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BAITED
october 2006
ISBN:
0-373-51426-3
Read an excerpt
See the Video Teaser
Buy Online:
FROM INSTANT HEIRESS...
Her
billionaire mentor’s invitation to go sailing with his family
seemed a timely break for diver Katsu “Kat” Espinoza. Until
she saw the yacht’s captain—Will Ashton, her treacherous, still-too-appealing
ex—and her mentor made a shocking announcement: Kat was his newest
heir!
TO PREY?
She could handle the angry
accusations, the ice-cold shoulders. But when the boat was wrecked, stranding
them all on a deserted island, Kat suspected that someone had more permanent
solution in mind. With the survivors looking to her for leadership and
Will being maddeningly secretive, Kat considered who among them might
be truly dangerous.
Then the survivors began to disappear, one…by one….
As another scream tore through the island’s forest, Katsu Espinoza stopped, trying to get a lock on where it was coming from.
The pulse in her head kicked to a deafening beat while she lifted her face to the gray sky, panting, blinking as a drop of rain bled from a palm frond and splashed onto her forehead. She tightened her grip on the best weapon she’d been able to scrounge from their meager store of supplies back at the cave—a long screwdriver.
Please, Kat thought, prayed, please give me another sign to follow.
Even if the sign was another tortured yell that would let her find the next victim—whoever it was—before it was too late.
At the same time, she wished there wouldn’t be another sound. God knew what the killer was doing to the screamer. From what she and the other survivors had seen of the previous victims, she didn’t want to guess.
Blood running to the ground from the mutilations…
Eyes staring in dead terror at nothing…
Mouths open in silent cries…
Kat shut her eyes against a surge of nausea, but the vivid red images of violence kept stabbing into her.
One victim.
Two.
Three…
Murder. A killer in the midst of a group of people she’d set out on a boat tour with only days ago. It’d started off so innocently, just like any other morning where you got out of bed, brushed your teeth, ate your breakfast and did your thing.
But then the storm had come. The wreckage. The island.
Even now, she couldn’t believe what a nightmare the harmless little cage-diving expedition had turned out to be. Couldn’t believe a person like her—a normal girl whose biggest problems included endlessly paying off old credit card debts and wading through a hapless love life—was in the midst of chasing a killer.
But all that was behind her, a hazy dream that was just as out of reach as the thought of being rescued from whatever nameless piece of land they’d found themselves on.
As Kat waited, a flash of lightning flickered, whitening the sky, the forest around her. A rumble of thunder shook the air, and the chop of her own labored breathing followed. The tiny explosions of raindrops on leaves echoed her crazy heartbeat while she stood braced, ready to run toward…
Another shriek.
Nooooo…aaaahhhhh!
Startled, adrenaline sparked her forward, toward the sound.
Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod…
Kat took hold of the screwdriver as if it were an ice pick, and she charged forward, parting the vegetation before her, dodging leaves, tripping over vines and sloshing through the mud.
The cry ripped her in two, because part of her wanted to help, but the very average I’m-not-a-superhero half of her only wanted to stay alive.
Before she could really think about what she was doing, she stumbled into a clearing, screwdriver poised.
Opposite her, the newest victim sat slumped against the trunk of a tree, blood mingling with the raindrops on a terrified face. His mouth gaped open, still held in a yawp of frozen mercy. His hands were wrenched behind the tree—obviously tied. When the victim spotted her, he leaned forward, eyes widening.
Lips forming a soundless word.
Help.
Kat hitched in a breath as she took a sharp look around. Dark foliage. Quickening raindrops. A body…no, two bodies…sprawled in a patch of high grass to her right.
Legs turning to slush, she dragged her gaze away and fought to walk to the victim. Still, she couldn’t help watching the bodies, trying to see who they were.
Or used to be.
Careful, she told herself. What if he’s hiding something behind his back? What if he’s the killer, and he’s tricking you, luring you into something you won’t be able to handle?
Don’t trust anybody.
“Who did this to you?” Kat whispered, focusing only on the victim now as she came to a crouch. She still had the screwdriver ready, just in case.
His eyes weren’t focusing, and she could tell they were struggling to stay conscious. Had the killer stabbed the victim already? Could she get him back to the caves so they could be saved in time?
The next blinding second, his gaze fixed on something behind Kat, and he opened his mouth again… But it wasn’t to answer Kat’s question.
He was starting to scream.
A zing of dread flew up Kat’s spine and, blinded by panic, she instinctively grabbed a handful of mud, preparing to whip around to throw it in the face of whoever was at her back, then follow up with the screwdriver. She’d fought in too many brawls back home to lose her street sense. It was second nature to strike back.
But Kat never had the chance.
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