Deadly Secrets
Cover
Books by Jaycee Clark
Angel Eyes
Firebird
Talons
(coauthored with Shannon Stacey, Mandy Roth, Michelle Pillow, and Sydney Somers)
Black Aura
Ghost Cats
(coauthored with Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow)
Ghost Cats: Revenge
The Dream
Deadly Shadows
Deadly Ties
Deadly Obsession
Deadly Games
Deadly Secrets
Phoenix Rising II
(coauthored with Donna Grant and Mandy Roth)
Ghost Cats 2
(coauthored with Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow)
Title Page
Copyright
Beyond the Page Books
are published by
Beyond the Page Publishing
Copyright © 2013 by Jaycee Clark
Material excerpted from
Hunted
copyright © 2013 by Jaycee Clark
Cover design by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
ISBN: 978-1-937349-56-1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Acknowledgments
There are so many to thank. First and foremost, the brainstorming/reader/critiquing/editing crew: Renee Meyer, Patti DuPlantis, Sydney Somers, and Kristie Clark Messer—thank you all for reading through this, for all the emails, all the encouragements, listening to me obsess and stress. To Syd and Kristie, thank you for all the many, many,
many
conversations about character motivations, plot twists, and whatever other detail I was being neurotic about in whatever version I was working on at the time.
Have to give a huge thanks (and readers, you should as well) to Mandy M. Roth for making sure Quinlan stayed alive in
Deadly Games
way back when I wrote that book rather than the original idea. Plus, she’s always believed in me and my ability to tell this story if I’d just “shut up and write it.”
To Heidi Fedak, thank you for answering my questions about the Gulfstream V and flight times.
To my medical crew: Aunt Toni, Vanessa Shirley, and Jessica Cross, thank you for answering all my medical questions and not thinking me too weird when asking the best way to . . .
For my law and law enforcement questions, thanks to Boyd Clark and Uncle George.
Any mistakes made are wholly and completely mine.
Quinlan’s been a journey to write for me in so many ways. Must thank my editors extraordinaire Jessica Faust and Bill Harris for keeping me on track, putting up with my neurotic self, and making this book shine.
And last but not least, a monumental Thank You must be shouted out to the readers. Without you guys, Quinlan would still be languishing in various files and the Kinncaids would be known only to me. Thank you for all your support! You guys saw the potential in Quinlan and his story before I did.
Thanks, as always, to my wonderful boys for understanding when Mom has to write.
Dedication
This one is for my sister,
Kristie Clark Messer,
baby of the Clark Clan.
Contents
Prologue
New Mexico, two years ago
He waited until the patient’s breathing leveled out.
“This is insane,” she whispered beside him.
His attention was settled on the woman on the operating table. No one would ever know. They never ever did. That was the beauty of it all, or part of the beauty of it all.
So fucking easy.
Her swollen stomach was already an orange brown from the Betadine. He watched the monitors, the computerized screen showing not only the mother’s heartbeat but the baby’s as well. He listened to the soft swishing to make sure the baby’s heart rate stayed within a safe range.
“Is everything ready?” he asked, already thinking ahead to a phone call he needed to make and the happy parents-to-be.
“Of course.” She sighed. “I don’t like these.”
He was tired of listening to her complain. A shrewd bitch, but too soft too often in his opinion. “These are never pleasant. Just don’t think of it. Remember, this little one will bring in fifty thousand. And it’s not like anyone will miss the bloody mother. If you could even call her that.”
The woman next to him said nothing as she rearranged his tools. He heard her moving the instruments around on the metal tray.
The mother’s heart rate was a little high, but that didn’t concern him.
He picked up the scalpel, steadied it, and quickly made a lateral incision on the very pregnant belly. Blood welled in the wake of his sharp object.
Normally, he was obscenely careful in performing this operation, but it wasn’t as if he had to worry about the outcome. The mother had become a liability. He gripped both sides of the incision, prying through fat tissue and muscles, feeling the tissues rip under his force. At the uterus, he slowed, took a deep breath and concentrated. He heard the mother’s erratic heart acceleration. With a precision born of practice, he carefully cut through the extended womb. The babe within squirmed, shifting beneath the tissue. The infant’s heart rate swished louder in the quiet room.
In seconds, he had the baby out of the confines of the uterus. A boy, which he’d already known. Quiet squeaks filled the air while he suctioned the mucus from the babe’s mouth. Then the small eyes blinked open. The cord still pulsed.
He puffed out a relieved sigh. “He’s a big one.”
She looked at him over the top of her mask and he read the disapproval mixed with greed in her eyes. The greed always won, always.
She clamped off the cord, her surgical gloves squeaking on the instrument, and clipped it.
“What of her?” she asked, motioning toward the woman.
He ignored the question. “We don’t need any more complications. Someone will come in and take care of her. Here, get the babe ready. We’ve three buyers to choose from.”
The operating room was filled with the newborn’s cries and mewls as she wiped him off and rubbed him gently, talking softly.
He took a deep breath and pulled the mask down. “Healthy little boy, aren’t you then?” he asked, rubbing a finger down the small upturned nose.
He reached over and pressed an intercom button. “Send Kevin in.”
She kept her attention centered on the babe; a head full of dark black hair topped the little pink head.
“Beautiful little guy, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “He’s healthy. Weighing in at . . . roughly eight pounds thirteen ounces.”
Music still played; the slow strands of Handel waltzed around the room.
“Apgar’s good,” she muttered, noting and jotting down other details of the baby’s health.
He nodded and reached for his cell phone. He hit the speed dial and waited. The voice on the other end picked up. “You better have come through for the amount on the table.”
He smiled. “You worry too much. Pick a buyer. Healthy dark-haired boy.”