Truth Kills: The Truth Series, #1

By Lacey Dancer

Felicity Ramsey felt the unknown hunter closing in. She didn't know who he was, whose orders he followed. She didn't know if that man was the mastermind of the hunt for a dead woman that neither man had any reason to believe still lived. The computer programs she had designed offered no answers. Only her lethally honed instincts told her that all that she had created was at risk.

Skye Farm and Skye/Sea existed in the sunlight, not in her shadow world. They and those who called both home and haven must be protected. It was time to go hunting but first she had to deal with the twenty trainees who had come to the Farm for specialized instruction in covert ops, tactics and weapons. Her classes were expensive and the screening of those who wished to attend was stringent. She had no desire to burp baby terrorists.

One trainee, Mia, caught her eye. The two week course proved that the young woman was worth the extra training Felicity had offered. A routine monitoring of outside contacts of the trainees and the mention of a name from the past gave Felicity the lead she sought to the hunter she sensed.

The hunter had a name. Ace Faulkner.

The man who gave the orders raised a red flag. Chasing a dead woman made no sense. What was hiding in the shadows? More importantly. Who?

Felicity knew it was time to hunt. The safety of Skye Farm and the world she had created was at stake.
Ace had no leads on the dead woman he sought. The assignment made no sense and the man who had given it to him was not someone he respected. He was chasing shadows.

A message was ordered to be sent to Ace in the form of a savage beating of Mia, his one time lover.
Felicity arrived too late to stop the attack but not too late to kill the four man team. A sound at the front door. Gun drawn, she turned, ready to protect, to kill.

Ace came in fast, his gun ready. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you where you stand," he demanded, his eyes on Mia's battered body. Four other bodies decorated his living room floor. There was blood everywhere.

"Mia needs help."

He had a choice. He could believe she was there to help or she had been a party to the beating. The four dead bodies made the first choice the most likely explanation. "You first." He nodded toward her gun.

Felicity didn't hesitate. She tucked the Beretta in the holster at the small of her back. If she had to, she could kill him later if necessary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sydney Clary
• Release date: Aug 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9798224604616

Lacey Dancer

International, Award-Winning Romance and Suspense author, Sydney Clary a.k.a. Lacey Dancer, has written and published over 36 books over her lifetime. She is working on adding 20 or 30 more to the count as well as bringing her backlist into the 21st century. Currently, she is concentrating on writing stories in two new series. The first is called the Live Oak Series which is a romance/suspense story set in North Florida. The second is The Truth Series, a thriller/suspense series set in Montana and other places around the world. Finally, she is enhancing and republishing the very popular Pippa Romance series.

Book preview

Letter from Lacey

Once in a while a character will stay in my head long after I have met him or her in one of my books. Felicity is a prime example. She appears in Playing with Fire, Book Two of the Live Oaks Series. She was supposed to be a villain, but she just didn’t fit the profile. She really threw me a curve when she did her bit to give the plot a new twist. I never intended to write her story, however she had other ideas. She was insistent enough that I couldn’t get her out of my mind. So I thought ‘well, let’s just see what you have to say’.

This book was a challenge and a delight to write. I never knew what Felicity was going to do next. Research was an adventure just trying to keep up with her ideas. Jets to subs, sharks to guns. Then, of course, the Farm.

Felicity put me through my paces as a writer. I’m fairly certain that there is a second book coming since there is another character in this one who is already demanding attention.

I hope you enjoy Felicity’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. As always, let me know what you think. I am only a few clicks away. Check out the About the Author page in the back of the book

Lacey Dancer

PROLOGUE

A couple of dogs standing together Description automatically generated

He leaned against a tree as he watched Danny choose one of the four handguns laying on the oak stump in front of her. The pain coursing through his body from hairline to boot tip was excruciating. His shoulder hurt where it rested against the pine. If he hadn’t needed the prop to camouflage how difficult it was for him to stand, he wouldn’t have added that pain to the agony that increased daily.

The cancer was devouring him from the inside out. His life span was no longer measured in days. He knew with an instinct that had never failed him that this would be the last time he would watch Danny site the targets he had created. He loved no one on earth as he loved Danny. He had kept his promise to Becky.

With smooth fluidity, without visibly aiming, Danny placed a round in each target dead center. If she had taken the time to site, her accuracy level would have been extraordinary. The fact that she could just lift her weapon of choice and hit a bull’s eye with every shot was beyond even his skill. The distances involved were at the edge of the range of each weapon. She didn’t miss. He couldn’t remember when she had missed a target except during her learning phase.

For one second, he allowed himself the luxury of looking around the home he had created for them. Their small log cabin was well hidden by the forest surrounding it. The only access was by water since it sat on an island in the middle of a river that rose and fell with the snowfall from the mountains that circled it. It was rare for anyone to venture deeper into this area of Idaho. He had truly made them an island of safety and solitude.

Here, he had taught Danny to track and to hunt.

Every survival skill he had ever learned from his Native American father, from the Army Rangers with whom he had served, and from his own experience in both the primitive and the civilized societies of the world had gone into her education.

He heard the last shot hit home and he glanced back to see Danny place the gun precisely by those she had used. Today, she wore no ear protectors. She turned to him, her sharp eyes meeting his. He could see his Becky in her eyes. The shape and the dark green color of the evergreens around them were all that spoke of the mother she had never known.

You’re dying, Pop. Aren’t you? she asked quietly. She had known for months that he was sick and his condition was worsening. She had waited for him to tell her. Today, she knew waiting was no longer an option. His rangy body was pitifully thin although his dark eyes still burned with an intensity and focus that saw more than most and often too deeply for comfort. His gray skin no longer shone with the healthy sheen of polished bronze.

She moved to his side without making a sound as she crossed the dried leaves and small twigs of autumn beneath her feet. That, too, he had taught her. He was truly skilled himself, moving like a shadow across the land they called home.

He watched this slender girl whose birth was a miracle of life in the midst of tragedy flow toward him as though she was part of the wilderness. Pain wracked him in waves almost bringing to his knees. He bore down for the strength to take these last moments into his memory.

He knew she was, by far, better than he had ever been, even in his prime. She was a shadow, smoke in human form flowing through the shadows that surrounded them. When he had still been able to play hide and seek, he had no longer been able to outwit her. It wasn’t the disease killing him that made her the winner. It was something in her, perhaps some throwback from their shared heritage that allowed her to become one with any environment. In the forest landscape, she moved as though she belonged to the very land itself. There was beauty and grace in her silent skill.

She had her mother’s courage and heart. Her birth had saved him. His hand wanted to shake as he lifted it to her smooth cheek. She had her mother’s green eyes he thought again. Becky had been his first love and his only love.

Danny was a unique combination of them both. She had his long rangy build, her mother’s eyes, and a unique ability to interact with her surroundings with split-second accuracy that was hers alone. He had it to a degree himself but he was not her equal. He had only meant to teach her how to survive in the world that existed beyond the boundaries of the sanctuary he had created for them. Instead, he had formed a weapon, a weapon of skill, intelligence, and patience beyond any he had ever seen.

She raised her hand to circle his wrist, feeling the fragility of the bones beneath her fingers. She knew he loved her. But affectionate gestures had never been part of that knowledge. She had seen pounds melting from his whip lean frame. She had seen the weakness that he had tried to hide. She had seen the pain in his eyes and the way he moved so carefully.

She had learned to listen to the world around her, to understand the seen and unseen dialogue that came with civilization and nature. She saw death wrapped around him like a slowly tightening shroud.

Yes, I am dying.

He looked up at the sky and the sun that was sliding deeper into the west. This would be his last sunset. He knew it. He had promised Becky when he had held her in his arms and she had held their newborn baby close to her face that he would do everything in his power to protect and keep their daughter safe. He had done his best to keep his promise. Danny was fourteen. Today was her birthday. He had bought her a present on his last trip downriver to the small town where he collected supplies on an irregular basis.

He looked at her seeing the pain in her eyes but nothing on her beautiful young face. He had taught her how to feel her emotions but keep them inside. To show feeling was to offer weakness to the onlooker.

He felt the pressure of her fingers as an agony of the body and heart. He didn’t want to leave her. But he couldn’t stay any longer. Even now, he could feel his body growing weaker. They were only fifty yards from the cabin but it might as well have been fifty miles. This would be his last walk with the daughter he loved.

I need to lean on you, Skye. For the first time in her life, he used the name his Becky had given their child. Having to ask added pain. When she slipped her arm around his waist and helped him lift his right arm over her shoulder, there was more pain. Every step was agony but he had to be in the cabin before he drew his last breath. He didn’t waste energy trying to speak. He could feel how heavily he was leaning on her and yet she held strong. Tears he had only shed for Becky stood in his eyes. He would see his Becky soon.

Danny shoved the cabin door open and helped her father to the bed beside the fireplace. When he laid down, she moved to take his boots off.

No, leave them on.

She knelt beside him. She knew when to ask questions and when to wait. She gathered his big hand, now gaunt with death, and held it to her cheek.

I love you, Skye. That is the name your mother and I chose for you because, for her, the sky held all the possibilities and dreams that anyone could want. She loved you. From the moment of your conception, she loved you. So did I. You understand why you’ve lived as a boy for all these years. It was safer for you.

He paused to push, one last time, against the darkness that was coming closer with every labored breath.

He gathered what was left of his strength and prayed it would hold long enough for him to tell her good-bye. You will find your future in the box under this bed. When your mother was injured so badly the night our car crashed on the mountain, we had no cell reception and her time was close. The wreck started her labor. I delivered you with my own hands. She was bleeding badly. We both knew she wouldn’t make it. She spent her last moments on earth holding you as she laid in my arms and whispered your name.

It hurt to think of those seconds that had moved too fast. He couldn’t save his Becky. The accident hadn’t been his fault. A driver had come around the mountain on the wrong side of the road and he’d had to choose either a head-on collision which would have surely kill them both or the shoulder heavily rimmed with treetops. They had survived the wreck long enough to give Skye life.

We love you. There is no record of your birth. I couldn’t risk it. When I came back from the war, I wasn’t the same man. Your mother loved me. I couldn’t keep a job for very long. I had nightmares. I had doctors at the VA. No matter what they told me, no matter how hard I tried or how hard Becky tried, nothing could erase what the war had done to me. If I had registered your birth, there was a good chance they would’ve taken you from me. I could not have kept my promise to Becky. You were all that was left of Becky and the love we had shared.

He managed to force enough strength into the hand she held to grip her fingers. I couldn’t let you go. To let you go was to break my promise to Becky. I couldn’t do it. Right or wrong, I couldn’t fail her or you. You are a part of us. The tears in his eyes rolled slowly down his cheeks.

Danny carried their clasped hands to her lips. She kissed his bony fingers. I am glad you kept me. I am glad I’ve had these years with you. There is nothing wrong with what you did. You have taught me things I would have never learned from anyone else.

Her eyes were dry but her heart was filled with a raging torrent of pain and futile hopes. She wanted to stop time.

When I am gone, take everything of yours from the cabin. Everything! Make sure you don’t leave a shred of evidence that there was anyone here but me. When you have everything outside, take that small can of gas I brought with me from town the last time and douse the house, especially around this bed. Be careful about how you do it. Make it look as though I did it. You have not been seen in years in any of the towns with me. We have been very careful. There are records of my illness at the VA and Becky’s pregnancy. I don’t want them looking for you.

Danny understood he did not want her to be associated with him. She understood that, if the law stepped in, she had four years to go before she could live on her own. She understood that child services would either keep her in a facility or foster her to some family she didn’t know. She didn’t waste his strength asking questions for which she already had answers.

You are tall enough, educated enough, and mature enough to pass for nineteen or twenty. You understand how to use computers to create identities. Get your present now. He had so little strength left. He could feel the cold of death creeping into his limbs.

Danny didn’t want to let him go long enough to reach under the bed he had built. Using her free hand, she felt for and found the box. She laid it on the bed beside him. It wasn’t wrapped.

Open it, he whispered, wishing his voice was stronger.

Danny lifted the top and found stacks of money in bank bundles, three passports, three driver’s licenses, all with her picture and different names, and two transcripts from two different high schools showing she had graduated with honors. None of the dates on anything matched. In all of them, she was a girl. There was a small group of papers clipped together on the bottom. She frowned as she read a list of subjects and grades for two years of college in one city and a lease agreement for an apartment in another. The name of the student and the person leasing the apartment matched one of the driver’s licenses.

The address on the driver’s license is real. Go there. New neighbors think a friend has just moved you in. You have been burying your father. Now you are ready to register for the winter term. He could barely get the words out. His vision was fading. He could hardly see her face as the light seemed to dim around her. He had to finish.

Keep the rest of the documents in case you need them. Remember always, know your exit point and be ready to go in a split second. Trust your instincts. He forced his last ounce of strength into his fingers. The pain of cancer eating his body was unspeakable.

Promise me. For Becky and for me, promise me that you will live your life and be the best person you can be.

He kept his eyes on her as he felt his life draining away and the cold seeping in. He wanted to wipe away the single tear he saw slide down her cheek but he didn’t have the power to raise his hand one more time. He managed four words with the last of his strength.

"Skye. Becky, my Becky.

CHAPTER ONE

A couple of dogs standing together Description automatically generated

She stood without moving, only her eyes noted the details of the compound below her. The foliage was well placed to prevent spying even from this ridge. She knew there were people there. Rumor was a constant occupation in the small town fifty miles away. Everyone had a theory about what went on at Skye Farm.

She smiled faintly as she slowly raised her arm inch by micro inch until she could scan the screen of the device strapped to the inside of her left forearm. Four dots, all equidistant from her, told her she had company. They didn’t bother her. They were no threat. The sun was heating the land around her. It was time to retreat. The risk of being in the open was worth the information she had gained.

Again, moving slowly, disturbing nothing but the air around her, she eased through the forest, heading downhill. The faint vibration of her locator device warned her that her company was close. They were surrounding her on the four points of a compass. She had trained them well. She didn’t hesitate in her silent retreat. She didn’t look over her shoulder or to the right or left. She was well guarded, had been well guarded since she had breached the perimeter of the compound.

Suddenly, the trail she was making ended in front of a solid rock wall. She touched a button on her device and a small opening appeared, just large enough for her to slip inside. The eyes of her guards gleamed in the muted darkness as she turned and closed the door to shut out the light.

She went down on one knee and held out her hands. Good boys, she murmured as she stroked each sleek head of her canine team.

Alpha was the oldest at four and the leader of Marshall, Lee, and Sly who were all three. She had bred and raised them since puppies. Each was highly trained and dangerous. They were not pets but partners.

She rose and moved quickly down the tunnel that led to her house. The darkness was almost complete except for the low intensity, motion sensor lights that were sparsely placed along the arrow-straight path.

There were traps along the way but the device she wore interfaced with each so that only a few seconds of deactivation occurred as she passed through each zone. None of the traps were warnings. All had one aim, to kill. She guarded her lair well. Her enemies were many and her friends outside Skye Farm non- existent. She had never had a normal family and she had made sure that she never would. She had chosen her life, knowing that one day it would be the death of her.

She had danced with death so often that she knew the moves better than she knew her own heartbeat. She knew when she was being hunted without needing to see the hunter. She had bought herself some time.

She didn’t know his face but she was waiting. She was very good at waiting. Those who had sent him would know that. He would begin the dance thinking he knew all of her moves. The arrogance of the man who had sent him was his greatest weakness. She smiled as she thought of the dance to come. She had been idle for a year. She was ready to rumble.

Entering her bedroom, she turned to shut the concealed panel that opened to the spiral stairs that led to the basement and the hidden entrance to her private tunnel. No one in her organization had any idea the exit existed.

She studied the floor for a second to be sure that there was no evidence of her and the dogs’ passage on their daily patrol. She had learned at her father’s knee to double-check even her own arrangements and precautions. There was nothing to indicate she had done anything but sleep in her bed and dress for the day.

New trainees were on the grounds. Twenty in all, ten women and ten men. Some were from the private section and some from the government. She smiled at the last, knowing her former boss would have rather had a terrorist teach any of his people than her. Not that it mattered what he thought at the moment as long as he continued to believe she was dead.

Her smile faded as she made up her face, using the appliances that slightly altered her jawline and lips. Contacts took care of her eye color and extensions sewn into the short cornrow braids of her natural hair changed her into Felicity Ramsey.

Felicity was the owner of Skye Farm where the elite of the world of agents and security, private and governmental, came to learn the tricks and skills that she had learned in childhood. Each man or woman arrived with a history and experience in the world of stealth and disguise. It was her job to hone the skills each had and add more to the mix. Her Farm had a worldwide reputation in the silent world of espionage where a word, a lie, a mistake could cost one life or thousands.

Her reputation in the exclusive community had been carefully built and increased. Her prices were high. Her integrity was higher. Every applicant was screened, her way, until she knew everything about them from birth to the moment they entered her world.

Many had sought her services but few were granted entrée. Refusal was absolute. She trained no one with a questionable background, even from her own government. Her father had taught her the meaning of honor and had asked for her promise. She never forgot those words spoken between them.

She studied her image for a moment, looking for any flaws in her disguise. There were none. She touched the hidden pad that was keyed to her thumbprint and watched the secret drawer disappear into the make-up table. If anyone got past the trips in the hall outside her bedroom, they would find nothing in sight that would betray the depth of secrecy she kept in her life.

Moving silently, she crossed the room to her final stop before beginning the day. Another hidden panel slid open at her approach. Screens lined one wall, exterior views of twenty points of the grounds around her house. It only took a moment to determine that all was as it should be. The American flag was fluttering lightly in the breeze. Cameron was standing beneath it, waiting for the trainees to assemble as they left the small building that served as a common eating hall.

She studied the newcomers, her gaze picking up the swagger of one of the men. No emotion showed on her face as she watched him assess everything around him. She had planned very carefully so that the grounds looked and felt very ordinary, almost nondescript. His slight sneer told her that she had succeeded. Her washout rate was ten percent on the first day. So far, that record was intact, and it looked as though she was heading that way today.

Time would tell, she decided as she left the control room, the door sliding silently closed as she passed. Her dogs followed her as she exited the bedroom. She could have left them inside or allowed them to roam at will, but this first day, she always liked the statement they made.

Four sleek Dobermans with steely-eyed stares aimed at twenty people tended to get attention fast. Grown men who wouldn’t have balked at taking a bullet or facing a bomb were known to cringe at the sight of an attack dog off-leash. Four could bring out cold sweat and nerves. She would exploit both before the two-week course was complete. She strolled silently to the gathered group. Cam saw her but didn’t hesitate in his presentation.

Okay, people, we have a couple of rules and there are no exceptions to either. Rule number one is ‘you will do what you’re told with no questions’ and rule number two is ‘leaving your sleeping quarters after lights out are called is dangerous’. Breaking the last rule can get you killed, Cameron said, making sure he made eye contact with each of the trainees.

Felicity walked to the front of the group and stood to one side of Cameron, her dogs spreading out around her. She signaled the four to alert. She knew the picture they made as she watched the people in front of her look at the dogs. She waited without speaking for Cameron to continue the opening presentation.

"Over the next two weeks, we will be showing you various skills and moves both in hand-to-hand and weapons that those who employ you think will increase your effectiveness. You will train harder than you have ever trained. Your days will be longer, starting