he was patient. For now, that smile was enough.
“Help me,” Ian finally relented through the shaking of the branches stuffed into the doorway.
“I thought you could do it on your own,” Jonah teased. “You said all I needed to do was hold the door open, and I seem to be doing that just fine.”
“Help me with the damn tree,” Ian grumbled.
“Ian,” Mrs. Griffin scolded. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Sorry,” the branches of the tree seemed to say. “Help me with the joyful tree.”
Mariya laughed.
“Remind me again why we got our tree on Christmas Eve,” Jonah said as he grabbed hold of the trunk of the tree and started trying to wrangle it through the doorway.
It was far too big. If they even managed to get it through the door, they were likely going to have to crush the top just to make it fit into the space. But it had looked great out in the forest when they found it. Both of them had gotten too wrapped up in the spirit to think about such trivial details as whether or not it would actually fit into the house.
“To make it more special,” Ian replied.
Jonah wasn’t so sure about that justification. It seemed like a tremendous amount of work for only one night. But his mother and Mariya had been working all day making food for their family tree-trimming party, and his father was on his fifth trip up to the attic to bring down the decorations. It did have a certain element of urgency and thrill to it.
They finally managed to get the tree inside and stuff it into the stand. The very top of it leaned forward against the ceiling, the branches awkwardly folded, and it took up a decent portion of the room, but there was no denying it was a good tree. The smell of the branches filled the entire space, bringing to mind all kinds of memories and nostalgia from years before.
“It smells wonderful,” Mariya smiled, wiping her hands as she came into the room.
It was as if their minds were linked. She could feel his thoughts.
Jonah reached his arm out for her and stepped into it, letting him wrap his arm around her waist and pull her in. Ian fought his way out from behind the tree and stood on the other side of her, taking her hand. He leaned in to kiss her and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Look this way!”
The three turned to look over their shoulders at Mr. Griffin. His huge camera was poised at his face and they barely had the chance to smile before he snapped a picture of them.
“Merry Christmas!” their mother announced, coming into the room with a platter mounded with cookies.
“Merry Christmas,” the three chimed back.
Mariya looked up at Ian. “Merry Christmas.” She kissed him softly, then turned to Jonah. “Merry Christmas.”
Her lips were soft and warm on his cheek.
“Merry Christmas.”
Now
“Merry Christmas, Mariya,” he whispered, running his fingers over the image of her face.
The texture of the picture was different there. Rather than the smooth texture of paper, it was rough from the many years of his fingertips touching the bridge of her nose and the softness of her lips.
The cold wind whipped up and he pulled his collar up over his neck. In front of him, the bay window in the living room was dark except for the glow of lights on the Christmas tree perfectly framed in the center of the panes. It wasn’t quite as big as that one years ago, but he was sure the same ornaments were nestled in the branches.
He moved across the lawn with comfort, familiarity. The blades of sleeping, frozen grass were new, but the dirt beneath them knew the press of his feet. The porch was different. It hadn’t been there that Christmas when they’d dragged the massive pine into place. The screen door hadn’t been in place. But he knew that front door.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been here in the last few years. But it was the first time he walked up the steps in the shimmer of the multicolor lights. It woul
He was finally home for the holidays.
I started investigating her death before it happened.
She helped me.
She gave me what I needed.
Then
Lakyn Monroe was accustomed to not having much space.
It was a common misconception that she had always lived in some sort of bubble. That her fame kept her distance from everyone else and that she existed with a buffer between herself and the real world.
The truth was that her fame was something she was still getting used to. It wasn’t the slow-burn type of fame that came with being a child performer who happened to make the crossover or an actor who started in just small parts and gradually climbed up.
Instead, she’d sparked into fame almost overnight. She’d gone from nothing to everything, and so often it still felt like she was stumbling over her own feet just to catch up.
No one saw that. No one knew just how hard she worked just to look like she had it all together. They saw the fame. They saw her jump into the back of limos and luxurious cars and thought she was in her private oasis.
They didn’t see how often she was crushed into that seat by her agent, her manager, her mother. Reporters. Producers. Anyone who wanted a little piece of her. They took her space so they could get close enough to take that piece.
She’d gotten used to not being able to breathe on her own.
Instead, they all drew the breath out of her into themselves, then breathed it back, stoking her, making the flame bigger, making the embers glow.
That night, it was different. She couldn’t breathe, but she was starting to feel like the men filling the space around her didn’t want her to. They weren’t breathing for her. They weren’t trying to waken the embers. They were trying to snuff them out.
She didn’t know the name of the man next to her. She didn’t think anyone had said it. And even if they had, she chose to focus on the others to retain it. It wasn’t an accident that she was in this car. She put herself there. It was intentional, willful. She’d agreed to meet with the man who hadn’t even stood from behind his massive desk when she’d walked into the room.
She hadn’t expected much else from him. In all honesty, his cool, collected personality, the air of subtle manipulation that came from acting superior by default rather than by overt action, was exactly what she anticipated. She knew what she was getting herself into.
This wasn’t a friendly visit. Not that it was meant to be wrought with animosity or any type of danger, but she didn’t expect to be welcomed with open arms. After all, she was dragging these men into the light they wanted to avoid. The man behind the desk in particular.
Judge Sterling Jennings.
Lakyn knew he was corrupt. That wasn’t even a question. It wasn’t a matter of whether he was involved in the framing and false imprisonment of an innocent man—a brilliant, if odd, man, who’d been sitting in a cell for years waiting for his true story to be told. It was a matter of what exactly he had done.
She knew the story was there. And she was going to be the one to tell it. Xavier Renton wouldn’t continue to waste away in a cage for something he didn’t do. Not if she had anything to do about it. And she knew the judge held the missing answers. She just had to find them.
That was where her true flame burned. Everyone wanted her to be the starlet: the false eyelashes, bright lipstick, glossy hair, glossier voice. She was the perfect canvas to them. They could take her and transform her into anything they wanted her to be.
And she had asked for it, they reminded her. She wanted to be in the spotlight. She wanted people to look at her, to watch her, to admire her. It was why she put those videos up on the internet for everyone to find. There was nothing scandalous about them. Lakyn was just intrigued by the camera and the ability to make herself seen. She’d always been fascinated by the idea of all those people out in the world, people she would never cross paths with, living their own completely separate lives.
For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted to close those gaps. She’d wanted to make connections there was no reason to make. She didn’t buy into the idea that every person came into the world alone as a separate entity and would live out their existence that way. She didn’t believe there was no connection among humanity and that people couldn’t touch each other’s lives. She wanted that touch. She believed in the link of breath, of heartbeats, of the simple reality of being human.
The camera let her dip her fingertips into that connection.
She roamed the parks she adored and told anyone watching what she was experiencing. She rode rides with the camera like she was riding alongside viewers. She ate like they were sharing a snack. She brought them along with her.
She didn’t realize with every video, she fragmented herself. Pixels became tiny droplets of her that blew out of screens and gathered in waiting palms. Some drank her up. Others dried their hands of her and clicked away. Still others bottled up those droplets. They collected the frozen crystals and the heated steam. Those droplets became their medium and their leverage.
They could craft her into anything they saw simply by luring her with what they held. She sought herself out again; they promised to gather all the pieces and build her again. They sprinkled the ground with those droplets like leaving breadcrumbs for her to follow. And she did. She followed them from the computer screen to the TV screen and they were laying the path to the movie screen.
But she didn’t know if she wanted to follow them there. At the same time they were trying to make her bigger, she was starting to pull away. She’d found her passion in helping others. It sounded trite and even predictable, but in her, it was authentic. Others might say they wanted to use their notoriety and fame to make a difference in the world, but Lakyn truly did.
She wasn’t all altruism and selflessness. Becoming the world’s darling might not have been her life’s greatest passion, but she’d never say it didn’t have its perks. There were obvious benefits to the fame she was suddenly tossed into, and she didn’t turn her back on it. But she was drifting further from that, wanting more and more to scrape away the murky layers of missing persons, crime, and tragedy, and find what was really beneath. To bring some light into the lives of those scarred by darkness.
It was how she found Xavier Renton. It was how she learned of the group called The Order of Prometheus. And it was how she became convinced Judge Jennings was at the core of the darkness coiled tight beneath the town of Harlan.
She wanted to meet with him and hear what he had to say. She couldn’t ask him straight out what he had done, of course. But she could lead him. She could twist him and turn him until he revealed enough that he said what he hadn’t ever meant to say.
She didn’t know how much of that she had accomplished yet. They would need to have more conversations. There were many threads and she had to find the right one to pull.
Which put her in the back of this car. Pressed up against the man she didn’t know. The one who looked at her as if she wasn’t there.
They were supposed to be bringing her home. When they’d told her they’d made the arrangements for her to meet with the Judge and would send a car for her, the two halves of Lakyn Monroe went to battle.
On one side was the part of her that was still nothing but a girl sitting in her house fumbling around with internet videos, trying to find what would click. That was the part of her that said she should never get into a car with men she didn’t know. That she should always have her own car or someone she knew driving her. That this was dangerous.
On the other side was the part of her that was everything. She was the bright light, the new star, the face that came to mind anyone thought of young talent and fame. She was famous because she was famous. People saw talent in her that she had never displayed. They saw potential in her she never intended on exuding. She was something to everyone. Positive or negative.
That was the part of her that was accustomed to drivers and arranged rides. Who rarely got to drive herself anymore and was more familiar with having a bodyguard lurking behind her than a boyfriend or close friend walking beside her. That part insisted that this was normal. That she did it all the time and it was nothing unusual.
