Deadly Lies

by Cynthia Eden

  “Your psych sessions will start soon.” Because Hyde knew the truth.

  Quinlan Malone was crazy. There’d been no remorse from him in the courtroom. No empathy for the victims. The guy didn’t seem to get that he’d actually done something wrong.

  And four days ago, they’d caught him in his cell cutting his upper arms with a shiv.

  The guards would have to watch Malone. The longer he was in there, the more desperate he’d become.

  “And if you ever do get out,” Hyde said, watching as Quinlan shifted quickly from foot to foot. “You won’t have a damn thing waiting on you.” They’d recovered all the money from the kidnappings before the trial. Quinlan had kept the cash at one of Malone’s rental houses, a little place on Sycamore Lane. A house that had smelled of bleach and death, but that had been stuffed with a fortune.

  “My brother will be waiting!” Quinlan snarled.

  Waiting to kill you. Hyde knew about that threat. There wasn’t anything that happened in the SSD that he didn’t know about. Hyde turned away.

  “Peter and Jeremy were in on it,” Quinlan’s voice was nearly lost beneath the catcalls.

  Hyde paused and glanced back.

  “Didn’t realize that, did you?” Quinlan’s smile held a cocky edge. “Why do you think it was so easy to take them from the bars? Pete just walked right out with Veronica. He thought it was a great damn joke, and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on some of his trust fund money.”

  Peter Hollings. He’d been sent back to his family in pieces. Hyde stared at Quinlan and kept his expression blank. “If Peter was in on the kidnapping, why’d you kill him?”

  “Because his dumbass father wouldn’t pay.” Quinlan shrugged. “I told Pete that he’d die if the old man didn’t pay. But, damn, you should’ve heard the way he started screaming when I pulled out my knife.”

  Because Peter hadn’t realized just how deadly serious Quinlan had been. Easy prey—he used his own friends.

  “And poor Jeremy,” Quinlan shook his head. “He was so sure his father would pay for him. Jeremy already had that cash spent in his mind. He was heading back to Europe.”

  But he’d just gone to the grave. “And what about the others?”

  Quinlan grinned. “Those assholes just pissed me off. I figured I’d give them a little payback.”

  Sick sonofabitch. “Guess you’re the one getting that payback now.” Life in Wallens Ridge State Prison. This time, Hyde let the icy façade melt, and he knew his disgust showed when Quinlan stiffened.

  Then because there was no more to say, Hyde turned away.

  He walked back toward the warden. Hyde didn’t usually follow the criminals to their cells after conviction, but this time, he’d made an exception.

  A man who should’ve had it all now had nothing.

  One more killer off the streets. More victims buried in the ground. Not a fair score sheet. Not even close.

  Not yet. But, God willing, soon.

  We’ll stop them.

  Because he’d made a promise a long time ago. A promise to a girl that he hadn’t seen in over thirty years.

  The sunlight hit him when he walked out of the prison. So hot and clear. Hyde stopped just outside and pulled out his wallet. He glanced down and stared at the grainy photo.

  Some promises time broke. Other promises, the soul kept.

  I won’t give up.

  His daughter had been missing for so long, but one day, dammit, one day, he’d find the man who’d taken her away. And Hyde would make sure that the bastard paid.

  Because he’d be damned if he let the monsters win.

  Two brilliant agents. One dream team.

  Please turn this page for an excerpt from the sizzling first book in the series

  Deadly Fear

  Available now.

  CHAPTER Two

  So… are we gonna talk about it?”

  Monica froze at the deep voice. Her notes were spread in front of her, the shade on her window firmly closed—because she really hated to fly—and with only about ten minutes left on the private flight, it looked like Dante had decided to get chatty.

  Great.

  “I mean… we’re gonna be working together, and we can’t pretend the past didn’t happen….”

  Sure they could. She spent most of her days shoving the memories of her past away.

  Carefully, Monica set down her pen. Then she lifted her gaze. Dante sat across from her, his long legs spread out, taking up too much room. He’d changed before they left, thankfully gotten rid of the blood, and now he wore loose khakis and a button-down shirt.

  Over the years, she’d tried not to think about Dante. Tried to pretend the fling with him hadn’t happened.

  Tried and failed really, really well.

  “Like what you see?” The words came out of his mouth sounding like some kind of sensual purr.

  Asshole.

  And, dammit, yes. Luke Dante was sex, he was power, and he was temptation.

  A temptation she hadn’t been able to resist when she was twenty-two. But one she would ignore now.

  Tall, muscled, with bright emerald eyes and sun-streaked blond hair, Dante was a southern boy with charm and a dimple in his chin.

  A long, thin scar marred his right cheek. She’d been there the day he got that scar. The mark didn’t detract from Dante’s looks. No, the scar just made him look all the more dangerous.

  She stared at him, trying to be detached. A strong jaw, wide lips, slightly twisted nose—he shouldn’t have been handsome.

  But he was.

  No, not handsome. Sexy.

  Dammit.

  Monica cleared her throat. “The past is over, Dante.” They’d been over this before, when he’d made the mistake of tracking her down. Serious mistake. “We’re professionals, we can—”

  “Pretend we never had sex? Pretend we didn’t nearly tear each other apart because we were so fucking hungry those nights?”

  Her heart thumped hard enough to shake her chest.

  He smiled at her, flashing his white teeth. “Don’t know if I’m that good at pretending, Ice.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She hated that nickname. The jerks she’d been in training with had tagged her with it. No one understood.

  Control—control mattered. But she’d sure lost control with him.

  Dante was her one mistake over the years. The one slip that had broken past the walls she’d worked so hard to erect.

  Ice.

  All the agents had been given names in their class.

  Dante had been called Devil. The guy liked to take risks, to push boundaries. A devil who didn’t care about being cautious. How were you supposed to resist the devil?

  His name hadn’t stuck, though. Hers had.

  Monica sucked in a hard breath and deliberately relaxed her fingers. “Long time ago, Dante. And I don’t deal in the past.” Wrong. She’d spent years running from her past. “I focus on the present.” As much as possible. She held his stare and knew that her face would be expressionless.

  She’d practiced that. Ice.

  So, okay, maybe she’d helped a little bit with that nickname. But being cold kept the others away, and it could be dangerous when someone got too close.

  Straightening her shoulders, she said, “I’m the senior agent here, and I’m not looking to screw around.” Too dangerous. “We’re on a case. We work together because that’s what we have to do in order to get the job done.” Simple. Flat.

  Dante didn’t so much as blink.

  “Now, are you going to have a problem with that? Because, if so, it won’t be too hard to send your butt back to Atlanta.” Total bullshit now. Like she had that kind of power.

  Hyde wanted Dante on his team. He’d been adamant about him. He’d even overridden her objections, and the guy usually listened to her opinions about people. Not this time.

  A muscle flexed along Dante’s jaw. Perfectly shaven now, but she’d seen him at dawn, seen the rough stubble that—r />
  “No problem, ma’am,” the title was a sardonic taunt. “I can do my job just fine.” A pause.

  “Good.”

  “Can you?”

  Monica ground her teeth together. “Trust me, Dante, it won’t be an issue for me.” Liar, liar…

  She could still remember all too well what the man looked like naked.

  And what he felt like.

  She swallowed.

  Leaving him before had nearly ripped her apart, but there hadn’t been a choice. The man was a weakness, one she couldn’t afford.

  “Prepare for descent.” A male voice broke over the intercom system. “Buckle your safety belts. We’ll be arriving in Jasper…”

  Monica caught the belt in her hands as the rest of the pilot’s words washed right past her. Snap.

  If Dante handled his first SSD case right, she’d be working with him, every day and all those nights, for a long time to come.

  Shot down. Luke blew out a slow breath. He could handle it. A case waited. Victims. He could focus and get the job done.

  THE DISH

  Where authors give you the inside scoop!

  From the desk of Hope Ramsay

  Dear Reader,

  Picture, if you will, a little girl in a polka-dot bathing suit, standing on a rough board jutting out over the waters of the Edisto River in South Carolina. She’s about six years old, and standing below her in the chest-high, tea-colored water is a tall man with a deep, deep Southern drawl—the kind that comes right up out of the ground.

  “Jump, little gal,” the man says. “I’ll catch you.”

  The little girl was me. And the man was my Uncle Ernest. And that memory is one of those touchstone moments that I go back to again and again. My uncle wanted me to face my fear of jumping into the water, but he was there, big hands outstretched, steady, sturdy, and sober as a judge. He was the model of a man I could trust.

  I screwed up my courage and took that leap of faith. I jumped. He caught me. He taught me to love jumping into the river and swimming in those dark, mysterious waters, overhung with Spanish moss and sometimes visited by snakes and gators!

  I loved Uncle Ernest. He was my favorite uncle. He’s been gone for quite a while now, but I think of him often, and he lives on in my heart.

  There is even a little bit of him in Clay Rhodes, the hero of my debut novel, WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE. Jane, the heroine of the story, has to learn that Clay is the type of guy she can always trust. A guy she can take a leap of faith with. A guy who will always be there to catch her, even when she has to face her biggest fears.

  And isn’t love all about taking a leap of faith?

  I had such fun writing WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE, because it afforded me the opportunity to go back in time and remember what it was like spending my summers in a little town in South Carolina with folks who were like Uncle Ernest—people who made up a village where a child could grow up safe and sound and learn what makes a life meaningful.

  I hope you enjoy meeting the characters in Last Chance, South Carolina, as much as I enjoyed writing them.

  Y’all take care now,

  www.hoperamsay.com

  From the desk of Cynthia Eden

  Dear Reader,

  Have you ever wondered how far you would go to protect someone you loved? What would you do if the person you loved was in danger?

  Love can make people do wild, desperate things… and love can certainly push people to cross the thin line between good and evil.

  When I wrote DEADLY LIES, I created characters who would be forced to blur the lines between good and evil. Desperate times can call for desperate measures.

  The heroine of this book is a familiar face if you’ve read the other DEADLY books. Samantha “Sam” Kennedy was first introduced in DEADLY FEAR. Sam lived through hell, and she’s now fighting to put her life back on track. She knows what evil looks like, and she knows that evil can hide behind the most innocent of faces. So when Sam is assigned to work on a serial kidnapping case, she understands that she has to be on her guard at all times.

  But when the kidnapper hits too close to home and her lover’s stepbrother is abducted, the rules of the game change. Soon Sam fully understands just how “desperate” the victims are feeling, and she vows to do anything in her power to help Max Ridgeway find his brother.

  Anything. Yes, desperation can even push an FBI agent to the edge of the law. Lucky for Sam, she’ll have backup ready to help her out—all of the other SSD agents are back to help track the kidnappers, and they won’t stop until the case is closed.

  I’ve had such a wonderful time revisiting my SSD agents in this book. And I hope you enjoying catching up with the characters too!

  If you’d like to learn more about my books, please visit my website at www.cynthiaeden.com.

  Happy reading!

  From the desk of Robyn DeHart

  Dear Reader,

  There have always been certain things that fascinate me—the heinous crimes of Jack the Ripper; why cats get up, turn around, then settle back into the exact position they were just in; people who can eat only one Oreo cookie; and the ancient legend of the Loch Ness monster. Recorded sightings of the creature date all the way back to the seventh century, and not all of these sightings have been water-based—there are those who claim to have seen the monster walking on land.

  Regardless of what you believe, it’s interesting to think that there just might be some prehistoric animal hiding in a loch in the Highlands. It was this interest that compelled me to write TREASURE ME.

  Another interesting tidbit about this book is that it was actually the first romance novel I ever wrote. Okay, that’s not entirely true, but the concept of a couple who fall in love near Loch Ness, centered around adventure and action and danger, well, that was all in that first book—even the characters’ names stayed the same. But I didn’t keep anything else. When it came to the third book in my Legend Hunters trilogy, I took my basic concept and started from scratch.

  If you’ve read SEDUCE ME and DESIRE ME (the first two books in the series), then you might remember meeting Graeme, the big, brooding Scotsman who looks and sounds remarkably like Gerard Butler. Graeme has been after the authentic Stone of Destiny for years, because he believes the one sitting in Westminster is a counterfeit. He’s gone back to his family’s home in the Highlands to do some research, and meets with trouble in the form of a delectable, self-proclaimed paleontologist named Vanessa. She’s just run away from her own wedding and is determined to make a name for herself as a legitimate scientist.

  Add in a marriage of convenience, a deadly nemesis, and some buried treasure and you’ve got yourself a rollicking adventure full of intrigue and seduction that will leave you as breathless as the characters.

  Dare to love a Legend Hunter…

  Visit my website, www.RobynDeHart.com, for contests, excerpts, and more.

  Enjoy!

  From the desk of Kira Morgan

  Dear Reader,

  It’s easy to write about a match made in heaven. Cinderella meets Prince Charming, they fall in love at first sight, and they live happily ever after.

  But for my latest book, SEDUCED BY DESTINY, I wanted to take on the challenge of star-crossed lovers, characters like Romeo and Juliet—a man and a woman cursed by fate and thrown together by chance, who have to overcome their tragic history to find true love.

  In SEDUCED BY DESTINY, set in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, Josselin Ancrum and Andrew Armstrong each have a dark secret in their past and deadly peril looming in their future. They have little in common. They should avoid each other like the plague.

  She’s Scottish. He’s English.

  She likes to stir up trouble. He likes to fly under the radar.

  She’s a tavern wench who loves to play with swords. He’s an expert swordsman who’d rather play golf.

  Her mother was killed in battle.

  His father was the one who killed her.

  Talk about Fortune�
��s foe…

  All this would be fine if only they hadn’t started falling in love. If they hadn’t felt that initial spark of attraction… if they hadn’t begun to enjoy one another’s company… if they hadn’t succumbed to that first kiss… their story might be a simple tale of revenge.

  But Drew and Jossy, unaware of the fateful ties between them, are drawn to one another like iron to a magnet. And by the time they discover they’ve fallen in love with their mortal enemy, it’s too late. Their hearts are already tangled in a hopeless knot.

  This is where it gets even more interesting.

  To make matters worse, outside forces are working to drive them apart. What began as a personal mission of vengeance now involves their friends, their families, and ultimately their queens. Suspected of treason, hunted by spies, they become targets for royal assassins.

  The uneasy truce between Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary is mirrored in the fragile relationship between Drew and Jossy. The lovers are swept into a raging battle bigger than the both of them—a battle that shakes the foundation of their union and threatens their very lives.

  Only the strength of their fateful bond and the power of their love can save them now.

  Of course, unlike Romeo and Juliet, Drew and Jossy will triumph. Nobody wants to read a historical romance with an unhappy ending! But just how they manage to overcome all odds, when their stars are crossed and the cards are stacked against them, is the stuff of nail-biting high adventure and a story that I hope will keep you up all night.

  To read an excerpt from SEDUCED BY DESTINY, peruse my research photos, and enter my monthly sweepstakes, visit my website at www.glynnis.net/kiramorgan. If you’d like to read my daily posts and interact with other fans, become my friend at www.facebook.com/KiraMorganAuthor or follow me at www.twitter.com/kira_morgan.

  Happy adventures!

  Table of Contents