An excerpt from Sheik Defense - the last in the Desert Justice series featuring Faisal Al-Nassar and Ava Adams.
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It was less than an hour since Faisal had received that fateful call that Ava was missing. Now he looked long and hard at the face of the young woman who lay dead on the cold steel of the examining table. Her hair was long, almost to the middle of her back. She was brunette and a few years older than Ava. After that, the similarities stopped.
He’d insisted on viewing the body in the hope that the similarities would somehow give him a much-needed clue. Now he didn’t know why he’d bothered. It was depressing and frightening all at the same time. Looking at her frightened him for Ava and saddened him for the deceased woman’s family.
“She may have been asphyxiated,” the coroner said.
He listened as the coroner went into some detail on why he believed that could be a possibility.
“Her eyes are bloodshot. Classic sign of asphyxiation.”
A chill ran through him like none he’d felt before. He’d stood in this position many times but never had he felt the haunting fear that the person before him could have been someone he knew and loved. He almost took a step back. That thought combined with the cold steel and sharp smell of disinfectant that depersonalized death was almost too much. This wasn’t Ava but someone had loved her.
Regret and anger snaked through him as he thought of how this young woman had died unnecessarily, how it could just as easily have been Ava on that slab. The reality was as disturbing as it was unthinkable. Whether they could prove it or not, he was sure that this woman had died of unnatural causes. It wasn’t right or fair. And he knew it happened much too often. He’d thought of adding a branch of investigations geared solely to violence against women. He’d seen too much of it in his work. But now wasn’t the time for such considerations.
Five minutes later, Faisal was heading across the hospital parking lot to a charcoal 1967 mustang he kept in Miami for his rare visits to the city. He slipped behind the wheel and leaned back against the plush leather, the keys in his lap, his arms crossed and a frown on his face.
A woman who supposedly should have been Ava was dead. The fact that the decedent had been in Ava’s room and Ava was still the registered patient, indicated that Ava was the target. Now there were questions that needed to be answered and quickly.
Where had Ava gone? He tamped down the panic he’d felt at losing her when he’d only just found her. He had to stick to facts.
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And, on a non-excerpt note, I'm sorry to say that summer is on its last legs. But, I'm happy to say that my book supply is well stocked for winter. Like the squirrels, I'm ready to hunker down. One problem for us northerners anyway,- summer hit again with a great blast of heat predicted for this weekend. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow - me I'm getting out the margarita blender!
Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com ...a world you never imagined
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