Chapter One
One Week Ago
She couldn’t shake the darkness.
In Miami, Raquel Roque came alive at night. Unless she had a photoshoot, recording session, or fan meet-and-greet, she always slept during the day and hit the clubs at night.
She’d seen the night.
She loved the night.
But this.
This was something different.
Miami nights were midnight blue. Neon lights obliterated the darkness, casting reverse shadows, turning inky black to midnight blue.
Midnight blue was a happy black.
Raquel lived in happy black, but as she drove west, away from the lights of Miami, this new darkness swallowed her. Even the edges, the spots near street lights and shopping centers, felt gray.
Not blue.
Not happy.
This darkness played tricks on her eyes. The road, the gnarled trees, and the overgrowth hanging low overhead felt like a horror movie—her headlights were the projector. All she needed was a big tub of popcorn like she and her cousins used to share.
She chuckled at the memory, but found it hard to keep her smile from slipping.
She did not like this dark.
She didn’t need popcorn.
She needed a big ass gun.
It wasn’t just the dark, either. Her reason for being so far west of Miami kept her nerves jangling. She was kidding herself if she thought the darkness was her biggest problem.
Pretending it was, wasn’t working.
She adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. Squeezed it to feel the muscles tighten in her arms.
I just want this night to be over.
She was being blackmailed.
Someone found out about her plastic surgery and threatened to spread it all over the Internet.
They said they had pictures.
How is that possible?
She didn’t know how it could be possible, but if it was true, someone at Skinner Institute, where she’d had her work done, was the blackmailer.
She gritted her teeth.
I am going to sue them into next year when I get back.
Destroy them.
She had enough money to hire a good lawyer. She had money for things she didn’t even know were things a year ago.
She needed the surgery to stay a secret. Her whole career was on the cusp of exploding, and something like this would ruin her. She thought she’d be safe at Skinner Institute. Old man Skinner’s whole thing was confidentiality. He’d worked on big stars—though he couldn’t tell her which ones because it was confidential.
Confidential, my ass.
She giggled.
Literally.
If it got out that her million-dollar ass had cost more like fifteen thousand—
She sighed.
It’ll be fine.
The blackmailer had sounded reasonable on the phone. Maybe even nervous. This wasn’t something he did all the time. He’d seen an opportunity and went for it. On some level, she respected his ambition.
It reminded her of herself.
She just wished he hadn’t found his balls during her operation.
Oh well. Así es la vida.
She felt confident she could talk him down from the ten thousand he’d requested.
Still, she wished she’d brought someone with her. She’d feel better—but he’d been very specific she come alone. One sign of someone else and he’d release all his photos online and to the press—blah, blah, blah.
She needed more money to hire people to deal with things like this. A few more gigs—
“Turn right in five hundred feet...”
The navigation’s usually soothing voice made her jump. Raquel slowed and squinted into the darkness. All she saw were trees.
Am I supposed to pull into a forest?
The treeline of tall pines ended, and she rolled past a driveway leading into a field filled with more trees. These were different, though. Someone planted these trees.
An orange grove, maybe? The guy could have mentioned they were meeting in an orange grove.
The navigation let her know she’d failed to make her turn.
Dammit.
Raquel made a U-turn and approached from the other direction. The navigation again insisted she turn into the orange grove.
Fine. Whatever.
She’d pay the guy ten thousand but maybe get some free fruit from the deal.
She made the turn and rolled down a dirt road. She didn’t see a house ahead.
Just more trees.
She was starting to hate trees.
She supposed trees were a good way to avoid random cameras. Made sense. Even out here in the middle of nowhere with the hicks and swamp people, there were probably cameras on every house.
She crept farther down the dirt road into the orange grove until her headlights fell on a man as he walked from the trees onto the road. She slowed and peered into the dark in the direction from which he’d come, thinking she saw a car tucked back there. It was too dark to tell a color, make, or model.
The man walked to the middle of the road as she slowed to a stop.
He waved.
No mask. No weapon.
He didn’t look so scary. Youngish. Average height and weight. Brown hair. Light-skinned, probably white, maybe Hispanic. She didn’t recognize him.
She put her SUV into park and took a deep breath.
Here we go.
She’d started to imagine a long winding road ending in a crumbling farmhouse, men with leather masks and chainsaws—
This was better.
Now, she didn’t have to worry about that.
She glanced behind her to find she hadn’t gone far down the road. The main highway wasn’t more than ten car lengths behind her.
All of this made her feel better. Her shoulders unbunched a notch. The death grip she had on the steering wheel eased.
What do I do now?
Before she could decide, the man walked toward her.
Okay. That works.
She turned down her music.
Cool.
This will go quickly.
She had two zip bags full of money in the car—one holding ten thousand and one with five.
She’d play it by ear. Maybe see if she could talk him into taking the five.
She lowered her window as he approached, hands in his jeans pockets, walking with an easy rolling stride. She heard his sneakers on the gravel. He seemed younger the closer he came.
Just as she suspected—blackmailed by some opportunistic nerd.
Raquel put her hand on the pepper spray she’d brought as the crunch of the gravel grew louder, and her stomach danced.
Sitting in the dark in an orchard with some stranger—it wasn’t not scary—even as the scent of citrus filled the air.
She smiled to put him at ease and make him more willing to deal. Maybe to make herself feel normal.
She wasn’t sure which.
He didn’t deserve a smile, though. Jerk deserved a punch in the face.
She made a mental note to remember what he looked like, maybe lurk on the street afterward and see if she could glimpse his car. If she had enough information, she could hire someone to find out who he was.
Then she’d hire some other guys to beat the crap out of him.
“Hey,” she said as he reached the car.
She felt her anger growing and wanted to get to the negotiations before she couldn’t fake being friendly anymore.
She forced another smile.
“Look, I was thinking—”
Raquel felt the tug on her hair before she saw his hand move. The car had obscured her view of his hands. She’d been looking at his face.
And the dark, of course. The terrible middle of Florida dark.
Now he had her.
Panic flooded her veins.
She pulled back and felt her hair ripping from her scalp.
He jerked her head down and slammed her forehead against the top of her lowered window, cutting short her scream. She saw stars. Pain radiated through her head. She pressed a hand on the door to steady herself and clawed at him with the other. She felt an enamel nail pop off against his skull.
He jerked her to the right to slam her head against the window frame. Her world dimmed.
If she blacked out, she was done. This wasn’t ending. She thought she’d break free in an instant, but this wasn’t ending.
A sharp pain bit her neck. Her teeth clamped on her tongue.
She tasted blood as a single word went through her head.
Taser.
And then everything went black.
The Next Morning
Standing on the side of the road, Detective Ochoa stared down at the sheet-covered body. Only the bottoms of the victim’s feet stared back at her. They were clean. This woman hadn’t walked here and dropped dead from a heart attack, another victim of the Miami heat.
Not even close.
Judging from the large stains growing from the underside of the sheet, heat stroke was never a viable theory.
“They found her here?” she asked, scanning her surroundings. She stood in the middle of an upscale usually gathered.
Toby, the forensic tech, peered up at her from where he squatted beside the body. He had long lashes. The boyish name and long lashes didn’t jibe with his ghoulish job. She’d always thought that was funny about him. He felt more like a barista.
“Yes, but this isn’t where she died,” he said.
Ochoa nodded. She already knew.
“She was dumped,” she said.
“Yep. There’s not much blood, and we’re missing some things.”
“Missing?”
Toby glanced over his shoulder as an officer waved a car by and then lifted the bottom of the sheet for Ochoa to see the body’s lower half.
She sucked in a breath. It embarrassed her to react that way, but she hadn’t been prepared to see that much raw flesh. Not at seven o’clock in the morning.
Not any time, really.
The woman’s ass was missing—carved away like a pork butt.
“What the—why?” she asked.
It was a strange question—why did anyone kill anyone?—but her mind couldn’t find a way to wrap around this particular choice.
Toby dropped the sheet.
“It might have something to do with who she is,” he said.
Ochoa perked.
“You identified her?”
Identification could be a lengthy process—especially when a body was naked like this one. Naked people rarely carried wallets or phones.
Toby nodded.
“I recognized her from the white stripe in her hair.”
He lifted the top of the sheet, and Ochoa saw what he’d seen. A bright white stripe split the woman’s hair like a skunk’s tail.
“That’s Raquel Roque,” she said.
He nodded. “Or a damn good imitation.”
“She’s famous for that stripe—”
He motioned to the lower half of the sheet.
“And that ass.”
Ochoa grimaced.
What is the world coming to?
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone wanted to keep her assets to himself. Or herself…
She shook her head.
Let’s be real. This is the work of a himself.
Ochoa lifted her sunglasses and scanned the area. He’d dumped Raquel on the corner of a high-end neighborhood. There had to be cameras somewhere—
Or not.
The area’s mansions had walls around them. Courtyards. She didn’t see any camera pointed at the street.
She looked up.
No traffic cameras.
She put her hands on her hips.
Did this guy find the one spot in Miami with no cameras?
They’d maybe be able to see cars coming into the area but—
She huffed.
“Any witnesses?”
Toby shook his head.
“Just that lady over there your partner’s talking to. She’s the one who found her, but this one’s been dead a while. Maybe six hours.”
“Do you know if she lives around here?”
“The lady? I guess—”
“Not the lady, Raquel,” she said, lowering her voice to say the name. The looky-loos had already started to gather.
Toby arched an eyebrow.
“I dunno. I said I recognized her. I’m not a fanboy.”
Ochoa chuckled and then sobered.
She had a lot of work ahead of her.
Raquel Roque had a high profile, and her body had been dumped in public.
Someone was either very good or very stupid.
She crossed her fingers for the latter.
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