Now You Die - Roxanne St. Claire Page 0,1

He pulled out something white and square. “I want to show you a picture.”

She lifted her chin. “Of what?”

“Not what. Who.” He turned the white square over.

At first all she saw was green and red, a blur of ornaments, a sparkle of tinsel. Then her eyes focused. And welled with tears.

The child was tiny, fair, doe-eyed…and about six years old.

“Your daughter.”

One of them. The thought steeled her. She still knew something he didn’t: two more daughters had been born that dark night on a rural road up in Holly Hill.

She tore her hungry gaze from the picture, determined not to let him see what it did to her. “What about her?”

“She’s recently been adopted.”

She’d been adopted six years ago. Illegally, but adopted. “How recently?”

“Less than a month, since someone…” He raised a brow to underscore just who that might be. “…saved her from the foster home system and took her under his protective wing.”

He had her? In his own home? Envy and fury whipped through her. It was bad enough he’d trapped her in this hell, but he had one of the girls? She forced a shrug. “Why are you telling me this?”

“A simple, straightforward warning, Eileen.” He pocketed the picture. “If you decide to get chatty with anyone, she won’t see next year’s Christmas tree. And now that you know who controls the appeals process, you shouldn’t waste her life like that.”

“I’m wasting mine instead.”

He grinned. “Exactly. And let’s keep it that way…Leenie.”

The nickname was intentional. A way for him to remind her that he spoke directly for her former lover, the son of a bitch who made her give up her most precious gift and then, as if that weren’t enough, framed her for murder.

He left without another word and Eileen dropped onto the thin mattress.

One of six on the court of appeals already. He ultimately planned to get to the top, and everything was aligned to get him there including the necessary family connections.

As long as she rotted in Camp Camille for a murder he’d committed. And she would, for that child in the picture and her two sisters.

But…what if…someday, a long time from now, those girls sought the truth? What if one of them turned out to be her guardian angel who would drop down from above and demand that the world know she was innocent? Then he’d be forced to confess his crimes. Someday…

Eileen closed her eyes to indulge in the fantasies that kept her alive, but all she could do was sob with regret and remorse and the empty heart of a mother who loved her daughters so much, she gave up her life for them.

There was no such thing as a guardian angel. Only the devil, and he had all the power.

CHAPTER ONE

Astor Cove, New York
The Hudson River Valley
Late Summer, 2008

LUCY SHARPE WOKE to the sound of gunfire. Steady. Distant. Infuriating.

She rolled out of bed and strode to the window, totally naked, completely awake, and royally pissed. Who the hell was taking target practice at three in the morning?

She peered at the training compound a half mile away, a few security lights casting yellow circles around the perimeter, but otherwise dark. Only one man had the nerve to do something like this.

Jack Culver. A master at worming his way into places he didn’t belong.

She resisted looking at the empty bed behind her. Instead, she scooped up her satin drawstring pajama pants and stepped into them, then yanked the matching camisole over her head.

As she flipped her hair out from underneath the thin fabric, she snagged her G-23, checked the magazine, then headed out of her room. Barefoot, armed, and riled enough to scare the crap out of that son of a bitch, she padded down the long, dark hallway that separated her private living quarters from the rest of the ten-thousand-square-foot mansion.

At the top of the stairs, she paused at the library doors, considering a change in plans. Most nights when she couldn’t sleep, she fought the demons by working, coordinating the resources of her successful security and investigation firm and focusing on problems she could solve. Present-day problems, not ancient ones that were out of her control.

But tonight wasn’t most nights. And the demons weren’t in her head, they were in her compound. One demon, anyway.

And this one was staying at the Bullet Catchers’ guesthouse, invading the Bullet Catchers’ war room, and infiltrating her carefully constructed, perfectly organized, highly efficient world. And using her firing range as his personal playground in the