The Good Daughter (43 page)

And now.

She shrugged, her actions belying the emotion suddenly swimming in her eyes. “Do you respect me now?” She swallowed thickly, then whispered, “Do you want me now?”

She’d tried to warn him once. Dave remembered. She’d tried to tell him their worlds were too different. The cynical, jaded FBI man had dared to hope, to believe. . .

Without giving him a chance to answer, she turned and walked off, back straight, head high.

The remote was still in his hand. Dave looked at it, and then looked back at Marisa.

Dave watched her walk away.

Dear Reader:

Thank you so much for purchasing
The Good Daughter
. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. If you liked getting to know Dave and Marisa, you’ll be happy to know that they will be making appearances in my upcoming Vista Security suspense series novels. Dave will be making a cameo in my next suspense novel,
Trust No One
(excerpt included here), the first book to introduce Vista Security, a private security company which is a front for an agency that handles jobs off limits to U.S. Intelligence agencies, and its team members.

I would be appreciative if you took a few minutes to leave a review of
The Good Daughter.
Reviews are a helpful way to help authors gain new fans, and are always welcome.

If you want to keep up with news on my writing, please visit my website and sign up for my newsletter. www.dianalayne.com

I always love hearing from readers. [email protected]

Sincerely,

Diana Layne

Acknowledgements:

To my six children: thanks for putting up with the craziness of a writer and all that entails (including, but not limited to, irregular mealtimes with a lot of frozen pizza).

Additional thanks to these wonderful, supportive people who helped make this book possible.

To Terry Zumwalt: Editor extraordinaire

To Shanel Anderson: Brilliant cover artist

To Detective Sergeant Hank Bailey: I would have been lost without the research help! (mistakes are all my own)

To Debbie Weierman, FBI Office of Public Affairs (again, mistakes are my own)

To Beverly, Barb and Karen, best friends a woman could have.

And last, but most important: thanks to you, dear reader, for taking the chance on my book. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.

For more information about me, to connect on a social network, and to sign up for my newsletter, please go to: www.dianalayne.com

(Turn the page for a preview of another Diana Layne book,
Trust No One
.)

Coming Soon:
Trust No One

2009 Golden Heart ® finalist by Diana Layne

Excerpt:

“
Who you working for, Keith?”

“
No need for you to know,” the man behind her said. He poked his revolver into her back. “You’re gonna be dead.”

She ignored him and focused on Keith. “How much money? Who’s the target?”

“
Stalling, MJ? Afraid to die?”

“
I knew the risks going in. So did you. But what about the innocent people who’ll die if you sell that information?”

“
Sorry, baby, but I don’t have time to debate philosophy.” The sound of a distant engine made Keith pause and tilt his head to listen. “That would be the extraction team,” he said.

MJ tightened every muscle, ready to spring. It well could be his team, but it could as easily be hers. Even if she wasn’t in position for the original pick-up, she’d sewed a small tracking device in that backpack.

“
No time for long good-byes.” He raised the gun.

Now or never.

She dropped her left arm down, aiming the hoof knife for the man behind her. She caught the curved point in his crotch and jerked upward. The man’s scream distracted the others long enough for her to snatch his falling .45 revolver. She aimed, squeezed the trigger, firing first at Keith, then the other man beside him. Boom. Boom. Two quick shots. Both men fell. The top of one man’s head appeared to be blown off. Keith was lying on the ground. Blood quickly pooled beneath both men.

She vaguely registered a flash from Keith’s gun before he hit the ground. She didn’t have time to worry about it. There was still one bad guy to go.

She heard the man moving behind her. She dove to the ground, rolled to her back and popped off two shots into his head before he recovered enough to draw another weapon.

He fell.

Another hit.

Pain tore into her then, ripping through her gut. She grabbed her stomach. When she pulled her hand away, it was covered in blood. Keith’s wild shot must have hit her as he fell. Gut shot and losing blood fast . . . .

She heard the chopper but didn’t know if it was the guys wearing the white hats or those dressed all in black. Injured and unable to escape, this could be her last breaths if it was the wrong side.

Trying to ramp down her heart rate, she took slow deep breaths, but with little effect. The warm blood flowed out making steam rise from her body in the frigid air. Good guys or bad guys coming, she was done for either way.

She saw two people rappelling from the chopper. When they dropped to the ground, a deep voice of authority snapped, “Check the men. Make sure they’re dead.”

Make sure they’re dead? Did they know already that Keith had gone rogue? She wanted to ask, but no sound came out when she tried.

A man’s face appeared before her. He had the most beautiful chocolate-colored almond-shaped eyes framed by thick, dark eyebrows. Great time to notice a man’s eyes, MJ, she chastised herself. And yet, what better to notice if she was about to die?

“
What about her?” the other man said. “She’s as good as dead.”

“
No,” the man with almond-shaped eyes answered. “We’re getting her out of here.” He pressed something against her stomach. She presumed to slow the blood.

“
You and women,” the second man said. “You can’t save all of them.” Though MJ couldn’t see him, she heard the disgust in his tone and wondered what stick got shoved up his ass.

She blinked at her bizarre thoughts, tried to focus, tried to follow the conversation but her brain felt sluggish and inadequate. Blackness edged into her vision.

“
Hang on, MJ,” the man with the eyes told her. “Hang on.”

***

(and for another preview of exciting new Romantic Suspense author, Cynthia Justlin, and her award-winning novel,
Her Own Best Enemy
, turn the page once again!)

Praise for Cynthia Justlin’s
HER OWN BEST ENEMY
:

"Fans of romantic suspense authors like Allison Brennan and Suzanne Brockmann will definitely want to pick up
Her Own Best Enemy
."

~ Gemma Halliday, award winning author of the
High Heel Mysteries

HER OWN BEST ENEMY

Chapter One

Keith King looked about as approachable as a coiled timber rattler ready to strike—and that was with his back to her.

Grace Stevens stood in the doorway of the Monthan Rehabilitation Center, trying her best to wipe the remnants of the pouring rain out of her eyes, and stared at his rigid shoulders. He looked like a man who wouldn’t give an inch—and she needed him to give a mile.

For Ryker.

She clutched her son’s picture in her hands, pressed it to her heart. Miraculously, it was the only dry spot on her soaked t-shirt, as if the universe knew how much she needed to keep her little boy near, even if the connection was only through a photograph.

Panicked tears gathered in her eyes. If she took one look at his sweet little face, she’d crumble. Her legs shook as she took her first step toward Keith’s table. He’d chosen the farthest one from the door, of course. She continued the long walk, whispers of her past ringing in her ears.

Grace-less. Grace-less.

She shouldn’t have remembered the exact youthful drawl in Keith’s voice, or the jagged sting of his childish taunts, but even fourteen years couldn’t separate her from destruction he’d caused in her life.

He’d used her. Used her to carry out something so despicable that even now she couldn’t stomach the sight of him. But with her son’s life hanging in the balance, and nowhere else to turn, she couldn’t afford to be choosy.

Confronting Keith was going to be hard—Keith would make damn sure of that. Asking wouldn’t be good enough. Not for the Keith she remembered He’d make her beg, make her jump through hoops, and question her courage.

She steeled herself to take whatever he dished out. A clap of thunder shook the high windows. Hard rain pelted the glass mercilessly announcing the onslaught of another Arizona monsoon. The tormented weather matched the wave of unease that roiled through her stomach.

Straightening her spine, she marched between two rows of primary-colored plastic chairs and made the final beeline to Keith. Her steps faltered when she spied the don’t-mess-with-me tendons that stretched taut in his neck as he bent over the table.

The sharp edge of her son’s picture poking into her palm spurred her on. She couldn’t tell Keith who she really was. Not if she wanted his cooperation. He’d either scoff at her or blast her with his fury. And neither would succeed in getting her what she so desperately needed.

“
Keith...King?” She grit her teeth at the crack in her voice and forced herself to continue around the scarred wooden table until they were face to face.

He looked up from the deck of cards he was shuffling. His intense hazel eyes narrowed on her face. Cold. Calculating. Derisive.

A scar marred his left cheek, a half moon that bisected the hard plane of his jaw. He hadn’t had it as a teenager, she definitely would’ve remembered. Even the faintest lines of his young face had been branded in her memory.

His straw-colored hair had darkened since his youth and was much, much shorter, in the typical military style. And the mouth that had once been the talk of teenage girls in two counties no longer appeared to have a hint of the sensuality it once possessed. In fact, the grim slash was void of any emotion at all.

Strangely enough, it only served to make his mouth sexier.

He surveyed her from head to toe, a long, slow perusal that started with her face, moved down to her pale yellow shirt, lingering on the damp fabric across her breasts, before trailing lower, over her equally wet jeans, down to the scuffs on her white sneakers. “Who’s asking?”

The rusty edge to his voice stirred a cocktail of nerves and anger through her, along with something more. Something she didn’t even want to acknowledge, something that fluttered low in her tummy and heated her cheeks. Damn him, he’d always had the ability to reduce her to a quivering mass of uncertainty.

Not this time. She wouldn’t let herself be trapped by his good looks and cocky attitude. This time she was taking control.

Grace thrust out her hand. “Grace Stevens.”

Though she’d deliberately used her ex-husband’s last name, her shoulders still twisted with tension. She watched his eyes for a flicker of recognition, waiting for them to darken with suspicion, or narrow in irritation, but they stared back at her with nothing more than cool assessment.

Of course he wouldn’t remember her. She’d been nothing more than a gangly, awkward, girl, sport for Keith and his friends, while he’d been the catalyst that crumbled her whole world.

He shifted his steady gaze to her outstretched hand then back to her face. “And?”

She slapped her purse on the table careful to lay Ryker’s photograph on the dry wood then plopped down hard into a puke green chair. He fanned a deck of cards across the coarse wood and proceeded to ignore her. The weight of his silence pressed in on her. Around the room other patients stopped what they were doing to stare.

“
I—” she sucked in a deep breath and forced it past her dry throat, into her lungs. “I need your help. To find my son.”

He flipped a red queen of diamonds over and laid it atop the black king of spades, all without sparing her a glance. “I don’t see how that’s possible. I don’t even know you.”

“
I know your sister.” Not exactly a lie. Victoria had been one year her junior, and even though she was now drunk more often than not, her knowledge of Keith’s whereabouts had been reliable. “She told me where I could find you.”

He snorted and turned over another card, still not bothering to look at her. “Figures.”