Face of Danger

by Roxanne St Claire

  On her right, through French doors, Devyn could see the green light of a printer and the shape of a large desk stacked with papers and files. The office was the place to write and leave a note… or find a clue as to what made Dr. Sharon Greenberg tick.

  With a shiver of apprehension and a stab of guilt, she pushed open the door and walked to the desk, flipping on a tiny halogen lamp to scan the mess. There were little hills of papers, files, articles, medical journals, a leaning tower of DVDs, and a half dozen candles melted into various sizes and shapes.

  For a moment, she just drank in the first impression. Mom was a slob, she thought with a slight twist of a smile. An untidy, disorganized, hardworking scientist who… had sex with mobsters?

  Curiosity burned, along with something else Devyn couldn’t identify. Something that felt like hunger. A burn to… bond.

  Let it go, Devyn.

  She lifted some papers, eyeing the magazines, the arcane terminology, seeking clues to who this woman was. The investigator she’d paid dearly for bits of information said Dr. Greenberg was divorced, childless, and working as a researcher at the University of North Carolina teaching hospital.

  The tabs on a stack of file folders confirmed her life as a scientist. Retrovirology. Immunology. Serology. Pathology. Belfast.

  Belfast?

  The word was scratched in pencil, light enough that it looked like it had already been erased. Devyn tugged the file, something pulling at her as the manila folder slid out from under the others.

  Belfast. The city conjured up twenty-year-old newscasts of bombings, violence, deaths, Irish mobs, and…

  Irish mobs.

  Slowly, she opened the folder, her pulse kicking up after it had finally slowed. Inside, there were several pages of notes, some drawings, an e-mail. And on a “Recycle for Life” notepad were the words US Air Arrives 2:45 pm Belfast w/layover Heathrow 8/29. Rtn open.

  August twenty-ninth was almost two weeks ago. She glanced at the papers in the file, obscure scientific drawings, several printouts of e-mails, a magazine article with the name Liam Baird underlined. She lifted it to read the story, but her gaze was pulled to a grainy photograph in the file behind the article. Taken from a distance, the image was of a girl on a bike, a backpack on her shoulders, her hair in a pony—

  “Oh my God.” The words stuck in her throat as she stared at the photo. She knew that bike, that street, that girl.

  It was her.

  Which meant Sharon knew her identity. She knew enough about Devyn to have a picture of her!

  Trembling, she flipped the picture over and stared at the small handwriting.

  Finn 617-555-6253

  Finn? Finn MacCauley with a Boston phone number?

  Lightning flashed blindingly bright with a simultaneous, deafening crack of thunder. The desk light went black, and thunder rolled with such intensity that the hardwood floor vibrated under Devyn’s feet.

  Had the house been hit? She stood there, the file still in one hand, as the thunder stopped, followed by the soft digital sound of her cell phone. Grabbing her phone, she read the caller ID.

  Dr. Sharon Greenberg.

  “Oh my God.” Sharon was calling her?

  She took a moment to breathe and think, too paralyzed to answer. Sharon must have just redialed, curious as to who had called her a few minutes ago.

  But she has my picture in a file on her desk.

  With unsteady fingers, she tapped the green button and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  Nothing. Silence. But someone was there; she could tell.

  “Dr. Greenberg?” She pulled the phone away, checked the name again to be sure she hadn’t imagined it. “Hello?”

  No response. The house was silent around her, all electrical buzzing dead from the power outage. Devyn stood in the pitch blackness, holding the lifeline to her birth mother… which was just as silent. She’d lost the call.

  With a soft cry of frustration, she hit Redial. From down the hall, a digital ring cut through the silence.

  Sharon was in the house? The call that just came in was made… from this house?

  Slowly, like someone was guiding her with puppet strings, she walked around the desk, through the darkness, her arm automatically slipping through the shoulder bag she’d set on top of one of the piles.

  The phone stopped midring, and there was a soft click in her ear.

  Someone had picked up the phone. Someone in this house.

  “Dr. Greenberg?” she said it loudly, not to the phone but toward the hall. “Are you there?”

  Silence.

  Icy panic prickled over her skin, sending the hairs on the back of her neck straight up. She wasn’t alone.

  Fumbling through the dark, she found her way back to the entry hall. There, she stood still, listening, then turned back to call out to Sharon one last time, just as a hand clamped over her mouth and yanked her back into a solid man’s chest.

  “What are you doing here?” The man growled the words, adding so much pressure that her neck cracked.

  White terror flashed behind her eyes, a scream trapped in her throat.

  “What?” he demanded, lifting his hand enough for her to breathe and speak.

  “Looking… for… Shar—”

  “Why?”

  “I… I wanted to…” She tried to think of a reasonable answer. “Leave her something.”

  “What?”

  Whoever this guy was—a husband, a boyfriend, or a guard dog—he probably knew where Sharon was. She had to be calm and come up with a plausible story.

  “I’m her student,” she said in a controlled voice. “She needed me to give her some papers. In person.”

  He tightened his grip, pressing so hard across her chest she could feel her heart beat into his forearm.

  “Who sent you?” he ground out.

  “Nobody sent me. I’m a student—”

  “A student who broke in?” He lifted his left hand, palming the side of her head while a beefy arm pinned her. Slowly, he pushed her head to the side until her neck muscles strained and tendons snapped. Pain ricocheted down her arm and terror shot up her spine.

  “Who sent you?”

  “I came on my own. It’s personal.” Miraculously, her voice didn’t crack like her neck. “I have to talk to her.”

  He pushed her toward the door, which she just realized was open. Had she left it that way? Had he followed her in? Or had he been waiting?

  She dug her feet into the mat, refusing to be pushed into the screen and out into the rain. “I have to talk to her,” she said again, trying to squirm around to see his face, but he wouldn’t allow it.

  Had he hurt Sharon? Was her body lying bloody in the back of the house?

  “When you find her, give her a message.” A shove sent her flying against the screen door, popping it open. She twisted just enough to see a glimpse of his face, older than she expected, light eyes, grim mouth.

  He whipped her around and braced her again. “If she comes back here without getting her job done, she’s dead.”

  Devyn squirmed, finally getting her brain to work enough to try fruitlessly to jerk out of his grip. “What job?”

  “She knows what job. She steps into this house a failure, she’ll leave in a box. We’re watching and we’re waiting.”

  He shoved her outside, still holding her so tight she couldn’t turn to see him. One more push and she was out from under the overhang, drenched, as the screen door was slammed shut behind her.

  She spun around to get a look at him, just as an earsplitting sound sent her jumping backward, staring in disbelief at the hole in the screen.

  He’d backed into the shadows of the house and shot at her! Instantly, she pivoted toward the driveway, slipping on the concrete. Using the banister to right herself, she sailed down the stairs, taking another look over her shoulder.

  Fear vibrated through her, her heart hammering as if it would explode out of her chest. The rush of blood and rain drowned out t
he little cries that escaped her lips as she stabbed in her bag for the car keys.

  Had she left them in the house?

  Panic almost knocked her over, just as the keys scraped her knuckles. She whipped them out and promptly dropped them in a puddle.

  “Shit!” Falling to her knees, photos and papers she’d taken from Sharon’s file fluttered to the ground. The picture? Everything was soaked before it hit the pavement.

  One more shot exploded out into the night.

  Abandoning the papers except what she could scoop in one shaky grab, she snatched the keys and dragged open the car door, scrambling inside and tossing the remains of the file and her purse across the console. She found the ignition, turned on the car, and jerked it into reverse. With her full weight on the accelerator, she launched backward out of the driveway.

  She stole one last glance at the picture window, the reflection of her headlights illuminating the blinds. They parted briefly as her attacker watched her leave. A man who would kill Sharon Greenberg if she returned… without getting her job done. What kind of job was that? Research for UNC? In Belfast?

  She managed a quick look at the papers she’d thrown on the passenger seat; the picture was still there.

  A picture of Devyn taken seventeen years ago. Why would Sharon have that?

  A hundred answers clobbered her brain, all dizzying in their possibilities. But only one electrified her. Her birth mother had been keeping track of her.

  Her birth mother cared.

  Was that possible?

  She had to know. The burn intensified until she could taste the metallic, bitter flavor of need in her mouth. She had to know why Sharon had that picture. And she had to warn Sharon that her home was under surveillance and that she was in danger.

  But how?

  Trembling, she followed the darkened street back to the curvy Carolina roads. Finding Dr. Sharon Greenberg had just gone from an impulse to a mission. Belfast.

  Fortunately, she’d brought her passport.

  THE DISH

  Where authors give you the inside scoop!

  From the desk of Margaret Mallory

  Dear Reader,

  I was a late bloomer.

  There, I’ve said it. That single fact defined my adolescence.

  When I entered high school at thirteen-going-on-fourteen, I looked like a sixth grader. Was it the braces? The glasses? The flat chest? The short stature? Red hair and freckles did not lend sophistication to this deadly combination. I have a vivid memory of one of my mother’s friends looking at me that summer before high school and blurting out, “What a funny-looking kid.”

  To my enormous relief, I entered tenth grade with breasts, contact lenses, and no braces. Boys looked at me differently, girls quit ridiculing me, and adults ceased to speak to me as if I were eleven. And older guys—who had utterly failed to notice my “inner beauty” before—appeared out of nowhere

  Although it took my self-esteem years to recover, suffering is never wasted on a writer. With THE GUARDIAN, I wanted to write a story with a heroine who goes through this awkward stage—along with several dangerous adventures—and eventually comes out the other side as a confident, mature woman who feels loved and valued for her beauty inside and out.

  Of course, I had to give Sìleas, my ugly-duckling heroine, a hero to die for. Ian MacDonald is the handsome young Highlander she has adored since she could walk.

  Sìleas is an awkward, funny-looking thirteen-year-old when Ian rescues her from her latest round of trouble. Ian is not exactly pleased when, as a result of his good deed, he is forced to wed her. Although Sìleas lives in the Scottish Highlands in the year 1513, I know exactly how she felt when she overheard Ian shouting at his father, “Have ye taken a good look at her, da?”

  When Ian returns years later, Sìleas is so beautiful she knocks his socks off. Not surprisingly, Ian finds that he is now willing to consummate the marriage. But as Sìleas’s self-confidence grows, she knows she deserves a man who loves and respects her.

  Our handsome hero has his hands full trying to win his bride while also saving his clan. Eventually, Ian realizes he wants Sìleas’s heart as much as he wants her in his bed. I admit that I found it most gratifying to make this handsome Highland warrior suffer until he proves himself worthy of Sìleas. But I had faith in Ian. He always did have a hero’s heart.

  I hope you enjoy Ian and Sileas’s love story. THE GUARDIAN is the first book in my Return of the Highlanders series about four warriors who return home from fighting in France to find their clan in danger. Each brave warrior must do his part to save the clan in the troubled times ahead—and to win the Highland lass who captures his heart.

  Happy Reading!

  www.margaretmallory.com

  From the desk of Roxanne St. Claire

  Dear Reader,

  Character notes? Character notes! Where did I put my character notes for Vivi Angelino? Oh, that’s right. I never had any. She wrote herself.

  I have never subscribed to the theory that “a character tells their own story,” despite the number of times I’ve heard writers discuss that phenomenon. Sure, certain characters are vivid in the writer’s head and have personality traits that, for whatever reason, make them standouts on the page. They’re fun people to write, but letting them take over the book? Come on! Who is the boss here? Whose fingertips are on the keyboard? Whose imagination is at work? A good author should be able to control their character.

  And then along came Viviana Angelino. From the first book in the Guardian Angelinos series, Vivi was not only vivid and three-dimensional to me, she seemed to liven up every scene. (Make that “take over” every scene.) When I could finally give her free rein as the heroine of FACE OF DANGER, I did what any writer would do. I buckled up and hung on for the ride. There were daily surprises with Vivi, including her backstory, which she revealed to me as slowly and carefully as she does to the reader, and the hero.

  The interesting thing about Vivi is that she is one of those people—or appears to be on the surface—who knows exactly who she is and doesn’t give a flying saucer what other people think. I think we all kind of envy that bone-deep confidence. I know I do! She scoots around Boston on a skateboard (and, yes, this is possible, because this is precisely how my stepson transports himself from home to work in downtown Boston), wears her hair short and spiky, and has a tiny diamond in her nose… not because she’s making a statement, but because she likes it. She’s a woman, but she’s not particularly feminine and she has little regard for fashion, makeup, and the “girlier” things in life. I wanted to know why.

  About five years ago, long before I “met” Vivi, I read an article about a woman who looked so much like Demi Moore that she worked as a “celebrity lookalike” at trade shows and special events. Of course, the suspense writer in me instantly asked the “what if ” question that is at the heart of every book. What if that look-alike was truly mistaken for the actress by someone with nefarious intentions? What if the look-alike was brave enough to take the job to intentionally attract and trap that threatening person?

  I held on to that thread of a story, waiting for the right character. I wanted a heroine who is so comfortable in her own skin that assuming someone else’s identity would be a little excruciating. Kind of like kicking off sneakers and sliding into stilettos—fun until you try to walk, and near impossible when you have to run for your life. When Vivi Angelino showed up on the scene, I knew I had my girl.

  No surprise, Vivi told this story her way. Of course, she chafed at the hair extensions and false eyelashes, but that was only on the surface. Wearing another woman’s identity forced this character to understand HERSELF better and to do that, she had to face her past. More importantly, to find the love she so richly deserves, she had to shed the skin she clung to so steadfastly, and discover why she was uncomfortable with the feminine things in life. When she did, well, like everything about Vivi, she surprised me.

  She pulled it off though, and now she�
��s FBI Agent Colton Lang’s problem. I hope he can control her better than I could.

  Enjoy!

  www.roxannestclaire.com

  From the desk of Isobel Carr

  Dear Reader,

  Do you ever wonder what happens to all the mistresses who are given up by noble heroes so they can have their monogamous happily-ever-after with their virginal brides? Or how all those “spares” get on after they’ve been made redundant when their elder brother produces an heir? I most certainly do!

  In fact, I’ve always been intrigued by people who take charge, go out on a limb, and make lemonade when the universe keeps handing them lemons. So it comes as little surprise that my series—The League of Second Sons—is about younger sons of the nobility, the untraditional women they fall in love with, and what it takes for two people who aren’t going to inherit everything to make a life for themselves.

  The League of Second Sons is a secret club for younger sons who’ve banded together to help one another seize whatever life offers them and make the most of it. These are the men who actually run England. They’re elected to the House of Commons, they run their family estates, they’re the traditional family sacrifice to the military (the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson were both younger sons). They work—in a gentlemanly manner—for what they’ve got and what they want. They’re hungry, in a way that an eldest son, destined for fortune and title, never can be.

  Leonidas Vaughn, the hero of the first book, RIPE FOR PLEASURE, is just such a younger son. His father may be a duke, but he’s not going to inherit much beyond the small estate his grandfather bequeathed him.

  My heroine, Viola Whedon, took a chance on young love that worked out very badly indeed. Since then, she’s been level-headed and practical. A rough life in the workhouse or a posh life as a mistress was an easy decision, and keeping her heart out of it was never a problem… until now. Brash seduction at the hands of a handsome man who promises to put her desires first sweeps her off her feet and off her guard.