Take the Key and Lock Her Up

by LENA DIAZ,

  Devlin reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wallet-sized picture. He crouched down beneath a tree and used a twig to rake away the dirt. When the hole was deep enough, he tossed the twig away and carefully placed the picture in the hole.

  His past stared up at him, her blonde hair shining in the sun filtering through the trees, her smile tugging at his heart as it always did. But the pain that little tug caused wasn’t as sharp as it once had been. He barely felt it at all anymore. He would always love Arianna, but their time was over, and he was finally ready to move on.

  He sprinkled the dirt back into the hole until he could no longer see the picture, then rested his hand on top of the small mound.

  “Good-bye, Arianna,” he whispered.

  He grabbed the binoculars he’d pitched to the ground earlier and stood. After one long, last look over his shoulder, he wiped the dust of the past from his hands and headed toward his future.

  Author’s Note

  * * *

  Savannah, Georgia, is one of my favorite places to visit and is the setting of this book. I love the historic flavor and small-town feel of this beautiful city on the Savannah River. I’ve ridden the paddleboats, gone on the trolley tours, and spent days just walking the squares, touring old houses, and taking pictures of potential places to include in the books that I set there.

  One of the places featured in this book is the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department. There are three main locations for SCMPD, including the headquarters on Habersham Street, a delightful old brick building that features antique police cars out front. While I adore this old building, it didn’t quite work for my story, so I took the liberty of creating my own fictional version of the SCMPD headquarters. There are, sadly, no antique cars in front of my fictional police department. There is a bustling diner across the street from mine, which I think is cool—but is not true of the real police station. Also, the fictional headquarters houses the coroner’s offices in the basement. The real Savannah, Georgia, Coroner’s Office is located in a separate building on East 67th Street.

  There’s more to EXIT Inc. than meets the eye . . .

  Keep reading for a sneak peek from

  EXIT STRATEGY

  the first book in Lena Diaz’s thrilling new series

  coming Summer 2015 from Avon Impulse

  An Excerpt From

  EXIT STRATEGY

  SABRINA STAGGERED INTO the dark living room and grabbed a couch for support. But her hand, slippery with blood, slid across the leather and she crashed to her knees on the hardwood floor. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Moonlight filtering in through the heavy drapes revealed the blood running down her arm, dripping to the floor.

  You have to stop the bleeding. You’re leaving him a trail like a neon sign saying HERE SHE IS. COME AND GET HER.

  There had to be something in this room she could use to bind the wound, something to stanch the bleeding. But the room was just as she’d left it this morning before going to work—clutter-free, everything neatly in place without even a throw pillow or an afghan lying across the back of a chair. For the first time ever, she wished she wasn’t “just the in-law,” as her sister-in-law Denise would say. Sabrina wished she were Denise.

  Denise would have several blankets tossed on both of the couches, or a pair of socks lying on the floor, maybe an entire basket’s worth of discarded clothes waiting to be picked up throughout the house. She’d have her choice of things to use as a makeshift bandage and wouldn’t be bleeding all over the place.

  Who was Sabrina kidding? She didn’t wish she were her sister-in-law. Denise wouldn’t have lasted five minutes with an intruder inside the house. She would have curled up in a ball the moment the sound of breaking glass downstairs had awakened her.

  Why hadn’t the alarm sounded? Or automatically notified the police of the break-in?

  She clasped her left hand over the cut on her right bicep, hissing at the fiery pain that shot all the way to her shoulder. Lurching to her feet, she stumbled as a wave of dizziness nearly drove her to her knees again. How much blood had she lost? She drew a deep breath, then another, until the dizziness subsided.

  Get moving. Before he finds you.

  This was her house, had been for over a year. She knew every inch of it, where the furniture was, even in the dark. She had the advantage, as long as she didn’t squander it by allowing her momentary weakness to get the better of her.

  She hurried to the curved wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the circular brick driveway. Good. There was no one right outside, waiting to grab her if she left the house. Not that she saw, anyway. But there weren’t any headlights out on the street either, which meant no cars, no one to help her. She squinted, hoping to see the silhouette of a neighbor out for a late-night jog. But without her glasses, she couldn’t see much past the rim of security lights at the edge of the lawn.

  She should have grabbed her eyeglasses as soon as she’d heard glass breaking downstairs. But she’d been so startled that she’d flailed blindly in the dark for her cell phone and knocked everything off the bedside table—including her glasses, her phone, and the lamp that had crashed to the floor. One of the jagged pieces had flown up and cut her arm. But she couldn’t take the time to find anything in the dark, not without knowing what had made the sound that woke her up.

  She’d run out of her bedroom to the banister just in time to see a shadowy figure in the family room below, heading toward the back staircase. She’d ducked away before he could see her and raced down the long hall in the opposite direction, to the stairs that led to the front of the house. But soon he was downstairs again too, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse. Her only advantage, the only reason he hadn’t caught her so far, was her knowledge of the layout of the house and which doors opened into other rooms rather than dead ends.

  Too bad she didn’t own a gun. Even without glasses she could see perfectly fine at close range. She could certainly hit an intruder, even in the dark. And then she wouldn’t be forced to run and hide like a frightened rabbit. But convicted felons couldn’t own guns. And thanks to her loving family’s schemes, that’s exactly what she was—a felon. It didn’t matter that she was actually innocent.

  She turned away from the living room windows and hurried to the doorway that led into the hall. The front door beckoned to her like a beacon, its dull red color almost black in the darkness. Twenty feet away. All she had to do was run. Then she’d be outside.

  And then what?

  The nearest neighbor’s house was several hundred yards away. What if the man who was searching for her looked out a window and saw her running down the street? Would he catch her before she made it to safety?

  She could head into the woods that bordered the sides and back of the property. But she had no shoes to protect her feet, and only her Carolina Panthers nightshirt to keep her warm. Her Asheville home was far too close to the Blue Ridge Mountains not to take plummeting nighttime temperatures seriously. It made more sense to run to her neighbors. She’d just have to go as fast as she could and hope she made it before the stranger realized she was no longer inside the house.

  Holding her now throbbing arm, she tiptoed across the wooden floor of the foyer, careful to make as little noise as possible. The light on the security panel beside the door glowed green, proving what she’d already concluded—somehow the man who’d broken into her house had shut off the alarm first. How? It was supposed to be state-of-the art, tamper-proof. For the fortune she’d paid to have it installed, it should have come with an armed bodyguard.

  Worry about the alarm later. You have to get out of here. Now.

  Using her left hand this time, the one not slippery with blood, she flipped the deadbolt, then turned the doorknob and pulled. Her shoulder protested the effort when the door didn’t even budge. Was it stuck? Had she not flipped the deadbolt all the way? She turned the lever again. And this time she braced her right hand against the wall, not caring abou
t the bloody print she was leaving on the silk wallpaper, and pulled the doorknob as hard as she could. Nothing! It was as if the door was nailed shut.

  Her pulse pounded in her ears as she dropped her hands to her sides. What was she supposed to do now? Try to run back upstairs and find her cell phone so she could call 911? What if the intruder saw her or heard her on the stairs? She couldn’t risk it. What about the landline? She didn’t have a phone plugged into it since she only had the line for the security alarm. But there was another way she could make a call for help using that line.

  Her computer.

  Her study was across the hall from the living room she’d just left. If she could fire up her laptop and make an Internet call—

  A dull thump sounded from the study she was just thinking about. When had he gotten so close? She whirled around. There was only one other exit—the French doors off the family room at the back of the house.

  She ran down the foyer, slipping through the living room again. Then she ran out the door on the other side to the long hallway that ran the length of the house. When she reached the family room, she raced to the doors but stopped as soon as she saw the broken glass. One of the panes had been smashed out—probably the noise that had woken her up. And the shards of glass littered the floor all around the doors.

  Her bare toes curled against the cold wood, as if in protest of what she was about to do. But this was the quickest way out. If she had to climb through a window, she’d have to waste precious minutes knocking out a screen, and that would probably make too much noise. There was no other choice.

  There, a tiny clear spot on the floor to the right, close to the door. It might be just big enough to step on without getting cut. She raised her foot. Strong arms closed around her, lifting her into the air before she could take that step.

  She bucked wildly in the man’s arms. “Let me go!”

  “Be still,” his harsh whisper sounded near her ear. He tossed her over his shoulder and clamped his forearm like a band of steel over the backs of her thighs.

  She beat her hands on his back, then sank her teeth into his shirt. Or tried to. He had some kind of thick protective vest beneath his shirt. She blinked and grew still. Was he wearing a bulletproof vest?

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He didn’t answer. He crunched across the broken glass and reached up with his free hand. A wood shim was wedged between the door and the frame. Had he done that? To keep her from escaping? Is that why she couldn’t get out the front door?

  He grabbed the end of the wood and moved it up and down to loosen it.

  No, no, no. He was about to carry her out of the house. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “Put me down. I have money.” She pounded on his back again. “I can double, triple whatever they’re paying you. It’s my family. Right? They sent you—to scare me, to force me to return? This is a little over-the-top, even for them, but I get it. Okay. I’ll call them. But please. Please. Let me go.”

  She hated that she was begging, but the thought of returning to the hellish existence she’d fled a year ago was more than she could bear. She was shamelessly considering offering anything if he’d just put her down and agree not to take her back to Nevada, and then the door suddenly popped open.

  Her breath left her with a whoosh as he jogged down the back steps with her bouncing on his shoulder. He circled the rectangular pool, then sprinted across the lawn toward the same woods where she’d briefly considered hiding.

  She clutched his dark-colored shirt, holding on during his wild dash across the grass. Dark shapes were a frustrating blur without her glasses as he ran past them. The cool autumn air whipped against her bare legs, raising goose bumps and making her shiver.

  When they entered the woods, he slowed, but only enough to make it through the thick brush. She expected the low-hanging branches and scratchy shrubs to scrape against her, but somehow nothing did.

  A few minutes later, they stopped in a clearing, deeper into the woods than she’d ever been. She wasn’t even sure if they were behind her house anymore, or if they’d crossed into the nature preserve that bordered her land and led up into the foothills.

  She blinked in surprise when he pulled her off his shoulder and put her down. Everything seemed to spin around her. She staggered and her knees buckled, but before she could fall, he grabbed her around her waist, steadying her.

  When she didn’t feel like she was going to faint anymore, or lose her supper, she looked up. The man who’d just snatched her from her home was far taller than her, which wasn’t really saying much since she was barely over five feet. But still, she figured he was at least six feet, maybe six one. He was dressed all in black or maybe dark-blue, and his eyes glittered down at her like those of a hawk sighting its prey.

  “Are you all right?” he demanded.

  Was she all right? “You just abducted me. Why would you even ask that?”

  “We have a bit farther to go. I need to be sure you’re strong enough to make it.” He touched his left wrist and an old-fashioned–looking watch lit up. His lips curled with displeasure. “We have to be miles away from this place before sunrise and we’re already behind schedule. If they catch us, you’re dead.”

  His ominous words sent a shiver of dread down her spine. If her past had caught up to her, they might bully her and threaten her, but want her dead? No way. Not because they cared but because that would complicate and delay their plans even more.

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken. Stefan and the others wouldn’t kill me.”

  “I don’t know any Stefan, but I promise you, someone is definitely after you.”

  The certainty in his tone made her insides go cold. He had to be wrong. She pressed her left hand against her cut, which was burning and aching from their bouncing run across the lawn.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “What are you talking about? Are you trying to say you’re here to . . . help me? That someone—other than my family—is after me? That they want to hurt me?”

  He shook his head as if she were daft and he had to dumb things down so she could understand. “They don’t want to hurt you. They want you dead.”

  Her mouth dropped open. No. He had to be wrong. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I’m the one who was hired to kill you.”

  About the Author

  * * *

  Originally from Kentucky, romantic suspense author Lena Diaz also lived in California and Louisiana before settling in northeast Florida with her husband, two children, and a Shetland sheepdog named Sparky. A former Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® finalist, she won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence in mystery and suspense and has been a finalist in the National Excellence in Romance Fiction Awards and the Booksellers Best Award. She loves to watch action movies, garden, and hike in the beautiful Tennessee Smoky Mountains. You can contact Lena through her website, www.LenaDiaz.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  By Lena Diaz

  Take the Key and Lock Her Up

  Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead

  Simon Says Die

  He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

  Give in to your impulses . . .

  Read on for a sneak peek at three brand-­new

  e-­book original tales of romance from Avon Books.

  Available now wherever e-­books are sold.

  FULL EXPOSURE

  BOOK ONE: INDEPENDENCE FALLS

  By Sara Jane Stone

  PERSONAL TARGET

  AN ELITE OPS NOVEL

  By Kay Thomas

  SINFUL REWARDS 1

  A BILLIONAIRES AND BIKERS NOVELLA

  By Cynthia Sax

  An Excerpt from

  FULL EXPOSURE

  Book One: Independence Falls

  by Sara Jane Stone

  The first book in a hot new series from contemporary romance writer Sara Jane Sto
ne. When Georgia begins work as a nanny for her brother’s best friend, she knows she can’t have him, but his pull is too strong, and she feels sparks igniting.

  Georgia Trulane walked into the kitchen wearing a purple bikini, hoping and praying for a reaction from the man she’d known practically forever. Seated at the kitchen table, Eric Moore, her brother’s best friend, now her boss since she’d taken over the care of his adopted nephew until he found another live-­in nanny, studied his laptop as if it held the keys to the world’s greatest mysteries. Unless the answers were listed between items b and c on a spreadsheet about Oregon timber harvesting, the screen was not of earth-­shattering importance. It certainly did not merit his full attention when she was wearing an itsy-­bitsy string bikini.

  “Nate is asleep,” she said.

  Look up. Please, look up.

  Eric nodded, his gaze fixed to the screen. Why couldn’t he look at her with that unwavering intensity? He’d snuck glances. There had been moments when she’d turned from preparing his nephew’s lunch and caught him looking at her, really looking, as if he wanted to memorize the curve of her neck or the way her jeans fit. But he quickly turned away.

  “Did you pick up everything he needs for his first day of school tomorrow? I don’t want to send him unprepared.”

  His deep voice warmed her from the inside out. It was so familiar and welcoming, yet at the same time utterly sexy.

  “I got all the items on the list,” she said. “He is packed and ready to go.”

  “He needs another one of those stuffed frogs. He can’t go without his favorite stuffed animal.”

  If she hadn’t been standing in his kitchen practically naked, waiting for him to notice her, she would have found his concern for the three-­year-­old’s first day of preschool sweet, maybe even heartwarming. But her body wasn’t looking for sentiments reminiscent of sunshine and puppies, or the whisper of sweet nothings against her skin. She craved physical contact—­his hands on her, exploring, each touch making her feel more alive.