"This next story featuring the Delphi Center's top researcher is compelling reading with lots of heat."
Reviewed by Mandy Burns
Posted November 8, 2010
Romance Suspense
Today is the anniversary of the death of Mia Voss' sister
and the day she received a blow at her job at the Delphi
Center, where Mia is a top DNA specialist. To avoid
slipping into old habits and to escape the gloom, Mia heads
to the nearest store to stock up on Ben & Jerry's ice cream
only to be carjacked and taken to the middle of nowhere to
die. Thankfully, someone is watching over her and decides
today she will live, until the moment she realizes the man
of her fantasies, Ric Santos, is standing over her wanting
answers. Ric Santos has done his best to avoid the vortex of an
emotional tornado known as Mia Voss, but fate decides that
keeping his distance is not in the cards. Ric can't afford
to become attached to Mia, but the danger she consistently
finds herself in brings out his protective side. As a
detective, Ric believes in law enforcement, but he can only
trust himself to keep Mia from falling into the hands of a
killer. Someone is working diligently to take Mia's life
and tear it to shreds, but the only way Ric can gain Mia's
trust is to trust her with his own secrets -- which is
easier said than done. UNFORGIVABLE is the next story featuring the Delphi
Center's top researcher Mia Voss and the heat and sparks
she has with the brooding Ric Santos. Definitely worth the
wait.
SUMMARY
For Mia Voss, tracing killers is business. But her work
just got personal. At first, Mia thinks it is just bad
luck when her already lousy day ends with a carjacking, but
what seems like a random incident is followed by another
sinister episode. As a DNA expert, Mia has made it her
mission to put away vicious criminals, but suddenly, she has
become the target of one. The only way to protect the people
she loves most is to deliberately destroy her reputation and
risk letting a killer walk free. Mia is the sexiest, most
intriguing woman Detective Ric Santos has ever met, and he
can tell she's lying--and that she's scared. There was a
time when Mia trusted Ric--but that was before Ric let his
turbulent past get between them. Now, Mia must face her own
past, as the key to catching a sadistic madman may lie
within one of her long-buried cases. Only she can uncover
the truth, but first she will have to trust Ric with her
secrets... and her life.
Excerpt
CHAPTER
ONE
On a normal day, she
would have stood strong against the temptation. But nothing
about today had
been normal, starting with the fact that it was January
seventh and ending with
the fact that for the first time in her life she’d actually
been demoted. Her stomach clenched
as she turned into the Minute-Mart parking lot and eased
her white Jeep
Wrangler into a space near the door. Her cheeks warmed at
the still-fresh
memory of standing stiffly in her boss’s office, gazing
down at his weasel-like
face as he’d sat behind his desk, meting out criticism. At
the time, she’d been
stunned speechless, too shocked by what was happening to
defend herself. Only
now--six hours too late--did the all the perfect rejoinders
come tumbling into
her head. Mia jerked opened the
door to the convenience store and made a beeline for the
freezer section. If
there was ever a night that called for Ben & Jerry’s
New York Super Fudge
Chunk, it was tonight. For the first Thursday night in
months, she wasn’t stuck
at the lab. For the first Thursday night in years, the only
items demanding her
attention were a sappy chick flick, a cozy blanket, and a
pint of butterfat.
Tonight was for wallowing. Mia slid open the freezer door
and plucked out a tub
of Super Fudge Chunk. She tucked it under her arm, then
grabbed a Chunky
Monkey. As long as she was sinning, why not sin big? That
motto had gotten her
into trouble on more than one occasion, but she continued
to follow it.
"Doc Voss."
She jumped and whirled around. A bulky, balding man in a brown overcoat stood behind her.
He crouched down to pick up the
carton that had rolled across the aisle, then stood and
held it out to her.
"Good stuff, isn’t it?" "Uh, thanks."
She stared at him and tried to place his name. He was a
cop, she knew that
much. But he wasn’t someone she’d seen around in a while,
and she couldn’t pull
a name from her memory banks. "Not as good as
mint chip, though." His droll smile made him look
grandfatherly. "My wife’s
favorite." She noticed his
shopping basket--two pints of mint chocolate chip and a six-
pack of beer. His gaze drifted
down to her fur-lined moccasins and a bushy gray eyebrow
lifted. "Slumber
party?" Mia glanced
down. For her quick trip to the store, she’d tucked her
satin nightshirt into
jeans, pulled on a ratty cardigan, and slipped her feet
into house shoes. She
looked like an escapee from a mental ward, which of course
meant she’d bump
into someone she knew from work. Nothing like reinforcing
that professional
image. Yes, today was shaping up to be a banner career day. Mia forced a
smile. "More like movie night." She glanced at her watch
and stepped toward the
register. "It’s about to start, actually. I’d better--" "Don’t let me
keep you." He nodded. "See ya around, Doc." Mia watched his
reflection in the convex mirror as she paid for her
groceries. He added a
couple of frozen dinners to his basket and then headed for
the chip aisle. The name hit her
as she pulled out of the parking lot. Frank Hannigan. San
Marcos PD. Why
couldn’t she have remembered it sooner? Something hard jabbed into her neck. "Take a left at this light." Mia’s head whipped around. Her chest convulsed. In the
backseat was a man. He held a gun
pointed right at her nose. "Watch the road!" She jerked her
head around just in time to see the telephone pole looming
in front of her. She
yanked the wheel left and managed to stay on the street. Oh my God, oh my
God, oh my God. Her hands clutched the steering wheel
in a death grip. Her
gaze flashed to the mirror and homed in on his gun. It was
big and
serious-looking, and he held it rock-steady in his gloved
hand. "Turn left." The command
snapped her attention away from the weapon and back to him.
Her brain numbly
registered a description: black hooded sweatshirt, pulled
tight around his
face. Navy bandana covering his nose and mouth. Dark
sunglasses. All she could
see of the man behind the disguise was a thin strip of skin
between the glasses
and the bandana. He jammed the
muzzle of the pistol into her neck again. "Eyes ahead." She forced
herself to comply. Her heart pounded wildly against her
sternum. Her stomach
tightened. She realized she’d stopped breathing. She
focused on drawing air
into her lungs and unclenched her hand from the wheel so
that she could shift
gears and turn left.
Where are we
going? What does he want?
Her mind flooded
with terrifying possibilities as she hung a left and darted
her gaze around,
looking for a police car, a fire truck, anything. But this
was a college town
and whatever action might be going on tonight was happening
much closer to
campus. How was she
going to get out of this? Cold sweat beaded along her
hairline. Her stomach
somersaulted. Bile rose up in the back of her throat. The engine
reached a high-pitched whine. She’d forgotten to change
gears. Her clammy hand
slipped on the gear-shift as she switched into third.
Think.
She glanced
around desperately, but the streets were quiet. The nearest
open business was
the Dairy Queen two blocks behind them. "CenTex Bank, on
your right. Pull up to the drive-through ATM." Mia’s breath
whooshed out. He wanted money. Tears of relief filled her
eyes. But they
quickly morphed into tears of panic because she realized
his wanting money
didn’t really mean anything. He could still shoot her in
the head and leave her
on the side of the road. She of all people knew the
amazingly cheap price of a
human life. A wad of cash. A bag of crack. A pair of
sneakers. She could be
dead before the ATM even spit out the bills. The cold, hard
muzzle of the gun rubbed against her cheek. Her breath
hitched and her gaze
went to the mirror. She remembered the police sketch of a
man in a hooded
sweatshirt and sunglasses who for years had been on the
FBI’s Ten Most Wanted
list. The Unabomber. Mia had met the artist who had drawn
that sketch. As a
forensic scientist as one of the world’s top crime labs,
Mia had connections in
every conceivable area of law enforcement. And at this
moment, they were
useless to her. At this moment, it was just her and this
man alone in her car
with his gun pointed at her head.
Stay calm. Make
a plan.
She maneuvered
the Jeep up to the teller machine, nearly scraping the
yellow concrete pillar
on the right side of her car. Too late, she realized she’d
just ruined a
potential escape route.
She closed her
eyes and swallowed. She thought of her mom. Whatever
happened, she had to live
through this. Her mother couldn’t take another blow.
Not on January
seventh.
Mia’s eyes
popped open at the realization. She turned to face him with
a renewed sense of
determination--or maybe it was adrenaline--surging through
her veins. "How much
do you want?" She rolled the window down with one hand
while scrounging through
her purse for her wallet. "Five thousand." "Five thousand?"
She turned to gape at him. She had that much, yeah. In an
IRA account
somewhere. Her checking account was more in the
neighborhood of five hundred.
But she wanted more than anything not to tick this
guy off. She gulped. "I
think my limit is three hundred." She tried to keep her
voice steady, but it
was wobbling all over the place. She turned to look at him,
positioning her
shoulders so the camera on the ATM could get a view into
her car. It probably couldn’t
capture him from this angle, but it might capture the
gun. "I can do several
transactions," she said. The barrel
rapped against her cheek bone. She would have a bruise
tomorrow. If she lived
that long. She turned to
the machine and, with shaking fingers, punched in her code
and keyed in the
amount. Three hundred was the most she could get. Could she
get it twice? Had
her cable bill cleared? Mia handed him the first batch of
twenties and chewed
her lip as she waited for the second transaction to go
through.
Transaction
declined. Her blood turned
to ice. Seconds ticked by as she waited for the man’s
response. Despite the
sweat trickling down her spine, her breath formed a frosty
cloud as she stared
at the words flashing on the screen.
That’s it,
she thought. I’m
dead.
She reached a
trembling hand out and pulled the receipt from the slot. She could make a
break for it right here. Except her doors were pinned shut
by the concrete
pillars on either side of her. She could speed
to the nearest well-populated area--which was a Walmart
three blocks away.
Would she get there before he shot her or wrestled the
wheel away? "Back on the
highway." The command was laced with annoyance. But not
quite as much
disappointment as she’d expected. She put the Jeep
in gear and returned to the highway. As she shifted gears,
she glanced at the
familiar Mardi Gras beads hanging from her rearview mirror.
Somehow they
steadied her. This was her car and she was in the driver’s
seat. She could
control this.
"How about Sun
Bank?" Her voice sounded like a croak. That bank was past
Walmart. Maybe she
could swerve into the lot and make a run for it. "Hang a left."
Mia’s hands
gripped the steering wheel. Her gaze met his in the mirror.
She couldn’t see
his eyes, but she could read his intent--it was in his tone
of voice, his body
language, the perfectly steady way held that gun. Left on the highway meant out of town. He was going to kill
her.
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