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“I never leave keys behind, but are you sure you’re okay?”
“Fine, but it was…it is…”
“Weird finding Jim?”
“Yeah, weird and unnerving, and I feel for his family. They won’t just be losing him, they’ll be finding out who he really was.”
“Tough stuff,” Scott said gravely.
“And now Dan’s on the loose,” she added, a worried frown crossing her brow.
“Shit,” Scott grunted, suddenly braking to a stop. “He could be trying to find the house. He might even be there.”
“He may be crazy, but he’s not suicidal,” she remarked. “Why would he take a risk like that?”
“Honestly, Elizabeth, I think he’s obsessed with you,” Scott said, hastily pulling out his phone. “I muted this thing when I approached the van. If the alarm had gone off I wouldn’t have heard it.”
“I love all your security stuff. It’s fantastic.”
“Just a simple home alarm with a few additions thrown in,” he said with a grin. “Nope, no intrusion, no-one in the house, we’re good to go.”
Closing her eyes, Elizabeth let out a relieved sigh.
“He’s bound to check out the sailing school,” Scott continued as he drove forward. “I’ll call in for a speed boat and have it waiting at Crown Bay Marina in Charlotte Amalie on the other side of the island.”
“Surely he’ll check there too.”
“He can’t be in two places at once, but Elizabeth, when we get to the house, we still need to be on guard. Just because he didn’t break in, doesn’t mean he isn’t lurking in the bushes. As soon as we get inside, throw your gear together and we’ll go.”
Sonny Conchello studied the businessmen seated at his table.
He could smell their fear.
They were drinking expensive champagne and enjoying a sumptuous seafood feast, but each of them knew the source of his wealth, and his capacity for unhesitating ruthlessness. Greed had brought them into his world, and greed would keep them running back for more, but it was their fear that guaranteed their loyalty. The international property developer, Bryan Hayes, had just received approval to build a five star resort on one of the lesser known islands. Conchello’s company would be a significant investor, just as it had been in Bryan’s previous developments.
Sonny’s personal banker, Miles Swanson, received hefty fees for laundering large amounts of cash.
Steven Forsythe, a well-known Wall Street Hedge Fund Manager, spent hours overseeing Conchello’s portfolio.
Then there was criminal defense attorney Richard Hammond. He had just passed the bar when he’d defended Conchello for dealing a small amount of cocaine outside a high school. Sonny had been eighteen. The two ambitious young men became fast friends. As time passed, and Conchello’s empire grew, he became Richard’s sole client.
Richard was the one man who knew where all the bodies were buried.
Literally and figuratively.
They were bound together by mutual mistrust, fed by anxiety. It kept their relationship in balance and in check, but Sonny worried if Richard fell victim to an untimely end, the deadly information he held would be uncovered.
Sonny didn’t have to worry about the success of his business interests. None of them would dare let him lose a penny, but once a month he’d gather them together to remind them he was their king. He could hand them pots of gold, or cut off their heads.
The meal had been no different from any other. The occasional lewd joke had provoked raucous laughter, and the conversations had been productive, but Sonny had been distracted.
California’s dark underbelly had become embroiled in gang warfare, and the emergence of a new breed of young, rabid, overly ambitious drug dealers had been bad for business. Searching out a new operational base, he’d decided on the Virgin Islands. Once settled, he planned to expand into the southern hemisphere, and possibly pull out of California altogether.
Things had been progressing smoothly. He’d even managed to keep his move under wraps—until the disastrous raid. Like a lightning bolt from hell, it had set into motion a series of hellacious events.
Manny had stolen the sports bag, but he’d been shot before Sonny could question him and recover the money.
Then Elizabeth, the young woman he’d always seen as a sparkling ray of sunshine in his shadowy, violent world, had taken the loot and bolted.
