The Dead Season (A Shana Merchant Novel, Band 2) - Softcover

Wegert, Tessa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593097912 ISBN 13: 9780593097915

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

Senior Investigator Shana Merchant has spent years running from her past. But she never imagined a murder case would drive her to the most dangerous place of all—home. 

After leaving the NYPD following her abduction by serial killer Blake Bram, Shana Merchant hoped for a fresh start in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York. Her former tormentor has other plans. Shana and Bram share more than just a hometown, and he won’t let her forget it. When the decades-old skeleton of Shana's estranged uncle is uncovered, Bram issues a challenge: Return home to Vermont and solve the cold case, or the blood he spills next will be on her hands.

As Shana interviews members of her family and the community, mining for secrets that could help her solve her uncle's murder, she begins to realize how little she remembers of her childhood. And when Bram grows impatient and kidnaps again, leaving a trail of clues Shana alone can understand, she knows his new victim will only survive if she wins the psychopath’s twisted game. In order to solve one mystery, Shana must wade into her murky past to unravel another.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tessa Wegert is a Canadian expat, journalist, and former digital media strategist. Her business and marketing articles have appeared in such publications as Forbes, The Huffington Post, Adweek, and The Economist.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

ONE

 

Bullshit."

 

"Nope." I turned over the cards on the table between us, and there it was: three aces take the game.

 

McIntyre groaned. "I hate playing with you. You're so damn lucky."

 

"Me and my charmed life," I said, deadpan, as I gathered the cards in a stack and tapped their rounded corners into place. Across the table, McIntyre tried and failed to catch my eye. "This has got to stop, Shay."

 

She was talking about my mood. It had been black lately; she wasn't wrong about that. Four months since my rebirth in the Thousand Islands. Three weeks since it all went to hell. Tim once told me things were simple around here, but that was before the murders and the drowning, before the fiancŽ I kicked to the curb. If that was what passed for simple in Upstate New York, I didn't want to see things get complicated.

 

I reached behind me, pulled a blanket from the back of my chair onto my lap, and smoothed the fabric over my knees. There was a quilt for every patron on the covered patio at Nelly's Bistro, thoughtfully placed for Clayton's chilly mornings. I was only a little cold, didn't need the throw any more than I needed a third cup of coffee, but the card game was over and I found I couldn't quiet my hands. "I know," I told Mac. "It's not that easy."

 

"Who cares about easy? You're Shana Merchant, the badass who solved the bloodiest case these parts have seen in years."

 

Baptism by fire, as they say-or in my case, water. "Cue the ticker tape parade."

 

"Great idea," she said. "Only instead of ticker tape we'll shred those damned corruption case files from my desk and blanket Church Street in confetti. Bear claw?"

 

I looked askance at the pastry in her hand. "Isn't it taboo to chase breakfast with dessert?"

 

"It's my birthday."

 

"Not yet it's not."

 

Extricating a slice of almond from the frosted dough, she swiped at me, catlike. "Close enough-and when you're fifty, you get to do whatever you want. I'm thinking about chasing this dessert with that hunky Canadian border guard."

 

I laughed, had to, because I knew which guard she was talking about, and he was more scrumptious than any pastry Nelly's could produce. Where would I be without Maureen McIntyre and her uncompromising humor? It still came as a shock to me that we were friends, especially when I thought of her in the context of her work. If someone manufactured Sheriff McIntyre posters for fangirls, I'd have taped one to my bedroom wall-if I had a wall to call my own, that is. Mac was my professional idol, but she was also the person without whom I'd be homeless. Most of my things were in storage, but thanks to the sheriff of Jefferson County I had a La-Z-Boy couch and the best company a person in my situation could hope for.

 

When I moved out of the apartment I'd shared with my ex-fiancŽ into McIntyre's place in nearby Watertown, she made a point of telling me she wouldn't push it. Talk when you're ready, she'd said, just as she had in July when, brand-new to the job, I'd opted not to tell my closest colleague about my variegated past. She hadn't forced me to share my secret pain with anyone. This was more of the same.

 

The chin-up routine Mac kept rehashing had to do with my ex, and the betrayal I endured by his hand. Despite her intuition, though, Carson Gates was the last thing on my mind. The thin line on my fourth finger, left behind by my engagement ring, was proof I'd once loved him. Soon that would be gone.

 

No, Carson wasn't the reason why-as McIntyre dove into a story about the couple who spent an hour in her office arguing the innocence of the four Watertown officials accused of misconduct-I couldn't stop sizing up every man in the room. That one with the wife and kids is too short, but his gaze cut to me twice after he sat down, and his voice when he ordered sounded tight for a Saturday morning. The guy who just walked in with his girlfriend is the right height and build, but the features are off. My eyes lingered on the stranger's face anyway. With a prosthetic nose and some liquid latex, available online for less than twenty bucks, it would be a convincing disguise.

 

Beyond the covered deck where we sat, wind raced toward us across the river and assailed the clear plastic flaps that enclosed the outdoor seating area. When the man caught me staring and his mouth crimped at the sight of my scar, I couldn't help but go rigid. For half my life I'd looked in the mirror at the skinny white mark that ran from the crook of my mouth all the way to my left ear, yet I often forgot it was there until I saw it reflected in someone else's expression of distaste.

 

I turned my attention back to my plate to find I'd finished off my breakfast without realizing it. Stress-eating session complete, I surveyed the St. Lawrence River. Nelly's shouldn't have been open this late in the season, but unusually high temps had convinced the owner to push on. Our luck was running out. With a cold front on the way, Nelly's was about to trade those patio flaps for plywood boards until next summer. There was no more pretending it was fall. The lusterless sun and biting breeze added up to one conclusion. Winter was on its way.

 

I swallowed the dregs of my coffee in one bitter gulp and said, "I'll miss this place."

 

"Ah." Mac drew the word into a sigh. "I keep forgetting you're still a newbie. You're not used to it yet, but this is how things are around here."

 

"Temporary?"

 

"Cyclical. When the tourists pack up, all that's left is us townies. Not enough folk to support the local economy, including, sadly, places like this. But come late spring, everything will open up again. New season, fresh start. You'll see."

 

I nodded. Spring was months away. Where would I be by then? I honestly didn't know.

 

"Don't look now," Mac said, "but we've got company."

 

Every hair on my freckled forearms lifted, and it took an embarrassingly long time for me to realize Mac was grinning over my shoulder. I turned to see yet another man striding across the restaurant, this one carrying two mugs of coffee from the self-serve counter near the entrance.

 

I hadn't seen much of Tim Wellington in recent weeks, with my suspension and the therapy sessions I was required to complete, plus the fact that I was actively avoiding him. The sight of him trying not to dribble coffee onto the floor made me smile, but the corners of my mouth quickly fell back into place. Tim wasn't alone.

 

"Sheriff." He shook McIntyre's hand. Then, "Long time, Shane."

 

The nickname, a reference to an old western movie, was starting to grow on me. I considered grumbling about it anyway, for old times' sake, but my gaze slid to the woman by his side. I didn't recognize her. She was in her early thirties like Tim and had a small face and perfectly round eyes, not unlike those of a creepy Victorian doll. She accepted one of the coffees from Tim and their hands brushed for an instant before she curled hers around the mug. Eight a.m. on a Saturday morning's a strange time for a date, I thought. Tim was keeping a respectable distance, but his cheeks were pinker than usual, and there was stubble on his jaw. Not a date, then. Just breakfast.

 

Well, well. Good for Tim.

 

As happy as I was to see him, I wasn't happy to see him now. I'd intended to deal with my demons and arrive back at the station the detective I was before Tim, before Carson, and most importantly, before Blake Bram. I didn't want any of my investigators...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593097912
• ISBN 13: 9780593097915
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland