Title: DEADLY
IMPLUSE
Author:
Carolyn Arnold
Genre:
Mystery/Thriller, Police Procedurals
Publisher:
Hibbert & Stiles Publishing Inc.
Blurb:
Looks aren’t the only
things that can be deceiving…
When a
sixty-eight-year-old woman is found dead outside the hospital in a wheelchair
with an anti-abortion sign strapped to its back, Detective Madison Knight
expects it to be an open-and-shut case. On the surface, there are no signs of
foul play, but the deeper she digs, the more convoluted the homicide becomes.
And when two more bodies appear, including those of a girl just barely old
enough to drink and a homeless man, the direct links between the three murders
are anything but simple.
Without a
consistent MO, Madison doesn’t buy that a serial killer is on the loose,
despite the conviction with which her ex-fiancé and fellow detective try to
convince their superior. But Madison already has enough to juggle without
having to defend her reputation. Debilitating flashbacks of being held hostage
by the Russian Mafia mere months before haunt her on an almost daily basis, and
the promises she made to herself while in captivity are becoming more and more
difficult to keep. Learning to trust is hard enough without constant reminders
of what destruction—fatal or otherwise—trusting the wrong person can cause.
Now, as both
personal and professional friction within the department mounts, she and her
partner, Terry, must figure out what motivation could span generations to cause
someone to murder these people. But catching this killer is like grasping at
straws, and grabbing the wrong one could mean losing not only her pride but
also her boyfriend, her credibility, and her faith in humanity…
Author Bio:
CAROLYN ARNOLD is the
international best-selling and award-winning author of the Madison Knight,
Brandon Fisher, and McKinley Mystery series. She is the only author with POLICE
PROCEDURALS RESPECTED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT.™
Carolyn was
born in a small town, but that doesn’t keep her from dreaming big. And on par
with her large dreams is her overactive imagination that conjures up killers
and cases to solve. She currently lives in a city near Toronto with her husband
and two beagles, Max and Chelsea. She is also a member of Crime Writers of
Canada.
Connect with
CAROLYN ARNOLD Online:
Buy Links:
Excerpts: (Your Choice)
#1 EXCERPT FROM DEADLY IMPULSE, Chapter 1:
Chapter 1
APPARENTLY
NOT EVEN A DEAD body could stop traffic.
Madison
scanned the three-lane, westbound stream of cars. All of the drivers had
somewhere to be. Even now, only a few braked to gawk at the investigation on
the side of the road.
Squad cars
with flashing lights cordoned off the right lane, and the officers were
diverting traffic over. This was the busiest intersection in Stiles. With a
population of about half a million, seventy-five thousand people passed through
this section every hour. Shopping plazas with franchise restaurants and grocery
stores occupied two of the four corners; the other two had health care
buildings, including one of the city’s three hospitals, the largest of which
was on the northeast side of the intersection.
Peace Liberty
Hospital sat on acres of land with chain-link fencing running its perimeter. It
was outside that fence that the deceased had been found.
Cole
Richards, the medical examiner, was working over the body as Crime Scene Unit
investigators Cynthia Baxter and Mark Andrews were busy taking pictures and
collecting anything that might be evidence.
Cynthia
headed up the crime lab. She was also Madison’s closest friend. Her strong
genetics gave her the sexy librarian look, and she had wielded that power
expertly over men until she got involved with Detective Lou Stanford of the
Stiles PD. Now she was engaged. Three months had passed since the announcement,
and Madison still hardly believed it some days.
Mark was the
only man on the forensics team and the youngest of its four members. Both
elements served to make him the target of blame and teasing. All in good fun,
of course, even if he might not think so at times. He had long, dark hair that
he tied back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. His hairstyle and other
mannerisms had most of his colleagues curious about his sexual preference. To
date, it remained an enigma.
Madison
lowered her sunglasses and took in the scene. It was midday and mid-July, and
the sun was beating down with nondiscriminatory heat.
The deceased
was an elderly woman, her identity unknown and age estimated to be in her late
sixties or early seventies. She had a short cut of gray hair and wore a T-shirt
and a skirt. She sat in a wheelchair on the side of the road, her head dipped
to her chest at an unnatural angle. That position alone would disclose to
anyone paying enough attention that she was dead.
It was a sad
state when people were too preoccupied with their busy lives to notice an
elderly woman on the side of the road like that. As it was, people would have
passed in good quantity before the jogger who had found her had come along.
His name was
Erik Marsh, and he was sitting in the back of a squad car providing his
statement to the officers who had arrived first on scene. She and Terry would
talk to him shortly. The people who found a body were always the first
suspects.
The woman’s
chair was on the grass beside the sidewalk, placing her closer to the fence
than the road. Based on her thin arms and frail frame, she would have needed
help to get there. A wooden board strapped to the back of the chair read, PUT
AN END TO ABORTION.
“Protesters
in this area are not uncommon, but what makes an older lady come out and sit in
the hot sun with a sign strapped to her?” She asked the rhetorical question of
her partner, ruminating on what brought the woman to this point.
Her partner,
Terry Grant, was three years younger than she was and her total opposite. He
loved running, and his hair was always perfect—rarely were one of his blond
hairs out of place. Madison, on the other hand, hated mornings, so she stuck
with a wake-up-and-wear-it cut. While she had a hard time making commitments,
Terry was married to his sweetheart of just over five years. Annabelle was
pregnant with their first child and due any day.
Madison
continued. “Not to mention, why would she get involved in such an issue? Her
child-birthing days are behind her.”
“She could
have faced this issue earlier in life, or maybe a family member had? She could
have been trying to keep things the way they used to be.”
“When was
abortion legalized?”
“In most
states, 1973. That would make her somewhere in her late twenties, early
thirties, if she faced the issue herself.” Terry pulled his phone out and
poised a finger over the screen. Despite Madison’s desire that he take notes on
a lined pad, like other cops, he was adamant about embracing technology. His
hardheaded determination was paying off, though, as his texting speed was
improving.
“There’s no
way she came alone. Someone must’ve brought her here. But was she dead when
they dropped her off, or did she die sitting in this heat? My grandmother
always wore a hat on a hot day.” She paced a few steps and brainstormed aloud.
“I don’t think this woman chose to come here.”
“Good
deduction,” Cole Richards stated matter-of-factly.
It was the
only way Richards talked to her these days. Madison’s friendship with him used
to be one based upon mutual respect, but things had changed when she questioned
his ruling on a prior case. From there, she had dug into his personal past. If
she could go back and change things she would.
Richards
continued. “Her forearms show bruising to indicate she was in a struggle, but
the cause of death still needs to be determined.”
Madison’s
gaze fell to the woman’s wrists, marred in hues of purple. Heat surged through
her, the fire of adrenaline blending with rage.
Richards’s
dark skin pinched around his eyes as he squinted in the bright sun. “Based on
the coloring of the contusions, they happened around the time of death.”
“And when was
that?”
“I estimate
time of death between twelve and eighteen hours ago. Her body is in full
rigor.”
“You can’t
narrow it down any more than that?” Madison asked.
Richards
shook his head. “Liver temp will be off given the heat. I’ll know more once I
get her back to the morgue and conduct a full autopsy.”
“When will
that be?”
He shrugged.
“I’ll let you know.”
Madison
nodded. “So you don’t think she died here?” She hoped his answer would instill
some faith in humanity. Surely if she’d been here for that length of time,
someone would have seen her before Marsh.
“Again, I’ll
let you know.”
“What about
lividity? Doesn’t it tell you anything?” Terry asked.
Lividity was
the settlement, or pooling, of blood in the body after death. If it showed in
the woman’s buttocks and the backs of her thighs, she would have died in a
sitting position. But that would’ve only told them she’d died in her chair, not
her actual location.
“I’ll let you
know once I conduct the autopsy. As for where she died, I will leave
that up to you to determine.” Richards signaled for his assistant, Milo, to
come with the stretcher and body bag. Sadness always soured Madison’s gut when
the black plastic came out, ready to wrap the dead in its dark cocoon.
#2 EXCERPT
FROM DEADLY IMPULSE, Chapter 3:
Excerpt
taken from Chapter 3
Her phone
vibrated, notifying her of a text message. It was from Cynthia. Richards booked
the autopsy for first thing the next morning. Madison shared this information
with Terry, and although he nodded, his eyes seemed distant—a common occurrence
these days.
Doctors had
told Terry and Annabelle that their baby could be born with spina bifida, but
they strived to stay positive.
“Are you
thinking about the baby?” Madison asked.
“I’m thinking
of him, yes.” He gave her a slick smile. Despite ultrasounds not
revealing the baby’s sex, Terry was convinced it was a boy.
“How is
Annabelle these days?”
“She’s
excited, nervous. She wants him out.” He laughed, but the expression quickly
deflated.
“Good. And I
bet.” Madison was thirty-five and didn’t have a mothering bone in her body. If
she thought pregnancy through to birth—all the bodily fluids and the blood—it
made her squeamish and just sealed the fact she would likely never have a
family.
“So if you
get to ask about my life…” he teased.
“Oh, no, you
don’t. My relationship with Matthews is off the table.”
“Matthews?
Sounds rather formal and cold.”
Troy Matthews
was head of SWAT for Stiles PD. She’d known him for years, but it wasn’t until
a recent case that their friendship had turned into something more. Despite her
initial resistance, some things cannot be stopped. The draw she had to him was
one such thing. He was an alpha male and, as such, attracted women in droves. He
was into working out and ripped. But he was serious-minded and interested
solely in her—or so he kept trying to convince her.
Madison took
a deep breath thinking back to last night—their bodies entangled, moving
together… She had to wish the images from her mind. At least for right now.
They were on a case.
“I can tell
by the flush of your cheeks, things are heating up.”
“Oh, shut
up.” She punched him in the shoulder and then smirked. Her relationship with
Terry would never change. He was like the younger brother she’d never had.
“By the way,
you’re looking good these days,” he added.
She narrowed
her eyes, tempted to punch him again.
“What?” He
lifted his shoulders, hands palms out toward her. “I just noticed. I thought
women liked this type of acknowledgment.”
But she
wasn’t “most women.” She wasn’t worried about what men thought of her. After
being betrayed by her fiancé in her early twenties, she’d been somewhat bitter
for the better part of a decade now. It didn’t help that he—Toby Sovereign—was
also a detective and currently working with Stiles PD. The greatest tragedy was
how she held what he had done to her against all men who had entered her
life—up until now. She still dated, of course, but she never allowed anyone to
get too close. No, her heart was hers and hers alone. With that state of mind,
though, the loneliness was also hers alone. She had both Cynthia and Terry to
thank for helping her to see that life was too short to sit around and mope.
Even Troy deserved some of the credit.
“You must be
working out,” Terry said, breaking her train of thought. “Does Troy have you on
a program?” Terry snickered, evidently amused with his innuendo.
“Would you
just—”
The elevator
dinged, interrupting as it announced their arrival on the second floor.
She stepped
out first. Not that she’d admit it to Terry, master of the treadmill, who ran
ten miles every morning, but she was exercising. And eating healthier.
Before her shifts, she’d walk Hershey, her chocolate lab, at a brisk pace for
an hour. Thanks to the obedience classes she was able to fit in every other
Saturday, he was a pleasure to walk. She had started with one block and kept
building herself up.
She hated to
concede that the new lifestyle had anything to do with Matthews—Troy. She still
slipped sometimes, but it was beginning to get easier to refer to him by first
name. She was doomed. Whenever she sensed the trepidation setting in, the
hesitancy over accepting their relationship, she’d blurt out Matthews to
establish focus again.
But life had
taken her through a lot in recent months. She had almost died at the hands of
the Russian Mafia and came close to being raped by one of them, too. Faced with
the muzzle of a revolver to her head, she had promised herself that she would
forgive past hurts and try to love again with a full heart. The latter was
really tough. It equated to vulnerability, the very thing she always did her
best to avoid.
#3 EXCERPT
FROM DEADLY IMPULSE, Chapter 9:
Chapter 9
I CAN’T
MOVE MY WRISTS. The smell of blood is up my nose, in my mouth. The shadows
looming in the corners shift and transform.
Anatolli
emerges, holding a revolver.
My heart
is beating like a piston, and my breath is labored as I struggle against the
restraints.
He’s
coming closer and there’s nothing I can do.
My head is
locked in place, the clasp around my neck limiting my range of motion.
He’s
pulling on my hair, yanking it so hard my vision goes to pinpricks of red with
flashes of white.
“You are
going to die.” His spittle mists my face, and he lowers to look me in the eye.
But it is no longer Anatolli. It’s Constantine.
Madison
jolted awake and bounded from her bed. Hershey let out a startled bark. He must
have been dreaming, too. Madison hoped he’d been running through a field or
eating a bone—something peaceful.
“Sorry,
buddy.”
Hershey
stretched out, worming his way to the edge of the mattress.
She rubbed
his fur, waiting for her heartbeat to calm down. “It was a nightmare, that’s
all.”
Was that all?
It was so vivid. Her visceral reactions to the images were so real. She knew
these men were dead, but Constantine was still alive, out there somewhere. And
the simple fact remained that she had upset the Russians and there would be
consequences.
Really, it
was surprising that they had let her live as long as they had. Dimitre Petrov
must have derived more pleasure from toying with and manipulating her than
killing her.
She sat down
on her bed, reality hitting her. The Russians would have tired of playing
games. When they came for her next, they would be coming to kill her. Oddly,
she found herself hoping they’d torture her first so she could find a window to
escape. And if she got the chance, she’d shoot to kill this time.
Her breathing
slowed. But would that be enough? The Russians would just substitute Constantine’s
face for that of another hired killer—plenty volunteered their services for
blood money.
And while
Constantine was likely out of the country, this left her with another ally of
the Russians—the former police chief, Patrick McAlexandar. The fact that he had
relinquished his post at the police department and was staying out of the media
spotlight these days did little to change her opinion of his guilt.
Review:
It’s been a while since I’ve
read any Suspenseful types of books. I love them but I’ve been stuck on mostly
Romantic and Erotica but this one definitely brought me back to wanting to read
more Suspense types.
The story line really
captured my attention. I was enraptured by the life of Detective Madison
Knight. She was a seriously tough cookie but rightfully so.
Madison had been through
a lot in her life and it has taken her to the point that she has to shelter her
heart and throw herself into her job. Not only that but since she is the only
female Detective within the Department she has to prove herself even more and
her every move is watched to the most minute detail.
I had forgotten how
exciting it felt when you read a good mystery. Trying to get all the evidence
and witnesses together to figure out who'd done it.. It gets my heart pounding
and full of anticipation for the next page. The way the characters interacted
with each other was great too..
Madison had Terry-her
partner, Cynthia- her best friend, and Troy- the head of SWAT and a love
interest. All of them were like family. They understood Madison and her
determination to get things done and it just added to the story.
I especially loved
Terry. He just seemed like a fun down to earth guy that loved to tease and
didn't have a problem doing so with Madison.
Sneaking in a little
love interest didn't hurt this story at all. I loved it and I actually wanted
to know more.. I was left with lots of questions regarding Madison but overall
i loved this story. I was very into figuring out everything and was surprised
when i didn't know everything there was..
This was a fun and
exciting read and i look forward to reading more in the Detective Madison
Knight Series.
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