Bleeding Through: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries)
Read Bleeding Through: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Online
Authors: Sandra Parshall
Tags: #Mystery & Detective
| Bleeding Through |
| Rachel Goddard [5] |
| Sandra Parshall |
| USA (2012) |
teenagers on an outing to clean up roadside trash in rural Mason County,
Virginia, they make a grisly discovery: the plastic-wrapped body of a
young woman. One teen peers at the face through the plastic and screams.
The dead girl is her sister, Shelley, a law student who has been
missing for a month.
As Tom launches a murder investigation,
Rachel copes with a visit from her own sister, Michelle, who is
terrified that a man is stalking her. Michelle insists she’s receiving
threatening calls and someone has invaded her office in the Washington,
DC, area. Her own husband doubts her. Although Michelle is a
psychologist, she has always been emotionally fragile, and she reverts
to her childhood dependence on Rachel, stirring up memories Rachel wants
to forget. Soon it becomes clear that the mysterious stalker is real
and dangerous and has followed Michelle to Mason County. Now he’s
turning his attention to Rachel too.
Tom pursues the stalker at
the same time he investigates Shelley’s murder. Was it random, or was
she killed because she was working to prove that a Mason County man was
wrongly convicted of murder? Relatives of his supposed victim were
enraged by Shelley’s efforts to free a man they believe is guilty. Did
they kill her to stop her? But what if she was right? If an innocent man
was convicted, one person would have the strongest motive to silence
Shelley: the real murderer.
As Tom closes in on Shelley’s killer, the stalker makes his move against Rachel.
Bleeding Through
A Rachel Goddard Mystery
Sandra Parshall
www.SandraParshall.com
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright © 2012 by Sandra Parshall
First E-book Edition 2012
ISBN: 9781615954124 epub
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
Poisoned Pen Press
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Contents
For the Essential Four:
Carol Baier, Cathrine Dubie, Jerry Parshall
and Emma
My thanks, as always, to my indefatigable critique partners, Carol Baier and Cat Dubie, for their honesty, insights, and encouragement.
My husband, Jerry Parshall, serves as a first reader and editor, but he is also an essential part of the planning and plotting process with every book. Sometimes I think his mind is even more twisted than my own. He also restores my confidence when I reach that inevitable point where I’m convinced the whole thing is hopeless and deserves a swift burial in an unmarked grave.
My editor, Barbara Peters, is quite simply brilliant. Thank you, Barbara, for pushing me to make every book the best it can be. I’m also grateful to the wonderful staff at Poisoned Pen Press for making publishing feel like a family project.
Dr. D.P. (Doug) Lyle, as always, has been a great source of information on any crime-related topic. I recommend his Writer’s Forensic Blog to anyone who aspires to write mysteries.
Thanks to the readers who let me use their pets in this book: Carolyn J. Rose (Max), Brenda Williamson (Lucky), and Mimi Stevens (Loki). I hope you’ll enjoy your little ones’ cameo roles.
I am grateful every day for my friends in Sisters in Crime, especially the Guppies and the Chessie Chapter. I love you all, and appreciate every pat on the back and every word of encouragement.
Hearing from readers and meeting them in person is always a pleasure, and often a rotten day is salvaged by a nice e-mail from a stranger who has just finished one of my books and wants to tell me she or he enjoyed it. Thank you for reading this book, and please let me know if you like it.
…when the wind begins to roar
It’s like a lion at your door
And when the door begins to crack
It’s like a stick across your back
And when your back begins to smart
It’s like a penknife in your heart
And when your heart begins to bleed
Then you are dead, and dead indeed.
—Old nursery rhyme
Two dozen teenagers tumbled out of the school bus and charged after Tom Bridger along the shoulder of the road, brandishing their litter spikes like warriors’ spears.
Rachel Goddard parked her Range Rover behind the bus and walked up to wait for the last student to emerge. A blast of chilly wind whipped her auburn hair across her eyes and prompted her to zip her fleece jacket and tug the collar around her neck. They’d started three hours ago with a perfect April morning, but now clouds towered overhead, dragging their dark shadows across the mountain that rose on one side of the road.
The silver-haired bus driver gestured to hurry his tardy passenger. After a moment, seventeen-year-old Megan Beecher emerged from the bus. Clutching a plastic trash bag in one hand, she dangled her litter spike from the other so that it banged against the steps as she descended. While the other kids disturbed the peace with a chorus of some abominable rap song, Megan’s pale face remained expressionless, her blue eyes blank.
“Are you okay?” Rachel laid a hand on her shoulder. Megan was a slight girl, several inches shorter than Rachel, and she’d lost so much weight in the last month that Rachel could feel her bones through her sweater. “I’ll drive you home right now if you’re ready to quit.”
Megan shook her head without meeting Rachel’s gaze. A long blond strand had worked loose from her hair band and fallen forward over one eye, but she seemed not to notice. Rachel almost raised a hand to tuck it back into place but caught herself in time to suppress the urge.
Why had she pushed the girl to join the litter cleanup? Megan, who planned to become a veterinarian, wanted to go to her Saturday morning job at Rachel’s animal hospital as usual, but Rachel had insisted that she get outdoors and take part in the annual civics project with other Mason County High School students. She’d seemed okay when they started, but she’d been fading all morning. Now, at their third stop, she had retreated so far into herself that she barely seemed aware of her surroundings.
As Rachel and Megan caught up, Tom halted and faced the group. Even when he was out of his deputy sheriff’s uniform and dressed in old jeans and a worn denim jacket, he looked like a cop, confident and authoritative. The boys treated him with respect. The girls, though…Rachel hadn’t missed the way they ran their eyes over Tom’s six-feet-plus of lean muscle, his strong features and olive skin, his thick black hair. He was trying so damned hard to ignore their flirtatious looks and smiles that Rachel didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. If he had the vanity to match his looks, she thought, he would be impossible to live with.
Tom waved a hand at the trash-strewn ravine that dropped down from the road. “Let’s see who can fill up a bag first before the rain starts. The winner gets a free burger for lunch.”
“What, no fries?” a gangly, freckle-faced boy asked. He flapped his trash bag until it caught the breeze and inflated like a balloon. “And how about something to drink?”
Tom laughed. “Negotiated like the son of a lawyer, Ansel. Okay, a free burger with fries and the drink of your choice.”
All the kids except Megan swarmed down the slope, whooping and yelling as they slid and stumbled, alternately using their poles for balance and for spearing trash they spotted on the way.
“Don’t they ever get tired?” Rachel said to Tom. She’d begun to think longingly of lunch and a place to sit down while she ate. “I hope all this exercise counteracts the cholesterol overload they’re headed for at lunchtime.”
“What, you don’t think they’d be eating junk without my encouragement?” They both watched Megan begin a slow descent, placing her feet with care and using her spike to steady herself. “Poor kid,” Tom said. “I thought this outing might do her some good.”