The 7th Month_ A Detective D. D. Warren Story - Lisa Gardner [0]
The Perfect Husband
The Other Daughter
The Third Victim
The Next Accident
The Survivors Club
The Killing Hour
Alone
Gone
Hide
Say Goodbye
The Neighbor
Live to Tell
Love You More
Catch Me
DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First E-special printing, January 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Gardner, Inc.
Excerpt from Catch Me copyright © 2012 by Lisa Gardner, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
E-book ISBN: 978-1-101-57252-8
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Step One
Chapter 1
Step Two
Chapter 2
Step Three
Chapter 3
Step Four
Chapter 4
Step Five
Chapter 5
Step Six
Chapter 6
The Final Step
Chapter 7
Special Preview
Have you ever contemplated killing someone? Perhaps your snoring spouse, or overbearing boss, or that pretentious neighbor whose children really are smarter than yours? You probably convinced yourself it couldn’t be done. Too messy, with the blood, the guts, the suddenly voiding bowels. Or too hard, what with fingerprinting, DNA, hair and fiber, and all the other types of newly developed forensic evidence. No way you’d ever get away with it.
Take it from me, murder isn’t that difficult. It’s a matter of simple logistics. You must plan ahead, plot out each step, then make the necessary preparations. For example, the first thing you must do is select your victim. Blonde, brunette. Male, female. Someone you know well, someone you’re about to know very well.
Select your target. This is step one.
Chapter 1
At first glance, Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren pegged the man to be either a white-collar criminal or a serial killer. White-collar, because he had the rounded shoulders and nervous hands of a browbeaten clerk, desperate to one day have his revenge. Serial killer, because his small stature and weak jawline spoke of a guy who probably preferred his lovers to be passive, e.g., dead, not to mention he was the right size to fit into a home’s crawl space.
Currently, the man stood just inside the doors of Boston PD’s homicide unit. D.D. sat behind the high-countered cherrywood receptionist’s desk. He eyed her uneasily. She stared back.
“Er . . . I’m looking for a Boston detective,” he said.
“Witness a crime, reporting a crime, or confessing to a crime?” she asked.
“Actually, I’m in need of an expert.”
D.D. looked him up and down again. Upon closer inspection, the man’s oversized brown suit was cut from a silk-wool blend with flecks of dark green. Shoes, shiny new Italian leather. Tie, mustard yellow designer silk. Some money had been spent on the wardrobe. Too bad it didn’t do a thing for him.