Karen Harper - Drowning Tides

Danger is never far off...

When forensic psychologist Claire Britten started working with lawyer Nick Markwood on his South Shores project, she had no idea it would endanger her life—and the life of her daughter. But when the little girl goes missing from her South Florida home and Nick insists his longtime nemesis is to blame, Claire frantically follows the trail to the Cayman Islands, desperate to save her daughter before it’s too late.

Nick always knew the man who staged his father’s “suicide” was out to get him, but kidnapping the child of someone he cares about is despicable. Finding the billionaire criminal is one thing—meeting his demands in order to save Claire’s daughter is quite another. What he wants threatens their professional and personal interests beyond imagination...but what choice do they have when a child’s life is on the line?

Praise for the novels of Karen Harper

“The thrilling finish takes a twist that most readers won’t see coming. While intrigue is the main driver of the story, the able, well-researched plotting and sympathetic characters will keep romance readers along for the ride.”

—Publishers Weekly on Broken Bonds

“Haunting suspense, tender romance and an evocative look at the complexities of Amish life—Dark Angel is simply riveting!”

—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author

“A compelling story...intricate and fascinating details of Amish life.”

—Tami Hoag, New York Times bestselling author, on Dark Road Home

“Harper, a master of suspense, keeps readers guessing about crime and love until the very end...of this thrilling tale.”

—Booklist on Fall from Pride (starred review)

“Danger and romance find their way into Ohio Amish country in a lively and endearing first installment of the Amish Home Valley series.”

—Publishers Weekly on Fall from Pride

“A tale guaranteed to bring shivers to the spine, Down River will delight Harper’s current fans and earn her many more.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“Well-researched and rich in detail... With its tantalizing buildup and well-developed characters, this offering is certain to earn Harper high marks.”

—Publishers Weekly on Dark Angel, winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award

Drowning Tides

Karen Harper

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To our Boca Ciega friends

Jim and Lee Ann Parsons

and my Naples, Florida, readers.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Author’s Note

Extract

Copyright

1

2014

“I’ll get her back, Claire. I swear to you, I’ll get your daughter back.”

“We’ll get her back together,” she insisted, turning toward Nick as he drove the rental car across I-75 to Miami where they would catch their plane.

Thank God, Claire thought, Florida was narrow west to east, but the drive across the state on what Floridians called Alligator Alley seemed endless. Claire’s four-year-old daughter, Lexi, had been kidnapped, taken to the Caribbean island of Grand Cayman. They had round-trip Cayman Airways tickets, leaving this morning from Miami and getting in to Grand Cayman early afternoon. They also had reservations for a place to stay on the island—all provided by the kidnapper who wanted much more than Lexi.

Claire clenched her hands so tightly in her lap that her fingers went numb. She frowned at the canal where alligators basked like logs in the early morning sun, and white herons and ibis fluttered in the tops of mangrove trees. Early October was just past the rainy season, and the air seemed crystal clear. But nothing looked beautiful to her anymore.

How could she ever have imagined when she went to work for criminal lawyer Nick Markwood that it would come to this? The two of them had been through hell enough already, but this horror was so much worse.

“Let’s go over some things again,” Nick said.

Ever clever, seemingly calm, even in the chaos of his own life, and now hers and Lexi’s too, Claire thought. But she clung to that. She needed that—and him.

“Yes. Yes, all right,” she agreed. “I know we have to go along with him, play by his rules. But we have to find his weakness, a way to save Lexi and you too—if he lets any of us go.”

“Clayton Ames controls people the way he does his international business empire,” Nick said of the sixty-four-year-old billionaire business mogul.

“Except for you. He found he couldn’t control you, that you would pursue him for your father’s murder, even if he had it staged to look like a suicide. You’d think by now he’d ignore your attempts to prove that, since he always just slips out of reach. Nick, that’s what terrifies me about him having Lexi—and soon having us. He can make people disappear.”

A noisy semi went around their car with a deep honk of its horn. They passed the exit to the Miccosukee Seminole Indian reservation on the edge of Everglades National Park. The lush foliage merged with the saw grass prairie of the Glades with its tree-filled raised mounds called hammocks. At last a scattering of West Coast buildings appeared along with green-and-white highway signs to Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

She stared at Nick’s profile, which was seemingly set in stone. She was grateful he was as obsessed with saving Lexi as she was, and she loved him all the more for it. It seemed the long night they’d spent planning and packing had etched deeper lines on his chiseled face. The silver streaks along the temples of his dark hair seemed more pronounced and his gray eyes more intense than even during the days they’d struggled to get answers and stay alive on the St. Augustine murder/suicide case. He suddenly looked older than thirty-nine, but then, she felt far beyond thirty-two today.

How ironic she’d decided she would not work as his forensic psychologist again if an assignment took her away from Lexi, and now her daughter had been taken away from her—from her own front yard. Claire had vowed she’d stay home in Naples and stick to more mundane investigations through her Clear Path fraud-fighting website, but here they were, more desperate than ever.

“As I said, expect the worst from Clayton Ames,” Nick told her, his voice hard as it always was when he spoke of his archenemy. “We have to watch what we say at all times, in the airport, on the plane, even once we get to our Grand Cayman hotel, because he could have places bugged or his lackeys hovering. Expect to be under invisible surveillance day and night. We’ll walk on the beach away from others if we want to be sure we’re not overheard. Nothing about Jace, especially. He’s risking his neck to fly down on his own in case we need him.”