Merciless Legacy: Merciless Murder - A Thrilling Closed Circle Mystery Series Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Other Titles by Author

  The Anonymous Letter

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Back in New York

  Chapter Sixty-three

  MERCILESS GAMES - CHAPTER ONE

  MERCILESS GAMES - CHAPTER TWO

  MERCILESS GAMES - CHAPTER THREE

  Deleted Scene!

  The Merciless Murder Mystery Series

  The Red Heeled Rebels Thriller Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Other Titles by Author

  Merciless Murder Mystery Thrillers

  Merciless Legacy

  Merciless Games

  Merciless Crimes

  Merciless Lies

  Merciless Past

  RED HEELED REBELS THRILLER Series

  The Girl Who Crossed the Line

  The Girl Who Ran Away

  The Girl Who Made Them Pay

  The Girl Who Fought to Kill

  The Girl Who Broke Free

  The Girl Who Knew Their Names

  The Girl Who Never Forgot

  THE ACCIDENTAL TRAVELER

  An anthology of personal short stories based on the author's sojourns around the world.

  THE REBEL DIVA NONFICTION Series

  Your Rebel Dreams: 6 simple steps to take back control of your life in uncertain times.

  Your Rebel Plans: 4 simple steps to getting unstuck and making progress today.

  Your Rebel Life: Easy habit hacks to enhance happiness in the 10 key areas of your life.

  Bust Your Fears: 3 simple tools to crush your anxieties and squash your stress.

  COLLABORATIONS

  The Boss Chick’s Bodacious Destiny Nonfiction Bundle

  Dark Shadows 2: Voodoo and Black Magic of New Orleans

  The Anonymous Letter

  If you tell anyone what you saw that day, I will cut your throat while you’re sleeping and leave you to bleed to death. Don’t ever think I can’t do it.

  Chapter One

  “Watch out!” shouted Tetyana.

  I swerved the car and struggled to straighten the vehicle. I glanced at my rearview mirror, my heart pounding.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “A pothole the size of Mexico,” replied my friend, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to me. “Slow down, Asha. We’re not in a NASCAR rally.”

  “We’re running late as it is. We have to get there by five thirty.”

  I peeked through the windshield.

  There was still some afternoon light left.

  New Hampshire’s magnificent White Mountains gazed down at us, their peaks glistening against the setting sun on the distant horizon. This was a beautiful place. But I couldn’t help but feel those mountains were warning me.

  This was dangerous terrain.

  We wouldn’t want to get lost here.

  Or get stuck.

  In the dark.

  “At this rate, we’ll never get there,” grumbled Tetyana. “Should have rented an all-wheel drive.”

  “We’re driving in style,” piped Katy from the back, pushing her head in between the front seats. “They don’t even make these cars anymore.”

  “Give me function over form any day,” said Tetyana gruffly.

  I had to agree.

  The back of this vehicle was so small, Katy’s modelesque frame and fiery red hair obscured my view through the back window. I knew we shouldn’t have asked her to choose our ride.

  When we arrived at the airport rental company, and she’d squealed with delight to see this retro machine designed like a 1930s gangster getaway car, I hadn’t had the heart to say no to my BFF.

  But now, as I navigated this unpaved road through this unfamiliar mountain pass at dusk, I wondered if we’d made a big mistake.

  “Everyone will know we’re out-of-towners,” Tetyana groused.

  “What’s your problem?” said Katy.

  “The official vehicle in this state is a super-duty truck with a gun rack in the back.”

  “Do you know what I think—”

  “We’re in horse country, that’s for sure,” I said, trying to deflect the argument brewing between my two best friends. “Breathe that fresh air in, will you? It’s good for your health.”

  I turned to them and grinned.

  “We made it, girls. Finally. From New York to Twin Mountain. From Twin Mountain to Falcon Hills. We’re almost there.”

  “How long before we get to Cedar Cottage?” asked Katy. “It’s getting a bit dark, isn’t it?”

  Tetyana looked down at her phone. “We’re already on the estate grounds,” she said, zooming in on the GPS map.

  “I saw a Private sign when we turned from the main road about five minutes ago,” I said.

  “My GPS says ETA in fifteen minutes.”

  “Sit back and relax,” I said, looking at Katy through my rearview mirror, “and enjoy the view.”

  “It’s stunning here. I’ll give you that,” she said, leaning back in her seat with a sigh. “I’m glad I came.”

  “You needed the break, hun,” I said.

  Katy’s life had turned upside-down recently. I knew she hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks, so it was good to see her smile again.

  “Plus, you only get to turn thirty once. We need to celebrate it.”

  “That was three days ago.”

  “It’s your birthday week, girlfriend.”

  Katy finally cracked a smile.

  “
These mountains remind me of home,” said Tetyana, gazing out her window. She sounded wistful, unusual for her.

  “Ukraine, you mean?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “My brother and I used to ride our horses to the glacier streams every Sunday. We even caught a few fish for supper.” She paused and her voice dropped several octaves. “At least, we used to, until the Russians came.”

  The car fell silent.

  Tetyana hadn’t just lost a brother to the brutal Russian militia, but her mother too.

  “Why don’t we go on a mountain hike this weekend?” I said, hoping to distract her from her memories. “Maybe they have a riding stable at the estate. Our job shouldn’t take that long. It’s not like we’re trying to catch child traffickers this time.”

  “I wouldn’t speak too fast,” replied Tetyana. “I have a curious feeling this assignment of yours is bigger than you think.”

  Tetyana always looked at the harsher side of life. Given her past, I didn’t blame her. Katy and I hadn’t escaped our childhoods unscathed either, but we tended to be more optimistic.

  It was overkill to bring along a former rebel-soldier-turned-weapons-trainer for this simple job. But David, my fiancé, who had his own top-secret military past, almost had a panic attack when I told him I would solve this case of poison pen letters all by myself. And drive up to a mysterious mansion in the woods in another state, all by myself.

  I’m a grown woman, for goodness’ sake, I told him, but he only relaxed after Tetyana promised to accompany me.

  The more I drove into the heart of this remote mountain region, the more I was glad she was sitting next to me with her subcompact Glock on her belt.

  I didn’t realize it then, but it would come in handy soon.

  Chapter Two

  “I bet you a hundred bucks this is all about rich folk fighting with each other,” said Tetyana.

  “I think it’s a jealous ex-lover,” said Katy, poking her head in between the seats again. “Blackmail. Gossip. Small-town families with small-town problems. That’s what we’re going to find at Cedar Cottage.”

  “But she sounded terrified,” I said, recalling the telephone call I’d got from a Mrs. Robinson only three days ago.

  “Death threats are never fun,” said Tetyana. “What I can’t figure out is how she got your number. People call you for cakes and crumpets, not crime.”

  Something nagged at the back of my mind. Mrs. Robinson had called exactly forty-eight hours after Madame Bouchard’s death. I knew there was a connection between these two women.

  “Madame Bouchard’s playing with us from the grave,” I said. “Some days I wonder if she’s really dead. Remember, no one was invited to her funeral?”

  “A sham burial?” said Katy. “That sounds expensive.”

  “If anyone had the means to do it, it was her.”

  None of us had been fond of this woman who’d played games with us for years. She’d known we were refugees escaping haunted pasts. She’d known we had nowhere to go and no one to turn to, except for each other.

  And she’d taken full advantage of that.

  Even if Madame Bouchard had had good intentions, she’d tricked us, never letting on about her true motivations. Now she was finally dead, taking her secrets with her.

  But even with her dying breath, she’d summoned me over and played me like a puppet.

  I’d made two promises at her deathbed.

  The first was to step up to anyone who called us at my New York bakery asking for help. For every problem we resolved, for every cold case we cleared, her lawyer would deposit a million dollars in the bank account of our foundation for trafficked orphans.

  There was a glint in her dying eyes when she told me this.

  She knew I’d have helped anyone who truly needed it for free. We all would have. Yet, it was hard to say no to a million-dollar donation. So, I agreed, though I knew everything she gave came at a price. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

  Her second dying wish had been even more ominous.

  “Find my children and tell them I did it because I loved them,” she’d whispered.

  I had wanted to ask her what she meant, but she’d turned away and closed her eyes. Her breaths became raspy and shallow. The cancer in her bone marrow was winning. This wasn’t the time for questions.

  Within seconds, the hand that had clutched my arm slackened and her nurse ushered me out the door.

  “I don’t care if Madame Bouchard’s alive somewhere, if she’s cryogenically frozen and her lawyer’s pulling all the strings,” said Tetyana, “I’ll do whatever it takes for a million dollars for our orphanages. Better for the kids.”

  “Me too,” said Katy. “Where can you get that amount of charity money anymore? All we have to do is stop someone from getting hate mail? Count me in, Miss Marple.”

  I had to agree, but that nagging feeling refused to leave me.

  When my found-family arrived on the shores of America ten years ago, we’d been overjoyed at the chance of starting a fresh new life. It felt good to leave our dark pasts behind.

  We’d set up an upscale bakery in the now gentrified Harlem. We’d opened orphanages to help those who were going through what we’d suffered in our messed-up youths.

  I had a good crew at my shop. Luc, my head baker, apprenticed under me for a decade and could now take over the job at a moment’s notice. Bibi, Sarah, and Rosalie kept the place in top shape, which garnered five-star reviews from our discerning clients.

  Win, our computer genius and Luc’s bride, now worked for the largest cyber security company in the city. Peace was about to make partner at a prestigious New York law firm. And David ran a popular martial arts dojo next door to the bakery with Tetyana as his head instructor.

  Without this family of mine, I’d never have survived the traffickers who’d hounded us through our childhood.

  Things were finally settling in.

  Things were looking up.

  But life had a funny way of turning upside down when you least expected it.

  If I’d learned anything from my nomadic life, first in Africa, next in Asia, and then in Europe, it was to take nothing for granted.

  “It’s hard to see the downside,” I said. “We get paid handsomely to solve problems for wealthy folk. Before the year ends, we can open an orphanage in every state—”

  “Hey, slow down,” said Tetyana, her voice urgent.

  I took my foot off the accelerator and peered through the windshield. Tetyana was leaning forward, eyes trained on something on the road in front of us.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Stop the car!” she yelled.

  But it was too late.

  A loud thump under my tires told me everything. I clutched the steering wheel firmly as the car shuddered and fishtailed from side to side.

  “What’s going on?” cried Katy.

  “I hit something!”

  I was losing control.

  Fast.

  “Brakes!” said Tetyana, grabbing the wheel.

  I pumped the brakes and came to a screeching stop.

  “What the heck was that?” I said, craning my neck to check the road behind me, my heart pounding.

  “Felt like we drove over a dead body,” said Katy.

  Tetyana jumped out of the car.

  With an exasperated sigh, I got out and joined her. She was bent over the back tire, her fingers brushing against the shredded rubber.

  “My goodness,” I said. “What did that?”

  “This is useless now,” she replied, shaking her head.

  I glanced behind me to see what I’d driven over. But there was nothing. I squatted to see if anything had caught on the undercarriage.

  Nothing.

  Strange.

  I was sure I hadn’t imagined that loud thud and bump. I certainly didn’t imagine the shredded tire.

  “I swear I had my eyes on the road,” I said. “I saw nothing.”

  But
Tetyana was already opening the trunk to haul out the spare. She rolled the extra tire toward the back of the car.

  “Let’s fix this thing and figure out what happened later,” she said as she leaned the tire against the side panel and wiped her hands. “We’re already running late.”

  The back door opened and Katy jumped out. She joined me as I watched Tetyana jack up the car, standing by to help her. Katy looked over her shoulder and nudged me.

  “It’s a little creepy out here, now the sun’s going down, don’t you think?”

  I swiveled my head. Dusk was settling around us, giving the woods a menacing and mysterious tinge.

  When we’d landed at the tiny airport in the nearby town, I’d thought we’d have a little mountain vacation after we finished our job. But now, stuck on this desolate road in the heart of a pine forest, this place didn’t feel like a tourist destination anymore.

  In the dusky distance, the White Mountains looked like they were frowning at me in disapproval for getting the flat.

  “This was a professional job,” said Tetyana, not looking up.

  Katy and I exchanged alarmed looks.

  Tetyana wasn’t one to make petty statements or run her mouth. But when she spoke, I paid attention.

  “Who would do something like that?” I said. “Out here, of all places?”

  Without answering, she got up and walked down the road we came on. Katy and I followed, wondering what she was up to.

  She stopped when she got to five yards from our car and kneeled to scrutinize the ground.

  I peered at the dirt, looking for clues, but saw nothing. Then again, my vocation was baking for high society, not tracking “professional jobs.” That was Tetyana and David’s department.

  With a shake of her head, Tetyana turned back to the car.

  “I’ll finish the wheel. Give me ten minutes, would you?”

  I nodded, my mind wandering back to Mrs. Robinson. I hated being late for appointments. I couldn’t mess up my first million-dollar call.

  “Wow. That’s beautiful.”

  I spun around to see Katy staring at a maple tree whose leaves had turned to warm golds and reds.

  Fall was already on its way.

  From somewhere deep in the woods, I could hear rushing water. There must be a river or large stream nearby.