Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy 3)

Prologue

The girl woke up screaming.

The pain that had engulfed her the night before hadn’t subsided while she lay unconscious, lulled to sleep by the drugs the doctors had given her. The pain wrapped around her legs, defying the morphine that seeped through her young veins.

She tried to sit up in her hospital bed and look around the dark room. There was no one there, not even her parents. She started to shake and cry, not understanding what had happened to her, not able to deal with the agony that had taken over.

She was alone and forever damaged.

Finally one of the night-shift nurses appeared at the door and came running over to her.

“What is it, Ellie?” the nurse asked but the girl couldn’t speak. Her sobs were too powerful. She could only shake her head and moan pitifully, tears streaming down her face.

The nurse knew. She quickly administered more drugs through the IV drip that went into the girl’s arm. The girl had been horribly burned on her leg, one of the worst instances the nurse had ever seen. The doctors had done what they could but without insurance, her parents were unable to pay for any reconstructive surgery. A skin graft could have saved the girl from having horrible scars in the future.

Her parents weren’t even around. They had been sitting in the waiting room for most of the day, but at night they’d gone elsewhere, leaving the girl alone in the hospital. The nurse was extremely suspicious of them – everything from the furtive way they kept leaving the building to the way they explained what had happened to the girl.

Though it was believable that the girl came from the type of low-income family that would allow her to search for car parts on a nearby trash heap, the whole story about accidently spilling battery acid on her leg didn’t ring true. The nurse thought it sounded like her parents were probably running a meth lab instead. Even worse, they could have been neglecting or abusing the girl. There was definitely something wrong with the story but the girl had been in so much pain that neither the doctors or the nurses could find out what her version of events were.

Except now. The girl’s sobs were subsiding as the morphine began to take effect, working quickly in her eleven-year-old system. The nurse watched her carefully, debating whether or not she should try and ask her. This was a job for Child Services, not her, but there was something about the girl she wanted to protect. It was like she could see the child was already damaged before the burns on her leg happened.

“Ellie,” she said gently, smoothing back the girl’s fine blonde hair. She was going to grow up to be a stunning woman, already showing promise in the usually awkward pre-teen phase. That made the nurse feel even more sickened for her, knowing her beauty would be marred by the scars that would come.

The girl opened her wide brown eyes and looked up at the nurse. Her face was wet from tears and she looked scared despite the subsiding pain.

“Ellie,” the nurse went on, “are you able to tell me what happened to you?”

The girl blinked, unsure of what to do or say. She could barely remember what happened herself but knew that what had happened was wrong. And even though her parents hadn’t told her yet to keep quiet about Travis Raines, the bad man whose house her mother made her break into, she knew all too well to keep her mouth shut. She was the daughter of con artists, after all, and truth was never an option.

Still, there was a part of her that wanted to tell the nurse what happened. She wanted to get the Travis man in trouble. She wanted him to be put away for what he did to her.

“I … I don’t remember,” the girl said, so terribly afraid she’d tell the truth.

The nurse studied her. “Do you remember looking for car parts?”

Car parts? The girl had no idea what her parents had told the doctors. The confusion came across her face, just long enough for the nurse to pick up on it.

“Ellie, what was the last thing you remember?” the nurse asked quickly. “How did you burn your leg, did your parents do this to you?”

The girl’s face fell as she tried to figure out what to do.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Amelie Watt yelled, appearing at the doorway.

The girl cringed at the sound of her mother’s voice. In her increasingly delirious state, she was worried that she may have done something to anger her.

Amelie marched into the hospital room, her eyes blazing at the nurse.

“Why are you questioning my daughter?” she yelled, furious, her arms waving. “That isn’t your right.”

The nurse stepped back from the girl but refused to apologize. “I’m concerned about her.”

“Your only concern is to make my daughter better.” Amelie crossed her arms, head held high. She was a striking woman with exotic Eastern European features – high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and dark sloe-eyes. She gave off the impression that she wasn’t afraid but she couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice. “Why are you waking her up in the middle of the night anyway? Let my poor baby sleep.”

The nurse raised her brows. “Your baby was crying in the middle of the night, screaming from the pain. I was the only one around.” She let those last words sink in like daggers.

Amelie sucked in her breath and shook her head. “Don’t you dare question my parenting skills. We had to leave to get some sleep at home. It’s the only way we can be there for her.”

The nurse stared back at her, wondering if she should push it further. She glanced at the girl who was staring at her mother with a mix of admiration and fear. Perhaps there was no use digging around here. If the girl really was being abused or neglected, Child Services would find out about it. They’d already been notified anyway. The Watts could deal with them in the morning.

Finally the nurse sighed and said, “You’ve got five minutes before I’ll need you to leave the room. She’ll need to sleep and the drugs will keep the pain at bay.”

Amelie narrowed her eyes and then looked to her daughter. The nurse left the room, closing the door behind her.

Amelie relaxed visibly once she heard the door shut. She came closer to her daughter and placed a hand on Ellie’s thin, tanned arm, wincing at the sight of the IV going into it.

“Baby,” she whispered. “What did you tell them?’

By now the girl was slowly losing consciousness, eased into a comfortable state by the morphine. She licked her lips and said what she knew her mother wanted her to hear. “I didn’t tell them anything, mama.”

Amelie gave her painful smile. “That’s my baby girl. When you’re feeling better, we’ll let you know what to say. For now, tell them that you were looking for car parts at the dump and that was the last thing you remember. You got it? The last thing you remember.”

“But …” the girl started. “But the man. Travis.” Amelie shuddered at the sound of his name. “He needs to be punished. He needs to go to jail.”

“He will be punished one day, baby,” her mother said. “One day, he will pay. But that’s not your job. We’ll take care of it. I promise.”

Her mother stayed with her, holding her hand.

I’ll make him pay, the girl thought. Then fell asleep.

CHAPTER ONE

The storm raged on and inside I was screaming.

I was sitting in a stolen Jeep with no roof, parked on the side of a dirt road beneath a wavering canopy that occasionally let a spattering of rain pelt me in the face. Despite the warmth of the tropical night, I was cold and soaked to the bone in my muddy evening gown. On one side of me was Camden McQueen, on the other was Javier Bernal. One more light than dark, one more dark than light. Both men had come for me. Both men had loved me. And both of them I had seriously underestimated.

There really wasn’t much time to sit around and try to get my head on straight. But after everything that happened, I knew a panic attack was just waiting to devour me, to incapacitate me, to take me out of the game. I could feel the fear buzzing through my veins, threatening to tear me up from the inside out. The fear of losing everything – Gus, my mother, my revenge, my purpose. I feared Javier and what he might do to Camden. I feared Camden and the way he’d changed toward me. I feared myself and the things I might do to try and make sense of it all.

We had only been in the Jeep for about ten minutes, heading back to Veracruz, when I’d told Javier to park the car so I could have a moment. He reluctantly complied, finding an area beneath some massive trees that shook from the howling winds. Both men were staring at me and I could only look down at my hands as I rubbed them up and down against the mud on my dress, the coldness seeping into my palms. They both knew me, knew my attacks, and that alone had me screaming internally, wanting to run. I couldn’t even look at them. I couldn’t even accept the situation. Javier and Camden. The three of us having to work together, let alone sit in a Jeep together without them killing each other. And I was in the middle.

My mind raced back to our escape. My mother. Dear God, my mother. I really never thought I’d see her again, let alone at a drug lord’s party, but there was she was, serving motherfucking champagne. She was working for Travis of all people, the man who poured acid down my leg when I was just eleven years old, the same man who my mother wanted to rob that night in Mississippi. What the hell had happened to her? After everything we had gone through as a family, after all the pain I suffered, the inquests from authorities, the move to Palm Valley to stay with Uncle Jim and her eventual abandonment of me, why was she here with him now? And where was my father?

I swallowed, my throat feeling thick and debated on asking Javier. He had known this all along, knew where they were. He’d even wanted me to kill them for some sick, divine purpose from that damaged moral code of his. This whole time he knew and he was using me.

I couldn’t even be angry at him over that, though. I should have known better, I should have expected this. I was so damn angry at myself for falling for his old tricks, for slipping into a past that would have been better left buried. I hated myself for losing my faith in Camden and putting it in Javier instead, and hated myself even more for the damage I caused. That was another reason I couldn’t look at him. Every time I looked at Camden, I saw the ways he’d changed. He was stronger, tougher and more ruthless. He was also hurt, scarred deep inside by what I’d done. He now had the kind of scars that even his skilled hands couldn’t transform.

“Are you okay?” Camden asked, his voice low. My knee was touching his knee. My other knee was touching Javier’s. I could feel them on either side of me, hear their breathing, both their bodies tense and rigid as we sat there in the darkness. This was so awkward. So fucking awkward.

And from the looks of it, with Gus and my parents in the clutches of Travis Raines, my cover being blown, the three of us having to make our way through Mexico together, awkward was the least of my problems.

I nodded, still looking at my hands, even though I wasn’t okay. None of us were.

Javier sighed loudly. Something about his tone made me look over. Somehow it was easier to look at him, maybe because I didn’t feel guilt when I did.