LITMIR.BIZ

      PROLOGUE

      CHRISTMAS.

      Turner Kennedy was a man who took pride in his ability not just to cope with fear, but to shape it into a different force entirely.

      He had jumped from airplanes at 8,200 meters into pitch blackness and an unknown welcome.

      He had raised all kinds of havoc “outside the fence” in hostile territory.

      He had experienced nature’s mercurial and killing moods without the benefit of shelter, sweltering heat to excruciating cold, sometimes in the same twenty-four-hour period.

      He had been hungry. And lost. He had been pushed to the outer perimeters of his physical limits, and then a mile or two beyond.

      He had been the hunted, stranded in the shadows of deeply inhospitable places, listening for footfalls, smelling the wind, squinting against impenetrable darkness.

      It was not that he had not been afraid, but rather that he had learned he had a rare ability to transform fear into adrenaline, power, energy.

      And so the irony of his current situation was not lost on him. After a long period away, he was back in the United States, a country where safety was a given, taken for granted.

      And he was afraid.

      He was afraid of three things.

      He was afraid of sleeping. In his dreams, he was haunted by all the things he had refused to back down from, haunted by a failure that more fear, on his part, might have changed a devastating outcome.

      And maybe it was exhaustion caused by that first fear that had led to the second one.

      Turner Kennedy was afraid of Christmas.

      Maybe not the coming Christmas, specifically, but of his memories of ones gone by. Those memories were lingering at the edges of his mind, waiting to leap to the forefront. Today, it had been seeing an angel Christmas tree topper in a store window.

      Without warning, Turner had been transported back more than two decades.

      They came down the stairs, early morning light just beginning to touch the decorated living room. The tree was eight feet tall. His mother had done it all in white that year. White lights, white Christmas ornaments, a white angel on top of the tree. The house smelled of the cookies she had baked for Santa while he and his brothers had spent Christmas Eve on the backyard skating rink their dad had made for them.

      It had been past ten when his mother had finally insisted they come in. Even then, Turner hadn’t wanted to. He could not get enough of the rink, of the feeling of the ice beneath his blades, of the cold on his cheeks, the wind in his hair, the power in his legs as he propelled himself forward. The whole world had seemed infused with magic....

      But now the magic seemed compromised. Though the cookies were gone, nothing but crumbs remaining, Santa hadn’t been there. The gifts from Santa were always left, unwrapped, right there on the hearth. This morning, that place yawned empty.

      He and his younger brothers, Mitchell and David, shot each other worried looks.

      Had they been bad? What had they done to fall out of Santa’s favor?

      His parents followed them down the steps, groggy, but seemingly unaware that anything was amiss.

      “Let’s open some gifts,” his father said. “I’ve been wanting to see what’s in this one.”

      His dad seemed so pleased with the new camera they had gone together to buy him. His mother opened perfume from Mitchell, a collectible ornament from David. She’d looked perplexed at Turner’s way more practical gift of a baseball mitt, and then laughed out loud.

      And just as her laughter faded, Turner had heard something else.

      A tiny whimper. Followed by a sharp, demanding yelp.

      It was coming from the laundry room, and he bolted toward the sound before his younger brothers even heard it. In a wicker

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