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The Fixer disconnected the call and looked down at the hand clutching the cell phone, noting with annoyance the trembling fingers holding the expensive phone in a tight grip. Breathe, dammit. He’s not dead.
Not yet, anyway.
The Fixer swiped a thumb across the screen of the smartphone and looked at the call log, realizing the last conversation they’d shared was probably shortly before Harrison’s Bugatti Veyron made its acquaintance with the highway’s low guardrail. According to another source on the payroll, a California Highway Patrol officer, the responding officers had few doubts that this was anything but an accident—the Pacific Coast Highway had seen many cars leave its surface thanks to its unforgiving twists and bends—but, because Harrison Marshall was Harrison Marshall, world-renowned hospitality entrepreneur, his accident would attract investigation. And attention.
Attention the Fixer did not need.
At least the authorities wouldn’t find Harrison’s last call suspicious, as there would be records of twenty other calls from Harrison to this cell number this week alone. With luck the authorities would assume that the much-ticketed Harrison had been speeding again and lost control of his car when he threw it around a treacherous bend.
Nobody had to know that there was a strong possibility that Harrison’s past—their past—had finally caught up with them.
The Fixer walked across the second-story living room and onto the upstairs balcony to grip the wrought-iron railing with a taut grip. Casa de Catalina, named after the wife of the first owner of this property, a wealthy real estate baron, had views of both the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Like everything else at Casa Cat, as it was fondly called, the views were world-class. The Fixer idly wondered how much money Harrison and Mariella had spent restoring the sprawling century-old mansion. The budget probably matched the GDP of a small third-world country. It was huge, tastefully decorated, luxurious and rich...the hub of the Marshall empire. Would Harrison see it again? Could he be allowed to?
Alive or dead could be worked with, but brain injuries would be, well, difficult. To say the least.
The Fixer stared down, eyes bouncing from the bright blue pool to the red tiles of the guest cottage and the contrasting greens of the landscaped garden, not taking in any of the details of the opulent estate. Had Harrison asked for something someone wasn’t prepared to relinquish? Had he stumbled on a secret someone was prepared to kill for? Could someone closer to home have accidentally-on-purpose caused his car to leave the Pacific Coast Highway?
Or was this, simply, an accident?
The Fixer didn’t know, and that lack of knowledge grated, frightened. Knowledge was power, and the Fixer was always, thanks to the Marshall-Santiago empire, in the right place at the right time to acquire that knowledge—privy to so many private conversations and all sorts of shenanigans. All it took was a whispered suggestion that a stubborn and embarrassing problem could be solved by bending the rules—for a hefty fee—and word got around.
With Harrison’s “accident,” the spotlight would be very firmly focused on the Marshall family. Fuck. This news would be the leading story everywhere. The Fixer had no doubt that the Marshalls would rally together and face this challenge as a united front, but there was a strong possibility that the secretive nature of what they did would be revealed. No problem was unsolvable, however, as they had proved over the years. They’d dealt with vengeful wives and pissed-off discarded mistresses, bad business deals, royal muck-ups in foreign countries. They’d yet to fail, and now wasn’t the time to start. Not when so much was at stake.
Every problem held a solution, and the Fixer recognized the need to step away from the fear, the worry and the emotion of the situation. When one looked at Harrison’s accident as a problem, it was easy to see that the quickest and most efficient solution was for Harrison to wake up and talk—or for him to die. Harsh but true. This was one of the few situations when money, dammit, was not the answer. It would help, it would conceal and confuse, stir up the already muddy waters, but a broken body needed time and skill and luck to heal. For today, the Fixer could try to contain the situation. A waiting game would be played, with eyes and ears wide open.
The Fixer would give Harrison some time to recover.
But not too much. Before long some far-reaching and tough decisions on Harrison’s future would have to be made.
The Fixer would not hesitate to make those decisions. It wouldn’t, after all, be the first time...
Chapter One
Mariella Santiago-Marshall stood in the parking lot of St. Aloysius Hospital in her hometown of Santa Barbara, and abruptly realized that nothing would ever be the same again.
Harrison, God... Harrison was in there somewhere, broken. A car accident, they said. He was in surgery, they said.
Dios mío.
It was a plea, a curse, a demand. An appeal for mercy, a curse toward the God she wasn’t sure she believed in anymore, a demand for information.
Feeling tears burn the back of her throat, Mariella pushed her long black hair behind her ears and dropped her designer sunglasses over her eyes, sighing when the dark lenses cut through the glare. Habit had her eyes drifting over the busy parking lot, and she was relieved to see no paparazzi either sitting in cars or loitering, cameras around their necks and the thrill of the hunt in their eyes.
Mariella knew that it wouldn’t be long before the news of Harrison’s accident broke, so she’d take this time, this short period, to gather her thoughts and her composure.
Mariella’s eyes skittered to the automatic doors leading to the busy ER and touched the tip of her tongue to her top lip, tasting her expensive lipstick. Where was Harrison? What were they doing to him? Why couldn’t they tell her anything?
Frustration, anger and a need to walk had propelled her out of the ER, a part of her knowing that if she didn’t leave, she’d cause a scene of epic proportions. She was terrified, and when she got scared she lost control...
Tears burned a path from her throat to her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away, cursing herself for her weakness. Mariella Sofía Jimena Santiago-Marshall did not cry. Or, if she did, she never let anyone see her do it.
She was a Santiago, dammit, a part of a powerful, prominent family whose roots could be traced back to California’s early history and Don Juan Santiago, who saw California pass from Spain to Mexico and then into American hands. Juan’s warrior blood flowed through her veins. When their backs were to the wall, Santiagos came out swinging, and they always fought dry-eyed.
But damn, she wanted to howl, sob, fall apart. Mariella wrapped her arms around herself and fought the panic climbing up her throat. She wasn’t used to feeling helpless, out of control, useless. She’d been Harrison’s partner, his right hand, his shadow, his best friend and his wife for more than three decades, and waiting around, doing nothing, went against every instinct she had. There had to be something she could do...
There wasn’t.
Mariella had lived a life many envied a
