Amelie Winlove

𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐉𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬….
𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐮𝐧?
….𝐈𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐬?
I’ll be frank with you: that’s up in the air. Here’s why:

Introducing Lena Jacobs

If Lara Croft was a geeky, giggly, yet lovely, lady, that would be Lena Jacobs. Working on her Master’s in Archeology. Alone. Sometimes, though, that’s what would make a fox like her such a catch!

Sure, she’s a bit of a bookworm, but with eyes like the sea after a storm, you better believe this is a woman sending you on a voyage to the stars. Rock-hard abs, a killer instinct…. And a penchant for sleepovers and mall shopping with her friends…. Lena’s a force to be reckoned with.

The question is…. Can she be brought to the wild side? Deep inside her, doth a v***n lurk waiting to feast on manly meat? We shall see….

STAY TUNED FOR A GLIMPSE OF LENA IN HER ELEMENT. IN THE MEANTIME, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR: NAB THE SECRET BILLIONAIRE SERIES FOR YOURSELF ! >> https://readerlinks.com/l/2340320

- Amelie

𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨, 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬!

𝐈’𝐦 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐭. 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥…. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬, 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬, 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞, 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐬 (𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬!).

𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞, 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐒𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐧! 𝐀𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐛 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲, 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐛. 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐜𝐮𝐭 𝐮𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐤𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡:

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐫. 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥

Wise. Learned. And definitely rugged! … (For a history professor). Guys ache to be him, girls would die to be with him…. In every possible way. In bed. In a classroom. In a library. Who knew books could be that sexy….

Still you’d be hard-pressed to get Lucas Mitchell’s attention as he’s an oak. Studious in his work as an educator and unwilling to fall to the dramatic axe and trappings of his filfhy-rich family and the textbook publishing business his mother, father and siblings own, you’d never think this guy would be open to mai tais, lap dancing, and private plane parties with whipped cream.

But here’s the thing…. Even a squeaky-clean intellectual has a past. A tainted, dark past the infamous “Secret Billionaire’s Club” envenomed. And there’s no running from it…. As much as he’d want to, shadowed by the memories of a phantom that would never escape his past and pe*****te his future.

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐑 - 𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐄'𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓 𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐁 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 - 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 $𝟎.𝟗𝟗
>> 𝐡𝐭𝐭𝐩𝐬://𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬.𝐜𝐨𝐦/𝐥/𝟐𝟑𝟒𝟎𝟑𝟐𝟎

𝐇𝐢 𝐦𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 !! I am sending this quick message to say and tell you that new books and new gifts are in the pipelline. So stay tuned, i am going to be back with news shortly. 𝑳𝑶𝑽𝑬
- 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆

𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐝. ❤️
Sometimes a simple message can really make a change...
I learnt it from my friends in Africa. Little things make difference in life and...
i remember when on blue day i received a nice greetings message from longtime friend.. and how that simple and kind action made my day.
I hope my message will make your day too.
- Amelie
p.s
If sometimes you do not feel ok or you simply want to get in touch with someone, get in touch with me... Love

𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 ? 𝐍𝐨? 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧..
𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬...
"Slowly the chair turned around to reveal someone else. Someone else was sitting in her chair. A woman with fierce auburn hair, braided in one tail draped over her shoulder. Her sly tight-lipped smile was about as dangerous as I had ever seen. And I now swore I thought I was seeing a ghost -- the same face Lucas had at the bar."

𝐆𝐞𝐭 "𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐛" 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭 $𝟐.𝟗𝟗 𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟑𝟎𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 >> https://readerlinks.com/l/2236420

𝐌𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐

I am finally back...

It has been a challenging time for me, due to some health problems but, i never stop writing to finish the series Billionaire's Secret Club.

I know i have been quite but its creation required 100% focus on the writng process.

Now i can say !! I love it till the last chapter and even if it took me a while to complete it, i am sure you will love it too.

This series begins with a simple teenage love story but it turns fast into a vortex of twists and turns, where your desidere for more will keep you read it till the end.ù

I have decided to launch a bundle that includes all six books and the prequel.

It will be sold At Amazon at only 2.99 from the today till the 10th of Jannuary 2022

GET IT NOW >> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PBQYD9W

I will donate part of the profit fo the sales, for my Aid Project in Nigeria, so thank you for supporting me and my books.

Happy 2022, Love

- Amelie

𝐈 𝐖𝐚𝐬 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐭, 𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫. 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝟓 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐛 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

Someone wants members of the Billionaire’s Secret Club dead. And I won’t stop until they pay…

I was born into the Billionaire’s Secret Club.
Yet despite having more money than I could ever spend, I’ve devoted my life to the law.
And right now, my friends need help.
Someone is picking us off.
But they have the wrong woman in custody.
I need to prove her innocence while bringing down those responsible.
Only the deeper I get, the more dangerous it becomes.
Not just to me, but to everyone.
Including the woman I love.
To win against this enemy, it may cost me everythi

𝐈 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 Here you find the first 3 chapters of my next and excitng book. 𝐀𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐁𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐲 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 is the next book of the Billionaire's Secret Club Series. The book will be live in october 2021.
Amelie
pre-order 𝐀𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐁𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐲 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 >> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0917J5VNX
Chapter One
“If you think the sky’s the limit, you’re not trying hard enough.” — Ramona Wilson
****
“When you’re a kid, your cousins are like automatic best friends,” I said, looking out across the group of attendees at Leon Jeffries’ funeral. “And Leon, to me, was even more special than that. In my world growing up, my parents were in my life, of course, but at a certain remove. My real friends, as I’m sure some of you can also attest to, were the gardeners, the drivers, the nannies -- the ones I could talk to. And Leon. We were kindred souls. He knew what it was like to sit at a dinner table that was more like a boardroom table. To have to practically petition your parents to pay attention. Let’s just say that our kindergarten drawings never made it to the fridge in the kitchen. They would have blocked the smart screen that showed the food inside.”
There was a smattering of laughter throughout the chapel of the funeral home, but it died down quickly. Everyone present -- I recognized several people who’d been peers of Leon’s from the research I’d done on my plane on the way to New York -- everyone had the same thing on their minds: the fact that Leon had been murdered. The stink of foul play, if there was such a thing, threatened to overcome the sweet aroma of the flowers that filled every nook and cranny of the room.
I paused to take a deep breath. I didn’t want to break down and cry. At least, not until I was alone and could really allow myself to feel the grief of my cousin Leon’s passing. But right now, I had to keep my chin up. As a billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer myself, I was used to giving bold, inspiring speeches to my various teams of employees, colleagues, and supporters, no matter what I was feeling inside. This was no different. Was it?
For a second, the sound of the pouring rain was audible on the roof of the funeral home. It brought me back to when I was just a girl, falling asleep in my room at my one of my parents’ cabins in Oregon, the rain drumming on the aluminum roof like a thousand hands on a thousand drums.
I looked at the faces of the people present. Lucas and Lena Mitchell, Ethan Oatu, and Aiden Oberon were the ones I most recognized. I continued, “I know some of you, and some of you know me. And I know that Leon was proud of having you as friends. Proud of standing in the ranks of some of the most successful people on the planet. Leon was a powerful force on this earth, a man of resources, but also of kindness, tactfulness, and humility --”
Something distracted me from my train of thought. There was a woman in a veil that concealed her face, doing something at the back of the room near the guest register and some of the bigger funeral sprays. Her movements seemed furtive. She avoided looking at the front of the parlor where I was standing. I knew the service was private, strictly by invitation only, and I didn’t recognize this woman. Of course, I couldn’t expect to know every person in attendance, but something about her seemed wrong. I couldn’t place it. I could feel goosebumps raising themselves on my arms and the back of my neck. I made a mental note to find out more about this woman, who was now headed for the exit at the back of the room, and ask around to see if anyone knew her.
I finished my eulogy, sharing memories like the time Leon at age fifteen had carried the ten-year-old me piggyback style over the rough rocks of my aunt and uncle’s coastal Maine estate, since I had lost my flip flops at some point in the day. And the time he’d let me tag along to his hockey practice and -- I found out later -- made his teammates let me beat them in arm wrestling. By the time I wrapped up, my eyes were stinging with tears. I knew I would miss Leon dearly. And I was going to stick around New York City awhile. I wasn’t without resources of my own.
***
The rain hadn’t let up, and in fact had become a regular downpour, by the time the procession had gotten to Leon’s family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery and the pastor had delivered a nondenominational service. Mourners stood still as statues under their umbrellas, some of them shedding silent tears during the interment. I cried too, comparing the somber atmosphere to the joy I’d always seen in my cousin’s eyes.
I was supposed to drop a red rose into the grave when the pastor finished speaking, and I held the flower gingerly, its thorns seeming to actively try to pierce my fingers. As the time came and I stepped forward, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a woman standing under a tree a little distance away from the funeral party. I determined to find out if it was the same woman from the funeral home, and who she was, once and for all.
I extricated myself from the goodbyes and condolences as the knot of mourners dispersed, as soon as I could without ruffling any feathers, and stepped away with my umbrella to see if the woman was still there. The visibility wasn’t good in the pouring rain, but yes -- I spotted her as she was turning to walk away, about fifty yards from me among a stand of oak trees. Something about the way she moved, fluid and smooth, told me that this was the same mysterious person I’d seen at the back of the chapel.
My first thought, as I strode forward to try to intercept her, was that I wished I was wearing sneakers and not five-inch heels. Not only did my stilettos make my feet cry out to be released from their prison, but the heels also sunk into the saturated grass, making it hard to move with speed. As I reached one of the paved pathways that divided the cemetery into a loose grid, I took a second to pull my shoes off. If I had to run to catch this stranger, I would.
No sooner had the thought gone through my head than she’d seen me behind her in undeniable pursuit. She picked up speed, headed for one of the side entrances to the cemetery. The way her eyes flashed when she looked back made me certain that she didn’t want to talk. Well, that was too bad. I was no cop, but I knew I wanted to interrogate this invader.
By the time she reached the side exit, I was no more than twenty yards behind her and we’d both dropped our umbrellas, running at full speed.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Stop right there!”
But my words lost their volume in a rumbling peal of thunder, and all I could do was sprint toward the gate she’d gone out of, hoping to get there soon enough to tell which way she’d gone. My heart was pounding. This wasn’t usually my MO. Normally I would have used carefully placed hired hands to do the leg work along with my staff of computer nerds to dig up the necessary facts, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The only thing I didn’t know was who was more desperate: me, or the mystery woman.
My foot slipped in the mud as I gained the gate, and I twisted my ankle as I reached out and grabbed the wrought iron to stop my fall. Pain shot up my leg. But Ramona Wilson would not be stopped easily. It was something I’d taken pride in my whole career. I was going to catch and question this lady, whoever she was, and that was that. You’ve messed with the wrong cousin, you sneaky bitch.
On the sidewalk now, limping as I ran, I saw that she’d turned east on the sidewalk below the wall of the cemetery and had gained some distance on me. I heard her shout at someone or something as she ran downhill toward the cross street, but couldn’t make out the words. The rain pelted my face, stinging my cheeks, as I half-ran, half-staggered my way after her.
I couldn’t keep up. I was losing sight of her through the storm. Damn!
Then, a bright, staccato flash of lightning revealed that the woman was just now jumping into the side door of a white van at the bottom of the hill. As she clambered into the van’s interior, someone else leaned out the vehicle’s panel door and I saw the muzzle flash of a firearm aimed in my direction. Two shots. And either the gun had a silencer on it or the reports were lost in the thunder, but there was no mistaking it. I dropped to the ground on my belly, scraping the heels of my palms in the process. A quick mental check told me that I hadn’t been hit. But all I could do was watch, trying to see clearly through sheets of rain as the van’s door slammed closed and the driver spun his wheels on the wet pavement, backing up the hill so he could peel away in the other direction. I held my breath, hoping --
Yes! I must have earned some good karma at some point, because just as the back of the van was facing me, another bright flash of lightning illuminated the scene for a half-second, and I clearly saw the van’s license plate. Clearly enough to memorize the tag.
Regular traffic passed on the road beside me, and I was embarrassed lest anyone should see me, the lady lying on her stomach on the sidewalk beside Woodlawn in the pouring rain. I picked myself up and jogged back to the cemetery road where my Tesla was parked. Without my umbrella I’d gotten soaked to the skin. It wasn’t a wholly bad thing, either, because the cold rainwater helped dissipate the hot rush of adrenaline that I now had to recover from. I had to think clearly. I couldn’t prove that a crime had taken place -- God knows where those two bullets had ended up -- but I did know someone who would run that van’s license plate number through a police database for me.
After I went back to my hotel room and changed into dry clothes, I knew who I was going to talk to -- a college friend of mine, Izzy North, had gone on to become an NYPD detective, and I knew she would help. We hadn’t really been in regular touch in the past few years, but with her and me, it was one of those situations where no matter how much time passes, two friends can pick up right where they left off, with no hard feelings, no strife of any kind. Yeah, she was one of the good ones.
Chapter Two
“There are three kinds of people in the world: the talkers, the doers, and the man who pays them both.” — Aiden Oberon
****
In a way, the worst part about being threatened by a disguised voice on my private phone, the owner of said voice having also been on my personal yacht to leave a grisly marker of how serious he or she was, was that now I had to lie to my wife Jessica. It was to protect her -- she was much safer not knowing that she was also a target of this anonymous maniac -- but Jessica had always been the one I trusted, the one I could tell anything to without being afraid she’d judge me or think less of me. To hide anything from her made me feel, well, alone. And I didn’t like it.
I was on hands-free with Jessica as I drove through midday New York traffic toward the NYPD precinct where I had a friend. My wife was telling me that her sister in South Africa had just gone into remission from her pancreatic cancer, and Jessica wanted me to go with her to pay her sister a visit over the weekend.
“I just wanted to run it by you before I call the pilot,” she was saying. “And the weather is supposed to be fantastic through next week. You could ride a few waves at Jeffery’s Bay.”
“You know I’d love that,” I said, and that part was true. Surfing was the one hobby I had never given up. “But this case, the Kennedy girl, it -- it just needs a lot of extra attention. I can’t really get away right now, sweetie.” I blew out a breath as silently as I could, inwardly thankful that my wife hadn’t said our pilot’s name out loud. I had reason to believe that all my phones were tapped, and the electronic voice who’d told me to purposefully tank the Kennedy case had specifically threatened Jessica’s life, too. My wife and I had aliases that we used when we traveled -- mainly in order to avoid the paparazzi -- and I could only hope that that would be enough to keep this anonymous antagonist from following her to my sister-in-law’s house across the ocean. Then again, we’d already mentioned South Africa and Jeffery’s Bay on the phone just now. I clenched my fist and pounded the steering wheel, once again infuriated to have been put in this position.
“What was that noise?” said Jessica.
“Nothing, honey,” I lied. “Listen, I gotta go. Traffic’s getting heavy. I’ll call you as soon as I can. And honey …”
“Yeah, babe?” she said, and hell, I could tell she knew something was wrong. I hadn’t married a dummy. Jessica’s intelligence was what drew me to her in the first place, all those years ago. The sound of genuine love and concern in her voice -- a large part of me wanted to turn around, drive home, and just take her into hiding, permanently, on some tiny island somewhere.
Dammit, Jess, you’re killing me.
“Just … be careful. Bye, babe.”
***
I didn’t have to wait long at the police station before my old friend, Detective Izzy North, appeared. I was known to the cops as an attorney they really wanted to have on their side on any given case, so I was granted a measure of respect, if not the whole VIP treatment.
As Izzy led me through the bullpen to her desk for a couple of files, we engaged in some small talk -- our other college buddy Ramona Wilson was also in Manhattan for a few days, had I seen her, oh, how was the funeral, the three of us should get drinks, blah blah blah. I knew that Izzy was keeping it light until we got to a private spot where we’d get down to brass tacks. I noticed the deference with which she was regarded by the rank and file cops, even the other detectives. I wasn’t surprised. She’d been good at everything she tried back at NYU, so I expected she’d be good at her job, too. I just hoped she’d be good enough to nab this ominous harasser I was dealing with.
***
With his chinless face and shock of tousled hair, the forensics guy Izzy brought me downstairs to see reminded me of Beaker from The Muppet Show. But he had a firm handshake, and when he spoke, it was in a pleasant bass timbre.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Oberon,” he said. “I followed that case of yours, the Nevada murders a few years ago. Nice job.”
I simply nodded. Izzy and I were here for his analysis of the dead bat that my unseen enemy had hidden on my yacht as a very clear threat. Bats were the one animal I really couldn’t stand. Some people had snakes, some had spiders, I had those freaky little flying mammals. I shivered, just thinking about the little bastards. I ran my hand through my hair. Izzy stood beside me, also foregoing the small talk, all business. The silence grew thick. I could hear the faint buzzing of the lab’s fluorescent lighting.
The tech cleared his throat. “Um, yes. So our little bat friend. It turns out that there was a trace amount of a powdery substance in its fur. I was able to lift just enough of it off to make a full analysis. Not surprisingly, there was limestone present. Specifically, Coeymans limestone, which can be found in many cave formations.”
“You have us on the edge of our seats,” said Izzy with a hint of sarcasm.
“Well, two things,” the technician said. “First, the limestone sample had a specific pH that I thought would help me narrow down the list of caves and caverns that this specific bat might have come from.” He paused again, this time with a slight grin and a raised eyebrow. “And, after a few more tests, I found the slightest presence of silver ore.”
“Like from a mine?” I asked.
“Precisely,” he said, turning to pick up a clipboard.
“That could be something,” said Izzy, her face showing a look of intense concentration. “Okay Hedstrom, I want you to run this by a geologist who’s familiar with the caves and mines here and upstate, and --”
“One step ahead of you, boss,” he interrupted. “My old geology professor from Syracuse. I just now got off the phone with him, and long story short, well, here.” He took the top sheet off his clipboard and handed it to Izzy.
After a quick glance, she said, “GPS locations of three different spots?”
“The three most likely origin locations of this specific bat,” said Hedstrom.
***
The sun was bright and hot as Izzy and I climbed out of her cruiser at the end of an old unmarked dirt road, under a canopy of old-growth treetops. A constant chorus of birdsong filled my ears. The air smelled fresh and clean. I exchanged glances with my detective friend. We both knew this was a long shot. But there was a chance, however small, that if Trinity -- I knew her name now; Izzy had filled me in on the succession of attacks related to the old Triune High Billionaires’ Secret Club while we drove out from the city -- if Trinity had been inside this old abandoned mine, she might have left some bit of evidence, some clue that would give us a direction to go in. At the very least, the fact that I was taking action served to distract me from the constant pressure I’d been under since that fateful voice had called my private phone.
Izzy had an app on her phone that had pinpointed the first location from the forensic technician Hedstrom’s list, and it wasn’t long before we were staring at the opening of the mine shaft, in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but go on in. Izzy had brought a couple of flashlights. She handed me one. I clicked it on, and she not only clicked hers on but also drew her weapon. I made a mock-chivalrous ‘ladies first’ motion, and with a grim smile, she stepped into the cool darkness of the mine.
Everything was fine for the first hundred yards or so. There was only one direction to go in, directly along the derelict shaft. In my flashlight’s beam, I could see the rusted remains of the rails that mining carts must have run on, long ago. I even spotted the decayed head of a pickaxe, its handle long since rotted away.
I almost ran into Izzy when she stopped under one of the mine’s timber support beams that had partially fallen, God knows when. I followed her light as she shined it past the collapsed area. I was looking at the end of the man-made shaft where it ran into a natural cave. The air was dank. Izzy looked at me as if to say, ‘are you okay,’ and I nodded. She moved forward, her hands crossed at the wrists in that gun-and-light combo I’d seen so many times on TV. I guess we’re in it to win it, I thought. I followed her as she gingerly stepped over some rubble and into the cave itself.
We were in complete darkness other than our flashlights’ feeble attempts to stave it off. I kept my light and my eyes on Izzy’s feet, following in her footsteps as we negotiated the uneven earth and rock.
A special kind of limestone and a few molecules of silver. Jesus, what are we doing down here?
I was just about to tell Izzy that the whole thing must be a dead end and we should head back and try something else, when I saw a bright line in the gloom, like when the morning light is just right in your back yard and you can see the glimmering lines of a spiderweb. But this strand was stretched across the narrow way at about ankle level, and it didn’t look like anything natural.
“Izzy, wait --”
But it was too late. She stepped right into the line of cable, or string, or whatever it was, and a deafening explosive roar erupted from behind us. We flung ourselves on the ground as the rumbling shook the cavern floor and a billowing cloud of thick dust spewed out from the mineshaft into the cave.
We were trapped.
***
I had always been an agnostic at best, on the scale from atheist to zealot, but as I stood next to the underground pool we’d found, I had to feel like somebody or something ‘up there’ liked me.
Having had no cellular signal and no choice in the matter, Izzy and I had forged our way deeper and deeper into the natural cavern structure. Yes, now we knew -- although it wasn’t a particularly cheering bit of knowledge -- that Trinity had been here long enough not only to collect a bat for her creative threat on my boat, but also to set the b***y trap that would have left us underground to slowly die of starvation or asphyxiation.
Would have, and still might, I thought, looking at the pool at our feet. There was one unusual thing about the subterranean pond, something that had Izzy and me thinking the same thing. Freedom. Escape. That was because on one end of the pool, coming from somewhere underneath and beyond the surface of the water, on the other side of the cavern wall, some source of light filtered through the pool, causing blotches of subtle brightness to dance on the ceiling of this part of our would-be grave, however many feet under the surface of the hill above our heads.
She nudged me with one elbow. “How long can you hold your breath?”
I chuckled softly, despite the gravity of the situation. My mind was full of visions of making it back to Jessica after all. “Long enough. Or not.”
She laid her flashlight on the cave floor and began to untie her shoes and remove her duty belt. I followed suit, removing my own dust-covered Louboutin Oxfords. And, bonded together by both our fear of death so close we could taste it and our tiny spark of hope that we could swim out into fresh air and bright sunlight, we stepped to the water’s edge at the same time, and dove in.
***
I burst out of the water with my lungs screaming and gulped in air, hardly daring to believe what I saw around me. I had surfaced in the middle of a cold mountain pool at the bottom of a small waterfall in a section of woods that looked like it had never been seen by human eyes. I let out a triumphant yelp, treading water, still gasping in the free oxygen of the outdoors. I looked around. Izzy was taking too long.
Just as I was starting to think I’d have to contact her next of kin if and when I made it back to civilization, she came to the surface behind me, first sputtering and then laughing from sheer joy of dear life.
We swam to shore and climbed to our feet, still laughing. Before I knew it, we were hugging. She wept -- from joy, I suspected -- as she held me close in celebration. I had never seen Izzy so vulnerable. For a moment, she had ceased to be a police detective and was simply a girl who couldn’t believe we’d been so lucky that we’d stayed alive. Finally we stepped apart.
This day wasn’t over just yet.
“What do you think of hitchhiking?” she asked, wringing the excess water out of her long purple hair.
“Suddenly it seems like a fine idea,” I said. “But wouldn’t that require a road to do it on?”
She reflexively whipped her phone out of her pocket to check something, but the water had killed it. A quick glance at my own phone told me that mine was dead, too. Izzy looked at the sky and the sun’s position in it. When her eyes returned to my face, they were focused and intense.
“I remember from the map,” she said, “this way is east.” She began to make her way up the shoreline of the crystal-clear pool and moved toward the thick forest. “There’s a road up this way, probably about a mile. Maybe more.”
I was smelling what she was cooking. “Right behind you, fearless leader.” We barged into the undergrowth, pushing aside so many clawing tree branches that I wished for a machete. “You know, Izzy, we have an advantage now, as strange as that may seem,” I said.
“I know it,” she said, ducking under a low-hanging pine bough.
At the same time, we both uttered the sentence: “Trinity thinks we’re dead.”
Chapter Three
“In the gamble of life, your wits and your grit are the privileged information, and insider trading is encouraged.” — Ramona Wilson
****
Once I was seated at my table in the back of the dining room of Le Chien et L’Oiseau -- the table they kept open in case someone of a certain social stature happened in -- I deemed it safe to take off my floppy hat and oversized sunglasses. But I soon found out that I’d jumped the gun. A family a couple of tables over had a freckle-faced teenager in a polo shirt who took in my face with a random glance, and then kept looking over at me and whispering to his mom, dad, and sister.
It wasn’t long before he stood and approached me, pen and paper in hand. “Excuse me,” he said with a tentative air, “but aren’t you Ramona Wilson? From Chimera?”
Argh. My mind was elsewhere, but I couldn’t afford to attract bad press by disappointing a fan. Chimera was the name of my brand. I’d built an empire on pioneering thought-controlled computer interfaces, nanotech, cryptocurrency, and low-orbit ‘space tourism.’ And, chances were that this fresh-faced kid was up on all of Chimera’s latest. I gave him the dazzling smile that I’d trained myself to be capable of no matter how annoyed or inconvenienced I happened to feel. “You can call me Mone,” I said. “All my friends do.”
As I had calculated, the young man blushed and stammered. “M-Mone? Ma’am, could I have your autograph?” He held the pen out to me with quaking hands.
I took it, asked his name, and made a friendly note followed by my John Hancock. And just to make sure the kid was happy, I took a hushed tone and said, “I’ll tell you a secret: I’m just a regular lady who happens to have a very cool job.”
“Y-yes, ma’am, thank you,” he said, holding the signed piece of paper as if it were a fragile infant.
I kept the smile on my face until I was sure his attention was back at his own table, and then I let out an exasperated breath. Where the hell were Lucas and Lena?
Serendipitously, I spotted them a moment later as the maître d’ led them back from the hostess station to my table. I had just taken a bite of a piece of the restaurant’s extremely good bread. I covered my mouth with one hand and waved to the couple with the other.
The three of us exchanged what passed for pleasantries in our set -- Have you gained weight? I heard your stock plummeted. It’s a good thing you two never had kids! -- until we were all laughing and the server finally approached to take our orders.
When we finally had a lull, I sat back, looked at both of them, and said, “Thank you both for coming. I told you I had news, and I’d like to set right to telling you.”
They both nodded, hands relaxed on the white tablecloth, eyes attentive. Part of major success was knowing when to shut up and listen. It was the mark of a solid character.
I told Lucas and Lena Mitchell that first of all, I had heard about the murderous woman named Trinity and her jihad on the old high school boy’s club of billionaires, and second, that I’d had an encounter with a woman who was most likely the very same killer. I started my story with noticing the veiled woman in the back of the funeral parlor, and brought them through the entire chase, including the gunshots and the lucky strike of lightning that had allowed me to read the woman’s van’s license plate number. The Mitchells absorbed every word, until I stopped.
Our food had arrived. I was presented with a perfectly marbled cut of Wagyu beef that made my stomach rumble and reminded me that I hadn’t had breakfast that morning. Lucas and Lena were both served bright red whole Maine lobsters. For a few minutes we ate, various nonverbal sounds of delight escaping all our happy throats.
Finally, as he cracked a lobster claw with a simple nutcracker, Lucas asked, “I presume you managed to find someone to run the plate for you?”
“Yes,” I said, swallowing a delectable mouthful of my steak. “I have a friend of a friend in the New York DMV. And this is the funny part. Well, one of the funny parts. The plate was and is registered to one Jamie C. LaGrina, and my contact gave me the associated address. Of course, I drove there to check it out, but it’s the address of nothing but a very overgrown and disused vacant lot in Queens. And yes, I double-checked to make sure it wasn’t just a Google Maps error. Nobody lives there, if they ever did.”
Lena nibbled the meat out of a skinny lobster leg, sipped from her glass of the house white, and said, “Okay, that’s weird, but really par for the course so far. But you mentioned that wasn’t the only funny thing?”
I dabbed my lips with a linen napkin, realizing that if I kept eating this fast, I’d seem like I had no manners. The truth was, talking about all this was getting my adrenaline going. “Right,” I said. “I also went back and had a look at the funeral home guest register for my cousin’s service. The thing that stood out as unusual was an inscription signed by someone named Love Strair. She wrote, ‘Life’s a bitch.’ Not your average note of condolence.”
Lucas exchanged a look with his wife. He set his nutcracker down. “I imagine that person doesn’t exist, either?”
“Right,” I said. “My guy’s deep search turned up three Love Strairs on the face of the planet. Two of them are minors, and the other one’s deceased. No, I think this is something else. And guys?”
Lena said, “You’re going to suggest that Lucas and I take ourselves off the passenger manifest for next week’s launch.”
I touched my nose with my index finger and pointed at her as if we’d been playing charades. “I’m even considering postponing the whole flight until the Trinity thing is settled.”
Lucas sat back, grimly looking at the wine glass in his hand. “Hmm. To me, that would be granting her a measure of victory,” he said. “We talked about it on the way here. We’d like to proceed with the orbital flight, with some precautions in place, of course.”
Lena looked at her husband and nodded. Then she said to me, “Besides, we want to see the earth from space, and we don’t want to wait.” She clasped his hand as he made a sound of agreement.
I had to admire their courage, even if I thought it was foolhardy. “Hmm,” I said. “Okay. I’ll put some things in place, and I’ll contact the other three passengers to give them the chance to back out. Some people have very little faith in law enforcement.”
Lucas chuckled. He said, “We don’t either.”
Lena smiled as she pushed her chestnut hair back, her blue eyes bright. “Tell her about that other thing, Luke,” she said.
He snapped to attention. “That’s right. We don’t think that Siobhan Kennedy is guilty of Leon’s murder. I was there. The logistics don’t work out for her to have targeted him.”
I was about to tell the couple that I agreed, but Lena spoke again. “No,” she said. “I mean yes, we think she’s innocent, but I meant the other thing, dear.”
His brows furrowed, then his face lit up as he remembered what she was talking about. As we finished our meals and relaxed with one last round of wine, he told me that Trinity’s helicopter had been damaged on the night of Leon’s murder, and that it had crashed in a field near Route 80, north of the city. By the time Lucas heard about it and made the drive up to the crash site, the wrecked chopper had been removed with a police crane and brought to a hangar in New Jersey for analysis. But Lucas found something at the crash site that everybody else had missed: a USB drive.
He went on to tell me that the thumb drive was incredibly well encrypted, and that he was waiting for the uber-hacker he had on retainer to arrive from London to work on accessing the drive’s information, in person. There was no margin for error.
“That’s incredible,” I whispered. “Do you have it with you?”
“No,” he said. “Lena was afraid the thing could contain a tracking mechanism, and we didn’t want to put anyone other than ourselves in danger.”
Lena cleared her throat. “Um, I believe you were the one who was afraid of being tracked?”
I watched a glance pass between them, just like the married couple they were, and I marveled for a second at how Lucas had settled down from his old partying days.
Finally, Lucas said, “Well, in any case, we left it back at the hotel.”
***
After lunch, I wanted to clear my head, so I walked the short distance from the restaurant to Central Park. The sounds, sights, and smells of New York City were comforting in themselves, but I knew the park would be twice as nice.
I grabbed a coffee from a vendor with a stand near the park’s edge and began to stroll, letting my mind wander. I attracted a lot of male attention from among the joggers, picnickers, and Frisbee players as I walked -- to this day, that was still flattering -- but no one approached me. That’s exactly what I wanted to be -- left alone.
A while later, I found myself on a green plastic bench facing one of the park’s playgrounds, thinking of my sixteen-year-old son and remembering when he was small enough to climb on the monkey bars, swing on the swings, and generally roam and ramble around without a care in the world. In my book, he still didn’t have a care in the world -- works out that way, when your mother’s a billionaire -- and as far as I was concerned, I was going to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Inhaling the scent of fresh mulch from underneath the shrubs by the bench and watching the kids play, I knew that this was going to be one of those odd moments that sticks in your memory forever, with no rhyme nor reason to it. Sort of a sense of future deja vu. At that moment a young mother and her little boy passed in front of me, and I overheard some of their conversation.
“Mommy,” the boy was saying, “Did you know that ‘racecar’ is a palindrome?”
She stooped over him with a sanitary wipe, cleaning the dirt from his little hands, and said, “I sure did. Did you know that, ‘Able was I, ere I saw Elba,’ is also a palindrome?”
The boy made a face. “Elbow?”
Mom chuckled. “Never mind. What else does your book say, son?”
She noticed that I was watching them, and we exchanged a little wave.
The boy went on, “It is so cool! There’s palindromes, acronyms -- what’s the CIA?”
“Acronyms and what, honey?” she prodded.
He began to pull her away from the playground toward wherever they were going. “Well, there’s antonyms, synonyms, and homonyms, but I can’t really tell the difference. That part’s hard. Do you know what they all are, Mommy?”
She took his hand as they walked away, saying, “We’ll take a look after supper.”
I had to smile. I’d loved word games and puzzles when I was a little girl, and my own son had gone through the same phase. I reminisced for a second, until I realized that something was sticking in my mind. Palindromes. Antonyms. What about anagrams?
In that second, I knew, and the realization hit me like a runaway train. I desperately dug in my purse, finally coming up with a pen and paper -- the back of the receipt from Le Chien et L’Oiseau. I scribbled furiously, jotting down and crossing out letters, feeling like a woman who was about to solve the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle without the aid of Google. When I had it worked out, I slumped back on the park bench, releasing a huge gasp and sigh.
Jamie C. LaGrina, with the letters rearranged, spelled Negril, Jamaica, and Love Strair was Vail Resort!