The girl who fought to k.., p.1
The Girl Who Fought to Kill, page 1
The Girl Who Fought to Kill
A Red Heeled Rebels international crime thriller
Tikiri Herath
Message from the Author
Hi friend,
Thank you for picking up the first series I ever wrote. As a token of my appreciation, I’d like to gift you my latest thriller.
HER DEADLY END is a twisty book. It’s a pulse-pounding, nerve-shredding mystery of a devious serial criminal stalking a small seaside town in Washington State. The link below will take you to the page where you can download your exclusive gift.
HER DEADLY END: www.tikiriherath.com/herdeadlyend-rhr
Please don’t share this link.
If you have already read Her Deadly End, or any of my FBI detective K9 thrillers, I have a special note for you.
The book you hold in your hands is part of the Red Heeled Rebels’ origin story—a standalone series I wrote from my soul. These suspense thrillers cut across four continents and take you on an adventure to all the places I lived in or visited since I was a toddler. They'll give you a fictionalized, eagle-eye view of what I observed, albeit from a safe distance.
The Red Heeled Rebels thrillers won a bunch of literary awards for which I’m supremely grateful. While they feature the same characters as my Tanya Stone FBI K9 thrillers, they’re not as fast-paced. Thought you'd like to know.
Enjoy the reads.
Best wishes,
Tikiri
Vancouver, Canada
There is no explicit sex, heavy cursing, or graphic violence in my books. NO DOG IS EVER HARMED IN THESE BOOKS. But the villains always are.
Tropes you’ll find in this murder mystery thriller series: female protagonists, women sleuths, private investigators, crime, murder, missing, kidnapping, dark secrets, revenge, vengeful, vigilante justice, family life, lies, psychological, twists and turns, intrigue, mysteries, thriller, suspense, travel, and international crime.
The Red Heeled Rebels Universe
The Red Heeled Rebels universe of mystery thrillers, featuring your favorite kick-ass female characters.
Tanya Stone FBI K9 Mystery Thrillers
Thriller series starring Red Heeled Rebel and FBI Special Agent Tanya Stone, and her loyal German Shepherd K9, Max. These are serial killer thrillers set in Black Rock, a small upscale resort town on the coast of Washington state.
Her Deadly End
Her Cold Blood
Her Last Lie
Her Secret Crime
Her Perfect Murder
Her Grisly Grave
www.TikiriHerath.com/Thrillers
Asha Kade Private Detective Murder Mysteries
Murder mystery thrillers, featuring the Red Heeled Rebels, Asha Kade and Katy McCafferty. Asha and Katy receive one million dollars for their favorite children's charity from a secret benefactor's estate every time they solve a cold case.
Merciless Legacy
Merciless Games
Merciless Crimes
Merciless Lies
Merciless Past
Merciless Deaths
www.TikiriHerath.com/Mysteries
Red Heeled Rebels International Mystery & Crime - The Origin Story
The award-winning origin story of the Red Heeled Rebels characters. Learn how a rag-tag group of trafficked orphans from different places united to fight for their freedom and their lives and became a found family.
The Girl Who Crossed the Line
The Girl Who Ran Away
The Girl Who Made Them Pay
The Girl Who Fought to Kill
The Girl Who Broke Free
The Girl Who Knew Their Names
The Girl Who Never Forgot
www.TikiriHerath.com/RedHeeledRebels
This series is now complete.
Tikiri’s novels and nonfiction books are available in e-book, paperback, and hardback editions, on all good bookstores around the world.
These books are also available in libraries everywhere. Just ask your friendly local librarian or your local bookstore to order a copy via Ingram Spark.
www.TikiriHerath.com
Happy reading.
The Girl Who Fought to Kill
They took the wrong girl. Now she will make them pay.
Everyone who gets close to Asha ends up in danger of their lives. This time, it’s the only family she has left in the world.
Asha’s cousin was barely sixteen when she was snatched in a heinous crime. The sole clue to her abduction lies in a disturbing message tucked inside a secret diary.
Will she find her cousin dead? Or alive?
Asha has seventy-two hours to uncover the terrifying stakes at play. She goes on the hunt for her stolen cousin, determined to take vengeance.
But the kidnapper is also ready. Waiting for her to come….
Chapter One
“Halt!”
I swung around.
It’s a cop!
My heart beat a tick faster.
No, it’s an immigration agent.
I was sure of it, given his peaked pilot cap and that gun hanging from his belt. If we hadn’t been in an airport, I’d have thought he was a paunchy, middle-aged police officer, rather than someone who checked passports for a living.
He marched toward us with a deep frown on his face. I watched him stride up with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Does he know who we are?
I glanced over at Luc. His face had gone pale.
My gut screamed to turn and run. But where would we run to? We were in the international terminal of Mumbai’s airport—a wide, open hall as big as a ballroom. There was no way we’d escape him. Plus, he had a weapon.
At least my friends were with me.
Katy, Luc, Win and I had just disembarked after an exhausting thirteen-hour flight from Marseilles. Other than a stopover in Amsterdam where we’d had a panic attack when we thought Win had been kidnapped again after she’d gone to the washroom without telling us, the journey had been uneventful.
We were bone tired. None of us had slept or ate or even talked on the plane. After what happened in France, all we could do was shift in our seats, struggling to come to terms with what we’d just done.
I’d only seen Tetyana’s back for a moment before the French police whisked her into the police car. I’d wanted to run after her and scream at them to let her go, but Luc and Katy had grabbed me and pulled me away before I did something stupid.
We can’t help her if we’re all rotting in jail, they told me.
They were right. But all I could think of was how I’d abandoned a friend who’d been ready to kill for us.
How could we leave her like that?
When the plane finally landed in Mumbai, we stumbled down the staircase in a daze. India enveloped us in a steamy tropical fog that smelled vaguely of jet fuel and cow dung. I struggled to breathe.
Funny, I thought as I staggered across the hot tarmac that was threatening to burn my soles, everything’s so foreign. India was my second home. Well, sort of. For three years of my childhood, anyway. Have I been away that long? It was a relief to get inside the air-conditioned terminal.
A few people stared as we shuffled in. We were a conspicuous crowd. Katy the redheaded Canadian, Luc the lanky French guy, Win the petite girl from Laos and me, the half-Indian woman.
Our plan had been to pretend to be clueless tourists and ask for visas on arrival. Luc had suggested Win hack into the Indian immigration system beforehand to get us all proper visas, but our departure had been so rushed, it hadn’t been possible.
We’d been lucky so far.
Katy and Win had cleared customs with no questions asked.
The officer who took my Indian passport handed it back with a cursory glance. I’d forgotten to remove Preeti’s letter tucked between the pages before passing it to him, but he hadn’t even noticed. Luc was last in line. He was standing right behind me.
I surveyed the area.
Katy and Win were waiting for Luc and me under a sign that said Baggage Retrieval.
We had nothing to retrieve. We were each carrying our worldly possessions on our backs, in the small hiking backpacks bought in Luxembourg only a few days ago. We had our passports, a change of clothes, toiletries and a few bars of dark chocolate Luc had sweet-talked the first-class flight attendant into giving us.
We were on the run. This meant essentials only. And chocolates counted.
So far so good. No one had followed us. Nothing had seemed out of the blue.
Until now.
“I am talking to you!” The man in the white uniform stepped up to Luc and glared at him.
A second man in a white uniform was walking toward him with a long-snouted beagle on a leash.
This is not good.
“Me, sir?” Luc said, giving the officer an innocent look.
“Yes, I talk to you!”
What do they want from him? I was the one with a false visa and a passport made by someone who faked these things for a living. Everyone else had proper documents. If anyone was liable to get arrested by a customs officer anywhere in the world, it had to be me.
“Merde!” I heard Luc swear under his breath.
“What’s going on?” Katy mouthed silently at me. I shrugged.
“Did we tell you pass the gate?”
I turned around to see the officer standing five inches from Luc now, breathing heavily as if the exertion had been more than he could muster.
“I’m so sorry, Officer, but I thou ght we were done.” Luc spread his hands. “Was there anything else?”
Respectful words. I noticed he emphasized his French accent, which usually charmed everyone he met. But this officer didn’t seem impressed.
“Yes, there is very good reason,” said the man, his face stern. “You know very well why we want to talk to you.”
Luc’s eyes flickered. He gave me a nervous sideways glance. My stomach sank. I hoped Luc hadn’t brought any of his white stuff with him. He couldn’t have made that mistake, could he?
The second officer with the dog was standing a few feet away, one hand on his hips, where he kept his gun.
“I will ask you again now,” the first officer was saying, enunciating each word slowly. “Do you have anything to declare?”
Two local men stopped to look at the commotion. They smirked to see a foreigner in trouble. One whipped out his phone to take a video but bolted as soon as the second officer waved him away.
Thank goodness. The last thing we needed was our faces splashed on the Internet.
My heart raced. I’ve got to do something. But what?
“I’m, I’m clean,” Luc stammered. “I’m really clean, sir. I have nothing to declare.”
With a snort, the first officer reached over and yanked Luc by the shoulder.
“Hey!” Luc cried, pulling away. “What are you doing?”
I found my voice.
“Let him go!”
Ignoring me, the officer pulled a struggling Luc toward the back area, followed by his partner and the dog.
Motioning Katy and Win to stay right where they were, I rushed after them.
“What do you want with him?” I called out from behind.
The first officer gave a grunt.
“Where are you taking him?”
“Not your concern,” he barked without even a glance at me.
“Yes, it is! You can’t just arrest someone like that!”
He stopped and turned around, wringing Luc’s shoulder as he did so. Luc grimaced in pain.
“Let my friend go!”
“Your friend is going to jail for very long time.”
I stared at him in shock.
“And he knows exactly why.”
Luc went limp and a look of resignation crossed his face.
I gave him a desperate look. “Luc—”
“Sorry, Asha.”
Before I could say another word, the men hauled him through a doorway into a darkened corridor behind the customs desk.
The door slammed in front of my face.
The sign over the doorway said, “Immigration Police. No Entry.”
Chapter Two
Katy and Win were staring at me from across the hall, their faces a picture of fear. I didn’t know what to say.
“Miss, you come with me.”
I looked up to see the younger officer with the dog, now holding the door open. One hand was hovering over his holster, as if daring me to disobey.
I gaped at him.
He turned and looked over to where Katy and Win were standing.
“Miss,” he called out, motioning to them, “you both also. Please to come right now.” His words were polite but his tone said he meant business.
We looked at each other in alarm.
Around us, people were shuffling, rustling passports, too jet-lagged or anxious to catch their next flights to care. But a few had perked up when Luc got pulled away. They were gawking at me now. I turned away, feeling like a criminal. I guess I was. Only, no one was supposed to know.
“Come, please.”
With cautious sideways glances at each other, Katy, Win and I silently followed the officer through the Immigration Police doors.
We stepped into a busy working area. It was a messy place with half-opened suitcases and boxes carelessly lying on the ground. Paperwork was spread all over desks and old-fashioned phones and walkie-talkies sat on the tables. Uniformed men and women bustled around, all talking at once—a cacophony of official talk in a language I didn’t understand.
“In here.” The officer was pointing to a small side room with its door ajar.
“Where’s our friend?” I asked.
“You’re with that white boy, no?” the man replied, ignoring my question.
“You mean Luc?” I asked.
“We must better understand the purpose of your visit.”
I looked at him, trying not to blink, my nervous tick. Did we escape traffickers in Europe to only get arrested in India?
The guard opened the door wide for us. “You will wait here.”
I followed Katy and Win inside.
It seemed all interrogation rooms looked the same. Bare. Stark. Intimidating. They made you feel like a felon for just being here. Though it was warm, I felt a shiver run down my back.
“Passports, please.”
We reached into our bags and pulled out our documents.
Every time I looked at my passport, my stomach churned. I was sure I was only minutes away from getting hauled into a detention camp—one with barbed-wire fences, spotlights, and armed guards. People with no countries, I used to think whenever I saw them on the news. I was one of them now.
“Please to take a seat.”
We scraped back the metal chairs and sat down quietly while the officer flipped through our passports. He didn’t seem too rushed.
I turned to Katy, my fiery, redheaded friend. Her face was flushed and the worry lines on her brow had deepened. She looked exhausted and a lot older than her nineteen years. But she was sitting ramrod straight, alert, observing the officer carefully from the corner of her eyes, ready for anything like she always was.
Katy was the only person I trusted with my life. We went back all the way to Toronto, where we’d worked for Dick and Jose at the drug-dealing enclave fronting as a bakery. We’d gone to high school together, taken the same classes. We’d even lived in the same apartment. I knew her better than she knew herself, sometimes.
Luc was different. I’d wondered how he’d ended up in a seedy brothel in London with Tetyana and Win, but he never told us his story. Come to think of it, I hardly knew Luc.
I looked over at Win, who was sitting across the table from Katy and me. She gave me a wide-eyed look, like a baby deer caught in a snare.
She was the youngest among us, but she’d gone through more than any normal adult would in a lifetime. Born in Laos, sold by her father to Chinese traffickers, and brought over to Europe to work at a brothel, she still held on to life like she believed in its promise. But she lived in fear. Ever since our escape, she’d clung to us like glue. Can I trust her to do the right thing?
“I will have to ask you to please give your bags for secondary inspection.”
I looked up. The officer was holding out his hands. “I will take them now, please.”
One by one, we passed our backpacks to him.
Thank goodness I put Preeti’s letter in my pocket.
They could take my bag and even my passport, but I couldn’t lose the two most precious links I had to my cousin, the only living family I had left now.
Preeti’s letter and the ankle bracelet she gave me the night before my fateful wedding day were my lifelines to her. She gifted me two anklets that night, but I’d clasped the second one around her right foot. “Like a friendship bracelet,” I’d told her. “We’ll stay connected then, no matter what.”
She hadn’t known I’d get on a plane and be out of the country the next morning. I hadn’t known that was the last time I’d see her either.
“Is this some uniform?”
I looked up to see the officer staring at our feet. We were all wearing the same red shoes we’d bought in Luxembourg. I instinctively pulled my feet back. Win had already tucked hers under her chair, looking even more frightened than before.
“It’s our college color,” said Katy, casually. She sounded friendly but her eyes were sharp.
“Your college color is red?” the officer asked, slightly amused.
“It’s our volleyball team’s official color.”
“Ah,” he said, giving an appreciative nod. “Volleyball is very good game for girls.”
