Dangerous Innocence by Suzanne Baginskie


From the white sandy beaches of Daytona, Florida and across to the gulf’s west coast, little girls are vanishing. FBI Special Agent Joy Reese is desperate to discover clues that help track them down. When the first abducted child turns up dead, the predators challenge Reese’s deepest conviction of guilt, innocence, and her own childhood. Vulnerable, she’s forced to face her own fears. The bad guys stay one step ahead. When she becomes their target, she must stop them or survive dangerous threats against her own life.

Meanwhile Reese’s partner, FBI Special Agent Evan McClure is still reeling from his wife’s death. He’s determined to keep Agent Reese alive. Suddenly, he’s drawn into a twisted conspiracy of cybercrime which grows even more complex as they discover a trail of dead bodies. As the pressure builds, the group doesn’t play by the rules. When the case turns personal, he trusts his inner instincts and takes the ultimate risk of protecting Reese, the one person he totally trusts and more…

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Excerpt

A computer can be someone’s lifeline, but more often it’s a death contact. No one can forecast their destiny. People believe they control the choices in their lives, but in theory it’s only an illusion. Operating the cold, heartless machine can allow access to a portal of good and evil and aide criminals to prey on the vulnerabilities and innocence of us all.

Suzanne Baginskie

 

Daytona Beach, Florida

FBI Special Agent Joy Reese wove her Suburban through Sunday church traffic, her sunglasses filtering out the morning glare. Signaling her urgency, the blue light mounted on her dash rotated like a ceiling fan, and the hidden siren whined. Respectable drivers ahead of her abruptly darted into the right lane clearing her path.

When a guy in a red Mustang passed by her at eighty miles per hour in the fifty-five mile zone, she frowned. Heavy metal rock blasted through his opened windows, loud enough to entertain an outdoor street concert. No way, she’d stop the driver and ticket him for speeding, the local police at a murder scene awaited her arrival.

Fifteen minutes later, she’d reached the beachside community and parked near the medical examiner’s Buick. She scanned the street’s brightly painted one story cottages, all quaint coastal gems only steps away from the sandy shore. Exiting her vehicle, she breathed in the Atlantic Ocean’s salty scent. Pounding surf echoed in her ears, reinforcing memories of summer vacations in similar bungalows with her aunt’s family, minus the yellow crime scene tape.

An unmarked black Chevy Impala raced into the driveway. Her partner, Special Agent Evan McClure leaped from the sedan. Five years earlier when they were first introduced, he’d laughed at her last name. Said it made him think of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, except it turned out she wasn’t as sweet as he’d thought. Working alongside him and other macho FBI males at the Bureau, she’d developed a thick skin.

Reese smiled at McClure. Six foot two, with wavy jet-black hair and blue eyes, he hurried over attired in a PGA Tour golf shirt and pants. “Did the dispatcher’s call interrupt your golf game?”

He laughed and passed sterile rubber gloves and shoe covers. McClure snapped on his latex gloves. “Sort of, but I had to cancel.” He stared at her. “You’re wearing a stunning outfit. What was on your agenda?”

“My Aunt Darlene bought me a ticket to a Broadway musical at the Peabody Auditorium for my birthday. Now she’s contacting her best friend to take my place. No use complaining.”

 Reese climbed the porch steps, slipped on her bootie covers and gloves before yanking open the screen door. When its harsh screech grated her eardrums, she flinched and held it for McClure.

He dragged over a geranium plant and propped the door open with the pot. “I sure don’t want to hear that again.” He trailed behind her inside the bungalow.

After pushing her sunglasses atop her head, she headed straight for the bedroom and found Coroner Mack Fraser examining the victim. They went back years working homicides together if Fraser ruled the cause of death as violent, that’s when FBI assigned special agents to investigate those situations.

“Hi guys, welcome to my weekend.” Fraser winked. Tall and thin, he had a square face, chiseled nose, and deep-set hazel eyes. His rolled-up, starched shirt sleeves stuck out below his disposable scrubs, they’d probably contacted him during church service. He pointed at the bloody, nude body sprawled across the bed.

McClure moved in closer. “Screwed up mine, too. I had a tee time for eleven a.m.”

Reese angled her head and stared through the small window framing the sunny day. It would have been perfect for eighteen holes of golf. All McClure’s hopes of hitting golf balls on the greens had most likely disappeared. Instead, the dispatcher advised them about a murder in this touristy section of town.

She shifted her gaze to the male victim on the mattress. Poor soul. He’d never play another golf game or take anymore vacations for that matter. Reese reached for her notebook inside her jacket pocket. Had he been drugged?

Her mother’s death came to mind. The police had found her dead, lying on a hotel bed overdosed by her pimp. She’d shoved the hurtful memory away. Thank goodness, Aunt Darlene stepped in to care for Reese when she was five-years-old and her sister, Holly, seven.


About the Author

Suzanne Baginskie retired from a law office as an office manager/paralegal career after twenty-nine years. Published by Magnolia Blossom Publishing, she’s written a romantic suspense series called ‘FBI Affairs’. The titles include Dangerous Charade-Book one, Dangerous Revenge-Book-two, and Dangerous Innocence-Book-three. She’s sold several mysteries and romance stories to anthologies and twenty non-fiction stories to Chicken Soup for the Soul books and two Cup of Comfort. Her fiction stories have also appeared in Woman’s World, Plan B Magazine, Red Penguin anthologies, The Wrong Side of the Law, two Daily Flash Fiction volumes, First Magazine, True Romance Magazine, and Futures Magazine. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America, Florida Mystery Writers of America, Sisters-in-Crime and The Short Mystery Fiction Society.

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3 comments:

  1. This book sounds interesting.

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  2. I enjoyed the excerpt, Dangerous Innocence sounds like a great book for me to read! Thanks for sharing it and have a sunshiny day!

    ReplyDelete