by Rebecca York
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF RUTH GLICK
(WRITING AS REBECCA YORK)
“Rebecca York’s writing is fast-paced, suspenseful, and loaded with tension.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz
“A compulsive read.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Rebecca York delivers page-turning suspense.”
—Nora Roberts
“York has penned a convincing and sensual paranormal romance, and readers who fell in love with the characters in…Killing Moon will be glad to meet them again.”
—Booklist
“Mesmerizing action and passions that leap from the pages with the power of a wolf’s coiled spring.”
—BookPage
“Killing Moon is a delightful, supernatural private-investigator romance starring two charming lead characters.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Glick’s prose is smooth, literate, and fast moving; her love scenes are tender yet erotic; and there’s always a happy ending.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“A true master of intrigue.”
—Rave Reviews
“No one sends more chills down your spine than the very creative and imaginative Ms. York!”
—Romantic Times
“She writes a fast-paced, satisfying thriller.”
—UPI
“Edge of the Moon is clever and a great read. I can’t wait to read the final book in this wonderful series.”
—ParaNormal Romance Reviews
Books by Rebecca York
KILLING MOON
EDGE OF THE MOON
WITCHING MOON
CRIMSON MOON
SHADOW OF THE MOON
NEW MOON
BEYOND CONTROL
BEYOND FEARLESS
BEYOND FEARLESS
REBECCA YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
BEYOND FEARLESS
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2007 by Ruth Glick.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-0648-5
BERKLEY® SENSATION Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. BERKLEY SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
BEYOND FEARLESS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER
ONE
THE COOL BLUE silence of the sea swallowed Zachary Robinson as he dove toward the luxury yacht that rested on a coral reef sixty feet below the surface of the Caribbean.
Colorful tropical fish and a small shark swam lazily around the wreck. The predator would have sent a less experienced diver kicking for the surface. But Zach wasn’t worried. Sharks might have a bad reputation, but they rarely attacked divers, unless you did something stupid. And Zach always calculated the risks before going into any situation.
He was taking a risk today—using local guys instead of the crew that had been with him for the past two years. But they were back in the States, on a well-deserved vacation. Zach had stayed on Grand Fernandino, a Caribbean island east of Jamaica, where French, Spanish, English, and African influences combined to create a richly unique culture.
The day after Barry and Simon had left for California and Georgia, respectively, he’d been offered a job too lucrative to turn down. A millionaire from Palm Beach, Terrance Sanford, was looking for his missing brother and his brother’s ship, the Blue Heron.
So Zach had hired José, a certified diver, and Claude, an experienced sailor capable of handling the Odysseus, his sixty-five-foot converted work boat.
That morning, Zach had thought he’d located the missing craft with his onboard sonar. But when they’d dived down to the ship in question, he’d realized they’d found an older junker, already picked clean by other divers.
Now he and José were going down for the second time in one day. It was not recommended procedure, since their tissues would still carry nitrogen from the last dive, but they’d be okay if they added an extra safety stop on the way up.
Propelling himself downward, Zach reached the yacht, which was resting on its side on a reef. Swimming to the stern, he felt a thrill of elation when he saw the name Blue Heron through the aqua water.
According to Terrance Sanford, the boat had gone down ten days ago on an ill-advised trip from Grand Fernandino to Jamaica, piloted by his sixty-year-old brother, William, who had ignored storm warnings when he’d left port.
Terrance wanted to recover his brother’s body, as well as some valuables from the yacht. Apparently, he’d heard of Zach’s talent for finding wrecks. He hired him by e-mail, with an advance wire-transferred payment.
While Zach was confirming the ship’s identity, José swam to the front deck, then slipped through the hatch into the cockpit.
Zach had just reached the deck when the other diver burst through the hatch.
With the swift insights that often came to him in an emergency, Zach sensed that José was planning to do something very stupid: strike out dire
ctly for the surface. Without making the necessary decompression stops, he was looking at a case of the bends, a painful and sometimes fatal condition caused by rising too quickly.
As the lithe shape shot past, Zach caught one of José’s swim fins.
The man kicked out, the blow muted by the clear blue water around them. When he couldn’t free himself, he whipped around. Launching himself forward, he made a grab for Zach’s air hose. Zach’s only choice was to block the grasping fingers, then turn the attacker so that he faced away.
Holding José in place, Zach kept the man from fighting free.
Stop trying to kill both of us, he shouted in his mind. What the hell is wrong with you?
But there was no way to speak in the watery environment, so he could only hold the diver still, praying that he’d settle down before they both used up their oxygen in the fight.
When José stopped struggling, Zach kicked upward to the first decompression stop, forcing himself to wait while they both adjusted to the decreased pressure.
José had gone limp in his arms. He wanted to turn the diver toward him and find out if the guy’s eyes were still wild, but he had to content himself with knowing that the man seemed to be cooperating.
At the last stop, Zach realized he’d been lulled into dropping his guard. José broke away from him and shot toward the surface like a torpedo released from a submarine.
Shit!
Zach’s silent curse followed the other diver. He ached to swim after him, but there was no way he could catch up. And he’d seen what happened to divers with nitrogen bubbles in their bloodstreams. It wasn’t pretty, and he wasn’t willing to risk it. Not when José was almost at the surface.
So he waited the required minute at the decompression stop, then kicked upward again. As soon as he broke the surface, he struck out for the diving platform of the Odysseus, spitting out the mouthpiece of his air hose as he swam.
On the platform, he shook the water from his sun-streaked hair and kicked off his fins before scrambling onto the deck, where Claude was crouched over a sprawled limp form.
Claude looked up, his island drawl turned accusing. “What in hellfire happen, mon? He look like he came up too fast.”
“He did! When we got to the wreck, something in the cockpit spooked him,” Zach bit out. “I tried to stop him, but he fought me off.”
José stared at him, his dark skin turned dull gray, his eyes vacant, and his breathing raspy.
Containing his anger, Zach said, “We’d better get him to the hospital. Call ahead and start the engine.”
Claude went to the wheel so Zach could tend to the injured man.
As he sat down beside José, he demanded. “What the hell did you see down there?”
José looked away.
Zach reached down and brought the man’s face back. “What was worth killing yourself for? And maybe me?”
José looked like he was struggling for coherence, but he managed to give Zach a defiant look. “Pagor.”
“Huh?”
“Kill me dead. I see Pagor down der,” he whispered.
Zach recognized the name. He’d done some reading before he came to Grand Fernandino, and he knew that the island had its own unique version of the Caribbean religions, called Vadiana. Pagor was one of the Vadiana deities, or saints.
“Pagor? The god of war?” he demanded.
“Yeah, mon” José whispered. “He send that boat—the Blue Heron—to the bottom. And he don’t want nobody to see.”
“Christ!” Zach wanted to inform José that Pagor was no more real than the boogeyman.
He had been raised by a mother and father who went to church on Christmas and Easter. On official forms that asked for his religion, he said he was a Christian. But religion had never played a big role in his life.
On the other hand, José was a true believer. The man had about killed himself trying to get away from what he thought was an angry god.
Zach gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to talk the islander out of his beliefs. Even if they’d almost killed him.
Especially if they’d almost killed him.
He looked toward the horizon, watching the blue mountains of Grand Fernandino draw closer.
He wanted to turn around and head back to the dive site and find out what the hell José had really seen down in the cockpit of the Blue Heron. But he’d already been pushing safe limits with the afternoon dive, and there was no way he could go down again until twenty-four hours had passed.
CHAPTER
TWO
WITH THE SUN hovering just above the ocean’s western horizon, the alley was shady and cool, a relief from the heat of the Caribbean day.
Yet as Anna Ridgeway hurried along the cobblestone passage between the pastel green, blue, and yellow buildings of Palmiro, she felt the fine hairs on her arms prickle.
She’d thought she’d found a refuge on Grand Fernandino—five hundred miles from the mainland United States. Now she suspected that danger had followed her from Denver.
Her eyes probed the shadows for signs of anyone following—or someone who had circled around and gotten in front of her.
The sights and sounds of the port city enveloped her. No one who lived in the old quarter had air-conditioning. That modern luxury was only available in the high-rise hotels along the strip of sand known as Five Mile Beach or at some of the bed-and-breakfast inns dotting the city and the surrounding hills.
Through open doorways and windows along the alley, she glimpsed rooms with five beds crowded together; heard voices speaking in a mixture of French, Spanish, and English; and smelled the aroma of fried bread, spicy beans and rice, and fish baking in banana leaves.
In some of the rooms she saw shrines to various Vadiana saints. The Blessed Ones—the gods that seemed to dominate the religious life of the island. They appeared to be an important part of everyday existence. And she supposed the people here hoped the saints could make their lives better.
A rattling sound made her fumble for the Mace she carried in her purse. Then she saw a skinny black cat slip from behind a trash can and prepare to streak across the alley.
They both stopped short. The cat had encountered her before and looked up hopefully.
“Here you go, sweetie.”
Instead of the Mace, she took out the plastic bag of dry cat food she’d started carrying with her and spilled some on the ground at the side of the alley. The cat waited until she moved away before starting to eat hungrily.
Feeding it was probably a useless gesture. There were thousands of stray cats on the island. But she’d decided to try and make life a little less miserable for some of them.
She’d come here last week on the invitation of Etienne Bertrand, who’d contacted her agent several months ago about booking her into his Sugar Cane Club in Palmiro.
At first the timing had seemed perfect. She’d thought the island represented escape, a place to relax during the day before going out to wow the customers at night.
But she’d been uncomfortable here since the first night she’d arrived. And not just because Bertrand turned out to be a giant of a man who served as his own bouncer.
She’d been on her own for ten years, and she was a pretty good judge of people. There was something “off” about Bertrand, but she didn’t know what.
Or what, exactly, was going wrong in her personal universe. Everything had been fine until her engagement in Denver, when she felt like someone was watching her—getting closer. Getting ready to spring. Too bad the feeling was worse on Grand Fernandino.
She’d thought about breaking her contract, but she’d already discovered that Bertrand was well connected here. She was sure that if she tried to change her plane ticket, the island grapevine would inform him. And he could turn out to be more dangerous than whoever was following her.
“Stop it!” she muttered. Maybe nobody was following her. Maybe she just needed a long vacation after nine straight months on the road.
She sighed. Mo
stly, she’d been satisfied with the life she’d made for herself.
Now she couldn’t shake the conviction that outside forces were messing with her destiny.
She reached the back door of the Sugar Cane Club. From the alley it looked like a dump, with peeling paint and smelly garbage cans lined up along the wall.
But she knew the front facade sported a bright green and yellow paint job, designed to attract the tourists who were the lifeblood of the island. Without the foreign currency, everybody here would be living at the poverty level.
She stepped inside, breathing in the smell of stale smoke and liquor. But it looked okay—unless you saw it with all the lights on.
The biggest point in its favor was that Bertrand was paying her more than she’d made in her Denver gig. And with the low cost of living down here, she could save some money while she was on Grand Fernandino.
After closing the door of her dressing room, she pulled off her lime green T-shirt, navy cropped pants, and tennis shoes, then quickly donned the black dress and strappy black high-heeled sandals she wore during her performance.
Methodically, she began applying makeup, accenting her blue eyes with beige and gray shadow, stroking some color over her high cheekbones, and making her upper lip as full as the bottom.
But she didn’t spend too much time on her appearance. It wasn’t the important part of her act. She could have looked like Grandma Moses and it wouldn’t have mattered. In fact, sometimes she wished she could take on the disguise of an old lady—and hide behind it.
FAR away from Grand Fernandino, in a former hunting lodge near Cumberland, Maryland, a man pushed his wheelchair away from the computer. Once he’d been named Jim Swift. He’d worked for an organization called the Crandall Consortium, and he’d been paid well for his skills at stalking human prey and killing with stunning efficiency. Always for a good cause, of course.
