What Lurks Behind Real

Dark supernatural horror with a happy ending. Teens in New York are disappearing, so a recovered drug addict returns to her dark past to find out why. Her hunt leads into an even darker place. And she doesn't know if strange psychic experiences are real or all in her mind.My hangout was Club Cain in New York. An underage dance club where runaways met people who gave them drugs, food, and shelter in exchange for sex. Now I'm a counselor in a clinic for recovering teen addicts. But my new life is about to change. Young people from the clinic are disappearing.Strange visions point me to the kidnapper and the disturbing truth about what's really happening. So I have to go back to Club Cain and into the past I want to forget.Time flows in a different way now too. I'm having weird mental experiences, but I don't tell anyone. It's hard enough to convince people I'm not crazy. I can't let anyone stop me from looking for the missing teenagers, but a hot but wrong guy keeps distracting me.** This book was previously titled "Tenderloin" and also "Club Cain."Excerpt from Stalked in the City:The queasily dangerous sense of the man I stalked grew stronger when I walked into the Tenderloin Club. I knew he was at the bar. He was waiting for me, but there was uncertainty in his mind. I'd angered him or turned him off with my persistence. I knew I'd have to play this pickup carefully, but I didn't have a clue how to do that.Luckily, I didn't have to know. As I began dancing randomly among the crowd of other paired and solo dancers, the driving force in my mind pushed me back into that fuzzy watching place and took over. I was there, but I was just going along for the ride.Other dancers tried to connect with me, but I moved closer and closer to the bar where the big man sat. Again, he faced away from the bar, toward the dance floor. This time, my former client Stella sat on the stool next to Claude. But most of her was leaning onto him. There's no way she's going to leave here with him tonight. I told myself. Even if have to inject her in this bar—or him.Claude sat accepting Stella's attention but not returning it. He sipped his drink and stared with dark hooded eyes at the crowd. Watching for me, I knew. But not willing to show any sign of it.Farther down, Steve sat at the bar too. He faced the dancers but showed more interest. Smiling. One leg bent with the foot resting on a rung of the bar stool. The other straight out with the foot flat on the floor.I made my sinuous way over to Steve and got up close. I was careful not to look at Claude, but I sensed his attention turn like a spotlight in my direction."Myrna!" said Steve. "You're still around!"He threw his arms around me in a tight hug, and I hugged him back. Because he was sitting, and I was standing, it was an amorous kind of hug with his face pressed into my breasts.I felt the change in Claude's energy from several seats away. Anger and desire mixed.It wasn't normal physical desire, I realized. The feeling was predatory. Feral and hungry. As if I were prey to be devoured.I would have been terrified if the mental change in me wasn't numbing me, calming me unnaturally as it took over my thoughts and actions.But I was still there. I pulled back from Steve and sat on the stool next to him without his invitation. Then I leaned over close and spoke into his ear.More books by LD Marr:Have Teeth, Will Bite - a cozy vampire mysteryIn the 1880s, attracting the wrong type can be undeadly.