She gently opens the woman’s tightly clenched fist, uncurling each finger to reveal a square of folded paper hidden in her palm. Scrawled in thick crayon, beside a child’s crooked drawing of a red flower, is one word that sends a shiver through the evening mist: HELP
It was supposed to be a routine road accident recovery, but the moment Detective Josie Quinn sees the passenger—pale and painfully thin, a sharp tool lodged in her stomach—it’s clear she was the victim of something far more sinister, and likely dead before the crash. Watching the driver taken away in an ambulance, questions spin through Josie’s mind. Where were these two women going? Was the driver trying to save a life, or hide a body? And—most heartbreaking of all—is there a child in danger, crying out for help with no reply?
Josie quickly identifies the crash survivor as Mira Summers, a singleton and animal-lover on her way home from nearby stables. Mira swears she doesn’t know who the woman in the car beside her is, or how she was injured. And when she’s diagnosed with concussion and memory loss, Josie is forced to back down.
But the discovery of Mira’s prints on the child’s drawing is all the proof Josie needs that Mira knows more than she’s letting on, and a witness saw Mira meeting with a man with a gnarled diamond-shaped tattoo at the stables. In a race against the clock to track down this elusive man, Josie faces danger from the most unexpected places. Pushed to her limit, can she stay alive long enough to catch the killer and save the life of an innocent child?
Leah Holloway has it all: a husband and three beautiful children, a gorgeous home, and a great career. Then one Saturday morning, on the way home from a youth soccer match, she causes four fatalities on a Sacramento highway before crashing an SUV full of children into a river. Thanks to the heroics of Claire Fletcher, who was fishing on the nearby river bank, the children survive, but Leah does not. Claire's encounter with the terrified young mother leaves no doubt that Leah intentionally crashed the vehicle.
Nearby, Claire’s former flame, Detective Connor Parks, is hard at work on the Soccer Mom Strangler case when his past association with Claire plunges him into the Holloway investigation. As he delves into Holloway's life, he finds nothing amiss. Those closest to her have no explanation for why she would do something so shocking. As their relationship heats back up, Claire urges Connor to look deeper. She is convinced that beneath the surface of Holloway's picture-perfect life lurks a secret so horrifying, it drove the woman to murder-suicide.
When Holloway is linked to the other Strangler victims, Connor and Claire realize that unearthing the woman’s deeply buried secrets is the only way to find the killer before he strikes again.
Over the Edge: A P.I. Jocelyn Rush Digital Short
Available in ebook only
Previously published on Kindle only in the anthology called Drop Dead Crime
When retired Philadelphia detective turned private investigator Joselyn Rush is rear-ended, her knee-jerk response is anger, especially when the well-dressed woman driving tries to flee the scene. But as Jocelyn watches in disbelief, the woman jumps off the bridge, plunging to her death in the Schuylkill River one hundred fifty feet below.
Wracked with guilt, especially after learning the woman, Molly Porter, left behind a small child, Jocelyn wants answers. Why would a woman who seemingly had it all commit suicide because of a car accident?
But the more Jocelyn learns about Molly’s life and her past, the less perfect it seems. Because Molly Porter had secrets…secrets with dangerous consequences.
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