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…
~~ Amazon ~~
Excerpt
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.
This book sounds interesting.
ReplyDeletenice excerpt
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the excerpt, Dangerous Innocence sounds like a great book for me to read! Thanks for sharing it and have a sunshiny day!
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