The Dangerous Woman Boxset

by Claire Perry

  “We caught him doing what your American gangsters like to call ‘lamping.’” She clapped excitedly.

  “Yep. Which means he’s up to no good, so take the piece just in case.” Matt handed Claudia a Colt 45.

  Riley came rolling up quietly on a motorcycle and idled next to the window.

  “Classy! Even I almost missed ya!” Matt leaned forward and fist-bumped the young police officer as she lifted her helmet’s visor. Tonight, his little sister would be avenged.

  “I can’t close in on him until you point him out, sir. Rules of engagement are only the rules until somebody breaks them.” She winked.

  “The lamping guy with the nicotine addiction on your 12.” Matt nodded. He was practically glowing.

  How suddenly our expectations can turn to tragic realities! They would have won their battle that night. They may have resolved the truth out of the midst of this tear-soaked confusion had it not been for the fact that the younger Cornwell couple came tearing down the street.

  Joe hauled the car over to the sidewalk and leaped out, hands tearing at his hair, visibly distraught.

  “Woman! You don’t have any right to do the things that you’re doing to me! I’ve blown hundreds of thousands of dollars on you. Given you a home. Disowned my family! All for you! I even took you to your mother’s house tonight after you practically forced me to sign a totally unnecessary waver. The cherry on top of the whole sundae is the fact that I love you and I stayed with you after you basically marital raped me! No other woman has ever had such special treatment! Congratulations, you crazy broad! You’ve stolen my soul!”

  Anita leaped out of the car.

  “What the hell are you doing, Joe? Get back in the car! Don’t you realize how vulnerable we are out here on the street? People have been trying to kill us, you idiot!”

  They were oblivious to the man under the street lamp. He discreetly pulled a pistol out of his coat, pausing just long enough to attach a silencer to its nose.

  “Oh God! Drop your weapon!” Riley shot forward on the bike, pistol posed.

  “Step the gas, Matt!” Claudia beat the dash.

  I t happened in a fraction of the time it took for the passersby to notice. The Cornwells froze, like deer caught in headlights. Riley had almost closed in on Draper. He spun reflexively and pulled the trigger.

  The girl cop jerked, hands shooting to the air, her chest turning bold red. The bike got away from her, throwing her backward from its seat.

  Anita screamed and turned to run, bolting for the other side of the street. Joe froze. Claudia jumped out of the moving truck and rolled across the pavement, hauling Joe to the ground with her and crawling up under the car as the crossfire sounded off.

  Matt hit the gas and ran down the fleeing gunman. Anita had disappeared.

  Joe had cracked his head on the way down. His heart was racing. There was no way to keep himself awake. He would be unconscious soon.

  “Whatever happens, baby… I swear if it costs my life, I’ll get you out of this…” Claudia leaned close to his ear. These were the last words he heard before he passed out.

  Epilogue

  He woke up a few days later, strapped in a hospital bed. The room was still as death. Three men in crisp black suits stood around his bed.

  “Would you like me to help you sit?” The nurse reached to the bed controls. Joe nodded listlessly, still thinking this was some kind of bizarre dream.

  “Mr. Cornwell, I’m with the San Francisco coroner’s office. My name is Alexander Swayze… Do you understand everything I’m saying to you, sir?”

  Coroner? Joe leaned forward to hear better. Why would a coroner be here? Had he died? If he wanted to know, he would have to comply. He nodded slowly.

  “Mr. Cornwell. I regret to have to be the one to inform you… You and your wife were mugged three nights ago. The gunman was apprehended shortly after the attack, sir… He confessed without any coercive measures that he was hired by your mother. These two men are with the San Francisco Police Department. They will watch over you while you stay here to make sure you are safe, and then you will go into protective custody until your mother’s court date at least.”

  “What?!” Joe thrashed. He realized with a mixture of learned panic and frustration that his bed had restraints.

  “Where’s my wife?” Joe felt tears begin to form in his eyes. She was abusive, yes, but he did love her.

  “Sir, that’s why I’m here. I’ve been solicited to explain the process of setting up arrangements in this difficult situation…” The coroner was fumbling over himself. How to break this news to anyone?

  “Where’s my wife, damn it!” Joe beat his fists into the bed rails. The nurse reached for a sedative but the coroner waved her off.

  “Mr. Cornwell, I’m sorry. Your wife was killed in the attack…” He thrust his hands in his pockets, bowing his head.

  Joe was numb for a long moment. Then he began to thrash relentlessly, screaming like a mantra over and over.

  “She was pregnant!”

  The nurse reached a syringe to Joe’s throat. His thrashing stopped by force of the drug. Even as he sank into oblivion, he felt the hatred sear his heart. Of course, his mother had been behind everything. She’d hated Anita. This was the solution that guaranteed that she got what she wanted, and she honestly thought she could get by with it because of her reputation.

  His hurt was compounded by the brief and rocky marriage he’d shared with the young lady. Yes, she had degraded his body and broken his soul, and yet he was still infatuated with her in a toxic passion. One that twisted in his stomach and turned to equally strong hate for his mother, who had robbed him of the object of said sickly passion.

  As he sank into the darkness, Joseph Cornwell vowed that he would never rest, in life or in death, until his mother paid for whatever part she had to play in all of this. Their stalemate was over. Their small chance of reconcile in the wake of Joe’s domestic abuse had passed them by. It might not be in the laws of the land, but Joe would use his great wealth as a tool to ensure it, bribe it into being if he had to. Alice Cornwell would get the death sentence for her part in all of this. He swore it on his wife and unborn baby’s souls.

  The Dangerous Woman

  Book 3

  Hook~Book 3

  How had it come to this?

  Cameras flashed along the side of the prison, in tapping motions like Zeus’ fingers to piano ivory, relentless. Alice held her breath. She wanted to raise her hands to shield her face, but they were chained behind her back.

  Alice felt the tears rising to her eyes again like morning dew, beading but not falling. Only a moment ago, she was their Jewel of the Universe. How the crowds hated her now.

  “You killed them! Girl killer! Baby slaughter and it’s all on you!” Someone began hurling bricks. One collided with her leg, making her orange jumpsuit the color of grapefruit as blood rose from the scrape.

  “Stand back!” The police officers were outnumbered.

  Everything was like the morning dew, once bright and beautiful, but vanishing in the heat of this new day and of their rage. The crowds hurled diamonds at her. Diamonds they’d purchased at her expos but now felt were bought with blood. They pelted her body like automatic rounds. She bowed her head and gritted her teeth, trying to shield her eyes.

  “I’m not the bad guy…” The message rose from her soul again to comfort her in this plunging lonely darkness of her spirit. It would be one thing if this mob that rose like the tide to trample over her had a good reason. They believed they did. There is nothing stronger than an idea. Yet she was innocent. She’d been championing the cause of finding Journey Erickson-Law’s killer when Anita and the baby had died.

  “You killed your own grandchild!” A woman leaped up on a truck’s trailer hitch and began hurling milk crates at her.

  One collided with her head at a precise angle to send her crashing to her hands and chin. She groaned. At 59, such falls were harder on her than when she’
d been younger. She heard her guards screaming at the crowds and the commotion as they pulled a canister of tear gas and hurled it into the mix. She laid there her own eyes beginning to water, lips busted, wishing she were dead.

  Then she felt someone move beside her, lifting her up, letting her lean on them completely. Who? Who would stoop so low as to be her angel at this late hour of her life?

  She knew. Without having to ask or hear her voice. There was only one soul pure enough.

  “Back off, lady!” One of the guards swung out with a newspaper.

  “Threatening me like a puppy, eh? Sorry, not going to work. You’ll have to drop some brass to get rid of me, officer. I’m her friend, not matter what she’s done. I’ll carry her the rest of the way.” Claudia’s fingers wrapped firmly around Alice’s shoulders. The guards consented. Alice twisted around to look up into the girl’s ebony eyes.

  “Hey… Just for the record, I know you’re innocent.” Claudia winked with a wry smile.

  “Oh, bless you! I was being butchered alive out here!” Alice broke into tears. She couldn’t touch the girl’s face with her hands chained, so she just leaned against her arm.

  “Matthew has found evidence. He knows you’re innocent, too. He, Kenneth, and I are all going to work around the clock, even if it kills us, to make sure you get bailed.” The guards were already pulling Alice away from her friend’s grip and hauling her up into an armored truck.

  “Will I ever see you again, dear?” Alice strained against them. They fought against her flailing legs to force her in the truck and cut this conversation off.

  “Believe you will… Always believe, Alice. You’ll be vindicated in the end, I know.” Claudia’s eyes were raining tears. She stood, hands clenched into fists at her side. Hers was the last face Alice would see for days without number. They forced her in the back of the truck, and whether it was protocol or not, the agitated guards shoved a bag over her face.

  Alice sat in the lonely darkness, heart and head throbbing. This was it. She was going to prison, possibly for the rest of her life, and maybe even facing the death penalty for a crime she didn’t commit. Absently, as she sagged against the wall, she wondered who had.

  Chapter 1

  Eight Years Later

  He sat in the center of a couch with a cheetah’s skin draped across it. He’d killed the young female cheetah himself to prove to himself and the world that he did indeed have the will to end a life. That he would not rest until his mother’s life ended. Not just after years of rotting away in prison, but by execution. One that would tarnish her name forever after.

  He pulled his bathrobe closer to himself and balanced a bottle of feni on his knee, watching as his call girls rolled on the floor in myriad diamonds of every spectrum color. He grimaced and twitched his nose. They were just shards of the broken life he led. The emptiness that could never be filled no matter how he tried to drown it in liquor, women, and thumping dubstep music.

  He sat the feni on the table and twitched his hands. His card table was littered with a whole bar’s worth of spirits. What did he want to drink that he hadn’t already drank? He’d mixed up a Fire and Ice with the feni just ten minutes ago. It had gone too fast. Everything he owned and loved. The things he knew and desired, tasted and felt, were nothing but ashes when she had gone.

  There had been many women, but none as intoxicating as Anita White. Even after she had domestically abused him, even martially raped him, he was still enamored with her memory. That poisoned love had destroyed him as a man and brought this city down upon their heads. For now, he was the official owner of the Cornwell Empire, and how was he spending his millions? On poison and lawyers. Chains and matches. Any weapon he could use to avenge his broken heart and crumbling pride. His body felt like a wasteland – hot and dry, never satisfied.

  “Can I get you anything, sir?” His personal assistant knocked on the den’s door. She coughed as smoke machine steam wafted into her face. Her eyes burned and her head felt light, as she was certain there was something hallucinogenic in the steam she inhaled.

  “Get me anything? I own the world, Mercedes!” He plucked up a bottle of scorpion vodka and spit the cork at her. He knocked it back and swilled it until it spilled down his chest, then he shattered the rest on the table and plucked the scorpion at the bottom, crunching it in front of her. She gaped exasperated as he flicked pieces of glass across the hair of one of his writhing call girls. Snatching up a bottle of cobra, he drank that too until it began to spill on him. He shattered that bottle as well and wrapped the dead snake that had been shoved into the bottom of the bottle around his shoulders, flipping her off. Snatching up a bottle of spider and toad whiskey with each hand, he was about to repeat the process a third time when Mercedes threw up her hand.

  “Okay, sir. Yeah, okay. What I meant was, could I bring you something?”

  He took a sip of each and thought about it for a moment.

  “A box of cigars and one of my phones. I don’t care which one. That SOB told me he would call me back and he never did.”

  ---

  They bristled as his call went through. He shattered the glass windows of the doors that surrounded the manor’s den and led out to the veranda. They couldn’t hear everything that was said, but the pleasurable company and working staff that occupied the Cornwell manor were certain it was steeped to the neck in the Anita White drama. None would dare say it, but that woman had sold the legacy of their employers to the wolves.

  “I told you, Sanders! You’ll find a way to get her capital punishment. I’m paying you more than your worth as is! I want the electric chair for her! Light her up all the way to Jupiter for the pain she’s caused me!” There was silence. They watched as their manic employer paced in the shattered glass and diamonds of his own magnanimous empire.

  “What?” His tone froze the air. They hadn’t been dismissed, but his call girls made a beeline for the door. Mercedes did nothing to stop them. She didn’t care if this got her fired later. No job was worth the daily torture she lived in.

  “Okay, scratch everything off your roster and forget it. Debunking Kenneth Law is your next big agenda! You scrap him. Ruin his reputation, land him in prison on false rape charges, I don’t care what. He can’t be allowed to continue heading my mother’s case. If anybody could find her a lenient sentence, or worse, get her justice! What? No, I’m not worried about justice, Sanders, I’ve told you that how many times over the last near-decade? I just want someone to pay. My mother’s the most logical target, and anyone who consorts with her is fair game, too. What? How many more bombshells you gotta drop today? Erickson, too? That went without saying. Yeah, okay. Do whatever you gotta do… Just get them off the radar. No one can get in the way of my mother’s sentencing!” He hurled the phone to the floor, shattering it in six pieces.

  He swung his arms and legs out. Tables, plants, chairs, and liquor bottles were sky borne, waltzing through the air in tight revolutions like guests that undoubtedly knew they were not welcome.

  He screamed and tore at his shoulder length hair. Mercedes watched him in echoing sorrow, wanting to pity him but feeling numb. San Francisco’s golden boy had now become the Beast. This house had fallen into ruins. He’d brought it down on all their heads for his selfish ways. He knelt in the debris, wailing, hands in his hair.

  “I quit.” Mercedes handed Isaac, the chef, her keys and stormed from the house. Whatever fate Joseph Cornwell was facing, he’d have to face it alone.

  Chapter 2

  Matthew leaned heavily against the brick wall of the pizzeria Journey had died in front of eight long years ago. Tears danced behind his eyelids but never saw the light. He had to focus. He still had a promise to keep to her. One that he must live to see fulfilled.

  This had been no easy road. Already once this afternoon, he’d had a suspect, a local hit man, almost tear him apart. That guy was in custody. It was still to be determined if he had any connection to the Erickson-Law or Anita White murders.


  Matt gurgled blood and let out a tiny yelp. A young couple had thought to duck back here and make out as a gentle rain began to fall. It would have been romantic except for the bleeding wreck of a man already occupying the alley. They both let out a loud gasp and dove from the street. Matt nodded. That was his lot in life. To be feared and shunned for trying to keep San Francisco and the world a justice-sanctioned, peaceful place.

  He shook his head and clutched the needle tighter. His eyes drooped closed again as he tried to stitch the stab wound across his abdomen. It was hard to focus on after having lost so much blood.

  “Let me do it, Matt. Why don’t you ever go to the hospital when things like this happen to you? Which happen too often, by the way.” Claudia’s voice descended on Matt’s ears like providence. His eyes popped open. She took the needle in steady fingers and began to stitch the blood-soaked wound. Her lip was twisted to the side.

  “You’re one to talk.” He saw that her eye was black.

  “As far as anyone else is concerned, I fell off a bicycle.”

  “Why would you tell such a story, huh? I’m pretty much the only one you hang out with anymore.” He coughed and sagged down the wall. She pinned his shoulder to the brickwork with her palm and smirked.

  “Well, once upon a time, I used to be the groundskeeper and personal attendant for the beautifully misunderstood Alice Cornwell. Her incarceration and reputation have robbed me of any good career opportunities. So, now I work in the fresh market, selling lobsters, apples, and homemade humus. Story of my life.”

  “Fresh market beats the CIA or full-time private investigator, if you’re asking me. I should have been a real estate agent.” He bowed his head and uttered shrill laughter.