Chosen for Death
Authors: Kate Flora
Chosen for Death
A Thea Kozak Mystery
Book One
by
Kate Flora
Award-winning Author
CHOSEN FOR DEATH
Reviews & Accolades
"A red-hot start to a new series."
~Kirkus Reviews
"An easy, reflexive pace, complex heroine, simple plot and natural prose...."
~Library Journal
"A page-turner."
~Mystery Scene
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ISBN: 978-1-61417-842-2
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Please Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright ©1994, 2015, 2016 by Kate Clark Flora. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
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Dedication
This book is for my husband, Kenneth Cohen and my mother, A. Carman Clark, who believed in me.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the many people who have helped me along the way. First to Grace Livermore and Hannah Bond, who gave me time to write.
To all my readers, who provided an audience and so much helpful criticism: Christy Bond, Christy Hawes, Jim Dillon, Esq., Prof. Frances Miller, Dr. Jacqueline Olds, Diane Englund, Jack Nevison, Nancy McJennett and that wonderful artist, Peter W. Rogers. To Karin Knudsen Rector, for geographical assistance. To writer Jane Langton, whose support meant more than she could know.
To Maine State Trooper Kate Leonard and especially to former Concord Police Chief Carl Johnson for the many times he corrected my grammar, fixed my cops, and made my prose more politically correct.
And last but by no means least, to my agent, Carol McCleary, who had confidence enough for both of us, my editor, Claire Eddy, who so gently corrected me, and to Margaret Milne Moulton, who gave Thea her job.
To those who might be offended by my geography or my police procedure, I remind them that this is a work of fiction, and that people and land may have been molded to fit the crime.
Note to Reader
These stories were written several years ago in a less technology oriented time that demanded more wit and wisdom. Rather than update the stories when writing the recent installment, I opted to leave them as they were originally written so readers can enjoy the nostalgia of a simpler era.
Chapter 1
New England weather can be very unpredictable in September. Mornings that start off crisp and cold can be steaming hot by noon. That was how I found myself sitting in the sweltering church slowly baking in a jacket that I couldn't take off. I couldn't take it off because the matching dress was sleeveless and I'd been raised by a mother who knew to the depths of her soul that you couldn't wear a sleeveless dress in church. Everyone else in the Boston area was spending that glorious Saturday outside. Not that I would have been. With the private-school year just getting started, the consulting business I worked for had work stacked up like planes at Logan Airport at five p.m. But I wasn't at the beach or at work.
I was at my sister Carrie's funeral.
It was ironic and unfair. Carrie had always loved flowers. Now she had more flowers surrounding her than she ever could have imagined, heaped everywhere around her small white coffin. But neither the flowers nor the carefully chosen container meant anything to her now. Inside, no less dead for all the pink satin frills and tucks that embraced her, lay my sister Carrie. My little sister Carrie, who was always a lost soul. Carrie, who had never quite accepted our love, who had never believed she belonged. And now there was no way we could ever persuade her. They talk about people with an amazing capacity for alcohol as having a hollow leg; well, Carrie had a hollow leg for love.