The Ultimate Romantic Suspense Set (8 romantic suspense novels from 8 bestselling authors for 99c)

by Lee Taylor

  She needed to take Grayson alive. If he didn’t have Fiona with him on the island, she would wrestle the information out of him.

  “It’s your responsibility to watch out for your sister,” her father had once shook Vega by the shoulders and scolded.

  Fiona had been only five at the time and had followed Vega on one of her solitary biking adventures through the neighborhood. Before they’d gone even two blocks, Fiona had fallen off her three-wheeled trike and was nearly hit by a car, tore her dress, and scraped her arms and legs. The driver of the car had carried Fiona back to the house while Fiona screamed as if that sound was to be her last and she wanted to make an impact.

  I expect you to be the responsible one, Vega, and yet you continually disappoint me.

  She could feel her father in the boat with her, with that scowl he’d get whenever his gaze chanced to meet hers. That look of utter dissatisfaction would harden his features. She should have taken better care of his charming little Fiona. She should have never allowed herself to believe in Grayson. Perhaps…

  She gulped an uneven breath. Fiona would be okay. She’d trade her life for Fiona’s, if need be. That should please her father.

  With a strangled sob, she caught hold of the budding emotional outbreak and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. Her focus slowly centered on the coming few hours until nothing else existed but her determination to capture Grayson.

  He would not escape this time. She was good. Her prey never eluded capture for long.

  Vega dipped the oars into the water and silently guided the boat up the creek. Gradually, the channel widened and the water rose, giving Vega a better view over the marsh grasses. She rounded a bend in the channel. A heavily treed island came into view. According to the map, this land belonged to Etta Gray.

  She rowed toward the island, searching the marshy shore for the slightest sign of movement. Grayson shouldn’t be expecting her, but she sure as hell wasn’t about to take any chances. Out in the channel, without the cover of any kind of vegetation, she presented a tempting target to whatever might be lurking in the trees. Vega tugged on a floppy hat she’d purchased low on her head and tossed a fishing line out over the side of the boat.

  A short, rickety dock with several loose boards curling up here and there and the supporting piers slanting at a sharp angle appeared on the far side of the island. There were no other signs of human inhabitation, no grand house rising up over the trees. Vega pulled up beside the dock and secured the boat to a pier close to shore. After hopping out into shallow water, she wedged the boat between the piers underneath the dock so it wouldn’t be readily noticeable. She took her backpack filled with an assortment of weapons, and sloshed her way over oyster beds and up the muddy bank.

  Grand oaks like those in McClellanville, green even in the winter, hugged the shore. A grassy path led through the maritime forest, leading, no doubt, to Etta Gray’s home site. Hoping to make a silent approach, Vega wove her way through the thick woods. They swallowed her up, creating a strange sensation of being transported back a century, to a lush flowering tropical forest somewhere much further south.

  She stayed parallel with the narrow man-made path until she reached a clearing in the forest. Smoke rose from the chimney of a rusty roofed bungalow. Her heart thumped. The bungalow wasn’t closed up for the winter after all. Just as she suspected, someone had taken residence in Etta’s absence.

  Vega stashed her backpack against the far wall of a boat shed and covered it with pine straw and leaves. She crouched down to watch the house. Other than an occasional rustle of leaves and the creaking of a well handle as the wind pushed it, the island was completely silent. Almost too silent.

  If Fiona’s life weren’t depending on the finesse of the execution, she’d charge the house and use her Taser to immobilize anyone she encountered inside. But the direct approach might put Fiona’s life at a greater risk. She played out several scenarios in her head. The most deadly would be to tip off Grayson and give him the opportunity to harm Fiona.

  The only way that made any sense was to take Grayson fast and hard…and soon. Which meant she’d either need to locate him inside the house before he noticed her presence, or figure out a safe way to lure him out.

  To lure him out, she’d need to create enough of a disturbance to rouse his curiosity without sparking excessive suspicions. It was a gamble of course, but Vega decided it would be safer to confront Grayson outside as far away from Fiona as possible. Besides, she had no desire to walk into a room without knowing exactly what to expect.

  While she sat there wondering what she could do besides throwing stones at the windows, which just seemed like a really bad idea, the front door to the small house opened. She kept her back pressed against the side of the small shack and peered around the corner of the building.

  Grayson stopped on the bottom step, his alert gaze scanning. Her father’s Glock was snug in one hand, a rope sling for carrying wood in the other. He headed toward the shed. Vega could see the military training and focus with each step.

  She looked behind her. A pile of wood was stacked just a few feet from where she stood, which meant he’d walk right into her snare.

  Hopefully the air gun Taser worked as well as Jack claimed. According to him, this stun gun was the best thing to happen to small arms since the invention of the self-indexing breech that had made the development of automatic pistols possible. Instead of bullets, the gun fired two electrified probes that, when latched onto the target, sent an electrical-muscular disruption pulse through the body strong enough to completely disable the central nervous system. Temporary, harmless paralysis. A damn good tool for her business.

  But because she hadn’t field-tested it, Vega wasn’t about to bet her life on that claim. She drew out the Beretta, prepared to follow up with a real bullet if the electronic ones failed to stop him.

  Grayson stepped into range, carefully scanning for enemies, while not seeing the danger that lurked right in front of him. She fired the air gun Taser. Two wire probes shot out of the barrel and collided with Grayson’s chest, snagging on his flannel shirt.

  For a breathless moment, she waited while Grayson stared at his shirt with wonderment. Her father’s Glock slipped from his grasp and bounced to the ground. His expression twisted. The weapon’s electrical current was coursing through him, causing every muscle to contract. He toppled like a broad piece of deadwood, landing with his face half-buried in the sand. Jack hadn’t exaggerated. That Taser walloped one hell of a punch.

  Though Grayson looked helpless, Vega approached with extra caution. She wouldn’t take chances when her sister’s life depended on it. With a quick movement, she bent over him and locked a pair of handcuffs over his wrists and her second pair around his ankles. Once she was certain he wasn’t going anywhere, she switched off the Taser’s power.

  Grayson, still face down in the sand, started coughing. He was gasping for breath when Vega flipped him over onto his back and straddled his chest.

  “Vega.” A smile creased the corners of his pained eyes as he raked her body with his gaze. “You look damn good right now. I was afraid you were one of Whitfield’s guard’s from Six-Star.” He coughed again. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see that I was wrong.”

  She had no reason to take offense, but she did.

  “You shouldn’t be happy. I’m taking you back to Atlanta with me.” Her tone rose with her anger. “There’s no escape this time. You understand that?”

  He tugged at the handcuffs binding both his arms and legs. “I expect I do.”

  “Good.” She drew a deep breath while fighting an urge to punch him. “Tell me what you’ve done with my sister.”

  Grayson stared blankly up at her.

  “Where…is…my…sister?”

  “Fiona? I haven’t seen her since I dropped her off at the cyclorama weeks ago.”

  “The Cyclorama?” Vega’s heart was pounding in her ears. Surely, it was painfully obvious he wasn�
�t going to escape this time, so he had no reason to lie. He should be cooperating.

  “She’s damn good at getting into trouble, that sister of yours. You should’ve watched over her more carefully,” he said.

  Just like her father, he blamed her for Fiona’s misadventures. Why shouldn’t he?

  “Stop playing me, Grayson. Where is Fiona?”

  “I don’t know, Vega. Where is she?”

  She smashed the butt of the Taser against his temple. “Don’t lie to me, you bastard. What did you do with my sister?”

  Grayson shook his head. A dazed glare clouded his eyes. She must have knocked him harder than she intended. She slapped his cheeks. “What did you do with her?”

  “Nothing,” he said again.

  Nothing? He was a damn liar.

  “What did you do? Did you kill her?” she shouted.

  “No, Vega.”

  Her father’s Glock was in her hand. How it got there, she wasn’t sure. A moment ago, it had been on the ground near her hand. She was glad to be holding it though. The barrel pressed so nicely against Grayson’s forehead.

  “Did you kill my sister? Just tell me the truth. Did you kill her?” Her finger tightened against the trigger.

  “No, Vega. I didn’t.” A breath away from death and he refused to plead, refused to do anything other than gaze at her with those powerful brown eyes.

  That wouldn’t do.

  She needed him to feel the same fear Fiona must have felt when he kidnapped her. Damn it, how could she have been so stupid? How could she have believed the word of a killer? She’d been ready to believe him innocent, and look at the cost of her mistake.

  After checking to make sure the pistol was indeed loaded, she eased in close so her lips hovered just above his. “Don’t you care that I’m about to blow the top of your head off?”

  “You’re making a huge mistake, Vega.” Cool as a criminal. Grayson refused to break. Shooting him felt too quick, too painless—too final. She wanted him to suffer.

  Suffer like Fiona must have suffered when he killed her.

  “Damn you.” Rage born from the frustrations, the losses she’d endured over the past several weeks exploded in her chest. She tossed down her gun and pulled back her fist, poised to pummel him to death.

  He didn’t deserve to live, none of the bastards did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  So, this is what the edge looked like. Jack had warned her that she’d blind herself and not see it coming. And for a terrifying moment, Vega clung onto her sanity with both hands. Slowly, she clawed her way back to her comfortable, grounded self. Killing Grayson solved nothing. His death could never fill the gaping void losing Fiona’s had created.

  “Just tell me what you did with the body,” she said as she uncurled her fist.

  “I didn’t touch your sister, Vega. Why would you think I did?” That open look of concern returned to his face, tempting her to rethink her restraint from pummeling him.

  “Shut up.” Not able to remain so near him, she jumped to her feet. “The police saw you take her. Butch saw you.”

  “Butch?”

  “A friend.” That wasn’t exactly true. Vega didn’t consider Butch much of anything to her anymore.

  “I see.” Grayson closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t suppose this friend has an interest or connection to Six-Star?”

  Butch had both, Vega remembered. She never did ask him why his name was on that list Greg Harper had copied. The need to find Fiona had been more important than trying to figure out why Finn Kayne or Butch would have been mentioned in those files.

  “I turned the data CD I found in Harper’s office over to the FBI,” she said, while her mind kept its hooks in Butch’s involvement with Six-Star.

  “The feds?”

  Vega stepped around the corner of the shed for a moment to return the Taser guns and Beretta to her backpack. She tucked her father’s Glock back into her holster where it belonged. And still her mind traveled back to wondering about Butch’s involvement.

  “Yep, feds are tearing Six-Star apart.” Vega swung the backpack over her shoulder. Her phone refused to pick up a signal. She needed to head back to McClellanville right away even if it meant having to risk navigating the channels in the dark. “Just tell me where Fiona is.”

  “I think you should ask your friend Butch. What did Greg find that made someone kill him?” He tugged on the handcuffs, trying hopelessly to push himself up from lying flat on the ground.

  Vega walked right past him without a word and followed the trail back to the dock. The belly of her boat sat half buried in the muck. The channel where water rushed through just a little over an hour ago was dry. Puddles here and there made the waterway look like a muddy field after a heavy rainstorm.

  She wasn’t going to be able to take Grayson anywhere, at least not until the tide turned.

  * * * *

  “If you didn’t take Fiona, what do you suppose happened?”

  Grayson could see the anger building in her eyes. The force of her concentration in the way she pursed those sexy lips of hers as she figured out how she’d been manipulated. She’d returned from the boat landing and released the shackles from Grayson’s feet and moved him into his grandmother’s bedroom, where she’d shackled one of his wrists to the heavy metal cot frame. Afterwards, she took her time to discover for herself that the island didn’t have electricity or phone service.

  Mamma Etta’s small cottage was neatly furnished and cozy. An odd sort of comfort filled him as he watched Vega moved through a home he’d always cherished. He smiled when she picked up a clay pot he’d handcrafted back in the fourth grade, catching a glare from Vega.

  No one’s nerves were strung tighter than hers were at that moment. He knew better than to pluck them.

  “I suspect Whitfield took Fiona. I was worried this might happen,” he said quietly.

  He held his breath and told himself to clear his head. His pulse shouldn’t be racing just because Vega found him again. But damn it, he enjoyed watching the way she moved. And if his back was going to be pushed to the wall by Six-Star’s hired killers, he’d not want anyone but Vega fighting beside him.

  “Did you find out what was in those files Greg had secreted away?” he asked when she didn’t respond to his thoughts on what might have happened to her sister.

  Vega stayed at the door to the bedroom. Grayson could feel the uneasiness rising off her like steam from a kettle. “There was nothing in those files that would make him kidnap Fiona. The CD had some damaging evidence. Whitfield is connected with some new terrorist organization, Spider. And with some new crime boss in Detroit, Finn Kayne. Perhaps he’d think Fiona was connected somehow…though I don’t see why he’d…”

  “What, Vega? What are you thinking?”

  “Butch’s name was also in the file. He’s on the same payroll as Finn Kayne—Spider’s payroll, perhaps.” She paced a little. “Butch had been acting different—strange. I just thought he was a little crazed because he desperately wanted to get his hands on you and avenge his friend’s death.”

  “Avenge his friend’s death? What are you talking about? Am I getting blamed for every damned murder in the country now?”

  She stopped and stared him straight in the eye. “I’m talking about the bounty hunter you killed.”

  “I didn’t kill any of the bounty hunters. I knocked one out, yes. When I left him, he wasn’t dead. I swear.”

  “Doesn’t matter one way or the other.”

  “It does to me,” Grayson grumbled.

  “What matters is that I’m beginning to think I was wrong.” She fell quiet for several minutes. She started pacing again. “I’m beginning to think that Butch was being paid to get to you. Being paid a heck of a lot of money to get to you. I think…no, that can’t be right…I think he was desperate for me to lead him to you so he could hand you over to Whitfield. He was on the payroll. He’d been working with them for quite some time.”

  She
punched the doorframe. “Damn it, how could I have been so stupid? I bet Butch took Fiona just to create this crisis so I would rush off and do the impossible—find you.”

  Grayson had to agree. He never expected anyone, not even Vega to be able to track him to this island. While his sanctuary was a good hiding place, it could easily turn into a death trap if hoards of killers were to follow Vega and land on the shore.

  “So this Butch fellow could be mere hours away from dropping in on our little party?”

  “That’d be his style.” Even pacing, Vega refused to cross the threshold and come into the bedroom, which irritated Grayson. He wanted her in the room. He wanted them to be as close as they were out behind the bar where she’d kissed him.

  “You plan on confronting them, don’t you?”

  Vega nodded.

  “Could be suicide.”

  “I know,” she said. “But Butch and Whitfield have Fiona, don’t they?”

  “If she’s still alive, they probably do.”

  “She’s still alive.”

  “I suppose you’re not interested in rushing me off to safety?” Grayson smiled as he asked the question. He already knew the answer of course.

  “Not when you’re the bait.” A grin snuck onto her lips. “Don’t worry. I won’t be able to collect the bounty if you get killed.”

  * * * *

  Vega breathed in the pungent smell of the stewed greens and fried chicken she’d found in the bungalow’s antiquated icebox. A good bounty hunter never starved her prey. Steak dinners were the usual fare for long-distance pickups. In this case, leftovers would do.

  Grayson sat on the edge of the small cot with the plate balanced on his lap and used his free hand to eat. Despite his pleas, Vega refused to unchain his wrist to let him shovel the feast into his mouth unhindered.

  Vega’s belly growled. The nutritional bar she’d eaten couldn’t compete with the rich aromas filling the room.

  “Take whatever you want,” he said, holding up the plate. While the offer enticed her grumbling stomach, she shook her head. He just shrugged and pretended to ignore her. But she caught him watching her several times with a look she wasn’t sure how to read. She twisted her legs into the lotus position and took a moment to meditate.