SNEAK PEEK! Lust, Money & Murder Book 10, "Black Widow"

Setting: Eastern Europe's first diamond-cutting factory, located near Dubrovnik, Croatia

After Elaine had waited only a couple of minutes, she saw Giorgio Cattoretti appear behind the glass of the security desk. There was a warm smile on his face, his one uncovered eye gazing out at her with obvious pleasure. He was dressed in an expensive-looking Italian suit, a red pocket handkerchief providing a splash of color. He straightened his tie as one the guards buzzed him out into the lobby.

Before he could open his mouth, Elaine said, “Mr. Cattoretti, I’m Jenny Johnson,” and thrust out her hand. He looked a little surprised as he shook it. “We met at the trade show in Antwerp—we talked briefly about distribution in America? Do you remember me?”

“Uh, yes, I remember,” he said, glancing at the guard who was watching them.

“Since I happened to be in Croatia, I would like take a tour of your facility, but maybe we could talk afterwards? If you have a few minutes, that is...”

Another man emerged from the security office with a basket in his hand—it was filled with visitor’s passes. He stepped over to the group of tourists. “Welcome to Fontanella Gemstones, ladies and gentlemen!” he said in a cultured sounding Slavic accent. “My name is Josep and I will be your tour guide. Please attach visitor’s passes to your clothing...”

Giorgio said to Elaine, “You really want to take the tour?” Before she could answer, he stepped over to Josep and whispered something in his ear.

The young man turned back to the crowd. “Well, guess what, ladies and gentleman, it is your luckiest day! Our esteemed director, Mister Cattoretti, will be conducting you the tour!”

* * *

Elaine hadn’t really wanted to take the tour—she didn’t have the time—but Giorgio seemed excited about showing off his latest venture. She hung back in the crowd as he led the group through a secure door and into the next room. In the center was a table with a half dozen huge diamonds on it, which, chuckling, he quickly pointed out were merely glass models.

As soon as the group had arranged themselves around the table, he began explaining the process of diamond cutting—sawing, bruting, blocking, and polishing—pausing to define the more technical terms using the glass models of the diamonds as aids. Elaine enjoyed watching him, and marveled at his confidence and enthusiasm—he had obviously become quite an expert on the subject of diamond-cutting, having set up this factory from scratch.

She glanced curiously at the faces of the tourists, who didn’t know quite what to make of this impressive man, with his roguish-looking eye patch and elegant suit. She wondered how they would react if they found out that their sophisticated and articulate host was one of the world’s most sought-after crooks, wanted not only for murder, but for currency counterfeiting, extortion, and a host of other serious crimes. He’d even been designated as a terrorist under an alias. And what would these people think if they knew that his missing eye had been stabbed out with a letter opener by the quiet blonde in the back of the group, dressed in the conservative business suit,

After the preliminary lecture, Giorgio led the group down a long hallway with large windows running along both sides. Dozens of workers sat at shiny, complicated-looking machines, cutting and polishing, many of them gazing through magnifiers or watching video images of the stones in process.

“We use the world’s most advanced laser cutting equipment here,” Giorgio explained, “but the craft of diamond cutting is as much an art as it is a science. When we set up the factory, we hired the best in India to come train our people, some of them third generation cutters.”

As he walked along the window, he nodded and smiled to the workers. It reminded her of the fateful day when Giorgio gave her a tour of his secret knock-off clothing design operation that was hidden in the basement of his DayPrinto company, in Milan. Elaine could not help admiring Giorgio Cattoretti—the man was the quintessential Machiavellian leader. From the telltale looks in his employees’ eyes and their careful smiles, she could tell that his employees loved him, respected, and feared him in equal measure.

The group turned a corner and The Cat stopped in front of a woman who was operating a bruting machine. Elaine had learned that the machine shaped diamonds into round forms for cutting the facets by rubbing two diamonds together over a period of many hours. “If you look closely,” Giorgio said, “you’ll see that she’s bruting two pink diamonds. Pinks are the most valuable diamonds in the world.” Giving Elaine a subtle glance, he proudly said, “Most pinks come from Australia, but we’re in the fortunate position of getting most of ours from a recently discovered mine.” He smiled indulgently. “They have a very special brilliance.”

Lust, Money & Murder, Book 10 "Black Widow" will be released on April 5th, 2017. Pre-order links for Kindle, iBooks, Google Play, Nook, Kobo and Smashwords here. 

SNEAK PEEK! Lust, Money & Murder Book 10, "Black Widow"

Setting: the close of a job interview in London

With little enthusiasm, Spyro Leandrou said, “Well, if I decide to make you an offer, we can discuss it.” He uncrossed his arms and put his hands flat on the table.

Elaine willed herself not to look at his prosthetic hand.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. I just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed meeting you, Mister Leandrou, and I hope you’ll seriously consider—”

“Oh, come on!”

Elaine blinked. “Excuse me?”

He raised the prosthetic hand in the air, the gaps in the joints clearly visible. “I know you noticed this—how could you not notice it?”

Now Elaine felt uncomfortable, but she allowed herself to focus her eyes on the hand, the mechanical fingers. “Yes I did.”

He rotated his wrist so that it was palm up. The fingers started slowly moving, one by one, making a soft whirring sound. “Kind of creepy, huh?”

It was. But Elaine didn’t respond.

“I lost my hand a long time ago, stupidly, when I was a young man.” With his left hand, he pulled up his shirt and jacket sleeves, revealing the interface where his forearm ended and the bionic device began. “There are sensors in the nerves of my arm muscles that tell the motors what to do. Every time there’s a major leap forward in prosthetic technology, I upgrade to the latest and greatest. It took a lot of practice to learn how to use this one.”

He rotated the mechanical hand again, palm down, which looked robotic, and extended the index with more whirring noises. “I can type, hold a mouse or a pen—this one can do just about anything a real human hand can do. And it’s a hundred times as strong.” He grinned. “Watch this.”

He reached across the table, set the hand down beside Elaine’s empty water glass, and—with more soft whirring—the fingers began to curl around it, covering the thick base. Now Elaine could see that imbedded in the pads of the fingers, and at several contact points on the palm, there were flat spots made of metal that were flesh-colored and had squiggly indentations, like fingerprints, for gripping. “The only problem is, it’s tricky to do certain things—it’s hard to tell exactly how much pressure I’m exerting.”

He slid the glass to the middle of the table. The whirring increased in volume and pitch as the fingers clenched the heavy crystal glass tighter and tighter.

Elaine jumped as the first crack appeared in the side.

The fingers continued to tighten, with more and more force, as more cracks appeared. Suddenly the middle of the glass shattered all the way up to the mechanical thumb, with the top of the glass still intact—that piece flipped over onto the table upside down, like a little crystal crown, the jagged edges upright.

The robotic fingers continued to tighten, the whirring sound getting more and more intense...and to Elaine’s surprise, she saw that he was not looking at the disintegrating glass, but at her face. More shards fell away from the glass until there was nothing left but the very bottom, the heavy, disk-like base. That piece cracked several more times until there was nothing visible, just glass fragment and dust falling from completely clenched fist.

“The nice thing is,” he said casually, the fingers now unfurling, whirring more loudly, a few more small pieces shards falling from it, “you don’t have to worry about cutting yourself.”

With his left hand, he reached beside the table and pulled a small trash can up to the edge. He began sweeping the pulverized pile of glass into it somewhat clumsily, moving his arm from the shoulder and elbow, the hand itself now dormant.

When he finished, he gingerly brushed off the prosthetic hand over the trash can, blew on it a few times, inspecting it almost lovingly, she thought, until he was satisfied all the glass fragments were gone.

He looked at Elaine and smiled. “Good as new.”

She swallowed.

Lust, Money & Murder, Book 10 "Black Widow" will be released on April 5th, 2017. Pre-order links for Kindle, iBooks, Google Play, Nook, Kobo and Smashwords here.

SNEAK PEEK! Lust, Money & Murder Book 10, "Black Widow"

Setting: Nea Kameni Island, a volcanic island near Santorini, Greece

Kathy, Gwen and Alexander were climbing the steep gravel and shingle path that led up the side of the caldera. The wind had increased, and Kathy soon felt the thump of raindrops on her parka and she pulled up the hood.

Gwen and Alexander did the same.

Surprisingly, the boy did not seem the least bit bored. He cried, “Look at those rocks!” when he saw that their color was beginning to change from black to a deep red. “They look like they’re hot!” Kathy and Gwen both stopped and watched him picked one up, looking disappointed that the wet volcanic stone felt like an ordinary rock, moist from the rain.

As they continued to climb, Kathy began to spout off her memorized technical spiel about the origin of the volcanoes, the eruptions on the nearby islands, and the history of Nea Kameni.

“The island we’re standing on right now didn’t even appear until 1707. It just rose up out of the sea, over a four year period, while Palia Kameni was erupting.”

“Really?” Alexander said doubtfully.

“Absolutely. When Skaros Castle was still standing on Santorini, there was a strong earthquake, and the next day people could see this new island slowly rising up out of the water.”

“Wow,” Alexander said. He glanced out over the crater and across the water at the island that was his home.

“At first, the people on Santorini didn’t even know what it was—they thought it was a shipwreck. They came over by boat to investigate, and they discovered black lava, pumice and sea creatures on the rock that were still alive. It kept on rising until it reached the height it is now, one hundred and six meters above sea level. The last time the volcano actually erupted was in 1950.”

Gwen looked impressed. “You sure know a lot about this.”

Kathy shrugged modestly. “It’s just a bunch of stuff I’ve read over the years.”

* * *

A few minutes later, when they reached the very top of the crater, the storm finally hit.

The rain came down harder than Kathy had anticipated, but from experience, she didn’t think it would last long.

The three of them huddled among some boulders that were scattered just along the beginning of the dangerous portion of the gravel path, the left-hand side sheering off into oblivion.

After a few minutes, the rain slowed and quickly dissipated into little more than a sprinkle.

When the sun appeared, Alexander threw back his hood and looked down the path.

“I’m going to the top!” he cried, and he scampered up the gravel path before Kathy or Gwen could stop him.

“Stay to the right!” Kathy yelled, her heart in her throat. But in a matter of seconds he was past the dangerous section, scurrying higher up the rim.

Gwen looked scared.

“It’s okay,” Kathy said. “This is the only place there’s any chance of slipping—the rest of the circuit around the crater is completely flat.

The two of them continued along, Kathy leading the way, making sure to stay to the right. The rain had loosened the rocks and made them more slippery than usual.

“Look, there’s a rainbow!” Alexander cried.

Kathy and Gwen both turned around. Sure enough, there was a band of blue and orange and yellow coming out of the clouds that appeared to touch the water in between the two islands.

Alexander continued on along the ridge, disappearing over the next rise.

Just as they reached the end of the tricky section, Kathy noticed that Gwen had stopped behind her.

She edged over to the left a little farther—the best views of the crater were from there.

Kathy swallowed. Gwen’s back was to her, only three feet away.

“It’s so beautiful,” Gwen said, inching a little farther out.

Now Kathy’s heart was pounding. She turned her head slowly to the right...Alexander had disappeared over the rise. And to the left, the pier and tavern were not visible, blocked by the other side of the crater.

The only people might be able to see them were those on Santorini, which was over a mile away. Spyro had a telescope in his bedroom, but the chances of him looking across the sea at this exact spot, at this exact moment, were slim. She and Kathy would appear nothing more than two little yellow specs.

All she had to do was take one step towards Gwen and thrust out both arms...the young woman would fly over the edge, turning end over end, and hit the rocks one hundred feet below.

The stars have all lined up perfectly for this moment, Kathy thought.

God is telling me to do this.

It was the only way to escape from the misery she was trapped in now...

No one could survive that fall.

No one.

With her throat completely dry, she inched a half step closer to Gwen.

Lust, Money & Murder, Book 10 "Black Widow" will be released on April 5th, 2017. Pre-order links for Kindle, iBooks, Google Play, Nook, Kobo and Smashwords here.