An Unexpected Clue. Elle James

      This book is dedicated to all the authors who

      contributed to the success of this continuity. As always, it’s a pleasure to work with you all. A special thanks to Allison Lyons for her gentle guidance during the editing process.

       Chapter One

      He lay against the cool concrete floor, facedown, careful to take slow shallow breaths. The more dead he looked, the more likely the guard would venture in to check on him.

      Hidden beneath his body, his fingers curled around the smooth metal of the broken bedpost he’d wrested from the corner of the twin-size utility cot.

      Ben Parrish knew what they had planned for him, and he had a good idea what they’d do to Ava if he didn’t get to her first. For weeks they’d drugged him through the food he ate. For the past two days he’d eaten very little, flushing what he didn’t eat down the toilet in the corner of his cell.

      He’d planned his escape carefully. Now with his head clearer than it had been in the weeks of his captivity, he’d learned of Nicky Wayne’s plan to dispose of him and go after Ava.

      Ben’s chest tightened. She’d be in her eighth month of pregnancy, in no condition to run from Nick’s goons. Bad guys who wouldn’t hesitate to kill a pregnant woman over something as seemingly inconsequential as a necklace.

      The necklace was the key. His friend Julie Grainger had given him a medal postmortem, sent in the mail before she died. He’d hung it on a chain and given it to his wife, Ava. Embossed on the medal was the image of St. Joan of Arc, the patron saint of imprisonment. For the past weeks, Ben had laughed at the irony. Perhaps Julie’s gift had jinxed him, landing him in this hellhole of Nicky’s making. That very medal endangered Ava and their unborn child. He wished he’d never seen the damned thing. All it had brought him was grief.

      Nicky Wayne had beaten, tortured and drugged him in his effort to locate the millions Vincent Del Gardo had squirreled away in a secret bank account.

      In his assignment as an undercover FBI agent, Ben had worked closely with Del Gardo, getting to know him, infiltrating the Del Gardo crime family. Still, he hadn’t even known about the money. No amount of beatings by Wayne or his thugs could coerce the location out of him. All this time the account numbers had been inscribed on the backs of three medallions Julie had sent to her friends from her FBI academy days, Ben, Tom Ryan and Dylan Acevedo.

      Now that Nicky knew they were the keys to the millions Del Gardo had stashed, he wanted those medals and to get them, he’d do anything, including kill Ava.

      Sounds outside his cell alerted him to the approach of his executioners.

      Under no circumstances could he fail. If he did, Ava and their unborn child might be the Wayne organization’s next victims.

      A key scraped in the lock and the door swung open.

      “What the—” The man all the other guards called Hammer stepped through the door first, tapping a hand-carved club in his palm.

      Another man, Hispanic, as equally bulky as Hammer and intimidating like a nightclub bouncer followed Hammer inside. Always wearing a suit and tie, he could have fit into any Mexican Mafia crowd, especially with the scar extending from the right side of his top lip, across his cheekbone to his right ear, which was missing a significant portion of the lobe. “Think he did us a favor and croaked?”

      “I don’t know, Manny, why don’t you ask him.” Hammer didn’t wait for Manny, but nudged Ben’s thigh with his foot.

      Careful not to show any signs of life, Ben lay still, allowing his eyelids to open only enough to ascertain the positions of the two men.

      “Looks like he passed out,” Hammer brilliantly deduced.

      “I hope he’s not dead.” Manny pulled a shiny Sig Sauer nine millimeter pistol from his shoulder holster. “Takes all the fun out of killing him.”

      “Guess the boss wouldn’t care how he expires, so long as he’s dead. Nicky said he was done with him.”

      “I’m gonna miss the guy. Torture ain’t never been so much fun.” Manny snickered.

      “Come on, Mr. Wayne wanted this room cleaned out by the end of the day.” Hammer tapped the club in his hand. “You want to do the job or me?”

      “I’ll do it.” Manny squatted next to Ben and pressed the gun to Ben’s temple. “Bye, bye Benny Boy.”

      Ben flipped over, grabbed Manny’s hand and jerked it up to Hammer.

      The gun went off, the sound deafening in the closet-sized room.

      At such close range, the bullet slammed into Hammer with the force of a semitruck, knocking