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Once Lured
ONCE LURED (A Riley Paige Mystery – Book #4) by Blake Pierce
Blake Pierce
Blake Pierce is author of the bestselling RILEY PAGE mystery series, which include the mystery suspense thrillers ONCE GONE (book #1), ONCE TAKEN (book #2), ONCE CRAVED (#3) and ONCE LURED (#4). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series and AVERY BLACK mystery series.
An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.comwww.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.
Copyright © 2016 by Blake Pierce. 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 GongTo, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE
RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES
ONCE GONE (Book #1)
ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)
ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)
ONCE LURED (Book #4)
MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES
BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)
AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES
CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)
PROLOGUE
The man worried as he sat in his car. He knew he had to hurry. Tonight, it was important to keep everything on track. But would the woman come along this road at her usual hour?
It was eleven o’clock at night, and he was cutting it close.
He remembered the voice he had heard, reverberating in his head, before he’d come here. Grandpa’s voice.
“You’d better be right about her schedule, Scratch.”
Scratch. The man in the car didn’t like that name. It wasn’t his real name. It was a folktale name for the Devil. As far as Grandpa was concerned, he was a “bad seed.”
Grandpa had called him Scratch for longer than he could remember. Although everybody else called him by his real name, Scratch had stuck in his own mind. He hated his grandpa. But he couldn’t pull him out of his head.
Scratch reached up and slapped his own skull several times, trying to get the voice out.
It hurt, and for a moment he had a sense of calm.
But then came Grandpa’s dull laughter, echoing somewhere in there. It was a little fainter now, at least.
He looked anxiously at his watch. A few minutes past eleven. Would she be late tonight? Would she go somewhere else? No, that wasn’t her style. He’d scouted her movements for days. She was always punctual, always stuck to the same routine.