Title: The Lost Child
Author: Thomas Grant Bruso
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 09/26/2023
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Female, Male/Male
Length: 76700
Genre: Contemporary Thriller, Lit/genre, crime/thriller, paranormal, horror, bisexual, child abduction, reporter, deceased child, hallucinations, Halloween
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Description
Newspaper reporter Luke Sorenson has recently moved to a new town in upstate New York. Despite the change in scenery, Luke cannot run away from a brutal, harrowing past driven by the death of his only child, Emily.
Soon, Luke is propelled into a dangerous case of child abduction, an eerie reminder of losing his daughter. An eight-year-old boy named Daniel Hadley is kidnapped from his own bedroom and it is Luke, battling his own demons, who is assigned the story of the year.
As pieces of Luke’s mysterious, violent past are revealed, so are the sinister secrets to his daughter’s demise, sending Luke into a tailspin of heavy drinking and self-torment.
The search for Daniel is on, but it may be too late for everyone involved.
The Lost Child
Thomas Grant Bruso © 2023
All Rights Reserved
“I don’t reckon I’ve seen you in these parts before?”
I turn to my left, where a handsome man leans on Lucky’s bar counter as if he’s stepped out of a photo shoot. His voice is deep with an upstate accent. His skin is the color of mocha, and his muscled biceps stretch the Hawaiian sleeveless silk shirt.
I can’t look away from his beautiful dark eyes.
His smile is small but genuine, but I know a pick-up line when I hear one.
I swig my beer, gripping the neck of the bottle and tilting it to my hungry mouth.
I drain the bottle in one long gulp, then gesture to Leslie, the pretty female bartender, for another—my fourth in the last hour.
“Rough day?” the mysterious man standing to my left, off to the side, asks. He blocks my view of the jukebox in the far corner where a gaggle of young men hover around the old-time machine, ogling and snickering at a cute young gay couple slow dancing in the middle of the room to “Crazy for You.”
Leslie plops a beer bottle in front of me. “You gonna need a lift home, Luke?”
“Luke?” The stranger standing next to me eyes me with determination. “Nice name.”
I stare at the man, then at Leslie, shaking my head. “I’ll be fine.”
“I can give him a lift if he needs one,” the stranger says, straddling a stool two seats away from me.
Leslie shrugs and turns her back, busying herself with drying a rack of wineglasses.
I stare over the man’s large shoulder to the only window in the room looking outside. It is dark. When did that happen? I stare at my wristwatch. I’ve been at Lucky’s for the better part of four hours.
I left Centerville a while ago, driving aimlessly, away from everything: work, my lonely apartment, a past that still haunts me.
I recall leaving Centerville’s small, blue-collar town, the place I call home for now, away from the nightmares that keep me awake at night. I continue wrestling with demons and memories, suppressing and drowning them in booze.
A voice summons me out of my subterranean daze in the small, hole-in-the-wall dive bar in Addleton, a half-hour drive from Centerville.
It is him—my stalker, talking to me.
My head feels heavy and packed with cotton. The beers are doing their job, making my mind fuzzy. I turn to the stranger’s piercing, brooding stare, but I still don’t know his name.
He smiles, standing too close to me, puncturing my space.
I reach for my beer. Numb the pain, Luke. Forget about everything you know. That night, three years ago. I empty it in two tugs.
I hear Leslie saying to a drunk patron, “No more. I’m not serving. We’re closing soon.”
The jukebox music blares so loud my ears hurt.
I pick at my cold french fries slathered with ketchup and salt. I swallow the greasy fries with a drink of beer and signal Leslie for another.
The man beside me crosses his burly arms atop the table and defiantly announces he wants to take me home.
I am not drunk yet, but the effects of my drinking spree are kicking in. My skin buzzes, my head numb, as if I’m levitating.
“Can I buy you another beer?” the man asks.
“I’m not looking to hook up,” I say, sounding slurred and sloppy like I’ve been injected with Novocain.
“I’m not either.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
He straightens and looks at himself in the bar mirror.
I follow his gaze but am struggling to keep my head up.
Whether or not I am at Lucky’s to get lucky, I can’t deny the man standing next to me is a beautiful stranger. From his one-hundred-dollar haircut to the well-worn brown loafers on his stocking feet, he is the perfect male specimen
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Thomas Grant Bruso knew at an early age he wanted to be a writer. He has been a voracious reader of genre fiction since he was a kid.
His literary inspirations are Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Ellen Hart, Jim Grimsley, Karin Fossum, Sam J. Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Connolly.
Bruso loves animals, book-reading, writing fiction, prefers Sudoku to crossword puzzles.
In another life, he was a freelance writer and wrote for magazines and newspapers. In college, he was a winner for the Hermon H. Doh Sonnet Competition. Now, he writes book reviews for his hometown newspaper, The Press Republican.
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