Smoke Screen (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 7) Read online

  Smoke Screen

  A Miranda and Parker Mystery

  Book 7

  by

  Linsey Lanier

  Copyright © 2015 Linsey Lanier

  All rights reserved. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please return to your online distributor and purchase your own copy.

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  Felicity Books

  ISBN: 978-1-941191-21-7

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  Smoke Screen

  Parker and Steele Consulting is no more. And neither are Miranda and Parker.

  Striking out on her own after a gut wrenching fight with Parker, Miranda is ready to prove she’s an investigator in her own right. Problem is…she has no clients.

  So when a scary dude from her past walks through the door and wants to hire her to find a missing exotic dancer, she’s forced to take the case.

  Meanwhile Parker is done with Miranda and the pain she puts him through. But if he can find whoever sent her those threatening texts on her cell phone weeks ago, he could prove to her he was right about her disregard of danger.

  Little do they know they’re both in danger—and about to face the most terrifying killer of their lives.

  Edited by

  Editing for You

  Books by Linsey Lanier

  Linsey’s Amazon Author page

  THE MIRANDA’S RIGHTS MYSTERY SERIES

  Someone Else’s Daughter – Book I

  Delicious Torment – Book II

  Forever Mine – Book III

  Fire Dancer – Book IV

  Thin Ice – Book V

  THE MIRANDA AND PARKER MYSTERY SERIES

  All Eyes on Me

  Heart Wounds

  Clowns and Cowboys

  The Watcher

  Zero Dark Chocolate

  Trial by Fire

  Smoke Screen

  OTHER SUSPENSE BOOKS BY LINSEY LANIER:

  Chicago Cop (A cop family thriller)

  Steal My Heart (A Romantic Suspense)

  HUMOROUS BOOKS BY LINSEY LANIER

  You Want Me to Kill Who? (A Dandy Frost—Ninja Assassin Story) #1

  You Want Me to Go Where? (A Dandy Frost—Ninja Assassin Story) #2

  The Clever Detective Boxed Set 2 (A Fairy Tale Romance): Stories 1-5

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  More Books by Linsey Lanier

  Excerpts

  Chapter One

  Life is like a symphony, don’t you think?

  The mood ever changing? The tempo of one movement so different from another? The ebb and flow of the music the conductor controls with a single sharp rod? Fast, then slow, then fast again, ending in a frenzied exhilaration like the timpani of a long guttural scream.

  I can never decide which I like better. The look of terror in their eyes or their screams.

  Their eyes are all so different. So fascinating in their variation. Some catlike and blue as the sky, some round and brown as a chocolate marble, some large and inky green—like the foul-tasting medicine Mother used to give me to calm me down after one of my fits. But even the green ones are so pretty when they fill with the watery tears that inevitably drip down the sides of their faces.

  But the screams, the sounds…Yes, the screams are what truly drive me.

  The shrill reverberates through my body, making every nerve come alive. The never ending tears, the long, drawn out wailing, oh how it all spurs me on.

  Amazing that their voices are as varied as their eyes. Some soft and pleading. Some hard and commanding. I don’t like those. They remind me of Mother when I ran from her touch.

  The pitches of their screams are like the pitches of the instruments in an orchestra. I wonder if Mother would think so. She would, I’m sure. But she isn’t here to hear them.

  And in the end all the voices grow hoarse with the screaming, and then, of course, still. Like Mother. The symphony of life must end.

  It’s inevitable. Their fate.

  As it is mine to make them scream. It isn’t as if I have a choice.

  I always begin each project the same way. I waste no time invading her most private parts. Just the way Mother used to invade mine, rubbing her clarinet against my most sensitive spots. I tell her how shameful she is. Just as Mother used to tell me how shameful I was when I didn’t get my lesson right. I tell her she must be punished. Just as Mother punished me. And as I begin the punishment I tell her what she is.

  Whore. Whore. Whore.

  Just the way he taught me. He was a much better teacher than Mother.

  I hated her so. And I hated him, too. They both took so much from me. Mother took my innocence. He took my only love. It happened one night in December in a house full of flames.

  The night I got my new name.

  Now they call me—Smoke.

  A wisp here. A wisp there. And suddenly I’m gone. Soon I will be gone for good.

  Soon, very soon, I shall have the one I’ve been waiting for so long. The one I’ve been watching for almost a year. The only one who has managed to slip through my fingers. At last I will have her and the whole purpose of my life will be complete. I cannot wait to touch her.

  The one who got away.

  Chapter Two

  Miranda Steele sank into the creaky office chair she’d bought at a nearby thrift store and put her head in her hands.

  She stared down at the check before her on the plasterboard desk she’d gotten from the same place and grunted out loud. She tightened her fists, wanting to smack something.

  Note to self. Buy a punching bag.r />
  Wait.

  Amendment: Can’t afford punching bag. Go to the local gym.

  Teeth gritted, temper fuming, she glared at the check. The large neat handwriting seemed so full of confidence. So solid. So…trustworthy.

  But, no.

  Hank Lauderdale, her very first client—for the very case she’d gotten on her own—had screwed her over.

  She could still see the teller at the bank two blocks down the street as she pushed the check back across the faux mahogany counter.

  “I’m sorry Ms. Steele,” she’d said in a prissy southern voice. “This account is closed.”

  Turned out Mr. Lauderdale had withdrawn his funds and closed the account that very morning.

  Damn.

  Hank Lauderdale was a fifty-something entrepreneur whose twenty-something bride of two months, Luella, had been cheating on him. Or so Lauderdale thought. He wanted Miranda to find out for sure.

  After three days of following Mrs. Lauderdale around as she shopped, chatted to her friends on her cell, and met them in pricey midtown bars for dirty martinis, Miranda had decided Lauderdale was paranoid.

  Then around nine on the third evening she’d spotted Luella Lauderdale leaving the marital home and heading to a local hotel. A real swanky spot. There Luella had met a tall, good-looking man about her age dressed in a casual shirt and shorts. With wavy blond hair and a deep tan he’d looked like a surfer.

  Miranda had sat in her car and watched through the lens of her new high-powered camera, snapping photos as they played footsie and kissy face in the hotel’s fancy restaurant.

  Then she’d followed them upstairs, stood outside their door, and recorded their moans and grunts and f— me cries on her cell. Back in her car, about ten the next morning, she’d caught the happy couple sauntering out of the hotel’s front door arm in arm—wearing the same clothes and an unmistakable afterglow.

  She’d snapped photos like crazy.

  Then she’d rushed home, grabbed a shower and a short nap, called Lauderdale, and arranged to meet him in a coffee shop. They had a light breakfast and she’d handed over the pictures along with her bill. He’d handed her a check.

  The one now on her desk.

  No wonder Luella had cheated on him. In fact Lauderdale might have been the first one to stray from the marriage. When it came to paying his bills, he was sure a cheat.

  It had to be a mistake, Miranda told herself for the twentieth time. But she’d already called Lauderdale on the way out of the bank and her call had gone to voice mail.

  “Shit!” she cried into the empty space.

  Same thing she’d said to the bank teller when she’d told her the account was closed.

  She got up and paced around the room. “Look Lauderdale,” she said to the air. “I don’t know who you think you’re screwing with, but this is Miranda Steele here and I don’t take this crap lying down.”

  But no one heard her.

  The check in her hand she plodded into the tiny waiting room. It was just as empty.

  She’d painted the room a minty green with the vague idea of setting clients at ease. The sofa she’d gotten from the local thrift store was rust colored leather with some fancy carving on the trim. The middle sagged a little, but she’d fluffed it up as best she could. There were a couple of chairs that almost matched, a floor lamp, and a coffee table with a leg that had fallen off as soon as she got it out of the shop.

  On the walls she’d hung some inexpensive paintings. A picture of some large, weird looking orange flowers, a white cat licking its paw, a canoe marooned on a deserted shore. She’d even sprung for a fake plant.

  Too bad nobody had seen the place.

  Feeling drained she took a seat on the sofa and sank into its faltering cushion. As if they had a mind of their own, her thoughts drifted back in time three weeks.

  Hard to believe it had been that long since her last day in the Parker mansion. She’d woken up that morning in one of the guest rooms with a crick in her neck, a throb in her head, and an ache in her heart like a knife wound. She got out of bed telling herself Parker had to have changed his mind overnight.

  He hadn’t.

  When she found him in the kitchen that morning he was as cold as ice. He barely spoke. He refused to discuss any options at all. He was closing their partnership, Parker and Steele Consulting, and that was that.

  So she’d done what she had to do. She left.

  She hadn’t pitched a fit. She hadn’t ranted and raved—though she’d dearly wanted to. Instead she calmly went upstairs, packed her things and left. She took her jeans and T-shirts, work clothes, shoes, and underwear. Mostly things she’d paid for. She’d left the party dresses Parker had bought her. Couldn’t see herself needing those again.

  She found her checkbook in the bottom of a drawer and confirmed the balance. The money was from her earnings at the Parker Agency, so she figured it was hers. She’d saved a good bit of it. Except for the cost of clothes and lunches and gifts for coworkers and friends, and payments for the mansion that she still insisted on keeping up. She’d thought it was a decent sum. Enough to get her started.

  So she’d grabbed her bags and headed down the grand mahogany staircase and out the majestic front door for the last time.

  The terrible, roiling pain in her heart had threatened to consume her, burn her to ash like a roaring fire. But she’d refused to give in to it. Refused to let herself grieve.

  Not over Parker. Not over the friends she’d left behind. Not over her fourteen-year-old daughter she’d found last year after so long a search. Mackenzie had little use for her these days anyway.

  If she let her feelings take over, she didn’t know what might happen to her. Parker had been the only man she’d ever truly loved. The only man who loved her back, who cared about her, who really got her. Or so she’d thought.

  But he didn’t get her any more.

  So instead of falling to pieces, she got to work.

  She’d taken the Corvette ZR1 Parker had given her as a wedding present and traded it in for a light tan Acura with good mileage. She’d gotten screwed on the deal but she didn’t have the luxury of shopping around.

  She’d found an apartment in a two-story building off GA-10 on East Avenue in midtown, with a view overlooking a dumpster. Not a great place to live. Not a great place to walk around alone at night. Yet it was still pricey. The office space she was renting cost a bundle, too.

  The second story in the back of an abandoned Mexican restaurant named Plato Caliente. She knew it had been called Plato Caliente because three people she’d hoped were new clients had stopped in to ask what happened to it.

  Both landlords wanted two months rent in advance.

  And then there was the furniture, the paint, business cards, accounting software, investigative equipment, and those ueber expensive database subscriptions she had to have to do business. And the sign she stuck in the window—Steele Investigations, walk-ins welcome.

  After everything, she barely had two months living expenses left in her account.

  She held up Lauderdale’s bad check. “And now this.”

  The rent on both the apartment and the office were due in a week. It had taken her forever to get the office in shape and get this one client and now she had to do collection, too? Damn.

  She dug out her cell phone and dialed his number again. He’d answer this time for sure. Be nice, she told herself.

  But once more the call went to voice mail.

  She hung up and stared into space. What if she couldn’t make this guy pay? What if she couldn’t find another client? She should take out one of those pricey ads in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. But that might break her.

  And if it did—then what?

  Back to road work? A construction job?

  She didn’t want to go back to her old life. She had meaning now. She wasn’t going to give it up. But she might have to postpone it for a while. The idea made her sick. But she wasn’t giving up that easy. I
f she had to take a job laying floors or pounding shingles for awhile to make ends meet, she would.

  Suddenly she had a vision of Parker standing before her, his strong, muscular body clad in one of his fancy blue suits with a red silk tie. She saw the sexy salt-and-pepper of his styled hair, the distinguished lines in his to-die-for face, the piercing stare of his gunmetal gray eyes.

  He shook his head at her as if to say, “I knew you couldn’t make it on your own.”

  Lip curling, she shot to her feet growling. “Like hell I won’t, Wade Russell Parker the Third!” she cried into the empty air.

  Then she marched back into her office, yanked open the squeaky top drawer of the filing cabinet, and took out the only folder in the hanging files to find Lauderdale’s work address.

  She’d just go pay that sonofabitch a visit.

  “Miranda.”

  The sultry voice behind her made her whole body go stiff. As did the provocative roll of the r in her name. And the smell of exotic cologne.

  Slowly she turned around.

  There he was, standing right there in the doorway of her office. She hadn’t seen him in over a year but she knew him right away.

  She took in the thick black curls, heavy with gel. The well-defined widow’s peak. The well-trimmed beard and mustache. The skintight leather pants and glossy purple shirt over a body that had been through years of street fights and won, the muscular neck decked with gold chains. And those deep black eyes that sent a frigid North Pole chill straight through her.

  Carlos Santiago.

  “Plato Caliente is out of business,” she told him as if he were a stranger.

  His dark eyes narrowed. “Do not pretend you do not know me, cara.”

  Cara? Oh, she knew him all right.

  Carlos Santiago, a local Columbian drug lord who ran the streets in this area. He had a rap sheet as long as the I-20 Corridor, but he’d weaseled his way out of everything he’d been charged with. She’d gone motorcycle racing with him one night when she was on a case for the Parker Agency.

  Actually, it had been a case she’d taken on herself, and Parker had been pissed about it. That was when she’d learned about Parker’s first love, Laura, a girl he’d fallen head over heels for when he was in high school. She’d died a violent death and he’d never quite gotten over it. She should have seen the handwriting on the wall back then.

  “What do you want, Santiago?”

  “My, my, we have grown churlish since our last encounter.” He took a step toward her with the same confident swagger he’d used when they were locked in a jail cell together.