BooksBarbecue
Back The Sorority Murder Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Twenty-Three
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. Thirty
  38. Thirty-One
  39. Thirty-Two
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. Thirty-Six
  45. Thirty-Seven
  46. Thirty-Eight
  47. From the Journal of Candace Swain
  48. Thirty-Nine
  49. Forty
  50. Forty-One
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Letter Found in the Journal of Candace Swain
  58. Forty-Eight
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Booklist
  61. Excerpt

Tommy Granger awoke with a start, the remnants of a disturbing dream fading as he struggled under his twisted, sweat-soaked sheets. As it was with most nightmares—at least for him—he didn’t remember details. A vague sense that he’d been at the office, but Regan was still a marshal. They were suited up in full gear, preparing to track a fugitive, but as dreams were tricky, he was then alone in the woods at night, deep in the Shenandoah National Park, tracking a predator who was elusive and dangerous, his heart racing, pounding, an unfamiliar feeling because his training taught him to keep his fear in check.

The break of a branch behind him and he was awake, not knowing if the sound was in his head or in his yard.

He fought to untangle himself from his bedding as he sat up, rubbing his bare feet on thick carpet, grounding himself. The panic was brief, fleeting. Training and control were hard to break, even in a deep sleep.

The faint numbers of his bedside clock told him it was 4:51 a.m. His alarm was set for 5:30, but he always woke a few minutes before then, as if his body was trained to anticipate the irritating buzz. He hit the off button; he had a busy day.

He was finally prepared to share with his office his off-book investigation into the murder of Chase Warwick.

It was all about money, Tommy thought with disgust as he pushed himself out of bed. Money and greed and what corrupt men were willing to do to keep their secrets buried. The killer may have been apprehended, but Adam Hannigan’s motives had never sat well with Tommy. And then Hannigan was dead and the case closed.

He paused at his bedroom window. The air was still, but he couldn’t get the sound of a cracking branch out of his mind. It had sounded crisp, sharp. Real. But he saw nothing out front, no jogger, no passing car, still too early for Mrs. Benson down the street to be walking her friendly golden retrievers or for Richie Luna, his neighbor to the east, to leave for work—though he noted the faint light in the kitchen, signaling that Richie, like Tommy, was an early riser.

Dreams and nightmares were deceiving, which was why he was having a hard time shaking this one.

The hot water cleared the remnants of fog from his brain. He shaved, dressed, the morning ritual comforting. Downstairs, he brewed a pot of coffee and stared out at the large kitchen window into the side yard, running through his head how he was going to lay out the case to Charlie and then his boss.