The Triple Threat Collection Read online

  Face of Betrayal © 2008 by Lis Wiehl

  Hand of Fate © 2010 by Lis Wiehl

  Heart of Ice © 2010 by Lis Wiehl

  Eyes of Justice © 2012 by Lis Wiehl

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Scripture quotations are from the The Holy Bible, New International Version®, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved Worldwide.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-71803-176-3 (e-collection)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  CIP data available

  DEDICATIONS

  from Face of Betrayal

  With love for Dani, Jacob, and Mickey,

  LIS

  With love for Sadie and Randy,

  APRIL

  from Hand of Fate

  For all the Face of Betrayal readers who made Allison, Nicole, and Cassidy’s first appearance such a success—especially Bill C. in Corvallis, Oregon, who wrote, “I’m 88 years of age, and anticipating Hand of Fate is an incentive to live for.” Now that’s both inspirational and humbling. And for my daughter Dani.

  from Heart of Ice

  For the wonderful followers of Allison, Nicole, and Cassidy, especially Miss Margaret Ralston of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who said the Triple Threat books got her through the “terrible pain” of a broken wrist. And for Dani and Jacob.

  from Eyes of Justice

  For Jacob and Dani. With all my love, from Mom. And for every Triple Threat reader. Your support and kindness is inspiring and humbling. Thank You.

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATIONS

  FACE OF BETRAYAL

  NORTHWEST PORTLAND

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  PIERCE RESIDENCE

  PORTLAND FBI HEADQUARTERS

  CHANNEL FOUR

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  JAKE’S GRILL

  CONVERSE RESIDENCE

  CONVERSE RESIDENCE

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  PIERCE RESIDENCE

  LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL

  NORTHWEST PORTLAND

  CHANNEL FOUR

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  HEDGES RESIDENCE

  RANGEL RESIDENCE

  CITY CENTRAL HOTEL

  SAFE HARBOR SHELTER

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  BLUE MOON TAVERN

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  UNITED STATES SENATE

  NORTHWEST PORTLAND

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  LAW OFFICES OF STONE, HUTCHENS, AND LANGFORD

  SAN FELIPE TAQUERIA

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  SOUTHWEST PORTLAND

  HEDGES RESIDENCE

  RIVERSIDE CONDOMINIUMS

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  CONVERSE RESIDENCE

  FAIRVIEW RESIDENCE

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  CHANNEL FOUR

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  PORTLAND FBI HEADQUARTERS

  SENATOR FAIRVIEW’S OFFICE

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  EMERICK RESIDENCE

  PIZZICATO PIZZA

  DOWNTOWN PORTLAND

  FOREST PARK

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  FOREST PARK

  FOREST PARK

  FOREST PARK

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  FOREST PARK

  CONVERSE RESIDENCE

  FOREST PARK

  FOREST PARK

  MULTNOMAH COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  GOOD SAMARITAN MEDICAL CENTER

  PORTLAND FBI HEADQUARTERS

  FOREST PARK

  LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  RIVERSIDE CONDOMINIUMS

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  CHANNEL FOUR

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  FOREST PARK

  TOMMY’S BAR-B-Q

  TOMMY’S BAR-B-Q

  SHAW RESIDENCE

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  SHAW RESIDENCE

  SHAW RESIDENCE

  CONVERSE RESIDENCE

  FONG CHONG RESTAURANT

  HAND OF FATE

  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

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  HEART OF ICE

  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

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

&n
bsp; CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  EYES OF JUSTICE

  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

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  READING GROUP GUIDES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AN EXCERPT FROM A DEADLY BUSINESS

  FACE OF BETRAYAL

  NORTHWEST PORTLAND

  December 13

  Come on, Jalapeño!”

  Katie Converse jerked the dog’s leash. Reluctantly, the black Lab mix lifted his nose and followed her. Katie wanted to hurry, but everything seemed to invite Jalapeño to stop, sniff, and lift his leg. And there was no time for that now. Not today.

  She had grown up less than two miles from here, but this afternoon everything looked different. It was winter, for one thing, nearly Christmas. And she wasn’t the same person she had been the last time she was here, not a month earlier. Then she had been a little girl playing at being a grown-up. Now she was a woman.

  Finally, she reached the agreed-upon spot. She was still shaking from what she had said less than two hours earlier. What she had demanded.

  Now there was nothing to do but wait. Not an easy task for an impatient seventeen-year-old.

  She heard the scuff of footsteps behind her. Unable to suppress a grin, Katie called his name as she turned around.

  At the sight of the face, contorted with rage, Jalapeño growled.

  MARK O. HATFIELD UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  December 14

  As she walked to the courtroom podium, federal prosecutor Allison Pierce touched the tiny silver cross she wore on a fine chain. The cross was hidden under her cream-colored silk blouse, but it was always there, close to Allison’s heart. Her father had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday.

  Allison was dressed in what she thought of as her “court uniform,” a navy blue suit with a skirt that, even on her long legs, hit below the knee. This morning she had tamed her curly brown hair into a low bun and put on small silver hoops. She was thirty-three, but in court she wanted to make sure no one thought of her as young or unseasoned.

  She took a deep breath and looked up at Judge Fitzpatrick. “Your Honor, I ask for the maximum sentence for Frank Archer. He coldly, calculatedly, and callously plotted his wife’s murder. If Mr. Archer had been dealing with a real hired killer instead of an FBI agent, Toni Archer would be dead today. Instead, she is in hiding and in fear for her life.”

  A year earlier Frank Archer had had what he told friends was a five-foot-four problem. Toni. She wanted a divorce. Archer was an engineer, and he was good at math. A divorce meant splitting all their worldly goods and paying for child support. But if Toni were to die? Then not only would Archer avoid a divorce settlement, but he would benefit from Toni’s $300,000 life insurance policy.

  Archer asked an old friend from high school—who also happened to be an ex-con—if he knew anyone who could help. The old friend found Rod Emerick, but Rod wasn’t a hired killer—he was an FBI agent. Archer agreed to meet Rod in a hotel room, which the FBI bugged. In a windowless van parked outside, Allison monitored the grainy black-and- white feed, all shadows and snow, waiting until they had enough to make an arrest before she gave the order. With gritted teeth, she had watched Archer hand over a snapshot of Toni, her license number, her work schedule, and $5,000 in fifties and hundreds. She sometimes understood those who killed from passion—but killers motivated by greed left her cold.

  Given the strength of the evidence, Archer had had no choice but to plead guilty. Now, as Allison advocated for the maximum possible sentence, she didn’t look over at him once. He was a small man, with thinning blonde hair and glasses. He looked nothing like a killer. But after five years as a federal prosecutor, Allison had learned that few killers did.

  After she finished, she rejoined Rod at the prosecutor’s table and listened to the defense attorney’s sad litany of excuses. Archer hadn’t known what he was doing, he was distraught, he was under a lot of stress, he wasn’t sleeping well, and he never intended to go through with it—lies that everyone in the crowded courtroom could see through.

  “Do you have anything you would like to say to the court before sentencing?” Judge Fitzpatrick asked Archer.

  Archer got to his feet, eyes brimming with crocodile tears. “I’m very, very sorry. Words cannot describe how I feel. It was all a huge mistake. I love Toni very much.”

  Allison didn’t realize she was shaking her head until she felt Rod’s size 12 loafer squishing the toe of her sensible navy blue pump.

  They all rose for the sentence.

  “Frank Archer, you have pled guilty to the cowardly and despicable act of plotting to have your spouse murdered.” Judge Fitzpatrick’s face was like a stone. “Today’s sentence should send a strong message to cowards who think they can hide by hiring a stranger to commit an act of violence. I hereby sentence you to ten years for attempted capital murder-for-hire, to be followed by two years of supervised release.”

  Allison felt a sense of relief. She had an excellent track record, but the previous case she had prosecuted had shaken her confidence. The date rapist had been pronounced innocent, which had left his victim stunned, fearful, and angry—and left Allison feeling guilty that she hadn’t been able to put him away for years. Today, at least, she had made the world a safer place.

  A second later, her mood was shattered.

  “It’s all your fault!” Archer shouted. He wasn’t yelling at Toni—his ex-wife was too afraid to be in the courtroom. Instead, he was pointing at Allison and Rod. “You set me up!”

  Archer was dragged from the courtroom, and Rod patted Allison’s arm. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll keep an eye on him.”

  She nodded and managed a smile. Still, she felt a pulse of fear. Ten years from now, would the man come back to take his revenge?

  Shaking off the feeling of foreboding, Allison walked out of the court-house—known to Portlanders as the “Schick Razor Building” because of its curved, overhanging roof—while she called Toni with the good news. In the parking lot, she pressed the fob on her key chain, unlocked her car door, and slid behind the wheel, still talking.

  Only after she had accepted Toni’s thanks and said good-bye did she see the folded paper underneath her windshield wiper. Muttering under her breath about junk advertising, she got back out of the car and tugged the paper free.

  Then she unfolded it.

  The professional part of Allison immediately began to take notes. For one thing, except in a movie, she had never actually seen a threat written in letters cut from a magazine. For another, were her own fingerprints obscuring those of the person who had done this?

  But the human side of Allison couldn’t help trembling. For all her de-tachment, she couldn’t tamp down her horror as she read the message.

&n
bsp; I’M GOING TO RAPE YOU. AND YOU’RE GOING TO LIKE IT. AND THEN I’M GOING TO CUT YOU INTO LITTLE PIECES. AND I’M GOING TO LIKE IT.

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  Better Not Let Me Talk to Boys

  September 5

  Hi! I’m a Senate page on Capitol Hill. This blog will tell about my experiences here in Pageland.

  Washington DC is all tall buildings, honking cabs & humidity that feels like someone wrapped you up in a blanket of steam. Plus it smells funky. Like hot garbage.

  It turns out that the Vietnam Memorial & the Washington Monument & the statue of Lincoln are all a couple of blocks apart. My stepmom V has been trying to get me to all the famous sites, even though there will be trips every other weekend just for the pages. (Now she’s asleep & I’m writing this in the bathroom of the hotel, which has free wireless.)

  I can’t believe that the whole time we’ve been here it’s been raining. For some reason, I never thought it would rain in DC. Luckily some guy on the street was selling umbrellas.

  After all the sightseeing, we went out to dinner with Senator X. He got me this internship, but I probably won’t see him very much. I’ll be working for all the senators, especially the 50 Republicans, not just him. (Working in the Senate is better than working in the House. I hear they have to stare at hundreds of photos so they can memorize all the faces & names in their party. Compared to that, 50 is a piece of cake.)

  We ate at an elegant Japanese restaurant, where I had many things that I can’t pronounce. Not only are the Japanese people good at anime, but they know how to cook.

  Before our food came, V told these people at the next table to keep their toddler under control. He had a cup of Cheerios & was throwing some on the floor. So of course she had to boss them around. Then V started telling the senator that he had better keep an eye on me & not let me talk to boys. I just wanted to crawl under the table, even though they both pretended she was joking.

  Doesn’t she realize that I’m not a little kid anymore? In eight days, I’m going to be seventeen!

  PIERCE RESIDENCE

  December 14

  Allison set the pregnancy test on the edge of the tub. Marshall was in the living room, stretching in front of the TV news, getting ready to go for a run.

  All afternoon, this moment had been in the back of her mind, providing a welcome distraction from her anxiety whenever she thought about the threatening note. Rod had come as soon as she called and had taken the document away as evidence. He asked her if she had any enemies, but they both knew the question was a joke.