Where They Lie

PRAISE FOR JOE HART Or Else “Hart remains a suspense writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly “Or Else is a thriller/suspense tour de force. Joe Hart has knocked it out of the park with a start-to-finish roller coaster ride of perfectly executed twists and expertly timed chills. Deep character development and rich narrative seals Or Else’s place as the not-to-be-missed domestic thriller/suspense of the year.” —Steven Konkoly, author of the Ryan Decker series and Deep Sleep “The perfect thriller for a rainy afternoon, Or Else draws you into a web of small-town secrets, lies, and intrigue and doesn’t let you go. Hart’s well-rendered setting and characters resonate like people and places you’ve known. Loved every minute of this absolute page-turner!” —D. M. Pulley, bestselling author of The Dead Key “Joe Hart has written compelling stories before, but it’s in Or Else that he shows off just how good he is. This book checks all the boxes for me: a (seemingly) quiet, small-town drama—filled with those little quirks and secrets nobody wants to talk about—that quickly blossoms into something big, sinister, and menacing. Hart doesn’t pull any punches on some serious issues, either: love, infidelity, family conflict . . . there’s plenty to think about right up to the explosive ending. This is the thriller you’ll be recommending for the foreseeable future.” —Matthew Iden, author of the Marty Singer series and The Winter Over Obscura “Joe Hart is a tremendous talent, and with Obscura, he has taken his storytelling to the next level. This is a genius work of science fiction, brimming with thrills, scares, and most importantly, heart. I devoured this book, and you will too.” —Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and the Wayward Pines series “Outstanding . . . Fans of Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines series, with its combination of mystery, horror, and science fiction, will find this right up their alley.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “This gripping book will be a must-read for fans of SF-based mysteries such as John Scalzi’s Lock In and Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Retrieval Artist series, as well as aficionados of stories about science gone wrong, too far, or both.” —Library Journal (starred review) “The pacing is excellent from beginning to end.” —Los Angeles Times “Those seeking an off-planet sci-fi thriller with a haunting plotline will devour Joe Hart’s Obscura, which reads quick and is jam-packed with terrifying surprises.” —The Real Book Spy “For the reader who likes hard science fiction with some mystery and suspense thrown in, Obscura should hit the spot. It’s not merely sci-fi, but a thriller wrapped in the deadly solitude of space with a determined heroine who refuses to give up.” —New York Journal of Books ALSO BY JOE HART The Dominion Trilogy The Last Girl The Final Trade The First City The Liam Dempsey Mysteries The River Is Dark The Night Is Deep Novels Lineage Singularity EverFall The Waiting Widow Town Cruel World Obscura I’ll Bring You Back We Sang in the Dark Or Else Novellas Leave the Living Short Story Collections Midnight Paths: A Collection of Dark Horror Something Came Through: And Other Stories Short Stories “The Line Unseen” “Outpost” “And The Sea Called Her Name” “The Exorcism of Sara May” Comics The Last Sacrifice This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Text copyright © 2023 by Joe Hart All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781662508080 (paperback) ISBN-13: 9781662508097 (digital) Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant Cover image: © Magdalena Anna Kocjan / Arcangel; © Igor Vitkovskiy / Shutterstock To the readers everywhere. CONTENTS START READING 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 UPDATE AND SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!! | KAYLEE BAKER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR No lie ever reaches old age. —Sophocles 1 “Come on, Dooly, just sit down, for God’s sake. You’re gonna fall overboard.” Roger watched his goofy adolescent shepherd meander across the small deck of the sailboat and turn in a circle. He sniffed a neat coil of rope and chuffed once before pacing back to Roger’s side, giving the darkened entry to the cabin a wary look. “We’re going down there soon, you know,” Roger said, double-checking the angle of the jib. “That or we’ll have to grow gills.” The sea was choppy, a wind out of the northwest pushing them along at a steady five knots. Banks of low clouds churned off the port, and dark curtains of rain draped across the Pacific in the distance. Two miles in the opposite direction, the shoreline floated like a mirage, the land rising up in the suggestion of foothills and mountains beyond. Farther south, angles of sunlight cut through the cloud cover, and Roger looked longingly back, wondering if they should turn around. It was the first overnight trip he’d taken since acquiring the boat six months ago. For the past year, after discovering an unknown love of sailing, he’d kept to short day trips, traveling only to ports reachable in a few hours, always keen not to push the hobby into foolishly dangerous territory. He was meticulous in his planning and skittish when it came to taking chances, so the unanticipated storm made him deeply uneasy. Roger checked the instrumentation again. Four hours to their destination and no sufficient docking nearby. Dooly whined nervously, and Roger stroked the shepherd’s