Praise for New York Times bestselling author

  Heather Graham

  “This thriller [is] a steamy one.... Will keep you turning the pages.”

  —Florida Times-Union on Danger in Numbers

  “Danger in Numbers is a captivating cop fiction with an extra serving of gruesome crime and grit, layered onto a unique setting described in such detail that it transports you right to the middle of it all.... Loaded with gripping detail... A well-developed and twisted read!”

  —Mystery and Suspense

  “Fast-paced...twists and turns...steamy... This book doesn’t disappoint.”

  —MysterySequels.com on The Final Deception

  “Heather Graham delivers a harrowing journey as she always does: perfectly.... Intelligent, fast-paced and frightening at all times, and the team of characters still keep[s] the reader’s attention to the very end.”

  —Suspense Magazine on The Final Deception

  “Taut, complex, and leavened with humor...[a] riveting thriller.”

  —Library Journal on A Dangerous Game

  “Immediately entertaining and engrossing.”

  —Publishers Weekly on A Dangerous Game

  “Intricate, fast-paced, and intense, this riveting thriller blends romance and suspense in perfect combination and keeps readers guessing and the tension taut until the very end.”

  —Library Journal on Flawless

  New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than two hundred novels. She is pleased to have been published in over twenty-five languages, with sixty million books in print. Heather is a proud recipient of the Silver Bullet from Thriller Writers and was awarded the prestigious Thriller Master Award in 2016. She is also a recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from RWA and The Strand, and is the founder of The Slush Pile Players, an author band and theatrical group. An avid scuba diver, ballroom dancer and mother of five, she still enjoys her South Florida home, but also loves to travel. Heather is grateful every day for a career she loves so very much.

  For more information, check out her website, theoriginalheathergraham.com, or find Heather on Facebook.

  Also by New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham

  CRIMSON SUMMER

  DANGER IN NUMBERS

  New York Confidential

  THE FINAL DECEPTION

  A LETHAL LEGACY

  A DANGEROUS GAME

  A PERFECT OBSESSION

  FLAWLESS

  Krewe of Hunters

  THE UNKNOWN

  THE FORBIDDEN

  THE UNFORGIVEN

  DREAMING DEATH

  DEADLY TOUCH

  SEEING DARKNESS

  THE STALKING

  THE SEEKERS

  THE SUMMONING

  ECHOES OF EVIL

  PALE AS DEATH

  FADE TO BLACK

  WICKED DEEDS

  DARK RITES

  DYING BREATH

  DARKEST JOURNEY

  DEADLY FATE

  HAUNTED DESTINY

  THE HIDDEN

  THE FORGOTTEN

  THE SILENCED

  THE BETRAYED

  THE HEXED

  THE CURSED

  THE NIGHT IS FOREVER

  THE NIGHT IS ALIVE

  THE NIGHT IS WATCHING

  THE UNINVITED

  THE UNSPOKEN

  THE UNHOLY

  THE UNSEEN

  THE EVIL INSIDE

  SACRED EVIL

  HEART OF EVIL

  PHANTOM EVIL

  Cafferty & Quinn

  THE DEAD PLAY ON

  WAKING THE DEAD

  LET THE DEAD SLEEP

  Harrison Investigations

  NIGHTWALKER

  THE SÉANCE

  THE PRESENCE

  UNHALLOWED GROUND

  THE DEATH DEALER

  THE DEAD ROOM

  THE VISION

  GHOST WALK

  HAUNTED

  Bone Island

  GHOST MOON

  GHOST NIGHT

  GHOST SHADOW

  The Flynn Brothers

  DEADLY GIFT

  DEADLY HARVEST

  DEADLY NIGHT

  Look for Heather Graham’s next novel,

  SOUND OF DARKNESS,

  available soon from MIRA.

  * * * * *

  For additional books by Heather Graham, visit her website, www.theoriginalheathergraham.com.

  Crimson Summer

  Heather Graham

  For Sierra Lipa with thanks. Missing you in South Florida!

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  POEM

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  PROLOGUE

  The sun was out, inching its way up in the sky, casting golden rays and creating a beautiful display of color over the shading mangroves and cypress growing richly in the area. The sunlight touched on the streams running throughout the Everglades, the great “River of Grass” stretching over two hundred acres in southern and central portions of Florida, creating a glittering glow of nature.

  The sky was gold and red at the horizon, and brilliantly blue above, with only a few soft puffs of clouds littered about. Diamonds and crystals seemed to float on the water.

  Such beauty. Such peace.

  Then there was the crime scene.

  The bodies lay strewn and drenched with blood. The rich, natural earth hues of the Everglades were caught in a surreal image, greens and browns spattered liberally with the color red as if an angry child had swung a sopping paintbrush around.

  Aidan Cypress had never understood why the mockingbird had been made Florida’s state bird—not when it seemed that vultures ruled the skies overhead. Never more so than today.

  Now, as he stood overlooking the scene with his crew and special agents from the FDLE, trying to control the crime scene against the circling vultures, Aidan couldn’t help but wonder just what had happened and why it had happened this way—and grit his teeth knowing there would be speculation.

  Stooping down by the body of a man Aidan believed to be in his midthirties—with dark hair, olive complexion, possibly six feet in height, medium build—he noted the shaft of an arrow protruding from the man’s gut.

  All the dead had been killed with arrows, hatchets, axes and knives. Because whoever had done this had apparently tried to make it look like a historical Native American rampage.

  Except the killers hadn’t begun to understand there were differences in the weaponry and customs between the nations and tribes of the indigenous peoples across the country.

  In South Florida, the dead man’s coloring could mean many things; Aidan himself was a member of the Seminole tribe of Florida, though somewhere in his lineage, someone had been white—most probably from northern Europe originally. He had a bronze complexion, thick, straight hair that was almost ebony...and green eyes.

  South Florida was home to those who had come from Cuba, Central and South America and probably every island out there. The area was truly a giant melting pot. That’s how his family had begun. In a way, history had created the Seminole tribe because there had been a time when settlers had called any indigenous person in Florida a Seminole.

  But while the killers had tried to make this look like a massacre of old, the dead men were not Seminole. They were, Aidan believed, Latino. He could see tattoos on the lower arms of a few of the dead who had been wearing T-shirts; a single word was visible in the artwork on the man in front of him—Hermandad.

  Spanish for “Brotherhood.”

  “What the hell happened here, Aidan?”

  Aidan looked up to see that John Schultz—Special Agent John Schultz, Florida Department of Law Enforcement—was standing by his side.

  John went on. “It’s like a scene out of an old cowboys and Indians movie!”

  Aidan stared at John as he rose, bristling—and yet he knew what it looked like at first glance.

  “Quaking aspen,” Aidan said.

  “Quaking aspen?” John repeated blankly.

  “It’s not native to this area. Look at the arrow. That wasn’t made by any Seminole, Miccosukee or other Florida Native American. That is a western wood.”

  “Yeah, well, things travel these days.”

  Aidan shook his head. He liked John and respected him. The older agent was experienced, a few years shy of retirement. The tall, gray-haired man had recently suffered a heart attack, had taken the prescribed time off and come back to the field. They’d worked together dozens of times before. He could be abrasive—he had a sometimes-unhappy tendency to say what he thought, before thinking it through.

  A few years back John had been partnered with a young woman named Amy Larson. It had taken John a long time to accept her age—and the fact she was fe
male. Once he’d realized her value, though, he’d become her strongest supporter.

  But Amy wasn’t here today.

  And Aidan missed her. She softened John’s rough edges.

  She was still on holiday somewhere with Hunter Forrest, the FBI agent she’d started dating. They were off on an island enjoying exotic breezes and one another’s company minus all the blood and mayhem.

  Aidan stopped lamenting the absence of his favorite FDLE agent and waved away a giant vulture trying to hone in on a nearby body.

  Half of the corpses were already missing eyes and bits and pieces of skin and soft tissue.

  Aidan sighed and looked around. There were twenty bodies, all of them male, between the ages of twenty and forty, he estimated.

  Because he’d noted the tattoos on a few of them, and using his own years of experience, he theorized the dead were members of a gang. Florida had many such gangs. Most were recruits from the various drug cartels, resolved to hold dominion over their territories.

  He looked at John, trying to be patient, understanding and professional enough to control his temper. “You know, you may be the special agent, but I’m the forensics expert, and this was not something perpetrated by any of the Florida tribes—or any tribe anywhere. I can guarantee you no one sent out a war party to slaughter some gang members. Someone tried—ridiculously—to make this look like some Natives did this.”

  “Hey, sorry, you’re right. Forgive me—just...look around!” John said quickly and sincerely. “It’s just at first sight...well, I mean—wow. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  The apology was earnest. “Okay. Let’s figure out what really happened.”

  The corpses were in something of a clearing right by a natural stream making its way through hammocks thick with cypress trees and mangroves and all kinds of underbrush.

  While the area was customarily filled with many birds—herons, cranes, falcons, hawks and more—it was the vultures who had staked out a claim. The bodies lay with arrows and axes protruding from their heads, guts or chests, as if they’d fought in a bloody battle. And now they succumbed to decay on the damp and redolent earth.

  John followed Aidan’s gaze and winced. “It’s a mess. Okay, well...all right. I’m going to go over and interview the man who found this.”

  “Jimmy Osceola,” Aidan said. “He’s been fishing this little area all his life, and he does tours. Two birds with one stone. Members of his family work with him and all of them fish and take tourists out here. He has a great little place right off I-75. It’s called Fresh Catch, and his catch is about as fresh as it gets. Catfish. He’s a good guy, John.”

  “I believe you. But we’re going to need a break here—you and your team have to find something for me to go on.”

  Aidan stared at him, gloved hands unclenching at his sides.

  John was rough around the edges and said whatever came to mind, but he was a good cop.

  He’d be hell-bent on finding out just what had gone on here.

  Aidan told him what he’d heard. “Jimmy was out with a boatload of tourists—they’re right over there. See—two couples, a kid who just started at FIU and two middle-aged women. The first officers on the scene made sure they all stayed. Go talk to them. They look like they came upon a bloodbath—oh, wait, they did.”

  John arched a brow to him and said, “Yeah. I got it.”

  He headed off to talk to Jimmy Osceola and the group with him.

  Aidan studied the crime scene again, as a whole.

  First, what the hell had all these men been doing out here? A few of them looked to have been wearing suits; most were in T-shirts and jeans.

  The few bodies he had noted—not touching any of them, that was the medical examiner’s purview—seemed to bear that same tattoo. Hermandad.

  That meant a gang of enforcers in his mind, and he was sure it was a good guess.

  Had a big drug deal been planned?

  They were on state land, but it was state land traveled only by the local tribes who knew it. The park service rangers also came through, and the occasional tourist who arranged for a special excursion into the wilds.

  Bird-watchers, often enough.

  All they’d see today, however, would be the vultures.

  “Aidan.”

  He heard his name spoken by a quiet female voice and he swung around.

  Amy Larson was not enjoying an exotic island vacation.

  She was standing just feet from him, having carefully avoided stepping on any of the bodies, pools of blood or possible evidence. She was in a navy pantsuit, white cotton shirt and serviceable black sneakers—obviously back to work.

  No matter how all-business her wardrobe, Amy had blue-crystal eyes that displayed empathy and caring. She was great at both assuring witnesses and staring down suspects.

  “What are you doing here, Amy?” Aidan asked her. “You’re supposed to be sunbathing somewhere, playing in the surf with Hunter.”

  “I was.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It was great. Champagne, chocolates, sun, surf, sand...” She sighed.

  “And?”

  “And a little red horse—like the one from last month’s crime scene—delivered right to the room,” she said.

  When He opened the second seal,

  I heard the second living creature saying,

  “Come and see.”

  And another horse, fiery red, went out.

  And it was granted to the one who sat on it

  to take peace from the earth,

  and that people should kill one another;

  and there was given to him a great sword.

  —Revelation 6:3-4

  1

  “I’m surprised you’ve agreed to talk to me,” Hunter Forrest told Ethan Morrison.

  The man was being held in jail pending trial.

  Without bond.

  Morrison was rich—he could pay whatever was asked. But sitting across the table from Hunter, he didn’t appear to be worth much. He was just a middle-aged man in a prison suit.

  He’d waived his right to have his attorney present while speaking with Hunter.

  The whole thing seemed to be a game to him. Ethan Morrison believed that the astronomical price he was paying his army of lawyers would get him off.

  But it wouldn’t. There was a slew of evidence against him and he was facing state and federal charges for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. And the feds were even weighing a charge of treason, since Morrison had used privately run immigrant detention centers to acquire his victims.

  The man had created a cult peopled by the desperate and the hungry, ready to do his bidding to reach a nirvana Morrison promised.

  He had ordered the murder of two women who were seeking asylum after having his sons kidnap them from a detention center. Both women had been killed in the manner of some obscene rite. And Morrison had been seeking a third sacrifice, a woman who had escaped him, when he’d decided he needed to kill Amy, as well.

  But Amy had challenged him, Hunter thought. She was a law enforcement officer—not desperate and afraid, which didn’t connect in Morrison’s misogynistic mind.

  In the end, his attempts at murder had been witnessed by many law enforcement officers. He would go down, along with his sons and those others he had brought with him on his murder spree.

  There was no such thing as a good murder, but Morrison’s crimes had been especially heinous; the women had suffered horribly.

  The judge hadn’t given an inch. Morrison was welcome to every high-priced attorney out there, and they could try every defense under the sun. Morrison’s attorneys had tried everything.

  But the judge had the right to hold him until trial, and the man was still being held. And the same high-priced attorneys were still assuring him that once he got to trial he would be deemed innocent.

  Still, it appeared that having lost his appeal for bail, Morrison was taking it all in stride. He sat across the table from Hunter in the interrogation room with a casual air and a smile on his face.

  “I’m entertained when I speak with you, Special Agent Forrest,” Morrison said. “Frankly, I’d rather speak with that Florida girl, Miss Special Agent Larson, but can’t say it’s all that interesting in here, so...well, you’ll do!”