Better Off Dead

Her breath came out in a soft rush, and with it came a debilitating flash of intuition. Even as he kissed her, she was shattered by a sense of loss. This would end. She would be alone again.

Chad raised his head just long enough to catch a flicker of something across her face.

“Darling, what’s the matter?”

She shrugged, lifting both shoulders off the chaise in a way that seemed as if she were getting set to run.

“We’re in this together,” he told her. With the backs of his knuckles he caressed her cheek.

His eyes searched her face as if there was nothing—or no one—more precious on earth. Her dread eased, and she allowed her tears to flow out of her like a receding tide.

Live in the moment. All you have is here and now.

“Meryl Sawyer writes romantic suspense that keeps you turning pages with lightning speed. Better Off Dead is a roller-coaster ride of romance, passion and edge-of-your-seat suspense. If you’re looking for a book you can’t put down, it doesn’t get any better than this.” —Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of The Things We Do For Love

Praise for Meryl Sawyer’s other books

“A riveting work of romantic suspense…near perfection.”

—Publishers Weekly on Tempting Fate

“Readers will appreciate the sharply drawn characters.”

—Publishers Weekly on Lady Killer

“Meryl Sawyer has become a brand name known for taut, sexy and very intriguing romantic suspense.”

—Romantic Times on Closer Than She Thinks

“A page turner…glamour, romance and adventure on a grand scale.”

—Publishers Weekly on Promise Me Anything

“A thrilling romantic intrigue that will fully satiate romance readers.”

—Midwest Book Review on Half Moon Bay

“Count on Meryl Sawyer to deliver a fast-paced thriller filled with sizzling romance.”

—Jill Marie Landis, author of Heartbreak Hotel

Better Off Dead
Meryl Sawyer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The best way to love anything is as if it might be lost.

—G. K. Chesterton

This book is dedicated to Sheila Field.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

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

PROLOGUE

“YOU CAN RUN, sweetheart, but you can’t hide—not from me.”

Brock Hardesty muttered those words to himself after his top field agent delivered the news he’d been waiting for months to hear. They’d found Samantha Robbins.

He dropped the telephone receiver into its cradle and grinned at the high-tech device he held in the palm of his other hand. With the reverse ID he could monitor what phone number anyone in the building had dialed. The gadget electronically recorded the number and length of each call from his underground bunker beneath Obelisk Enterprise’s top secret headquarters.

At his convenience, Brock could check out any call his people made. If he discovered anything—anything—suspicious, he had a listening device installed in their office or assigned an operative to investigate. No one was beyond his reach.

Certainly not Samantha Robbins. It had taken a little longer than he’d expected, but he’d found the bitch. Disappearing was a lot more difficult than people believed. There was always a trail, a way of finding someone.

In this case, the key had been cold, hard cash. Money wasn’t his first love, but without it, he couldn’t indulge his true passion. Money often provided a trail or made a good trap, when he was after someone. He’d patiently waited until Samantha Robbins bought her condo with cash.

Brock gave himself full credit for finding Samantha. He knew that the Witness Protection Program—WITSEC—relocated witnesses in a place where they had no family, no friends, and little chance of running into someone who might recognize them. Contrary to what most people thought, WITSEC did not fabricate credit histories for their witnesses.

WITSEC created new identities, but it was up to each witness to establish credit. Getting a credit card was a no-brainer. So many offers arrived in the mail that it was a joke, but it would take several years and a clean payment record for a witness to parlay a good credit card track record into a home loan.

Samantha was different. She had enough money to buy a place.

He’d made a list of the states where Samantha had connections and eliminated them. His agents tracked homes purchased for cash in the remaining states. Without a credit history, she would have to pay cash for a place to live.

Of course, there was always the possibility that she would rent, but the psychologist he’d consulted insisted Samantha Robbins was the type who liked control. She wanted to run things, own things. The shrink had been right.

As Director of Security at Obelisk Enterprises, it was Brock’s job to make certain the group’s interests were protected—at all times. This woman was a threat. He’d said so from the day he and the Obelisk brass made a secret visit to the CFO at PowerTec. As the CFO’s assistant, she’d asked too many insightful questions.

Samantha Robbins had been suspicious about PowerTec’s dealings and should have been eliminated immediately. His superiors had insisted he allow the dumb-fucks at PowerTec to handle their employee.

What happened? Just what Brock said would happen. The snoopy bitch had notified the FBI, and the Feebies had sent an undercover agent to work at PowerTec. Brock had been forced to have the agent killed.

Even the Federal Marshals who ran the WITSEC program knew security should never be taken lightly. Not with this much at stake. Too many powerful, important people had everything to lose. They relied on Brock to make certain nothing went wrong.

Dominating one wall of his office was a world map on a liquid plasma television screen. The weather satellite displayed the cloud formations and used green Doppler striations to indicate where it was raining. Points of colored light, each the size of a thumb tack, continuously moved to reveal the positions of the satellites orbiting overhead.

Using the EPA satellite nearest to where his operatives had located the Robbins woman, Brock punched a few keys on the computer. From space the super-magnified camera could focus all the way down to a single pine needle, and that lone needle would fill the entire screen. With a few keystrokes, Brock used the satellite’s camera to inspect the area where she was working.

“Yeah, sweet cheeks. You can run, but you can’t hide.”

If Brock wanted to find someone, he would. Then that person would find out the bitter truth.

“You’re better off dead.”

CHAPTER ONE

LINDSEY WALLACE walked across the plaza that was the heart of Santa Fe’s historic district. She pretended to be casually walking her retriever, but she was checking to see if anyone was following her. Only a handful of people strolled on the streets bracketing the square. None of them seemed to notice her.

Things aren’t always what they appear to be.

A good operative wouldn’t be easy to spot. According to what she’d been told, operatives often traveled in pairs. Frequently they seemed to be ordinary couples.

From behind her shades, she scanned the people in the area. Two disappeared into buildings. Another rounded the corner, heading toward La Fonda Hotel. Satisfied no one was interested in her, Lindsey moved on.

There was a thin line between caution and paranoia, she told herself. Maybe, just maybe, she’d crossed over the line.

No, she wasn’t being neurotic.

She’d been safe for almost a year, but she would be foolish to let down her guard. One woman—an experienced FBI agent—had already been murdered.

She reached Palace Avenue, but stayed on the south side of the street with Zach beside her. She could have crossed to walk under the shady adobe portico of the Palace of the Governors, but she didn’t.

Native American women were setting up their wares in front of the building that dated back to missionary days. On well-worn Navajo rugs, they arranged row after row of silver jewelry that had been manufactured in Malaysia. There was a smattering of pottery and rugs to entice tourists. Little of it was made at the pueblos, most of it not even produced in this country. Their once proud heritage was being lost.

In Navajo she greeted an older woman, lugging her goods to the palace. “Yaa’ eh t’ eeh.”

She smiled slightly and responded in Navajo, “Yaa’eh t’eeh.”

Like the women assembled under the portico, the elderly lady wore the traditional velvet blouse with Concho-style silver buttons and a long skirt that swept across her squaw boots. Her pewter-gray hair was pulled back into the traditional figure eight bun worn by women from the reservation.

Seeing Native America’s arts being lost forever bothered Lindsey. Some of her best artists, like Ben Tallchief, came from the reservation. She supposed they were the future of pueblo art—unique, individual pieces, not tribal art passed down from generation to generation.

Most of the people on the reservation had little to do except hawk trinkets to tourists. From what she could tell, their situation bordered on hopeless, and it was a downer. Depression was her enemy, she warned herself. Not her foremost enemy, but an enemy nevertheless.

The hardest part of being in the Witness Protection Program wasn’t knowing someone would do anything to kill you, the way she’d originally thought. It was not seeing your family, your friends.

The love of your life.

It was not knowing if you ever would see any of them again. Even after the trial, it might not be safe to return home.

“Count your blessings,” she said under her breath.

Until they found work, most people in WITSEC had no money and were forced to rely on the monthly stipend doled out by the Federal Marshals who ran the program. Because she’d been a successful executive with considerable savings, her field contact had arranged to have her funds transferred to the Bank of Santa Fe.

With that money, she’d opened the Dreamcatcher Gallery, which specialized in Southwestern jewelry in contemporary settings. She’d been able to buy the small condo where she and Zach lived. She had a pet, someone to talk to, someone to care about.

Still, the past tore at something deep inside her. You never appreciate what you have until you lose it. Those words had seemed trite. Now she knew how true they were. She forced herself to live in the moment, to appreciate what she had—not what she’d lost.

“Good boy, Zach.”

The golden retriever looked up at her, his soulful eyes full of love. His honey-blond tail whipped from side to side. Canine solace, she thought, the best medicine on earth. She had a home, a gallery, a pet—and a friend. After months of isolation and loneliness, she’d made a friend. Not that she’d expended any effort.

She’d been afraid to get to know someone. What would she say about her past? You never realize how much you talk about your past until you don’t have a previous life to talk about.

With Romero, her past hadn’t mattered. He owned the Crazy Horse Gallery next door to hers in Sena Plaza. He’d blown into her life like a whirling dervish. Romero listened and jabbered nonstop, but he’d never asked questions about her past.

She’d had almost a year—and coaching from Derek—to get used to her new name and come up with a cover story. She’d used the story once on Romero and again when she’d joined the Chamber of Commerce. But because she kept to herself, rarely socializing with anyone except Romero, she hadn’t had to paint herself into a corner with lies.

“You’re late,” Romero called out from his gallery as she unlocked the heavy plank door to the Dreamcatcher Gallery.

“Hey! It’s one minute after ten. Lighten up.”

Every morning when she arrived, she experienced a small thrill at having found this unique spot in a two-story building that had been divided into shops and galleries. Dating back to the seventeenth century, Sena Plaza was a rectangular adobe structure with a lovely interior courtyard. Built in the Spanish Colonial era, it featured the original hand-hewn beams and trusses, black Andalusian iron, and plank floors burnished smooth over centuries by countless soles.

She stepped inside what—in only one of many incarnations—had been a shoe store before she’d leased it. Before that, it had been part of Romero’s larger gallery, and between them was an adjoining door. They kept it open during the day. When business was slow, they talked and helped each other with displays.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed having someone intelligent to talk to. Romero was well-read, cosmopolitan, and never failed to make her smile. In many ways, he reminded her of her long-dead father. Hollow emptiness welled up inside her, the way it often did when she recalled her parents’ deaths. Since she’d met Romero, it had lessened. She didn’t want to regress, so she tamped down the thoughts.

Lindsey unhooked Zach’s leash and put it in the second drawer of her sleek chrome and glass desk, and opened the connecting door. Zach trotted along behind her.

“Is coffee ready?” she asked, although she knew Romero made it a point to arrive an hour before he opened and brew a pot of Kona coffee. The fragrant scent hovered in the summer air that was still cool thanks to the building’s thick adobe walls.

“Sure. Pour yourself a cup.”

She walked over to the Southwestern style hutch in the alcove where Romero kept the coffee. She’d decorated her gallery in contemporary fashion, aiming for a stark contrast with the ancient building. Romero, on the other hand, had used antiques from the Spanish colonial period, when Sena Plaza had been constructed by the Conquistadors.

“It’s going to be a warm day,” he commented, and she nodded.

Romero had a full head of white hair that made his complexion seem darker than it was. He was a tall man in his late fifties and slightly stooped, the way some older men are. He proudly traced his ancestors back to one of the original Spanish land grant families. She doubted anyone knew local history as well as Romero did. Certainly, no one could talk about it so colorfully.

She poured herself a mug of coffee and added a splash of milk before taking a sip. “You make great coffee.”

“I’m a good cook, too. I’m making blue corn enchiladas tonight. Join me for dinner?”

“I’d love to. What can I bring?”

“Nothing. Just close up the gallery for me. I’ll need to leave around six. Enchiladas taste better if they set for an hour or so before you eat them.”

“No problem. I’ll lock up.” In the summer, they closed at eight to take advantage of the tourists who lingered in the historic area.

“You know, I was thinking.”

Something in the timbre of Romero’s voice brought up her guard, and she tried for a joke. “Thinking? That’s a first.”

A beat of silence.

She plunged on, her instincts telling her to change the subject. “I heard a good one. What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is at night?” She paused. “A widow.”

Romero didn’t crack a smile. “You’re very beautiful, but the way you dress…your hair.”

“I like the way I dress,” she fibbed. Drab clothes helped her blend in. “My hair. What can I say? God screwed up.”

A total lie. She had glossy black hair and violet-blue eyes. They couldn’t change her eye color as easily as they could her hair. WITSEC insisted she strip it with bleach and dye it barnyard brown. They made her cut it to chin length, and she now wore it ruler straight.

Romero studied her. She was lying and he knew it. She could almost hear him asking: Why?

He’d never gotten this personal, never asked about her past. His comment had taken her by surprise. She needed him in her life more than he would ever know, but if he breached the invisible barrier she’d put up to protect herself, she would have to back off.

The bell on the door to her shop tinkled, saving her and announcing the arrival of the first customer of the day. “Gotta go.”

She quickly walked back into her gallery. A lookie-lou, she thought. The petite brunette was dressed in matching powder-blue Bermudas and twin set. She could have been in an L. L. Bean catalog.

Lindsey’s experience told her the type of woman who would be interested in her jewelry dressed more adventurously. They experimented with clothes, hair.

The kind of woman she had once been.

Another lifetime, she thought, even though it had been only a little over a year. Now she didn’t experiment. The last thing she wanted was to call attention to herself.

“That bracelet is by my premier artist, Ben Tallchief,” she told the woman who was looking at a hammered silver cuff set with deep lavender sugilite stones. “Madonna, Julia Roberts, and lots of other famous women collect his work.”

She didn’t add how lucky she’d been to lure him away from the gallery where he’d been featured when it changed hands.

The woman studied the unusual piece for a moment. “Too trendy for me.”

“You might try Zazobra Gallery on Canyon Road. They have a nice selection of jewelry.” She didn’t add that it was conservative, unimaginative and overpriced.

“Thanks. Great dog,” the woman said as she headed to the door.

Lindsey sat at her desk to do some work on her computer, and Zach settled at her feet. She finished in less than ten minutes. What she was doing wasn’t much of a challenge for someone who had a CPA license.

In WITSEC you weren’t allowed to work in your own profession. That would make it too easy for enemies to find you. They insisted you take a job in a new, unrelated field.

Boy had she ever. If only her friends could see her now. And Tyler. What would he say, if he knew she owned a jewelry shop?

Don’t go there.

Dwelling on the past only meant depression. And anger. She was entitled to a normal life.

The life that rightfully belonged to Samantha Robbins.

She shouldn’t have to reinvent herself. They’d broken the law—not her. But in one of life’s baffling ironies, they were free—pending trial—and she was in hiding.

A cell without walls.

That’s what she’d been told in the safe house where they’d debriefed her and prepared her for a new life in WITSEC. They had been more right than she ever could have imagined.

Provo, Turks and Caicos Islands

SITTING IN A CABANA-style beach lounge, Chad Langston stared out at the expanse of blue water beyond Grace Bay’s twelve-mile crescent of sugar-white sand. He’d just finished reviewing the coroner’s report. Cause of death: drowning.

“Yeah, right,” Chad said out loud, half-listening to the melodic sound of the surf gently breaking on the shore.

Robert Townsend IV had been an experienced master diver who’d come to this swank resort in the Caribbean specifically to dive “the wall” on Long Cay. The steep wall plunged seven thousand feet and was rated expert. How could he successfully complete that challenging deep water dive, then the following day go on a newbie’s dive and drown?

Not only didn’t it make sense, the coroner’s report sucked. No tissue samples had been taken. No toxicology report. Nada.

Okay, okay. What in hell did he expect?

The coroner was the local mortician in the capital of Grand Turk, which wasn’t surprising. Turks and Caicos Islands were a British colony half an hour southeast of the Bahamas. Once a hideaway for notorious Caribbean pirates, the eight islands were now a haven for divers and fishermen.

Serious crime was rare. They weren’t geared up to investigate the way cities in the States were. The coroner had taken one look at the body and decided drowning was the cause of death.

Townsend had been found floating, facedown, in his scuba equipment on Iguana Key. Air was still in his tank and he was close enough to shore to have waded in.

“Go figure.”

The place to start would be with Townsend’s diving gear. The coroner should have spotted an obvious problem, but experience had taught Chad that even the most competent professionals overlooked things. The local mortician didn’t rank high on anyone’s competency list.

Townsend had been a sixty-two-year-old man with a wife thirty years younger and a considerable fortune. Fidelity Insurance had hired Chad to see if his death could be suicide. If it were, they wouldn’t have to pay the five mil life insurance policy. If Townsend had killed himself, he’d used a unique method.

“Yo, Langston.”

Who in hell knew him here? He peered out from under the lounge’s blue canvas shade and saw Archer Danson strolling across the sand in front of Ocean Club West—all white skin that hadn’t seen the sun in years and skinny legs with knock knees.

“Son of a bitch! What are you doing here?”

“Tracking you down.”

Chad moved his legs to one side, and Danson sat on the end of Chad’s lounge and pushed his shades to the top of his head. He always tried to be cool but ended up looking even nerdier—if that was possible. Danson’s slathered-on sunscreen made him smell like a French whorehouse, overwhelming the pleasant scent of frangipani drifting through the tropical air.

Who could look down at a sweet little baby in a crib and call it Archer? They must have had a nickname for him. As Archer grew up, the kids would have teased him, Chad decided.

Chad had been lucky—if you called growing up in a small house with three sisters lucky. Being tall with dark hair and having a gift for sports meant he’d been popular. And happy. He sensed Danson had never been happy. The man lived for his work.

“Danson, how in hell did you find me?”

With a shrug, Danson grinned. “Your secretary said you were out of town on business. I—”

“Gimme a break.” He knew Danson must have hacked into the airlines’ databases and seen he’d flown out of Honolulu to Turks and Caicos through Miami and the Bahamas. “What’s so important?”

“We need some testing done.”

Chad didn’t bother to ask what Danson had developed for DARPA now. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—DARPA—operated out of the Defense Department and had been credited with some of the world’s most revolutionary inventions.

Global positioning, stealth technology, drones, and the mouse all had been some of their brilliant, innovative ideas. Their motto was “no idea is too wild.” Well, hell some of their ideas were screwed-up. FutureMap, an online futures market to predict terrorist attacks, had left the Congress and the public reeling with disbelief.

“My testing days are over,” Chad told him with just a touch of regret. “In case you haven’t heard, I’ve been a civilian for over eight years now.”

Chad managed to say this and keep a straight face. Danson headed special projects for DARPA. He had access to everyone’s records. He knew exactly what Chad had been doing.

Not that his career was any secret. He was still in touch with most of the Delta Force guys who’d served with him in Desert Storm. Some were still in the military, while others, like him, had opted for a so-called normal life.

“I know you’re an underwater forensic expert.” Danson’s tone was clipped, a sure sign he was pissed. Like lots of military types, Danson was big on respect. He didn’t appreciate a former subordinate giving him a ration of grief. Of course, Chad didn’t give a rat’s ass what Danson thought.

“Underwater forensics means—”

“I know. You’re Sherlock Holmes with a scuba tank. You contract out to police departments that don’t have an underwater expert, but most of your work is for insurance companies who balk at paying certain claims. Like Townsend.”

Chad gazed at Danson, not surprised to learn the man knew exactly what he was doing down here.

“Look, we’re prepared to pay you a bundle to test for us.”

“Why not use one of your own boys?” Chad would be damned before he’d act curious, but he was. DARPA usually tested its own inventions. Why didn’t they want to test this?

“Good question.” Danson fiddled with the shades perched on top of his balding head. “We don’t want word to leak out on this one. Too sensitive. You still have your SAP/SAR.”

Why hadn’t the military terminated his top secret clearance? Special Access Program/Special Access Required—SAP/SAR—was damn tough to get. The light dawned. DARPA had kept his SAP/SAR active in case they needed him.

“You could do this, Chad, make some easy dough, and still snoop around under water all you want.”

“What is it that you want me to test?”

“I can’t tell you until you agree to test and sign the mandatory confidentiality document.”

“Then count me out until I know what it is. How else can I decide if I’ll have the time or interest?”

“Christ, Langston, you’re pressing your luck.”

“Damn straight. You need me more than I need you or you wouldn’t have flown all the way down here.”

Danson stared at a knockout blonde in a hot-pink butt floss bikini who wandered past. Chad knew Danson wouldn’t tell him a thing until the woman was too far away to hear them.

The first time Chad met Danson was when Chad joined Delta Force. They were being trained to be dropped behind enemy lines. Danson outfitted each member of the team with a portable multiband scanner that was supposed to scan for any available uplink to the Department of Defense satellite.

Damn things never worked reliably, but they didn’t find that out until they were behind enemy lines in Desert Storm and couldn’t contact the DOD satellite. Chad had taken his apart and tinkered with the mechanism and finally got it going. After the war, Danson used Chad’s modifications to make a smaller—and totally reliable—scanner.

Chad had spent his last year in the service testing military devices for DARPA. He’d loved the work, but when his father died unexpectedly, Chad returned to Honolulu.

“Okay, off the record,” Danson said with a huff of disgust. “We’ve developed a handheld infrared device that can distinguish between thermal signatures.”

Chad knew all living creatures, plants and machinery gave off heat. Sophisticated infrared sensors could detect the heat and know where something was located. But what was the object?

Chad let out a low whistle. “You mean it can tell the difference between a car and a man?”

“You bet. It’ll tell the difference between a gorilla and a person.”

Chad was more than impressed. Satellite surveillance relied on telescopic photography during the day, and it was damn good. You could hit the magnify button and look at a drop of dew on a leaf, but at night surveillance went to infrared. Every living thing had a thermal signature that showed up as red on the screen.

Objects such as cars in use gave off enough heat to be confused with people when viewed on the screen. In populated areas, all that could be seen at night was a big red blob. Essentially satellite surveillance after dark sucked.

“Sounds promising.” Chad deliberately kept his tone noncommittal. “So why isn’t the military testing it?”

“It’s top secret. I mean double classified. Most of the world thinks we can’t track them if they move at night. We’d like to keep it that way.”

Chad would bet his life there was more to it, but he was smart enough to accept what Danson told him without comment.

“You in?” Danson asked.

Chad hesitated, thinking of everything he had going on in his life. The insurance investigations, his dive boats—most of all, his family. Five years ago, his father had died and soon after, his mother. Being the only son with three sisters and a slew of nieces and nephews meant he became head of the family. He liked it, but their activities took up a lot of his time.

“I’ll test it for you, if I can do it in Honolulu.”

“Not a problem.”

“You know I’m going to look for every flaw and report it.”

“Just what we want. When you report, call me at this number.” He pulled a card out of the pocket of his swimming trunks. “Use a pay phone, not a cell phone. No IMing. No e-mails.”

Chad nodded. Now he knew the problem. Somewhere, the brass had a leak.