Moon Fever by Susan Sizemore Maggie Shayne Lori Handeland Caridad Piiniera

Author:Susan Sizemore, Maggie Shayne, Lori Handeland, Caridad Piiniera
Format: epub

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Cobwebs Over the Moon

Lori Handeland

Chapter 1

M y first clue that everything was about to change came on the night someone tried to kill me.

Hey, they don’t need to hit me over the head with a brick to get my attention. A bullet whizzing past my right ear does the trick just fine.

Roger, my bodyguard, shoved me to the ground behind the limo. Beneath my faux-fur coat, my evening gown tore with a shriek of rending cloth to rival the shrieks of the crowd as they stampeded down Central Park West.

Night had fallen over New York City hours ago. The drifting clouds made it seem as if there were cobwebs over the moon.

I’d been on my way to a charity event—the story of my life. I guess they’d just have to do without me. In truth, there was no one to miss me if I were gone. Not even my father, who’d started hiring men like Roger to protect me as soon as I could walk.

I’d never been able to figure out why J. Thomas Kelly IV—J.T. to everyone, including me—spent so many of his pretty green dollars protecting a daughter he’d never seemed to care for.

After having my mother committed, divorcing her, then marrying a succession of younger and younger wives who gave him blonder and blonder children, Daddy had no time for his dark-haired, dark-eyed, eldest, rudest child.

I’d learned how to handle the neglect; my mother hadn’t. Phoebe killed herself the day the divorce papers arrived.

“Keep your head down,” Roger snapped, shoving my nose into the pavement in case I didn’t get the concept. Then he dialed 911 on his cell. I assumed the doorman, who’d scurried back into my apartment building at the first sign of trouble, had done the same.

Of course, it was rush hour in Helltown, I mean Manhattan, so it was anyone’s guess when the cavalry would arrive.

“Carly.” The urgency in Roger’s voice made the world narrow to him and me, even as the danger made me hyperaware of every sound around us.

Someone was coming.

“Get behind me.” He duck-walked past, his broad bulk blotting out the frosty silver light of a nearly full moon.

Nevertheless, I saw the man who stepped around the limo quite clearly. His eyes went straight to me, and he smiled. I’d never seen another smile like it. Our attacker not only wanted to kill me, he wanted other things, too. Things that would give me nightmares—if I survived them.

Roger fired. Our attacker jerked once, then burst into flames.

I sat back on my rump, hard. The jolt did nothing to dissipate my shock, not only over Roger shooting the man without any kind of warning but…since when did bullets cause spontaneous combustion?

Roger stood slowly, keeping his head low as he scanned the street for a second gunman. I didn’t bother to get up. I doubted I could.

Several tenants came out of my building and gathered around the flames, staring into them as if they were at a bonfire. I half expected someone to break out the marshmallows.

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