Prologue
The amber/gold luminescence of the setting sun snagged Cassandra Bowlin’s gaze as she turned into the long drive leading up to her stepfather’s stately, southern mansion. But a beautiful, scenic sunset did nothing to detract from how much she hated that house. The two-story, pillared, pre-civil war structure would’ve been a picturesque welcome if not for the man who owned the property. Parking in front of the wide steps leading up to the front veranda, she cursed the reason that brought her out here tonight. Only for her mother’s sake would she step foot in the place or even think about talking to the man who had kept Victoria Bowlin-Deveau under his strict thumb for the last ten years.
Rubbing the brewing headache forming between her eyes, Cassandra bemoaned her mother’s weak, needy personality that had enabled the mayor of her hometown, Choctaw, Alabama, to take advantage of Victoria’s vulnerable state after Cassandra’s father died from a sudden heart attack at the young age of forty. Grief-stricken, unable to cope with her loss, her mother had been easy picki
ngs for the ruthless man who never took no for an answer when he wanted something, or someone. And he’d desired Victoria for as long as Cassandra had been aware of what lust was. That Victoria was easily manipulated was just too much of a lure for Jacques Deveau to resist.
Regardless of her mother’s wishes for peace between her and Jacques, Cassandra couldn’t let his latest dictate go unchallenged. As always, if Victoria wouldn’t, or couldn’t stand up for herself, Cassandra would do it for her. Stepping out of her car, she strode up to the front door before she could change her mind and chicken out. There had always been something shady about the mayor she didn’t trust. To say the man gave her the creeps would be putting it mildly, but she’d never let his callous disregard for those around him keep her from at least trying to make things right for her mother.
Waiting to take advantage of Victoria’s once-a-week night out with her card group to coincide with a day all the servants had off had been difficult, but necessary, she reflected as she rapped on the front door. She wondered if it would be too much to hope he would be in one of his rare, good moods. It had been devastating to then eighteen-year-old Cassandra when her mother announced she was pregnant less than a year following her father’s death and Victoria’s marriage to Jacques six months later. The announcement dashed her hopes the marriage wouldn’t last and added to her worry about the stranglehold Jacques seemed to have over Victoria. Then little Billy had been born with Down Syndrome and she had fallen in love with the precocious boy. When she called the other day to talk to him, she’d been stunned to learn Jacques had made good on his long-time threat and sent Billy to a special home for mentally challenged kids, far away from everything and everyone he knew and loved. Even worse, Jacques refused to let her mother visit him until, according to Victoria, she cut the apron strings. Since Billy had just celebrated his ninth birthday, his cruel, unrealistic stipulation propelled Cassandra to do what she’d sworn she wouldn’t do again, step foot inside the bastard’s house.
Five minutes passed without a sound from inside. Trying the knob, she found it unlocked and let herself in. The eerie silence accompanying the semi-darkness of the house set her nerves to jumping, but all she had to do was picture Billy’s scared, confused face to keep from turning tail and running. She called out, but only received the echo of her voice in reply. Making her way to the back, she stepped out the den sliders onto the rear veranda and scanned the well-manicured yard and shimmering pool.
“I know you’re here,” she muttered in frustration, wanting this confrontation over with. The faint sound of voices caught her attention, and after pausing a moment to detect where they were coming from, she skipped across the lawn toward the line of trees hiding the Choctaw creek. Darkness enshrouded the woods with only the faint peeks of the grey early evening light coming through sparse areas of foliage. The voices grew louder the deeper into the woods she went, one high-pitched, agitated and scared tone pressing her to slow down with precaution.
The gurgle flow of the creek rushing downstream toward Pea River reached her ears, along with Jacques’ cold voice. A chill swept up her spine from the ice dripping from her stepfather’s voice. Pausing to separate a few branches, she sucked in a deep, shocked breath at the sight before her. A jolt of nauseous fear rose to clog her throat when she spotted the four men, one on his knees with a gun pointed to his head while Jacques stood by, arms folded, gazing upon the frightened man’s quivering form with a dispassionate look.
“You’ve been warned before. You know how I deal with traitors.”
Oh, God. She struggled to remain quiet, and for one brief second contemplated rushing out there to try to stop what she knew they were going to do. Fortunately, pure terror kept her rooted in place, unfortunately, it also prevented her from running. It took hearing Jacques’ next words to galvanize her into action.
“Take care of him.”
As he turned from the now sobbing man pleading for his life, Cassandra spun and ran, the rapport of a gunshot reverberating through the air, spurring her to go faster.
“What was that?”
Had someone heard her? Fear-induced adrenaline surged through her as she crashed through the woods.
“Check it out.”
Jacques’ voice came too close behind her, propelling her across the yard as soon as she broke from the trees, her legs pumping as fast as her blood. By the time she reached her car, Cassandra’s labored breathing and sweaty palms made grasping the door handle difficult. Come on, come on, she prayed until she finally flung open the door and dove behind the wheel. She’d left the keys in the ignition, and within seconds was peeling out of the drive and back onto the main road, her clammy hands gripping the wheel in a desperate attempt to get herself, and her speeding car under control.
Cassandra had no idea if anyone saw her, but couldn’t take the chance. A connoisseur of cop shows, she tried to remember every episode where someone had to flee for their lives, and what they did to keep from being found. If one of those men spotted her, she didn’t have much time. If not, her sudden disappearance would send up red flags. Until she knew for sure, she couldn’t take any chances. Zipping through an ATM, she cleared out both her checking and savings accounts then hastened to her apartment.
She didn’t even have to pull into the parking lot to get an answer to her question about whether she’d been seen. The two other men with Jacques were getting out of a windowless van and striding up to her door, purpose etched on their cold faces. Driving on by, tears blurred her vision as she realized how radically her life had just changed in the space of a few split seconds.
Chapter 1
The largest boat Sandie had yet seen filled the slot right in front of the Gold Star Marina office. Surrounded by windows on three sides, the compact office space offered her a view of the entire semi-circle of moored, luxury boats the exclusive Miami marina leased slots to. She’d only been working the part-time job for two weeks and counted herself lucky to have landed the job at all. After fleeing from Alabama a month ago, she’d been desperate to start earning at least enough money for food and necessities so she could hang onto as much of her cash as possible. Bunking at homeless shelters saved some expense, but public transportation added up each day.
Releasing a despondent sigh, she shifted her gaze from the three-tiered boat to the endless expanse of the vivid blue Atlantic Ocean beyond. What she would give to just sail off into that azure space, leaving behind the fear and worry she’d lived with for the past thirty days. Sandie couldn’t remember when she’d last enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep or relaxed long enough to get through a meal. By now, school would’ve started, and she missed the kids and her job as an elementary art teacher as much as she did her mother and brother.
Leaning her arms on the counter, she took note of the early morning activity along the pier and envied those people their normal, happy lives. Fearful of calling home those first few days, she had sent her mother a simple text telling her she would be out of town visiting a sick friend for a while, then called her school and asked for a sabbatical because of a family emergency. After that, she’d ditched her phone and sold her car once she cleared the state, temporarily severing all connections to her life in Choctaw, which included coming up with the abbreviation of her name.
By the time Sandie reached Jacksonville, her nerves from constantly looking over her shoulder were shot. Loneliness and fear, two new emotions for her, made her desperate to hear a familiar voice from home, something to remind her of why she’d fled everything she knew and loved. The disposable phone she’d picked up proved to be too much of a temptation and she’d put in a quick call to her mother. Sandie had wept silent tears upon hearing Victoria’s voice, and knew she would do whatever she had to to keep her mother safe from her husband’s secrets, regardless of Victoria’s needy nature that had led her to fall for Jacques’ manipulative wiles in the first place. For the time being, keeping her mother in the dark about the truth was the only thing she could think of to giv
e her time to come up with a solution to her problem. The one thing she knew about her stepfather for certain was, in his own warped way, he really did love her mother, and she was banking on that to keep Victoria safe.
The worst thing about her current plight was not knowing what Jacques knew or was doing back home, or who she could turn to for help. One of the most frequent guests Victoria bragged about hosting was the chief of police and his wife, which was why Sandie hadn’t rushed to the police after fleeing Jacques’ estate. She had no idea who she could trust. Her stepfather was rumored to also have the ear of the lieutenant governor, and after having been in a position of power in their small town for the past two decades, she didn’t doubt his connections went that high.
Her mood had picked up when she’d reached Miami and the bus depot happened to be within walking distance of the wharfs and restaurants where she’d hoped to pick up work. Mickey, the older man who ran the marina, had been happy to pay her cash for the few hours a week she helped in the office, relieving him of the tedious paperwork involved in filing employee taxes and giving him some time to himself. Sandie had worked her way through college in a small boat rental and bait shop down by the river, and the paperwork and phone calls in the marina office were similar enough to make this job easy for her to pick up.