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  Gia and the Lone Raven

  Gia Santella Crime Thrillers, Volume 4

  Kristi Belcamino

  Published by Kristi Belcamino, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  GIA AND THE LONE RAVEN

  First edition. January 19, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Kristi Belcamino.

  Written by Kristi Belcamino.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Gia and the Lone Raven (Gia Santella Crime Thrillers, #4)

  Baja California

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHADOW MAN

  ALSO BY KRISTI BELCAMINO

  DID YOU LIKE THIS BOOK?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  GET YOUR FREE ENOVELLA. Details at the end of the book.

  Baja California

  The sun beat down on my bare back and legs like heaven on earth.

  The gentle rocking of the boat, well, hell, let’s call it what it was—yacht—underneath me was lulling me into a sweet complacency. Afro-Cuban music piped through hidden speakers and the slightest breeze lifted the hair off my neck as I sat up.

  My drink was within arm’s reach. I leaned toward it, knocking my turquoise swim top off my lounge chair onto the teak deck. No tan lines for me. My body was slick with baby oil—straight out of 1970. I’d only been in Baja for five days and already my body had turned a sleek mahogany color. Bonus of being Italian-American.

  The tall glass containing my third mojito was slick with condensation, but still cool. I vaguely remembered the pool boy, or whatever he was, taking my other two glasses while I was drowsing and plopping this one down. Tilting my head back, I gulped the cold, tangy liquid until I got to the crushed mint leaves at the bottom. I set the glass back down hoping a refill would appear soon. My buzz was wearing off.

  Judging by the sun straight overhead, I’d plenty of time to get sober and get my wits about me. This would be my last drink. I needed to be sharp, ready to fight.

  Right now, I was playing a role and working it to the hilt: spoiled playgirl who only cares about booze and sex, baby.

  I knew it was possible that Austin was clocking how many drinks I had. Anything less than I’d been drinking the past few days would be cause for suspicion. He’d been acting strange all morning. And not because his feelings were hurt. I worried he was on to me. That he’d spoken to Marc. I couldn’t pour the drinks out surreptitiously because I had no idea how many goddamn hidden cameras were on board this floating mansion.

  For the most part, Austin had acted the same this morning, waking me up by kissing my bare back until I begged him for more. But when he flipped me over, his hands had crept up and clasped my neck. For a split second, the look in his eyes had me worried, and I’d mentally prepared to send my knuckle into his jugular, but as quickly as I thought that, he released his grip and relaxed, leaning his head back, heaving and snorting in ecstasy. I guess a little neck squeezing got him off. Super creepy. I didn’t mind a little gentle hair pulling in the sack, but anything beyond that and I’d kick the guys ass from here to next Tuesday.

  When Austin rolled over and stared at the ceiling, I stole away to the bathroom, relieved that I’d found out about his alarming predilections only a few hours before I planned to bail on him. Strangulation was not my thing. If he liked erotic asphyxiation, that was all on him.

  But none of it mattered. Because if all went well, I’d soon be long gone.

  Now, sitting in the sun, I glanced toward the front of the yacht where Austin said he was going to hunker down in the “lifestyle room” and watch football all day. The lifestyle room was basically a huge playroom for big man babies. It had white padded walls on two sides, another wall was a movie screen, and the fourth wall was a window overlooking the sea. When you wanted to watch a movie, the fourth window went dark by way of some magic I couldn’t figure out. A white padded structure the size of two king-size beds took up most of the floor space. I’d passed the room on the way to breakfast and peered in. Austin had been propped against dozens of pillows, with a remote the size of a book in his hands. I fled before he could call for me.

  Now, I hoped he’d pass out on the bed for the next twenty-four hours. Until I could leave.

  I took a sip of my drink and reclined again. On my back this time. I closed my eyes behind my dark sunglasses, feeling the heat of the sun spread its warmth over my body. I sighed with pleasure.

  I’d drifted off when a clattering noise woke me. I felt something ice cold and sharp on my sternum between my bare breasts.

  Austin stood over me. One of his hands held my dueling knife up high out of reach. His other drew my sparring knife slowly up the side of one breast, toward my nipple.

  “What the fuck are these, Gia?” He waved my dueling knife in the air—a tribal patterned, round-bladed, hand-engraved, high-chromium stainless steel beauty that looked like a stylized meat cleaver.

  I grasped his wrist and inched the blade of my sparring knife away from my skin.

  “Easy, sailor.” I sat up, keeping my hand on his wrist, eyeing him, searching for signs of intoxication or drugs. Austin was a tanned, lithe, surfer who was a little dull—in both the brains and personality department—but had a body made for hot sex. He’d inherited a fortune when daddy died young. Up until yesterday, I’d thought he was sweet and even felt a little sorry for him. Big mistake.

  He spent his days on the yacht hopping from one tropical port to another, chasing the waves. He was supposed to head to Costa Rica tomorrow. As far as he knew, I was going with him. After we met, he’d dropped all his other playthings. He knew immediately that unlike them, I didn’t want him for his money. He didn’t know that I only wanted him for what he could do for me. Specifically, his access to the man I was hunting.

  “I’m not kidding, Gia,” he said. “What the fuck are these?” He waved the dueling knife again.

  “I see you found my Sicilian knives. They’re for my training. Remember I told you? The Gladiatura Moderna? Italian martial arts?” I slurred my voice a little. Wouldn’t hurt for him to think I was wasted.

  “I don’t remember anything about knives.” He looked confused. He was unsteady on his feet and his eyes were glassy. He was right, I’d never mentioned it to him.

  “Sure, you do, baby.” I leaned over to rub his bare leg. He jerked away.

  “That’s not all I found, either.”

  At his words, my mouth grew dry. I was instantly sober.

  Then I saw, just past him, the last two people I wanted to see at that moment. My best friend, Dante, and the man I was hunting, who was holding a knife to Dante’s throat. My best friend’s eyes were wild with panic.

  The jig was up.

  Fuck me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Seven days earlier ...

  The customs officials waved me into Baja without a second glance.

  Who knew? Maybe my luck was turning around.

  But a few miles later, faced with a seemingly never-ending river of red taillights, I laughed at my naivety. Traffic to Tijuana was at a dead stop. A low concrete barrier separated the opposite lanes of traffic on the four-lane road. The road ran parallel to a tall corrugated fence s
eparating Mexico from America. It was dotted with large white crosses made of simple boards. Each cross had a name or said “no identificado.” Unidentified. What the fuck?

  Soon, their significance became crystal clear. One stretch of fence, just below a skyscraping lookout tower, had a row of life-sized brightly painted coffins attached to it. They said “muertes.” Death. And had a year and number. An orange one said: 2003. 390+.

  Nearly 400 people had died trying to cross the border into America that year.

  The week before I’d read a touching story in the New York Times about border agents in San Diego opening a portion of the fence for three minutes so an American man could wed his Mexican bride. An attorney was working to secure a green card for the woman, but it was expected to take as long as a year before the couple could be together again.

  The memory of reading the newspaper reminded me that Bobby and I used to love gathering all the Sunday newspapers and reading them in bed with coffee and biscotti.

  I wiped away my tears. Bobby was gone. And there was nothing I could do for the dead. I had to focus on what I could do right then, in that moment. I couldn’t change the past, but maybe I could influence the future. I had a plan. It was simple. Find Dante. Convince him to forgive me. Bring him home safe to his mother.

  Two days ago, I’d finally gotten up the nerve to go beg Dante for forgiveness. I couldn’t stand another day without him. We hadn’t spoken for two excruciatingly long months. His husband and Bobby were murdered in a mass shooting in Positano. I’d killed the man behind the murders, but Dante had never forgiven me, saying the shootings were my fault.

  He was wrong.

  More than twenty bottles of vodka and a hundred straight-to-voice-mail phone calls later, I gathered up the courage to confront him and beg his forgiveness. Only to find he’d sold his restaurant and home in Calistoga and taken off to Mexico. His mother, Mrs. Marino, gave me the scoop and begged me to find and bring Dante home for Christmas.

  I’d dropped my Ferrari and dog off at Mrs. Marino’s house in Monterey, grabbed the keys to Dante’s old Jeep, and headed south.

  Now, with the sun beating down on my bare thighs through the Jeep’s windshield, I felt a lightness that I hadn’t felt for months. As if I could breathe again. I rolled down my windows, letting in the slightest breeze. After several gray, dreary days in San Francisco, I was ready for some sun and heat. The long line of cars in front of me puttered along, kicking up small dust clouds.

  The Jeep crested a small hill, and I saw that past a certain point in the road, where it wove extraordinarily close to the fence, the traffic flow opened up.

  At the bottleneck, a lone police car sat with strobes lights lazily churning. Only one lane was closed. The other lane was open, but cars crawled past before accelerating up to normal speeds again. Talk about Sunday driver looky-loos.

  I’d obviously left the fast-paced American life behind. Fine. Bring on the siestas and beach and frosty beer. I was ready for a little R & R. Right after I found Dante.

  The tall buildings of Tijuana shimmered in the hazy distance. I’d stop and get a fish taco and a beer or two, fuel up and drive until dark. If I were really lucky, I’d have Dante in my passenger seat and be back in Monterey by the weekend. But I was never lucky.

  Within a few minutes, I was down on flat land and creeping closer to the police car. Off to my right, on the narrowest strip of dirt bordering the fence, a few people with dirty, tear-streaked faces crouched. Then I was at the bottleneck. I looked to my left and realized what the hold-up was.

  In front of the squad car a rectangular lump was covered with a white sheet. A dead body. Probably killed by a hit-and-run driver while trying to cross the busy road. Those people I’d seen close to the fence had made it across the road, but one of their party hadn’t. Jesus.

  If this had happened just a few short miles away in America, the entire road would’ve been shut down for hours while the death was investigated. But no. Here, just one bored cop leaned on the hood of his car, picking at his teeth with a toothpick while the sheet covering the dead body at his feet fluttered in the breeze.

  Despite the heat beating down on me, a shiver ran down my spine, and goosebumps sprung up on my arms and legs.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The first motel I came to in Mulegé had a vacancy. Grabbing my duffel bag, I grunted at the weight of the bag. I’d forgotten that I’d stashed my knives in the X-ray proof hidden compartment of the bag. Now, I took them out and hid them under the front seat of the Jeep and tucked the switchblade in my cross-shoulder bag. I had an assortment of sheaths I could wear—on my back, shoulder, ankle, waist—but for now I left those under the seat. If I was threatened, the switchblade was all I needed. I’d brought the other knives mainly to keep up on my training.

  At the motel office, I asked for a corner room so I could keep an eye on the comings and goings around me. I unlocked the door to find a small bed and bathroom. It wasn’t much, but it was clean and smelled like pine. There was a giant cricket on the wall, but once I shooed it outside with a magazine, it seemed like the room would do just fine. It better. I’d had to pay in advance. It was okay since I planned on leaving early in the morning anyway.

  First thing in the morning I’d call Mrs. Marino. Somewhere between Tijuana and here, my phone had lost service. The clerk at the motel asked me if I’d activated international service. Nope. But I didn’t know how to do that without calling the cell phone provider. The clerk said she wasn’t allowed to let guests use their phone. She pointed me to the tourist office across the street saying they opened in the morning and could help me.

  Now to find some food. And maybe a bottle of tequila. And then sleep. I’d driven all night and all day.

  Across the street from the motel, I tried the door to the tourist office lobby. It was open. It contained post office boxes and information for travelers. A bank of windows was locked up. A small sign said the office would open at nine the next day. Perfect.

  On my way out, I paused at a massive bulletin board. One end contained several missing person posters. All six of them were American women who had disappeared over the past two years. The oldest poster was yellowed and curled at the edges. They were all from different parts of the United States. All had been on vacation with friends when they disappeared. They were last seen at restaurants, clubs, beaches, swimming pools. One disappeared after saying she was going to do early morning laps at the hotel pool. One went solo to the beach to work on her tan. Another woman was last seen dancing in a crowded club.

  The missing women were all older, as well. The youngest looked like she was in her forties, the others closer to fifties. All looked younger than their ages. With families left behind mourning.

  The most recent poster was from a year ago. A birdlike woman with jet-black hair and smile lines around her mouth was dressed in a fur coat and Ugg boots. It looked like the picture was taken at Sundance. It seemed out of place here in sunny Mexico.

  Donna Coben. 52. 102 pounds. 5’4 inches tall. Hometown: Santa Fe. Last seen shopping in Cabo San Lucas. She lingered behind at a jewelry store, telling her friends she’d catch up to them at the bar down the block. She was never seen again. The manager said the store was crowded, and he didn’t remember the woman leaving.

  I stared at the women’s faces, searching for clues. It seemed impossible that they could all have disappeared. The moral of the story was don’t go off by yourself if you’re an American woman. Sad, but true. I thought of my Sicilian knives stashed in the Jeep and the switchblade in my bag. It wouldn’t take much for me to extract it and slice open someone’s throat. But the average woman should probably be careful on this peninsula.

  “Pretty messed up.”

  I turned. James Franco’s doppelganger stood there. Well, if the actor had a beard and blue eyes.

  The man smiled, and I couldn’t help but grin back. But then I remembered the women in the posters and grew somber.

  “It doesn’t really
make sense,” I said, turning back to the posters. “How could that many American women just up and disappear, and yet we hear nothing about it back home.”

  He bit his lip as if he was thinking. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “Is it obvious?” I said.

  “You’re a little overdressed.” He gestured to my outfit. I was in black cargo pants, a black tank top, and flip-flops. He wore swim trunks, no shirt, no shoes, and his hair was wet. A towel was slung over one shoulder. I tried not to stare at the spot where a slice of hipbone jutted out of his low-slung trunks.

  I glanced at the dark sky outside. “You were swimming?”

  He grinned. “Is it obvious?”

  “I was given one piece of advice at the motel when I checked in.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “And?”

  “Don’t swim after dark.”

  “Because?”

  “Uh. Sharks.”

  He started laughing. “I’ve had sharks brush up against me. They’re harmless.”

  “Sure they are.” I squinted my eyes at him.

  “Besides, I wasn’t swimming. I was surfing.”

  “Even worse.” I knew that sharks often mistook surfers for seals. Hell, everyone who grew up in California knew this.

  He shrugged. “If I worried about sharks, I’d never surf. I think in life we have to decide what to worry about. That’s not something that makes my list.”

  “What does make your list?” Now I was facing him. He moved closer to me. Uncomfortably close. His mouth was inches away as he spoke in a low voice.

  “I worry about whether the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen will want to have dinner with me.”

  I scoffed. I’d heard better. But I had to admit, his husky voice did send a tremor through me.

  Brushing past him, I headed for the door. For a second, I was unsure he would follow.