PROLOGUE

 

 

Charles Garrity knew he wasn’t going to die. He’d bet his life on it.

Taking chances was something he was mighty familiar with and, so far, the odds had always seemed to be in his favor. This time it was obvious he’d trusted far too much, and now his options were narrowed down to two. Maybe it was Irish luck, but at only thirty-six he had a lifetime of hopes and dreams ahead of him and he wasn’t about to give up now. Right now, he was too angry.

Perilously balanced on the edge of the bridge, his mind quickly played out his first gamble. He could jump, simply falling over one hundred feet like a puppet held aloft and then cut from its strings. There was a chance he’d be pummeled beyond recognition by the web of trestle beams before his limp body even smacked the water. Still, if his luck held out, he’d live through it.

A sudden shove from the barrel of the gun pointed at his chest declared his other option.

“I’m only going to ask one last time, Charlie. The deed. Where is it?”

Swallowing the dry lump in his throat, he clenched his teeth and refused to answer the man he once thought he knew. He and Mitch Davies had crossed the ocean together to come to this country. Now the man standing before him, his partner in business, the friend he’d asked to witness his forthcoming wedding, seemed crazed with greed.

Snippets of memories flashed through Charles’s mind of everything the two of them had gone through since they’d set foot upon America’s shore back in 1916—their struggle to survive and get out of the tenements, their brief adventures out west, fighting the Germans during the Great War, making it back home and collecting a small fortune in bootleg liquor and the stock market, then finally getting back to New Jersey with enough money to fulfill their dream. He’d been more a father to this boy than his drunken own had been to him, taking the young lad under his wing, protecting him, clothing him, caring for him when he was wounded in the trenches of France, and watching him grow into a man. How could Mitch have turned on him now?

“It always came so easy for you, Charlie. Money, women, everything. But I’ve worked damn hard too, and it’s about time I got something for me. I want that deed now. Don’t make me shoot, then search your body.”

Picturing in his mind where he’d hidden it, Charles growled, “It’s not on me.” He wondered how long it would remain safe. With sudden insight, he realized what Mitch really wanted was his life, everything he had achieved. He would even kill him to get it.

“Then take me to it,” Davies snapped. “I didn’t come this far to—”

Instinctively, Charles shoved Mitch’s arm away as he leapt out into the air. Looking down at the blinding reflection of sun on the water, he heard a shot ring out and felt searing pain wrack his skull. Blackness took over and, falling into what seemed oblivion, he felt lost, as though time and he had been suspended.

Only one thought kept repeating in his confused mind…

Why haven’t I hit the water yet?