Книга - Law And Disorder

Law And Disorder
Heather Graham


Trust the enemy? Desperate to escape her kidnappers, Kody Cameron can turn to only one man…and he's holding a gun. Nick Connolly is undercover when Kody is taken hostage, and the two have a passionate past…he can’t let her blow his cover but he can’t let her die either!







Trust the enemy?

Desperate to escape her kidnappers, Kody Cameron can turn to only one man…and he’s holding a gun. Outnumbered and trapped in the deadly Everglades, she has little recourse, but something in this captor’s eyes makes her believe she can trust him. Does she dare to take the risk?

Undercover agent Nick Connolly has met Kody before and knows she might very well blow his cover. Though determined to maintain his facade, he can’t let Kody die. He won’t. And his decision to change his own rules of law and order are about to make all hell break loose.

The Finnegan Connection


They were still in danger—very real, serious danger. And yet, she felt ridiculously attracted to him.

They’d both been hot, covered in swamp water, tinged with long grasses…

Her flesh was burned and scratched and raw…And she was still breathing!

Was that it? She had survived. He had been a captor at first, and now he was a savior. Did all of this mess with the mind? Was she desperate to lean on the man because there was really something chemical and physical and real between them, or was she suffering some kind of mental break, brought on by all that had happened?

“Come on!” he urged her.

And they began to move again, deep into the swamp. She felt his hand on hers. And she felt a strange burning sensation…

Even as she shivered.


Law and Disorder

Heather Graham






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author HEATHER GRAHAM has written more than a hundred novels. She’s a winner of the RWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the International Thriller Writers’ Silver Bullet. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. For more information, check out her website: www.theoriginalheathergraham.com (http://www.theoriginalheathergraham.com). You can also find Heather on Facebook.


For Kathy Pickering, Traci Hall and Karen Kendall

Great and crazy road trips

Florida’s MWA and FRA…

And my magnificent state, Florida


Contents

Cover (#u4d3bbc7a-40dc-573d-8a91-181903215e90)

Back Cover Text (#u534dc932-c6b6-50cc-b7de-e390b093950b)

Introduction (#u261dab1f-9557-59d4-8c0f-573bd5721a57)

Title Page (#u61a22aec-4a39-5225-a4dc-92c240936f1f)

About the Author (#ube8bedb0-b4df-5e08-9e86-1d1d7fcaacca)

Dedication (#u0c342088-b153-5d9e-a731-e937e69698a7)

Chapter One (#ulink_64eaba83-80fe-5098-b3e5-6e35b3210a0d)

Chapter Two (#ulink_7e1a02ce-666b-5487-898f-65e71c106e8c)

Chapter Three (#ulink_1fbd4e3e-7c07-5706-80db-c380b762fc51)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter One (#ulink_2d1f4fd1-7dfc-51b9-83ec-33fba64c5cba)

Dakota Cameron was stunned to turn and find a gun in her face. It was held by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a hoodie and a mask. The full-face rubber mask—like the Halloween “Tricky Dickie” masks of Richard Nixon—was familiar. It was a mask to denote a historic criminal, she thought, but which one?

The most ridiculous thing was that she almost giggled. She couldn’t help but think back to when they were kids; all of them here, playing, imagining themselves notorious criminals. It had been the coolest thing in the world when her dad had inherited the old Crystal Manor on Crystal Island, off the Rickenbacker Causeway, between Miami and South Beach—despite the violence that was part of the estate’s history, or maybe because of it.

She and her friends had been young, in grammar school at the time, and they’d loved the estate and all the rumors that had gone with it. They hadn’t played cops and robbers—they had played cops and gangsters, calling each other G-Man or Leftie, or some other such silly name. Because her father was strict and there was no way crime would ever be glorified here—even if the place had once belonged to Anthony Green, one of the biggest mobsters to hit the causeway islands in the late 1940s and early 1950s—crime of any kind was seen as very, very bad. When the kids played games here, the coppers and the G-men always won.

Because of those old games, when Kody turned to find the gun in her face, she felt a smile twitching at her lips. But then the large man holding the gun fired over her head and the sign that bore the name Crystal Manor exploded into a million bits.

The gun-wielder was serious. It was not, as she had thought possible, a joke—not an old friend, someone who had heard she was back in Miami for the week, someone playing a prank.

No. No one she knew would play such a sick joke.

“Move!” a husky voice commanded her.

She was so stunned at the truth of the situation, the masked man staring at her, the bits of wood exploding around her, that she didn’t give way to the weakness in her knees or the growing fear shooting through her. She simply responded.

“Move? To where? What do you want?”

“Out of the booth, up to the house, now. And fast!”

The “booth” was the old guardhouse that sat just inside the great wrought-iron gates on the road. It dated back to the early years of the 1900s when pioneer Jimmy Crystal had first decided upon the spit of high ground—a good three feet above the water level—to found his fishing camp. Coral rock had been dug out of nearby quarries for the foundations of what had then been the caretaker’s cottage. Over the next decade, Jimmy Crystal’s “fishing camp” had become a playground for the rich and famous. The grand house on the water had been built—pieces of it coming from decaying castles and palaces in Europe—the gardens had been planted and the dock had slowly extended out into Biscayne Bay.

In the 1930s, Jimmy Crystal had mysteriously disappeared at sea. The house and grounds had been swept up by the gangster Anthony Green. He had ruled there for years—until being brought down by a hail of bullets at his club on Miami Beach by “assailants unknown.”

The Crystal family had come back in then. The last of them had died when Kody had been just six; that’s when her father had discovered that Amelia Crystal—the last assumed member of the old family—had actually been his great-great-great-aunt.

Daniel Cameron had inherited the grandeur—and the ton of bills—that went with the estate.

“Now!” the gun wielder said.

Kody was amazed that her trembling legs could actually move.

“All right,” she said, surprised by the even tone of her voice. “I’ll have to open the door to get out. And, of course, you’re aware that there are cameras all over this estate?”

“Don’t worry about the cameras,” he said.

She shrugged and moved from the open ticket window to the door. In the few feet between her and the heavy wooden door she tried to think of something she could do.

How in the hell could she sound the alarm?

Maybe it had already been sounded. Crystal Manor was far from the biggest tourist attraction in the area, but still, it was an attraction. The cops were aware of it. And Celestial Island—the bigger island that led to Crystal Island—was small, easily accessible by boat but, from the mainland, only accessible via the causeway and then the bridge. To reach Crystal Island, you needed to take the smaller bridge from Celestial Island—or, as with all the islands, arrive by boat. If help had been alerted, it might take time for it to get here.

Jose Marquez, their security man, often walked the walled area down to the water, around the back of the house and the lawn and the gardens and the maze, to the front. He was on his radio at all times. But, of course, with the gun in her face, she had no chance to call him.

Was Jose all right? she wondered. Had the gunman already gotten to him?

“What! Are you eighty? Move!”

The voice was oddly familiar. Was this an old friend? Had someone in her family even set this up, taunting her with a little bit of reproach for the decision she’d made to move up to New York City? She did love her home; leaving hadn’t been easy. But she’d been offered a role in a “living theater” piece in an old hotel in the city, a part-time job at an old Irish pub through the acting friend who was part owner—and a rent-controlled apartment for the duration. She was home for a week—just a week—to set some affairs straight before final rehearsals and preview performances.

“Now! Get moving—now!” The man fired again and a large section of coral rock exploded.

Her mind began to race. She hadn’t heard many good things about women who’d given in to knife-or gun-wielding strangers. They usually wound up dead anyway.

She ducked low, hurrying to the push button that would lower the aluminum shutter over the open window above the counter at the booth. Diving for her purse, she rolled away with it toward the stairway to the storage area above, dumping her purse as she did so. Her cell phone fell out and she grabbed for it.

But before she could reach it, there was another explosion. The gunman had shot through the lock on the heavy wooden door; it pushed inward.

He seemed to move with the speed of light. Her fingers had just closed around the phone when he straddled over her, wrenching the phone from her hand and throwing it across the small room. He hunkered down on his knees, looming large over her.

There wasn’t a way that she was going to survive this! She thought, too, of the people up at the house, imagining distant days of grandeur, the staff, every one of which adored the house and the history. Thought of them all...with bullets in their heads.

With all she had she fought him, trying to buck him off her.

“For the love of God, stop,” he whispered harshly, holding her down. “Do as I tell you. Now!”

“So you can kill me later?” she demanded, and stared up at him, trying not to shake. She was basically a coward and couldn’t begin to imagine where any of her courage was coming from.

Instinctual desperation? The primal urge to survive?

Before he could answer there was a shout from behind him.

“Barrow! What the hell is going on in there?”

“We’re good, Capone!” the man over her shouted back.

Capone?

“Cameras are all sizzled,” the man called Capone called out. She couldn’t see him. “Closed for Renovation signs up on the gates.”

“Great. I’ve got this. You can get back to the house. We’re good here. On the way now!”

“You’re slower than molasses!” Capone barked. “Hurry the hell up! Dillinger and Floyd are securing the house.”

Capone? As in “Al” Capone, who had made Miami his playground, along with Anthony Green? Dillinger—as in John Dillinger? Floyd—as in Pretty Boy Floyd?

Barrow—or the muscle-bound twit on top of her now—stared at her hard through the eye holes in his mask.

Barrow—as in Clyde Barrow. Yes, he was wearing a Clyde Barrow mask!

She couldn’t help but grasp at hope. If they had all given themselves ridiculous 1930’s gangster names and were wearing hoodies and masks, maybe cold-blooded murder might be avoided. These men may think their identities were well hidden and they wouldn’t need to kill to avoid having any eye witnesses.

“Come with me!” Barrow said. She noted his eyes then. They were blue; an intense blue, almost navy.

Again something of recognition flickered within her. They were such unusual eyes...

“Come with me!”

She couldn’t begin to imagine why she laughed, but she did.

“Wow, isn’t that a movie line?” she asked. “Terminator! Good old Arnie Schwarzenegger. But aren’t you supposed to say, ‘Come with me—if you want to live’?”

He wasn’t amused.

“Come with me—if you want to live,” he said, emphasis on the last.

What was she supposed to do? He was a wall of a man, six-feet plus, shoulders like a linebacker.

“Then get off me,” she snapped.

He moved, standing with easy agility, reaching a hand down to her.

She ignored the hand and rose on her own accord, heading for the shattered doorway. He quickly came to her side, still holding the gun but slipping an arm around her shoulders.

She started to shake him off.

“Dammit, do you want them to shoot you the second you step out?” He swore.

She gritted her teeth and allowed the touch until they were outside the guardhouse. Once they were in the clear, she shook him off.

“Now, I think you just have to point that gun at my back,” she said, her voice hard and cold.

“Head to the main house,” he told her.

The old tile path, cutting handsomely through the manicured front lawn of the estate, lay before her. It was nearing twilight and she couldn’t help but notice that the air was perfect—neither too cold nor too hot—and that the setting sun was painting a palette of colors in the sky. She could smell the salt in the air and hear the waves as they splashed against the concrete breakers at the rear of the house.

All that made the area so beautiful—and, in particular, the house out on the island—had never seemed to be quite so evident and potent as when she walked toward the house. Jimmy Crystal had not actually named the place for himself; he’d written in his old journal that the island had seemed to sit in a sea of crystals, shimmering beneath the sun. And so it was. And now, through the years, the estate had become something glimmering and dazzling, as well. It sat in homage to days gone by, to memories of a time when the international city of Miami had been little more than a mosquito-ridden swamp and only those with vision had seen what might come in the future.

She and her parents had never lived in the house; they’d stayed in their home in the Roads section of the city, just north of Coconut Grove, where they’d always lived. They managed the estate, but even in that, a board had been brought in and a trust set up. The expenses to keep such an estate going were staggering.

While it had begun as a simple fishing shack, time and the additions of several generations had made Crystal Manor into something much more. It resembled both an Italianate palace and a medieval castle with tile and marble everywhere, grand columns, turrets and more. The manor was literally a square built around a center courtyard, with turrets at each corner that afforded four tower rooms above the regular two stories of the structure.

As she walked toward the sweeping, grand steps that led to the entry, she looked around. She had heard one of the other thugs, but, at that moment, she didn’t see anyone.

Glancing back, she saw that a chain had been looped around the main gate. The gate arched to fifteen feet; the coral rock wall that surrounded the house to the water was a good twelve feet. Certainly not insurmountable by the right law-enforcement troops, but, still, a barrier against those who might come in to save the day.

She looked back at her masked abductor. She could see nothing of his face—except for those eyes.

Why were they so...eerily familiar? If she really knew him, if she had known him growing up, she’d have remembered who went with those eyes! They were striking, intense. The darkest, deepest blue she had ever seen.

What was she thinking? He was a crook! She didn’t make friends with crooks!

The double entryway doors suddenly opened and she saw another man in its maw.

Kody stopped. She stared at the doors. They were really beautiful, hardwood enhanced with stained-glass images of pineapples—symbols of welcome. Quite ironic at the moment.

“Get her in here!” the second masked man told the one called Barrow.

“Go,” Barrow said softly from behind her.

She walked up the steps and into the entry.

It was grand now, though the entry itself had once been the whole house built by Jimmy Crystal when he had first fallen in love with the little island that, back then, had been untouched, isolated—a haven only for mangroves and mosquitos. Since then, of course, the island—along with Star and Hibiscus islands—had become prime property.

But the foyer still contained vestiges of the original. The floor was coral rock. The columns were the original columns that Jimmy Crystal had poured. Dade country pine still graced the side walls.

The rear wall had been taken down to allow for glass barriers to the courtyard; more columns had been added. The foyer contained only an 1890’s rocking horse to the right side of the double doors and an elegant, old fortune-telling machine to the left. And, of course, the masked man who stood between the majestic staircases that led to the second floor at each side of the space.

She cast her eyes around but saw no one else.

There had still been four or five guests on the property when Kody had started to close down for the day. And five staff members: Stacey Carlson, the estate manager, Nan Masters, his assistant, and Vince Jenkins, Brandi Johnson and Betsy Rodriguez, guides. Manny Diaz, the caretaker, had been off the property all day. And, of course, Jose Marquez was there somewhere.

“So, this is Miss Cameron?” the masked man in the house asked.

“Yes, Dillinger. This is Miss Cameron,” Barrow said.

Dillinger. She was right—this guy’s mask was that of the long-ago killer John Dillinger.

“Well, well, well. I can’t tell you, Miss Cameron, what a delight it is to meet you!” the man said. “Imagine! When I heard that you were here—cuddle time with the family before the final big move to the Big Apple—I knew it was time we had to step in.”

The man seemed to know about her—and her family.

“If you think I’m worth some kind of ransom,” she said, truly puzzled—and hoping she wasn’t sealing her own doom, “I’m not. We may own this estate, but it’s in some kind of agreement and trust with the state of Florida. It survives off of grants and tourist dollars.” She hesitated. “My family isn’t rich. They just love this old place.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Daddy is an archeologist and Mom travels with him. Right now they’re on their way back from South America so they can head up north with their baby girl to get her all settled into New York City. Yes! I have the prize right here, don’t I?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kody told him. “I wish I could say that someone would give you trillions of dollars for me, but I’m not anyone’s prize. I’m a bartender-waitress at an Irish pub who’s struggling to make ends meet as an actress.”

“Oh, honey,” Dillinger said, “I don’t give a damn if you’re a bad actress.”

“Hey! I never said I was a bad actress!” she protested. And then, of course, she thought that he was making her crazy—heck, the whole situation was making her crazy—because who the hell cared if she was a bad actress or a good actress if she wasn’t even alive?

Dillinger waved a hand in the air. “That’s neither here nor there. You’re going to lead us to the Anthony Green stash.”

Startled, Kody went silent.

Everyone, of course, had heard about the Anthony Green stash.

Green was known to have knocked over the long-defunct Miami Bank of the Pioneers, making off with the bank’s safe-deposit boxes that had supposedly contained millions in diamonds, jewels, gold and more. It was worth millions. But Anthony Green had died in a hail of bullets—with his mouth shut. The stash was never found. It had always been suspected that Anthony Green—before his demise—had seen to it that the haul had been hidden somewhere in one of his shacks deep in the Everglades, miles from his Biscayne Bay home.

Rumor followed rumor. It was said that Guillermo Salazar—a South American drug lord—had actually found the stash about a decade ago and added a small fortune in ill-gotten heroin-sales gains to it—before he, in turn, had been shot down by a rival drug cartel.

Who the hell knew? One way or the other, it was supposedly a very large fortune.

She didn’t doubt that Salazar had sold drugs; the Coast Guard in South Florida was always busy stopping the drug trade. But she sure as hell didn’t believe that Salazar had found the Green stash at the house, because she really didn’t believe the stash was here.

Chills suddenly rose up her spine.

If she was supposed to find a stash that didn’t exist here...

They were all dead.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

“Safe,” Dillinger said.

“Safe where?”

No one answered Kody. “Where?” she repeated.

“They’re all fine, Miss Cameron.”

It was the man behind her—Barrow—who finally spoke up. “Dillinger, she needs to know that they’re all fine,” he added.

“I assure you,” Dillinger continued. “They’re all fine. They’re in the music room.”

The music room took up most of the left side of the downstairs. It would be the right place to hold a group of people.

Except...

Someone, somewhere, had to know that something was going on here. Surely one of the employees or guests had had a chance to get out a cell phone warning.

“I want to see them,” she said. “I want to see that everyone is all right.”

“Listen, missy, what you do and don’t want doesn’t matter here. What you’re going to do for us matters,” Dillinger told her.

“I don’t know where the stash is. If I did, the world would have known about it long ago,” she said. “And, if you know everything, you surely know that history says Anthony Green hid his bank treasure in some hut somewhere out in the Everglades.”

“She sure as hell isn’t rich, Dillinger,” Barrow said. “Everything is true—she’s taken a part-time job because what she’s working is off-off Broadway. If she knew about the stash, I don’t think she’d be slow-pouring Guinness at an old pub in the city.”

Dillinger seemed annoyed. Kody was, in fact, surprised by what she could read in his eyes—and in his movements.

“No one asked your opinion, Barrow,” Dillinger said. “She’s the only one who can find it. I went through every newspaper clipping—she’s loved the place since she was a kid. She’s read everything on Jimmy Crystal and Anthony Green and the mob days on Miami Beach. She knows what rooms in this place were built what years, when any restoration was done. She knows it all. She knows how to find the stash. And she’s going to help us find it.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Kody said. “You can get out now. No one knows who you guys are—the masks, I’ll grant you, are good. Well, they’re not good. They’re cheap and lousy masks, but they create the effect you want and no one here knows what your real faces look like. Pretty soon, though, walls or not, cops will swarm the place. Someone will come snooping around. Someone probably got something out on a cell phone.”

She couldn’t see his face but she knew that Dillinger smiled. “Cell phones? No, we secured those pretty quickly,” he said. “And your security guard? He’s resting—he’s got a bit of a headache.” He shook his head. “Face it, young lady. You have me and Barrow here. Floyd is with your friends, Capone is on his way to help, and the overall estate is being guarded by Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly and our concept of modern security and communication and, you know, we’ve got good old Dutch—as in Schultz—working it all, too. I think we’re good for a while. Long enough for you to figure out where the stash is. And, let’s see, you are going to help us.”

“I won’t do anything,” she told him. “Nothing. Nothing at all—not until I know that my friends and our guests are safe and that Jose isn’t suffering from anything more than a headache.”

Not that she’d help them even then—if she even could. The stash had been missing since the 1930s. In fact, Anthony Green had used a similar ruse when he had committed the bank robbery. He’d come in fast with six men—all wearing masks. He’d gotten out just as fast. The cops had never gotten him. They’d suspected him, but they’d never had proof. They’d still been trying to find witnesses and build a case against him when he’d been gunned down on Miami Beach.

But her demands must have hit home because Dillinger turned to Barrow. “Fine. Bring her through.”

He turned to head down the hallway that led into the music room—the first large room on the left side of the house.

It was a gorgeous room, graced with exquisite crown molding, rich burgundy carpets and old seascapes of famous ports, all painted by various masters in colors that complemented the carpet. There was a wooden dais at one end of the room that accommodated a grand piano, a harp, music stands and room for another three or four musicians.

There were sofas, chairs and love seats backed to all the walls, and a massive marble fireplace for those times when it did actually get cold on the water.

Kody knew about every piece in the room, but at that moment all she saw was the group huddled together on the floor.

Quickly searching the crowd, she found Stacey Carlson, the estate manager. He was sixty or so with salt-and-pepper hair, old-fashioned sideburns and a small mustache and goatee. A dignified older man, he was quick to smile, slow to follow a joke—but brilliant. Nan Masters was huddled to his side. If it was possible to have platonic affairs, the two of them were hot and heavy. Nothing ever went on beyond their love of Miami, the beaches and all that made up their home. Nan was red-haired, but not in the least fiery. Slim and tiny, she looked like a cornered mouse huddled next to Stacey.

Vince Jenkins sat cross-legged on a Persian rug that lay over the carpet, straight and angry. There was a bruise forming on the side of his face. He’d apparently started out by fighting back.

Beside him, Betsy Rodriguez and Brandi Johnson were close to one another. Betsy, the tinier of the two, but by far the most out-there and sarcastic, had her arm around Brandi, who was nearly six feet, blond, blue-eyed, beautiful and shy.

Jose Marquez had been laid on the largest love seat. His forehead was bleeding, but, Kody quickly saw, he was breathing.

The staff had been somewhat separated from the few guests who had remained on the property, finishing up in the gardens after closing. She couldn’t remember all their names but she recalled the couple, Victor and Melissa Arden. They were on their honeymoon, yet they’d just been in Texas, visiting the graves of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in their separate cemeteries. They loved studying old gangsters, which was beyond ironic, Kody thought now. Another young woman from Indiana, an older man and a fellow of about forty rounded out the group.

They were all huddled low, apparently respecting the twin guns carried by another man in an identity-concealing mask.

“Kody!” Stacey said, breathing out a sigh of relief. She realized that her friends might have been worrying for her life.

She turned to Dillinger. “You’d better not hurt them!”

“Hurt them?” Dillinger said. “I don’t want to hurt any of you, really. Okay, okay, so, quite frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass. But Barrow there, he’s kind of squeamish when it comes to blood and guts. Capone—my friend with the guns—is kind of rabid. Like he really had syphilis or rabies or something. He’d just as soon shoot you as look at you. So, here’s my suggestion.” He paused, staring Cody up and down. “You find out what I need to know. You come up to that library—and you start using everything you know and going through everything in the books, every news brief, every everything. You find that stash for me. Their lives depend on it.”

“What if I can’t find it?” she asked. “No one has found this stash in eighty-plus years!”

“You’d better find it,” Dillinger said.

“Help will come!” Betsy said defiantly. “This is crazy—you’re crazy! SWAT teams aren’t but a few miles away. Someone—”

“You’d better hope no one comes,” Dillinger said. He walked over to hunker down in front of her. “Because that’s the whole point of hostages. They want you to live. They probably don’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other, either, but that’s what they’re paid to do. Get the hostages out alive. But, to prove we mean business, we’ll have to start by killing someone and tossing out the body. And guess what? We like to start with the big-mouths, the wise-asses!”

He reached out to Betsy and that was all the impetus Kody needed. She sure as hell wasn’t particularly courageous but she didn’t waste a second to think. She just bolted toward Dillinger, smashing into him with such force that he went flying down.

With her.

He was strong, really strong.

He was up in two seconds, dragging her up with him.

“Why you little bitch!” he exclaimed as he hauled his arm back, ready to slam a jaw-breaking fist into her face.

His hand never reached her.

Barrow—with swift speed and agility—was on the two of them. She felt a moment of pain as he wrenched her out of Dillinger’s grasp, thrusting himself between them.

“No, Dillinger, no. Keep the hostages in good shape. This one especially! We need her, Dillinger. We need her!”

“Bitch! You saw her—she tackled me.”

“We need her!”

The hostages had started to move, scrambling back, restless, frightened, and Capone shoved someone with the butt of his gun.

Barrow lifted his gun and shot the ceiling.

Plaster fell around them all like rain.

And the room went silent.

“Let’s get her out of here and up to the library, Dillinger. Dammit, now. Come on—let’s do what we came here to do!” he insisted. “I’m into money—not a body count.”

Kody felt his hand as he gripped her arm, ready to drag her along.

Dillinger stared at him a long moment.

Was there a struggle going on? she wondered. A power play? Dillinger seemed to be the boss, but then Barrow had stepped in. He’d saved her from a good beating, at the least. She couldn’t help but feel that there was something better about him.

She was even drawn to him.

Oh, that was sick, she told herself. He was a crook, maybe even a killer.

Still, he didn’t seem to be as bloodthirsty as Dillinger.

Dillinger stepped around her and Barrow, heading for the stairs to the library. Barrow followed with her.

“Hey!”

They heard the call when they had nearly cleared the room.

She turned to see Capone standing next to Betsy Rodriguez. He wasn’t touching her; he was just close to her.

He moved his gun, running the muzzle through her hair.

“Dakota Cameron!” he said. “The world—well, your world—is dependent on your every thought and word!”

She started to move toward him but Barrow stopped her, whispering in her ear, “Don’t get them going!”

She couldn’t help herself. She called out to Capone. “You’re here because you want something? Well, if you want it from me, step the hell away from my friend!”

To her surprise, Dillinger started to laugh.

“We’ve got a wild card on our hands, for sure. Come on, Capone. Let’s accommodate the lady. Step away from her friend.”

From behind her, Barrow added, “Come on, Capone. I’m in this for the money and a quick trip out of the country. Let’s get her started working and get this the hell done, huh? Beat her to pieces or put a bullet in her, and she’s worthless.”

“Miss Cameron?” Dillinger said, sweeping an elegant bow to her. “My men will behave like gentlemen—as long as your friends let them. You hear that, right?”

“I can be a perfect gentleman!” Capone called back to him.

“Tell them all to sit tight and not make trouble—that you will manage to get what we want,” Barrow said to her.

She looked at him again.

Those eyes of his! So deep, dark, blue and intense!

Surely, if she really knew him, she’d recognize him now.

She didn’t. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that she did, and that the man she knew wasn’t a criminal, and that she had been drawn to those eyes before.

She shivered suddenly, looking at him.

He didn’t like blood and guts—that’s what Dillinger had said.

Maybe he was a thief, a hood—but hated the idea of being a murderer. Maybe, just maybe, he did want to keep them all alive.

“Hey!” she called back to the huddled group of captives. “I know everything about the house and all about Anthony Green and the gangster days. Just hold tight and be cool, please. I can do this. I know I can do this!”

They all looked at her with hope in their faces.

She gazed at Barrow and said, “They need water. We keep cases of water bottles in the lower cabinet of the kitchen. Go through the music room and the dining room and you’ll reach the kitchen. I would truly appreciate if you would give them all water. It will help me think.”

But it was Dillinger who replied.

“Sure,” he said. “You think—and we’ll just be the nicest group of guys you’ve ever met!”


Chapter Two (#ulink_2cd83a12-c17a-5d7c-9f85-7e98eb0c13f7)

Nick Connolly—known as Barrow to the Coconut Grove crew of murderers, thieves and drug runners who were careful not to share their real names, even with one another—was doing his best. His damned best.

Which wasn’t easy.

Nick didn’t mind undercover work. He could even look away from the drugs and the prostitution, knowing that what he was doing would stop the flow of some really bad stuff onto the city streets—and put away some really bad men.

From the moment he’d infiltrated this gang three weeks ago, the situation had been crazy, but he’d also thought it would work. This would be the time when he could either get them all together in an escape boat that the Coast Guard would be ready to swoop up, or, if that kind of maneuver failed, pick them off one by one. Each of these guys—Dillinger, Capone, Floyd, Nelson, Kelly and Schultz—had killed or committed some kind of an armed robbery. They were all ex-cons. Capone had been the one to believe in Nick’s off-color stories in an old dive bar in Coconut Grove, and as far as Capone knew, Nick had been locked up in Leavenworth, convicted of a number of crimes. Of course, Capone had met Nick as Ted—Ted Johnson had been the pseudonym Nick had been using in South Florida. There really had been a Ted Johnson; he’d died in the prison hospital ward of a knife wound. But no one knew that. No one except certain members of the FBI and the hospital staff and warden and other higher ups at the prison.

None of these men—especially “Dillinger”—had any idea that Nick had full dossiers on them. As far as they all knew, they were anonymous, even with each other.

Undercover was always tricky.

It should have been over today; he should have been able to give up the undercover work and head back to New York City. Not that he minded winter in Miami.

He just hated the men with whom he had now aligned himself—even if it was to bring them down, and even if it was important work.

Today should have been it.

But all the plans he’d discussed with his local liaisons and with Craig Frasier—part of the task force from New York that had been chasing the drug-and-murder-trail of the man called Dillinger from New York City down through the South—had gone to hell.

And the stakes had risen like a rocket—because of a situation he’d just found out about that morning.

Without the aid, knowledge or consent of the others, for added protection, Dillinger had kidnapped a boy right before they had all met to begin their takeover of the Crystal Estate.

It wouldn’t have mattered who the kid was to Nick—he’d have done everything humanly possible to save him—but the kidnapped boy was the child of Holden Burke, mayor of South Beach. Dillinger had assured them all that he had the kid safely hidden somewhere—where, exactly, he wasn’t telling any of them. They all knew that people could talk, so it was safer that only he knew the whereabouts of little Adrian Burke. And not to worry—the kid was alive. He was their pass-go ace in the hole.

That was one thing.

Then, there was Dakota Cameron.

To be fair, Nick didn’t exactly know Kody Cameron but he had seen her—and she had seen him—in New York City.

And the one time that he’d seen her, he’d known immediately that he’d wanted to see her again.

And now, here they were. In a thousand years he’d never imagined their second meeting would be like this.

No one had known that Dillinger’s game plan ended with speculation—the vague concept that he could kidnap Dakota, take her prisoner—and hope she could find the stash!

Dillinger planned the heists and the drug runs; he worked with a field of prostitution that included the pimps and the girls. He had South American contacts. No one had figured he’d plan on taking over the old Crystal Estate, certain that he could find a Cameron family member who knew where to find the old mob treasure.

So, now, here he was—surprised and somewhat anxious to realize that the lovely young brunette with the fascinating eyes he’d brushed by at Finnegan’s on Broadway in New York City would show up at the ticket booth at a Florida estate and tourist attraction.

Craig Frasier, one of the main men on the task force Director Egan had formed to trace and track “Dillinger,” aka Nathan Appleby, along the Eastern seaboard, spent a lot of time at Finnegan’s. The new love of his life was co-owner, along with her brothers, of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old pub in downtown Manhattan.

Nick and Kody Cameron had passed briefly, like proverbial ships in the night, but he hadn’t had the least problem recognizing her today. He knew her, because they had both paused to stare at one another at the pub.

Instant attraction? Definitely on his part and he could have sworn on hers, too.

Then she’d muttered some kind of swift apology and Craig’s new girlfriend, who’d come over to greet them, explained, “That’s Kody Cameron. She’s working a living theater piece with my brother. Sounds kind of cool, right? And she’s working here part-time now, making the transition to New York.”

“What’s living theater?” Nick had asked Kieran Finnegan.

“Kevin could tell you better than me,” she had explained, “but it’s taking a show more as a concept than as a structured piece and working with the lines loosely while interacting with the audience as your character.”

Whatever she did, he’d hoped that he’d see her again; he’d even figured that he could. While Kieran Finnegan actually worked as a psychologist and therapist for a pair of psychiatrists who often came in as consultants for the New York office of the Bureau, she was also often at Finnegan’s. And since he was working tightly with Craig and his partner, Mike, and a cyber-force on this case, he’d figured he’d be back in Finnegan’s, too. But then, of course, Dillinger had come south, met up with old prison mates Capone, Nelson, Kelly, Floyd and Schultz, and Nick—who had gone through high school in South Florida and still had family in the area—had been sent down to infiltrate the gang.

The rest, as the saying went, was history.

Now, if Dakota Cameron saw his face, if she gave any indication that she knew him, and knew that he was an FBI man...

They’d both be dead.

And it didn’t help the situation that she was battle ready—ready to lay down her life for her friends.

Then again, there should have been a way for him to stop this. If it hadn’t been for the little boy who had been taken...

He had to find out where the kid was. Had Dillinger stashed him with friends or associates? Had he hidden him somewhere? It wasn’t as hard to hide somewhere here as one would think, with the land being just about at sea level and flat as a pancake. There were enough crack houses and abandoned tenements. Of course, Nick was pretty sure Dillinger couldn’t have snatched the kid at a bus station, hidden him wherever, and made it to the estate at their appointed time, if he had gone far.

But that knowledge didn’t help much.

Nick’s first case when he’d started with the Bureau in the Miami offices had been finding the truth behind the bodies stuffed in barrels, covered with acid and tossed in the Everglades.

He refused to think of that image along with his fear for the child; the boy was alive. Adrian Burke wouldn’t be worth anything in an escape situation if he was dead.

Nick wiped away that thought and leaned against the door frame as he stood guard over Kody. Capone was now just on the other side of the door.

Like the entire estate, the library was kept in pristine shape, but it also held an air of fading and decaying elegance, making one feel a sense of nostalgia. The floors were marble, covered here and there by Persian throw rugs, and built-in bookshelves were filled with volumes that appeared older than the estate itself, along with sea charts and more.

Kody Cameron had a ledger opened before her, but she was looking at him. Quizzically.

It seemed as if she suspected she knew him but couldn’t figure out from where.

“You’re not as crazy as the others,” she said softly. “I can sense that about you. But you need to do something to stop this. That treasure he’s talking about has been missing for years and years. God knows, maybe it’s in the Everglades, swallowed up in a sinkhole. You don’t want to be a part of this—I know you don’t. And those guys are lethal. They’ll hurt someone...kill someone. This is still a death penalty state, you know. Please, if you would just—”

He found himself walking over to her at the desk and replying in a heated whisper, “Just do what he says and find the damned treasure. Lie if you have to! Find something that will make Dillinger believe that you know where the treasure is. Give him a damned map to find it. He won’t think twice about killing people, but he won’t kill just for the hell of it. Don’t give him a reason.”

“You’re not one of them. You have to stop this. Get away from them,” she said.

She was beautiful, earnest, passionate. He wanted to reassure her. To rip off his mask and tell her that law enforcement was on it all.

But that was impossible, lest they all die quickly.

He had to keep his distance and keep her, the kidnapped child and the others in the house alive.

Capone was growing curious. He left his post at the archway and walked in. “Hey. What’s going on here? Don’t interrupt the woman, Barrow. I want to get the hell out of here! I’ve done some wild things with Dillinger, but this is taking the cake. Makes me more nervous than twenty cartel members in a gunboat. Leave her be.”

“Yeah. I’m going to leave her be. And she’s going to come up with something,” Barrow said.

He’d barely spoken when Schultz came rushing in. While Capone knew how to rig a central box and stop cameras and security systems, Schultz was an expert sharpshooter. He was tall and thin, not much in the muscles department, but Nick had seen him take long shots that were just about impossible.

“News is out that we’re here,” he said. “Cops are surrounding the gates. I fired a few warning shots and Dillinger answered the phone—told them we have a pack of hostages. You should see them all out there at the gates,” he added, his grin evident in his voice. “They look like a pack of chickens. Guess they’re calling for a hostage negotiator. Dillinger is deciding whether to give them a live one or a body.”

Kody Cameron stood. “They give him a body and I’m done. If he gives them one body, it won’t make any difference to him if he kills the rest of us.”

“And just how far are you getting, sweet thing?” Schultz asked, coming close to her. He reached out to lift the young woman’s chin.

Nick struggled to control himself. Hell, she wasn’t just a captive. Not just someone he had to keep alive.

She worked for Finnegan’s. She was connected to Kevin Finnegan and Kieran Finnegan—and therefore, to Craig Frasier.

And he noticed her the first time he’d ever seen her. Known that he’d wanted to see her again.

He’d never imagined it could be in this way.

For a moment he managed to keep his peace. But, damn her, she just had to react. Schultz cradled her face and she stepped back and pushed his hand away.

“Hey, hey, hey, little girl. You don’t want to get hurt, do you? Be nice.”

Nick stepped up, swinging Schultz around.

“Leave her alone, dammit. We’re here for a reason.”

“What? Are you sweet on her yourself?” Schultz asked him, his tone edgy. “You think this is merchandise you keep all for yourself?”

“I’m not merchandise!” Kody snapped.

“I want her to find what Dillinger wants, and I want to get the hell out of here!” Nick said. He was as tall as Schultz; he had a lot more muscle and he was well trained. In a fair fight, Schultz wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

There were no fair fights here, he reminded himself. He had to keep an even keel.

“Leave her alone and let her get back to work,” he said. “Get your mind on the job to be done here.”

“Shouldn’t you be up in one of the front towers?” Capone asked Schultz. “Isn’t that your job in all this?”

Schultz gave them all a sweeping and withering glare. Then he turned and left.

Capone was staring at Nick. “Maybe you should get your mind on the job, too, Barrow,” he suggested.

“And you,” Nick added softly.

Capone continued to stare at him.

It went no further as Dillinger came striding into the room. He ignored Capone and Nick and walked straight to the desk and Kody.

“How long?” he asked her.

“How long? You’re asking me to do something no one has managed in decades,” Kody said.

“You’re got two hours,” Dillinger said. “Two hours. They’re bringing in a hostage negotiator. Don’t make me prove that I will kill.”

“I’m doing my best,” Kody said.

“Where’s the phone in this room?” Dillinger asked.

“On the table by the door, next to the Tiffany lamp,” Kody said.

“What the hell is a Tiffany lamp?” Dillinger demanded, leaning in on Kody.

“There. Right there, boss,” Nick said, pointing out the elegant little side table with the lamp and the white trim-line phone. He walked over to it and saw that the volume was off.

“Ready for calls,” he told Dillinger.

“Good. We’ll manage it from here. Capone, get on down and help Nelson with the hostages. Schultz is in the eagle’s seat in the right tower. Floyd’s in the left. And we’ve got our good old boy, our very own private Machine Gun Kelly, in the back. Don’t trust those hostages, though. I’m thinking if we have to get rid of a few, we’ll be in better shape.”

“No, we won’t be,” Nick said flatly. “You hurt a hostage, it tells the cops that they’re not doing any good with negotiation. We have to keep them believing they’re getting everyone back okay. That’s the reason they’ll hold off. If they think we’re just going to kill people, they’ll storm us, figuring to kill us before we kill the hostages. That’s the logic they teach, trust me,” Nick told Dillinger.

Dillinger shrugged, looking at the phone. “Well, we’ll give them a little time, if nothing else. So, Miss Cameron, just how are you doing?”

Dakota Cameron looked up and stared at Dillinger, then cocked her head at an angle. “Looking for a needle in a haystack?” she asked. “I’m moving some hay out of the way, but there’s still a great deal to go. You do realize—”

“Yes, yes,” Dillinger said impatiently. “Yes, everyone has looked for years. But not because their lives were at stake. You’re holding so many precious souls in your hands, Miss Cameron. I’m just so sure that will help you follow every tiny lead to just where the treasure can be found.”

“Well, I’ll try to keep a clear head here,” she said. “At the moment, my mind is not hampered with grief over losing anyone, and you really should keep it that way. I mean, if you want me to find out anything for you.”

Nick wished he could have shut her up somehow; he couldn’t believe she was taunting a man who was half-crazy and holding the lives of so many people in his hands.

He had to admire her bravado—even as he wished she didn’t have it.

But Dillinger laughed softly beneath his mask.

“My dear Miss Cameron, you do have more balls than half the men I find myself working with!” Dillinger told her. “Excellent—if you have results. If you don’t, well, it will just make it all the easier to shut you up!”

She wasn’t even looking at Dillinger anymore. She’d turned her attention back to the journal spread open before her.

“Let me work,” she said softly.

Dillinger grunted. He took a seat in one of the chairs by the wall of the library, near the phone.

Nick walked to the windows, looking out at the gardens in the front of the house, the driveway and—at a distance—the wall and the great iron gates that led up to the house.

More and more cars were beginning to arrive—marked police cars, unmarked cars belonging to the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies.

He wondered how Dillinger could believe he might get out of this alive.

And then he wondered just how the hell any of them were going to get out alive.

The phone began to ring. Dakota Cameron jumped in her chair, nearly leaping from it.

Nick nearly jumped himself.

Dillinger rose and picked up the phone. “Hello? Dillinger here. How can I help you? Other than keeping the hostages alive... Let’s see, how can you help me? Well, I’ll begin to explain. Right now, everyone in the house is breathing. We have some employees, we have some guests... What we want is more time, really good speed boats—cigarettes or Donzis will do. Now, of course, we need a couple because a few of these good people will be going with us for just a bit when we leave. We’ll see to it that you get them all back alive and well as long as we get what we want.”

Nick wished he was on an extension. He wanted to hear what was being said.

He saw Dillinger nod. “How bright of you to ask so quickly! Yes, there is a missing child, too, isn’t there? An important little boy—son of a mayor! Ah, well, all children are important, aren’t they...? Mr. Frasier? Ah! Sorry, Special Agent Frasier. FBI. They’ve brought in the big guns. Let’s go with this—right now, I want time. You give me some time and you arrange for those boats. To be honest, I’m working on a way to give you back that kid I scooped up. Not a bad kid, in the least. I liked him. I’d hate for him to die of neglect, caged and chained and forgotten. So, you work on those boats.”

Nick saw Dakota Cameron frown as she’d heard the name Frasier. Not that Frasier was a rare name, but Kody was good friends with Kevin Finnegan and therefore friends with his sister Kieran—and so she knew Craig. She had to be puzzled, wondering first if he was indeed the same man a friend was dating and, if so, what he was doing in South Florida.

She looked up from her ledger. She was staring at Dillinger hard, brows knit in a frown.

A moment later Dillinger set the receiver back in the cradle. He seemed to be pleased with himself.

“You kidnapped a child?” she asked.

“I like to have a backup plan,” Dillinger said.

“You have all of us.”

“Yes. But, hey, maybe nobody cares about any of you. They will care about a kid.”

“Yep, they will,” Nick interrupted. “But I think they need to believe in us, too. Hey, man, you want time for Miss Cameron to find the treasure, the stash, or whatever might be hidden? If we’re going to buy that time, we need to play to them. I say we give them the security guard. He needs medical attention. Best we get him out of here. An injured hostage is just a liability. Let’s give him up as a measure of good faith.”

“Maybe,” Dillinger said. He looked at Kody. “How are you doing?”

“I’d do a lot better if you didn’t ask me every other minute,” she said. “And,” she added softly, “if I wasn’t so worried about Jose.”

“Who the hell is Jose?” Dillinger asked.

“Our security guard. The injured man,” Kody said.

Dillinger glanced restlessly at his watch and then at the phone. “Give them a few minutes to get back to me.”

He walked out of the room, leaving Nick alone with Kody.

“How are you doing?” he asked her.

She shrugged and then looked up at him. “So far, I have all the same information everyone has had for years. Anthony Green robbed the bank, but the police couldn’t pin it on him, couldn’t make an arrest. He wrote in his own journal that it was great watching them all run around like chickens with no heads. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy for anyone to find the stash. What it seems to me—from what I’ve read—is that he did plan on disappearing. Leaving the country. And he was talking about boats, as well—”

She broke off, staring at the old journal she was reading and then flipping pages over.

“What is it?” Nick asked.

She looked up at him, her expression suddenly guarded. He realized that—to her—he was a death-dealing criminal.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I need time.”

“You’ve got time right now. Use it,” he said.

“We need to see some of the hostages out of here—returned to safety,” she said firmly. “In good faith!”

They were both startled by the sound of a gunshot. Then a barrage of bullets seemed to come hailing down on the house.

A priceless vase on a table exploded.

Nick practically flew across the room, leaping over the desk to land on top of Kody—and bring her down to the floor.

The barrage of bullets continued for a moment—and then went silent.

He felt her move beneath him.

He looked down at her. Her eyes were wide on his as she studied him gravely. He hadn’t just been intrigued, he realized. He hadn’t just wanted to see her again.

He’d been attracted to her. Really attracted.

And now...

She was trembling slightly.

He leaped to his feet, drawing her up, pulling her along with him as he raced down the hall to the stairs that led to the right tower where Schultz had been keeping guard.

Nick was pretty damned certain Schultz—a man who was crazy and more than a little trigger happy—had fired the first shots.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

As he did so, Dillinger came rushing along, as well. “What the hell?” he demanded furiously.

“I saw ’em moving, boss. I saw ’em moving!” Schultz shouted down.

The phone started ringing. Nick looked at Dillinger. “Let me take it. Let me see what I can do,” he said.

Dillinger was already moving back toward the library. Nick followed, still clasping Kody’s hand.

When they reached the library, Dillinger stepped back and let Nick answer the phone.

“Hello?” Nick said. “This is Barrow speaking now. We don’t know what happened. We do know that you responded with the kind of violence that’s going to get someone killed. Seriously, do you want everyone in here dead? What the hell was that?”

“Shots were fired at us,” a voice said. “Who is this?”

“I told you. Barrow.”

“Are you the head man?”

Nick glanced over at Dillinger.

“No. I’m spokesman for the head man. He’s all into negotiation. What we want doesn’t have anything to do with a bunch of dead men and women, but that’s what we could wind up with if we don’t get this going right,” Nick said.

“We don’t want dead people,” the voice on the other end assured him.

“We don’t, either,” Nick said.

“Barrow. All right, let’s talk. I think everyone got a little panicky. No one wants anyone to die here today. We’re all working in the same direction, that being to see that everyone gets out alive. Okay?”

Nick knew who was doing the negotiating for the array of cops and FBI and law enforcement just on the other side of the gates.

He was speaking with Craig Frasier. Nick was glad the FBI and the local authorities had gotten it together to make the situation go smoothly. He knew Craig; Craig knew him. There was so much more he was going to be able to do with Craig at the other end.

“How are they doing on my boats?” Dillinger asked, staring at Nick.

“We’re going to need those boats,” Nick said. He needed to give Craig all the information he could about the situation, without making Dillinger suspicious, and he wanted, also, to maintain his position as spokesman for Dillinger.

“Yes, two boats, right?” Craig asked.

“Good ones. The best speedboats you can get your hands on. Now, we’re not fools. You won’t get all the information you need to save everyone until we’re long gone and safe. But, right now, we’re going to give you a man. Security guard. He’s got a bit of a gash on his head. We’re going to bring him out to the front and we’ll see that the gate is opened long enough for one of you to get him out. Do you understand? The fate of everyone here may depend on this nice gesture on our part going well.”

He knew that Craig understood; Nick had really just told him the guard had been the only one injured and that he did need help.

“No one else is hurt? Everyone is fine?”

Craig had to ask to keep their cover. But Nick knew the agent was also concerned for Dakota Cameron. That the Cameron family owned this place—and that Kody was down here—was something Craig must have realized from the moment Dillinger made his move.

“No one is hurt. I’m trying to keep it that way,” Nick assured him, glancing over at Dillinger.

Dillinger nodded. He seemed to approve of how Nick handled the negotiations. There was enough of a low-lying threat in Nick’s tone to make it all sound very menacing, no matter what the words.

“That’s good. Open the gate and we’ll get the man. There will be no attempts to break in on you, no more bullets fired,” Craig said.

Nick looked at Dillinger. Yes? he mouthed.

Dillinger nodded. “Keep an eye on her!”

As he hurried out, Kody stood and started after him, then paused herself, as if certain Nick would have stopped her if she hadn’t. He held the phone and stared at her, wishing he dared tell her who he was and what his part was in all this.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t risk her betraying him.

He covered the mouthpiece on the house phone. “Don’t leave the room.”

“Jose Marquez...” she murmured.

“He’s really letting him go,” Nick said.

She walked over to him suddenly. He was afraid she was going to reach for the mask that covered his face.

She didn’t touch him. Instead she spoke quickly. “You’re not like that. You could stop this. You have a gun. You could—”

“Shoot them all down?” he asked her.

“Wound them, stop this—stop them from killing innocent people. I’d speak for you. I’d see that everyone in court knew that people survived because of you.”

She was moving closer as she spoke—not to touch him, he realized, but to take his gun.

He set the phone down and grabbed her roughly by the wrists.

“Don’t pull this on anyone else. Haven’t you really grasped this yet? They’re trigger happy and crazy. Just do as they say. Just find that damned stash!”

Something in her jaw seemed to be working. She looked away from him.

“You found it already?” he said incredulously. “You have, haven’t you? But that’s impossible so fast!”

She didn’t confirm or deny; she gave no answer. He heard a crackle on the phone line and put it back to his ear. As he did so, he looked out the windows.

Dillinger, wielding a semiautomatic, was leading out two hostages carrying Jose Marquez. They brought him close to the gate, Dillinger keeping his weapon trained on them the entire time.

They left Jose and walked back into the house.

Dillinger followed them.

A second later the gate opened. Police rushed in and scooped up the security guard. They hurried out with him.

The gates closed and locked.

“Barrow! Barrow? Hey, you there?”

“Yes,” Nick replied into the phone.

“We have the security guard. We’ll get him to the hospital. What about the others? Do they need food, water?”

Kody was staring at him. He heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, as well.

Dillinger was back.

“Sit!” he told Kody. “Figure out what we need to do in order to get our hands on that stash.”

To his surprise, she sat. She sat—and had the journal up in her hands before Dillinger returned to the room.

“Well?” Dillinger said to Nick.

Nick spoke into the phone. “We’ve given you the hostage in good faith. We really would like to see that all these good folks live, but, hey, they call bad guys bad guys because...they’re bad. So back away from the gates and start making things happen. What about our boats?”

“I swear, we’re getting you the best boats,” Craig said.

“I want them now,” Dillinger said.

“We need you to supply those boats now,” Nick said, nodding to Dillinger and repeating his demand over the phone. “We need them out back, by the docks, and then we need you and your people to be far, far away.”

“The boats will be there soon,” Craig told Nick.

“Soon? Make that six or seven minutes at most!” he said.

He hoped Craig picked up on the clue. Stressing the word told him there were seven in this merry band of thieves.

“Don’t push it too far!” Nick added. “Maybe we’ll give you to ten or eleven minutes to get it together, but...well, you don’t want hostages to start dying, do you?”

Easy enough. That told him there were eleven hostages, including Dakota Cameron, being held.

Dillinger looked at Nick and nodded, satisfied.

“We’ve got one of the boats,” Craig said. “How do I get my man to bring it around and not get killed or become a hostage himself?” he asked.

“One boat?”

“So far. Getting our hands on what you want isn’t easy,” Craig said. “If we give you that one boat, what do we get?”

“You just got a man.”

“We could find a second boat more quickly if we had a second man—or woman,” Craig said.

They had to be careful; the negotiator’s voice carried on the land line.

Of course, Craig Frasier knew that. He would be careful, but Nick knew that he had to be more so. Dakota could hear Craig, as well.

“Please,” she said softly, “give them Stacey Carlson and Nan Masters. They’re older. They’ll just be like bricks around your neck when you need hostages for cover. Please, let them leave.”

“Please,” Dillinger said, mimicking her plea, “find what I want to know!”

“I might have,” Kody said very softly.

“You might have?”

“Give the cops two more hostages. Give them Stacey and Nan,” she said. “I’ll show you what I think I’ve figured out once you’ve done that. Please.”

Dillinger looked at Nick. “Hey, the lady said please. Let’s accommodate her. Get on the phone and tell them to get the hell away from the gate. We’ll give them two more solid, stand-up citizens.” His eyes narrowed. “But I want my boats. Two boats. And I want them now. No ten minutes. No eleven minutes. I want them now!”

He looked at Kody. She was staring gravely at him.

“We have a present for you,” he told Craig over the phone. “Two more hostages. Only we want two boats. Now. We want them right now.”

“And if we don’t get those boats soon...” Dillinger murmured.

He looked over at Kody.

And his eyes seemed to smile.


Chapter Three (#ulink_81cff991-a629-5ff3-ab07-5e8a78b8087e)

“It’s done. He’s let them go. Three of the hostages. Your security man, Marquez, and the manager and his assistant.”

Kody looked up from the journal she’d been reading.

Concentration had not been an easy feat; men were walking around with guns threatening to kill people. That made her task all the more impossible.

But it was Barrow who had walked in to speak with her. And the news was good. Three of her coworkers were safe.

And she was sure it was Craig Frasier out there doing the negotiating with them on the phone. Craig Frasier. From New York. In Miami.

But then, at Finnegan’s, Kieran had been saying that Craig was going on the road; they’d been tracking a career criminal who’d recently gotten out of prison and was already starting up in NYC, and undercover agents in the city had warned that he was moving south.

Dillinger?

Was Craig Frasier here in Miami after Dillinger?

The masked man with the intense blue eyes was staring at her. She schooled her expression, not wanting to give away any of her thoughts or let on that she knew the negotiator and might know about their leader.

“So what happens now?” she asked. Capone was once again standing just outside the library, near the arched doorway to the room. He was, however, out of earshot, she thought, as long as they spoke softly.

“We need getaway boats. And, of course, Anthony Green’s bank haul stash. How are you doing?” Barrow asked her.

How the hell was she doing?

Maybe—maybe—with days or weeks to work and every bit of reference from every conceivable source, she might have an answer. So far she had found some interesting information about the old gangster, Miami in the mob heyday, and even geography. She’d gone through specs and architectural plans on the house. But she was pretty sure she’d been right from the beginning—the stash was not at the house on Crystal Island. It was in the Everglades—somewhere.

To say that to find something in the Everglades was worse than finding a needle in a haystack was just about the understatement of the year. The Everglades was actually a river—“a river of grass,” as one called it. On its own, it was ever-changing. Man, dams, the surge of sugar and beef plantations from the middle of the state on down, kept the rise and flow eternally moving, right along with nature. There were hammocks or islands of high land here and there. The Everglades also offered quicksand, dangerous native snakes and now, sixty-thousand-plus pythons and boas that had been let loose in the marsh and swamps, not to mention both alligators and, down in the brackish water, crocodiles, as well.

Great place to hide something!

“Well?” Barrow asked quietly.

“I don’t think the stash is here,” she said honestly. “Anthony Green talks about having a shack out in the Everglades. My dad and his University of Miami buddies used to have one. They went hunting—they had their licenses and their permits to take two alligators each. But usually they just went to their shack, talked about school and sports and women—and then shot up beer cans. The shacks were outlawed twenty or thirty years ago. But that didn’t mean the shacks all went down, or that some of the old-timers who run airboat rides or tours off of the Tamiami Trail don’t remember where a lot of them are.”

“So, the stash is in one of the old cabins,” Barrow murmured. “But you don’t know which—or where.” He hesitated. “A place like Lost City?”

Kody stared at the man, surprised. Most of the people she knew who had grown up in the area hadn’t even heard about Lost City.

Lost City was an area of about three acres, perhaps eight miles or so south of Alligator Alley, now part of I-75, a stretch of highway that crossed the state from northwestern Broward County over to the Naples/Ft. Myers area on the west coast of the state. It was suspected that Confederate soldiers had hidden out there after the Civil War, and many historians speculated that either Miccosukee or Seminole Indians had come upon them and massacred them all. Scholars believed it had been a major Seminole village at some point—and that it had been in use for hundreds of years.

But, most important, perhaps, was the fact that Al Capone—the real prohibition era gangster—had used the area to create his bootleg liquor.

She hesitated, not sure how much information to share—and how much to hold close.

Then again, she didn’t have a single thing that was solid.

But...

It was evident he knew the area. Possibly, he’d grown up in South Florida, too. With the millions of people living in Miami-Dade and Broward counties alone, it was easy to believe they’d never met.

And yet, they had.

She knew his eyes.

And she had to believe that, slimy thief that he was, he was not a killer.

Yes, she had to believe it. Because she was depending on him, leaning on him, believing that he was the one who might save them—at the least, save their lives! She had to believe it because...

It wasn’t right.

But, when she looked at him. When he spoke, when he made a move to protect one of them...

There was just something about him. And it made her burn inside and wish that...

Wish that he was the good guy.

“Something like that,” she said, “except there’s another version of the Al Capone distillery farther south. Supposedly, Anthony Green had a spot in the Everglades where he, too, distilled liquor. Near it, he had one of the old shacks. The place is up on an old hammock and, like the Capone site, it was once a Native American village, in this case, Miccosukee.”

“You know where this place is?” Barrow asked her.

“Well, theoretically,” she said with a shrug. “Almost all the Everglades is part of the national parks system, or belonging to either the Miccosukee or the Seminole tribes. But from what I understand, Anthony Green had his personal distillery on a hammock in the Shark Valley Slough—which empties out when you get to the Ten Thousand Islands, which are actually in Monroe County. But I don’t think that it’s far from the observation tower at Shark Valley. There’s a hammock—”

Kody stopped speaking when she noticed him staring down at one of the glass-framed historic notes she had set next to the Anthony Green journal she’d been cross-referencing.

“Chakaika,” he said quietly.

She started, staring at him when he looked up and seemed to be smiling at her.

“A very different leader,” he said. “Known as the ‘Biggest Indian.’ He was most likely of Spanish heritage, with mixed blood from the Creek perhaps, or another tribe that had members flee down to South Florida. Anyway, he was active from the center of the state on down—had his own mix of Spanish and Native American tongues and traded with other Native Americans, but seemed to have a hatred for the whites who wanted to ship the Indians to the west. He attacked the fort and he headed down to Pigeon Key, where he murdered Dr. Henry Perrine—who really was, by all historic record, a cool guy who just wanted to use his plants to find cures for diseases.

“Anyway, in revenge, Colonel Harney disguised himself and his men as Native Americans and brought canoes down after Chakaika, who thought they could not find him in the swamp. But they found a runaway slave of the leader’s who led them right to the hammock where the man lived. They didn’t let him surrender—they shot him and his braves, and then they hanged him. And the hammock became known as Hanging People Kay. I know certain park rangers believe they know exactly where it is.”

Kody lowered her head, keeping silent for a minute. Her parents had been slightly crazy environmentalists. She knew all kinds of trivia about the state and its history. But while most people who had grown up down here might know the capital and the year the territory had become a state or the state bird or motto, few of them knew about Chakaika. Tourists sometimes stopped at the museum heading south on Pidgeon Key where Dr. Henry Perrine had once lived and worked, but nothing beyond that.

“Chakaika,” he said again. “It’s written clearly on the corner of that letter.”

“Yes, well...they found oil barrels sunk in the area once,” she murmured. “They were filled with two of Anthony Green’s henchmen who apparently fell into ill favor with their boss. I know that the rangers out there are pretty certain they know the old Green stomping grounds—just like they know all about Chakaika. The thing is, of course, it’s a river of grass. An entire ecosystem starting up at Lake Kissimmee and heading around Lake Okeechobee and down. Storms have come and gone, new drainage systems have gone in... I just don’t know.”

“It’s enough to give him,” Barrow said. “Enough to make him move.”

Kody leaned forward suddenly. “You don’t want to kill people. You hate the man. So why don’t you shoot him in the kneecap or something?”

“And then Capone would shoot us all,” Barrow said. “Do you really think that I could just gun them all down?”

“No, but you could—”

“Injure a man like that, and you might as well shoot yourself,” he told her. “And, never mind. I have my reasons for doing what I’m doing. There’s no other choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Kody said.

“No,” he told her flatly, “there’s not. So, if you want to keep breathing and keep all your friends alive, as well—”

Dillinger came striding in. “So, Miss Cameron. Where is my treasure?”

“Dammit! Listen to me and believe me! It’s not here, not in the house, not on the island,” she told him. She realized that while she was speaking fairly calmly, she was shivering, shaking from head to toe.

It was Dillinger and Barrow in the room then.

If Dillinger attacked her, what would Barrow do? Risk himself to defend her?

There certainly was no treasure at the house—other than the house itself—to give Dillinger. She’d told him the truth.

“So, where is it?” he demanded.





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