Prologue
Dammit, he’d been so careful. And now this.
A trickle of sweat worked down the side of his face and he closed his eyes as fear tightened his lungs and squeezed his throat. He’d been in a simmering panic since he’d received the email.
He opened his eyes and reread the damned thing.
12:01a.m., from [email protected]:
I know what you did with all that money. I’ll keep your secret but it will cost the lives of innocent people. Or confess to the press and nobody gets hurt. The choice is yours. You have until noon tomorrow.
The lives of innocent people? What did that mean? His gut tightened as nausea overcame him.
Things like this weren’t supposed to happen to him. He’d done everything right in his life. He’d had high hopes. He had big ambitions. The New York Times was running a cover story on him next week that he hoped would launch him to a new level of success. Everything was in place and now this.
Somebody knew his secret.
He twisted his gold wedding band around and around his finger as he stared at the grandfather clock across the room. He had to make a decision fast. Time was running out.
Coming clean would destroy everything he’d worked for. Hell, it wouldn’t only destroy him, it would also destroy his wife.
How much could this anonymous person know? Did the emailer know about all the gifts, the secret hotel visits and the faux business expenses?
Just last weekend they had spent two days together at a luxury hotel upstate, ultimately paid for by taxpayer dollars.
Four minutes…he had four minutes left to make a decision. He should have contacted his brother when he’d received the email. But what could he have done to help? What could anyone do?
Three minutes. A rivulet of sweat rolled down the center of his back while his fingers poised over his computer keyboard. It was too late to call for a press conference. But it wasn’t too late for him to type something up on social media…confess to the affair and to the misuse of public funds.
If he didn’t do that innocent people would die. Jesus, what kind of a choice was this? What kind of a monster asked someone to make such a decision.
The back of his throat closed up again. He didn’t want to be responsible for anyone dying. He blew out several short breaths in an effort to calm himself.
Two minutes to go. Surely it was a hoax. It had to be some sort of an outrageous bluff. How could he take this seriously? More sweat dampened him as the acrid scent of his fear wafted in the air. His fingers trembled with indecision.
One minute…oh, God, what should he do? Was this real? Would something bad really happen?
Thirty seconds. His phone dinged with a text message. Quickly he grabbed it up and stared at the text.
Ticktock.
A sharp pain shot through his chest. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be…could it? The grandfather clock ticked off the seconds.
Five.
Four. His fingers hovered over his keyboard.
Three.
Two. Oh God. He hesitated. It was too late to type something now.
One.
As the clock began to chime, a ding indicated another text message.
With dread he looked at it.
Boom.
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by New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy,
Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch
On sale February 2017 wherever Harlequin ebooks are sold.
Keep reading for an excerpt from LAW AND DISORDER by Heather Graham.
Copyright © 2017 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Law and Disorder
by Heather Graham
Chapter One
Dakota Cameron was stunned to turn and find a gun in her face. It was held by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a hoodie and a mask. The full-face rubber mask—like the Halloween “Tricky Dickie” masks of Richard Nixon—was familiar. It was a mask to denote a historic criminal, she thought, but which one?
The most ridiculous thing was that she almost giggled. She couldn’t help but think back to when they were kids; all of them here, playing, imagining themselves notorious criminals. It had been the coolest thing in the world when her dad had inherited the old Crystal Manor on Crystal Island, off the Rickenbacker Causeway, between Miami and South Beach—despite the violence that was part of the estate’s history, or maybe because of it.
She and her friends had been young, in grammar school at the time, and they’d loved the estate and all the rumors that had gone with it. They hadn’t played cops and robbers—they had played cops and gangsters, calling each other G-Man or Leftie, or some other such silly name. Because her father was strict and there was no way crime would ever be glorified here—even if the place had once belonged to Anthony Green, one of the biggest mobsters to hit the causeway islands in the late 1940s and early 1950s—crime of any kind was seen as very, very bad. When the kids played games here, the coppers and the G-men always won.
Because of those old games, when Kody turned to find the gun in her face, she felt a smile twitching at her lips. But then the large man holding the gun fired over her head and the sign that bore the name Crystal Manor exploded into a million bits.
The gun-wielder was serious. It was not, as she had thought possible, a joke—not an old friend, someone who had heard she was back in Miami for the week, someone playing a prank.
No. No one she knew would play such a sick joke.
“Move!” a husky voice commanded her.
She was so stunned at the truth of the situation, the masked man staring at her, the bits of wood exploding around her, that she didn’t give way to the weakness in her knees or the growing fear shooting through her. She simply responded.
“Move? To where? What do you want?”
“Out of the booth, up to the house, now. And fast!”
The “booth” was the old guardhouse that sat just inside the great wrought-iron gates on the road. It dated back to the early years of the 1900s when pioneer Jimmy Crystal had first decided upon the spit of high ground—a good three feet above the water level—to found his fishing camp. Coral rock had been dug out of nearby quarries for the foundations of what had then been the caretaker’s cottage. Over the next decade, Jimmy Crystal’s “fishing camp” had become a playground for the rich and famous. The grand house on the water had been built—pieces of it coming from decaying castles and palaces in Europe—the gardens had been planted and the dock had slowly extended out into Biscayne Bay.
In the 1930s, Jimmy Crystal had mysteriously disappeared at sea. The house and grounds had been swept up by the gangster Anthony Green. He had ruled there for years—until being brought down by a hail of bullets at his club on Miami Beach by “assailants unknown.”
The Crystal family had come back in then. The last of them had died when Kody had been just six; that’s when her father had discovered that Amelia Crystal—the last assumed member of the old family—had actually been his great-great-great-aunt.
Daniel Cameron had inherited the grandeur—and the ton of bills—that went with the estate.
“Now!” the gun wielder said.
Kody was amazed that her trembling legs could actually move.
“All right,” she said, surprised by the even tone of her voice. “I’ll have to open the door to get out. And, of course, you’re aware that there are cameras all over this estate?”
“Don’t worry about the cameras,” he said.
She shrugged and moved from the open ticket window to the door. In the few feet between her and the heavy wooden door she tried to think of something she could do.
How in the hel
l could she sound the alarm?
Maybe it had already been sounded. Crystal Manor was far from the biggest tourist attraction in the area, but still, it was an attraction. The cops were aware of it. And Celestial Island—the bigger island that led to Crystal Island—was small, easily accessible by boat but, from the mainland, only accessible via the causeway and then the bridge. To reach Crystal Island, you needed to take the smaller bridge from Celestial Island—or, as with all the islands, arrive by boat. If help had been alerted, it might take time for it to get here.
Jose Marquez, their security man, often walked the walled area down to the water, around the back of the house and the lawn and the gardens and the maze, to the front. He was on his radio at all times. But, of course, with the gun in her face, she had no chance to call him.
Was Jose all right? she wondered. Had the gunman already gotten to him?
“What! Are you eighty? Move!”
The voice was oddly familiar. Was this an old friend? Had someone in her family even set this up, taunting her with a little bit of reproach for the decision she’d made to move up to New York City? She did love her home; leaving hadn’t been easy. But she’d been offered a role in a “living theater” piece in an old hotel in the city, a part-time job at an old Irish pub through the acting friend who was part owner—and a rent-controlled apartment for the duration. She was home for a week—just a week—to set some affairs straight before final rehearsals and preview performances.
“Now! Get moving—now!” The man fired again and a large section of coral rock exploded.
Her mind began to race. She hadn’t heard many good things about women who’d given in to knife-or gun-wielding strangers. They usually wound up dead anyway.
She ducked low, hurrying to the push button that would lower the aluminum shutter over the open window above the counter at the booth. Diving for her purse, she rolled away with it toward the stairway to the storage area above, dumping her purse as she did so. Her cell phone fell out and she grabbed for it.
But before she could reach it, there was another explosion. The gunman had shot through the lock on the heavy wooden door; it pushed inward.
He seemed to move with the speed of light. Her fingers had just closed around the phone when he straddled over her, wrenching the phone from her hand and throwing it across the small room. He hunkered down on his knees, looming large over her.
There wasn’t a way that she was going to survive this! She thought, too, of the people up at the house, imagining distant days of grandeur, the staff, every one of which adored the house and the history. Thought of them all...with bullets in their heads.
With all she had she fought him, trying to buck him off her.
“For the love of God, stop,” he whispered harshly, holding her down. “Do as I tell you. Now!”
“So you can kill me later?” she demanded, and stared up at him, trying not to shake. She was basically a coward and couldn’t begin to imagine where any of her courage was coming from.
Instinctual desperation? The primal urge to survive?
Before he could answer there was a shout from behind him.
“Barrow! What the hell is going on in there?”
“We’re good, Capone!” the man over her shouted back.
Capone?
“Cameras are all sizzled,” the man called Capone called out. She couldn’t see him. “Closed for Renovation signs up on the gates.”
“Great. I’ve got this. You can get back to the house. We’re good here. On the way now!”
“You’re slower than molasses!” Capone barked. “Hurry the hell up! Dillinger and Floyd are securing the house.”
Capone? As in “Al” Capone, who had made Miami his playground, along with Anthony Green? Dillinger—as in John Dillinger? Floyd—as in Pretty Boy Floyd?
Barrow—or the muscle-bound twit on top of her now—stared at her hard through the eye holes in his mask.
Barrow—as in Clyde Barrow. Yes, he was wearing a Clyde Barrow mask!
She couldn’t help but grasp at hope. If they had all given themselves ridiculous 1930’s gangster names and were wearing hoodies and masks, maybe cold-blooded murder might be avoided. These men may think their identities were well hidden and they wouldn’t need to kill to avoid having any eye witnesses.
“Come with me!” Barrow said. She noted his eyes then. They were blue; an intense blue, almost navy.
Again something of recognition flickered within her. They were such unusual eyes...
“Come with me!”
She couldn’t begin to imagine why she laughed, but she did.
“Wow, isn’t that a movie line?” she asked. “Terminator! Good old Arnie Schwarzenegger. But aren’t you supposed to say, ‘Come with me—if you want to live’?”
He wasn’t amused.
“Come with me—if you want to live,” he said, emphasis on the last.
What was she supposed to do? He was a wall of a man, six-feet plus, shoulders like a linebacker.
“Then get off me,” she snapped.
He moved, standing with easy agility, reaching a hand down to her.
She ignored the hand and rose on her own accord, heading for the shattered doorway. He quickly came to her side, still holding the gun but slipping an arm around her shoulders.
She started to shake him off.
“Dammit, do you want them to shoot you the second you step out?” He swore.
She gritted her teeth and allowed the touch until they were outside the guardhouse. Once they were in the clear, she shook him off.
“Now, I think you just have to point that gun at my back,” she said, her voice hard and cold.
“Head to the main house,” he told her.
The old tile path, cutting handsomely through the manicured front lawn of the estate, lay before her. It was nearing twilight and she couldn’t help but notice that the air was perfect—neither too cold nor too hot—and that the setting sun was painting a palette of colors in the sky. She could smell the salt in the air and hear the waves as they splashed against the concrete breakers at the rear of the house.
All that made the area so beautiful—and, in particular, the house out on the island—had never seemed to be quite so evident and potent as when she walked toward the house. Jimmy Crystal had not actually named the place for himself; he’d written in his old journal that the island had seemed to sit in a sea of crystals, shimmering beneath the sun. And so it was. And now, through the years, the estate had become something glimmering and dazzling, as well. It sat in homage to days gone by, to memories of a time when the international city of Miami had been little more than a mosquito-ridden swamp and only those with vision had seen what might come in the future.
She and her parents had never lived in the house; they’d stayed in their home in the Roads section of the city, just north of Coconut Grove, where they’d always lived. They managed the estate, but even in that, a board had been brought in and a trust set up. The expenses to keep such an estate going were staggering.
While it had begun as a simple fishing shack, time and the additions of several generations had made Crystal Manor into something much more. It resembled both an Italianate palace and a medieval castle with tile and marble everywhere, grand columns, turrets and more. The manor was literally a square built around a center courtyard, with turrets at each corner that afforded four tower rooms above the regular two stories of the structure.
As she walked toward the sweeping, grand steps that led to the entry, she looked around. She had heard one of the other thugs, but, at that moment, she didn’t see anyone.
Glancing back, she saw that a chain had been looped around the main gate. The gate arched to fifteen feet; the coral rock wall that surrounded the house to the water was a good twelve feet. Certainly not insurmountable by the right l
aw-enforcement troops, but, still, a barrier against those who might come in to save the day.
She looked back at her masked abductor. She could see nothing of his face—except for those eyes.
Why were they so...eerily familiar? If she really knew him, if she had known him growing up, she’d have remembered who went with those eyes! They were striking, intense. The darkest, deepest blue she had ever seen.
What was she thinking? He was a crook! She didn’t make friends with crooks!
The double entryway doors suddenly opened and she saw another man in its maw.
Kody stopped. She stared at the doors. They were really beautiful, hardwood enhanced with stained-glass images of pineapples—symbols of welcome. Quite ironic at the moment.
“Get her in here!” the second masked man told the one called Barrow.
“Go,” Barrow said softly from behind her.
She walked up the steps and into the entry.
It was grand now, though the entry itself had once been the whole house built by Jimmy Crystal when he had first fallen in love with the little island that, back then, had been untouched, isolated—a haven only for mangroves and mosquitos. Since then, of course, the island—along with Star and Hibiscus islands—had become prime property.
But the foyer still contained vestiges of the original. The floor was coral rock. The columns were the original columns that Jimmy Crystal had poured. Dade country pine still graced the side walls.
The rear wall had been taken down to allow for glass barriers to the courtyard; more columns had been added. The foyer contained only an 1890’s rocking horse to the right side of the double doors and an elegant, old fortune-telling machine to the left. And, of course, the masked man who stood between the majestic staircases that led to the second floor at each side of the space.
She cast her eyes around but saw no one else.
There had still been four or five guests on the property when Kody had started to close down for the day. And five staff members: Stacey Carlson, the estate manager, Nan Masters, his assistant, and Vince Jenkins, Brandi Johnson and Betsy Rodriguez, guides. Manny Diaz, the caretaker, had been off the property all day. And, of course, Jose Marquez was there somewhere.
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