The Boy: A Novel - Softcover

Hoag, Tami

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593475224 ISBN 13: 9780593475225

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

An unfathomable loss or an unthinkable crime? Tami Hoag keeps you guessing in this harrowing New York Times bestselling thriller.
 
When Detective Nick Fourcade enters the home of Genevieve Gauthier outside the sleepy town of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana, the bloody crime scene that awaits him is both the most brutal and the most confusing he's ever seen. Genevieve's seven-year-old son, KJ, has been murdered by an alleged intruder, yet Genevieve is alive and well. Meanwhile, Nick's wife, Detective Annie Broussard, sits with the grieving Genevieve. A mother herself, Annie understands the devastation this woman is going through, but as a detective she's troubled: Who would murder a child and leave the only witness behind?
 
When KJ's sometimes babysitter, twelve-year-old Nora Florette, is reported missing the very next day, the town fears a maniac is preying on their children. With pressure mounting from a tough, no-nonsense new sheriff, the media, and the parents of Bayou Breaux, Nick and Annie dig deep into the dual mysteries. Is someone from Genevieve's past or present responsible for the death of her son? Is Nora a victim, or something worse? Then everything changes when Genevieve’s past as a convicted criminal comes to light. Could she have killed her own child to free herself from the burden of motherhood, or is the loss of her beloved boy pushing her to the edge of insanity? Could she have something to do with the disappearance of Nora, or is the troubled teen the key to the murder? How far will Nick and Annie have to go to uncover the dark truth of the boy?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tami Hoag is the #1 international bestselling author of more than thirty books. There are more than forty million copies of her books in print in more than thirty languages. Renowned for combining thrilling plots with character-driven suspense, Hoag first hit the New York Times bestseller list with Night Sins, and each of her books since has been a bestseller. She lives in California.

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one

She ran down the gravel road, struggling, stumbling. Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs, ragged and hot; painful, like serrated knives plunging into and pulling out of her chest. The night air was too thick, too heavy. She thought she might drown in it. Her legs wobbled beneath her like rubber, heavy with fatigue. Sweat streamed from her pores. It felt like her skin was ready to peel away, leaving her red and raw and bloody.



Blood. So much blood. On her hands. In her hair. On her face. She was painted with it. When she found someone-if she found someone-they would see the blood, too. They would see the whites of her eyes and the red of the blood that streaked down her cheeks and across her jaw. They would see the blood that stained her hands like red lace gloves. They would be horrified without even knowing the true horror of what had happened.



She replayed it over and over in her mind's eye, the images flashing like a strobe light, like random scenes from a movie. The flash of the knife. The flailing arms. Blood spraying everywhere.



She could taste the blood: bitter and metallic. She could taste the salt of her sweat and her tears. The mix made a nauseating cocktail in her mouth. She choked on it as she tried to swallow. She could smell it. The stench of fear: blood and body odor, urine and feces. The memory was so strong and so real she gagged on it.



Then suddenly she was falling, sprawling headlong. The road rushed up to meet her, slammed into her, the gravel biting into the flesh of her hands and bare arms and knees and the side of her face. The impact rattled her brain and knocked the wind from her. She tried to gasp for air, frantic, thinking she might die.



Maybe it was better if she died. Maybe she should just lie down and quit. Everyone in her life would probably be happier, relieved, unburdened.



The night waited, ever-patient, oblivious to her pain, not caring if she lived or died. Things died in the swamp all the time. Death was just a part of life here.



As the roar of her pulse in her ears subsided to a dull throb, the sounds of the bayou came through: crickets and frogs, the groan of an alligator somewhere nearby, the splash of something hitting the water, the distant rumble of thunder as a storm rolled up from the Gulf. Something moved suddenly in the brush at the side of the road. A bird flew up, its wings thumping against the thick, still air.



Startled, gasping, she scraped and scrambled, swimming on the rock, struggling to get her feet under her and to get herself upright.



Headlights appeared around a bend in the road. A driver in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere-would this be help or harm? She knew all about the kind of men who prowled the darkness and preyed on women. A part of her wanted to crouch in the brush and hide. A part of her knew she couldn't.



She stood in the middle of the road and waved her arms above her head.



"Help me! Stop! Help me. Please!" In her mind she was shouting, but she could barely hear the words. They seemed nothing more than a rasp in her throat.



The car drew closer. The headlights blinded her.



The driver had to see her now.



"Help me!"



The vehicle slowed to a crawl.



"Help!" She flung herself at the driver's side of the hood as if she could physically force the car to stop. "Please, help me!"



She slapped the hood with one hand and the windshield with the other, smearing the glass with blood. For just a second her eyes locked on the terrified face of the driver, a woman, and then the engine roared. The tires chewed at the gravel. The car leapt forward, and she fell to the side, trying to grab hold of a door handle. Her head cracked hard against the window. Bang! Thump! Thud! She hit the ground and rolled, choking on the dust, spitting out blood and gravel and a tooth.



She could have closed her eyes and willed it all away, slipping into the deep abyss of unconsciousness. She might lie there and die, be run over by a truck, or dragged into the swamp by an animal. But then she was on her hands and knees, crawling, coughing, crying, blood and tears and snot dripping from her face.



The thunder rumbled in the distance, but above her the moon was still white-bright, so bright that the sky around it glowed metallic blue. Down the road she could see the outline of a house, a shabby little box of a house, a yard with an old pickup parked near a sagging porch. A yellow bug light burned beside the front door.



She wobbled to her feet like a newborn deer and staggered on, one foot in front of the other, her focus on the house. Would someone come if she made it to the door? Would they call the police at someone knocking in the middle of the night? Or would they just mistake her for an intruder and shoot her?



Exhausted, she tripped on the front steps and fell onto the weathered boards of the old porch. Beyond feeling pain, she dragged herself the last few feet and banged a fist against the screen door. She wanted to cry out, to call for help, but her voice died in her throat. She slapped at the screen door, her strength draining out of her, rushing out of her like water down a hole.



Help me. Help me. Please God, someone help me . . .



"You done forgot your key again?"



The complaining voice seemed to come from a long distance, from a dream.



"I swear! I ought to leave you sleep with the hound dogs! Dat's all what you deserve, you! I oughta shoot you first, coming home at this hour. Stinkin' drunk, no doubt."



The inner door creaked open.



Genevieve looked up at the woman in the doorway-a narrow, lined face, eyes popping, mouth open in shock, teeth missing, a halo of frizzed red hair shot through with gray. The face of an angel.



"Oh, my God in heaven!" the woman exclaimed.



"Help me. Please," Genevieve whispered. "Someone killed me and my boy."



And then the blackness of oblivion swallowed her whole.



Two



Annie Broussard listened to the thunder rumble in the distance. The sound echoed the restlessness that stirred inside her. She felt anxious, on edge, as if she was waiting for something bad to happen. This had been going on for weeks now, ever since that night in June, when a call had awoken her from a deep, peaceful sleep.



Not that she wasn't used to the phone ringing at all hours with bad news, but it was always someone else's bad news, and she or Nick or both of them were being called on as sheriff's detectives to come out and sort through the latest human catastrophe in Partout Parish. She had never been called to a catastrophe of her own until the night her tante Fanchon had been rushed to the hospital after suffering a stroke.



What had followed that call had been days and nights of breathless anxiety, Annie clinging by her mental fingertips to hope that ebbed and flowed like an erratic tide.



Fanchon Doucet had been her anchor since childhood. And even though Annie's mother had exited her life without warning when she was small, Annie had never imagined Tante Fanchon doing the same. Fanchon and Uncle Sos were as constant as the North Star, as solid as stone-until that night in June.



Now, every time the phone rang in the middle of the night, Annie's heart bolted at the thought that the call would be for her, not as a detective but as next of kin. She hadn't had a decent night's sleep in four months.



Carefully, she slipped out of bed and padded across the cypress-wood floor to the window to peek through the blinds. The moon had yet to be overrun by...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593475224
• ISBN 13: 9780593475225
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 512
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@phaidon.com; gpsr@phaidon.com; ; Zähringerstraße 24; Berlin; 10707; Deutschland