As an added bonus, here’s the opening scene from my new novel, tentatively titled Imposter. In this novel, Detective Anthony Spinetti, who first appeared in Just by Chance, is the main character. Please enjoy.
The naked body was lying facedown in the grass. Limp arms stretched out in front of her, and her legs were slightly parted. Long, thick blonde hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and draped over her right shoulder. Her blue eye stared at the parking lot to the left. The other eye, barely visible, peeked out from a dark pool of blood, partially dried brown by the warm tropical air and searing morning sun. Her mouth was open, the now-silent cry for help having gone unanswered.
Standing a few feet from the body, Detective Anthony Spinetti took in the layout of Silver Pond Park. The four-acre patch of asphalt and grass was dotted with a half dozen picnic areas, each ringed with a semicircle of smooth gray banyan trees and neatly trimmed Bermuda grass. An idyllic landscape marred by the yellow crime-scene tape hanging motionless in the morning heat and the gruesome scene in front of him.
Spinetti lowered his six-foot-two-inch frame into a crouch and rested his forearms on his knees. Perspiration turned the back of his silk shirt a dark green as he studied the body. The victim was slim, probably in her mid-twenties, and five foot seven by his estimate. Circling the body from a safe distance, he resumed his crouch several times, being careful to scan the surrounding turf for any visible evidence.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Spinetti peered over the top of his Oakleys and watched his partner, Kyra King, approach. “Rough night?”
“Fuck off,” she snapped, her lips curled.
“Nice talk. And so early in the morning. Abrams must be rubbing off on you,” he said, referring to their boss, Detective Captain Stan Abrams.
Spinetti had meant for his remarks to be light-hearted, but Kyra’s twisted face and extended middle finger clearly indicated a different interpretation. He held up a hand to halt both her approach and any further retort on her part.
Kyra stopped in her tracks. With her hands on the hips of her five-foot-four almost-boyish body, she stared at him through black sunglasses. She glanced at the corpse then quickly turned her attention back to Spinetti. “So, what have we got?”
“Looks as if both carotid arteries have been cut with something very sharp,” Spinetti said, standing. “She probably bled out and died in minutes. We’ll let the M.E. make the official call, but I’d guess it happened sometime late last night or very early this morning.”
“Jesus” Kyra said. Her face paled.
Spinetti looked at his partner of two months, and this was her first homicide victim. She had been a stuntwoman in a former life until a three-story fall gone bad resulted in a broken leg and put an end to that career. Today she was dressed in black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sunglasses, and black wig. She was fond of wearing wigs, from jet-black to platinum blond and everything in-between, including candy-apple red and blazing orange. In the short time he had known her, Spinetti noticed that her behavior often changed with her hair color, and black usually correlated with dark, moody, and short-fused.
“Doesn’t wearing black make you hot?” he asked, wiping his forehead with the back of a hand.
“I don’t sweat,” she snapped.
= = = =
Imposter is currently in the process of being edited. If you’re interested, please join my fan list if you haven’t done so already, and I’ll send you an e-mail and offer you a special discounted price when Imposter is available. I will never give or sell your email address to anyone, and I will only contact you when I can offer you something of value. To subscribe, simply enter your email information below.
