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  The Choice

  Walk the Right Road Series, Book 1

  by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Praise for The Choice…From Lorhainne Eckhart, author of The Captain’s Lady, comes a romantic, mystical tale of suspense sizzling with passion and unforgettable drama.“A wonderful tale of courage, and real-life choices that’ll keep you riveted.”

  Mimi Barbour, Author of The Vicarage Bench Series

  The writing is gripping and kept up the pace right to the end. The author has great visuals and the story played out in my head a lot like a movie, which is probably why I liked this book more than the typical mystery/suspense - I thought it rocked.

  ~ Jessie Field, Love on The Bookshelf ~

  A mystical romantic suspense, "The Choice" is a fascinating read, and one I highly enjoyed… anyone interested in spirituality should enjoy this book as much as I did.

  K. Sozaeva

  Engrossing and powerful read! I was drawn right into the story and lives of the characters to the point I stayed up late just to finish it. I do that a lot with the MM romance reads but not with with many others so, for me, that said a lot about how engrossing and powerful the story was.

  Anya @ House Millar

  A dynamic catch-22 From the Pacific Northwest to New Orleans, with its rich Cajun heritage, dialect, food...and voodoo, comes this spellbinder from Ms Eckhart. The ultimate heroine is not completely aware of what she has gotten into, but quick to find out. And it's not for her wellbeing or grip on reality that she discovers a prime, supernatural source of evil...hadn't the old woman told her? From drugs to the DEA, all combines into a masterful book of suspense...you cannot put down, or look away from.

  Elysabeth Faslund

  Romantic suspense with a mystical, supernatural slant. This book has well developed characters, lots of action and a fast-paced plot full of twists and turns that kept me riveted to the last page. Highly recommended!

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  Afterword

  Other Works by Lorhainne Eckhart

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  Table of Contents

  Two Wolves

  One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a

  battle that goes on inside people.

  He said, “My son, the battle is between two

  “wolves” inside us all.

  One is Evil. It is fear, anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret,

  greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false

  pride, superiority, competition and ego.

  The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, friendship, respect, sharing, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

  The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

  “Which wolf wins?”

  The old Cherokee simply replied

  “The One you Feed”

  ‘Author Unknown’

  Prologue

  It’s too quiet. Unnaturally quiet.

  The sort of unusual quiet that happens right after a big storm rips through. But there wasn’t one—a storm that is. This was just another sunny fall day, exactly like hundreds of other brisk autumn Fridays, on this off-the-grid, rustic island of Las Seta, in the Pacific Northwest.

  DEA Agent Sam Carre squinted when he walked out of the shaded thick forest, from the blazing sun brightening the calm blue sky. From the edge of the old growth forest, he glanced back into the heavy foliage, to where he’d separated from his partner Diane, two hundred yards back along the hidden fence line.

  This island was an absolute crown jewel to any logging company but a nightmare for Sam’s team. It provided too many hideouts, the wrong kind—the dangerous kind, along with the perfect cover for marijuana agriculture.

  Sam popped on his dark glasses and cut around three parked cars. He snagged his black jeans on some thorny bushes as he hurried toward the six solid sure-footed male agents in front of the wrought iron gate protectingLance Silver’s secure estate. “Nobody goes until I say so.” Sam kept his authoritative voice even, and his charming grin hidden as he thought about slapping steel cuffs around Lance Silver’s wrists. Tonight they’d celebrate because today they’d finally have all the proof they needed to bust Silver and lock him up for life. A dangerous and connected man who had, until now, controlled the highway of drugs flowing down the west coast across the country with deep ties into South America.

  “What’s taking Diane so long; can she even make it over the fence?” Agent Donaldson, a junior member on the team, pulled his ball cap over his prematurely balding head. He stood with Agents Craig, Daniels, Green, Mercer and Winters. They were suited up in their Kevlar vests and dark glasses, weapons holstered and ready to go.

  Sam cursed under his breath. Donaldson was pushing it again. It’d only been five minutes since Sam’s partner, Diane Larsen, had climbed the security fencing leading four agents, two of them women, into the forest behind the house. And this was after she’d disarmed the wire triggering the alarm. Sam wasn’t in the mood to argue with this young agent who liked to challenge Diane’s authority. He undermined anything she did, which was absolute crap. Diane, the only woman on this team with a leadership role, worked ten times harder than any of these guys. She was kindhearted and respectful—yet capable of kicking ass when she had to. She’d been a rock for Sam when he needed a supportive friend to help him keep his head together. But since she’d fallen apart at the field office, the news her dad had died when he accidentally mixed up his meds hitting her hard, she’d been getting all kinds of grief, especially from Donaldson. One incident, just one time, and it was all these tough-ass pricks could remember.

  Sam moved away from the gate and back into the shaded thick forest, to see if he could spot Diane.

  “That kid’s really vying for Diane’s spot,” said Agent Green as he dogged Sam’s heels. He resembled a middle child always trying to fit in, his round baby cheeks such a contrast to his quarterback shoulders.

  “Yeah, well he ain’t going to get it.” Sam crouched down. “Can’t see anything.”

  Green chuckled softly. “These damn renegades love this off-the-grid wilderness. It’s the perfect hideout. Nothing but a bunch of hippies, musicians and artists live here.” Green spat on the ground a few inches from Sam’s black boots.

  “Hard for those families raising kids here you’d think. No electricity, no stores.” Sam breathed in the clean air.

  “Sam, we’re inside,” Diane’s low, silky voice whispered over the radio.

  “Let’s go, let’s go.” Sam signaled the six men with him.

  Mercer stepped forward to cut the padlock with heavy bolt cutters. It broke. He yanked the chain and tossed it to the ground. He and Green flung open the double gates. Sam jumped into the passenger side of the first car. Donaldson climbed behind the wheel. As he slammed the door shut, Donaldson floored it. Craig, Daniels and Winters followed in two cars behind, whipping up a trail of dust. Green and Mercer raced behind on foot.

  Two hundred feet up the long, narrow driveway, the two-story estate house appeared magically out of the secluded forest. It rivaled any mansion from the Old South, a fancy porch, woodwork and gardens on all sides. Nothing moved. Not even a curtain shielding the floor to ceiling glass windows. Lance Silver had people, a lot of them. The place should have been buzzing right about now. Sam pulled the warrant from under his Kevlar vest. He flicked the holster of his Glock and ran his fingers through his short brown hair. His gut warned him something was wrong. Where was everyone? They shouldn’t have been able to drive in without creating mayhem. This had been too eas
y—and too easy meant a problem. “Shit!”

  Sam pressed his hand to his earpiece. “Keep your heads up, eyes open. Something’s not right here.” As a seasoned cop, Sam had learned the hard way to see things others didn’t notice. And he analyzed. It was a coping mechanism for him that had become his mode of survival, especially after what happened to Elise. They pulled closer to the front door. He felt the downward slide of something he couldn’t put his finger on, but Sam knew—something was off.

  Donaldson slammed the brakes and skidded to a stop at the front door. Sam braced his hand on the dashboard before jerking open his door and jumping out into a cloud of dust. Donaldson bounded over the hood and raced Sam up the stone stairs. Craig and Daniels hurried around the side of the house. Winters, Green and Mercer flanked Sam.

  Donaldson banged on the door. “DEA, open up.”

  Nothing, no response, and Sam really listened. By now, they should have heard footsteps, some kind of rustling from inside.

  Beads of sweat covered Donaldson’s face as he appeared to vibrate; like he itched to kick open the door.

  “Open it.” Sam stepped to the side holding up his gun. Craig took the other side. Donaldson pulled up his knee and kicked hard with the heel of his black boot, over the dead bolt, letting out a rough, oomph. The doorframe splintered as the mahogany door crashed open.

  “DEA, we have a warrant.” His adrenaline pumped. Sam aimed his weapon and went in. Everything went into slow motion. Details stood out. In his peripheral vision he caught a glimpse of the shining black steel of a gun and nearly crapped in his pants. It took a second to register it was his gun—his image in a floor to ceiling wall mirror. It filled both sides of the massive front hall. “Christ almighty.”

  “We’re in. Green, Winters, check the basement; Donaldson upstairs,” Sam shouted, both hands gripped his weapon. His gut twisted so tight as he struggled to listen. Where was the scrambling, the shouting, something—anything to break this chilly silence? “DEA, show yourself.” Sam shouted again, clearing the front hall, the sunken living room, through an open archway to a huge chef’s kitchen, which was extremely neat and tidy. Not even a measly cup had been left sitting on the counter.

  Floor to ceiling windows filled every room. He could see Diane and the four agents out back behind the solar panels as they searched the outbuildings. Sam frowned and leaned against the double pane glass door. This massive house was silent except for his agents who scoured every room in it.

  Winters’ deep voice grated through Sam’s earpiece. “Basement’s clear.” Everyone checked in, the garage, the greenhouse, empty. This upscale, state of the art, energy efficient estate had been abandoned. Not even the caretaker remained.

  “Sam, there’s no marijuana; there’s no equipment.” Beads of sweat popped out on Sam’s forehead. Beneath his Kevlar vest, his snug T-shirt stuck to his well-sculpted back. The radio buzzed with furious updates from their twelve man team on the mainland, which included Sequim’s Sheriff’s detachment, the Coast Guard, Interpol and DEA. This had been a simultaneous sweep of all Lance Silver’s property, here on Las Seta and the underground truck trailer at Lance Silver’s compound across the water in rural Gardiner, Washington. All empty.

  Sam pressed his microphone close to his mouth. “Diane, where are you?” He slid open the kitchen sliding glass door and walked onto the massive stone patio overlooking the pond and luscious well-tended rose garden. He slumped against the patio door and tried to rub away the pulsating pain between his eyebrows. Since this investigation started, he’d begun to experience a sudden sensitivity to light and sound. It could be gone in hours or days. The usual warning had been there for the last few days—a blue aura in his peripheral vision, black spots. But he ignored it. Told himself it was the stress of running what started out as an independent investigation by the DEA and escalated into an international task force. Targeting the marijuana grow ops running rampant on the isolated islands in the Pacific Northwest.

  World-renowned high grade marijuana was being shipped and traded for cocaine and guns. This was big time, a major business and an international problem law enforcement had yet to defuse. As if they could.

  “What’s wrong?” He never heard Diane approach. Her words stretched out long and loud. It took forever for his senses to override the roaring in his ears. His blood began to pound through his body and pulled Sam deeper into throbbing misery.

  “Here, take this.” He opened his eyes when Diane tapped out three pills from a small bottle.

  He didn’t question it. He just swallowed. There wasn’t much Sam wouldn’t take from his trusted friend. Diane was a woman of medium height and build, compact and tough, with tan short-cropped hair, the type of woman who didn’t distract a man with flirtatious curves. But the kind of partner who’d do the gritty groundwork while keeping her partner focused, which is what she did on the boat ride over this morning, ignoring Agent Donaldson’s crude jibes, guzzling coffee with Sam.

  “If you don’t pull it together, some woman on this team’s going to fulfill her dream and have you bedded and nursed before we can wrap this up.”

  Whatever she gave him took the edge off the soon-to-be-blinding pain.

  “Eat this.” She tossed him an energy bar. He didn’t argue. He ripped open the foil wrap with his teeth and chewed the gritty bar.

  “He knew we were coming.”

  “Click off your radio Sam.”

  He ripped the headset from his ear. “You know we followed the letter of the law to make sure this scumbag didn’t get off on some technicality. All those stakeouts, we did our homework Diane. We know who the little guys are, every fucking one of them on the street. We have video footage and rock solid evidence the drugs were here!” Sam pounded the fleshy part of his fist against the smooth fir siding.

  “Agent Carre, you better get in here and see this.” Donaldson beckoned, quite arrogantly, undermining his superior, Diane, by not addressing her.

  Diane, one to always hold her emotions close and rarely showed what she thought, tilted one eyebrow up as her face hardened. This prick deliberately pushed her buttons and deserved a one-on-one ass kicking. Personally, Sam would have planted his foot so far up this kid’s ass by now. Except, this was Diane’s fight and if she wanted these guys to respect her, Sam couldn’t do her fighting.

  Sam and Diane followed Donaldson down a long hall, which resembled an art gallery, to Lance Silver’s study in the solar glass wing. Green, Mercer, Winters and Craig looked up, but only Winters, a big dark Irish, African-American guy with long, fuzzy hair would honestly look at Sam. The tension magnified about fifty times when the other tough guys turned away slightly, crossing their arms, glancing awkwardly at Lance Silver’s palatial mahogany desk, where all drawers hung open.

  “We found this in the top drawer of the desk.” Donaldson appeared to own the room, when he picked up a crisp yellow piece of paper from the cluttered desk with his big dry hands and passed it to Sam.

  Diane peered closer. Her head never topped Sam’s shoulder.

  His vision cleared. Bold black letters spelled out his name. He didn’t miss how still the room became. He could feel heat from every agent while they waited for Sam to explain. But then Diane ripped the note from his hands and stepped in front of him.

  What the hell is this, some kind of game?”

  No one answered.

  Sam was ready to clear out. When he replaced his headset, he could hear his boss Dexter shouting over the radio, bypassing Sam as he spoke directly to Diane. Diane pressed her hand to her ear to listen.

  “I want your asses back here now, we got a problem. A tip’s been called into the Sequim Sheriff’s detachment, to check Sam’s locker at Ocean’s Gun club. We’ll find a key to Lance Silver’s estate and my Golden Boy’s on Lance’s payroll.”

  Sam looked up so fast his head spun. Dizzy, he stepped back and leaned against the mahogany bookcase. “What the hell? That’s bullshit.”

  Dexter yelled, “There’s
a chopper on route to get you now. Two deputies from the Sequim detachment just opened your locker. And they found a key along with five pounds of marijuana.”

  His blood chilled. The bad feeling he had earlier had just become a clear epiphany. He could almost see that suave tight-assed bachelor, Lance Silver, laughing at him. Instead of Silver going to jail, all this shit flying around landed hard right on top of Sam. Not only did he look like the leak in Lance Silvers' back pocket, doubt of Sam’s true allegiance was painted on the agents’ faces surrounding him. He could feel their censure.

  Amazing how quickly they turned. They thought he did it. Pissed and completely furious, Sam gazed hard at each of these turncoats until each one stepped back. He wasn’t about to dignify this with a response to these pricks. Not after how hard he worked to nail this bastard. Following every lead the other agents missed or brushed off. But not Sam, he lived this investigation. He breathed life into it. And lost sleep because of it. These guys should know out of anyone, Sam wouldn’t betray this team. He ground his lips together so hard they trembled. He felt the rug ripped right out from under him. And was positive he heard a toilet flush in the distance as six months of steady, solid work went right down the toilet. How could this happen again? Why was he such a target?

  Well for one, this was Las Seta, an un-policed reclusive island, part of the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. History alone should have warned him it wouldn’t be easy. The explorers and adventurers who claimed this island over a hundred years ago, landed here quite by accident for one reason or another. Whether hiding or running from something, they all insisted on a land free from politics and civilized order. Families and clans remained year after year, protecting each other. And staying true to tradition, they followed their own way of doing things. So, while Sam hunted Lance Silver. Lance Silver and the island of Las Seta changed the rules of the game and ambushed Sam.