Into the Dark (The Bodyguards, Book 6)

Into the Dark (The Bodyguards, Book 6)
By Cindy Gerard


Product Description

Amy Walker endured unspeakable horrors while being held as a hostage before she was rescued by Dallas Garrett and his brothers from E.D.E.N., Inc. Amy is determined to leave the past behind…but only after she gets some answers to the questions that haunt her: Why was she abducted by the terrorists? Why is her mother locked up in a mental institution?

Dallas wants Amy to know he’s a man she can trust. He’s incapable of offering her his love but promises his sworn protection while she embarks on her quest to discover the truth about her family…and herself.

Working on a lead, Amy and Dallas team up with an investigative journalist and an unlikely accomplice whose motives are as murky as his past. Soon they are drawn into the depths of a secret organization that practices non-consensual mind-control experimentation—one that Amy’s own grandfather appears to be involved in. With a ruthless enemy closing in fast Amy and Dallas race against time and risk their lives to expose these crimes against humanity…and share a passion neither of them could have expected.


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Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #28959 in Books
Published on: 2007-05-29
Released on: 2007-05-29
Number of items: 1
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
352 pages

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Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
Bestselling author Cindy Gerard concludes her scintillating romantic suspense series starring an elite team of bodyguards who conquer danger—and desire—against all imaginable odds…

HER SPIRIT WON’T BE BROKEN.Amy Walker endured unspeakable horrors while being held as a hostage before she was rescued by Dallas Garrett and his brothers from E.D.E.N., Inc. Amy is determined to leave the past behind…but only after she gets some answers to the questions that haunt her: Why was she abducted by the terrorists? Why is her mother locked up in a mental institution?

HIS PASSION CAN’T BE CONTAINED.
Dallas wants Amy to know he’s a man she can trust. He’s incapable of offering her his love but promises his sworn protection while she embarks on her quest to discover the truth about her family…and herself.

TOGETHER, THEY’LL FIGHT WITH ALL THEIR HEART…
Working on a lead, Amy and Dallas team up with an investigative journalist and an unlikely accomplice whose motives are as murky as his past. Soon they are drawn into the depths of a secret organization that practices non-consensual mind-control experimentation—one that Amy’s own grandfather appears to be involved in. With a ruthless enemy closing in fast Amy and Dallas race against time and risk their lives to expose these crimes against humanity…and share a passion neither of them could have expected.



www.cindygerard.com

About the Author
CINDY GERARD is a national bestselling author of nearly thirty contemporary romance novels including To the Brink, To the Edge, To the Limit, Over the Line, and Under the Wire. Along with numerous industry award nominations, Cindy is the recipient of The National Reader’s Choice Award and Romance Writers of America’s coveted Rita Award. As one reviewer put it: “Ms. Gerard is a master at weaving tales that shoot straight for the heart—and she does it with incomparable style.”

Cindy lives in the Midwest with her husband, Tom, a very special dog and two spoiled cats as well as several fat and happy quarter horses. Visit her Web site at: www.cindygerard.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
January, six years later
Essex County, New York
The night was crystal clear, vacuum still and brittle with cold. Pale gold rings rimmed an egg-shaped moon floating in a diamond black sky. A killing moon. In a graveyard sky.
With no wind to slap it into thin wisps, smoke from the twin chimneys of the 1800’s two-story brick-and-mortar building curled skyward in thick, lazy streams. Snow hung in heavy drifts from north-facing windowsills, on thick concrete eaves and on the winter bare limbs of dormant trees.
“A regular Currier and Ives Christmas card moment.” Amy Walker watched her breath crystallize through chattering teeth in the arctic air inside her car.
Yes, it would have been picture-pretty if she hadn’t known that Winter Haven was home, mental hospital and sometimes prison to the tortured souls inside.
“G’night, Mom,” Amy whispered, looking up toward the third window on the second floor where a faint light burned behind the barred panes. “And good-bye. For now.”
Tonight it was particularly hard to control the pain that always accompanied thoughts of her mother. Anger followed quickly on its heels.
Soon, Mom. I’m going to find him. And I’m going to make him pay for what he’s done to you.
And for what he’s done to me.
It was a promise she fully intended to keep. It was a payment she fully intended to make. She was close now. Closer than she’d ever been. Thanks to Jenna McMillan.
“Amy, I think I’ve found him.”
Amy’s fingers had tightened on her cell phone when Jenna had called earlier today. “Where?”
“He’s here. Back in Argentina. Can you meet me in Buenos Aires?”
Yes, she could. She would. Just as soon as she could get there.
“Let me give you an address . . . just in case we lose cell contact,” Jenna had added. “Got it? Okay. If I’m not there when you arrive, ask for Alvaro. He’ll know where to find me.”
“Jenna . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” It wasn’t enough. After what Jenna had done for her, Amy could never say or do enough.
“Just get down here.”
Yeah. She’d get there. “Be careful, okay?”
“Careful’s my middle name,” Jenna had said with a smile in her voice and broken the connection.
It had been hell working through the rest of the day. Amy had wanted to leave for Buenos Aires right then. But she had to be so careful. Not to draw attention. Not to give anyone who might be watching her reason to be suspect.
Tamping down the anxious anticipation she’d felt ever since Jenna had called, Amy steeled herself for the confrontation to come. Her need for retribution outdistanced her fear—and her fatigue.
For the past five months she’d worked as an aid at Winter Haven so she could be close to her mother. Often, like today, she’d pulled back-to-back shifts when one of the aides had called in sick. That was fine. It gave her more opportunity to be close to her mother.
Her mother. Who was broken. Because of her grandfather.
Amy was ready for Edward Walker this time. Knew what kind of a monster she was facing now. Wouldn’t be caught off guard and vulnerable again. Not ever again.
“Soon, Mom,” she promised aloud.
But first, she had to get this car started in the sub-zero cold.
“Please, please, please,” she pleaded into the red muffler wrapped around her neck and cranked the key.
After a long surly groan and a screeching grind, the engine of her ten-year-old Taurus finally, grudgingly, chugged to life.
“Thank you,” she whispered through a shiver. With a shaking hand she felt under the driver’s seat for an ice scraper.
She finally had to remove her mitten, lean forward and grope around on the floor. Her fingers slide over the stone-cold barrel of her Glock before she found what she was looking for.
“Gotcha,” she said in triumph. With the scraper in hand, she sat back up.
And choked on a scream.
A face, distorted by frost and shadows, pressed against her driver’s side window.
“Hey . . . Relax, Erin. Cripes. It’s just me.” Ben Chambers’ grin wasn’t nearly guilty enough to compensate for the beating Amy’s ribs were taking from her heart.
“Just making sure you got started okay.”
Heart still hammering, pulse still spiked, Amy bundled her coat around her. She shoved her bare hand back into the mitten that matched her red muffler, put her shoulder to the door and pushed it open.
“Well, that took at least five years off my life,” she said, working hard to sound good-natured. “It did warm me up, though, so thanks for that.” She forced a smile.
Ben worked third shift—usually came in just as Amy was leaving. He was a sweet guy. And he meant well. Just like everyone else, however, he had no idea that she was wrapped as tight as wire coiled on a spool.
No one knew because Amy went to great pains to hide it. Just like she hid her true identity behind the mouse-quiet persona of Erin James.
“Car seems to be running fine.” Ben had the good sense to sound a little sheepish now that he realized how much he’d shaken her.
“Thanks for checking on me.” “Erin” brushed a fall of black hair back out of her eyes, careful not to dislodge her wig beneath her red stocking cap. Then, because Amy knew Ben would hang around if she encouraged him—maybe finally work up the nerve to ask her out—she turned her back, dismissing him.
It was cruel. Amy knew that. But she didn’t want to encourage Ben’s infatuation. She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want to get involved.
Not with any man.
Not after what she’d been through.
And yet one man came to mind as she started scraping ice from her windshield.
Dallas Garrett.
She hadn’t counted on liberal doses of what she had started to think of as the “Garrett factor” to plague her nights and days. Hadn’t figured that hardly a day would pass in the six months since she’d left him in West Palm Beach that she hadn’t thought of him. Played the “if only” game. If only she’d met him earlier. If only she was the same person she’d been before . . . well . . . before Dallas and his brothers had rescued her from the Abu Sayyaf terrorist cell on Jolo Island.
“Can’t change the past,” she whispered, angry that she’d let herself digress. Again.
The rhythmic chug of her car’s motor and the sound of Ben’s dejected footsteps trudging across the snow toward the hospital brought her back to the moment. She turned back to the task of clearing a thick film of frost off her windows, pushing away thoughts of the horror she’d experienced during the months she’d been held captive on the remote Philippine island. A horror that her own grandfather had arranged.
She squelched memories of Jolo and of Dallas, blue eyes dancing, soft smile encouraging, into her past where they belonged.
Her crepe-soled boots crunched and squeaked on the packed snow in the parking lot as she worked her way around the car. It was starting to warm up when she crawled back inside, fastened her seat belt and backed slowly out of her parking spot.
A tremor that had nothing to do with the cold eddied down her spine. She cut her gaze to the rearview mirror as she shifted into drive.
The dimly lit lot was empty. Ben had disappeared into the building. No one stood outside in this frigid New York January night watching her. No one had a reason to watch Erin James, and that’s how everyone knew her.
And yet . . .
“Stop it,” she muttered. There was no one there. Just like no one had been watching her last night. Or the night before—even though a sixth sense warned her otherwise.
Just because she’d been asking questions again. Just because she was close to confronting the monster responsible for placing her mother in Winter Haven—the same monster who had ordered Amy’s abduction in the Philippines—didn’t mean he’d found her.
She’d covered her tracks this time. Only Jenna knew what Amy was up to, and Jenna was as careful and concerned about secrecy as Amy.
Drawing a bracing breath, Amy steadied herself. Icy air seared her lungs; her fingertips stung with cold. She was safe. She was fine.
Because of her grandfather, she was also paranoid.
“Welcome to my world.”
Inside her mittens, she flexed her fingers on the steering wheel as she drove into a darkness cut only by her headlights that sliced twin beams along the glistening snow-packed highway.
By the time she’d driven three miles down a road slick with patchy ice, she’d settled herself down. Warm air blew from the vents on the dash. She’d stopped shivering.
And then she spotted them. Headlights in her rearview mirror.
Her heart revved up several beats.
Headlights. On this road. At this time of night.
Headlights closing in fast. ...


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Customer Reviews
Jones & Jenna stole the show!
It seemes like I waited forever to get Dallas&Amy's story and while Into The Dark did become an action-packed tale, I can't say the romance between Dallas and Amy moved me. There seemed to be much more between them when they were in the Philippines so that in the end, this romance ends like a shipboard one. Once they reach home ground, the magic fizzles out. This was how I felt about Amy and that's a shame because the book is fast-paced and would have made an excellent movie.

Somehow, the emotion was missing from this book and it shouldn't have been the case because Dallas is supposed to be one tortured soldier, suffering from PTSD but Ms Gerard has failed to pull the reader into his tortured world because she chose 'telling' rather than 'showing'. As a result, when she tells me Dallas can't see a future for him with Amy, I was wondering why not. Sure, his team members got killed or injured in a mission but all soldiers suffer that kind of loss in war time. I didn't get to share even a little bit of what those teammates had with Dallas so when Ms Gerard fast forwards the story, Dallas' reasons for his depression got lost.

As for Amy, I just could not buy into her reason for going after her grandfather. But I guess I don't understand this need for revenge, especially if in Amy's case it was just to ask him why he did what he did. IMO, that was such a dumbass thing to do. Totally TSTL, which makes me feel that Dallas and Amy's romance wouldn't survive in real life.

But I am SO intrigued by Gabriel Jones! He and Jenna truly stole the show from the depressed Dallas and the TSTL Amy. Okay, TSTL is too harsh a word for Amy because she is a very capable and self-sufficient woman. I liked that she had no qualms killing her would-be asassin. I liked that Jones told her she could watch his back anytime. But her reason for going after her grandfather was still stupid.

Obvious Flaws
I won't get into the plot here, as many others have. I will just say that I was more excited to meet the men working with Dallas and Amy in Argentina, as they are sure to be featured in future books. Those guys had more charisma in their few pages than Dallas and Amy in all 300+ pages.

My largest pet peeve by far is how quickly Amy recovered from her trauma in the Philippines. Come on - six months later and she is suddenly an expert shot and good enough at an Israeli martial art to take down a Recon Marine? How much disbelief should I suspend here!?! I love to escape to someone else's world, but at least make it somewhat believable! And that is discounting the obvious mistake of using the term "revolver" to refer to a handgun with a clip!


Into the Dark
When Dallas Garrett and his brothers embarked on a rescue mission to the Philippines, they never expected to liberate another prisoner. Tortured and violated, Amy Walker's strength and spirit touches something deep within Dallas. Both battle scarred, they share an unspoken bond. While Dallas wants to protect Amy, he can't promise her anything more. Amy has more pressing matters anyway. Even though she has her suspicions, she needs to learn for certain who masterminded her abduction...before they try again.

Once back in the States, Amy quietly vanishes out of Dallas' life. Now six months later, Amy is closer to finding her answers, but the closer she gets to the truth, the more dangerous her quest becomes. Running out of options, she turns to the only person she trusts, Dallas. In the months since Amy's disappearance, Dallas has not forgotten her. When she crashes back into his life, the urge to protect her is just as strong, yet Amy isn't the same woman he saved. The flare of attraction the two first felt is now a blaze that neither can control. Thrust into a conspiracy bigger than either imagined, can Amy and Dallas find a safe way out of their troubles? Can either deny the love and passion they both feel?

Ever since reading To the Brink and getting my first peek at Dallas and Amy, I have been dying to read their story. With Into the Dark, Cindy Gerard delivers a heart-pounding, sensuous thriller that's totally worth the wait! Amy has evolved since I first met her. She is a strong, capable woman who's ready for anything. Tortured by his past, Dallas isn't sure he has anything to offer Amy, but he proves time and time again what a good and worthy man he is. The simmering sensuality that builds between the pair boils over in the most captivating way. I'll admit that at first, I had a hard time buying the secret cabal plotting world domination, but then Dallas wasn't believing it at the start either. Quickly however, I was swept up in the adventure, and Ms. Gerard made the story work. I also loved the secondary characters that teamed up with Dallas and Amy. Although this is the last Bodyguards book, I hope those two get their own series.

Reading like a big-budget Hollywood action-adventure, Into the Dark offers all the thrills and chills any romance lover could want! While I highly recommend Into the Dark, I would suggest folks also read the third Bodyguards book, To the Brink first. To the Brink provides a good bit of back-story and makes Into the Dark that much better.

Cheryl reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed