Page 140 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

Life was nearly normal.

Nearly.

There were still reminders—issues to be discussed, decisions to be made. Jonathan had been laid to rest and Diedre allowed to die when they’d finally pulled the plug.

Cissy shuddered when she remembered the horror of meeting her half-sister. If it hadn’t been for Jack, she would have been pushed over the railing and surely dead. As it was, he’d caught her on the third step, just as the police arrived. The police had swarmed through the building, but she remembered little of it, only pieces of the ambulance ride to the hospital as she was in and out of consciousness, all the while wondering about her baby, her husband. Later, in the hospital, she’d learned that Jack would survive, no serious complications from a clean wound that had just nicked his spleen.

Anthony Paterno had found the baby locked in the basement, terrified but unharmed. Time would tell if there would be emotional scarring for Beej as well as the rest of them, but apart from a little extra neediness, he seemed pretty resilient. Cissy refused to worry about that now. What good would it do? She just wanted to hold tight to her husband and her baby boy. Nor would she allow herself to dwell on Jack’s father’s part in the horrible scheme to kill them all. Or how, when it came time to pull the plug on Diedre, the only family she had, Diedre’s adoptive, widowed aunt had agreed to take her off life support.

For now, she would push all those dark thoughts aside. It was over. She, Jack, Beej, and even Coco were happy. Gran’s miserable little dog had won them all over and burrowed into their hearts.

Cissy peeked into the master bedroom where Jack was playing peek-a-boo with Beej, much to the boy’s delight. Each time Jack ducked his head under the blankets, Beej squealed with delight and said, “No, Dad-dee! Don’t hide!”

“Good morning,” he said, smiling up at her from the rumpled bed. “Is it my imagination, or were you a wild woman last night?”

Cissy smiled. “You mean apart from the ‘Ouch, my back’ fifty times?”

“Love talk.”

She laughed. “I have a surprise for you. Happy Valentine’s Day,” she said, throwing open the blinds and letting the spring sunshine stream into the room.

“What? Am I in a time warp? Isn’t it May?”

“But we didn’t get to celebrate, so I bought you a very special and sexy gift.”

“And you’re giving it to me in front of our son.”

She walked to the closet and pulled out a paper shredder. On its top she’d pasted a red bow with a purple heart tied to it.

Jack frowned. “Okay, I give. Have you gone out of your mind? I hear it runs in the family.”

“Not funny, Jack,” she said, but smiled as she plugged in the machine, turned it on, and first shredded the heart, then the ribbon.

He looked totally confused.

Then she pulled the unsigned divorce papers from the nightstand and slowly, page by page, shredded the entire document.

“Like I said before, Happy Valentine’s Day!” Laughing, she grabbed the basket of diamond-cut paper and tossed the shreds into the air like confetti.

Jack took her hand. “How about I give you a Valentine’s present too?” One of his eyebrows arched devilishly, and she shook her head.

“I have a feeling your present might not be appropriate in front of our child.”

He grinned and glanced at his watch. “Point taken. Just when is nap time for the little guy?”

And they both laughed.

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed Almost Dead. I really had a lot of fun working with the “San Francisco” characters again after introducing the Cahills and Amhursts in If She Only Knew.

Now, I’m back in New Orleans dealing with two of my favorite detectives, Montoya and Bentz. You first met Rick Bentz and his cocky younger partner Reuben Montoya in Hot Blooded, which was followed by Cold Blooded. The characters became so popular with my fans that I brought them back in Shiver, where Reuben Montoya finally met a woman who could stand up to him in Abby Chastain. Unfortunately, Abby had a lot of emotional baggage, much of which was tied to the crumbling, abandoned mental asylum, Our Lady of Virtues. Montoya, too, though he doesn’t know it, has links to the old, decrepit hospital where unspeakable acts were once performed on the patients, one of whom was Abby’s mother, Faith Chastain. Twenty years after Faith Chastain’s tragic death, a killer is on the loose, stalking the streets of New Orleans, killing in pairs, leaving his victims in macabre death scenes and inching ever closer to Abby and Montoya. Shiver is available in paperback in your local bookstore.

My next book, Absolute Fear, the sequel to Shiver, is still available in hardcover. Absolute Fear is the story of Eve Renner, a woman whose memory has been shattered in a violent attack which left her friend Royal Kajak dead. In her mind’s eye, she saw the man who tried to kill her and it was none other than Cole Dennis, the man she was involved with. But her memory is in pieces and as she heals, she knows she has to return to New Orleans and face Cole. However, as she does, she receives nerve-wracking notes from a killer who seems intent on sending her over the edge by not only killing his victims, but marking them with strange tattoos and messages left in blood. Is Cole her lover? Or a killer, intent on taking her life? Once again Detectives Montoya and Bentz are on the case, but time is running out for Eve as she matches wits with an evil and determined killer.

I’m working on my next book in the series, Lost Souls. It’s set in Louisiana—one of my favorite locales, though this time at All Saints College, post–Hurricane Katrina. Kristi Bentz, Detective Rick Bentz’s daughter, is at a crossroads in her life. In an attempt to start over and get away from her overprotective father, she’s moved to Baton Rouge and is taking post-graduate classes at her old alma mater. Thinking she’ll become a true-crime novelist, she finds herself drawn to a weird vampire-like cult on campus and soon becomes embroiled in their strange rituals where young coeds end up dead. Kristi’s ex-boyfriend, Jay McKnight, is teaching a class in forensics at the university and he’s the last person she wants to see again. Jay feels the same, until he realizes that Kristi might be the next victim in a series of chilling murders on the campus. Lost Souls will be available in April 2008 in hardcover.

I think you’ll like all the books in the New Orleans series, so check them out. And if you’re into fun detective novels, pick up a copy of Ultraviolet by Nancy Bush. Ultraviolet will be available in October 2007 and is the next book in the popular Jane Kelly series, which started with Candy Apple Red, followed by Electric Blue. In Ultraviolet, Jane and her lovable pug dog, The Binkster, are up to their eyeballs in trouble. Just turn the page to read an excerpt from the book.

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