Scare Card - Dalrymple, Matty

. .

Résumé :
When Lizzy Ballard's enemies play their cruelest card, can she outsmart them before her life and the lives of those she loves are dealt a fatal blow? For years, Lizzy Ballard has been running: from the fertility-clinic experiment that made her what she is, from the trail of bodies her power has left in its wake, and from Louise Mortensen, the brilliant, glacial scientist who engineered her. Now Lizzy is hiding out under a fake ID, bankrolling the handful of people she loves one rigged poker hand at a time, and letting herself believe she's learned to control the lethal gift she was born with. Then Louise takes someone Lizzy can't afford to lose, and the terms are simple. Come to a fortress buried deep in the Maryland woods. Bring the one man who has kept her alive. But what waits behind those mirrored windows is even more dangerous than Louise: a thug who hides his violence behind easy charm, and a plan that means to turn Lizzy from hostage into weapon. The grounds are walled and guarded, the phones are silenced, and every person who loves her is now a chip someone else is holding. SCARE CARD is a taut story of loyalty, complicity, and the brutal math of love that asks one unbearable question: how much of what Lizzy does is choice, and how much was decided for her before she could speak? For readers of Stephen King's Firestarter who like a cold, calculating villain at the center, Scare Card deals Lizzy into a game where the people she loves are the stakes-and she's about to learn what it costs to be holding the deadliest hand at the table....

Sommaire:
Lizzy Ballard possesses a dangerous power she struggles to control: the ability to inflict fatal brain injuries using only the power of her mind. Haunted by the memory of her victims, she's on the run from the authorities and from the scientist who created her power, Louise Mortensen. Lizzy has been hiding out in Arizona with her mentor, ex-con Philip Castillo. She's earning money at the poker tables of Phoenix, thanks to an unexpected ability bestowed by a drug stolen from Mortensen: temporary clairvoyance. When Lizzy and Philip decide to head east to Lizzy's hometown of Philadelphia, she's overjoyed to be reunited with her godfather, Owen McNally, and his brother Andy. But the East Coast proves to be no refuge when Lizzy is the subject of a brutal attack. Then Mortensen kidnaps Andy and coerces Philip into a lethal game of nerves with her rival, Billy Chapel. Lizzy sees no way out except to comply with the demands of her nemesis. When Lizzy finds blood stains in Chapel's suite and a dire note from Philip warning her of who the true enemy is, she fears the worse. She demands answers from Chapel, but he's just as baffled as she is. His confusion quickly turns to rage, and he drags her toward Louise's lab-and the final showdown. Outnumbered but undaunted, Lizzy must rely on her wits and grit to try to outmaneuver Mortensen and Chapel, and to answer the question: can friendship and justice prevail against cruelty and evil? The only way to win might be to put not just her freedom but her very soul at stake....