Bad Bones (Claire Morgan) (39 page)

Linda Ladd
is the bestselling author of over a dozen novels.
Remember Murder
marks her exciting return to the Claire Morgan series. Linda makes her home in Missouri, where she is at work on her next novel featuring Claire Morgan.

 

Visit her on the web at
www.lindaladd.com
.

She can’t remember why he chose her—or what he did to her.
But Detective Claire Morgan knows that something terrible
happened to her the night a deranged serial killer
escaped from the mental ward. Looking for pleasure.
Looking for pain. Looking for her . . .

 

Recovering in a lakeside resort, Claire hopes to sort through her
broken memories. But after suffering a temporary coma she can
barely remember her own lover, psychiatrist Nicholas Black.
Would she be able to recognize her abductor if she saw him again?
If he came back for more . . . ?

 

If only she could remember his face or his voice . . .
if only she could comprehend the evil in his mind
or the depths of his cruelty . . . if only she knew
just how close he is—to her and everyone she loves . . .

After moving from Los Angeles to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri,
homicide detective Claire Morgan has at last adjusted to the peaceful
rhythms of rural life. Until a grisly celebrity murder at an ultra-
exclusive “wellness” resort shatters a quiet summer morning . . .

 

One of Dr. Nicholas Black’s high-profile clients, a beautiful young
soap opera star, has been found dead, taped to a chair at a fully set
table . . . submerged in the lake. Back in L.A., Claire investigated
the rich, famous, and the deadly—but she never expected the problems
of the privileged to follow her to this sleepy small town. Just as she
never imagined crossing the line with her prime suspect . . .

 

Immersed in the case, Claire finds herself drawn to the charismatic
doctor, spending more and more time in his company—and in his bed.
Now, to catch a killer, Claire will have to enter the darkest recesses
of the human mind. But is Black leading her there to help her . . .
or luring her ever deeper into a madman’s grip?

Missouri detective Claire Morgan is eager to get back to work
after recuperating from injuries sustained on her last job.
But the missing persons case that welcomes her home in the
dead of winter soon turns more twisted and treacherous than
Lake of the Ozarks’ icy mountain roads . . .

 

The man’s body is found suspended from a tree overlooking
a local school. He is bleeding from the head, still alive—but not
for long. Someone wanted Professor Simon Classon to suffer
as much as possible before he died, making sure the victim had
a perfect view of his colleagues and students on the campus below
as he succumbed to the slow-working poison in his veins . . .

 

Frigid temperatures and punishing snows only make the
investigation more difficult. And then the death threats begin—
unnerving incidents orchestrated to send Claire a deadly message.
Now, as she edges closer to the truth,
Claire risks becoming entangled in a maniac’s web—
and the stuff of her own worst nightmares . . .

Hilde Swensen is a beauty pageant queen with a face to die for
and a body to kill for. But by the time Detective Claire Morgan
finds her in a shower stall—posed like a grotesquely grinning doll—
Hilde is anything but pretty. She’s the victim of a sick,
deranged killer. And she won’t be the last . . .

 

Brianna Swensen is the beauty queen’s sister—and the girlfriend
of Claire’s partner, Bud. She tells Claire that Hilde had plenty of
enemies, including a creepy stalker, an abusive ex-boyfriend,
and a slew of jealous competitors. But what she doesn’t say
is that they both shared a dark disturbing secret.
A secret that refuses to die . . .

 

From the after-hours parties of a sinister funeral home to the
underworld vendettas of the Miami mob, Claire follows the trail
with her lover Nicholas Black, a psychiatrist with secrets of his own.
But it’s not until she uncovers evidence of unspeakable acts
of depravity that Claire realizes she’s just become
a diabolical killer’s next target . . .

His doctors are the best in the world, his father one of the most
powerful men in the state. But they couldn’t stop Mikey from
succumbing to his darkest demons—the ones inside his head.
The ones who told him it was time to end it all.

 

It should have been an open-and-shut case, especially since
detective Claire Morgan’s lover, Dr. Nicholas Black, recognized
Mikey as a troubled former patient. Then Claire finds another
body in Mikey’s home. Curled inside an oven, charred beyond
recognition, the method of murder mind-boggling . . .

 

Claire’s only lead is a beaded bracelet, believed to ward off
the “evil eye,” around each victim’s wrist. But by the time she
discovers what the dead were afraid of, she’s trapped in a mind
game of her own—with a brilliant sadistic killer. And this time,
there’s a method to the madness . . .

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

 

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New York, NY 10018

 

Copyright © 2014 Linda Ladd

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

eKENSINGTON is a trademark of the Kensington Publishing Corp.
KENSINGTON and the k logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

 

First electronic edition: September 2014

ISBN: 978-1-6018-3052-4

 

ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-328-0
ISBN-10: 1-60183-328-8