by Liliana Hart
Chapter One
The slap, slap, slap of his shoes hitting the pavement echoed in the fog that crept over the sleeping city.
He was slicked with sweat and his lungs burned with each laboring breath, but still he ran faster, punishing his body, punishing himself, as he fought the urge to look over his shoulder. It never seemed to matter how fast he ran, because his past continued to haunt him.
Shane Quincy knew all about ghosts and personal demons. He knew about the terror of the innocent and their screams that still filled his head. He knew about heartbreak and sorrow because it plagued him with every breath he took. And most of all, he knew about fear—fear that clawed its way up from the pit of his belly and left a bitter taste in his mouth—and horrors so devastating they could break even the toughest FBI Hostage and Rescue Sniper.
And he had been the toughest. The best the FBI had ever had to offer.
He slowed his steps as a heavy drizzle blanketed the deserted New Orleans street and hunched over, propping his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath and tried to ease the aching in his chest. He knew from experience that the ache would never go away, but he tried just the same.
For two years his routine hadn’t changed. The nightmares would come, waking him in a cold sweat with the taste of bile rising in the back of his throat. The covers would be damp and twisted beneath his restless body and his senses would be primed. But the echoes of the screams were only in his imagination, so he’d slip on his sweatpants and a t-shirt, leave his empty apartment, careful not to disturb the dark-haired woman he shared the third floor with, and he’d run for miles through The Big Easy. Fast and hard, as if he were running for his life. And in some ways he was.
The drizzle turned into a downpour and Shane laughed bitterly as he raised his face to the sky. He began running again, this time at a slower tempo, and turned left off of First Street onto Prytania, where the historic mansion that housed six different apartment units was located. He never would have been able to afford the place when he was working for the FBI, but he’d found out very quickly after he’d turned in his resignation that private security paid a hell of a lot more than working for the government.
His skin was chilled and his dark hair, which was in desperate need of a trim, dripped into his eyes as he typed in the security code for the wrought iron gate that protected him and the other residents. Only four of the six units were currently occupied, the effects of Katrina and Rita still making people wary of putting down roots. There was a young couple on the first floor, both of them attorneys at a large firm, a tenured professor at Loyola on the second floor, and the woman who’d moved in a couple of months ago across the hall from him.
Shane wasn’t afraid to admit that the new neighbor had given him a restless night or two after she’d first moved in. Apparently a peaches and cream complexion, raven hair and pale blue eyes were enough to jump-start his libido after a long hiatus. He hadn’t wanted a woman in two years.
Not since Maggie had died.
But he wanted his new neighbor, and because of the fierce need that had caught him unawares, he did his damnedest to stay out of her way. He didn’t know anything about her and it didn’t look like things would ever be any different since she’d never gone out of her way to say more than a lukewarm hello. The same could be said about all the neighbors, which in his opinion made it the perfect place to live.
Along the outside of the building, freshly painted, white wooden stair cases led to each level of the house and split in different directions to each apartment door. Shane was almost to the third floor before he smelled the smoke. The rain and the wind had dampened the scent so it was barely recognizable, but it was there. He was sure of it.
He raced the rest of the way to the third floor and saw the licks of flame taunting him from the windows. The sight was hypnotic, the reds and oranges of the fire as it danced a path of destruction. The front door and one of the windows was open, feeding the inferno with much needed oxygen so it spread quickly through the rooms, up the thick drapes and onto the ceiling. Black smoke billowed out the open window and door, and he cursed himself for leaving his cell phone on his nightstand. He heard the fire alarms shrieking and hoped the other tenants made it out safely.
He didn’t pay attention to the splintered wood on the open door as he charged into the smoke and biting flames to see if his neighbor was still inside. His adrenaline was pumping and he didn’t miss the irony of the situation, that a failure such as himself would be put in the role of hero once again. He hadn’t been able to save anyone in a long time. He could barely save himself.
The apartment was a mirror image of his own, and he ran with familiarity down the long hallway to the bedrooms at the back. Paint blistered on the walls. Black smoke blurred his vision and clogged his lungs, so he ducked down on his hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way to the bedroom. The fire wasn’t contained to one area but seemed to be everywhere at once, racing toward some unseen finish line where the prize was utter destruction. The blaze was scorching hot and windows shattered as the pressure built hotter and higher inside the fiery walls.
Shane heard the coughs and the pants that sounded more animal than human as he crawled over the threshold into the master bedroom. The air was slightly clearer, but it wouldn’t be for long. He stood up quickly and used his shirt to wipe his burning eyes before taking stock of the situation. What he saw built a fury in his gut that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
The woman was handcuffed to the wooden slats on her headboard, her eyes wide and panic-stricken, and they became even more so when she saw him enter the room. The lady was terrified, but not just of the fire. She was afraid of him, and her struggles became even more frantic. He knew she would have screamed if she could have, but the smoke was thick and she doubled over in a coughing fit. Her black hair was matted around her temples and the boxer shorts and tank top she’d been sleeping in were wilted and sweat slicked. Her wrist was raw and bloody where she’d been pulling against her restraints.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Shane called out. He didn’t know if she heard him or not, but he moved toward her anyway because they were running out of time. He could hear the blare of sirens from below, but it was up to him to get them both out alive.
He touched her on the shoulder and was caught off guard as she came up swinging with her free hand. It barely glanced off his shoulder, but he was impressed by her tenacity. She was no coward, that was for sure.
“I’m not going to let you kill me!” she screamed. “When I get out of here I’m going to send you back to my uncle in a body cast.”
She fought against him like a caged animal until he wrapped both of his arms around her and squeezed tightly.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated. “We’ve got to get out of here. We’re running out of time.”
She went into another fit of coughing and he used her distraction to kick at the wooden slats on the headboard. They were sturdy and thick, the antique obviously made to last centuries. Shane kicked again and put everything he had behind the force. The woman finally caught on that he was there to help and began pulling her weight against the steel bonds. A crack echoed through the room as the headboard gave way, and Shane barely caught her as the momentum from pulling against the cuffs almost sent them both to the floor.
Shane grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up over his shoulder. The smoke from the hallway was billowing into the room, so he carried her into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, buying them a few precious seconds. The large picture window behind the tub was the only way out. Black smoke crept under the door, and Shane used the small vanity chair sitting at the woman’s dressing table to knock out the glass in the window. Fr
esh oxygen whooshed into the room and he gulped in a breath before the smoke found the opening he’d made.
He looked down three stories and felt his heart lodge in his throat. He’d been in a lot of deadly situations and thought he was going to die on more than one occasion, but he couldn’t remember the feeling ever being more prevalent than it was right now.
They couldn’t jump three stories. It was out of the question.
The bathroom window overlooked the side of the house, and if he leaned out far enough he could see the wide, wrap-a-round porch that led to their front doors. Black smoke still billowed out the front door and open windows, but the fire department was at work, taming the beast as best they could with gallons of water. If he could throw her far enough and then jump himself, they might just have a chance. It was their only option.
Shane put the woman down gently and noticed her eyes were still wide with shock. He stripped his shirt off and used it to clear the glass shards from the window so he didn’t cut them both to pieces.
“Are you with me, Sugar?” he asked, swiping his thumb across her sooty face. “I’m going to toss you over to the railing. Do you think you’re strong enough to grab hold?”
“I’m strong enough,” she said with assurance. “And I’m not your Sugar.”
“Yes, maam,” Shane said with a smile and grabbed her around the waist. He maneuvered them both out the window until he straddled the sill. “Use your feet to propel you,” he instructed as he showed her where to place her feet.
“On three,” he said.
He waited for her nod and began to count. “One, two…”
Shane heaved with all his might at the same time that she pushed off the windowsill. Time was suspended as she flew through the air. He could hear every heartbeat that thudded in his chest and waited, what seemed like minutes but in reality was only a few short seconds, until she caught the railing with both hands.
He took a split second to heave a sigh of relief and then went after her, propelling himself off the ledge with a strength that had been lying dormant for two years. He climbed over the railing quickly and helped pull her over before grabbing her around the waist and hurtling down the stairs as fast as his legs could carry both of them.
Shane noticed the other tenants standing back away from the house in their nightclothes. They were unharmed and stood transfixed as the wild orange fire was conquered. The cop in him looked around to see if anyone was overly interested in the blaze, but there was no one that stood out in the crowd. He noticed the woman was doing the same, but she was fading fast into exhaustion and shock. If someone wanted to kill her, she would be an easy target after the ordeal she’d just gone through.
The EMT’s met them both with oxygen, and a cop unlocked the cuff around the woman’s wrist. Shane could tell the officer wanted to ask questions, but the woman went into another fit of coughing and he backed off so the medics could do their job. Shane stayed as close to her as he dared and kept his eyes moving over the faces in the crowd. The lady had some explaining to do, and he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight until she answered his questions.
The medics tended to her wrist, wrapping it in gauze and tape, and then left the two of them sitting in the back of an ambulance. Shane took the oxygen mask off his face and turned to look at her. Despite what they’d been through, she was still beautiful. Her eyes were the pale blue of an Alaskan Husky and they looked at him with weariness and distrust.
“I’m Shane Quincy,” he said, extending his hand. “I live across the hall from you.”
She looked at his hand like it was poisonous, but she eventually took it. “Yes, I recognize you now. It was hard to see with all the smoke.”
Her voice was husky and pure lust tingled along his spine with each word that was spoken. The combination of the adrenaline rush and not being with a woman for so long was playing havoc with his senses.
“I guess I should thank you for saving my life,” she said.
“I’d settle for your name.” Shane could tell she was thinking about lying to him.
“Rachel.”
“Do you have a last name, Rachel?”
“Just Rachel will do,” she said firmly.
“Well, just Rachel, do you want to tell me who the hell your uncle is and why he sent someone to murder you?”
***
Jimmy Grabbaldi knew his plan was going to fail as soon as he saw the jogger start up the stairs to his third floor apartment. Who the hell jogged in the middle of the night, anyway?
But he decided to stay and watch the scene play out. It wouldn’t bother him any if there were two casualties instead of one. As long as the job got done. That’s what was important.
He’d watched the big white mansion from dawn till dusk for two weeks, easily passing as a tourist with a camera on the busy street in the Garden District, snapping pictures of the tenants and their patterns. The park across the street had provided cover. There were plenty of secluded areas hidden by magnificent trees and large shrubs. He’d put on his tackiest Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts and brought a book and a sack lunch each day, setting up the scene on one of the park benches that had a perfect view of the mansion. No one bothered him, and no one saw him taking closer looks with the binoculars he kept in his bag. He’d finally felt it was time to make his move and get back to Chicago.
He’d passed the evening at Pat O’Brien’s Bar down in the French Quarter, nursing a couple of glasses of Irish Whiskey and charming a waitress named Candy into inviting him over to her place after she was through with her shift. Jimmy never thought of himself as an attractive man. He skimmed just under six feet and had the body of a brawler and the crooked nose to prove it was true. His hair was dark, his eyes small and black and his complexion bad, but he never had trouble scoring with the ladies. The one thing he did have going for him was that he looked dangerous, and that was its own attraction to a certain kind of woman. Apparently Candy fell into that group.
He’d left Pat O’Brien’s just after three o’clock with a soft buzz and Candy’s address in his pocket. He didn’t have anything with him, no I.D. or wallet, just a money clip with a couple thousand in cash for business expenses. He took his time and walked almost three miles from the French Quarter to Prytania Street in the Garden District. Jimmy had always found it was to his advantage to do his crimes while it was raining because the cops didn’t like to leave their dry cars to check out anything suspicious. He’d left his car on a crowded side street adjacent to Rachel’s apartment so he could get away quickly if things went wrong, but things hardly ever went wrong when he set out to do a job.
No one saw him enter the park across the street from the big white mansion, or move aside the branches from his hiding place to uncover a cardboard packing box. It held everything he needed: A milk jug of kerosene, matches, old rags he’d made from clothes he’d gotten at the Salvation Army, a pen light, a crowbar and finally the handcuffs.
He’d thought out everything to the exact detail. That’s what the boss paid him for, and he was very successful at his job. They didn’t call him “The Grim Reaper” for nothing. He knew the code to the gate. The binoculars had picked it up easily, and none of the tenants except the guy on the third floor had bothered to cover the numbers. He’d carried the box and its contents up the three flights of stairs, sweating slightly and huffing a bit by the time he reached the top.
It was black as pitch, so he had to pick at the thick tape that held the box closed by feel. When the box finally opened, he dug around for the penlight and stuck it between his teeth before getting out the crowbar. The door was sturdy, but the locks were flimsy and it was just the break he needed. The door splintered open and he was inside in just a few seconds. He immediately began dousing the rags and laying them around the apartment to make a trail to the front door. He poured the rest of the gasoline on the rugs and curtains and dumped the cardboard box in the middle of the living room before heading back to the bedroom.
She was
lying on her stomach, and a long expanse of pale leg was visible from where he stood. She’d left the bathroom light on, so he put the pen light in his pocket and pulled out the cuffs. He could see the curtain of her dark hair as it framed her face, and her breathing was slow and easy. It was a shame the boss wanted to knock her off. A waste of a good woman in his opinion. But the boss had his reasons—the most important being that Rachel Valentine was a threat.
The quiet click of the cuffs being fastened to her wrist and then to the headboard didn’t wake her—the empty bottle of wine sitting next to a thick novel and a pair of reading glasses on the nightstand had helped him out in that regard. Jimmy figured he’d let her sleep through her death. It was the least he could do for Dom’s daughter. Kind of a last tribute.
He struck a match as he walked back out the front door and dropped it onto the soaked rags. They didn’t flare and spread as quickly as he would have liked, but it would get the job done. He left the door open and started back down the stairs, looking for any potential witnesses.
He saw the jogger once he got to the bottom of the stairs and immediately took cover behind the garbage bins. The guy was huge, and Jimmy didn’t want to risk any type of involvement because he had a feeling he’d come out the loser. The man was at least 6’4” and muscled. If the guy had been at Pat O’Brien’s, Jimmy had no doubt who Candy would have given her address to.
So when the man charged ahead into the smoke and flames and through Rachel’s front door, Jimmy took the opportunity to sneak back across the street to the park and watch the action from a distance. And when Rachel and the guy both came out together, Jimmy knew he’d failed. The boss wasn’t going to be happy with this latest setback. His orders had been to get rid of Rachel Valentine and get the hell out of New Orleans, and Angelo Valentine wasn’t one to give second chances very often. Jimmy was dreading the phone call he was going to have to make.
On second thought, maybe he wouldn’t place the call just yet. He could follow her and take care of the problem in the next couple of days. He’d be back in Chicago before the weekend.
