The Future Scrolls

by Fern Michaels

Genres: Women's Fiction; Action & Adventure Romance; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Two strangers unite to save an innocent child—and perhaps the world—in this romantic thriller by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of No Way Out.

When Manhattan editor Dani Arnold she impulsively comes to the aid of a lost child, she finds herself plunged into a mystery more dangerous than anything she’s ever read—or anything on the city streets—with an enigmatic stranger who threatens everything she believes in . . . yet fascinates her in a way no other man ever has . . .

Dr. Alex Mendenares will do anything to keep his daughter safe. Anything except reveal the secret that has been guarded by his family for centuries. But he never bargained on meeting someone like Dani Arnold, who instantly captures his little girl’s heart—and lights an unexpected spark in his own. Now, against the deadliest odds, Alex must place his trust in a woman he barely knows . . . but would like to know much better . . .

Praise for the novels of Fern Michaels

“A fun read . . . will keep readers on tenterhooks.” —Booklist on Kentucky Rich

“Michaels knows what readers expect from her and she delivers each and every time.” —RT Book Reviews on Perfect Match

“Secrets, revenge and personal redemption . . . [a] tale of strong emotions and courage.” —Publishers Weekly on No Safe Secret

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

The public address system was announcing the arrival of National’s flight 344 from Los Angeles at gate West 22.

Dani Arnold sat in the plush terminal restaurant sipping a cup of Starbucks coffee as she concentrated on the view that the wide panoramic window afforded her of the runway.

To any observer, Dani Arnold would have appeared to be a young, attractive woman in her mid-twenties, well groomed and intelligentlooking, confident and poised, like so many other thousands of Manhattan career girls.

Her facade of tranquility belied the hidden turmoil boiling within her, contradicted the well of tears which threatened to spring to the surface.

She was tired, more so than she could remember having felt for a long time. The strain of the past two hours was taking its toll and the caffeine in the coffee wasn’t helping her to keep her emotions under control.

Wasn’t it just like Jack to be callous enough to ask her to see him off to the airport, so he could wing his way to the “girl back home” and his impending marriage? And wasn’t it just like her to agree! Dani, old girl, she thought wryly, you weren’t dealt a full deck. The minute you heard Jack’s voice on the phone last night, you should have slammed down the receiver so hard that his brain would still be jingling now from the reverberation.

A jetliner began its slow progression down the runway in preparation for takeoff, but her thoughts were still focused on Jack.

A feeling of defeat rivered through her as she thought about how she had built her hopes around him, trusted him with her most tender emotions and allowed him to see her vulnerability. Jerk that he was, and to use that trite phrase, he had wined and dined her into a deep, prolonged assurance that she would one day be Mrs. Jack Cecil. No, that was all wrong—she was the jerk.

Then, one stormy, rainy night, when they were nestled cozily before her electric fireplace, he looked deeply into her eyes and said he knew that she would understand. He had decided to return to the “girl he had left behind” in his hometown, and couldn’t Dani and he consider themselves “good friends”?

The girl, Dani had come to find out, was an heiress and Jack had found that life as a poor, struggling lawyer in the big city was not as attractive as being a poor, struggling lawyer in a small town with a rich wife. This revelation had taken place two months ago and she had not heard from Jack until the night before.

When she heard his voice on the phone, her traitorous heart had leaped and threatened to strangle her to the point where she had to choke out her words. But all Jack had wanted was for his “good friend” to take him to the airport because he’d sold his car and it would be good to see Dani again.

Before she realized what she was saying, they had ended their conversation and Dani had agreed to borrow Stash’s car and take Jack to the great, silver bird that would wing him all the way to his wedding.

Now with Jack gone from her life, although he assured her his business would bring him to New York and he would look her up (he had punctuated this with a wry wink), Dani felt hollow, emotionally depleted. Yet, priding herself on her logical New England thinking (discarding the fact that she had only spent a brief vacation at Cape Cod), she knew she would weather out this trauma and life would again hold new promise. The only cloud that darkened her sky was that she had no idea just how long this storm would last. She had not gotten over him before last night, so maybe it was going to take forever? That’s because I was still hoping, she derided herself. Now I know that anything I’d hope for would be after the fact and, besides, she grimaced, Jack is a dick! She dotted the expletive with a hard, sharp click of her cup against the saucer.

The waiter, hearing the clink of china against china, stepped over to her table and refilled her cup from the Pyrex pot that was always at hand.

Dani, not wanting a third coffee, smiled up at him, thanked him and resigned herself to another cup, not wanting to slight his well-intentioned attendance by refusing it. What was one more cup of coffee in the scheme of things?

The waiter, ever on the alert to the needs of his patrons, took his coffeepot to a table on the far side of the restaurant in order to refill the cup of a distinguished-looking gentleman in his late thirties.

The man was well dressed in meticulously tailored gray sharkskin, which offset the wisps of gray hair at his temples and contrasted handsomely with his coal black eyes. As he poured the coffee, the waiter was startled when he noticed that the man’s hands were tightly clenched, contradicting their owner’s nonchalant pose. So startled was he by the fierce grip that one of the man’s sun-browned, square, neatly manicured hands had of the other that he almost poured the cup to overflowing.

The gentleman shook his head in thanks and gazed across the half-empty restaurant to the windows looking out onto the runway, his gaze passing quickly over Dani’s neat, shining dark brown head.

How can I sit here drinking what these Americans pass off as coffee? I should be out there somewhere searching for her, calling her name. His breath caught in his throat as he mentally called upon the heavens to bring his child to him. Maria, he silently moaned, Maria. What happened to you? Where are you?

His anger was red hot as his mind roll-called the events of the past few hours. Spare me from the inefficiency of airline personnel, he thought, grasping his hands together into a tighter clench; how can a ten-year-old child traveling alone all the way from Argentina go unnoticed?

If only I could see her now, rushing through the heavy glass doors of the airport restaurant shouting out “Papa” in her sweet melodious voice. Maria, Maria, where are you?

He had gone the rounds of the airline officials and now it was past noon and there was still no word of her, no news from anyone who might have seen her. He was still waiting for personnel to check with staff whose shift had changed at seven in the morning. This was the only explanation they could offer him: Maria had somehow come to the United States on an earlier plane and this is why he couldn’t find her. But why would Madre change the plans and send Maria on an entirely different flight from that which had been confirmed? It didn’t make sense.

He had thought of calling his mother in Argentina and questioning her, but the señora was advanced in years and suffering with crippling arthritis. To worry her with Maria’s disappearance would be the height of cruelty. No, he resolved, I will only call Madre as a last resort.

Was it possible that Maria had run away, guessing at his intentions? He would do what he had to do: use his child as bait in this deadly game that his wife had initiated. When his quarry reached out, as she would, he would withdraw her and hold her close. He, Alexander Renaldo Mendeneres, would never be the loser in this hateful cloak-and-dagger game.

Abruptly, the man pushed his chair away from the table, stood and flung a crisp bill onto the pristine, white tablecloth then left the restaurant with long, angry strides.

His movements distracted Dani from her thoughts and reminded her that there was much else she could do with a rare day off from the office besides sitting and watching planes bouncing along a runway.

Hastily, she gathered her gloves and handbag, withdrew a crumpled bill from her coat pocket and left the restaurant.

Once outside, she seemed to lose her determination to leave, and she stepped up the few steps onto the observation deck which on one side gave a glassy view of the runway and, on the other, a bird’s-eye view of the reception room reserved for VIPs. Without knowing why, her attention was drawn to a dark-haired woman wearing a tan cashmere coat with an enormous fox collar. The woman was engaged in conversation with a rather tall, thin man who had sandy-colored hair and a gold hoop piercing his right earlobe. Both seemed tense and the man’s eyes kept darting from the entrance of the room to its corners, as though looking for an escape route. The glamorous woman he was with also noticed his actions and put a comforting hand on his arm. Her soft, musical voice wafted up the bare walls, reaching Dani, who was standing quietly, straining to hear the faint words. Even with the distance between them, she could hear every word they spoke, the woman now becoming angry.

“Eugene, try to control yourself,” she hissed. “You’re acting so suspiciously, you’ll do something foolish, I know it!” She directed a further glance toward the doorway. “You never could keep your head when it mattered most. I’ve passed through customs without a hitch—what are you worried about now?”

The man, resenting the woman’s ridicule, took her arm in a viselike grip and said hoarsely, “Who could keep their head with a scatterbrained bitch like you to rely on? You may have cleared customs, sweet, but what about your airfreight?”

The venomous look on the woman’s face would have chilled anyone else to the bone, but the man seemed impervious to her open hostility. She pulled her arm out of his vicious grip and laughed, a little tinkling laugh. “Who’s scatterbrained? Not I, Eugene. And I resent the bitch part, too. Don’t ever say that to me again. For your information, they’re not in the airfreight. They’re right here, in my tote bag.”

The man’s expression was incredulous; then, slowly, his upper lip curled into an evil smile. Dani watched his face change, as if in slow motion, from one of churlishness to one of mirth. His mouth spread into a wide grin and suddenly he exploded into laughter. His cackle, more than his boorishness, upset Dani. There was something abnormal in the way he completely surrendered himself to his jocularity. When he abruptly stopped laughing, it was as though he’d never moved his lips at all, his features remaining cold and chiseled.

“Stop that insane laughter. Let’s get out of here. I’m exhausted,” the woman complained in a whining voice. “I never should have told Alex I’d meet him in New York. I never should have listened to you. Los Angeles is the place we should have designated. It’s too cold here!”

“Shut up, will you? It has to be New York. I don’t have the kind of contacts on the coast I have here. Now just shut up!”

The woman tossed him a disgusted look. Somehow Dani knew their argument would not stop here. It would probably be ongoing. It didn’t sound to her like the two ever stopped arguing. It was none of her business, though. Why was she even listening?

“Lou and I were on the case all morning, and do you know what we were chasing? That brat of yours.”

“Maria?” The word exploded from the woman’s mouth like a gunshot.

“Even you know she’s a brat, Val. For five dollars I intercepted a cable addressed to Alex. It was from your mother-in-law. And what do you think was in the cable? It was the flight number and arrival time of the plane that kid of yours was on. It seems there was a little change in plans.”

Valerie turned to face him, a questioning look in her eyes. A smirk raised a corner of the man’s mouth as he grabbed his companion’s elbow and led her out of the VIP lounge.

Dani flushed. Suddenly she felt like a sneak for listening to the couple’s conversation.

As the room emptied out, Dani was reminded of her determination to accomplish something worthwhile this day. “Like take my library books back to the library,” she muttered.

Strong gusts of wind blew Dani’s hair across her face as she sat on a bench outside the United Nations. What the hell was she doing here acting like some adolescent schoolgirl who’d just been dumped by the captain of the football team? Life would go on. So would she.

A tear forced itself from the corner of her left eye and rolled down her cheek. She wiped it with the back of her hand and looked up at the sound of the sharp rat-a-tat of the multicolored flags as they whipped in the wind.

Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to help matters and it was starting to get dark. She was a long way from her snug apartment. At least there she could always lick her wounds. Still, she hesitated. She felt the need to stay outside in the cool, bracing air. She knew she should go home. She wanted to go home. She belonged at home. Still, she didn’t move. Instead, she reached into her bag and fished around for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. One cigarette while she let her mind loose. She had to pull everything out in the open and look at it. She held the small butane lighter close to the cigarette, the wind almost extinguishing the hardy flame.

Dani dragged deeply on the cigarette as she watched a small girl on the opposite bench. A picture-pretty child. She looked as Dani felt. It was almost dark. The girl should be home safe behind closed doors. What in the world was she doing here? Dani frowned. Another ten minutes and it would be completely dark. She watched as the child rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, just as Dani herself had done minutes ago.

Dani looked around, not a soul in sight. Not even a policeman. The child’s mother must be worried sick.

Don’t get involved. What did that mean exactly? Don’t care about the next person. Do your thing and let the rest hang loose. She sighed. Well, it wasn’t the way she did things. She always got involved one way or the other. A weary smile played around the corners of her mouth. What was it her father had always said? That tired old trite saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” She tried. And for the most part it worked. Her father had always said, “Your mother and I did the best we could for you and your brother; now the rest is up to you. Use your common sense and heed advice, but make your own decisions. Keep your morals intact and hope and pray that the next person is doing the same.” How many times those words had come to haunt her. New York wasn’t the easiest place in the world to live. She had to compromise so many times. However, she sighed wearily, she had done the best she could, of that she was sure. Oh, there were times when she had to beat her breast in frustration and anger but, in the end, as her father said it would, her common sense had won out.

I am a good person, she murmured, defending her thoughts. I know I am. So I will get involved. I have to, that’s part of my belief. Shades of the Good Samaritan straight from Sunday school. I’ve gotten my fingers burned before, but that’s the chance I’ll have to take. It’s what I believe in.

Dani walked over to the child and looked down at her. “Can I help you?” she asked softly. There was no reply.

“Are you lost? Would you like me to take you home?”

No reply. The little girl looked up and stared at Dani. There was fear and dislike in the child’s eyes. Something else, what was it? Dani thought. It was gone so quickly she could not put a name to it.”

She sat down on the bench next to her. “Did you by any chance run away from home?” she asked in a conversational tone. “If so, I expect there are scads of policemen just waiting to take you home.” Still no reply. “Would you like to have me drop you off someplace? I plan to take a taxi home. Come,” she said, taking hold of the bright plaid sleeve of the girl’s coat.

The young girl jerked her arm away so fast one would have thought Dani’s gentle touch was a wasp sting. Obviously the child had been taught not to trust strangers.

“Well if that is the way you feel about it, then I suppose you’d better stay,” Dani said gently. “I only wanted to help you. I have to leave now. You see, I have a most demanding friend who is right this minute at home waiting for me to serve him his dinner and if he doesn’t eat on time he gets quite impatient with me. There’s no telling what I’ll find when I get home,” Dani confided in mock horror. “Why, this time I wouldn’t be surprised if he slinks into the bathroom and knocks over my expensive bottle of Avocado Bath Oil and laps it all up!”

At the child’s look of disbelief, Dani laughed and explained, “My permanent guest for dinner is a most remarkable and, I might add, very elegant cat named Bismarck. You can come if you want to. If not, then stay here. Goodbye, whatever your name is.” Quickly, Dani stood and started to walk away. Presently she looked down at her side and saw the young girl, her black patent leather shoes making tapping sounds on the hard concrete. Dani looked at the shiny shoes and the white knee socks in the dim street lighting and thought that she hadn’t seen a child dressed so well in a long time. All the kids today wore blue jeans and ratty sneakers. She wondered where the girl came from.

Dani hailed the first taxi she saw and she and the child climbed in. Having given her address to the driver, Dani leaned back against the hard seat. She eyed the steel grille that separated her and the child from the driver. She whispered to the little girl, “I wouldn’t drive a cab in New York if they paid me diamonds at the end of the day.” She’d had enough of city traffic when she returned Stash’s car that afternoon on the way back from the airport.

Maybe taking the girl wasn’t such a good idea. Good Lord, what am I going to do with her? . . .