Crash Site (Fiona Carver), page 1
PRAISE FOR RACHEL GRANT
“Rachel Grant’s smart, edgy, high-energy romantic thrillers deliver a real rush. The suspense is intense and so is the romance. Fascinating heroines, cool heroes, and intelligent plots. Grant sets a new gold standard for romantic suspense.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
PRAISE FOR DANGEROUS GROUND
“Grant shines in the heart-pounding romantic thriller that opens her Fiona Carver series . . . This page-turning romance is headed for many a keeper shelf.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
PRAISE FOR TINDERBOX
“Unexpected and intense from the get-go. With irresistible characters, a rare setting, and an inventive, high-powered plot, it’s a smartly crafted gem of a story.”
—USA Today
“This first novel in Grant’s Flashpoint series offers a multilayered, suspenseful plot that’s strengthened by its appealing characters, strong attention to detail, and a healthy dose of romance . . . An exciting tale that offers an entertaining mix of action and romance.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2017
PRAISE FOR CATALYST
“The second novel in Grant’s Flashpoint series offers intelligent romantic suspense that moves with the urgency of a thriller.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2018
“From ravaged South Sudan to opulent Morocco, Rachel Grant’s Catalyst reveals both a sophisticated thriller and a sizzling romance.”
—New York Times bestselling author Toni Anderson
PRAISE FOR FIRESTORM
“Grant expertly braids together action and romance in a propulsive, page-turning suspense thriller.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2018
“Romantic suspense done right and to the max. Don’t miss it.”
—All About Romance
“An enthralling, heart-pounding masterpiece!”
—New York Times bestselling author Annika Martin
DISCOVER OTHER TITLES BY RACHEL GRANT
FIONA CARVER SERIES
Dangerous Ground
FLASHPOINT SERIES
Tinderbox
Catalyst
Firestorm
Inferno
EVIDENCE SERIES
Concrete Evidence
Body of Evidence
Withholding Evidence
Night Owl
Incriminating Evidence
Covert Evidence
Cold Evidence
Poison Evidence
Silent Evidence
Winter Hawk
Tainted Evidence
Broken Falcon
ROMANTIC MYSTERY
Grave Danger
PARANORMAL ROMANCE
Midnight Sun
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2022 by Rachel Grant
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542032377
ISBN-10: 1542032377
Cover design by Caroline Teagle Johnson
This book is for
Ruby Bridges
and
Stacey Abrams
CONTENTS
A NOTE TO THE READER
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONNECT WITH RACHEL ONLINE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A NOTE TO THE READER
Ruby Island and all the cultural, historical, and geological features attributed to it are fictional.
ONE
Ruby Island
Caribbean Sea
June
Fiona Carver had conducted fieldwork in some incredible places in the fifteen years since her archaeological field school, but Ruby Island might be the most unrelentingly perfect. The island had a volcano, rainforest, both sandy and rocky beaches, lore of Spanish gold hidden in unexplored caves, and a 375-year-old star fort. The fort was her destination now as she led a small group up the hillside to the promontory where the massive historic stone structure loomed over the vibrant turquoise Caribbean Sea.
In the 1970s, a wealthy American shipping magnate leased Ruby Island from the Commonwealth of Dominica, an island nation in the Lesser Antilles. The lease had a few years before it was up for renewal, and the leaseholder’s grandson, Jude Reynolds, was eager to show Dominica he was a good steward for the land and secure another fifty-year contract.
Fiona didn’t blame him. If she had her own private Caribbean paradise, she wouldn’t want to give it up either.
They reached the top of the rise, and she could just see the much larger island of Dominica in the distance, while one of the sheer stone walls of the fort loomed above to the southeast.
Laborers had been hard at work last week cleaning up and removing modern-era debris from the site. The view today was quite different from what had greeted her when she’d first hiked here two weeks ago, the day after she arrived on the island.
Dr. Isaac Finch, a retired archaeologist and the world’s foremost expert on Dominican history from post-Columbian contact to the present, let out a low whistle at the sight. “It’s nice to see the Reynolds family is finally doing something to clean up Fort Domingo. Last time I was here, it was still littered with garbage from the storage structures that were put up in the sixties and then taken out by Hurricane Dean in 2007. They never should have built so close to the fort in the first place. Leaving the collapsed building to rust and rot was insult to injury.”
Fiona could only nod in agreement, glad the remaining built environment on the island—a luxurious estate that included a large mansion, servant bungalows, a solar and wind power station, a small runway, plus several outbuildings related to the fleet of boats and fuel dock the estate required—was confined to the opposite end of the island. Ruby Island’s previous leaseholder had built too close to the historic fort, which could have had something to do with the man losing the lease in favor of the Reynolds family a decade later.
Her coworker Chad Baylor responded to Finch’s valid complaint. “I assure you, Dr. Finch, Jude is not his grandfather or father. He was equally horrified by the state of the fort when he inherited. Clearing out the debris before the film crew arrives was his top priority.”
As he spoke, her satellite phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Jude: Helicopter ETA in 10 minutes. Are you at the fort yet?
Fiona: Just reached the flat below.
She looked out over the water, toward Dominica, but didn’t see the helicopter. She turned to the group. In addition to Dr. Finch, she and Chad were accompanied by Keili Harris and Gordon Paul, representatives of the Kalinago people.
The Kalinago of Dominica were the last Caribbean community known to be direct descendants of the original, pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region, and they, along with Dr. Finch, were visiting Ruby Island to provide historic and cultural background for the archaeological inventory that Fiona, Chad, and another archaeologist, Sadie Tate, had been hired to do.
In addition to the inventory, Jude Reynolds had also commissioned a documentary for the project, which would begin filming today, as soon as the helicopter transporting the film crew landed next to the star fort, approximately ten minutes from now, according to Jude.
Until they got there, Chad was acting as cameraman. He had a camera capable of filming video in HD at a cinematic aspect ratio. Or something. Fiona didn’t actually know much about cameras, still or video.
Last fall, a renowned wildlife photographer had offered her photography lessons, but it had never come to pass, and nine months later, she was kind of making a point of not learning. Any camera that didn’t look like a cell phone reminded her of someone she needed to forget.
It was hard to escape, though. Even the name of the hurricane that had destroyed the old warehouse buildings on the site was a reminder.
/> She was still breathing heavily after the last steep stretch of hillside, and her ego was a little battered when she realized she was alone in being winded, even though she was at least two decades younger than the three guests. “The crew is ten minutes out. We can take a break and wait here.”
She pulled water bottles from her pack, figuring she could cut herself some slack—after all, she was hauling water for everyone but Chad. She handed one to each of their three guests.
Keili and Gordon both had bronze skin and dark hair. Keili’s was long with soft curls that were tied back so they didn’t whip in the wind that buffeted the bluff, while Gordon’s hair was close-cropped. Dr. Finch, also from Dominica but not of Kalinago descent, had darker brown skin and a full head of short white hair.
Keili’s brown eyes lit with warmth as she accepted the water. “We live in the mountains. This hike is nothing.”
“I’m out of shape.” Fiona pressed her chilled water bottle to her sweaty forehead, and it felt glorious on her hot skin. It was a good thing she’d slathered on the sunblock today; her Scots-Irish heritage meant her fair complexion didn’t hold up well in this much sun. “And we don’t get this kind of heat in Seattle.”
She took a long drink of water, her gaze on the vibrant blue sea, even bluer sky, and lush green island in the distance. After her breathing settled, she said, “I cannot get over how beautiful Dominica is.”
Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic, had been named by Christopher Columbus after the day of the week he’d spotted the island in 1493. The name was pronounced with the emphasis on the third syllable, more in line with the French name for the island, Dominique, but with an a added on the end.
Gordon grinned. “You must come see our village. There is nothing like it. And while you are on the island, you can visit Boiling Lake.”
Dominica had no less than nine active volcanoes, and one of them was the source of the second-largest hot spring in the world, Boiling Lake, which was, in fact, a lake that was perpetually boiling. It was one of the many wonders she hoped to see, which would depend on how long the survey of Ruby Island took. She’d taken a two-month leave of absence from her job with the US Navy and might need every minute of it to map the island’s archaeological resources.
Right now, her plan was to return to her work on the Kitsap Peninsula, but there was a part of her that was seriously tempted to walk away from her Department of Defense archaeology position. Not that she had a plan for what she’d do if she quit, but things in the office had been . . . awkward, to say the least, ever since she returned from Chiksook Island last September.
But standing on this bluff overlooking the achingly beautiful blue sea with the world’s foremost Dominican historical archaeologist and two Indigenous Dominicans who’d graciously agreed to share their history and culture was not the time to mull over her uncertain future. The time for that was between two and four a.m., when all of life’s uncertainties pummeled her anxious brain.
She smiled and said to Gordon, “I’d love to spend a few days on Dominica. I hope I have time before I need to return to Seattle.”
“As long as we’re killing time here,” Chad said, “how about a quick interview?”
Fiona wanted to say no. They’d stopped several times on the hike to record snippets, so it was nice to be able to talk casually—and off-the-record—for a few minutes. Bad enough that she’d need to be mindful of the camera all the time once the real documentary team arrived. Unlike Chad, she wasn’t thrilled about being included in the documentary. She’d happily let him and Sadie take the limelight, but Jude had insisted Fiona conduct these interviews, so here she was.
Sadie and Chad would be featured—they were conducting the lidar and underwater surveys, as those were their areas of expertise—but anything to do with the background report or terrestrial survey was Fiona’s domain. The couple’s part of the documentary would be much more exciting viewing, given the potential to find Spanish treasure and the general beauty of the coral reefs that surrounded Ruby Island. Not to mention the 3D models they’d create with lidar that would strip the canopy from the rainforest and show the land beneath as it had never been seen before.
She scanned the hillside in front of her, her gaze following the rocky path upward to the promontory where the star fort loomed. She studied the steep wall, which was the tip of a bastion, or rather, a point of the star. Dr. Finch would give them a full history of the fort for the cameras when they reached that destination. She turned back to face the volcanic island in the distance.
“We could talk about the relationship between Dominica and Ruby Island during the French colonial period,” Fiona suggested. Her phone buzzed again, and she held up a hand. “One second. Might be more information on the helicopter.”
She glanced at the screen and felt a rush of surprise and pleasure at seeing the text was from Dylan Slater. Goodness, how she missed him. He’d been on her mind frequently ever since negotiations for this job began. He would love Dominica with its abundance of volcanoes. She’d given in to impulse this morning and emailed him about the job she’d accepted in a whirlwind decision. She’d been avoiding reaching out to him for the last few weeks because he was vacationing with his brother, Dean, on Hawaiʻi’s Big Island.
Her pleasure evaporated the moment she read his message.
Dylan: Just read your email and wanted to warn you. Dean is on a helicopter en route to Ruby Island. Nat Geo sent him to take photos for the wildlife inventory part of the project. We didn’t know you would be there or would have reached out to you. Texted Dean, but haven’t gotten a received notice. Pretty sure he’s in the air already.
A second later, another message popped up.
Dylan: He doesn’t know he’s about to see you.
A dozen emotions slammed into her. Perhaps three of which were blows to the solar plexus. She couldn’t breathe. Sweat broke out on her skin, but this wasn’t from heat or exertion. It was the kind of cold sweat that came with shock.
Her hands shook as she hit the button to reply. But she didn’t have words. She could barely see the tiny screen.
Fiona: K
The one-letter response was all she was capable of. At least he’d know she’d received his message.
Dylan: I’m sorry.
“Why don’t you stand with your back to the sea, Keili, with Dominica behind you?” Chad said. “And I’ll film you from over Fiona’s shoulder.”
Chad’s directing jerked her focus from the phone. Chad. Her friend. A man she’d known for a dozen years, ever since she’d attended the underwater archaeology field school in Jamaica that he and Sadie ran together.
Sadie, who wasn’t just Chad’s work partner; she was his life partner. She’d remained a close friend in the years since Fiona’s summer in Jamaica. When Jude Reynolds offered Fiona the principal investigator position for this project, she’d refused because she lacked the expertise. And she’d then turned around and told Jude about Chad and Sadie, who were exactly the experts he needed.
She’d helped him get this job.
Chad had been excited for the documentary, this chance to have his work featured. So much so, he’d agreed to act as cameraman today until the real film crew arrived.
“What the hell, Chad?”
His eyes widened, and his gaze darted from one person to the next. His pale face flushed red. “Excuse me?”
She knew she wasn’t being professional, but she was also certain Chad had been the one behind this blow to the gut. “Why wasn’t I told that a photographer from National Geographic is arriving with the documentary film crew?”
“How—I mean, what are you talking about? The film crew isn’t from National Geographic. They’re freelance.”
“Yeah, and they’ve got a freelance wildlife photographer with them, and you knew about it. You told Jude, didn’t you? You got him to request Dean be assigned to this expedition to give the documentary added drama.” It all made sense now. “That’s why you were so eager to play cameraman today. You wanted to make sure our surprise reunion was caught on film.”
His gaze again darted from their guests to her. “Can we talk in private?”
The whir of rotors had her turning away from him to face the water. She spotted Jude Reynolds’s bright orange helicopter zooming toward Ruby Island like a missile.
And Dean Slater was on board. Heading her way.
She hadn’t exchanged so much as a text with him since they’d said goodbye in Anchorage nine months ago. But now he was flying through the tropical sea air, coming straight for her.
