New Release!
One of Sydney Rye’s dear friends, Hugh Defry, has been accused of a brutal murder, but even though he has no memory of the night, Sydney believes he is incapable of such violence.
Called to investigate by Robert Maxim, a man she has until now, considered her greatest enemy, Sydney flies to Miami searching for the real killer. Rye’s suspicions are raised when she learns that Maxim not only wants to work together but also wants to build a friendship. She doesn’t begin to understand his motives until her former lover follows her to Florida to tell her a devastating secret.
As more people from her past turn up, and not knowing whom to trust, Sydney sees that her personal fight for justice has become something more than she had ever imagined and she is pushed towards making a decision that will change not just her life but possibly the future of the crime fighting.EXCERPT:
On the counter was a fruit bowl I recognized and the memory of it jerked the breath from me.James made it in a pottery class, one of his lesser talents. He was a brilliant illustrator and designer but when it came to three dimensional work his skills fell apart. And yet, here, on Hugh's counter, was one of those lopsided creations, the glaze glistening deep blue in the sunlight.As I reached out to touch it I saw a photograph on the wall. Framed in dark wood James, Hugh, and I smiled at the camera. The rough Atlantic crashing behind us, our hair wet and sandy. I could almost smell the sunscreen on our skin and the beer on our breath. My smile was so big that my eyes were practically closed. Long hair, bright blonde in the sea sunshine, hung past my breasts. James's arm was flung lazily across my shoulders and he caught the camera with his gray eyes, holding its gaze, unafraid, happy, alive.I turned back to Hugh and he looked at me, smiling. How did he even recognize me? My hair, shoulder length with long bangs, fell only to my shoulders and was died with henna to a deep copper. The scar under my left eye puckered pink. The line of tissue which ran above my eyebrow was covered by the bangs that drifted into my gray eyes, so much colder than they used to be. My body was taught and balanced, always on edge ready for a fight, sculpted for protection. The difference between me and the girl in that picture seemed unfathomably vast. Almost as if it was impossible we'd ever been the same.How much had Hugh changed? I thought of the crime scene photos I'd looked at with Mulberry on the flight. The close-ups of blood splattered across pinstripe bed sheets. Lawrence Taggert's ripped fingernails. The way his suit jacket floated around him as he lay face down, trapped between the roots of an everglade apple tree. Did Hugh knock him out? Lock the man in his trunk? Ignore his pleas for mercy and incessant banging while he drove to the swamp? Where Hugh then pushed Lawrence to his knees and shot him between the eyes? Finally kicking his corpse into the water for the gators to eat?
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Catch up in the series while you wait with the SYDNEY RYE (Books 1-3) **Book 1 is free** and STRINGS OF GLASS (A Sydney Rye Novel,#4) on Amazon.
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