We're so excited to celebrate the release of Deadly Affairs: A Holly Jennings Thriller by AK Alexander! This is a stand alone novel in the series. If you like books that get your heart racing and your mind jumping, this is the book for you!
Cover by: Okay Creations
Blurb:
A couple found brutally murdered in the Coronado Cays pulls San Diego CSI Holly Jennings from a bliss-filled morning with her new baby and husband into a twisted maze of cheating spouses and Hollywood gore. As Holly and her team track the bloody trail left by the killer, the questions and the body count continue to rise like the damned who've been drowned.An expert knife thrower. A precision gunman. Deadly accurate and strong enough to bludgeon a woman to death. The killer fits the profile of a professional. But Holly can feel the rage and need for redemption behind these deaths that tells her that for the killer--or killers--this is all intimately personal.
While Holly chases leads as far as Dallas and the Big Easy, the shadow of her own secrets threatens everything dear to her at home.
EXCERPT:
Chapter One
Tonight, The Producer called herself Samantha Boyd. The Director liked it. In fact, he had chosen the name.
Samantha--not Sam or Sammy, which sounded childish to her--would be certain there’d be no mistakes this time around. And, tonight would be absolutely thrilling. Adrenaline and excitement coursed through her.
Samantha. Yes.
It was a strong name and Samantha liked strength.
Samantha had been born out of need because the other one.
The First One.
That bitch had messed up so badly on the last assignment. They could’ve gotten caught with her mistake and ruined it for all of them!
But she had fixed it. She had taken control and cleaned up the mess that the First One had made, and, thanks to her tech crew, she had done it in a way that not even The Director knew about it.
Samantha sat down at the bar, her eye on the game. The couple she’d carefully researched sat at the corner table, pretending that they cared about being inconspicuous. They were oblivious to anything around them as they busied themselves playing footsie, making eyes, and grabbing each other’s asses. They were hardly inconspicuous though. At least Samantha could see them for exactly what they were.
Liars. Cheats. Philandering spouses. Narcissists only aiming for their own pleasure and gain.
Samantha licked her lips and signaled the bartender. “Dirty martini extra icy, please.” She hadn’t had to travel too far to find what she was looking for this time. And now, she would be patient.
Being patient was part of the game, part of the script.
Mrs. Francine Hollister had driven down to San Diego from Los Angeles, and Mr. Drew Garrison had flown in from New Orleans. The two had Officially reconnected at their twenty-year high school reunion three months ago in New Orleans. But their lust for one another had been building. The initial connection had happened months prior to the reunion.
God, the internet was a wonderful thing. Even the internet had shadows and demons, dark places where it was a tool...all they needed...to hunt with. And, she was certain she knew almost all there was to know about these two. It was all written down very carefully in her notes.
Their lust--which she knew Francine had been misinterpreting as love--was sweet, really. Well, it would’ve been anyway, if they weren’t both married to other people. How easy it seemed for people to forget their vows these days.
At least Drew saw this for what it was. In some ways it made him the better of the two. He didn’t love Francine. Samantha was sure of that. This was a game he played and Samantha knew that he’d played it more than once. With the help of the Tech, Samantha was a good researcher. Games, games, games, games...Drew seemed to enjoy this game.
Samantha smiled coyly at the bartender. If poor Drew only knew that his game had consequences. Deadly ones.
This was Samantha’s second reunion couple. People reunited with past loves from all sorts of former life experiences. High school, college, jobs, childhood, a one night stand. She and the director chose the ones from high school, those who wanted to relive their teenage glory days. She wasn’t sure why they had, other than that group of cheaters seemed to be a fairly large pool to pull from. Ha! Not to mention because they were the largest categorically, it was almost assured that leading one or the other of the coupledom down a dark path wasn’t really all that difficult. However, she left all of that to The Technician.
It really didn’t matter though who they chose because the thing was that it wasn’t right to reunite in this way when marriage was involved...when others’ lives could be ruined. No that wasn’t right at all. She knew this first hand. Unrequited love and all should be chalked up to nonsense once vows had been taken. But these two, didn’t follow the rules or honor their vows.
Samantha knew that Mr. Marcus Hollister was at home taking care of twin thirteen-year-old boys who were avid soccer players. Mr. Hollister was into security... the tech kind, which Samantha found a tad ironic considering that in a small way she, too, was into those things. Actually made her have even more empathy for the Mister...he was smart and good at his job. He’d done well for his family. He also helped coach his boys’ soccer team. He took his family to church on some Sundays. They had a nice group of neighborhood friends who got together for bbqs...very all American. And, from every account, this man seemed to love his wife and family. He actually appeared to adore them, and had no qualms with his wife’s travel for work as an advertising rep. Oh boy though, if he only knew. Poor man.
But was the missus happy? Oh no...silly, sexy Francine was bored. So bored...all Marcus wanted to talk about was his job or the boys and soccer and where should the boys think about going to college and what vacation sounded good to her. Marcus liked to let Francine make the decisions. All of the decisions. And she found this boring. So very boring!
He didn’t want to grow, earn more money, do more with his life. He was perfectly content and she found this lacking, almost void of any masculinity. Good Ole’ Frannie wanted some real excitement.
Thus, Drew Garrison.
What a moron Francine Hollister was, and now her idiocy and her boredom would be her ultimate downfall and maybe down the line Marcus Hollister would find someone who truly loved and appreciated him.
If he knew what his Mrs. was up to, well, Samantha was sure the poor guy would come unhinged. What husband wouldn’t? If he knew would he beat her to a pulp? Or would he threaten either of them? Would he hire a killer? Or would he just simply divorce her and carry his wounded heart within for the rest of his miserable life? Divorce was never final. Not really. And the hurt left behind at what had been done had to be unbearable.
But death was final.
Samantha would deal with that and with finality there was a chance to heal...a chance to truly move on with one’s life.
And, what of the other criminal in this duo? The dashing Mr. Garrison? He was a handsome, wealthy entrepreneur who had the perfect wife in Carrie Garrison. Poor Carrie. None the wiser of what the Mister was up to at this very moment.
Samantha admired Carrie. She was smart, funny, loved her three kids and was an outstanding mother. She was on the boards of countless charity organizations. Such a little homemaker, that one. Sure, she’d gotten a bit overweight. But dammit. That happened to a lot of women ... women who had the full load of a family and the heaviness on her shoulders that surely her husband placed there while he was out gallivanting around and screwing his high-school sweetheart.
It was all in her notes. Every detail.
Samantha adjusted her sunglasses and pressed a tiny button at the corner top of the lens—a microscopic video camera turned on and went to work as she picked up her cell phone and made a call.
The Director clicked on. She knew that he liked being called, involved in some way. She could at least do that much for him since he couldn’t do any of this without her.
“Hello,” Samantha swiveled her bar stool around. “I wish you could’ve come with me. It’s such a lovely day here in Coronado. The ocean is beautiful. I’d love for you to see the view. Don’t you wish you could be here?” she laughed, noting the haughty tone in her voice. She liked it. She’d gotten good at this—at being someone else, someone special, at changing her name when necessary, at doing what needed to be done to right the wrongs that had been implemented on her and The Director.
“I see the view and I approve,” The Director replied.
“That’s excellent. Enjoy your late-night movie.” She switched off the phone, depressed the button on the top of her glasses as if she was simply adjusting them on her face, and finished her drink. The martini had been good, one of the best she’d ever had. She wanted one more but it was time to put her plan into motion and there was a lot to be done in the next few hours. She paid the bartender in cash and swiveled off the bar stool.
The two people in the corner sneaking kisses and drinking their bottle of wine had other lives, spouses who loved them, kids who thought they could do no wrong. But The Producer knew differently. She knew that they were dirty, disgusting criminals.
She also knew that they wouldn’t be for long. Drew and Francine were about to end their affair.
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