Burning Sommer

BURNING SOMMER NORA SOMMER CARIBBEAN SUSPENSE - BOOK FOUR NICHOLAS HARVEY CONTENTS 1. The Stranger 2. Lollypops and Reggae 3. A Pin on a Map 4. Bikinis, Beads, and Brighton 5. The Handbook 6. Normal 7. Holding Hands 8. Fish Pie Voodoo 9. More Cold Sweats 10. Fish Tank 11. Tuna and Anchovies 12. Filthy Carpet 13. Skirmishes 14. Average Man 15. Innocent Dogs 16. Lying about Something 17. A Cuppa and a Bit of Cake 18. Manicures and Digging for Gold 19. Efficiently Insensitive 20. Rassgat 21. Glastonbury Festival on Steroids 22. Broken 23. You’ll Live, Pet 24. The Adultery Effect 25. Mickey Mouse Ears 26. One Simple Phone Call 27. Cool, Refreshing Water 28. Morning of All Mornings 29. Playing Grab-Arse with a Corpse 30. Justice for All 31. Lewis Bloody Hamilton 32. Which Way to Die 33. It's a Small World 34. Spring Break 35. Settling a Score 36. Sunset 37. Rat Brains, Mayonnaise and Brussels Sprouts Acknowledgments Let’s Stay in Touch! About the Author Copyright © 2023 by Harvey Books, LLC All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2023 Cover design: Covered by Melinda Cover model: Lucinda Gray Mermaid illustration: Tracie Cotta Editor: Andrew Chapman at Prepare to Publish Proofreader: Gretchen Douglas Author photograph: Lift Your Eyes Photography This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner unless noted otherwise. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Lisa O’Neill, Tony Lunders and Max Jones names are used with permission in a fictional manner. DEDICATION This book is for my incredible wife, Cheryl. I’m thankful every day for her love, support, and patience. Loving me certainly requires an abundance of patience! 1 THE STRANGER The man groaned and tried to move as he slowly regained consciousness. He felt nauseous. His head throbbed, and he couldn’t understand where he was or how he’d come to be there. Blinking several times he still couldn’t see a thing. Was he blind? A low drone pounded like a bell clapper inside his skull, the pain clearing his thinking enough to realise he was trapped with no space to move. His legs were tucked up to his chest and sweat seeped from his pores. His prison cell jolted, and bit by bit the pieces fell into place. The noise and the movement were familiar. He was in a moving vehicle. He lifted his hand and hit metal. The boot of a car. He fought back the urge to vomit and panic rose in his chest, making it hard to breathe. The stranger. He’d met the man in the car park behind a bar. The guy was looking to buy some product. He hadn’t seemed like a cop. The opposite, although it was hard to tell with undercover guys these days. That’s all he could recall from their brief meeting. Anything which transpired after that was lost in the fuzzy haze. The car slowed to a stop and the man thumped against the boot lid with his fist. The noise echoed back like the sound of a sledgehammer, but he kept making a racket, praying someone would hear. Voices grew louder and he hit the metal so hard he felt blood trickling down his hand. The car moved away and he realised the voices came from a talk show playing on the car’s radio. The driver had turned it up. The ride continued along what the man sensed were smaller roads. He couldn’t hear the surrounding traffic of a motorway, and didn’t feel the stop and go of city streets. Depending on what his imagination concocted about what lay ahead, the man vacillated between wishing they’d hurry up and get there, and praying for more time to come up with a plan. His best defence had always been his quick wit, and on the few occasions he’d been unable to avoid a physical confrontation, he’d got his arse kicked every time. But the man had a bad feeling a simple arse-kicking wasn’t what awaited him this time. The stranger could have taken care of that behind the bar. No one would have batted an eye in Little Havana, which wasn’t known for being one of Miami’s safer neighbourhoods. The locals knew to keep their noses out of other people’s business. As the fog lifted from his brain, the man focused on what he could do to escape. He’d heard somewhere that newer cars had emergency boot openers inside so people couldn’t be trapped. He fumbled around the interior, hunting for a switch or a handle. He found nothing within his reach, which wasn’t very far considering how his frame was crushed into the limited space. He quickly gave up, thinking if the clunky ride was any indication, the vehicle wasn’t a newer model. The car slowed, turned, and continued slowly down an unpaved road, the tyres crunching on a loose gravel surface. He knew they had to be close now and the man readied himself for the only option he had left. He’d feign being unconscious when the boot opened, then make a sudden strike, hoping he could stun the stranger long enough to get out and run. Finally coming to a complete stop, the driver turned off the ignition and all fell silent for a few moments. The car rocked as a door opened, then the man heard crunching footsteps approaching the back of the vehicle. He readied himself as best he could as a key scraped in the lock, followed by the clunk of the barrel turning. When the boot lid swung open, the man was instantly blinded by the blazing Florida sunshine. He tightly closed