Killer Heat. Brenda Novak

      To Gail, one of my new B.F.F.s. You’re a generous soul.

      May all your good karma come back to you….

      Dear Reader,

      Not long ago I was invited to speak in front of a writers’ group in Prescott, Arizona. Because I love Arizona, I accepted. I also agreed to stay with one of the group’s members so they wouldn’t have to put me up in a motel.

      Once I arrived, I learned that this member didn’t actually live in Prescott, where I’d be speaking. She lived in a place called Skull Valley. I didn’t recognize the name so I had no idea it would be remote. I was driven into the desert and sheltered in this wonderful woman’s guesthouse, but she was a stranger to me at that time and I arrived in the middle of the night, already disoriented as to where, exactly, I was. The main house, which I visited briefly, didn’t feel very close to the guesthouse (which they had to drive me to). If you’ve read any of my suspense books, you know I can have a rather dark imagination. That night the wind blew constantly, rattling the door on the screened porch. It sounded just like someone trying to break in. I lay awake listening and feeling very vulnerable because there was no phone service, internet—or even cellular coverage. I was completely cut off in a strange and lonely place. What would I do if something terrible were to happen to me? I didn’t even know which direction to run should I need help—I could easily have ended up wandering lost in the desert.

      Needless to say, that proved to be a very long night, especially when I began spinning a story in my head about the bones of several murdered women being found not far from where I was staying. I tried not to allow such ideas to flow, but the setting was just too perfect. A serial killer began to take shape in my mind…the serial killer in this book. So as you read, think of me huddled alone beneath the covers of a stranger’s bed on a cold night in January, somewhere in the middle of the desert, without so much as a cell phone….

      I’d like to extend a special thank-you to Vincent J. Abbatiello and his wife, Jill (Jillsy to her friends) Abbatiello, a lovely couple who live on the gold coast of Long Island and winter in Palm Beach and St. Thomas. Vince is a periodontist and implant surgeon who graduated from Harvard Dental School. Jillsy is an active fundraiser for various charities who loves her show horses and two Maltese, Maxie and Suzzie. You’ll see Jill and Vince’s names pop up in this novel as characters, a privilege they purchased to help me raise money to fight diabetes.

      I love to hear from my readers. Please snail mail me at P.O. Box 3781, Citrus Heights, CA, 95611 or visit me on the web at www.brendanovak.com, where you can read about my other books, enter various drawings, sign up for my newsletter, download a free 3-D screensaver (that moves), or check out the results of my latest online auction for diabetes research (something I hold every May on my website). To date, my donors, shoppers and I have raised more than $1 million!

      Here’s to love and to life!

      Brenda

      “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

      —Carrie Fisher, American writer and actress

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Epilogue

      1

      Francesca Moretti thought she couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing. So much junk cluttered the salvage yard that it could be any number of things, right? She wasn’t that close. And it was wrapped in a painter’s tarp and partially hidden behind some wood pallets, sawhorses and stacks of roofing material. But the longer she examined the size and dimensions of that shape, the more convinced she became. It was a human body.

      Filled with revulsion, she shrank back into the shade of the closest outbuilding. The blazing July sun, bouncing off the sea of car carcasses, bent bicycle frames, even obsolete farm equipment, made her feel as if she was trapped in an oven instead of running down a lead on the outskirts of Prescott, Arizona. But it was panic and not heat that threatened to suffocate her.

      Could this really be happening? Again? In her last big case, she’d located what was left of the missing wife and mother she’d been hired to find. The discovery had made national headlines; Janice Grey’s murder probably would’ve gone unsolved without Francesca. She’d provided the missing piece of the puzzle that confirmed a murder had taken place, which allowed investigators to go ahead and prosecute their prime suspect. But that type of thing didn’t happen very often and certainly not to the same private investigator. Francesca had pretty much decided it would