Illusions by Dailey, Janet published by Avon Books Mass Market Paperback

Illusions by Dailey, Janet published by Avon Books Mass Market Paperback Plot Summary

Introduction

# Shadows of Deception: A Guardian's Deadly Game The pearl-handled .38 trembled in Rina Cole's grip as she stood in the darkened hotel suite, her wild hair catching fragments of light from the adjoining room. Lucas Wayne lay naked with a blonde starlet, oblivious to the woman who had once shared his bed and now wanted him dead. The gun—a cruel irony, his own gift from their passionate affair—felt cold against her palm as she raised it toward the man who had destroyed her career and shattered her heart. "You dirty rotten bastard! I loved you and you used me!" The words tore from her throat like a battle cry. Light glinted off the weapon's barrel as her finger tightened on the trigger. The explosion shattered the night, but Lucas threw a pillow at the last second, spoiling her aim. In the chaos that followed, he wrestled the gun away while the blonde screamed in terror. This moment of violence would set in motion a deadly game stretching from Manhattan's glittering towers to Aspen's shadow-draped mountains, where secrets buried in the past would rise like ghosts to threaten the living, and where the line between protector and predator would blur beyond recognition.

Chapter 1: The Protector's Gambit: When Fame Becomes a Target

Arthur Golden's voice crackled with desperation across the three AM phone line from New York. "That crazy, washed-up she-cat tried to kill my star client!" The entertainment lawyer's usual composure had shattered like glass. Lucas Wayne, the sex symbol who had transitioned from rock star to Hollywood heartthrob, was alive only because he had seen the gun before Rina Cole could fire a second shot. Delaney Wescott knew the statistics by heart. Celebrity stalking cases had exploded in recent years, from axe murderers hunting Cher to deranged fans killing John Lennon. But this was different. Rina Cole wasn't some obsessed stranger writing love letters from the shadows. She was a former superstar herself, a woman who had once commanded stages and owned platinum albums. Her fall from grace had been spectacular, and she blamed Lucas Wayne for every ruined opportunity, every closed door, every humiliation. The details painted a picture of escalating madness. Rina had been making threats since April, calling Lucas at all hours, showing up at his house, screaming accusations that he was sabotaging her career. The hotel shooting wasn't a crime of passion—it was the culmination of months of building rage. She had flown in from Europe specifically to confront him, talked her way past hotel security with lies about wanting to surprise her lover, then waited in his darkened bedroom with murder in her heart. The Lincoln Town Car cut through Manhattan traffic like a blade, carrying Lucas Wayne away from the chaos at the airport. Delaney sat beside him, her trained eyes scanning the crowded streets while her client studied her with undisguised interest. He was even more magnetic in person than on screen, all dangerous charm and bedroom eyes, but she had dealt with his type before. Hollywood was full of men who believed their own publicity. When Lucas tried to kiss her that first night in the Park Avenue safe house, Delaney's response was swift and uncompromising. "Sorry, maybe I didn't make myself clear. I am here to look out for your safety, not to look after your needs." The rejection only seemed to intrigue him more, as if she were a puzzle he was determined to solve. But Delaney had built her career on being unsolvable, untouchable, unbreakable. Some walls were meant to keep people out, not let them in.

Chapter 2: Ghosts of Mountain Past: Love and Betrayal Resurface

The Colorado mountain air hit Delaney's lungs like ice water as she stepped out of the Aspen police station, her advance reconnaissance complete. She had come to the resort town to prepare for Lucas Wayne's arrival, but the past was waiting for her on the sun-drenched sidewalk in the form of a man she had tried to forget for six years. Jared McCallister stood there in faded denim and weathered boots, his cowboy hat casting shadows across features that time had only made more rugged. "Delaney." Her name on his lips carried the weight of everything they had shared and lost. The recognition hit her like a physical blow, bringing back memories of stolen nights and whispered promises, of a love that had ended in betrayal and bitter words. He looked older now, the lines around his eyes deeper, but those gray-blue eyes still held the same quiet intensity that had once made her believe in forever. The conversation was stilted, careful, two people dancing around the wreckage of what they had once been. Jared was still searching for his missing sister Kelly, still carrying that burden of responsibility that had defined him. But when he mentioned his divorce, the words hung in the air between them like an unspoken question. The wife he had never told Delaney about, the marriage that had existed in the shadows of their affair, was finally over. That night, he took her to a mountain overlook where the stars seemed close enough to touch and the silence was broken only by the whisper of wind through pine trees. "I swore when my father came back without her that I would find her and take care of her," Jared said, speaking of his sister with a pain that was still raw after all these years. But Delaney heard something else in his voice—regret, longing, the ache of a man who had lost more than just his sister. When he asked for a second chance, she found herself saying yes, even as every instinct warned her that some wounds never truly healed. The mountain air grew thin around them, and Delaney realized she was stepping back into a minefield she had barely escaped the first time.

Chapter 3: Hearts in the Crossfire: Duty, Desire, and Dangerous Games

The morning sun painted the Colorado mountains in shades of gold and amber as Lucas Wayne led Delaney through his sprawling contemporary home. She had expected the usual celebrity excess—marble and mirrors, ostentation disguised as taste. Instead, she found something that surprised her: evidence of a man who cared about someone other than himself. The house was designed for comfort, not show, with wide hallways and gentle ramps that spoke of consideration for someone with special needs. Toby Williams appeared like a gentle giant, his man-sized body housing the mind of a child. He moved with the awkward enthusiasm of someone unused to kindness, his round face lighting up when he saw Lucas. "Luke! You came just like you promised!" The embrace between them was fierce and unguarded, brother greeting brother with a love that needed no words. Delaney watched in fascination as Lucas's public persona melted away, replaced by something infinitely more tender. The truth, when it came, hit her like a revelation. Toby wasn't just some charity case or publicity stunt—he was Lucas Wayne's younger brother, hidden away from a world that would exploit his innocence for tabloid headlines. "My father hated him," Lucas explained, his voice tight with old pain. "Called him 'damned idiot' until Toby thought it was his name. When our mother died, the bastard dumped him in an institution and told everyone he was dead." The music tent glowed like a paper lantern against the Aspen twilight, classical melodies drifting across the meadow where Lucas sat on a striped blanket, playing the role of just another music lover. But Delaney's trained eyes never stopped moving, cataloging faces, noting exits, watching for the flash of wild hair or the glint of metal that might signal Rina Cole's return. The former pop star was still in town, holed up at the Little Nell hotel like a spider waiting to strike. When Jared appeared beside Riley in the gathering dusk, Delaney felt her carefully maintained professional composure waver. Their dance later that night on the empty mall, swaying to the distant sound of a harmonica playing "Stardust," felt like stepping back in time to when love seemed possible. But Lucas Wayne was watching too, his dark eyes missing nothing as he studied the interplay between his bodyguard and the rancher who clearly meant more to her than she wanted to admit.

Chapter 4: A Fatal Shot in Darkness: When Protection Becomes Murder

The copper Mercedes appeared at the drive entrance like a harbinger of chaos, and Delaney's hand instinctively moved to her weapon as she recognized the wild-haired figure behind the wheel. Rina Cole had found them, just as Delaney had feared she would. The former superstar emerged from the car like a force of nature, all fringe and fury, her buckskin outfit barely containing curves that had once graced magazine covers and concert stages. "Luke invited me!" Rina screamed at the security team, her voice carrying the raw edge of desperation. "We've planned this time together for months!" But her eyes held a wildness that spoke of something more dangerous than heartbreak—the unhinged look of someone who had crossed the line from obsession into madness. When the police arrived to escort her away, her parting words carried the chill of prophecy: "He thinks he can treat me like this and get away with it. He's wrong. Dead wrong." The night of the shooting arrived with deceptive calm. Delaney and Lucas had stepped onto the deck for fresh air, seeking relief from the suffocating tension inside the house. The night was still and dark, with only the landscape lighting casting pools of illumination along the garden paths. They talked quietly, Lucas opening up about the isolation that came with fame, the way success had stripped away genuine relationships and left him surrounded by users and sycophants. Then Lucas saw her—a blonde figure moving through the shadows, something metallic glinting in her hand. "Rina," he gasped, his face draining of color. "She has a gun." Training took over. Delaney shoved Lucas toward the house and spun to face the threat, her weapon clearing its holster in one fluid motion. She saw the muzzle flash, heard the sharp crack of gunfire, and returned fire without hesitation. Four shots, precisely placed, each one finding its target. But when the lights came on and the smoke cleared, it wasn't Rina Cole lying dead on the brick walkway. Susan St. Jacque's lifeless eyes stared up at the stars, her champagne-blonde hair fanned around her head like a halo. The gun Delaney was certain she'd seen was nowhere to be found, and the woman she'd killed had never fired a weapon that night.

Chapter 5: The Hunter Becomes Hunted: Justice in Question

The legal system moved with ruthless efficiency. Within hours of the shooting, Delaney found herself charged with second-degree murder, her professional reputation in ruins and her freedom hanging by a thread. The prosecutor painted her as a trigger-happy bodyguard who'd killed an unarmed woman, while the media seized on the story with predatory glee. The evidence against her was damning. No gun was found near Susan's body, and gunshot residue tests proved she hadn't fired a weapon. The witnesses gave conflicting accounts of how many shots they'd heard, and Lucas's testimony that he'd seen Susan holding a gun was undermined by his admission that he'd thought she was someone else entirely. If he could mistake Susan for Rina, the prosecutor argued, he could just as easily mistake a flashlight for a firearm. Tom Bannon, a local rancher-turned-lawyer with weathered hands and sharp eyes, agreed to represent her. More surprising was Jared's unwavering support, despite the shocking revelation that Susan St. Jacque had been his ex-wife. The art gallery owner had been beautiful, manipulative, and according to Jared, utterly without conscience. Their divorce had been bitter, fought over money and property, leaving wounds that had never fully healed. The case took an even more sinister turn when Susan's will was filed. She'd never bothered to change it after her divorce, leaving everything to Jared—the gallery, her bank accounts, and most significantly, the Victorian mansion that had originally belonged to his family. The prosecutor began floating theories about premeditation, suggesting that Delaney and Jared had conspired to eliminate Susan so he could reclaim his ancestral home. Riley Owens, her second-in-command and closest friend, coordinated the defense efforts with military precision, but even his legendary competence couldn't overcome the basic problem—Delaney had killed someone, and the law demanded an explanation that made sense. The fact that she was absolutely certain Susan had been armed meant nothing without physical evidence to support her claim.

Chapter 6: Unraveling the Web: Secrets Buried in Mountain Shadows

The breakthrough came when Arthur Golden, Lucas's nervous agent, stumbled upon a gun wedged deep in an evergreen shrub near the shooting scene. The weapon had been fired twice, but it bore no fingerprints—wiped clean by whoever had placed it there. Rather than helping Delaney's case, the discovery only deepened the prosecutor's suspicions that evidence was being manufactured to support her self-defense claim. Delaney refused to accept defeat. If Susan hadn't fired the shots she'd heard, then someone else had—someone who wanted Lucas Wayne dead and had used the confusion to make an attempt on his life. Working with Riley, she began investigating Rina's whereabouts on the night of the shooting. They discovered a crucial forty-five minute window when Rina had been alone in her hotel suite, allegedly changing clothes for dinner. The timeline was tight but possible. Rina could have slipped out of the hotel, made her way to Lucas's house through the network of hiking trails that crisscrossed the mountains, taken her shots at him, and returned in time for dinner. The black Spandex jumpsuit she'd worn that evening would have been perfect camouflage for a nighttime assassination attempt. But the truth began to emerge from an unexpected source. Toby Williams, Lucas's mentally disabled brother who worked as groundskeeper, had been acting strangely since the shooting. When Delaney encountered him walking down the mountain road with a bouquet of wildflowers, she offered him a ride, thinking he was visiting Susan's grave. Instead, Toby led her to an abandoned silver mine high in the mountains, where he laid the flowers at the entrance to a boarded-up tunnel. Deep in the tunnel, behind a pile of rocks from an old cave-in, she found the skeletal remains of a young woman. A class ring on one of the finger bones bore the initials K.M.—Kelly McCallister, Jared's sister who had disappeared six years earlier. Everyone had assumed she'd run away to Los Angeles, another casualty of small-town boredom and big-city dreams. The truth was far more sinister.

Chapter 7: The Master's Hand Revealed: When Angels Wear Devil's Masks

Lucas Wayne appeared in the tunnel behind her, a gun in his hand and desperation in his eyes. The story he told was one of accident and cover-up, of a mentally disabled man who didn't understand the difference between stage violence and reality. Toby had shot Kelly during a confrontation at Susan's house, trying to protect Lucas from what he perceived as an attack. But instead of calling the police, Lucas and Susan had hidden the body and fabricated evidence of Kelly's departure for California. The cover-up had worked perfectly for years, until Susan began using her knowledge as leverage. She'd been blackmailing Lucas, demanding increasingly large sums and expensive gifts to keep the secret buried. The painting she'd tried to pressure him into buying was just the latest in a series of escalating demands that were bleeding him dry financially and emotionally. But Delaney could see through the performance—this was an actor rehearsing his lines, perfecting his delivery for the audience that mattered most: a jury of his peers. The final pieces of the puzzle fell into place with sickening clarity. Lucas Wayne hadn't just been covering up an accidental death—he'd orchestrated Susan's murder with the cold calculation of a master manipulator. Arthur Golden, his nervous agent, had been his accomplice, firing blank rounds from a concealed position to create the illusion of an attack while Lucas guided Delaney's response with his panicked identification of the "threat." They'd sabotaged her radio to prevent communication with her team, positioned Lucas on the deck where he'd be clearly visible to Susan as she approached, and counted on Delaney's training and protective instincts to do the rest. The plan was elegant in its simplicity—use the bodyguard as a weapon, then claim self-defense when the smoke cleared. The scheme had nearly worked. If Arthur had been able to plant the murder weapon near Susan's body immediately after the shooting, the case would have been closed as justifiable homicide. But Riley and the other team members had responded too quickly, forcing Arthur to hide until he could safely approach the scene. When the police arrested Lucas Wayne at the abandoned mine, he was still playing his role—the reluctant confessor admitting to a tragic accident, the protective brother who'd made a terrible choice. But Delaney knew better. She'd seen behind the mask of Hollywood charm to the calculating killer beneath, a man who'd used her as surely as he'd used everyone else in his orbit.

Summary

In the end, justice came not from the courtroom but from the mountains themselves, where secrets buried in darkness finally found their way to light. Lucas Wayne's carefully constructed facade crumbled under the weight of truth, revealing him not as a victim of circumstance but as a predator who'd spent years perfecting the art of manipulation. His greatest performance had been convincing everyone—including himself—that he was anything other than what he truly was: a killer who used charm instead of weapons and turned protectors into executioners. Delaney emerged from the ordeal scarred but stronger, her faith in her profession tested but not broken. She'd learned that the most dangerous enemies weren't the obvious threats—the stalkers and obsessed fans who announced their intentions with letters and phone calls. The real danger came from those closest to the client, the trusted advisors and intimate companions who had access, opportunity, and the ability to manipulate situations from within. The case had cost her dearly, but it had also taught her that sometimes the person most in need of protection is the protector herself, and that the shadows cast by fame and fortune can hide monsters wearing the faces of angels. In Aspen's rarified air, where million-dollar homes perch like eagles' nests above the valley floor, she had discovered that some illusions, once shattered, reveal truths too terrible to ignore.

About Author

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Janet Dailey

Dailey reframes the romance novel landscape by breaking away from traditional conventions and introducing distinctly American settings and characters. She emphasizes strong, independent female protagonists, diverging from the typical "English drawing room stories." Her books often depict red-blooded males and feature more explicit narratives, showcasing her unique approach to storytelling. Her novel "Touch the Wind" marked a pivotal transition from category romances to single-title successes, capturing the New York Times Best Seller List's attention.\n\nReaders benefit from Dailey's transformative perspective on romance fiction, which extends beyond mere storytelling to challenge societal norms. Her Americana Series, with a book set in each of the 50 U.S. states, serves as a prime example of her ambition and innovation, establishing her as a record-setting author. This body of work demonstrates her commitment to offering "something real and gritty," providing a fresh take on the genre that appeals to audiences seeking relatable and dynamic narratives. Meanwhile, her novel "The Great Alone" spans centuries of Alaskan history, further illustrating her capacity to blend romance with historical depth.\n\nDespite a significant plagiarism controversy in the 1990s, Dailey maintained a dedicated readership and continued to write. Her books have sold over 300 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 19 languages, underscoring her global impact. Her disciplined work ethic—rising early and writing for extended periods—enabled her to produce numerous novels, solidifying her legacy in the literary world. This short bio encapsulates her contributions and enduring influence on the romance genre, highlighting her ability to resonate with readers across different cultures and backgrounds.

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