The Ultimate Romantic Suspense Set (8 romantic suspense novels from 8 bestselling authors for 99c)

by Lee Taylor

  She longed for her father’s Glock, with its perfect balance and familiar grip. She wondered if she’d finally get it back tonight as she climbed the stairs and passed a pair of addicts who stared blankly in her direction. The building was quiet…unnervingly so. She kept her senses alert.

  Grayson wouldn’t be expecting her, not this soon. But cockiness could get her killed. She expected a trap in order to avoid being blindsided by one.

  Matt lived in the apartment on the third floor. The windows on that lofty level were mostly still intact. She figured residents of that choice floor had to fight for the privilege.

  Fiona had described Matt as loony, but harmless. Vega hadn’t met Matt, but harmless? The harmless didn’t live in the choice spots in abandoned buildings. They just didn’t.

  Fiona might be good with details, but her instincts definitely needed sharpening.

  The eerie silence in the halls was broken by a raging argument on the third floor. The raised voice carried down the grimy, pitch-black hallway.

  “I said no! No, no, no!”

  No one in any of the other apartments bothered to stick a nose out a door and investigate the noise. It would have shocked Vega is someone had in this crime infested environment. She could have a shoot-out with Matt and Grayson while screaming at the top of her lungs for someone to call the authorities and not rouse anyone’s interest.

  Of course, that was how she preferred her pickups. Interference, both by residents trying to help or hinder, could put Vega in a dangerous situation. Even a well-meaning civilian could give Matt or Grayson an opening to escape…or worse, attack.

  Vega had been told that Matt’s apartment was the fifth door on the left. The apartment numbers had long been removed. Many locks were gone too. Makeshift bolts and padlocks secured several of the rusty, metal doors.

  “Listen to me! Just listen to me! No, no, no!” The one-sided argument continued to fill the hall.

  Vega stood outside Matt’s crackpot crib and counted the doors again, hoping she’d made a mistake. The raging argument sprung from the other side of this pockmarked and bullet-hole riddled door.

  With certified copies of the bail-bond for both Grayson and Matt, proving they’d surrendered their civil rights in exchange for being granted bail, Vega could legally blast down the door and rush in with fists ready. But she preferred to use a little finesse.

  Instead of breaking down the door, she drew out the professional lock-pick kit she’d taken off a cat burglar a few years back and silently unlocked the door.

  The quarrelling inside the apartment continued without pause now. Vega opened the door a crack and peered into the dim interior. A nude man—smaller than Grayson—with his back to her waved his hands in the air while shouting at the top of his lungs. He appeared to be alone.

  She opened the door wide and walked into the room. This Matt wouldn’t notice a herd of elephants marching through the room, or perhaps that was what he was noticing. Whatever he saw, it upset him fiercely.

  “Matt Lockler,” she said in a tone perfected from years of listening to her father, “you are under arrest.” The simple statement subdued ninety percent of the fugitives Vega captured.

  Matt, of course, chose to be extraordinary. He spun around. The fact that he stood with all his attributes showing didn’t affect him in the least. His slim, naked body certainly didn’t shock Vega. She’d seen everything.

  Matt swung at her. He wasn’t a natural hand-to-hand fighter. He telegraphed his punch with his shoulder before his hand even closed into a fist. Vega easily deflected the blow with her left arm and followed through with an elbow jab to the face. A jump-kick to the chest brought him to his knees.

  His lower lip had split open. A few drops of blood got lost in the matted rug. “Gray had said you were better than my pretty one,” he gasped for the air the kick had knocked from him. “Don’t think that she could floor me soundly.”

  She locked the cuffs on his wrists and a second pair on his ankles so he couldn’t get up and cause havoc while she searched for Grayson, or at least clues to where he might have gone.

  With the Beretta in one hand and a high-beam flashlight in the other, she poked her head into the bedroom. Several rats and a hoard of cockroaches scattered.

  “You won’t find him there,” Matt said. Vega shined her flashlight in his face. He lowered his head on the rug and began rubbing his cheek against the stained fibers. “You won’t find him at all.”

  Grayson had already fled? How had he anticipated that she’d find him so soon? What was making her actions so damned obvious?

  “If you cooperate with me, Matt, I might not have to kick you until you’re blue.” It was an idle threat that sometimes worked. In Vega’s estimation, beating up the bail jumper caused more headaches than solutions. “Where did Grayson run to?”

  His smoky eyes blinked several times in the blinding light. She knew he couldn’t see anything but that disorienting white light. He wasn’t supposed to see anything.

  The blindness didn’t seem to bother him. Matt pulled himself up into a kneeling position. “He killed a woman once you know. Shot her straight through the heart.”

  Vega didn’t want to hear about Mirna in Colombia, not now. She considered stuffing a sock or something in his mouth.

  “He loved her, too. But he killed her in front of all of us. Didn’t flinch while doing it, either. That was in South America, you know.”

  Anything suitable Vega found on the floor was too filthy to stuff in his mouth. It would just be inhumane. “If you can’t tell me where he is, just shut up.”

  “Bothers you, don’t it?” A crooked smile formed on his lips, starting the bottom one to bleeding again. “He’s a killer. He wants to kill you, too. I can tell, you know. I can see people’s feelings—like colors.”

  Vega tossed aside a pile of automatic rifles stacked in the living room and pried the lid off a box of explosives powerful enough to flatten this street as well as the one beside it.

  “He shot that woman in South America and got a medal. I tried the same thing and ended up in a mental hospital. I suppose you have to love the women you kill to get rewarded.”

  She left Matt in the living room as he contemplated ways to trick a woman into loving him, and found her way to the kitchen. A piece of paper, folded in half sat like a tent on the chipped linoleum-topped table.

  Her name boldly printed on one side.

  Grayson had been expecting her to show up.

  Her heart stopped. It would be just her rotten luck to step into the middle of a trap.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Vega froze where she stood and stared at the note while searching for trip wires. One small blast could create a chain reaction, detonating every live explosive in the apartment. In the living room alone there were boxes stacked on boxes, filled with what appeared to be a wide selection of highly volatile materials.

  “Vega?” a thin voice called from the other room.

  Fiona? How in the hell?

  “I’m in here,” Vega called back. She holstered the Beretta. “Don’t move around too much. I might have stepped into the middle of a trap. No telling what Grayson has rigged with all this stuff.”

  “Told you he’d be expecting you. Makes me glad I decided to follow you.” Fiona’s voice grew a little louder. “I’ll find some clothes for this one. We can’t bring him to the police station naked like that, can we?”

  “Pretty one!” Matt screamed. “My pretty one has come back!”

  “Don’t let him out of those cuffs without me in there,” Vega called back. Her gaze remained glued on her name blazed on that folded paper.

  He’d known she’d be there.

  She took a cautious step forward, almost expecting the floor to collapse under her. When her foot hit solid vinyl, she crossed the room to the table and picked up the note.

  “My sweet adversary,” the intimate script nearly leapt off the page and purred. “I’ve missed you. Found it hard to believe
you gave up on me. I’m thrilled by your renewed interest. Keep me on my toes and watch your back.”

  The note was left unsigned.

  Like a cat that had just cornered a rat, he wanted to bat her around for a while before biting off her head.

  His sweet adversary, indeed.

  She crumpled the paper and stuffed it into her pocket. Grayson must be nuttier than his buddy. Not once had a quarry doubled back to face off with her. She was the predator, not the prey…never the prey, in fact.

  “Interesting,” Fiona said her voice right in Vega’s ear.

  Startled, Vega just about hit the greasy ceiling. “Did you find something for Matt to wear?” she asked when her heart began beating again.

  “Always cool as a criminal, Vega.” Fiona clucked her tongue. “You can stand there staring down at me with that sneer plastered all over your face, but I know you. Something on that paper bothers the hell out of you.”

  Vega brushed past Fiona without giving her the satisfaction of a denial and returned to the living room. “The clothes, Fiona?”

  Her sister huffed and pointed her flashlight toward a heap on the floor.

  “Show me what you’re carrying.” Vega held out her hand.

  Fiona frowned.

  “You’re armed, I can see the bulge.”

  Fiona pulled out a large Smith and Wesson 44 Magnum and handed it to Vega. The kick alone from firing such a weapon would toss Fiona on her butt.

  “Good Lord, what were you thinking?” She had to wonder about her sister sometimes. “Have you even tried to fire this monster?” She handed Fiona the Beretta and pocketed as much of her sister’s revolver as would fit into her coat.

  “Keep the bead trained on his forehead and the flashlight beam in his eyes,” she instructed. “I’m going to help him get dressed now.”

  Fiona held the beam of light steady. Vega could only guess her sister did the same with the Beretta. “How will I know when to shoot?” Fiona asked. Matt shouted out a string of profane protests and squirmed against the handcuffs, making the job of unlocking them twice as hard.

  “Don’t you dare pull that trigger unless I’m unconscious and well out of shooting range.” Vega pushed a shirt into Matt’s hands. “Put this on.”

  * * * *

  The next morning Vega set out early to question Grayson’s childhood neighbors with Fiona tagging along like a hungry puppy.

  “I should get half the fee,” Fiona said in the car. Vega took her eyes from the road for a moment to glare at her.

  “I helped you pull that poor, confused man off the streets. He was a hazard to himself with all those guns and explosives,” Fiona pointed out. “Now he’ll get the psychiatric care he needs. I should get half the reward.”

  “Okay,” Vega said when Fiona showed no sign of giving up.

  “How much?”

  “Nothing.” Vega shot a smile Fiona’s way. “It was a freebie. Jack set it up for me.”

  “Oooo…what a waste of my talent.” Fiona sank a few inches in the seat. “I don’t understand why we’re questioning these old neighbors of Grayson’s, either. I’ve already been here. I’ve already talked to them. Every single one. They don’t know anything.”

  “They might.”

  That stopped Fiona short. She was surprisingly quiet for the rest of the three-hour drive to the small town of Millville in southern Georgia, which suited Vega just fine.

  She needed to think. Grayson had anticipated her last night. Certainly he didn’t lure her to Atlanta intended just to taunt her? There had to be a reason.

  By interviewing friends and neighbors who knew Grayson when he was growing up, she hoped to gain a deeper understanding of his patterns. Experience had taught her that when placed in a stressful situation, such as running from the law, people tended to fall back on instinctual behaviors forged at a very young age. By learning how Grayson behaved as a child would open a window to anticipating his actions now.

  Fiona should understand that. Vega didn’t feel like she was stomping on her sister’s toes. Well, maybe just a little.

  Millville, Georgia reminded Vega of one of those new retro communities, a throwback to the 1950s where the houses hugged the sidewalks, large live oaks shaded the streets, and children biked to the school adjacent to downtown where the town hall served as the central focus. Only this community wasn’t retro. The houses, though well cared for, were all much older than Vega was. Behind the town’s pride and charm hid snatches of poverty in the empty storefronts, the ancient rusty stands at the ballpark, and in the rural neighborhood a mile outside town limits.

  Grayson’s family lived in this rural neighborhood, his father surviving just five years longer than his mother, who died at the early age of forty-nine. Luckily, many of the neighbors enjoyed better health and unlike the younger generation, lived in the same house for a lifetime. Vega and Fiona talked with five former neighbors who’d known Grayson when he was growing up. They heard generalities about him as a boy, nothing really useful.

  Pearl Sampit, one of the Walker’s closer neighbors, was their last stop for the day.

  A rabid-looking brown and white dog with a blunt snout and a torn ear snarled and snapped at the door of Vega’s rented SUV as she pulled into the gravel driveway of Pearl’s simple bungalow. Faded green paint flecked off the asbestos shingles, and the roof sagged in the middle as if some giant had chosen to use the home as his seat for ten or so years. Dry stalks of dead flowering plants in the front yard’s once loved garden rustled in the winter breeze.

  “Pumpkin,” a frail woman, whose back curled so severely she nearly folded in half, called from the front porch. “Pumpkin, come over here.”

  The mutt ignored the woman and started tossing himself to the side of Vega’s door, snapping with an unquenchable frenzy and scraping his gangly nails down the side of the SUV as he fell back to earth.

  “The rental company’s going to love this explanation,” Vega muttered.

  The woman turned her neck to one side to get a better look at Vega and Fiona. “Don’t worry yourself none about Pumpkin. He’s a kitten.”

  “Don’t believe her,” Fiona said. “He ripped off a sleeve and part of my pants leg before I got to the house last time.”

  “Figured.” Vega rolled down her window. “Can you offer him a snack, ma’am? Something big and juicy?” A kitten? Pumpkin weighed at least fifty pounds more than the fattest kitten she’d ever seen.

  The woman shrugged, disappeared into the house, and returned a few minutes later with a raw steak still wrapped in the grocery store’s cellophane package. Pumpkin must have caught the scent. He took off for the porch like a thundering bolt of lightning and snatched the meat out of the woman’s powerless arms before she managed to break the cellophane seal. With the prize tucked in his mouth, he pranced off around the house and disappeared into the back yard.

  “Let’s go,” Vega said and opened the car door.

  “I wish I’d thought of that last time. That beast ruined a new cashmere sweater of mine,” Fiona complained as she walked beside Vega up to the house.

  “Mrs. Sampit, I’m Vega Brookes. We spoke on the phone.”

  Pearl clasped Vega’s hand with a limp embrace. “Yes, you’re the darl’n who wants to know more about the Walker boy. Please, call me Pearl. Everyone does.” She released Vega’s hand and labored to return inside. Fiona held the screened door open for her. “The cold hurts deep in my bones.”

  Vega believed her. Pearl’s joints couldn’t have been any stiffer. She’d done a good job keeping the damp southern winter from invading her house, though. While the stifling hot air in the living room threatened to singe Vega’s lungs, a furnace continued to roar in the attic.

  After settling into the plastic-covered sofa and accepting glasses of sweet tea, Vega successfully steered the conversation to Grayson.

  Pearl leaned her head back in her easy chair and pressed her carefully styled silver hair against the chair’s lace covering and smiled. �
��Such a sensitive boy, Gray.” Her eyes glazed as she became lost in a memory.

  Fiona, sitting on the edge of the sofa and looking uncomfortable as if sharp pins were poking her, lost her patience first. “As I had explained a few weeks ago, we need to find him. Do you know if he stayed in touch with any neighbors that might no longer be around?”

  Pearl’s eyes cleared. She sat forward. “Did he break your heart, darl’n?” she asked Vega, not Fiona. Vega bristled at the accusation, but kept her mouth shut.

  “Even as a young thing, women were falling head over heels for him. Twisted that young kindergarten teacher all around his little finger—that he did.”

  “Yes,” Fiona jumped back in with the questions. “But what connection did he have with an Etta…?”

  “What was his family like, Pearl?” Vega interrupted Fiona and asked, hoping to direct the frail woman back to what she was about to tell them. Direct questions tended to muddle up details. Vega liked to let them unfold on their own when conducting background interviews. She didn’t know what important pieces of information Pearl might know, and she couldn’t guide the conversation with specific questions until she listened to the stories Pearl was willing to offer.

  Fiona glared at Vega but after a minute, copied her relaxed pose.

  “Mabel was a beautiful lady…and caring. The Walkers lived just next door, you know. In the canary colored house. It was purple when Mabel lived there.” Pearl leaned forward. “She was superstitious you know,” she whispered.

  Vega had no idea why painting a house purple would mark Grayson’s mother as a superstitious woman, but she nodded and smiled anyhow.

  “That purple paint didn’t do one lick to keep that evil man from her, now did it?” Her expression drew her soft wrinkles down; her lower lip trembled. “He killed her as sure as if he pulled out that shotgun of his and shot her. But no one really knew, never questioned her death. Too poor for them to care, I suppose.”

  “Grayson’s father beat his mother?” Vega asked when Pearl’s narrative faded to silence.