Merciless Games: A Thrilling Closed Circle Mystery Series (Merciless Murder Mystery Thriller) Read online

  Merciless Games

  A Merciless Murder Mystery Thriller

  Tikiri Herath

  Other Titles by Author

  Merciless Murder Mystery Thrillers

  Merciless Legacy

  Merciless Games

  Merciless Crimes

  Merciless Past

  Merciless Lies

  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

  Contents

  Title Page

  Other Titles by Author

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  The Photo

  Day One

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-one

  22. Chapter Twenty-two

  Day Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-three

  24. Chapter Twenty-four

  25. Chapter Twenty-five

  26. Chapter Twenty-six

  27. Chapter Twenty-seven

  28. Chapter Twenty-eight

  29. Chapter Twenty-nine

  30. Chapter Thirty

  31. Chapter Thirty-one

  32. Chapter Thirty-two

  33. Chapter Thirty-three

  34. Chapter Thirty-four

  35. Chapter Thirty-five

  36. Chapter Thirty-six

  37. Chapter Thirty-seven

  38. Chapter Thirty-eight

  39. Chapter Thirty-nine

  40. Chapter Forty

  41. Chapter Forty-one

  42. Chapter Forty-two

  43. Chapter Forty-three

  44. Chapter Forty-four

  45. Chapter Forty-five

  46. Chapter Forty-six

  47. Chapter Forty-seven

  48. Chapter Forty-eight

  49. Chapter Forty-nine

  50. Chapter Fifty

  51. Chapter Fifty-one

  Day Three

  52. Chapter Fifty-two

  53. Chapter Fifty-three

  54. Chapter Fifty-four

  55. Chapter Fifty-five

  56. Chapter Fifty-six

  57. Chapter Fifty-seven

  58. Chapter Fifty-eight

  59. Chapter Fifty-nine

  60. Chapter Sixty

  61. Chapter Sixty-one

  62. Chapter Sixty-two

  Four Weeks Later

  63. Chapter Sixty-three

  64. Chapter Sixty-four

  The Girl Who Knew Their Names - Chapter One

  The Girl Who Knew Their Names - Chapter Two

  The Girl Who Knew Their Names - Chapter Three

  Deleted Scenes!

  The Merciless Murder Mystery Series

  The Red Heeled Rebels Thriller Series

  Inspiration

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Photo

  It was an image of a bloated, dead body.

  He lay naked, sprawled over a cluster of rocks on a deserted and remote beach. The gruesome blood splatters on his back said he’d been shot multiple times. Whoever killed him had been vicious. Boiling with the desire for revenge.

  They’d made sure he was dead.

  Day One

  Chapter One

  “It’s spooky here,” said Katy. “I don’t like this.”

  “It’s just a short trip,” I said.

  “Famous last words,” she said, making a face.

  Though I didn’t let on, my gut was churning.

  Go home, it warned me. Turn around now.

  But I was ignoring all the red flags, doing my best to pretend everything was just fine.

  It was early afternoon, but the sky was already gray and the clouds hung stiflingly low.

  I was glad we’d ditched our city dresses and heels for more sensible and layered hiking attire and flat boots.

  A storm was coming. The swells rushed in, crashing furiously on the rocky shore. The howling wind whipped everything into frozen icicles, and the seagulls screeched as they got whisked up by the strong currents.

  I brushed the long hair strands off my face, wondering about my crazy decision to come here and invite my BFF to join me.

  “Maybe they made a mistake, Asha,” said Katy, as if reading my mind. She took out the crumpled photo from her pocket. “Maybe this wasn’t meant for us.”

  “They paid up, and they were generous, weren’t they?” I said, pushing my fears to the back of my mind. “It had to be for us.”

  But it hadn’t been an ordinary order for an ordinary cake.

  I knew it as soon as I saw the gruesome image.

  The unsigned message that had popped into my bakery’s inbox four days ago had come with something extra.

  A photograph of a dead man. A naked corpse on a desolate beach.

  A shudder went through me as I stared at the picture in Katy’s hand.

  The sand dunes and cactus in the background reminded me of a remote area I’d been to before. One at the Mexican border, where only outlaws dared to go.

  It was this photo that brought Katy and me to this small town of Trembling Cypress Bay, off the Oregon coast. It was a place so remote it felt like the end of the world.

  We were waiting for the next ferry on the town’s fishing jetty, trying not to get soaked by the ocean spray crashing around us.

  Underneath the muddy water near the pier, long strands of dark green kelp waved madly, like those wacky inflatable air dancers you find at county fairs.

  It was like even they were warning us to stay away.

  I pulled the jacket zipper up to my neck and curled my toes in my boots. The humidity on the West Coast soaked right into your bones and, I swore, chilled your blood.

  We were a long way from home and our upscale New York bakery.

  “When someone promises a weekend at an exclusive resort, I expect Laguna Beach or Cancun,” grumbled Katy, “not a dinky little fishing village in the middle of nowhere.” br />
  She poked me with her elbow.

  “If they lied about this, how do we know they’re not lying about everything else?”

  She was right.

  I had no idea what to expect.

  Minutes after we got the cake order, they, whoever they were, sent a ten-thousand-dollar retainer. An electronic transfer from an anonymous payee, explained our bank.

  Who pays that much money for a Dulce de Leche cheesecake?

  Then came the message.

  We were to hand-deliver the cake to a luxury retreat on an island off the Oregon coast. Another twenty thousand dollars would be ours if we served the cake for dinner the first night and stayed the complete weekend at the resort.

  The signature line simply said, The Host, a friend of Madame Bouchard.

  That, I knew, was a call for help.

  I could use thirty thousand dollars to expand the Red Heeled Rebels bakery and buy my chef team a set of new industrial-strength mixers. All I had to do was serve my cheesecake and stay the weekend at a resort? That would be the fastest money I’d ever made.

  Of course, I said yes.

  The money was nice, but as I stood on this remote ocean front at the other end of the country, I felt a knot forming in my stomach like those kelp strands under the sea tangling into a gnarled mess.

  My mind swirled with unanswered questions.

  Why did they invite us? What did this exclusive island retreat in Oregon have to do with the photo of a dead man?

  I wondered if I was going to regret my decision to come.

  Chapter Two

  “Look!” said Katy, pulling on my arm.

  I spun around.

  “It’s the island,” she whispered.

  The fog was lifting in the distance, and a small black speck appeared on the horizon.

  We stood in awe, watching the ghostly landscape unfold in front of us.

  “Coffin Island,” I whispered to myself as the eerie isle shimmered in the distance.

  “Creepy,” whispered Katy.

  There had been very little information about the island or the retreat online. From what we’d dug up, the only structure on that rocky islet was a hundred-year-old lighthouse that was no longer in operation.

  My mind buzzed as I speculated on where we’d sleep that night. In a tent? On the ferry boat?

  But I kept those thoughts to myself.

  My best friend, Katy, was a big city girl who loved her heels and designer bags. She had been expecting to stay at a five-star luxury resort with white-gloved service.

  I had warned her.

  Our destination was a remote part of untamed Oregon. Not the celebrity-studded, sunny southern beaches of California. While she was having second thoughts now, the lure of a mysterious luxury retreat had been too tempting for her to stay away.

  But it was too late to turn back now.

  Still, she was no stranger to adventure and had that photograph of the bloated dead man tucked in her jacket pocket. It was our only clue to whatever we were going to encounter on that island.

  Katy and I had taken a nonstop red eye from JFK and landed in Portland the day before.

  We’d driven over in a rental car to the lone village along the coast with the only working ferry to the island, our final destination.

  Ferry was a big word for an unimpressive boat.

  It was an antique fishing skiff that smelled of dead fish and looked like it would capsize any moment. It was docked at the end of the jetty now, lurching back and forth so alarmingly, I was surprised it hadn’t hit the piles and shattered into pieces already.

  Mike, the ferry operator, was the strong and silent type.

  Within seconds, he made it clear he didn’t like city folk. He didn’t have to say anything. The ugly scowl he shot our way when we approached him told us everything.

  Mike wore a frayed captain’s hat, dirty brown dungarees, and black rubber boots that sloshed when he walked. He communicated through impatient hand gestures and intermittent grunts, which meant we had to do most of the talking while he nodded or shook his head.

  All we knew was we were waiting for two more people before the ferry would take off.

  I stood at the edge of the pier and stared at the Pacific Ocean frothing in front of me, wondering what Madame Bouchard had planned for us now.

  Most people knew me as the celebrity New York baker. Very few knew I moonlighted as a private investigator.

  Because my former client, the now deceased Madame Bouchard’s, reach had been far and wide, I never knew from where I’d receive these calls for help. Some days, I wondered if she was scheming from beyond the grave.

  The information I got was always sparse. Part of my sleuthing included uncovering as much about the person who summoned me as the problem that needed tackling.

  These calls usually came from one of her upper crust friends at the most unexpected of times. It was either a request to solve a cold case, an appeal to uncover a concealed truth, or a plea to find a missing family member.

  Above all, they required discretion.

  Madame Bouchard had been a shrewd woman.

  She had known my bakery team was made of street-smart, skilled trafficked survivors who knew a lot more than how to bake an award-winning cake.

  We’d banded together in our youths to battle the criminals who’d come to hunt us and enslave us. Together, we knew how to fight a good fight, pick the right weapon, fire a clean shot, blow up a building and hack into their accounts, and expose their dirty deeds to the world.

  We’d been on the radar of Interpol and the CIA and had escaped across four continents.

  Madame Bouchard had known our pasts. She’d used us and our skills when she was alive, just like she was using us after her death.

  She’d sealed the deal by promising our anti-trafficking non-profit a sizable donation from her estate every time I took a call from one of her friends. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Even when the risks were great.

  What I didn’t tell my fiancé, David, my best friend, Katy, or anyone else in my found family was that I looked forward to these cases. Eagerly.

  The lure of solving an impossible problem, of unraveling a mystery no one else could, wasn’t just intellectually stimulating. It was an irresistible challenge.

  There was also only so much I could take, catering to demanding, self-entitled socialites at my upscale bakery.

  If I had to be honest with myself, I missed the lure of adventure of my youth. Even the worries whirling in my head now paled in comparison to the anticipation of what we’d find on that island.

  Tetyana and David had wanted to join us, but they were held by contract to offer kickboxing classes for a Manhattan corporation’s wellness program till Saturday.

  I had promised David a quiet camping trip next week. Just me and him for once. But he and I both knew these cases never ended when I thought they would.

  “There goes my romantic getaway with David,” I said with a resigned sigh. “He’s not going to be a happy puppy.”

  “Didn’t he want to shut classes down and come?” asked Katy.

  “We need the money to pay rent. It’s not like Harlem’s cheap anymore. Besides, we can’t keep closing business every time Madame Bouchard’s friends call us like this.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little freaky?” said Katy, pulling her woolen hat over her ears. “We keep talking like she’s alive, when she died three months ago.”

  “Whatever her game, we can’t say no to a million-dollar donation for the orphanage. There’s so much we can do. A new school, more nurses, and teachers for the kids in NOLA. None of that comes cheap.”

  “It feels like she’s still around,” said Katy with a shudder, “the way she pulls on our strings. She always liked to play games.”

  “It was her plan, but it’s her lawyer who’s pulling our strings now. She made it clear in her will.” I thought of the generous retainer that had arrived in our bank account this week. “Besides, thi
s time, the client’s paying us a tidy sum too.”

  “Oi!” shouted a panicked male voice. “Oi! Wait up!”

  I whirled around, wondering who was joining us.

  Chapter Three

  A pale, thin man in a brown beret was running up the pier, a rucksack on his shoulders.

  “Ahoy!” he yelled at the ferry captain. “Wait for me!”

  “How did he get here?” said Katy, squinting at the figure. “I didn’t hear a car. Did you?”

  “Probably ran down from the village.”

  “Looks a little too sickly for a ride on these waves.”

  “That’s one down,” I said, scanning the horizon. “One more and we should be on our way.”

  We stood at the end of the pier, ignoring the ocean spray splashing against our pants, watching the man stumble uncertainly onto the boat.

  Mike didn’t even bother to welcome the newcomer.

  He was crouched in the far corner of his boat, puttering around the engine. We’d heard the engine start and sputter for some time now, solidifying Katy’s fears of us drowning in the middle of the ferry ride.

  The new passenger turned his back to the driver. Choosing the corner of the deck with the most cover, he threw his rucksack down and huddled on the bench. He wrapped his arms around him and shuddered. I was sure he felt as miserable as he looked.

  “I expected Ian Fleming in a tuxedo,” said Katy. “This guy looks like he crawled out of a bat cave. So disappointing.”

  “He could be one of those flip-flop-wearing millionaire artists.”

  “These writers are crazy,” said Katy, shaking her head, as the man retreated even farther into his corner. “Why do they torture themselves like this?”

  “Maybe it’s what makes their muse come alive.”

  Not wanting to stare, we turned back toward the ocean to watch the waves roll in, getting bigger and bigger as the wind gust turned into a small gale.

  A ping came from my pocket and I pulled my phone out. It was David. I texted him back saying we’d arrived fine and were just ready to get on the boat.

  “Tetyana can run the dojo and I can join you after today’s class ends,” he replied.