Heart Wounds (A Miranda and Parker Mystery) (34 page)

Thin Ice – Book V

THE MIRANDA AND PARKER MYSTERY SERIES

All Eyes on Me

Heart
Wounds

Look for the next mystery later in 2014.

OTHER BOOKS BY LINSEY LANIER:

Chicago Cop (A cop family thriller)
–
Don’t let them take what you love, baby girl
. A police thriller featuring GUTS team lead Lieutenant Maggie Delaney, a tough multi-generational cop hunting down a crazed mafia hit man bent on revenge.

Steal My Heart (A Romantic Suspense)
–
Get me what I want or you’ll never see your daughter again
. New York newspaper columnist, Paige Dunbar, can hardly breathe when she learns her precious three-year-old daughter has been kidnapped. She’ll do anything to get her back, including steal the famous Fantasia necklace the kidnapper wants. No one can stop her. Not even her sexy ex-jewel-thief-ex-husband.

HUMOROUS BOOKS BY LINSEY LANIER

You Want Me to Kill Who?
(A Dandy Frost—Ninja Assassin Story)

A New Adult, futuristic romantic fantasy.

A lowly, powerless factory worker is sent half-way around the world by her boss to fight an evil spy organization, but she really just wants to be a fashion designer.

You Want Me to Go Where?
(A Dandy Frost—Ninja Assassin Story) #2

Her first time in JB’s office her boss threatened to “eliminate”
Dandy Frost if she didn’t go on a special assignment halfway around the world for a secret organization. He couldn’t have anything like that in mind again…or could he?

The Clever Detective Boxed Set 2
(A Fairy Tale Romance): Stories 1-5

From the Hollow Tree to Stacey’s home town to the mountains of Sweden to the high seas, follow PI Stacey Alexander and Prince Chad’s wacky adventures and romance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Writing fiction for over fifteen years, Linsey Lanier authored more than a dozen novels and short stories, including the popular Miranda’s Rights Mystery series. She writes romantic suspense, mysteries, and thrillers with a dash of sass.

She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Kiss of Death chapter, and Private Eye Writers of America. Her books have been nominated in several RWA-sponsored contests.

Living outside a major city with her husband of over two decades, Linsey enjoys watching crime shows with him and trying to figure out “who-dun-it.”

She’s always working on a new book, currently books in the new Miranda and Parker Mystery series (a continuation of the Miranda’s Rights Mystery series). For alerts on her latest releases
join Linsey’s mailing list
at
linseylanier.com
.

If you missed the Miranda’s Rights Mystery series, below is an excerpt from Book I,
Someone Else’s Daughter
where Miranda first goes to work for the Parker Agency—and gets into all sorts of trouble.

Someone Else’s Daughter: Book I (A Miranda’s Rights Mystery) — Excerpt

She could make it to the trees. She was too far away for him to catch up now.

It started to rain. A soft rain. The kind, somebody had told her, that often came up in Georgia without warning. Beneath her, the ground sloped steeply as the grass grew wet. She slipped, tried to stifle a yelp, but it escaped her lips.

The cop heard her. His light found her. “Stop,” he yelled.

Man, she was having a bad night.

But the rain slowed him down, too. She could hear him grunting and cussing behind her as he struggled down the slippery incline. She reached the bottom and the land became flat again. Almost there. She sprinted across a patch of grass to the first clump of trees. Hesitating, she stopped to catch her breath.

The bright moon cast an eerie glow on the rocks and wild growth. She’d never liked wooded areas. She thought about murders in the forest preserves where she’d grown up. She thought of stories she’d heard about snakes in the Georgia woods. She glanced behind her.

The cop’s light bobbed about halfway down the hill.

No choice. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself and stepped into the tall grass. Her foot went down on a squishy surface of pine straw and matted grass, a twig snapped, but it held. She took another step, reached out and felt tree bark in front of her. She sidestepped and moved around it. The ground was uneven and muddy. The drizzling rain fell against the leaves with a sound like soft cymbals. The air smelled cool and freshly washed. Brush tangled around her shins. Her hair and clothes were wet, but she couldn’t think about that now.

She looked back again, could barely make out the cop. That meant he couldn’t see her, either. She’d done it. She’d escaped. But he’d be hunting her in these woods soon. Probably call out the cavalry, too. Maybe she could make it to the other side. It was part of a subdivision, after all. She couldn’t remember the layout of the forest from her map.

Better move faster. She took a quick step, then another. Found a spot where the trees opened up. She started to sprint. Wrong move. Something caught her foot. Down she went. She tried to catch herself on a tree, but her hand scrapped across its bark. Her palms skidded across the muddy ground.

Damn. She didn’t need this now. What had she’d tripped over? She brushed her hair out of her eyes, hoping she hadn’t landed on a slithering snake.

Then she froze.

Inches away from her face, lay a shape. A familiar shape. She stared at it, her breath coming in snatches. Was she hallucinating? It looked like a kid’s sneaker. Peeking out from a pile of wet twigs and pine straw, like it had been lost there. Or buried. She reached out and whisked away some of the debris covering it.

Her chest tightened. The sneaker had a foot in it.

She got to her knees to sweep off more dirt. An ankle. A sock. A hem of denim. Oh, God. It was a leg. A human leg. She found the other sneaker. She was shaking all over by now.

Her heart choking her throat, she crawled to the side of what she now realized was a mound. Desperately she shoved away the muck and grimy pine straw, the dreck someone had used to…she couldn’t even think it…to bury someone?

Two legs appeared under her hands, clad in a pair of designer jeans. The type hip young girls liked to wear. She kept going and found the bottom hem of a fancy, girlish T-shirt. Then two young hands…tied with thick rope, clasped together as if in prayer. Oh, God. This couldn’t be happening. Tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t stop herself. Madly, she brushed away the rest of the dirt, and at last, the face appeared. Young. Pretty. More than pretty. Beautiful. And perfectly still.

Dead.

Miranda’s mind reeled. This was the missing girl everyone was talking about. This was Madison. Had to be. But how did she get
here?

Her whole body shuddering, she put her hands to her head. She had seen death before, knew the look of a body in a casket. An uncle she barely knew who’d passed away when she was a child, a fallen officer who’d been a buddy of Leon’s, her own mother lying so still in her coffin with her hard, stony face. But she’d never seen death like this.

So close, so stark, so…undeniable.

The air had a dank smell. Long, dark hair lay damp and matted on the ground. Gnats and flies buzzed around the swollen face, glistening with the raindrops that fell on it. Instead of a childlike expression of innocence, there was the whisper of a smile. An air of superiority, as if she had felt far above whoever had left her this way.

But it was the eyes that got her. Open, staring, lifeless. Looking at them, Miranda felt as though a fist had reached inside her chest and yanked out her heart.

She forced her gaze away from the eyes. Her breath caught, as her mind cleared. The girl’s neck. She had to take a look at the girl’s neck.

She crept closer and saw that a wide, white ribbon had been tied around the young girl’s neck. What was that for? She didn’t know, but she had to look under it. She shouldn’t touch it. It was evidence. But she had to know.

Slowly, she reached out with trembling fingers and lifted the soft cloth, moist with the rainwater. Her hands shivered so hard, she could barely slip it down, but somehow she managed.

And then she saw it. The mark on her neck. Dark, round, distinct.

She put the soaking ribbon back in place. Her hands shook violently, shot to her mouth, her head. Her chest felt like it would burst. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mingled with the rain, dropped onto the forest floor.

This was Amy. This was her baby.

Someone Else’s Daughter – Book I

If you enjoyed
All Eyes on Me
, you may also enjoy a novel about another strong woman, Maggie Delaney.
Chicago Cop
is a police thriller featuring GUTS team lead Lieutenant Maggie Delaney, a tough cop—with troubles at home—who must hunt down a crazed mafia hit man bent on revenge before everyone she cared about ends up dead.

This time it’s not business. It’s personal.

Chicago Cop (A cop family thriller) — Excerpt

The floor of the Timberwood Station had a polished glow, giving it that familiar, sterile feel of government buildings, a nearly futile attempt to disinfect the ugly gore that often permeated police work. As Maggie’s heels clicked stoically on the linoleum, she noted two grim-looking suits emerging from a room down the hall.

“Internal Affairs?” she murmured to the man beside her.

“That would be my guess, Lieutenant.”

Her escort was Captain Wallace Nye. A thin man, maybe in his fifties, with a blond, old-fashioned crew cut that made his protruding ears more pronounced and bulging, bloodshot eyes that told Maggie he wasn’t used to the night shift. He looked like he could use some coffee.

Without fanfare, he stopped at the door the IA men had just exited, opened it for her. “The suspect’s in here.”

Annoyed at Nye’s callous reference to a fellow officer, she peeked inside the room.

The “suspect” sat at the low table under the harsh florescent lights, still dressed in his uniform, his head buried in his hands. Some of his partner’s blood was still caked along the sides of his fingers. His despair seemed to fill the room.

It was him. Cousin Jen’s son, Tony. Dear God.

Well, maybe she could do something to save his hide before she had to recuse herself. She stepped inside the cramped room as Nye closed the door behind her and stared down at the young man.

Slowly he raised his head.

His eyes were swollen, his dark hair disheveled, his youthful face streaked with tears. He looked like he had aged ten years in one night. “Aunt Mag?” He sounded like he thought he was dreaming.

“Hi, Tony.” Her heart broke for him.

Her mind flashed back to long ago scenes. The christening celebration at her mother’s house when Maggie was barely eleven, holding the wriggling baby boy in her arms. The phone call several years later and trying to comfort him after his father was killed in the line of duty. Driving to his house when she was a teen to baby-sit him for spending cash. The night he’d told her so seriously that he was in love with a neighbor and wanted to know what girls liked. She’d told him flowers and candy. And that they liked to be listened to.

“They called you in?” he said in a hoarse voice.

Maggie barely had the will to nod. “Chief Detective Zielinski called the BIS Deputy Superintendent.”

“What?”

“He asked the GUTS unit to investigate the incident.”

He stared at her like she’d just become a ghost.

A good-looking man sat at the table next to Tony. Maggie had seen him as soon as she came in, but hadn’t acknowledged him. He wore a tailored, black worsted suit with a neat, equally expensive-looking red silk tie at his attractive throat. A throat which he now cleared as he raised a thick, expressive brow.

Maggie turned her attention to him and quietly studied those dark, intense, deep-set eyes. That black, stylishly tousled hair with a touch of gray at the temples. That rugged, Al Pacino face.

Bryce Brooks, local criminal defense attorney.

She nodded toward him, her eyes back on Tony. “Did you call him?”

“My mother did. They said I’d need a lawyer.”

Maggie recalled that Brooks’ firm had handled Jen’s divorce from her second husband a year ago. She knew the man from the courtroom.

He rose and offered his hand. “Good evening, Lieutenant.”

Reluctantly, she shook it. His grip was firmer than she expected, rife with masculine strength and confidence, charged with unnerving electricity. She ignored the sensation.

“Are you primary on this case?” he asked.

She glared at him without answering. Brooks used to work for the State’s Attorney’s office but went over to the dark side years ago to open a practice with his partner. Since then, he’d garnered a litany of high-paying clients.