The Death Box
Detective Carson Ryder faces his most terrifying adversary yet in this nail-biting thriller from the author of Her Last Scream.Carson Ryder thought he’d seen everything …A specialist in twisted crimes, Detective Carson Ryder thought he’d seen the lowest depths of human depravity. But he’s barely started his new job in Miami when called to a horrific scene: a concrete pillar built of human remains, their agony forever frozen in stone.Finding the secret of the pillar drags him into the sordid world of human trafficking, where one terrified girl holds the key to unraveling a web of pain, prostitution and murder. There’s just one problem: Ryder’s not the only one chasing the girl.And the others will kill to keep the secret safe.
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Harper
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
Copyright © Jack Kerley 2013
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Jack Kerley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007493654
Ebook Edition © November 2014 ISBN: 9780007582228
Version: 2014-08-29
To James Lewinski,
Who showed me Prufrock
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by J.A. Kerley
About the Publisher
The stench of rotting flesh filled the box like black fog. Death surrounded Amili Zelaya, the floor a patchwork of clothing bearing the decomposing bodies of seventeen human beings. Amili was alive, barely, staring into the shadowed dark of a shipping container the size of a semi-trailer. Besides the reek of death, there was bone-deep heat and graveyard silence save for waves breaking against a hull far below.
Youâre lucky, the smiling man in Honduras had said before closing the door, ten days and youâll be in Los Estados Unitos, the United States, think of that. Amili had thought of it, grinning at Lucia Belen in the last flash of sunlight before the box slammed shut. Theyâd crouched in the dark thinking their luck was boundless: They were going to America.
âLucia,â Amili rasped. âPlease donât leave me now.â
Luciaâs hand lay motionless in Amiliâs fingers. Then, for the span of a second, the fingers twitched. âFight for life, Lucia,â Amili whispered, her parched tongue so swollen it barely moved. Lucia was from Amiliâs village. Theyâd grown up together â born in the same week eighteen years ago â ragged but happy. Only when fragments of the outside world intruded did they realize the desperate poverty strangling everyone in the village.
âFight for life,â Amili repeated, drifting into unconsciousness. Sometime later Amiliâs mind registered the deep notes of ship horns. The roar and rattle of machinery. Something had changed.
âThe ship has stopped, Lucia,â Amili rasped, holes from popped rivets allowing light to outline the inside of the module, one of thousands on the deck of the container ship bound for Miami, Florida. The illegal human cargo had been repeatedly warned to stay quiet through the journey.
If you reveal yourselves you will be thrown in a gringo prison, raped, beaten ⦠men, women, children, it makes no difference. Never make a sound, understand?
Eventually theyâd feel the ship stop and the box would be offloaded and driven to a hidden location where theyâd receive papers, work assignments, places to live. They had only to perform six months of house-keeping, yard work or light factory labor to relieve the debt of their travel. After that, they owned their lives. A dream beyond belief.
âIt must be Miami, Lucia,â Amili said. âStay with me.â
But their drinking water had leaked away early in the voyage, a split opening in the side of the huge plastic drum, water washing across the floor of the container, pouring out through the seams. No one worried much about the loss, fearing only that escaping liquid would attract attention and theyâd be put in chains to await prison. The ship had been traveling through fierce storms, rainwater dripping into the module from above like a dozen mountain springs. Water was everywhere.
