Murder in the Aisles

Murderous intent is no match for killer intellect accessorized with stiletto heels.

A Felicia Swift Mystery
, Book 1

If there's one thing Felicia Swift likes more than sex, it's books. But her dream job at the Library of Congress takes a macabre turn when she finds a linguistics specialist lying dead between his least favorite subjects: Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Worse, the utterly sexy detective seems to have his eyes on Felicia's curves more than the evidence, which she is convinced points at the wrong man. And she plans to convince him of just that—right after he buys her an apple martini.

Mark Rizzo plans to wrap up this investigation as quickly as possible. Until he realizes the witness isn't some dumpy, wizened librarian, but a researcher with endless legs, bottomless intellect, and a bulldog determination to complicate this open-and-shut case all to hell.

As Felicia and Rizzo dig closer to the truth, the real culprit gets jittery enough to try something desperate. Leaving Felicia to wonder if their investigation will lead them down the aisle of no return.

Warning: Contains a jaded detective with more scuffs, scrapes, and scars than a well-loved pair of Timberlands. Plus a more fashion-forward (and probably better smelling) sleuth than Sherlock Holmes who's as picky about her lovers as she is about her shoes—and make no mistake, she's had plenty of both.

Murder in the Aisles

Olivia Hill

Dedication

This novel is lovingly dedicated to my beloved friend, confidante and mentor, Gwynne Forster, whom I miss each and every day.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Latoya Smith for believing in this project, and her insight into making this story as strong as possible to bring to the readers. Thank you so much!

To my readers who know me as Donna Hill, what can I say? Thank you for the years of love and support in all of my various writing endeavors. Without each of you I would have stacks of paper collecting dust! I do hope that you will enjoy meeting my latest heroine, the brilliant and quirky Felicia Swift. After having worked for the Queens Library system for ten years, many often said I should write a book about a library. Who knew that it would be about murder and mayhem? Now, as I take on a new character and a new genre, I'm also taking on a new name to go along with it—Olivia Hill. Finally, here it is:
Murder in the Aisles
. What makes this book extra special is that it will be the culminating project in my twenty-fifth year of being a published author.
Murder in the Aisles
will have a special place of honor on my shelves.

I love to hear from readers. You can find me on my website,
donnahill.com
, on Facebook at
facebook.com/donnahillwriter
and
facebook.com/donnahillfans
, as well as on Twitter,
@donnahill
.

Until next time!

Donna

Chapter One

Felicia Swift sauntered across the hardwood floors of her Dupont Circle townhouse naked as the day she was born and peeked out between the slates of the bronze-toned vertical blinds. The nation's capital was covered in a soft overlay of white. Swirls of snow danced through the air, captured for an instant in the beams of light from the sparse early dawn traffic. She sighed with a twinge of annoyance. No high heels today. One thing Felicia truly admired about her body was her long, dancer's legs. And she used every opportunity to show them off. “Boots,” she muttered.

Her nipples rose to attention from the arctic air that pushed against the frosty windowpane, even as her warm breath made small circles of mist that quickly disappeared.

The blinds fell back in place with a little snap, the state of the weather now dismissed in her organized, analytical mind as she began her morning ritual.

Felicia headed toward the bathroom for a shower. Ten minutes hot, two minutes cold. It kept her skin supple and firm, just the way she liked it. While she let the shower run to the perfect temperature, she applied her imported facial scrub, allowing the billowing steam to open her pores. After her shower of exactly twelve minutes, she lightly toweled off her body, then air-dried before applying skin cream, rubbing it deep into her copper-colored skin.

She checked the waterproof Swartz clock that hung in the bathroom next to the vanity fit for a film star. Six-fifteen. Time to wake up Blake, which would give him precisely one half hour to get himself together and out by six-forty-five. Then she could sit down with her cup of herbal tea and watch the news undisturbed while she dressed for work.

With no more on than the lotion coating her body and a winter-white towel wrapped around her auburn curls she stood, all five-foot-ten inches of her, above the bed where Blake dozed contentedly. She puckered her lips in thought, her right hand planted on the dip in her waist. He was definitely good in bed, which was the main reason that she kept him around. Not bad to look at either. But beyond the physical gymnastics that they engaged in and the kinky games they played, to Felicia, Blake Lewis was only a means to satisfy her physical needs. It could never be more than it was for a laundry list of reasons.

You see, Felicia Swift was not only beautiful, she was brilliant. At the tender age of thirty-two, she held three master's degrees: one in astrophysics, a second in forensic anthropology. A Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Vassar College, Felicia's mind ran with the precision of the Swiss clocks that dotted her upscale abode. She was almost perfect. Almost. Everything came with a price.

Upon first inspection, one would quickly assume that Felicia was simply stunning and no more. Initial conversations may lead some to believe that she was smug and aloof. In reality Felicia was quite shy when it came to interacting with the world. She learned early in life that her level of genius frightened most people—especially her parents. Men were put off by her topics of conversation, which for the most part went clean over their heads. Women invariably disliked her on sight, her beauty reminding them of what they lacked.

So Felicia, with good reason and understanding all too well the foibles of human relations, kept mostly to herself, downplayed her intellect and surrounded herself with the one thing she loved as much as sex—
books
. She was a collector of books—first edition books—on any and every subject that struck her fancy, which was vast. There was one whole bedroom of her three-bedroom duplex dedicated solely to her collection of books.

The bookshelves rose to the cathedral ceiling and wrapped around the entire space, hugging the stark white walls like a gentle lover. Every book was catalogued and alphabetized for easy access, a skill she'd learned in library school. Her third degree was a Master of Library Science. Her profession: Senior Research Librarian at the Library of Congress, the largest repository of books in the world.

She checked her watch, then reached down and shook Blake's shoulder. He burrowed deeper beneath the thick down comforter and muttered something unintelligible. Undeterred, Felicia shook him again, harder this time.

Blake flipped the blanket down and away from his face, then looked up with bleary eyes. He blinked several times as Felicia came into focus. A slow smile moved across his mouth, a mouth that had done wonderful things to her body the night before. He licked his lips.

“Mornin' beautiful,” he said, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Rise and shine.”

“Already? It's still dark outside.”

“It always is this time of morning in the winter.”

“Why don't you come back to bed? I don't have to be on the floor until ten.” He grinned. “We can pick up where we left off last night. Or was that this morning?”

Her stiff stance wavered for a millisecond. She couldn't deter from her schedule. Whenever she did, she was disoriented for the entire day and things simply went down the tubes from there. Her body, like her mind, was conditioned to a certain ritual, which she followed like a religion.

“You really must get up and get dressed.” She could almost hear the seconds ticking away.

Blake's hand snaked out from beneath the covers and cupped her sex. Before Felicia could react, his middle finger pushed up inside her. Her thighs weakened and spread through pure instinct. Her eyes fluttered closed and she sucked in air when his thumb brushed back and forth across her still-swollen clit.

Books and sex. There was nothing like the feel of pages beneath her fingers or the smell of an antique book beneath her nose. Except for sex. The file cabinets in her mind burst open, the contents spilling forth in chaotic disarray. Her thoughts short-circuited as Blake grabbed her ass with his free hand and pulled her closer. She rode his finger with wild abandon, her hips moving in the winding rhythm of a Caribbean dancer high on reggae.

Blake kicked the covers aside, his member rock hard and pointing toward heaven. Without losing a beat he slowly got up, shifted their positions until the backs of Felicia's knees brushed the bed. They stood face-to-face, with his fingers buried deep inside her, the pace and pressure increasing.

Felicia trembled all over. She cupped her right breast in her hand, offered it up and he sucked it in like a greedy child. She arched her back in delight. He guided her down onto the bed.

“Hurry,” she groaned as she widened her legs.

As if she weighed no more than a loaf of bread, Blake flipped her onto her stomach, reached under her belly and pulled her lush rear end upward. Her face was buried in the overstuffed comforter—the better to muffle her screams of elation as Blake entered her from behind as far in as the law and gravity allowed.

Felicia met him stroke for stroke, grinding and rotating her hips, desperately seeking release.

Blake reached around her and between her legs, parted her wet lips with his fingers until her clit was fully exposed. He took it between two fingers and gently squeezed as he pushed hard, practically lifting her off the bed.

Bright light flashed behind her lids. Her body convulsed and shook as if electrified. An animal-like sound rose from her toes and burst from between her parted mouth, filling the room to mix with Blake's raw and ragged groan.

They collapsed atop the covers, panting, shaking and totally satiated.

* * * * *

Now she was late, totally off her schedule. She'd had to take another shower and literally push Blake out of the door. Instead of leisurely drinking her morning cup of tea in front of the television, she was sipping from a mug as she maneuvered along the snow-laden roadways in her Lincoln Navigator en route to work.

True, she loved sex but preferred it not be in the morning to interrupt her schedule. She shook her head, annoyed at her own weakness of the flesh even as her body still tingled from the afterglow. She made a mental note to herself:
No overnight guests during the work week
even as she noticed the new barricades along Pennsylvania Avenue and the extra patrols on the near-deserted streets—all in preparation for the presidential inauguration that was little more than three weeks away. The city would be on high alert, she mused absently, red, orange, yellow, she could no longer be sure.

Her office building loomed ahead. Felicia did a quick inventory of what she needed to take care of for the day. One of her major tasks was working with Dr. Dresden. He was in the midst of preparing a paper on an ancient Egyptian language and Felicia was in charge of the research. She truly loved her job. She was always fascinated by the wealth of knowledge that could be found on the pages of a book, researching the origins of its contents and presenting new information to the world.

She checked the clock on her dashboard. All things considered, she was close to schedule. She was always the first to arrive, turn on the lights and boot up the computers. As she'd watch the lights come on one by one illuminating the massive shelves, there was a singular thrill in the whole act, as if she alone had the power to impart knowledge to the world. Her heart would race, her panties grew damp and the pulse between her legs beat like a tiny drum. She got a little shiver just thinking about it and wondering what treasure she would uncover today.

She parked her Navigator in the employee parking lot behind the Jefferson building, waved to the guard on duty and headed for the back employee entrance. A bitter cold gust of snow and wind slashed around her. She drew her full-length black mink coat tighter around her body and wished for the zillionth time that the city would finally build underground parking for the employees.

Felicia pushed through the glass and chrome doors, took her access card from her Kate Spade purse to gain entry beyond the foyer and proceeded toward the security check-in spot. Passing through the unmanned post, she walked down the long corridor, took the stairs to the first floor to her office. Her footfalls echoed hollowly off the cavernous walls and mammoth ceilings to rejoin her along her route.

She opened her office door, slipped out of her coat and deposited her purse on the desk. Quickly she discarded her boots and replaced them with a pair of three-inch black patent leather Christian Louboutin heels. She tugged on the hem of her lush emerald green suit jacket, then went directly to the control panel in the adjoining room. One by one she deactivated the alarms, turned on the lights and booted up the computers.

As was her usual morning practice upon arriving for work, she took a quick tour of the aisles on the ground floor and reading rooms to be sure there were no stray book carts left out from the night before and books that needed to be put back onto the shelves.

She checked her watch and frowned. Instead of her usual half hour of uninterrupted wanderings, she had a mere twenty minutes before the first wave of staff members began to arrive. She hurried to the first floor and did a double take when she came upon the Gallery. Frowning, she stopped short. She peered down the aisle at what appeared to be a bundle of clothing. Thoroughly annoyed that the cleaning staff could have been so careless, she marched down the aisle ready to kick some ass and take names. How dare they defile her aisles!

Blinking rapidly, she moved forward. Her heart hammered in her chest. As she grew closer, the image began to clear. The bundle of discarded clothes had a shape and wore shoes. Cautiously she bent down, reached out and turned the lump over.

Dr. Dresden
. His blue eyes were wide open, staring right at her or rather through her. He was as dead as a doornail.

Slowly, Felicia stood, listening for any sounds, careful not to disturb anything. She heard nothing but her own racing heartbeat and the gentle buzz of the fluorescent lights. Christ, was the killer still in the building? Panic gripped her. She was virtually alone. She looked down at the body of her colleague and the oddest, most irrational thought crossed her mind: This is what happens when you have sex in the morning.

She brushed her damp hands on her skirt and ran back to her office to call the police.