Prologue
“I don’t believe you, Alexa. I won’t believe you.” Georgia Fixx crossed her arms in a defensive gesture. “You never liked Owen, so now you want to turn him into a villain. God sakes, we’ve hardly been married any time at all, and you’re telling me to divorce him. He’s my husband—and he’s not a monster.”
Alexa Chase drummed her fingers on the steering wheel of her Honda Accord. Her idea had been to get her sister out of the city, somewhere she could be certain they were alone. But in retrospect, a late-night drive might not have been the best choice. “I didn’t say Owen was a monster. I said he was a criminal. He works for a man named James Mockerie, who imports drugs and exports weapons. I found the proof, Georgia.”
“By sneaking and snooping and playing on his son’s affections.”
Alexa twitched away a pang of guilt and regret. She had used Owen’s son; however, the cause had been justified. Did she feel like slime for having done it? Absolutely. But God help her, look what she’d discovered.
“The FBI had no business approaching you.” Georgia glowered at her. “And you had no business helping them. Spying for them. Stealing for them.”
“I took books and codes, passwords and disks. Evidence of Owen’s involvement in Mockerie’s organization, which, by the way, is vast. I handed that information over to the FBI.” Alexa negotiated the next curve at a higher-than-normal speed. She tended to drive fast in the desert outside Las Vegas in any case, so given the circumstances, she simply took her mood out on the road.
“There’s an animal!” Georgia shouted, bracing.
Alexa swerved to avoid a jackrabbit.
“You drive like a maniac.” Her sister’s reproach ended on a pout that was pure Georgia. “How do you know Owen wasn’t forced to work for Mockingbird?”
“Mockerie. The truth of his involvement was in the evidence I discovered. Your husband is a willing participant, always has been.” Alexa softened her tone. “He also had three wives before you.”
“So he made wrong choices. Who cares? We all do it. Fourth time lucky, then.”
“They’re dead, Georgia.”
“What?” Genuine shock flitted across her sister’s features, followed swiftly by denial. “No. You’re lying. Or mistaken. Or…something.” She grabbed the sides of her hair, tugged hard. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I want you to be safe. To live. Not to wind up like his three other wives.”
“You work for him. Shouldn’t that…? I mean, how can you…? Oh, hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. I do know Owen would never try to kill me. You’re insane for thinking that. You’re also driving way too fast.”
“I know.” Sighing, Alexa touched the brake. When nothing happened, she pressed down harder. “Shit!”
“I agree.” Georgia sulked. She refolded her arms in defiance. “You’re a mean sister to do this to me.”
Alexa looked ahead, then behind, then at the winding desert road. “The brakes are gone,” she said. “Dammit, they’re totally gone.” Had they been gone before? Maybe. They’d felt a bit spongy after she and Georgia had left the city.
Georgia scowled. “How can the brakes be gone? You just had the car tuned up.”
Alexa downshifted. The engine screamed, but the car only slowed a little.
They were on a long slope, she realized. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and the air she breathed felt like fire in her lungs. She tried the emergency brake. Nothing happened.
She wouldn’t panic, she promised herself. It wasn’t in her nature to overreact in any case. But how the hell could she slow the car when they were flying downhill?
“This isn’t funny, Alexa.” Grabbing the edges of her seat, Georgia planted her spiky heels on the floor mat. “You’re going to get us both killed.”
“I’m actually trying really hard not to do that.” The tires squealed as Alexa took another corner. She couldn’t execute a shift or a one-eighty turn without the brakes. All she had right then were the automatic gears and a fleeting hope that the road would level off before she careened out of control.
“Slow down!” Georgia shouted. Her voice was high and tight, her tears audible. “You’re doing this on purpose to prove a point. Except I still don’t believe you about Owen, so please stop playing stupid games.” She hitched a shuddering breath. “You are playing games, right?”
“No.” Swearing, Alexa set her teeth and geared down again.
The back end of the car swung out. Georgia shrieked, and the road blurred, then suddenly, miraculously, leveled off.
Alexa geared down one last time and brought the car to a sliding halt. As her senses continued to scramble, she noticed that the front end was less than six inches from the edge of an unbarricaded canyon.
Still clutching the steering wheel, she let her head fall back against the headrest. “Holy crap.”
Her thoughts settled, slowly. Prying her fingers loose, she forced herself to breathe normally. To breathe at all.
She exhaled. Her phone. She needed to find it. Had to call someone. Her contact at the FBI. She had his numbers programmed, work and personal.
“I can’t move, Alexa.” Her sister seemed unable to make her lips form the words. “Everything’s frozen.”
“We’re all right,” Alexa told her. “Not dead, anyway.” It took her a moment to locate the phone inside her Kate Spade bag. While she searched, she heard Georgia gasp.
“Car, car. Car!” She pointed. “We’re still moving!”
Feeling the movement, Alexa whipped around in her seat. “Get out,” she said. Then she felt a bump behind them and she grabbed Georgia’s wrist. “Wait. It’s okay. We were moving backward, not forward. The rear bumper is pressed against the rock wall. We’re good.” For the moment, she added silently.
It amazed her that her hands didn’t shake as she speed-dialed her FBI contact’s number.
“Jamieson,” a man’s voice answered. “Is this Alexa Chase?”
“What? Yes. I’m—my sister and I are…” She combed her fingers through her hair, regrouped. “I need to talk to Agent Marshall.”
“Marshall’s dead, Ms. Chase. He was shot and killed this afternoon in his Arlington condo. Are you intact?”
“No, yes.” Get past the shock, she ordered herself. “The brakes on my car failed. I’m—I don’t know where I am exactly. North of Las Vegas. My sister’s with me.”
“Get out of the car,” Jamieson said tightly. “Get out of sight. Don’t let yourselves be seen. I’m sending help. Look for an amber light. Intermittent signal. Two flashes, one flash, then three. Repeated. Do you understand?”
Alexa glanced at Georgia, stricken and silent beside her. “Yes.” Gripping the phone harder, she asked, “Is Fixx behind this? Did he kill Marshall?”
“Him or James Mockerie. At the moment, I’m going with Fixx. Get off the road.”
Reaching over, Alexa shoved her sister’s door open. “We need to move, Georgia. Now!”
“I don’t want to go.” Georgia’s lower lip wobbled. “I want Owen. Except…” She turned imploring eyes to her sister. “Do something, Alexa. Please.”
“Don’t let anyone see you,” Jamieson repeated. “We’ll get you out of there ASAP, but you need to understand. You and your sister are marked women. And marked in the world of Fixx and Mockerie means you’re targets. From this moment on, Ms. Chase, you and Georgia Fixx are officially dead.”
…
There was nothing Owen Fixx disliked more than being woken from a sound sleep. Six hours minimum, no interruptions—that was his credo. Lately, he’d been running at about 30 percent.
“What?” he demanded after the third ring of his cell phone.
“We damaged the brake line on Alexa Chase’s car.”
The man on the other end sounded tense. Never a good sign in Owen’s opinion. “From the tone of your voice, I’ll speculate that your attempt at sabotage failed. She’s still alive.”
“She’s a better driver than we figured. Or crazier. We lost her. Car was empty by the time we found it. Plenty of rock formations in the area. They could have hidden anywhere in the dark.”
Putting the phone on speaker, Owen donned his burgundy silk robe. “You’re not making me happy here.”
“She was with her sister, Mr. Fixx.”
Owen gave the remark a moment’s thought. He hadn’t yet grown tired of Georgia when Alexa Chase had done her nasties and turned traitor on him. He’d estimated another six months to a year of play from his fourth wife’s feisty nature before he would have been forced to eliminate her. However, business came first and his business was lorded over by an extremely vicious man.
James Mockerie didn’t take failure well—not for long at any rate. Screw-ups usually resulted in slow death. Torture was his candy, and Owen had been witness to the languorous consumption of it numerous times in the past.
“Get Alexa Chase,” he told his man. “If her sister’s with her when she dies, we’ll consider her collateral damage.”
“Are you…?”
“Get Alexa Chase.” Owen enunciated each word. “Set up a team. Devise a solid plan. Fuck up again, and heads will roll.”
“I know. We’ll get her, sir.”
The man sounded both frightened and determined. Which was how Owen liked his people to be. Cause them to cringe too much, and they became ineffective. On the other hand, battles needed to be fought and won before they escalated into full-blown wars. War meant Mockerie, and his interference was something Owen preferred to avoid.
“I’ll do what needs to be done on my end,” Owen said. “Make sure you call me with better news next time.” He disconnected before the man could reply.
Open-ended threats worked for him. Owen’s people knew he’d kill anyone who screwed him in a blink. Which was a merciful ending, all things considered.
Owen Fixx was a man who considered matters very thoroughly before he acted. At least on a professional level.
Picking up his phone, he punched in a number. Whatever the cost emotionally and/or financially, he intended to avoid any unnecessary forays into hell. Not that the idea of meeting the devil frightened him. In his opinion, Lucifer was merely a weak shadow cast by a much more virulent being. A man known in the West Coast drug and weapons world as James Mockerie.