From award-winning, internationally bestselling crime writer Catherine Ryan Howard comes The Trap: an unsettling mystery inspired by a series of still-unsolved disappearances in Ireland in the 90s, wherein one young woman risks everything to catch a faceless killer.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Catherine Ryan Howard’s The Trap, which is out August 1st.
One year ago, Lucy’s sister, Nicki, left to meet friends at a pub in Dublin and never came home. The third Irish woman to vanish inexplicably in as many years, the agony of not knowing what happened that night has turned Lucy’s life into a waking nightmare. So, she’s going to take matters into her own hands.
Angela works as a civilian paper-pusher in the Missing Persons Unit, but wants nothing more than to be a fully-fledged member of An Garda Síochána, the Irish police force. With the official investigation into the missing women stalled, she begins pulling on a thread that could break the case wide open—and destroy her chances of ever joining the force.
A nameless man drives through the night, his latest victim in the back seat. He’s going to tell her everything, from the beginning. And soon, she’ll realize: what you don’t know can hurt you …
CHAPTER ONE
She’d been out-out, and town had been busy. Stumbled out of the club to discover that there wasn’t a taxi to be had. Spent an hour trying to flag one down with one hand while trying to hail one via an app with the other until, resigned, she’d pushed her way on to a packed night bus headed not far enough in sort of the right direction. Her plan was to call someone at its terminus, apologize for waking them and ask them to come get her, but by the time she got there—to a tiny country village that was sleepy by day and empty by night—her phone had died. She’d been the last passenger and the bus had driven off before she could think to ask the driver if she could perhaps borrow his phone. It was four in the morning and beginning to drizzle, so she’d started walking. Because, really, what other choice did she have?
This is the story she tells herself as she leaves the village and crosses into the dark its streetlights had been holding back.
All around her, the night seems to thrum with disapproval.
Silly girl. This is exactly the kind of thing your mother told you not to do. There has to be some kind of personal responsibility, doesn’t there?
An ex-boyfriend had once told her that his favorite part of a night out was the walk home. Just him and his thoughts on deserted streets, the evening’s fun still warm in his chest. He had no tense wait for a taxi. He didn’t need to walk to the front door with his keys squeezed between his fingers, ready to scratch, to disable. He had never texted a thumbs-up emoji to anyone before he went to sleep so that they could go to sleep as well.
The part of the night he loved was the part she had to survive.
When she’d told him this, he’d pulled her close and kissed her face and whispered, “I’m so sorry that you think that’s the world you live in,” in so patronizing a tone that, for a brief moment, she’d considered using her keys on his scrotum.
The drizzle gives way to a driving rain. When the footpath runs out, her high heels make her stumble on the crumbling surface of the road. The balls of her feet burn and the ankle strap on the right one is rubbing her skin away.
For a while, there’s a watery moonlight inviting forms to take on a shape and step out of the night—a telephone pole, a hedgerow, a pothole—but then the road twists into a tunnel of overhanging trees and the dark solidifies. She can’t see her own legs below the hem of her dress now. Her body is literally disappearing into the night. And then, through the roar of the rain— A mechanical whine.
Getting louder.
She thinks engine and turns just in time to be blinded by a pair of sweeping high beams. Twin orbs are still floating in her vision when the car jerks to a stop alongside her. Silver, some make of saloon. She stops too. The passenger window descends in a smooth, electronic motion and a voice says, “You all right there?”
She dips her head so she can see inside.
There’s a pair of legs in the driver’s seat, lit by the blue glow of the dashboard display, wearing jeans.
“Ah . . . Yeah.” She bends lower again to align her face with the open window just as the driver switches on the ceiling light. He is a man in his thirties, with short red hair and a splotchy pink face of irritated skin. His T-shirt is on inside out; she can see the seams and, at the back of his neck, the tag. There are various discarded items in the passenger-side footwell: fast-food wrappers, a tabloid newspaper, a single muddy hiking boot. In the back, there’s a baby seat with a little stuffed green thing belted into it. “I got off the night bus back in the village, and I was going to ring for a lift but—”
“Sorry.” The man taps a forefinger to a spot just behind his left ear, a move which makes her think of her late mother applying a perfume she seemed to fear was too expensive to ever actually spritz. “My hearing isn’t great.”
“I got off the night bus,” she says, louder this time.
He leans towards her, frowning. “Say again?”
The passenger side window isn’t all the way down. An inch or so of glass digs into the palm of her hand when she puts it on the door and leans her head and shoulders into the opening, far enough for the roar of the rain to fall away into the background, for the sickly sweet smell of a pine air freshener to reach her nostrils and—it occurs to her—for the balance of her body weight to be inside the car.
If he suddenly drove off, he’d take her with him.
“I got off the night bus in the village,” she says. “I was going to ring home for a lift, but my phone died.”
She pulls the device from her pocket, a dead black mirror, and shows it to him.
“Ah, feck,” he says. “And I came out without mine. Although maybe . . .” He starts rooting around, checking the cubbyholes in the driver’s door, the cup holders between the front seats, inside the glove box. There seems to be a lot of stuff in the car, but not whatever he’s looking for. “I thought I might have a charger, but no. Sorry.” “It’s OK,” she says automatically.
“Look, I’m only going as far as the Circle K, but they’re open twenty-four hours and they have that little seating area at the back. Maybe you could borrow a charger off someone there. Or they might even let you use their phone. It’d be a better place to wait, at least?”
“Yeah.” She pulls back, out of the window, and looks down the road into the empty black. “Is it far?”
“Five-minute drive.” He’s already reaching to push open the passenger door and she steps back to make room for the swing of its arc. “Hop in.”
Somehow, the last moment in which she could’ve decided not to do this has passed her by. Because if she steps back now, pushes the passenger door closed and says, “Thanks, but I think I’ll walk,” she may as well say, “Thanks for your kindness, but I think you might be a monster so please leave me alone.”
And if he is a monster, then he won’t have to pretend not to be anymore, and she won’t be able to outrun him, not out here, not in these shoes—and where is there to run to?
And if he isn’t a monster, well, then . . .
It’s perfectly safe to get in the car. She gets in the car.
