Death in the Family
Contents ( 37)
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- About the Author
- What’s next on your reading list?
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2020 by Tessa Wegert
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wegert, Tessa, author.
Title: Death in the family / Tessa Wegert.
Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2020. | Series: A Shana Merchant novel; book 1
Identifiers: LCCN 2019026827 | ISBN 9780593097892 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593097908 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3623.E422656 D43 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026827
First Edition: February 2020
Cover art: Isle with house on lake © Michael Trevillion
Cover design by Judith Lagerman
Title page photograph: Shutterstock/Sarah Mika
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For my family, who gave this story life
Acknowledgments
There are many brilliant and generous people without whom this book would not exist, and while I can’t name them all here, I hold them in my heart. Thank you, Marlene Stringer and Grace House, for your inestimable contributions, and for loving this story as much as I do. To Sheriff Colleen O’Neill, thank you for allowing me to pick your brain about life as a BCI senior investigator. Thank you to Martin Karlow, Dorinda Bonanno, and Michelle Sowden for reading, and also to John and Carol Repsher, for introducing me to the Thousand Islands all those years ago. To Karl, Leila, and Karel Wegert, your encouragement means more to me than I could ever express. Finally, thank you to Remi and Schafer for your boundless enthusiasm (never give up!), and above all, to Grant. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
About the Author
PROLOGUE
It was late September, the kind of morning that turns orange when you close your eyes, weather so sweet everyone on the sidewalk gulps fresh air like kids drinking soda. I got off the subway at Woodhaven Boulevard eager for my share, but as I made my way up the avenue it wasn’t the incandescent day I saw but weeds pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalk, ugly blotches where spilled coffee defaced the pavement. In spite of its flaws, Queens was drenched in autumn beauty.