Table of Contents
Synopsis
What Reviewers Say About Andrea Bramhall’s Work
By the Author
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Prologue
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 Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
About the Author
Books Available from Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
Cassandra “Cassie” Finnsbury has spent almost twenty-five years running for her life, hiding from everyone who knew her, and hoping it was enough to keep her daughter safe. When she learns that she no longer has to run, she is determined to find Daniela again and hires private investigator Bailey Davenport, a retired FBI agent, who is more than up to the task. Bailey finds nothing more irresistible than a mystery and a challenge, and in Cassie, she finds both.
Can Bailey find the key to unlock more than just Cassie’s secrets?
What Reviewers Say About Andrea Bramhall’s Work
“[Ladyfish] is Andrea Bramhall’s first novel and what a great yarn it is…fast and fabulous and great fun.”—Lesbian Reading Room
“[Nightingale] is a tale of courage and determination, a ‘don’t miss’ work from an author that promises a stellar career thrilling us with her skillful storytelling.”—Lambda Literary
“[Nightingale] will move you to tears of despair and fill you with the joy of true love. There aren’t enough stars to recommend it highly enough.”—Curve Magazine
“[I] recommend Nightingale to anyone, lesbian or feminist, who would like to read a thought-provoking, well-written novel about the clash of cultures.”—C-Spot Reviews
“[Clean Slate] is a great story. I was spellbound. I literally couldn’t put it down.”—Lesbian Reading Room
Swordfish
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Swordfish
© 2015 By Andrea Bramhall. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-291-5
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: January 2015
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editors: Victoria Oldham and Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])
By the Author
Ladyfish
Clean Slate
Nightingale
Swordfish
Acknowledgments
To everyone at BSB, thanks for all your help and support. Sheri, for yet another fantastic book cover; Vic, Cindy, and the amazing team working behind the scenes, you make this look easy, when I know it’s anything but. Thank you.
To my team of willing beta readers, Louise, Kim, and Dawn, your help is invaluable, both in terms of support, and your eagle-eyes spotting some of those early…glaring…plot holes! Lol!
But mostly I’d like to thank everyone who reads this book. Because of you, my partner doesn’t have to suffer my ramblings alone any longer. She thinks of you as her support network, and she’s thinking of setting up regular meetings. Anyone interested should e-mail me, and I’ll pass your details on. Apparently, she’s already got a secret password, a funny handshake, and everything. (What’s the keyboard shortcut for a winking smiley again?)
P.S.
I have to acknowledge Jazz Bramhall-Smith. Without her inspiration for “Jazz,” I could not have written one word of this book. Thank you, Jazz.
P.P.S.
Merlin Bramhall-Smith De First, Queen of all She Surveys, would like it noted that she didn’t want to be in “no stupid book” and that she isn’t sulking. She’s just watching cats…in a sulky way.
Dedication
Just like stories, life has a beginning, an ending, and a series of pivotal moments between the two.
Louise, thank you for being my beginning, my ending, and every moment in between.
Prologue
Concrete dust and rubble showered down on him, a sign that another bomb had gone off nearby. His ears were still ringing from the first explosion that had destroyed his home. He cradled the body of the six-year-old boy to him and continued walking, stepping over lumps of concrete and avoiding the twisted, red-hot steel bars that had previously been buried deep inside that concrete. Concrete that had been a home only a few minutes ago. His home.
He shifted his brother’s weight in his arms—his dead weight—as he stared at a pile of rubble he couldn’t climb over. He felt the sticky, wet heat of Risil’s blood seeping through his shirt. The iron scent of it was so thick he could taste it on his tongue, but he had to keep walking.
He stumbled and fell to one knee as he tried to skirt the pile of debris, but he quickly found his feet again. The jeers and sniggers of the ever nearing line of soldiers was more than enough to spur him on. And in that instant he remembered the story he had been reading to his brother before the detonation had ripped the house apart. The story of Ataba and Zarief E-ttool. It had been Risil’s favorite. It helped him sleep, he’d said, hearing the story of how the handsome young Palestinian, Zarief E-ttool, had made his dreams come true and achieved great wealth, power, and esteem along the way to winning the hand of the woman he loved, Ataba.
Risil had said it was good to know that you could do anything, be anything, if you worked hard and never, ever gave up. When he had asked his young brother
what he wanted most, his answer had been simple. He wanted to feel safe. He wanted to go to sleep at night and not worry that tomorrow, or the next day, he would have to fight and say good-bye to more people he loved. He had thought it the foolish wish of a child, and attributed it to the eight-year difference between them. At fourteen, he felt far older and wiser. Sleep peacefully now, my brother.
The line of soldiers pointed their guns at him, but he didn’t flinch. It was the first time he had stared down the barrel of a gun. He doubted it would be the last.
The bombing was retribution for his older sister’s martyrdom. Her sacrifice had claimed six Israeli lives in a coffee shop in Tel Aviv, and the Israelis’ policy was to destroy the homes of martyrs within forty-eight hours to prevent them from becoming shrines. They had timed their attack to coincide with her memorial service. It had been a lucky occurrence that he had been upstairs with Risil trying to calm him at the time. He looked at the battered and bleeding body in his arms. If you can call this luck. Blood dripped onto Risil’s face, and he realized he was bleeding. He knelt down, resting Risil on his bent knee and felt his own face. A ragged tear down his left cheek felt like a piece of mutton beneath his fingertips—pulpy, sticky, and barely holding together. It didn’t matter. He was still alive.
He had left the bodies of his parents, his older brothers, his uncles, and his grandmother burning and broken in the home that had never been safe. But it had been home and as safe as any Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip could ever be.
He stopped six feet from one of the soldiers, determined not to cry. He would never let them see weakness. “They are all dead. You can stop now.”
The soldier in front of him didn’t move, but orders came from behind him to search the wreckage for incendiary devices, weapons, and anything else of interest.
They really meant anything of value they could steal, and he was glad he had pulled the rings from his mother and grandmother’s fingers before he carried Risil from the building. He hated that his family was defiled in such a way, but it was better he did it than the bastards who converged on the rubble like locusts.
He took in every detail of the soldier still staring down at him and filed it away. There would be a time when they would all pay, them and everyone who helped them. The British had crawled away on their bellies in 1948, leaving them unarmed and at the mercy of an enemy who wanted nothing more than to pound them into the dust. The Americans had continued to support them, financially and with arms, and in their unwavering support for their claims on the land the Israelis stole.
He swore on the body of his brother, on the lives of his dead family, that one day he would make them all pay. He wouldn’t give up until it was done or his body was cold in the ground.
Every one of them would pay.
Chapter One
Bailey Davenport breathed in the hustle and bustle of Quincy Market, only a few yards from Boston Harbor and a mere two-minute walk from her apartment. She scanned the menus above each of the food stalls, just as she had done most nights for the past five years. The mouthwatering aromas of Thai food, pasta, pizza, and sandwiches of every variety warred with freshly baked cupcakes, bread, pretzels, and freshly brewed coffee. A feast for the eyes and the stomach, yet she couldn’t find anything that appealed to her tonight, so she chose an old favorite. She ordered a hoagie from the Philly Steak and Cheese counter and winced inwardly when the server greeted her by name. Maybe it’s time for a change of routine. She took her sandwich and bottle of water and bypassed the busy dining area. No matter how busy it was, she never had a problem finding a place to eat. There was always one seat available somewhere, but the idea of eating alone in the crowded market hall made her feel awkward tonight.
She crossed the cobbled and uneven pedestrian street under the shadow of the historic Faneuil Hall. During tourist season, people filled the streets for the fine shopping, good food, and the pilgrimage to “the cradle of Liberty” as the hall was better known. But it was December, and only the locals and a few hardy souls braved the snow and the bitter wind coming off the water. She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck and watched where she was walking, careful not to lose her balance on the icy, snow-covered stones. She juggled her items as she keyed the lock and pushed open the door to her apartment. She tossed her keys onto the small table in the hallway and hung up her coat, knocking the few flakes of snow from the shoulders. She clicked on the light and riffled through her mail.
“Junk, junk, junk, and a credit card application for a Jesus Hernandez. Return to sender,” she said as she tossed it all into the trash can.
The small one-bedroom apartment was clean and fit what fashionistas described as “the minimal look.” There was one recliner facing a TV that wasn’t plugged in, and a two-seater sofa sat under the window. There was a single photograph on the bookshelves lined with crime novels and her graduation picture from the Boston Police Academy.
She hated silence.
A quiet so profound that she could hear her own heartbeat seemed to fill the small apartment, and she couldn’t bear it. She’d never been able to. Sitting in a car, on the street, in an empty building, she had no problem with the silence. She loved the peace she could find in the early morning when the streets were practically deserted. But in her home she couldn’t stand it. No, it was her apartment, not her home. Silence meant thoughts took on a life of their own and the memories wouldn’t stop.
The dining table was covered with papers, notepads, and photographs. She unpacked the thin briefcase she carried with her and wrote a note on a small index card. She highlighted the title of the card carefully and pinned it to the corkboard over her dining room table. A photograph at the center of the board had strings leading to a wide variety of different cards in a kind of spider web formation. Some were addresses; others were misdemeanor codes, felony codes, and sentences. All of them were tiny tidbits in the life of the woman in the picture: an occasional prostitute and a full-time junkie with a string of convictions for theft, fencing stolen property, possession, and the one that had changed the life of Bailey when she was only ten years old—child neglect.
The card she pinned up today was highlighted in blue with the address of yet another halfway house. Another dead end in a search she had never officially been a part of, but had been working for almost twenty-five years. She was just one more missing person in an ever-increasing number of faces that would be forever missed by those who loved them and would never know why, or where, or when. The most important case in her life, and it was one she worried she’d never solve. She ran her fingertip over the picture, the only one she possessed of the mother she hadn’t seen in thirty-nine years.
She turned on the stereo to drive the silence back into the shadows and rolled her shoulders as she let the expressive jazz sound of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Explain” soothe the tension of the day from her body. She rubbed absently at the scar on the left side of her abdomen. It felt like an itch she could never reach.
She grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat at the table, and unwrapped her sandwich. She quickly popped the top off her beer and held it up toward the picture.
“To the next address, Mom. I’ll get you next time.” She winked and took a long swig before taking a huge bite of her hoagie.
Chapter Two
Cassie turned off the ignition and rubbed her eyes. They felt gritty and tired. The drive from Boston to Glens Falls, New York, should have taken her around three and a half hours. Instead, an accident on the highway had added an hour to her journey. The trees were bare, and the winter sun was so weak it barely warmed the chilly December morning. She shivered as the warm air from the heater dissipated now that the engine was off; she grabbed her coat, purse, and keys as she climbed out of the car, trying to ignore the trembling in her hands.
It was the first time she had visited the cemetery, and she had no idea where to start looking. The pain and guilt of that was something she had learned to live with—it was just one more issue she�
�d picked up along the way.
She approached the counter in the cemetery office and smiled at the elderly woman behind the desk.
“Welcome to Glens Falls Cemetery. How can I help you today?”
“I’m looking for the grave of Karen Riley.” Her voice caught in her throat as she spoke Karen’s name. She coughed gently to try to clear it, offering a solemn smile as she did.
“Of course, what year did she die?”
“Two thousand and one.”
The woman smiled sweetly and tapped at her keyboard. “Here we are, dear. The grave is a little way from the building so I’ll mark it on a map for you.” She drew a red square around one of the fields with a small x a little way in from the right-hand boundary. “It should be fairly easy to find, but I can get one of the ground’s staff to come and show you if you like?”
Cassie shook her head as she studied the simple map. “No, thanks. I should be fine with this.” She looked up and smiled. “Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome.”
Cassie opened the door and wrapped her coat around herself as the cold wind stung her cheeks. The grounds were immaculately tended, and as she walked slowly toward her destination, she couldn’t help but think how Karen would have liked that. She had spent hours in the small gardens of the various places they had called home over the years. Herb gardens mostly, because she had so loved to pick the fresh herbs to use in her cooking. Cassie’s eyes watered, and she tried to convince herself it was from the bitter wind.
She found the small gray stone easily despite the moss growing across the rough surface and obscuring half of Karen’s last name. She knelt on the grass, ignoring the growing damp seeping into her jeans as she set about cleaning away the moss.
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