Cover

Also by Andrea Carter

Death at Whitewater Church

Treacherous Strand

The Well of Ice

Murder at Greysbridge

Dedication

For Christopher

Chapter One

I STRETCHED MY arms above my head, stood up, and taking my coffee with me, walked from my desk to the window, if you could call floor-to-ceiling glass a window. It was still early, pink and grey streaks the only traces of a sunrise that had been spectacular earlier on. I gazed out over the city, my eyes moving from downtown on the left, with its mix of high- and low-rise buildings: Morgan Stanley Chase, Bank of America and the Art Ovation Hotel, to the right where I caught a glimpse of the marina with its perfect white yachts moored in gentle rows. The seafront was the pink and blue palette from Miami Vice, below, it was white and green, the green contributed by the ubiquitous Sarasota palm trees, lining the roads, nestling around buildings, lush in car parks.

Palm trees as ubiquitous as Starbucks. I took a sip from my coffee, a huge cardboard cup of the stuff from the café on the ground floor. I was getting a worrying taste for it. Tony from the Oak would be appalled.

I rested my forehead briefly on the glass. Eight o’clock and I’d been here an hour already. My ninth-floor office was in a prime spot. Blown away at first by the view, I couldn’t stop staring at the city and the water when I’d first arrived, but I’d soon become accustomed to it. Accustomed, also, to the early mornings.

Traffic was heavy, the morning rush hour kicking in properly now, although the triple glazing blocked out all sounds: the huge saloon cars and SUVs, the open-backed trucks with their monster wheels. Everything was super-size in America, not just the coffee. The temperature would be rising too, now that the sun was up – I could see traces of blue in the distance – although the air conditioning created enough of a chill for a suit jacket, blocking out the humidity.

Was that what I’d been doing for the past six months: blocking everything out? Running away to Florida? I’d worked hard, giving me little time to brood. If there was one thing this grudging Irishwoman admired about the Americans, it was that they put the hours in. Ten days holidays a year; the Irish would never stand for it! Nor would any of the other Europeans for that matter. But they got things done, the Americans, and they made money. This trip had been lucrative for me and I’d go home with a nice little nest egg.