Dangerous Melody. Dana Mentink

over, and she’d suspected he’d paid officials to look the other way on his business dealings. Worse, she’d known people who’d crossed Bittman to simply disappear with no evidence on dirty Bittman’s well-manicured hands—vanished as if they’d never existed.

      She checked her watch. Three-and-a-half hours to go. As the little hand ticked away the seconds, something shifted inside Stephanie. The fear coursing through her body coalesced into another emotion, white-hot and razor sharp. She would not sit by while Bittman turned her life upside down again. She was done running, done hiding. He would pay for what he had done to Victor. He would deliver her father unharmed.

      “I have to go somewhere,” she said.

      “Come again?”

      She braced herself. “Go to the hospital. I’ll call you when I can.”

      “Steph,” he said. “You’re in trouble. I can hear it in your voice. Whatever it is, let me help you.”

      Not this time, big brother.

      * * *

      A few minutes after two o’clock, Tate Fuego pulled his motorcycle to a stop in the shelter of massive trees lining the gate that circled Joshua Bittman’s mansion. The building itself was a domed-top monstrosity of white stone, flanked by stretches of impeccably manicured lawns and a rectangular pond that reflected the building. A long driveway was empty except for a mint condition Mustang GT 350 and a black Mercedes.

      Tate saw no sign of his sister Maria’s car, though he knew she’d been a regular at Bittman’s place. Her phone call three days prior scared him. Her normally upbeat personality was gone, and the woman on the line sounded irrational and unsteady, though she would not tell him why. Then nothing. No response to his texts, and no one answering the door at her apartment. He ground his teeth. She shouldn’t have gotten involved with Bittman in the first place, and if he ever got a chance, he’d take Stephanie to task for introducing them.

      The breeze teased ripples into the water of the pond, mirroring the discomfort in his own gut at the thought of Stephanie. Her dark eyes flashed in his memory, and he blinked away the pain. At the sound of an approaching engine, he rolled his bike farther back into the shadows. A van rumbled slowly by with American Pool Company printed on the exterior. When it pulled to a stop at the intercom, the driver, a stocky, crew-cut man with a face corrugated by wrinkles, leaned out to speak into the box.

      “Pool service,” he heard the driver bark, with a Spanish accent.

      Tate grabbed the handle to the rear doors of the van and eased it down, wondering if he would be caught. In a moment he was safely inside. The guy parked the van and headed for the pool with a water test kit. Tate slipped out the back and ran for the nearest side entrance. In a place this ritzy, he knew interior security cameras would pick him up quickly, but he didn’t need much time. One minute with Bittman, he thought grimly, was all he’d need.

      He found himself in a gleaming kitchen, which was thankfully empty. The place was quiet, eerily so. Not one housekeeper in sight? No butlers or maids? Strangest of all, no burly security personnel barreling toward him.

      His instincts prickled.

      Muscles taut, he crept up the stairs and heard a murmur of voices. Heading swiftly along the hall, he came to a large window that looked down on an atrium. Trees that had to be at least twenty feet thrust upward toward the enormous skylights that bathed the space in pale sun. He was startled when a blue blur whizzed by his face. A parrot with feathers the color of the sky and intense yellow eyes peered at him from a branch. Below, through the screen of foliage, something else moved, this time of the two-legged variety.

      Tate retraced his steps downstairs, skirting the lower floor hallway until he found the entrance to the atrium. The glass door was closed but not locked. Opening it as quietly as he could, Tate entered the warm, humid enclosure.

      The parrot noises were varied and loud. Shrieks, raucous squawks and even some words rang through the space. An Elvis song, Maria’s favorite.

      Teeth gritted, he ducked between the spiked leaves and headed deeper into the bizarre tropical room. Branches crackled on his left, and he froze. Bird or Bittman, he could not tell. He passed a long metal pole with a mirror affixed to the end, leaning against the wall. Some sort of device so Bittman could check on his nesting birds? He turned to head back to the door when he felt a cold circle of metal pressed to his neck.

      “Turn around,” a voice growled.

      A burly man, a head shorter than Tate, held a gun level with Tate’s chest. He spoke into a radio. “I’ve got a guy in the aviary, and the girl is breaking down the door on the second floor.”

      Breaking down the door.

      His brain filled in the rest. His sister. Kept here. That explained why she didn’t return his calls, why she was no longer using her cell. The man was pointing him toward the door, and Tate could see the muscled arms under the suit coat.

      He stepped back and raised a hand. “I don’t want trouble. I’ll go.”

      After I find my sister.

      He moved toward the door, Suit Guy a couple of paces behind him. Tate edged closer to the glass wall until he was alongside the pole he’d seen earlier.

      “Get going,” the man grumbled.

      Tate did, as he grabbed the pole and swung it in a wide circle, knocking the man to his knees. When he completed the turn, Tate raced to the door. Pole still in his hands, he cleared the doors and pushed them closed, wedging the pole through the double handles. He made for the stairs at a dead run, ignoring the pain shooting up his leg.

      The pole wasn’t strong, and the guy was burly. He’d be through in a few good pushes.

      Clearing the stairs, Tate charged toward the sound of splintering wood.

      * * *

      Stephanie raised the upholstered chair again, part of her brain noting that the legs of the nineteenth century Danish piece were starting to come apart. She quickly scanned the richly appointed sitting room. She knew Bittman must be watching via the extensive network of security cameras. He was playing some kind of sick game, allowing her to walk in past all the security she knew he had in place. The mansion itself made her nauseous, recalling how she had played into Bittman’s schemes, been tricked by his combination of massive intellect and complete indifference to anyone but himself. And her.

      Shutting her mind to the memories, she turned again to the locked door at the far side of the room and pushed to see if she had weakened it. After a thorough search of all the other rooms on the floor, this was the last. It also housed the only door she’d found locked, which meant there was something in it she wasn’t meant to see. It was now almost four hours after the accident, and the mansion was the likeliest place to have taken his prisoner. Only a quarter of an hour remained until Bittman’s promised contact.

      Putting down the chair for a moment, she slammed a palm against the wood door.

      “Daddy?” she called. Ears straining, she heard nothing. He could be gagged. Or worse.

      She grabbed hold of the chair and raised it aloft, knowing it could be a matter of moments before Bittman or his lackeys stopped her.

      Before she could smash it again into the locked master bedroom door, someone caught her arm. She shifted, turning to use the chair to strike at her opponent, but whoever it was ducked and the blow sailed over his head. Suddenly, she was pinned face-first against the wall by a strong set of arms, her cheek pressed against the wood. She struggled to free an elbow to bring it into her attacker’s ribs when, just as abruptly, she was released. Knocked off balance, she readied a front-arm strike and whirled around, finding herself looking into the shocked face of Tate Fuego.

      His hands dropped to his sides and he moved slightly back, as if he would turn away, but he didn’t. Those eyes kept burning into her, taking in the scar on her cheekbone, churning her feelings into a tidal wave that threatened to overwhelm her. She kicked the ruined chair aside.

      “What