An Unsuspecting Heart

by Linda Turner

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  Contents:

  Prologue

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

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  Prologue

  ^ »

  The night wasn't fit for anything but snakes. The darkness was inky, the air thick and heavy. A hard rain pelted the swamps, flattening saw grass and transforming slow-moving rivers into raging torrents. Lightning ripped across the sky, exposing for a split second the bleached silhouette of the cypress trees, their limbs dripping Spanish moss that swayed in the wind.

  The two lane road that cut through the Everglades and the Big Cypress National Preserve could have led straight to the gates of hell. Sam Bradford would never have stopped—even if they had. He was on the trail of a story that had Pulitzer Prize written all over it and nothing was getting in his way.

  If he had to, he'd interview the devil himself, he thought. A cynical smile curled his mouth, giving his classical good looks a wicked charm. It was a charm he wasn't unaware of. Knowing his strengths, stretching them, using them, had made him the best investigative reporter in Miami. It hadn't always made him popular, but he wasn't out to win a popularity contest with anyone but his readers—and they were damn loyal.

  Half a mile ahead of him, a black pickup truck raced through the rainy night. Resisting the urge to eliminate some of the distance between him and his quarry, Sam kept his own speed steady. He'd followed Fabian Cantu all the way from Miami, carefully blending in with the traffic, even turning off a time or two to confuse the other man. Cantu was an evil bastard. If he even suspected he was being followed, there would be hell to pay.

  Sam took cover behind a station wagon. His eyes glinted in the darkness as they locked on the truck's taillights winking at him in the rain. Although he was only twenty-two, Fabian Cantu had a rap sheet as long as his arm and a reputation for having a short fuse. He was also the leader of the Barracudas, one of Miami's most notorious street gangs. Under his leadership, the gang had grown from a group of tough-talking dropouts dabbling in petty theft to a multimillion-dollar organization dealing in drugs and murder.

  But Cantu wasn't the one Sam was after.

  Ever since the Barracudas had started branching out into more organized crime, Sam had known someone else besides Cantu had to be directing the young thugs. The barrio was Sam's beat, and he'd watched Cantu get in and out of trouble for years. He knew him, knew his capabilities. All the gang leader had going for him was a seventh-grade education and a talent for intimidation. It would take more intelligence than that to get cocaine from the Colombian drug cartel on a consignment basis, which the Barracudas were supposedly doing. It would take connections and power.

  The man Cantu was meeting tonight had both. On the street, the few gang members who even knew of his existence spoke of him in whispers. He was simply called "the roller," the gang term for one who had reached the top in drug dealing. He was their drug supplier, their weapons dealer, the man who had cops and judges and customs agents sitting in his back pocket.

  He was also reputedly a pillar of respectability in Miami society.

  Excitement surged through Sam. This story was the sort a reporter waited a lifetime for. For months now, he'd been ferreting out the roller's identity, adding and subtracting names from his list of possible suspects until he had narrowed it down to only three. The work had been frustrating. He'd had no proof, only hints from a stoolie who did his talking in dark alleys. Sam couldn't blame the informant for his caution. The roller had spent years building his empire. Anyone who dared to expose him was making a powerful enemy, one who had knife-wielding gang members and bad cops on his payroll. Death could come from a hundred different directions.

  It wasn't the first time Sam had taken a risk for a story. It wouldn't be the last. The danger only made the final outcome all the sweeter, and he could already taste the victory of this one on his tongue. Tonight the roller would finally be unmasked.

  His attention was still on the pickup in the distance, so Sam didn't notice the station wagon he had hidden behind slowing down for a turn until he was almost on its rear bumper. Swearing, he slammed on the brakes and fishtailed before he finally regained control. It took only seconds, but it was seconds too long. When he looked back to where he'd last seen Cantu, he was gone.

  Sam stared down the empty highway in disbelief. "Damn!" he muttered, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. "Where did he go? He couldn't have just disappeared!"

  With an angry jab, he flattened the accelerator and shot across one of the bridges that spanned the numerous rivers and streams that snaked through the area, his eyes searching the darkness before him. But there were no taillights to mock him, nothing but the unbroken blackness of the night. Braking to an abrupt stop, Sam whipped his Toyota around and slowly headed back the way he had come, searching both sides of the road for a trail. He didn't doubt for a minute that one was there somewhere, carefully concealed among the underbrush, a scarcely noticed path that led into the hidden world of the swamps. It was the perfect meeting place for Cantu and his boss.

  Driving at a slow crawl, he was almost to the river bridge when he saw it—a small break in the stand of cypress trees that lined the left side of the road ten feet in front of him. He tensed, his eyes sharp. Rolling down his window to get a better look, he drew closer, ignoring the rain that hit him in the face. What he'd thought was a trail, however, was nothing more than a wide spot of flattened ferns that gave way to another wall of dark trees.

  He'd lost him.

  Sam stared blindly at the trees, bitterness welling up in him at his own carelessness, when the pickup suddenly shot out of the stygian blackness like a bat out of hell. With its headlights on high beam, it raced straight at him.

  "What the devil!" Sam swore and hit the gas, but the slick road made traction impossible. The rear wheels spun, shooting water out from under the car like a rooster tail, before finally catching hold just as the truck slammed into his rear fender. The force of the crash jarred his teeth. Cursing furiously, he floor-boarded the accelerator and raced onto the bridge.

  Behind him, Cantu followed. Sweeping into the oncoming lane, he drew even with Sam and gave the steering wheel a quick turn. The sound of metal scraping metal was like a scream in the night, drowning out the sounds of the storm.

  Unable to compete with the size and power of the truck, Sam felt his Toyota skid toward the side of the bridge and could do nothing to stop it. For what seemed like an eternity, he teetered on the guardrail, fighting gravity. But the battle was lost before it began, and seconds later he went sailing into the raging waters below.

  Up on the bridge, Fabian Cantu brought the truck to a grinding halt and jumped out. Lightning flashed, revealing the Toyota in the grips of the turbulent river. Cantu smiled, then cursed abruptly at the sight of the man struggling out of the car, fighting the current that threatened to drag him under. Without ever taking his gaze from the desperate battle going on in the river, Cantu reached for the Uzi lying on the seat of the pickup.

  The angry spurt of bullets that flew past Sam kicked water into his face. Instinctively, he dove back into the murky depths and let his body go limp. The dark water closed over his head, pulling at him, tugging him deeper, away from the bridge, the danger. Only when his lungs were burning and threatening to burst did he kick to the surface, gasping.

  Sam never saw the log racing down the river toward him. With the force of a battering ram, it slammed into his face just as he dragged in another lungful of air to dive. Pain exploded in his head. Without a sound, the fight went out of him and he sank like a stone.

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  Chapter 1

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  The murder scene was an all too familiar
one in the Miami barrio. A mother sobbed pitifully. Ambulance attendants worked over her son's prone body, fighting in vain to hold back death. Two police cars were parked at the curb, their red and blue lights still flashing, the static drone of their radios ignored. In nearby yards, onlookers gathered in clusters, maintaining their distance as if to separate themselves from the violence, the pain.

  As a police beat reporter for the Miami Examiner, Katie MacDonald had seen it all too many times before. The violence always erupted in quick, angry spurts, leaving death and heartache behind. Over the years, she'd learned to accept the violence, even the death, but the heartache was more difficult to deal with. She was a woman who cried at old movies and sad songs. Closing her heart to another's pain was something she had to work at continually. It never got any easier.

  Katie squared her shoulders and went to work. An eleven-o'clock deadline loomed in the back of her mind, but she knew better than to push through the crowd with hard-hitting questions that would only be met with blank stares. The barrio was a closed society, distrustful of outsiders, protective of its own. Momentarily ignoring the shooting that had destroyed the peaceful summer night, she moved from house to house, greeting people she knew, inquiring about their families, subtly reminding them she was a friend, someone they could trust.

  The daughter of a county judge and a librarian, Katie had a delicacy, a softness and refinement, that contrasted sharply with the harshness of her surroundings. She was slim and unconsciously elegant in her jeans and simple white blouse. She'd been called pretty, but she only dismissed the suggestion with a shrug. She saw nothing remarkable about ivory skin, wide-set blue eyes that were too big for her thin face and silky black hair that refused to stay confined. Too often, people saw the fragility, the daintiness, and didn't give her credit for having a brain in her head.

  Katie grinned as she jotted down notes on the pad that she took everywhere. When she'd walked right out of college into her job at the Examiner at the tender age of twenty-two, rumors had been rife that she'd only been hired because her father was the late Judge MacDonald. Bets were taken that she wouldn't last six months on the police beat. That was five years ago. To the chagrin of her co-workers, she'd shown them that being mistaken for just another pretty face sometimes had its advantages. A smile and the delicate lift of an eyebrow could be every bit as effective as a tough, hard-hitting question. The trick was in knowing when to use what.

  Forty-five minutes later, she knew she had all the information she was going to get tonight. The young boy who lay dead in his front yard was a victim of the gang wars that were tearing Miami apart. She knew his killer was probably a member of the Barracudas, but no one would say for sure.

  It wasn't a hell of a lot, she admitted with a frown of disgust as she headed for her car, which was parked a block away. But there was a good possibility she'd know more tomorrow. She'd seen one of her informants in the shadows, silently watching the proceedings with hooded eyes. He hadn't spoken to her, but she hadn't expected him to. Whatever he had to tell her would only be said in private. It was safer that way.

  Lost in her thoughts, she was almost to her car when she saw a man arrogantly leaning against her front fender as if he owned it. She froze. Fabian Cantu. The light was poor and threw his face into shadows, but there was no doubt that this was the gang leader of the Barracudas. Hostility emanated from him.

  He wasn't the type of man a woman alone would want to run into on a dark night. But Katie knew that to show him so much as a trace of fear was a big mistake. Raising her chin, Katie ignored the chill seeping into her blood and continued toward him without breaking her stride.

  Three feet from her car, she stopped, her eyes fixed calmly on his, her heart pounding. "Cantu, this is a little far from your turf, isn't it?"

  "Not any more, it's not," he mocked, pushing himself away from the car to confront her. "I just took possession."

  So he was behind the killing tonight. Katie wasn't surprised. She knew from personal experience just how ruthless he could be when he decided he wanted something. He'd tried to take over her own neighborhood and would have succeeded if she and her neighbors hadn't organized against him. He and his gang had finally withdrawn two weeks ago, but Katie didn't kid herself into thinking the problem was solved. No one bested Fabian Cantu without violent repercussions.

  Repressing a shiver, she studied him through narrowed eyes. "So you admit it? You had a fourteen-year-old boy killed over a few blocks of land?"

  He arched a dark brow innocently. "Is that what I said?"

  "Why'd you do it?" she demanded, ignoring the taunt. "Was this another one of your little power plays? A show of strength to intimidate the neighbors into cowering in their homes so you can take over the streets? It won't work, you know," she said flatly when he only glared at her in silence. "Sooner or later, you're going to come up against someone who won't be intimidated, and you're going to find yourself in jail."

  "Don't make any bets on it." He took the single step that brought him so close she could see the dislike burning in his black eyes. "Everyone has a weakness, someone they'll do anything for to keep safe. Someone they'll go to their knees for. Someone like … a brother," he finished with a sinister smile. "Think about it."

  He slipped into the darkness like a snake disappearing in tall grass. Katie stared after him, then turned blindly toward her car. It wasn't until she was safely inside that she realized she was shaking. She swore, telling herself that if Cantu dared to lay so much as a finger on Ryan, he was in for a hell of a fight.

  Despite their ten-year age difference, she and her younger brother had always been a team, especially when times were hard. And over the years, life had thrown them a lot of curves. They'd lost both parents by the time Katie was twenty-two and Ryan twelve—their mother in a car accident and their father to cancer—but that had only made them closer. When Cantu threatened one of them, he threatened the other.

  Jabbing her key into the ignition, she could almost feel the gang leader's eyes watching in the darkness for her reaction to his intimidation tactics. She'd be damned if she'd give him any satisfaction. With a flick of her wrist, she started the car and coolly drove off without once glancing toward the shadows where she knew he watched.

  At the first red light, she picked up her car phone and punched out the number of the Examiner. Within seconds, Tommy Spencer was growling in her ear. "Spencer here."

  The tension tying Katie's stomach in knots eased at the sound of the familiar gravelly voice. "Hi, Tommy. It's me."

  "So you finally decided to call in," he drawled. "A whole fifteen minutes before deadline. Thanks a lot, Katie."

  Her eyes danced. The complaint was an old one and usually Tommy Spencer's standard greeting. He was one of the best rewrite men in the business. He could take her notes from a late-breaking story and bang it out in record time, but their personalities were as different as night and day. He watched the clock like an expectant father; she never looked at one if she could help it. But she always made her deadline. It drove him right up the wall.

  "Gripe, gripe, gripe," she teased. "The tighter the deadline, the better you write, and you know it. But just to show you my heart's in the right place, I'll treat you to lunch tomorrow. Anywhere you want to go."

  "I want steak," he warned, only slightly mollified. "Nothing less than steak."

  "You're disgustingly easy," she chuckled, flipping open her notepad as she braked for the next light. "Okay, here's the lead. A fourteen-year-old boy was gunned down on the near west side Thursday night as he stood in his front yard talking to his girlfriend. Got it?"

  "Yeah," he grunted, the patter of his computer keys echoing in the background as he took down her words. "They get younger and younger every year. Which gang did this one belong to?"

  "The Hawks." She gave him the victim's name and address, explaining, "It was a drive-by. Someone drove by in a van and only slowed down long enough to pull the trigger. The police suspect the Barracudas,
but nobody's talking. They're too afraid of Cantu."

  Tommy gave his opinion of the gang leader in two short, pithy words. "One of these days, that creep's going to get what he deserves."

  "Yeah, that's what I told him, but he didn't seem too concerned about it."

  "You mean he was there? Tonight? And you spoke to him?"

  "I didn't have much choice," she said dryly, smiling at his indignant tone. "He was waiting for me at my car."

  Tommy wasn't fooled in the least by her nonchalance. Everyone at the paper knew about her ongoing struggle with Cantu. "What did he want?"

  "To let me know that he was claiming the Hawks' territory for himself," she replied, omitting the threats made against Ryan and herself. "He all but admitted he was behind the shooting tonight. Now all I have to do is find a witness and Cantu is going to have more problems than he can handle."

  Tommy groaned, knowing it was useless to warn her off a story. She was a damn good reporter, but sometimes she scared him with her daring. Especially when she went after a goon like Cantu. She'd bruised his pride when she'd run him out of her neighborhood, and that hoodlum wasn't going to take that lying down. "I know it won't do any good to tell you to be careful, but I'll do it anyway. Watch your back," he ordered gruffly. "You owe me a steak dinner."

  "You'll get it tomorrow," she promised, grinning, "if you get this in by deadline. The way I figure it, you've got about eight minutes." Laughing, she hung up, his curses ringing in her ears.

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  Sixteen hours later, the murder in the barrio was just yesterday's news. Another deadline loomed, and chaos had taken over the Examiner's city room. The noise was deafening. Ringing phones warred with the clatter of keyboards, and in one corner, two sports reporters and a photographer argued over strategy for the softball game with the Miami Tribune staff that would start in less than an hour. An annual charity event between the two rival papers, the competition had ceased to be merely a game years ago. Winning was something to be prized, losing, avenged.