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    Paradise Burning
    Paradise Burning
    Paradise Burning
    Ebook365 pages28 hours

    Paradise Burning

    By Blair Bancroft

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Amanda Armitage plays a vital role in her family's international investigations agency. Great job, great salay, great heartache, as she lives her life, eyes on the computer screen, fingers on the keyboard. When she loses an agent, a friend, on her watch, she is forced to examine the joylessness of her narrow existence.

    Mandy's resistance is minimal when her bosses—her parents—send her on a special assignment as research assistant to a best-selling author in Florida. Acknowledging her burnout, she agrees to spend the winter season in paradise, working for Peter Pennington, who is writing a book about international trafficking in women and children. The same trafficking that just got her friend killed. The job will give her an opportunity to unwind while enjoying a season in paradise and still work against the scourge of trafficking. There is, however, a slight glitch. Peter Pennington is the husband she hasn't seen in five years.

    When Mandy arrives in Florida, trafficking becomes more up close and personal than anyone planned. Peter involves her in his research of local "working girls," while Mandy accidentally stumbles on a houseful of captive women in the Florida outback. A house where a dark, and unlikely, romance is creeping reluctantly to life in the midst of an evil as old as time.

    As Mandy and Peter juggle their rekindling romance with the dangers of international trafficking, the girl once known as Mandy Mouse metamorphoses into a dynamic, independent woman. Perhaps too much so, as the world around them literally goes up in flames, and Mandy, discovering how easily black and white can dissolve into shades of gray, is forced to make the second most difficult decision of her life.

    Author's Note: Although Paradise Burning, which features cross-over characters from Shadowed Paradise, is a stand-alone story, I recommend reading Shadowed Paradise first.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlair Bancroft
    Release dateAug 21, 2011
    ISBN9780983807537
    Paradise Burning
    Author

    Blair Bancroft

    Blair Bancroft recalls receiving odd looks from adults as she walked home from school at age seven, her lips moving as she told herself stories. And there was never a night she didn't entertain herself with her own bedtime stories. But it was only after a variety of other careers that she turned to serious writing. Blair has been a music teacher, professional singer, non-fiction editor, costume designer, and real estate agent. She has traveled from Bratsk, Siberia, to Machu Picchu, Peru, and made numerous visits to Europe, Britain, and Ireland. She is now attempting to incorporate all these varied experiences into her writing. Blair's first book, TARLETON'S WIFE, won RWA's Golden Heart and the Best Romance award from the Florida Writers' Association. Her romantic suspense novel, SHADOWED PARADISE, and her Young Adult Medieval, ROSES IN THE MIST, were finalists for an EPPIE, the "Oscar" of the e-book industry. Blair's Regency, THE INDIFFERENT EARL, was chosen as Best Regency by Romantic Times magazine and was a finalist for RWA's RITA award. Blair believes variety is the spice of life. Her recent books include Historical Romance, Romantic Suspense, Mystery, Thrillers, and Steampunk, all available at Smashwords. A long-time resident of Florida, Blair fondly recalls growing up in Connecticut, which still has a piece of her heart.

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      Book preview

      Paradise Burning - Blair Bancroft

      Paradise Burning

      by Blair Bancroft

      Published by Kone Enterprises

      at Smashwords

      Copyright 2011 by Grace Ann Kone

      For other books by Blair Bancroft,

      please see http://www.blairbancroft.com

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

      ~ * ~

      1

      Chapter One

      Kira?

      Almost in. Kira Malfi’s honey-warm voice pinged off a satellite, crossing thousands of miles as clearly as a call to Boston.

      To Mandy Armitage, Kira was a reddish blob of body heat on her computer screen, but in her head she held a clear picture of AKA’s whipcord-fit agent, poised over a keyboard in a dilapidated warehouse on the outskirts of Lomé, Togo, her chocolate-brown skin blending smoothly into the darkness around her.

      Almost in. A few more minutes and they’d have what AKA had been after for months. The culmination of Eleanor’s latest pet project.

      At the thought of Eleanor Kingsley, the autocratic K in AKA, Mandy winced. Eleanor’s intentions were good, but on the problem of trafficking her views tended toward obsession. Risks . . . too many risks.

      But not on tonight’s assignment. AKA had had the location under surveillance for a week. At night the warehouse on the outskirts of town was a dark, deserted shell. No problem.

      Yet . . .

      Mandy repressed a sudden urge to blurt out, Hurry, hurry, hurry. Stupid. How many times had she done this, talking an agent in and out of a building, a city, a country . . .? She was queen of AKA’s controllers because she could stay cool and steady while her mind skidded around, or vaulted over, every obstacle that stood in the way. Kira’s mission was just one more job, one more line on AKA’s hush-hush list of accomplishments.

      A second voice, urgent, barked in Mandy’s ear. Not what she wanted to hear.

      Kira, Mandy relayed, "observer reports headlights approaching . . . Land Rover pulling up . . . Get out now!"

      I’m in. Kira’s voice was steady. Unruffled. Just another moment . . .

      Two men at front, two moving toward the back. Back door now, Kira. Abort, abort, abort!

      Got it. Kira Malfi still sounded as if she was taking a stroll in the park.

      Too late. They’re in, Mandy said, voice cool, stomach clenched. Windows? Packing crate?

      No windows, no crates, Kira intoned. Rafters twenty feet up. So where’s Scotty and his damn beam when I need him? Mandy heard a faint sigh. Hell, baby, maybe they just want to chat—

      A burst from an automatic rifle punctuated Kira’s words.

      Kira? Kira?

      Mandy stared at the five red heat signatures on her screen. Four showed signs of movement. One did not. Oh, God. In AKA’s twenty years in business they had lost only two agents. Armitage, Kingsley & Associates weren’t a mini CIA, just a private firm of problem solvers. On an international scale, maybe, but AKA agents were not supposed to die. Particularly not on Mandy’s watch.

      Never on Mandy’s watch.

      Never before.

      The rose garden, bleak and frosty in an overcast Massachusetts January, perfectly matched Mandy Armitage’s mood. For a short while she’d allowed herself to hope. Until AKA’s observer reported Kira Malfi’s lifeless body being tossed into the back of the Land Rover.

      Kira. One more female lost to the ruthlessness of men who made their living selling women and children into slavery. Bastards.

      Mandy sat slumped on a wooden bench beneath a rose arbor. Bare gray branches twined around her, above her, the thorns undisguised by a few brown remnants of summer leaves. Pulling the glove off her right hand, Mandy touched her index finger to a thorn. Pressed down. Watched as blood welled up, the only spot of color in the winter landscape.

      Within twenty minutes of what Eleanor Kingsley had chosen to call the incident, a replacement had been assigned to Mandy’s computer. She’d been debriefed not only by Eleanor but by Jeffrey Armitage, the A of AKA. Professionals to the core, they’d done their jobs, but Mandy noticed Eleanor kept her hands tightly clasped on her desk, very likely to keep them from shaking. Jeff poured brandy for all three of them.

      Sometimes, just sometimes, her parents seemed almost human.

      And now, at last, she’d escaped into the frozen gardens behind the old stable block that had been converted into AKA’s version of mission control. The extensive estate, sixty miles west of Boston, was centered around a sprawling Tudor-style manor house with guest cottages for employees. The soothing ambiance of the rolling New England countryside spread its varied beauty over eight months of the year and was as stark and unrelentingly gray as the most conservative Puritan could wish during the other four.

      And yet . . . sometimes when it snowed, every branch, every rooftop, every fence post was capped with white, turning the landscape into a minimalist design in charcoal and white, with sun glinting off the sea of snow, accented by dark green spikes of spruce and cedar. Oh yes, Massachusetts could be beautiful in winter, but not now.

      Today was ugly, ugly, ugly. Even the ice on the pond beyond the garden was ugly. Who wanted to skate, laugh, have fun?

      Mandy flicked the blood off her finger onto a lingering patch of snow. Rose Red, Snow White. Innocents venturing into a hateful world where women and children were sold as casually as peanuts at the ballpark.

      Which is why, when faced with that awful decision five years ago, she’d chosen AKA. Chosen loyalty to the family business instead of love. The agents in the field needed her. All too often one of them was Jeffrey Armitage. Father. Mentor. Friend.

      And once upon a time Peter had been one of them too.

      Mandy considered herself a pragmatist. She did her job, avoided introspection. But today, doubts crept in. She loved her work, loved the excitement, the sense of accomplishment that came with a job well done. The conviction that what she did mattered. Her Boston Brahmin grandmother might sniff and call AKA nothing more than glorified private investigators, but the success rate of AKA’s day-to-day operations was phenomenal—bringing in enough money to support an international business and indulge Eleanor’s private war against trafficking as well. Which, Mandy thought sourly, was a bit like trying to stop a tidal surge. Both demand and supply were endless, extending to every part of the globe. Quite simply, trying to stop human trafficking was like attempting to dam Niagra Falls or empty the Atlantic with a teaspoon.

      Yet Kira Malfi had died trying.

      Mandy looked out over the garden, the pond, the distant bulk of a stone-on-stone fence, and saw an endless line of women and children, of every race, creed, and costume, winding their way toward the horizon. Crisscrossing the globe, north to south, east to west. Going, going, gone. Work slaves. Household slaves. Sex slaves. Some pampered; most worked to death in a few years time.

      Logically, Mandy knew Kira had volunteered for the Togo assignment, had been willing to risk all for a list of slave routes through West Central Africa. In reality, AKA was trying to plug one tiny hole in a dike with more holes than Swiss cheese.

      The cold penetrated Mandy’s heavy duster coat; her breath frosted in the late afternoon air. As she drew her glove back on, she stared down at the blood red spot on the patch of snow.

      So what now?

      Oh, she’d be at her computer tomorrow and all the tomorrows thereafter. She’d attend meetings, research, plot, and plan. But for the first time—yes, she had to admit it—for the first time she began to understand why Peter walked away.

      Amanda, please sit. Eleanor Kingsley, CEO of Armitage, Kingsley & Associates, inclined a regal nod toward a chair that was almost lost before the polished expanse of her oversized mahogany desk. Eleanor. Perfectly groomed as always, her blond hair in a French twist from which no tendril dare escape. Eyebrows precisely plucked, cheeks expertly rouged, lipstick a soft reddish brown to complement the elegance of her designer-tailored beige linen suit. The highly intelligent, penetrating gray eyes Eleanor focused on her daughter might, Mandy thought, be marginally warmer than usual, but she was certain of only one thing. She was glad she’d given up all attempts to emulate her mother somewhere around the age of eleven.

      In the three weeks since Kira’s death in Togo, Mandy had buried herself in work, controlling investigations ranging from a missing child to insurance fraud, bodyguard duty for couriers to Buenos Aires and Hong Kong and for an internationally renowned visiting lecturer at Harvard. She’d supervised security system analyses for major businesses in Needham, Providence, and Greenwich. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She loved the ever-changing challenge of her job, yet it had all turned to dust.

      Oh, she’d recover, she knew she would. Just as people everywhere swallowed their grief at the death of a friend or loved one, picked up their lives, and endured. But guilt, no matter how unjustified, lingered, refusing to bow to logic. She had helped plan Kira’s mission, had personally directed Kira every step of the way.

      Had not been able to save her . . .

      Amanda. Eleanor spoke sharply, obviously not for the first time.

      Mandy lifted her head, drew in a breath, looked her mother in the eye. Eleanor was up to something, no doubt about it. Very likely she and Jeff had had a private conference and decided to manipulate their daughter’s life. Again. Never mind she was twenty-nine years old and the linchpin of AKA operations. Short of handing in her resignation, she was stuck with whatever decisions her co-bosses chose to make.

      Eleanor tapped a beautifully manicured nail on the polished surface of her desk, betraying a rare twinge of nerves. Amanda, your father and I think a change of pace will do you good.

      Oh-oh. When Eleanor referred to Jeff as your father, she was pulling out all the stops.

      You work very hard, Mandy. Too hard. We’ve asked too much of you. Eleanor’s words were so smooth Mandy figured she must have practiced them. Either that or she was reading off some invisible prompter screen. You haven’t been more than a mile from your keyboard since your last visit to your Grandmother Kingsley in Cambridge, and that was six weeks ago. Except for AKA business, you haven’t been out of New England in, well, more than a year.

      I did a week on Cape Cod, a week in the mountains—

      No breaks at all for the last eight months, Eleanor continued inexorably. You’re a genius at your keyboard, Mandy. But yours is a stressful position, and even the best and brightest wear thin—

      "I hate vacations. Twenty-four hours and I’m climbing the walls!"

      We understand that, Eleanor replied with uncharacteristic patience. Fortunately, you’re also a good teacher. You’ve done an excellent job training your backups. Therefore—Eleanor paused, closed her eyes a moment before forging on—therefore your father and I have arranged a temporary assignment for you in a new location. The change will enlarge your horizons, give you a fresh outlook–-

      Nothing’s going to bring Kira back!

      Eleanor sighed. No, it won’t, but you’ll be helping fight the scourge that killed her.

      Nothing’s going to do that either, Mandy shot back, her temper building. It’s a lost cause!

      Eleanor bowed her head, seemingly intent on the nail polish that matched her lipstick. I have to admit that the dribs and drabs we’ve been able to accomplish haven’t made much of a dent. I hoped getting the list of routes . . . no matter, I agree with Jeff it’s time to take another tack. Eleanor paused. If Mandy hadn’t known it was impossible, she’d almost think her mother looked uneasy in her well-upholstered executive chair.

      There’s an author in Florida writing a book on trafficking, Eleanor continued. He’s done some remarkable research on his own, but feels he’s reached the point where he needs a research assistant. Mandy’s mother took a deep breath, plunged on, blatantly pseudo-bright. A two- or three-month job. Just think, Mandy, a season in paradise. People pay thousands of dollars a month to be in Florida in the winter. You’ll actually get paid to be there.

      Florida. When Mandy was nine, she’d begged to go to Disneyworld. Eleanor had looked at her as if she’d asked to go to a monster truck rally.

      Mandy had never been to Florida.

      He put in a request about five weeks ago, Eleanor was saying. I didn’t mention it because we were planning Kira’s mission and I knew you’d never leave her on her own. Also . . . well, there were complications. Mandy’s mother trailed to halt, as if her prompter had suddenly gone blank.

      What on earth did some author in Florida want with Amanda Armitage? In the land of sunshine, sand, beach, boats, golf, and senior citizens, an analytical specialist—let’s face it, a computer nerd—would be as out of place as an evening gown at a backyard barbecue. Maybe Pensacola? MacDill? Some DEA facility farther south? Stubbornly, Mandy kept her mouth shut. And waited.

      He’s a New York Times best-selling author, and he’s just built a new house along some jungle river not far from the Gulf Coast. But this is his first try at non-fiction, and he wants to get it right. And, of course, the subject matter is close to our hearts—

      Best-selling author. New house. Trafficking. Research assistant requested from AKA.

      Mandy leaned back in her chair, staring at her mother through eyes that had turned to laser beams. You didn’t . . . you couldn’t . . . What did you tell him? she demanded, her voice rising from a whisper to an outraged bark.

      Mandy, we realize this is not something we can order you to do, but Jeff and I, we think it’s for the best. That it’s worth a try.

      Hoo-rah. Seeing Eleanor squirm was almost worth the shock.

      So you and Dad are just going to re-arrange my life. Planning on changing the corporate name, are you? Matchmakers, Inc., perhaps?

      There’s no need for sarcasm, Amanda. We’re merely trying to do what’s right. If you weren’t considering the possibility, you’d already be slamming the door in my face.

      Damn! And wasn’t that the truth?

      He asked for you, Eleanor said, more gently. Not just any of our researchers, only you. I delayed, told him we were in the midst of a project. Yesterday I called to see if the offer was still on the table. It is. More than that—he was eager. Eleanor’s voice softened to something almost resembling mother mode. Is it so awful, Mandy, the idea of working for Peter, seeing if there’s still something there?

      Mandy glared. I’m an only child and you want grandchildren.

      We want you to be happy. The sight of Eleanor gritting her teeth to hang on to her customary cool was an added bonus. Almost enough to compensate for Mandy’s horror.

      Sure. Mandy flung her hand into the air like a magician showing off his latest illusion. "Go to Florida, Mandy. Research for Peter. What’s a five-year separation? A mere bagatelle. Go on. Run, run, run. The great Peter Pennington snaps his fingers and there goes Mandy, panting, groveling at the great man’s feet."

      Amanda!

      Is there any other interpretation? Mandy demanded. Well, is there?

      The silence sizzled with animosity, pain. Unspoken thoughts. I beg your pardon, Eleanor murmured. I’d hoped . . . we’d hoped . . . Peter hoped . . . It seemed like a good idea. Obviously, we were wrong.

      A new house. Along a jungle river. Sun . . . warmth. A long, long way from February in Massachusetts. A long, long way from AKA and the often grim duties that went with it.

      After putting on her most long-suffering look, Mandy muttered, I’ll give it a try.

      He was a damn fool, Peter Pennington growled to himself. Just the thought of Mandy’s arrival scared the hell out of him. Yet, figuratively speaking, he’d gotten down on his knees and begged. To Eleanor, the icicle, who might have had a maternal impulse somewhere back in the Stone Age, but he doubted it.

      He’d wanted to go direct to Jeff, man to man, but Mandy was the heart and soul of Jeff’s operations. It was Mandy’s loyalty to her father and his far-flung band of agents that had split them up. So Peter had devised a plan, a thinly disguised maneuver to get Mandy to Florida.

      And hit a wall as strong as the ribbons of stone framing New England’s fields. Until now. Until Eleanor had actually called him.

      Jesus. Mandy was on her way, smack in the midst of the seasonal southbound crush on I-95. Not to worry, of course. Anybody who could drive in Boston could handle traffic anywhere.

      But he did worry. His sheltered Mandy Mouse might as well be a cloistered nun. Hell, he used to wonder if they let her up from her keyboard long enough to pee. And he doubted things had changed. Eleanor agonized over slave labor, yet just what the hell did she think she and Jeff were doing to Mandy? Just because they paid her well and surrounded her with luxury didn’t mean Mandy wasn’t a captive.

      Loyalty. That was the trap. As far as he was concerned, five years ago loyalty became a dirty word.

      So what had changed? What had broken the barrier and let his Mandy Mouse out of her gilded cage?

      Did it matter? Mandy was on her way. To the house he’d built in an aerie of live oaks, pines, and palms, with a dock along a river right out of Apocalypse Now. A house where wild creatures ran across his roof at night.

      Peter had longed for the solitude of his private bit of Florida, perfect for a writer, but he’d never planned to live alone in this vast expanse of space with nothing but Florida critters to keep him company. Every time he looked at the jungle river from the third floor cupola he used as a studio, every time he looked a twittering bird in the eye, every time he cooked a solitary meal in his shining white kitchen, he thought of Mandy.

      He had the perfect house in the perfect setting—the culmination of writing efforts that had begun while he was still working for AKA. And now he needed a mate to share it. For some ridiculous reason—a tendency toward masochism?—only Mandy Mouse would do.

      Not that he hadn’t tried alternatives—five years is a damn long time—but for some mysterious reason Mandy Armitage was the only woman he could see in his elaborate tree house set in a primeval Florida few tourists ever got to see.

      Mandy. In his house. Where she belonged. If she thought she was ever going back . . .

      Well, too damn bad.

      Better see if his cleaning service could give him a few extra hours.

      Hands on hips, Mandy stood in the doorway and scowled at the luxurious suite she’d been forced to accept just south of Brunswick, Georgia. Shit! Not that she was a cheapskate, but a hundred and forty dollars for eight-hours sleep was ridiculous.

      If she got out more often . . . Mandy supposed Eleanor was right. She should have known she couldn’t just pop off I-95 at the height of the winter season and expect to find a room.

      What an innocent she was. On a few occasions—for very special clients with unlimited assets—AKA let her out of her cage. Amanda Armitage, Systems Consultant. Airplanes, helicopters, limos, armed escorts—all ready and waiting to ease her way. All arranged by AKA.

      Vacationing by herself on Cape Cod or in the mountains of New Hampshire, despite the boredom, had some exhilarating moments of freedom. But once again, AKA made all the arrangements. Driving to Florida, however, was a lesson in humility. Surprise! The world of AKA did not come to an end because Mandy wasn’t at her keyboard. The traffic on I-95 didn’t give a damn who she was. She was lucky to get a bed, even at one-forty a pop.

      She was no longer the linchpin of AKA. She was Peter Pennington’s Mandy Mouse. The wimp who sat at a computer while others took the risks. The foolish girl who had dug in her heels and clung to AKA as if it were the only safe place on earth . . .

      Mandy stalked into the suite’s bedroom, slung her overnight bag onto one of the two queensize beds, and turned to find herself reflected in a bank of mirrors filling the wall above an oversize dresser. Face crumpling, she sat abruptly on the end of the bed.

      Double shit. Could she look any worse? Lank brown hair scraped into a pony tail that probably hadn’t looked neat since five minutes after she popped on the scrunchie this morning somewhere in Virginia. Not a drop of make-up. Like there was some rule that female computer nerds didn’t even own lipstick. Nose too small, mouth too big. Cheekbones . . . not bad. Eyes . . . gold-flecked green that would look a hell of lot better enhanced by eye shadow and mascara. Figure? Tallish, slim, with boobs that had never blossomed no matter how many hot tears she’d shed in teenage agony.

      And then there were the frayed jeans and ancient KISS T-shirt from Goodwill. The leather jacket, however—Mandy stroked its soft black sheen—now that came from Neiman-Marcus, one of few fashionable items in her current wardrobe.

      But even back in the days when she’d made an effort, she hadn’t exactly been a fashion plate. No wonder Peter had called her Mandy Mouse.

      How much of her clothing choice was flat-out rebellion? she wondered. How much simply giving up? After all, what did it matter?—her computer didn’t care what she wore. And her colleagues most definitely didn’t want a mini-Eleanor in their midst. So she’d fitted herself to AKA’s control room, by personal choice and by calculated design.

      But now . . .

      Now she was going to be working for—working with—Peter. No way was she going to show up looking as jarringly out of place as she did in this elegant suite of rooms designed for the ease and comfort of successful business types. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know about make-up. She’d sneaked in beauty makeovers at Saks nearly every time she made it into Boston. Amazing what those cosmetic specialists could do. And she got a kick out of their crows of triumph when they’d worked their magic and transformed such unpromising material into something surprisingly close to a runway model.

      Oh, yeah. Mandy knew her makeup. And as for clothes . . . She reached for her overnight bag, drew out the two catalogs she had brought from home. Last night, at her motel in Virginia, she’d studied the pages, carefully marking numbers on the front covers. Tonight . . . tonight she’d winnow her list and take the plunge. Money was not a problem. Eleanor and Jeff believed in paying their employees commensurate with their skill, and Mandy was very skilled indeed.

      She’d have supper, then come back to her room and let the fun begin. The cream of the catalog fashion world was about to descend on General Delivery, Golden Beach, Florida.

      Or . . . or was that too obvious?

      Pride was a hell of a motivator—she couldn’t let Peter see how she’d gone to seed. Yet to Peter . . . all those fine new clothes might look like she was trying too hard. Chasing him.

      But he didn’t know she’d gone completely scruffy. He expected her to look at least half-civilized. And with dewy youth no longer on her side, she needed costly props to bolster her still-shaken ego.

      Peter should never have left her.

      Half-truths, deliberate self-delusion, could be so comforting.

      Speaking of self-delusion . . . Mandy raised her head, once again staring at the disheveled washout in the mirror. Just where was she expected to live while she worked for Peter? Everything was arranged, Eleanor had assured her. But there’d been a strange gleam in her usually cool gray eyes. And the only instructions Mandy had were directions to Peter’s new house.

      Grandchildren. That could have accounted for Eleanor’s look.

      Mandy groaned, plunged her head into her hands. If they—Eleanor, Jeff, and/or Peter—actually thought she was going to move into Peter’s house . . .

      Okay. So right after her visit to a beauty salon, she was looking for a rental agency.

      Golden Beach, here I come.

      Chapter Two

      Juggling seven plastic bags of groceries, Peter strode up the L-shaped ramp that led directly into his kitchen, some fourteen feet above his garage. While steadying one of the bags in his teeth, he managed to enter his keypad code. Times like this, he wished he’d put in an elevator. But before he’d signed a building contract, Brad Blue, the developer of Amber Run, had pointed out a ring around a live oak about four feet off the ground. From a flood, he’d said. Worst in forty years, but anyone building this close to the river had to expect to get wet feet at the end of the rainy season, every other year or so. Had to expect to park out near the highway, maybe even pole home in a skiff.

      Peter had signed the contract anyway. In fact, after searching Florida trying to find an upscale design that wasn’t a stucco Mediterranean Revival wall to wall with its neighbors, he’d been intrigued to discover his choice of a stilt house along a jungle river was even more adventurous than he’d anticipated. Mandy would like the wildness of it, he’d thought. Mandy, who was on her way. Driving south. To him. Oh, yeah! That’s why he needed all the groceries. Mandy. In his house. At his table.

      Peter flashed a grin. Good thing he could cook. He bet she still hadn’t learned how. Spoiled brat. Okay, so pampered genius was more accurate.

      After putting the groceries away, Peter stuck a glass under the ice dispenser, topped it with single malt scotch. A heresy, some would say, but this was Florida and ice was a necessity, even in February. Glass in hand, he walked out onto the twelve-foot deck that surrounded the house and tried to picture it as Mandy would see it.

      Every house in Amber Run was built on the old Florida style known as Key West, and surrounded by as many trees and original vegetation as the builder could leave in place. The House of Peter was simply larger than all the others. A glorified tin-roofed tree house, built on stilts, and topped by his third-floor office, an oversize Widow’s Walk that flirted with the treetops, eye to eye with birds and squirrels. Close around the house, gray-green Spanish moss dripped from century-old oaks. Pine trees towered over rustling cabbage palms. The chittering of birds, squirrels, and insects provided a constant background hum.

      On the west side of the house was the main entrance with curved double stairs leading up to an elegantly carved front door that, so far, had never been used. To the east, a small swath of green lawn led down to the tea-colored Calusa River. Dyed brown by massive amounts of live oak leaves, Brad Blue had told him, and chock-full of alligators.

      Across the river . . . nothing but pristine Florida wilderness. Peter had heard that Brad Blue’s grandfather ran cattle over there, but nothing could be seen beyond the tangle of greenery lining the riverbank. To a world-roaming investigator turned author, the dark mysteries of the Calusa and the land around it were just another perc. Peter had bought two lots the first day he’d discovered Amber Run.

      Home. A real home. A forever home. All it needed was Mandy.

      Hey, up there!

      Speak of the devil. Peter waved to Brad Blue, who had just skidded his blue pickup to a halt in the driveway below. Brad’s pale blond hair, long enough to be tied back at the nape of his neck, gleamed in the late afternoon sun. According to rumor, he wore it that way because his Grandfather Whitlaw, the one with all the cattle, hated it. Fact, not rumor, added that Brad’s uncle, heir to all those cattle, was married to Brad’s ex-wife, Golden Beach’s hottest

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