1: Morgan The key was a blackened talisman, tucked into her leather cuff. She’d gotten in the habit of keeping it there since it had become the only tangible thing she owned when, three months ago, her entire life was reduced to ash and ruin. The fire department had already come and gone by the…
Chapter 1 Misty Murphy Shadows chased each other across the grounds of the Mountaintop Lodge as dappled sunlight streamed through the beautiful orange, red, and golden leaves. Autumn had arrived in Beech Mountain, North Carolina, spreading its glorious colors across the peaks and valleys. With the season came the so-called leaf peepers, tourists from…
Prologue June 9, 2014 To: Bayridgemama475@gmail.com From: Alexisfire475@gmail.com Mother, I’m sorry for what I have to tell you. Maybe if I was more brave, I would say it to your face. But by the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I realize this will be a shock. You know me only as the quiet,…
PROLOGUE The day of the murder (Sunday, December 16) Six thirty in the morning. The Hôtel de Verbier was dark. Outside, it was pitch black and snowing heavily. On the sixth floor, the doors of the service elevator opened. A hotel employee appeared with a breakfast tray and made his way toward Room 622. When…
Chapter 1 I met Brendan Kaiser, the owner of my TV station Channel 10 and about a zillion other properties, for lunch on a sunny spring day at a restaurant called Tri-Bar in lower Manhattan. Tri-Bar is what’s known in New York as a celebrity restaurant. In other words, whenever you read the gossip columns,…
Chapter 1 Lynnel feels the sun cutting into her skin, a harsh reminder of her own mortality. She rolls forward onto her toes and holds her hand up against the sun. The motion puts an old scar on her forearm in her direct line of sight. Her stomach clenches and she steps back into the…
I was loading a week’s worth of water, energy bars, and fatty snacks into the trunk of my car when Battlin’ Bob Blazinsky, a small-time thug with a plus-sized appetite, phoned me with a last-minute request to break someone’s legs. I still wasn’t used to taking requests from a tiny fish like Bob, whose criminal…
The party kicked off at Skateland, where the neon marquee regularly malfunctioned, so that it read SKAT or ATE. The roller rink sat at the eastern edge of Waukesha, Wisconsin, a city of 70,000 people, with an average income of $70,000, and a murder rate of about one person per year. In Skateland’s carpeted lobby,…
Chapter 1 The problem with perfection is that it doesn’t exist. Somewhere, deep down, I knew this. But in the high-end hotel kitchens and Michelin-starred restaurants where I honed my cooking skills, the name of the game was churning out perfection on a plate. Dish after dish, night after night. No mistakes. Ever. I opened…
CHAPTER ONE Joe Gunther crested the hill overlooking a small cluster of flashing, multihued vehicles below. They made him think of a swarm of fireflies, settled untidily by the side of the road, but in fact were a group of cruisers and unmarked cars much like his own. They appeared randomly scattered, as if abruptly…
