Zahera smacked her hand to the table. “And she didn’t care if Ivy was assaulted, taken to a foreign country?”
Everyone shrugged their shoulders.
“Little bitch,” Zahera spat out.
“She’s troubled, Z. Let’s leave it at that. I just hope that it’s not too late for little Emma.” I looked at Stan.
“Dillon’s parents have taken custody, and she’ll be moving out to California. But apparently the assistant DA is also having Cheryl moved to another facility. She’s very determined to finish her rehab and join her daughter in California, if the judge will allow her to serve her probation time outside of the state.”
I released a hopeful breath. “What about Zeke?” After Stan, Nick, and the horde of law enforcement folks forced the plane off the runway, I found out Zeke was not piloting Dillon’s plane. In fact, Dillon had ordered Zeke to stay at the mansion, acting like he’d return very soon. Turned out, Dillon was lying to everyone.
“Zeke was admonished by me, Nick, the captain, even the police chief. But we weren’t going to waste our efforts and resources on an obstruction of justice charge. So he’s in the clear. We hit the motherlode of criminals on this one.”
“Good,” Zahera said, a smile starting to form at the edge of her lips. “Because he’s been hounding me with text messages and flowers and—” She stopped abruptly, her gaze just beyond Stan’s shoulder.
And there he was.
Zeke walked around the table, leaned over and kissed the top of Zahera’s hand. She bit her bottom lip, inching her shoulders upward. “You had me at hello.” They kissed.
Cristina whispered into my ear. “He never said hello.”
I chuckled. “You’re too young to remember that quote; it’s from an old movie.” My phone buzzed again. I took it out and found a text from Saul:
URGENT: need you at my place in 20 minutes.
With my curiosity piqued, I said my goodbyes and was out the door in two.
53
I was in food heaven. Saul had just handfed me an appetizer made by renowned chef, Allen Rathbun, who was cooking in Saul’s kitchen fifteen feet from our table. I leaned on the linen tablecloth and savored the…
“What did you call this?”
“Texas gulf crab cake, with tomatillo-poblano cream and jicama-tortilla slaw.”
I think I moaned out loud. Saul only smiled, then got out of his seat to pour me a glass of wine. “The bottle of wine itself is worth three hundred bucks. Out of my league. But hey, Dillon picked up the bill for a good cause, so I figured why not?”
He raised his glass to the kitchen, and Allen lifted his pan. Saul sat back down, and then we clinked glasses.
“What’s this all for?” I said, sipping the wine.
“I’m apologizing to you, Ivy,” he said. “You were right about me. I was drinking the Herbert Ross Kool-Aid, and I was starting to forget who I was. Thank you for reminding me, even if you did it in your own special way.” He winked that beautiful wink.
“I didn’t want to be mean. Lots of stress. I didn’t know who to trust, and I was afraid for every young girl out there. I’ve been there, and I couldn’t just sit around and hope for the best.”
He put his hand on mine, and my heart fluttered. “I get it,” he said. “I really do.”
A few moments later, the chef served the main course. It looked like a picture from a fancy foodie magazine.
“Smells incredible,” I said.
“I only know these details because Allen educated me before you came over—but he made us wood-grilled pork tenderloin, with jalapeno-charred corn, drizzled with Texas peach barbeque sauce.”
I could hear my stomach growling. I picked up my fork and knife and took my first bite. I closed my eyes and savored the incredible flavors. “Can it get any better?” I practically purred the words.
There was a silence.
I opened my eyes and looked right into Saul’s—their honey color flickering in the candlelight.
“Let’s reboot our relationship,” he said.
“I—”
“Please don’t say yes or no right now. Let’s just enjoy the evening. Enjoy the conversation. And let’s get to know each other without having to worry about labels. What do you say?”
I paused for a second. “I’m game.”
The chef shook our hands, wished us luck. “I left the dessert in your refrigerator. Brown sugar Bundt cake with salted caramel and candied bacon.”
He left us to enjoy the evening in the quiet of Saul’s apartment.
I stayed the night and didn’t regret a thing the next morning.
54
The man lowered his shoes off his desk, ensuring he didn’t scratch his Cole Haan loafers or the vintage desk made in the 1700s. He carefully ran his fingers through his hair as he eyed the monitor on his desk.
Saul and Ivy. Two little lovebirds making another go at it. How sweet.
His pulse remained steady.
He thumbed through a selection of songs on his cell phone until he found just the right one. He tapped the play button and instantly heard the soothing flow of the best cellist in the world. Yo-Yo Ma was playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. The otherworldly tones filled his condo through surround-sound speakers.
He swiped his finger across his cell phone screen and pulled up another application. He tapped the screen three times, and the video from his twenty-inch desk monitor was thrown onto his eighty-inch flat screen above the hearth.
He tapped his phone again a few times, splitting the screen into four squares, one for each camera that had been placed in Saul’s apartment during his last scheduled maintenance visit from the super.
He sauntered into his open-air kitchen with granite countertops and popped the cork on a bottle of Romanee-Conti Grand Cru. It was a French wine, which went for thirteen thousand dollars. He’d come across the wine during his months of travel and recuperation, all while working on the next phase of his life. His so-called second career.
He sipped the wine, sat on the couch, and watched the big screen for a few moments. The couple was simply ogling each other. He grew tired of their non-action and turned to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows of his downtown condo. A few lights glittered in the nighttime skyline. Suddenly, he was drawn to his reflection, and he sat up, cocking his head left, then right. Who was that good-looking guy?
He chuckled, then leaned back, letting the classical music soothe his soul.
He lifted his wineglass in a toast to himself. “Let the games begin.”
ALSO BY JOHN W. MEFFORD
Redemption Thriller Series
The Alex Troutt Thrillers
Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3
Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6
AT Bay (Book 1)
AT Large (Book 2)
AT Once (Book 3)
AT Dawn (Book 4)
AT Dusk (Book 5)
AT Last (Book 6)
The Ivy Nash Thrillers
Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3 (RTS 7-9)
IN Defiance (Book 7)
IN Pursuit (Book 8)
IN Doubt (Book 9)
Break IN (Book 10)
IN Control (Book 11)
IN The End (Book 12)
The Ozzie Novak Thrillers
ON Edge (Book 13)
Game ON (Book 14)
ON The Rocks (Book 15)
Shame ON You (Book 16)
ON Fire (Book 17)
ON The Run (Book 18)
Note from the author
Thank you for reading this trilogy of Ivy Nash Thrillers (book 1-3). I hope you enjoyed all three novels.
It would be great if you could leave a quick review on Amazon. I would appreciate it. Here’s the easy link: http://smarturl.it/RTSBoxSet3
Next In The Redemption Thriller Series – Break IN
Evil knows no boundaries.
A broken family.
And a grandfather grieves.
How can Ivy possibly locate th
e missing kids?
A community comes together to fight back. Yet, the combat is useless against an invisible foe.
But Ivy knows the scent of a predator.
Most of her life has been filled with one horrific event after another. Which is why she started ECHO, dedicating her life to rid the world of those who prey on children.
But despite all of her experiences, nothing can prepare her for the "fun house."
It’s a terror unlike any other.
And that’s when she must decide if clinging to life is worth the hell that she will pay.
Break IN is the fourth Ivy Nash Thriller (Redemption Thriller Series #10). An excerpt is just below.
Excerpt from Break IN
1
Three jolts to my senses punched my eyes open. I was choking on my own spit, my heart peppered my chest like buckshot, and a ceiling fan spun above me—in a place I did not recognize.
Sprawled out on a hard floor, I couldn’t feel my fingers, hands, or any part of my arms. I couldn’t tell if my arms were still attached to my torso. Had my arms been severed?
I grunted out a breath and rocked my head left and right. All that did was slingshot my mind into a staggering frenzy of dizziness. The blades of the fan suddenly multiplied by two, then three. I forced my eyes shut for a couple of seconds. Even in semi-darkness, I couldn’t find my bearings. It was as if I were spinning out of control, falling into a black abyss. “Stop!” I yelled, my voice sounding like I was gargling wet pebbles.
Stop.
I took in a breath, forcing my body to relax just enough to have a logical thought. I realized my arms were draped on the floor above my head. Something sharp pierced through the numbness at my fingertips. “Ow!” I lifted my arms and slowly brought them to my side, eliciting a flurry of stabbing pricks into my fingers and hands.
Something hard pressed against the palm of my hand. I opened my eyes, my head still spinning. I closed my hand. Even with my arm on fire, tingling like I’d been shocked with a cattle prod, I could feel a handle. Focus. Looking down toward my hand, I saw something protruding upward, but I couldn’t make it out. I groaned out of frustration, my chest lifting and falling at a faster clip.
I closed one eye, hoping to diminish my mental twister.
It worked. Is that a…?
I released the object. It clanged off the floor.
It was a knife. A fucking knife! Why was I holding a weapon?
I flinched, shifting my body away from the weapon, my senses suddenly taking in everything around me. The floor was smooth, maybe linoleum. Blood flow returned to my hands. My fingers brushed against denim. I was wearing jeans and a soft, cotton T-shirt.
The stench of blood invaded my nostrils. I closed my eyes for a quick second, and a shudder ran through me. “Wh…what did I do?” I whispered. I looked again at the knife. It was coated in blood, as was my thumb, which I must have cut a moment earlier. On the knife I could see staggered serrations closer to the handle, which had grooves for fingers. The blade must have been six inches long.
A breath caught in my throat. What was I doing with a knife in my hand? And where the hell was I? I glanced around the room. Wood paneling, bookshelves, a couch against the wall. Nothing looked familiar.
How did I get here?
I brought a hand to my cheek and felt a stinging sensation. Gently, I probed the source—three gashes about two inches in length.
“Fingernails,” I whispered to myself, trying to recall if I’d been in a fight. Nothing concrete came to mind.
A bit more lucid, I looked to the adjoining room. A light flickered through a partially open door.
I wanted to call out. But at the same time, I wanted to hide. Fear enveloped my body.
2
I heard laughter just above the din of the grinding fan. I was still lightheaded. I knew I couldn’t stand, not without falling over.
Curiosity overcame my anxiety, and I pushed myself onto my hands and knees. I nearly fell back over. My knees felt like they’d been hit with a hammer. Gingerly, I moved around the knife as if it were a rattlesnake, ready to lurch forward and stab its fangs into my neck, injecting me with a poison that would kill me in minutes.
I trudged forward. Each time a knee touched the floor—a dingy gray, coated with cat hair and litter—pain shot through my kneecap. I crawled as if I were on a bed of nails. But I couldn’t stop. I had to find out where I was, what had happened. I crawled three more careful steps until I reached the doorway. I peered into the other room. An old console TV sat just beyond an enormous recliner. On top of the console was a box with blinking lights. A police scanner?
My eyes then focused on the TV screen. A man was laughing, moving around in front of colorful curtains. A crowd hooted and hollered at his jokes. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place a name. I rubbed a palm into my eyes. Even with the dizziness dialed back, a mental fog clung to my mind like a wet blanket.
I moved into the room. A shag carpet relieved some of the pressure on my knees. More furniture from the 1980s, all shades of brown and orange. My eyes landed on the back side of the enormous recliner again. It was a faded brown with chew marks all along the bottom flaps of fabric.
Another two feet forward, and a ticking clock brought my eyes to the far wall. A brass pendulum swung back and forth. I quickly pulled my eyes away from the repetitive motion, hoping to avoid more dizzy spells. A framed print hung next to the clock. In red letters, it said: The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth.
I blinked, and a sense of déjà vu washed over me. That phrase meant something…to me, to the world. A quick flash of me in a courtroom, holding my hand on a Bible, uttering those words to a bailiff. I was about to testify in a trial. Memories cracked through my mental haze. I’d been a special investigator for Texas Child Protective Services. I could see the long sideburns on a cocky bastard sitting at the defense table, giving me the eye, trying to intimidate me. He was a dad to a four-year-old girl. And he was a fucking monster. He’d abused her for at least that past year, and with this trial, he would not only lose his rights as a parent, but hopefully also his freedom. He would be a convicted felon.
Back to the here and now, I sucked in a breath. The smell of copper loomed heavily in the air. I saw an opening to another room in the corner, next to a small table. The adjoining room was dark, but that had to be the way out of this…home.
Where were the owners?
I pushed that question and a hundred others to the back of my mind and trudged ahead on my hands and knees, moving past the back of the hulking chair.
As I did so, something on the chair caught my attention. A limp hand draped over the arm of the chair.
My body went cold.
Break IN Now Available on Amazon
Break IN, the fourth Ivy Nash Thriller (Redemption Thriller Series #10), is now available to order on Amazon: http://smarturl.it/IvyNashBreakIN
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John W. Mefford Bibliography
Redemption Thriller Series
The Alex Troutt Thrillers
AT Bay (Book 1)
AT Large (Book 2)
AT Once (Book 3)
AT Dawn (Book 4)
AT Dusk (Book 5)
AT Last (Book 6)
The Ivy Nash Thrillers
Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3 (RTS
7-9)
IN Defiance (Book 7)
IN Pursuit (Book 8)
IN Doubt (Book 9)
Break IN (Book 10)
IN Control (Book 11)
IN The End (Book 12)
The Ozzie Novak Thrillers
ON Edge (Book 13)
Game ON (Book 14)
ON The Rocks (Book 15)
Shame ON You (Book 16)
ON Fire (Book 17)
ON The Run (Book 18)
Other Thriller Series
The Booker Series
BOOKER – Streets of Mayhem (Volume 1)
BOOKER – Tap That (Volume 2)
BOILERMAKER – A Lt. Jack Daniels / Booker Mystery (Volume 2.5)
BOOKER – Hate City (Volume 3)
BOOKER – Blood Ring (Volume 4)
BOOKER – No Más (Volume 5)
BOOKER – Dead Heat (Volume 6)
The Greed Series
FATAL GREED (Greed Series #1)
LETHAL GREED (Greed Series #2)
WICKED GREED (Greed Series #3)
GREED MANIFESTO (Greed Series #4)
Ivy Nash, Book 1, 2, and 3
Copyright © 2017 by John W. Mefford
All rights reserved.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book (not just the sample) and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 74