HERE'S A SNEAK PEEK AT BOOK 3 . . .
Here's a preview of a possible cover and
Chapter One for Fated by Murder, Book Three in my Stolen Nickel Series:
Chapter One
Saxophonist Boney James' soulful rendition
of "Missing You" wailed from the vintage radio perched on a corner bookcase,
atop stacked volumes of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Whitman's
Leaves of Grass. Police Chief Daniel Zeller smiled as he watched the woman
clear their empty dinner plates, her legs infinite rivers of cream spilling from
the hem of a blue pajama top. His.
She'd left the shirt unbuttoned.
He loosened his tie and admired the sumptuous view. "You sure I can't help you with those?"
Her face lit with a coy half-smile that contradicted the manner in which she shed her clothes in his bedroom hours earlier. She shook her head. "You relax on the terrace. I'll bring the brandy. It's a lovely night out, and I still have plans for you."
Zeller chuckled. Even at a robust sixty-three, he wasn't sure he could match her pace.
His attention moved to a framed photograph of his ward one shelf below the radio. His raven-haired Katrien seemed so grown up at thirty-one, and yet her eyes still held a glimmer of the rebellious girl he took in fifteen years ago.
He turned from the bookcase and shoved aside a twinge of guilt. Kat wouldn't approve of his dalliance with a woman half his age. He bent his lanky frame over the table and blew toward the candle at its center. Three huffs before the flame went out. He used to do it in one.
Angling a glance over his shoulder, Zeller walked toward the open French doors where a breeze off the waterway wafted through and mingled with the slightest hint of sweet basil. It had been years since a woman cooked for him, and he enjoyed watching her fluid, cat-like grace.
The want in him stirred. Oh, to be that young again.
The meal proved extraordinary: pheasant in spiced sour cream and a crisp salad. Pineapple, nuts „o a few too many for his taste, but delicious nonetheless, with thinly sliced mango and papaya, shredded coconut and plump raisins. All favorites. She boasted she¡¦d made the dressing from scratch.
It was as if, after only two glorious days, she knew him better than those he'd called friends for decades.
In a fan-back wicker chair on the lanai, Zeller stretched his legs to ease a sudden cramping. He'd been on his feet for hours Friday and again today. Early morning walks on the beach, shopping in the island's open markets, and prior to tonight's delightful dinner, a few tedious hours spent at the station house mulling over why one of his sergeants went missing just as tourist season on their little island of Jacqueme Dominique reached full throttle.
But a truant deputy was Monday's problem. Tonight belonged to her „o and tomorrow. Ah, tomorrow . . .
Perhaps they'd go sailing. Zeller jerked his tie free, and let it flutter to the tile and wood deck below. He'd retrieve it later, his entire being blissfully spent.
The Chief smiled again, couldn't help himself, couldn't believe his dumb luck. Unfastening the top button on his shirt, he swallowed past a scratchy sensation in his throat. The brisk tropical breeze rustled a trio of potted sago palms and brought with it the smell of the sea he had loved since childhood.
He loosened another button on his shirt, ripped a third free, a fourth. So much wind, yet he couldn't breathe. His head spun, hands trembled, and he panicked at his body's sudden betrayal.
Heart attack, stroke? How many times had Doc warned him to delegate more of his workload?
"Twenty minutes," she said from behind him. "That's about right for this poison."
Poison?
Zeller lurched forward and vomited on his polished loafers. A second wave of vertigo sent him sliding to the floor. Spasms clawed his gut. His bowels emptied inside his linen trousers. The stench filled his nostrils.
Rocking unsteadily on his hands and knees, he retched again and then half-crawled, half-dragged himself to the rail surrounding the terrace. He grasped a curve of twisted iron and tried pulling himself up. His chest heaved, the stone cool to his wet cheek when he hit the floor again.
The woman's laughter dissipated in another gust of wind. She hooked his midsection with her bare foot, then rolled him onto his back and knelt over him. His watery gaze moved from her angelic face to the moon overhead, so full and bright with promise. He squeezed his eyes shut against an all-consuming pain.
His parched lips formed the words Help me, but he wasn't sure he said them aloud. Who would hear him? He'd built his island sanctuary miles from any neighbor.
"Not yet." She cupped his chin in her cold hand and forced his focus back to her face. "I want you to know why you are dying."
The following morning, on a privately-owned island near the Lesser Antilles . . .
So many lovely poisons. Fabienne Deveau strolled naked through the massive mountainside conservatory of glass and wood, knowing her benefactor watched from the bowels of the main house as he always did upon her return.
Did it bother her when he observed these personal moments? She smiled, tilted her head toward the camera's hidden location and arched her back, preening like a captured bird.
Why would it? He funded all this luxury.
Besides, Fabienne would see he paid in exquisite pain later when they acted out his masochistic fantasies. She considered his voyeurism foreplay.
With her full profile to the camera, she fondled the dull and darkish green leaves of Atropa belladonna, aptly called the Naughty Man's Cherries, and marveled at how often life imitates nature. Belladonna's lower leaves grew solitary, the upper leaves in pairs, one leaf of each pair maturing larger than the other, but both equal in their deadliness.
Fabienne closed her eyes and inhaled deep. Heady aromas of mulch and fertile soil permeated the unnaturally warm air and drew her back to her childhood. Of course, her father's greenhouse on an isolated farm in the French Dordogne region didn't come close to the majesty of this place. Nor did the old man possess the grace of her benefactor.
She shivered at the thought of her father's thick, muck-coated fingers grasping her forearms, shaking his eight year old daughter when she recited the characteristics of his toxic plants too slowly. Heaven forbid, she get an answer wrong. To this day, memories of his psychotic pacing and muttering turned her blood to ice water.
But those years were far worse for her beloved brother. Three years older and expected to forage the countryside for test subjects, he was beaten bloody if he came home empty-handed.
As Fabienne blossomed from gawky girl to svelte siren, her father's torturous experiments progressed from stray dogs to vagrants to couples on holiday in the beautiful French countryside or lone hikers lured with the promise of sex with a girl barely into her teens. Anything they desired, everything they imagined.
And then they were dead.
"Fabienne?"
A stem broke off in Fabienne¡¦s hand as her benefactor's measured voice jerked her back to the present. Tossing aside the tender branch, she forced a smile and moved to the Datura stramonium, or jimson weed, the entire plant toxic and able to deliver torturous death in a matter of hours. With hands trembling so only she could tell, she plucked a violet funnel-shaped blossom, the Devil's Trumpet, and inserted the flower in her dark hair.
He would appreciate the gesture.
Running her hands over her breasts, certain he grew hard watching, Fabienne fingered the cylindrical vial of Daniel Zeller's blood suspended from a fine silver chain around her neck. Another trophy to add to her benefactor's collection.
He'd ache with anticipation by now, his penis thick and hard, groin pulsating with desire. She returned from her Caribbean venture several hours ago, and he would have observed her for that same length of time.
She moved lithely through the conservatory, paying homage to the North American baneberry: Actaea alba, forever a ghostly white, and Actaea rubra blood red. Then onto the English yew and Japanese privet, the Scottish saffron and Star of Bethlehem.
Fabienne threw her head back, her laughter reverberating from the topmost cupola with its bronze finial. She studied the conservatory's high domed ceiling and endless rows of curved and rectangular panes, her personal glass-enclosed United Nations. Her little shop of horrors.
She plucked yellow plum-like fruit from the mandrake, knowing a safe quantity to consume, and held her offerings to the camera. The hallucinogenic would enhance their lovemaking.
His genteel voice surrounded her. Coming from everywhere, and yet, seemingly nowhere. "It is time, my love. I can wait no longer."
Fabienne stared up at the camera, her own body strumming with anticipation. It was indeed time.
She'd left the shirt unbuttoned.
He loosened his tie and admired the sumptuous view. "You sure I can't help you with those?"
Her face lit with a coy half-smile that contradicted the manner in which she shed her clothes in his bedroom hours earlier. She shook her head. "You relax on the terrace. I'll bring the brandy. It's a lovely night out, and I still have plans for you."
Zeller chuckled. Even at a robust sixty-three, he wasn't sure he could match her pace.
His attention moved to a framed photograph of his ward one shelf below the radio. His raven-haired Katrien seemed so grown up at thirty-one, and yet her eyes still held a glimmer of the rebellious girl he took in fifteen years ago.
He turned from the bookcase and shoved aside a twinge of guilt. Kat wouldn't approve of his dalliance with a woman half his age. He bent his lanky frame over the table and blew toward the candle at its center. Three huffs before the flame went out. He used to do it in one.
Angling a glance over his shoulder, Zeller walked toward the open French doors where a breeze off the waterway wafted through and mingled with the slightest hint of sweet basil. It had been years since a woman cooked for him, and he enjoyed watching her fluid, cat-like grace.
The want in him stirred. Oh, to be that young again.
The meal proved extraordinary: pheasant in spiced sour cream and a crisp salad. Pineapple, nuts „o a few too many for his taste, but delicious nonetheless, with thinly sliced mango and papaya, shredded coconut and plump raisins. All favorites. She boasted she¡¦d made the dressing from scratch.
It was as if, after only two glorious days, she knew him better than those he'd called friends for decades.
In a fan-back wicker chair on the lanai, Zeller stretched his legs to ease a sudden cramping. He'd been on his feet for hours Friday and again today. Early morning walks on the beach, shopping in the island's open markets, and prior to tonight's delightful dinner, a few tedious hours spent at the station house mulling over why one of his sergeants went missing just as tourist season on their little island of Jacqueme Dominique reached full throttle.
But a truant deputy was Monday's problem. Tonight belonged to her „o and tomorrow. Ah, tomorrow . . .
Perhaps they'd go sailing. Zeller jerked his tie free, and let it flutter to the tile and wood deck below. He'd retrieve it later, his entire being blissfully spent.
The Chief smiled again, couldn't help himself, couldn't believe his dumb luck. Unfastening the top button on his shirt, he swallowed past a scratchy sensation in his throat. The brisk tropical breeze rustled a trio of potted sago palms and brought with it the smell of the sea he had loved since childhood.
He loosened another button on his shirt, ripped a third free, a fourth. So much wind, yet he couldn't breathe. His head spun, hands trembled, and he panicked at his body's sudden betrayal.
Heart attack, stroke? How many times had Doc warned him to delegate more of his workload?
"Twenty minutes," she said from behind him. "That's about right for this poison."
Poison?
Zeller lurched forward and vomited on his polished loafers. A second wave of vertigo sent him sliding to the floor. Spasms clawed his gut. His bowels emptied inside his linen trousers. The stench filled his nostrils.
Rocking unsteadily on his hands and knees, he retched again and then half-crawled, half-dragged himself to the rail surrounding the terrace. He grasped a curve of twisted iron and tried pulling himself up. His chest heaved, the stone cool to his wet cheek when he hit the floor again.
The woman's laughter dissipated in another gust of wind. She hooked his midsection with her bare foot, then rolled him onto his back and knelt over him. His watery gaze moved from her angelic face to the moon overhead, so full and bright with promise. He squeezed his eyes shut against an all-consuming pain.
His parched lips formed the words Help me, but he wasn't sure he said them aloud. Who would hear him? He'd built his island sanctuary miles from any neighbor.
"Not yet." She cupped his chin in her cold hand and forced his focus back to her face. "I want you to know why you are dying."
The following morning, on a privately-owned island near the Lesser Antilles . . .
So many lovely poisons. Fabienne Deveau strolled naked through the massive mountainside conservatory of glass and wood, knowing her benefactor watched from the bowels of the main house as he always did upon her return.
Did it bother her when he observed these personal moments? She smiled, tilted her head toward the camera's hidden location and arched her back, preening like a captured bird.
Why would it? He funded all this luxury.
Besides, Fabienne would see he paid in exquisite pain later when they acted out his masochistic fantasies. She considered his voyeurism foreplay.
With her full profile to the camera, she fondled the dull and darkish green leaves of Atropa belladonna, aptly called the Naughty Man's Cherries, and marveled at how often life imitates nature. Belladonna's lower leaves grew solitary, the upper leaves in pairs, one leaf of each pair maturing larger than the other, but both equal in their deadliness.
Fabienne closed her eyes and inhaled deep. Heady aromas of mulch and fertile soil permeated the unnaturally warm air and drew her back to her childhood. Of course, her father's greenhouse on an isolated farm in the French Dordogne region didn't come close to the majesty of this place. Nor did the old man possess the grace of her benefactor.
She shivered at the thought of her father's thick, muck-coated fingers grasping her forearms, shaking his eight year old daughter when she recited the characteristics of his toxic plants too slowly. Heaven forbid, she get an answer wrong. To this day, memories of his psychotic pacing and muttering turned her blood to ice water.
But those years were far worse for her beloved brother. Three years older and expected to forage the countryside for test subjects, he was beaten bloody if he came home empty-handed.
As Fabienne blossomed from gawky girl to svelte siren, her father's torturous experiments progressed from stray dogs to vagrants to couples on holiday in the beautiful French countryside or lone hikers lured with the promise of sex with a girl barely into her teens. Anything they desired, everything they imagined.
And then they were dead.
"Fabienne?"
A stem broke off in Fabienne¡¦s hand as her benefactor's measured voice jerked her back to the present. Tossing aside the tender branch, she forced a smile and moved to the Datura stramonium, or jimson weed, the entire plant toxic and able to deliver torturous death in a matter of hours. With hands trembling so only she could tell, she plucked a violet funnel-shaped blossom, the Devil's Trumpet, and inserted the flower in her dark hair.
He would appreciate the gesture.
Running her hands over her breasts, certain he grew hard watching, Fabienne fingered the cylindrical vial of Daniel Zeller's blood suspended from a fine silver chain around her neck. Another trophy to add to her benefactor's collection.
He'd ache with anticipation by now, his penis thick and hard, groin pulsating with desire. She returned from her Caribbean venture several hours ago, and he would have observed her for that same length of time.
She moved lithely through the conservatory, paying homage to the North American baneberry: Actaea alba, forever a ghostly white, and Actaea rubra blood red. Then onto the English yew and Japanese privet, the Scottish saffron and Star of Bethlehem.
Fabienne threw her head back, her laughter reverberating from the topmost cupola with its bronze finial. She studied the conservatory's high domed ceiling and endless rows of curved and rectangular panes, her personal glass-enclosed United Nations. Her little shop of horrors.
She plucked yellow plum-like fruit from the mandrake, knowing a safe quantity to consume, and held her offerings to the camera. The hallucinogenic would enhance their lovemaking.
His genteel voice surrounded her. Coming from everywhere, and yet, seemingly nowhere. "It is time, my love. I can wait no longer."
Fabienne stared up at the camera, her own body strumming with anticipation. It was indeed time.