HUSH                                                    

Emily's 1st Romantic Suspense

Prologue

Twenty-three hits and no questions asked. It was a string of success even his mentor might envy. The Valenti job was textbook. Flawlessly executed.

But the deaf girl threatened to screw it all to hell. 

Anger crept up Sam Carbone’s neck like a rash. Anyone could whack a guy. Give a sixteen-year-old a Glock and a couple hundred dollars and you’ve got a potential hitter.

But to engineer an accident, that takes an artist. And the Valenti job was a work of art.

A frickin’ Sistine Chapel.  

Until the deaf girl turned up.

Sam leaned on the cold metal rail and looked down at the Orange line platform. His nose twitched. The air in the T station, Boston’s underground, was always a stale fug of diesel fumes and too many bodies in a confined space, not all of them terribly clean. A good-sized crowd was beginning to gather for the outbound train.

A flat smile tugged at Sam’s lips. In a press like this, who’s to say who shoved who? Picking the right location was the first task in the art of an accident.

Irritation fizzed along his spine. Even though it was the perfect place, this was a waste of his talents. But it couldn’t be avoided. Unfortunately, it was his fault. Damn sloppy of him to take that call in the van. Still, who’d have thought an enclosed vehicle qualified as public place? 

He drew a deep breath and shook off the anger. He couldn’t afford it. There was nothing personal about what he was about to do. This was about pride of workmanship.

He’d been careless. He had to clean it up.

A hit was like a tapestry, his mentor always said. Leave a loose thread and sooner or later someone would notice and give it a tug. The entire work could unravel. He’d left something dangling in an otherwise perfect job.

Sam scanned the commuters below. There she was, right on time, her scarlet trench a dash of color among the blacks and grays. Whoever said redheads couldn’t wear that shade had never seen Megan Kelly on a rainy day. Even though her figure was a little too round for high fashion, she was still the best looking skirt he’d ever off.

A tingle of desire rippled through him. He tamped it down. He wasn’t some freak with a fetish. He was a professional.

But he understood the compulsion.

It wasn’t dominance or the buzz or even the kinky sex that drove serial pervs. It was the connection with their victims, that delicious moment when the soon-to-be dead recognized their killer as the harbinger of the great dark.

Even in this crowd, he hoped to see that glint of terror-filled awe in Megan Kelley’s green eyes before the spray of blood and crunch of bone and squeal of the train’s emergency brakes.

In that slice of a moment, Sam would feel like God Almighty.

“Outbound train approaching,” a computer generated voice splatted over the loudspeaker. “All trains terminate at Oak Grove Station.”

“And some commuters terminate sooner,” he murmured.

Megan Kelley was positioned perfectly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, on the yellow caution line.

The air stirred in anticipation of the coming train. Sam descended the stairs, his tread silent.

How fitting for a deaf girl, he thought, pleased by the symmetry. This was art, after all.

Time to tie up his little loose thread. Permanently.           

  In the stillness, evil waits. Megan Kelley can’t hear him coming, but she knows he is there. Set in Boston where politics has always been a blood sport, HUSH  is a tale of ballot corruption and organized crime, of honor and trust lost. And rebuilt. 

Megan must discover why an MIT assistant professor was murdered before his killer catches up to her.

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