Face of Danger

by Roxanne St Claire

  “Happy birthday.” Sam nodded to her. “We have two bottles of the ’94 Tattinger left.”

  “Nice call for champagne,” he said, “but I think this is a wine crowd. You like Bordeaux, right, Meredith?”

  The woman leaned forward on one elbow, a slow smile forming as she looked at him. “Something complex and elegant.”

  Sam waited a beat, as the woman’s gaze stayed fixed on her host. Devyn shifted in her seat, and Sam could practically taste the tension crackling in the air.

  “Let me get the sommelier,” Sam suggested quickly. “I bet he has the perfect Bordeaux.”

  “I know he does.” Joshua handed Sam the wine list back without even looking at it. “Tell Rene we’d like two bottles of the 1982 Chateau Haut-Brion.”

  “Excellent selection.” Was it ever. “While I get that, can we offer you sparkling water or bottled?”

  They made their choices, which Sam whispered to a busboy before darting down the narrow passage from the dining area to the kitchen, her shoes bouncing on the rubber floor as she left the gentle conversation and music of the dining room for the clatter and sizzle of the kitchen.

  “Where’s Rene?” she asked, a smell of buttery garlic and seared meat rolling over her.

  “I’m right here.” The door to the cellars flipped open as the beefy sommelier hustled toward her, carrying far too many bottles. Two more servers came in right behind him with similar armloads.

  “Rene, I need two bottles of ’82 Haut-Brion, stat.”

  “After I help with the upstairs party,” he shot back.

  “Then give me the key and a general idea where I can find the ’82s.”

  “You’re not getting the ’82s, sister.” The faux French accent he used with customers was absent as he deftly set bottles on the prep deck. “One slip of the hand and you just cost us both a month’s pay.”

  “Come on, Rene. I can get two bottles of wine, for crying out loud.”

  “You can wait like everyone else, Sam.” He started handing bottles to one of the other servers, who gave her a smug look of victory.

  The doors from the dining area swung open, and Sam squinted down the hallway, just in time to get a glimpse of Joshua strolling across the room, reaching out to greet a gorgeous former model and her date sitting at the deuce near the bar. So he wasn’t in a huge rush for his wine. She glanced at the plates on the stainless steel pass, calculating exactly how much time she had to get this wine poured before her four orders for the old Brahmins on ten came up.

  Not much. She wanted the Haut-Brion delivered first or she’d lose her whole rhythm.

  One more of the waitstaff came up from the cellar, several bottles in hand. “This is the last of it, Rene. I just have to go back down and lock up.”

  “I’ll lock it,” Sam said, snatching the keys.

  “No.” Rene sliced her with a glare. “I’ll get them, Sam. Five minutes is all.”

  “Come on, Rene.”

  The door from the dining room flung open and Keegan marched through. “Sterling wants his wine,” he announced, his gaze hard on Rene.

  “Then you get it,” Rene said. “Not Sam.”

  But Sam was already on her way. “Thanks, Keegan,” she said quietly as she passed. “You know I’ll slather you with payola tonight.” As she opened the door, she called back to Rene, “The Bordeaux are in the back nests, the Haut-Brion on the lower half, right?”

  “Sam, if you fuck this up—”

  “I will dust the bottles! You can watch the video tomorrow,” she added with a laugh. As if that prehistoric camera was ever used.

  “I will!” Rene shouted. “I just put a new tape in.”

  She hustled down the poorly lit stairs, brushing by one of the sous-chefs carrying a sack of flour from the dry storage pantry. Farther underground, the temperature dropped, a chill emanating from the stone walls as she reached the heavy door of the wine vault.

  A breeze blew the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail, making her pause and look down the dark hallway. Was the alley exit open again? The busboys were always out there smoking, but they sure as shit better not be taking lung therapy when Paupiette’s was this packed.

  Tarragon and rosemary wafted from dry storage, but the tangy scents disappeared the moment she cranked the brass handle of the wine vault, the hinges snapping and squeaking as she entered. In this dim and dusty room, it just smelled of earth and musk.

  She flipped on the overhead, but the single bare bulb did little to illuminate the long, narrow vault or the racks that jutted out to form a five-foot-high maze. She navigated her way to the back, her rubber soles soundless on the stone floor. Dust tickled her sinuses and the fifty-eight-degree air finished the job. She didn’t even fight the urge to sneeze, managing to pull out a tissue in time to catch the noisy release.

  Behind the back row, she tucked into the corner where the most expensive wines were kept and started blowing and brushing the bottles, almost instantly finding the distinctive gold and white label of Haut-Brion.

  Sliding the bottle out, she dusted it clean, and read the year 2000. In racks stocked chronologically, that made her a good eighteen years from where she wanted to be. She coughed softly, more dust catching in her throat. Crouching lower, she eased out another, 1985.

  Getting closer. On her haunches, her fingers closed over a bottle just as the door opened, the sound of the brass knob echoing through the vault. She started to stand but a man’s hushed voice stopped her.

  “I’m in.”

  Freezing, she worked to place the voice, but couldn’t. It was low, gruff, masculine.

  “Now.”

  There was something urgent in the tone. Something that stilled her.

  She waited for a footstep; if he was another server, he’d walk to a stack to find his bottle of wine. If it was Rene, he’d call her name, knowing she was down there, and anyone else…

  No one else should be down here.

  Her pulse kicked a little as she waited for the next sound, unease prickling up her spine.

  Nothing moved. No one breathed.

  Praying her knees wouldn’t creak and give her away, she rose an inch, wanting to get high enough to see over the stack. As she did, the knob cracked again, and this time the squeak of the hinges dragged out as though the door were being opened very slowly. She rose a little higher to peek over the top rack of bottles.

  A man stood flattened against the wall, his hand to his chest, inside a jacket, his head turned to face the door. In the shadows, she could hardly make out his profile, taking in his black shirt, the way his dark hair blended into the wall behind him. Not a server. No one she’d ever seen before.

  He stood perfectly still as the door opened wider, and Sam tore her gaze from the stranger to the new arrival. The overhead bulb caught a glimmer of silver hair, instantly recognizable. What the hell was Josh—

  The move was so fast, Sam barely saw the man’s hand flip from the jacket. She might have gasped at the sight of a freakishly long pistol, but the whoomf of sound covered her breath, the blast muffled like a fist into a pillow.

  Joshua’s face contorted, then froze in shock. He folded to the floor, disappearing from her sight.

  The instinct for self-preservation pushed Sam down behind the rack, her head suddenly light, her thoughts so electrified that she couldn’t pull a coherent one to the forefront. Only that image of Joshua Sterling getting a bullet in his head.

  She closed her eyes but the mental snapshot didn’t disappear. It seared her lids, branded her brain.

  Something scraped the floor and her whole being tensed. She squeezed the bottle in her right hand, finding balance on the balls of her feet, ready to pounce on whoever came around the corner.

  She could blind him with the bottle. Crash it on his head. Buy time and help.

  But no one came around the rack. Instead, she heard the sound of metal on metal, a click, and a low grunt from the front of the vault. What the hell?

  Still pri
med to fight for her life, she stood again, just high enough to see the man up on a crate, deftly removing the video camera.

  The security camera that was aimed directly at the back stacks.

  She ducked again, but it was too late. She heard him working the screws in the wall, trying to memorize his profile. A bump in a patrician nose. A high forehead. Pockmarks in a grouping low on his cheek.

  Dust danced under and up her nose, tickling, tormenting, teasing a sneeze. Oh, please, no.

  She held her breath as the camera cracked off the wall, and the man’s feet hit the floor. In one more second, the door squeaked, slammed shut, and he was gone.

  Could Joshua still be alive? She had to help him. She waited exactly five strangling heartbeats before sliding around the stacks and running up the middle aisle.

  Lifeless blue eyes stared back at her, his face colorless as a stream of deep red blood oozed from a single hole in his temple. The bottle slipped out of her hands, the explosion of glass barely registering as she stared at the dead man.

  God, no. God, no. Not again.

  She dropped to her hands and knees with a whimper of disbelief, fighting the urge to reach out and touch the man who just minutes ago laughed with friends, explained a joke to his wife, ordered rare, expensive Bordeaux.

  This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be.

  The blood pooled by his cheek, mixing with the wine. The smell roiled her stomach, gagging her as bile rose in her throat and broken glass sliced her knees and palms.

  For the second time in her life, she’d seen one man take another’s life. Only this time, her face was caught on tape.

  The legacy that haunts her…

  The mystery she must solve…

  The man who threatens to reveal her secrets…

  Please turn this page for an excerpt from

  SHIVER OF FEAR

  CHAPTER 1

  Present Day

  The halogen headlights sliced through the downpour like laser beams, turning the rain eerily white and illuminating each sudden turn in the nick of time. With every near miss on the twisty roads of the North Carolina woods, Devyn Sterling cursed the rental car company for not offering GPS, damned the weather for delaying her flight until this late at night, and wished to God that she had a clue which street was Oak Ridge Drive.

  And threw in one more vile curse for the impulsive nature that landed her in this situation.

  Arriving on the doorstep of her birth mother to shatter the woman’s life should really be done under sunny skies. But Devyn couldn’t wait another day. Or night. No matter the weather.

  Squinting into the downpour, she tapped the brakes at a cross street, slowing to a crawl to seize the millisecond of clarity between windshield wipes to read the street sign, aided by a sudden bolt of lightning.

  Yes. Oak Ridge. Thank God.

  Thunder rolled just a second or two later, but Devyn powered on, inching down the residential street, peering at the houses, set far apart on acre-sized lots, most of them dark for the night. As she reached the end of a cul-de-sac and neared the address she’d memorized, Devyn drew in a nervous breath, practicing what she would say when Dr. Sharon Greenberg opened the door.

  No matter how many times she rehearsed, the words came out wrong. Especially because Devyn doubted she could get through the whole story before she got the door slammed in her face.

  Still, she needed a game plan for this encounter.

  Her icy New England upbringing told her to be brutally blunt. Just knock on the door, open her mouth, and say, I’m the daughter you gave up in a secret adoption thirty years ago.

  But deep inside, because her blood wasn’t truly the chilly WASP of her Hewitt upbringing but some cocktail of hot Irish, she wanted to tell Dr. Greenberg the story with all the drama that had unfolded a few months earlier on the streets of Boston so the woman could fully appreciate the reason for Devyn’s visit.

  I hired an investigator, found out your identity—and that of my fugitive mobster father—and told my husband, who decided to betray me, only to get murdered by his mistress and a dirty cop who tried to frame Finn MacCauley for the crime. Uh, can I have some shelter from this storm?

  Without knowing much about Sharon Greenberg, it was hard to be sure if that tack would work any better than cool bluntness.

  She slowed at the last home, the brick ranch house bathed in the headlights of her rental car. Snapping the lights off, Devyn turned into the empty driveway and stared at the house. Maybe she should go for the heartfelt approach.

  I’m sorry, Dr. Greenberg. I know you don’t want to meet me, and I really planned to respect that wish, but I told my husband your name and I don’t know if he told anyone else before he was murdered. Just in case he did, I thought it only proper that I be the one to screw up your life…. And while I’m here, can we talk about why you gave me up?

  Don’t go there, Devyn. Not at first. The woman had every right to give up a child fathered by a legendary street thug like Finn MacCauley. She didn’t even have to have a baby.

  Still, Devyn thought as she looked at the darkened house, maybe… maybe they would talk about it. But first, Sharon had a right to know that her secret was no longer buried. And Devyn had a right to know who gave birth to her.

  Another flash of lightning illuminated the night, followed almost immediately by a quick explosion of thunder. Chills feathered Devyn’s skin despite the warm blasts from the dashboard. The storm was close.

  As her eyes adjusted and the rain washed the windshield, she studied the large picture window in the front, nine panes of glass, the blinds behind them closed tight. Water sluiced out the gutters, noisily splattering mud below.

  Proper New England upbringing pinched at her conscience. A lady would call before arriving.

  Okay, she could do that. Devyn picked up her cell phone and pressed the speed dial she’d foolishly programmed in while delayed at Logan. Back when she was still waging an internal debate, considering abandoning the plan and driving home. But rationale won over reason, and she’d stayed at the airport, gotten on the late plane, and… here she was.

  If she hit Send, maybe she’d wake Sharon, and then when Devyn knocked on the door, it wouldn’t be such a shock. The older woman would have a minute or two to prepare. That seemed fair.

  Devyn watched the words appear on the tiny screen: Calling Dr. Sharon Greenberg.

  Oh, God.

  The fourth ring cut off halfway and clicked into voice mail. Devyn pressed the phone to her ear, blocking out the rain beating on the car so she could listen and absorb the sound of her birth mother’s voice for the first time.

  “Hey, it’s Shar. I’m not able to take your call, but do what needs to be done and I’ll get back to you. Leave a message, try my office, text me, send a smoke signal. Peace out.”

  Devyn stabbed End and slipped the phone back into her purse, staring ahead at the shadows around the house, her heart matching the rhythm of the rain. Fast. Hard. Loud.

  Was she going to turn back now? Away from a woman who invited callers to send a smoke signal? Obviously Sharon had a sense of humor. But did that mean she had a heart?

  What she had, Devyn thought, was a right to know that somewhere, someone might know her darkest secret. That information could be damning to her career… or worse.

  So, really Devyn was doing her a favor.

  Holding tight to the justification that had gotten her this far, she scooped up her bag and opened the car door, soaked before she could jog up the three stone steps to the covered front porch. There, she intrepidly opened the screen door and rapped hard on the front door.

  Fifteen endless seconds passed; then she knocked again. Emboldened, disappointed, and frustrated, she pounded with the side of her fist, an unwanted lump forming in her throat.

  “You have to be home,” she murmured, her hand sliding down to the large brass handle. A blinding burst of lightning tore a gasp from her throat, making her squeeze the latch in fear and hold tigh
t as the thunder cracked the night air.

  And the door opened.

  Devyn jerked her hand away the moment she realized she’d unlatched the unlocked door. The next blindingly close bolt of lightning pushed her inside, survival instinct trumping everything else.

  “Dr. Greenberg?” she called, still knocking on the open door. “Are you here, Dr. Greenberg?”

  This was so not how she wanted this meeting to unfold.

  Pitch-black inside, the cloying scent of candle wax and potpourri fought with the muskiness of a closed-up house.

  “Dr. Greenberg, are you home?”

  Obviously not. And Devyn, with the blood of a man who once topped the FBI’s Most Wanted list cascading through her veins, took another step into a house where she hadn’t been invited. Her adopted mother would keel over in disgrace. But right now, her adopted mother didn’t matter. Her real mother did.

  Two months had passed since Devyn’s husband had been murdered. Two months she’d waited for the investigation to close and the police to clear her to leave the Boston area. Two months she’d struggled with a question no one had ever asked and only Joshua Sterling could answer: Had he taken the name of Devyn’s birth mother to the grave? Two months was too much time not to have this conversation and deliver the potentially bad news to Dr. Greenberg.

  And have the perfect excuse to meet.

  All she had to say was, Your secret is no longer safe.

  In fact, under the circumstances, a simple note could do the job. Not as satisfying as face-to-face, but maybe this was what was meant to be.

  She called out again, blinking to get night vision, able to make out an entry table in the shadows where brown sticks surrounded by curled, dried leaves poked out of a vase.

  Either Sharon had been gone awhile, or she really didn’t care about living things.

  And, really, wasn’t that what Devyn had traveled to North Carolina to discover?

  Somewhere to the left, an antique clock ticked. The soft hum of the refrigerator buzzed from a kitchen around the corner. Rain thumped on the shingles, but there were no other sounds.