Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon Read online

  Written in Blood Vol. 3

  Innocent Blood, Blood Money, Blood Moon - 3 Complete John Jordan Mysteries

  Michael Lister

  Pulpwood Press

  Copyright © 2013 by Michael Lister

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Sign up for Michael’s newsletter by clicking here or go to

  www.MichaelLister.com and receive a free book.

  Join Michael’s Readers’ Group and receive 4 FREE Books!

  (Remington James Novels)

  Double Exposure

  (includes intro by Michael Connelly)

  Separation Anxiety

  Blood Shot

  (John Jordan Novels)

  Power in the Blood

  Blood of the Lamb

  Flesh and Blood

  (Special Introduction by Margaret Coel)

  The Body and the Blood

  Double Exposure

  Blood Sacrifice

  Rivers to Blood

  Burnt Offerings

  Innocent Blood

  (Special Introduction by Michael Connelly)

  Separation Anxiety

  Blood Money Blood Moon

  Thunder Beach

  Blood Cries

  A Certain Retribution

  Blood Oath

  Blood Work

  Cold Blood

  Blood Betrayal

  Blood Shot

  Blood Ties

  Blood Stone

  Blood Trail

  (Jimmy “Soldier” Riley Novels)

  The Big Goodbye

  The Big Beyond

  The Big Hello

  The Big Bout

  The Big Blast

  In a Spider’s Web (short story)

  The Big Book of Noir

  (Merrick McKnight / Reggie Summers Novels)

  Thunder Beach

  A Certain Retribution

  Blood Oath

  Blood Shot

  (Sam Michaels / Daniel Davis Novels)

  Burnt Offerings

  Blood Oath

  Cold Blood

  Blood Shot

  (Love Stories)

  Carrie’s Gift

  (Short Story Collections)

  North Florida Noir

  Florida Heat Wave

  Delta Blues

  Another Quiet Night in Desperation

  (The Meaning Series)

  Meaning Every Moment

  The Meaning of Life in Movies

  Sign up for Michael’s newsletter by clicking here or go to

  www.MichaelLister.com and receive a free book.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  How to read the John Jordan Blood Series

  Innocent Blood

  Introduction by Michael Connelly

  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

  Blood Money

  How to read the John Jordan Blood Series

  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

  Start Blood Moon Now!

  Blood Moon Chapter 1

  Blood Moon Chapter 2

  Blood Moon Chapter 3

  Also by Michael Lister

  Blood Moon

  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

  Also By The Author

  How to read the John Jordan Blood Series

  The Blood Series

  This New York Times bestselling and award-winning series features a conflicted detective—a cop with ties to Atlanta who also works as a prison chaplain in Florida. He’s a man of mercy and justice, compassion, open-mindedness. He’s also a smart, relentless detective.

  The
John Jordan mystery series is character-driven and realistic—thoughtful mystery thrillers involving the hero’s journey of a good man trying to be even better, as he helps others along the way.

  Like John Jordan, the author, Michael Lister, was a prison chaplain with the state of Florida before leaving to write full-time.

  If you’re new to the John Jordan series, you can begin with any book, but we recommend one of these 3: Power in the Blood, Innocent Blood, or Blood Oath.

  Power in the Blood, the first fiction the author ever wrote, was published over 20 years ago, and though it’s recommended, the books in the John Jordan series don’t have to be read in order.

  All the books in the series are novels—mystery, thrillers, whodunits—except for the 3rd book in the series, Flesh and Blood, which is a collection of short stories featuring temporal and metaphysical mysteries. If you don’t care for short stories, feel free to skip Flesh and Blood and continue with the fourth novel The Body and the Blood.

  If you decided to skip the short stories and continue on with the novels, we recommend that you read the short story “A Taint in the Blood” in the book Flesh and Blood to find out what happened to Laura Matthers from Power in the Blood.

  The 7th book in the series, Innocent Blood, is a prequel going back to John’s very first investigation. Though the 7th in the series, it can be read 1st or 7th since it’s a prequel.

  The 10th book in the series, Blood Cries, is the second in the “Atlanta Years” series within a series following the 7th book Innocent Blood. It can be read 2nd or 10th.

  The 17th book in the seres, Blood Stone, is the 3rd book in the “Atlanta Years” series within the series following the 10th book Blood Cries. It can be read 3rd or 17th.

  John Jordan is an ex-cop in books 1-10, but once again carries a gun and a badge beginning with book 11, Blood Oath.

  All of the John Jordan novels are available in high quality hardback, paperback, ebook, and audio editions.

  Interspersed throughout the “Blood” books there are other related books that are part of the John Jordan universe. These books are extremely important to the series and provide essential backstory for characters, connections, and locations of series regulars. Most of all they answer the questions most readers want to know. They include Double Exposure, Burnt Offerings, Separation Anxiety, Thunder Beach, and A Certain Retribution. These are “Blood Series” books without being John Jordan Mysteries.

  We hope you will enjoy all the books in the John Jordan series and eagerly await each new entry.

  Be sure to join Michael Lister's Readers' Group for news, updates, and special deals on the John Jordan series.

  Innocent Blood

  A John Jordan Mystery Book 7

  Introduction by Michael Connelly

  by Michael Connelly

  The reading of a novel is a mysterious and sacred thing. A solely internal process, it relies totally on one’s empathy, the ability to connect with another being – the story’s protagonist. To me it’s like thumbing a ride and getting into a car with a stranger behind the wheel. Except this driver doesn’t ask where you’re headed because you are going wherever he goes. So you head off and over time you get to know the driver. You can’t help it. You learn all about him as he drives. You pick up little stories, little moments of character. And yet he won’t tell you where he’s taking you. But that’s okay because not knowing the destination is the key to a good ride. And if you are lucky the conversation and the scenery along the way is equally as interesting as the final destination.

  It is a massive investment of time and creative energy to read a novel. You have to build characters in your imagination, even if they’re villains and you don’t like them. You create landscapes and emotions. It’s all very risky. Because the emotions are real even if the story isn’t. A sacred bond develops between the reader and the stranger behind the wheel.

  All of that is why you are in for a great ride with this book and why the following pages hold such a treat. If you are like me you’ve already invested heavily in the driver of this car. I had been in the car with John Jordan before on several journeys. I had picked up the vibe of his past. Something dark and damaging. They say the past informs the present. Well, this man’s present seemed to be overwhelmed at times by the past. It hung out there just off the edges of each page.

  Now, with this novel, Michael Lister brings the past across the margins and onto the page. Now you get to know things. Now you get to understand. It’s a bold move by an author. The man with a mysterious past is a tried and true literary archetype. It worked with John Jordan for many years. Why mess with a good thing? Well, maybe because as a creator Lister wants to push things in from the margins and examine them and not rely on familiar archetypes. It’s risky but the pay off can be high. It is here in Innocent Blood. Lister gives a unique edition to the John Jordan story. Another great ride with a very assured driver behind the wheel.

  -- Michael Connelly

  1

  In 1980 I came face to face with the Atlanta Child Murderer.

  I was twelve years old. The same age as many of his victims.

  This singular experience not only forever changed me, but actually altered the course of my life.

  But long before this seminal visit to the city of Atlanta as a child, long before this encounter with evil, I was obsessed with the monster who was littering the woods of the metro area with the broken bodies of little black boys.

  It had begun on July 21, 1979, when Edward Hope Smith went missing.

  He was last seen leaving the Greenbriar Skating Rink on Stone Street, parting ways with his girlfriend at the intersection.

  His body was discovered seven days later in a wooded area in a ravine just off Niskey Lake Road by a woman looking for cans. He had been shot with a .22 in the upper back. The area, surrounded by loblolly pines, white oaks, an occasional dogwood, and creeping kudzu vines, was a popular spot for people to dump their trash.

  It was said that by the time his body was discovered, a vine from a nearby tree had already wrapped itself around the boy’s lifeless neck.

  My obsession had continued through the disappearance and death of Timothy Hill, a thirteen-year-old boy and friend of an earlier victim, Jo-Jo Bell. Timothy went missing on March 13, 1981, and was last seen in the area of Lawson Street and Sells Avenue. His body was found seventeen days later on March 30th––the same day Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr.––by a boater in the Chattahoochee River near Cochran Road. His partially submerged body was some twenty-five feet from the bank. The cause of death was determined to be asphyxia by suffocation.

  There were other victims, of course, but they weren’t children and I wasn’t nearly as obsessed with them.

  Children disappearing, dying, being discarded––some seventeen so far––held my developing mind hostage, seized my attention, captured my preteen imagination like nothing before ever had. And it was only partially because of the cruel and capricious nature of the killings, the fragility and vulnerability of childhood, and the fact that my dad, the sheriff of the small Florida Panhandle town where we lived, had a friend on the task force that was so ineffectually working the case. It was mostly because of how each and every little boy looked like and reminded me of my best friend in all the world, Merrill Monroe.

  My fateful confrontation with the killer took place during the final weekend in November 1980, surrounded by gaudy gold Christmas decorations and to the soundtrack of traditional Christmas carols played through cheap speakers, the thin, electronic noises of video games, the wooden pop of pinball machines, and the desultory sounds of the city Sherman had burned to the ground.

  Our parents had brought us to Atlanta, on what would be our final family vacation, to stay in the Omni hotel, to ice skate and shop, to play in the arcade and ride the gigantic escalator to the carnival in the clouds, to experience the spectacle of a hotel that could hold more people than lived in our entire little town.