The End Game by James Barrow Spotlight!

Title:    "The End Game” 

Author:  James Barrow

Format:  eBook

Genre:   Contemporary Fiction — Mystery / Thriller

Synopsis:

   Three lives, two tragedies, one act of revenge. 

   Alexis Williams, a brilliant lawyer running a successful law practice, and Dr. Robert Peterson, head of cardiology of a children's hospital, begin a long-anticipated holiday aboard a luxurious yacht for a cruise along the coast of the Pacific North West. Stepping aboard the floating palace they unknowingly enter an intricate snare of deception vigorously fuelled by revenge. 

   Bradley Rand, the yacht's owner, is a confident, brooding and extremely wealthy businessman. He patiently and meticulously planned their lavish vacation, and what was presented as a trip to paradise turns out to be an intricate web of retaliation and retribution. Alexis and Robert have become Bradley's prisoners and the focus for rancor against a world that owes him. 

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First Chapter:

Chapter One

 

The soil was soft.  An eerie silence settled into the thick forest around her. Only the faint rhythmic murmur of waves lapping the shoreline at a short distance off persisted.  Even the birds remained silent, perhaps in apprehension of the event unraveling in their domain.

Daylight quickly surrendered to the night’s sky, leaving a dank darkness to envelop her like a moldy blanket. Each breath more laborious than the last, Alexis pulled herself through the dense underbrush dragging her injured leg like a heavy stone.  Complete exhaustion forced her to find a hiding place nestled under the hollow of an old craggy log that had long ago given up any pretense of life.

Through thousands of years the seasons had laid to rest deep carpets of autumn leaves, broken branches, and the debris nature deposits for its survival.  A perpetual creation for self-sustenance.  The musty smell of this decaying underbrush, and odors of tree pollen and young evergreens, all fragrances of nature’s life cycles in one deep breath provided Alexis an unfamiliar cradle for the night.  Her eyes closed as she succumbed.

 

The first rays of sunlight broke through the trees, and the mist slowly began to clear as Alexis cautiously leaned her head into the light, slowly opening her eyes, catching her first glimpse of the shoreline and feeling the prospect of freedom.

Alexis struggled to release herself from her temporary refuge.  Twigs entwined in her matted hair, she continued the painful crawl toward the waterfront.  Her wounded leg trembling, a painful reminder of her mortality and the physical vulnerability of her circumstance.  Warm blood trickled from her left arm now saturating her jacket’s sleeve.  Pain radiated through her body with each motion.  Involuntary chattering of her teeth made her head throb.  Alexis was fighting, striving to maintain consciousness.  She had lost too much blood.  Any reserves of adrenaline she might have beckoned had drained away.  Reliable reason and logic would not help her survive this nightmare.  Primal instincts and intuition were now her only useful partners.  Anger welled up, this time at herself.  Intuitively she had known.  The signs had become evident.  It had been far too obvious.  Keep moving damn you.  Can’t ever give him the satisfaction of getting me back there.  Damn him and damn them, keep moving.  How could you allow this happen?

She winced as a branch pulled strands of hair from her temple, a screaming insult to an already gravely injured body . . . to a gravely injured mind.  Alexis had let down her guard, opened the door.  Now she was paying a toll, possibly the ultimate and final toll.

Just ahead a dilapidated rowboat at the water’s edge, looking more like a coffin than a lifesaver, was an odd but welcome sight.  Alexis allowed herself a faint optimism.  She had made it this far.  Too far to lose now. 

She had no way of knowing with any certainty how long it had taken her captors to notice her disappearance, or even if they had, but notice they would.  It was just a matter of time before they would find her.  Precious time.  The only advance warning would be the crackling of dead leaves under heavy steps serving notice of a menacing approach through the woods.  Perforating the haze of pain she summoned a little clarity, pulling, begging for answers, and invoking strength to prevail.  “Get to the water,” she mumbled to herself, “don’t let him win, can’t let him win.”

Only three days earlier, life had been so ordinary.  A seemingly innocent holiday, a celebration, had too quickly transformed into a perilous trap.  Her guarded and uncomplicated existence turned upside down through an aggressive and complicated subterfuge.  Her jumbled thoughts bounced around a disorganized garden, no linear sequence.  Nothing made sense.  Too exhausted to understand, she had no choice but to move on.  Escape the insanity.  Anything, anything to be back home surrounded by familiar objects, chairs, pillows, snuggled up in her bed, drifting into fantasies of a good book and consoled by warm tea . . . but now that hardly seemed possible.  Had they left anything she could return to? Her sanctuary, her most treasured possessions had been violated.  Each corner of her being had been assaulted.

Her thoughts drifted to Robert.  Why had he not shown up to meet her as planned?  What could they possibly have done to him?  She knew that if Robert had not escaped he would become leverage.  Leverage forcing her return.  Nausea rose in her throat.  Stop, she ordered herself.  She feared getting lost in a haze of questions and knew that to survive she would have to separate herself and focus.  One thing at a time.

Inching herself a few more feet she applied her uninjured shoulder against the bow of the rowboat.  Squeezing energy from each breath, she struggled to nudge the boat off the rocks and into the water toward freedom.  A jolt of pain from her leg screamed up her spine and pummeled the back of her head.  The exertion was more than her body could manage.  Slowly her head slumped and her cheek pressed onto the wet pebbles.  Her eyes closed involuntarily.  Consciousness dimmed once more.  So close.