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eBook Category: Mystery/Crime
eBook Description: To find a killer, TV news director Casey Brandt and deejay Stu McKnight uncover the secrets of a prom queen who disappeared 26 years earlier. Along the way, a can't-fail plan does just that. Third in the Casey Brandt series.

eBook Publisher: SynergEbooks, Published: SynergEbooks, 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2005

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Carolyn Rose's Casey Brandt Series

10 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.1 MB], eReader (PDB) [237 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [226 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [199 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [217 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [250 KB], hiebook (KML) [553 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [291 KB], iSilo (PDB) [186 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [233 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [288 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [291 KB]
Words: 68187
Reading time: 194-272 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 0744308925

"Hey, look, a bedroom without a police scanner," Stu McKnight grinned at Casey Brandt as he set their suitcases beside a tall knotty pine dresser. "That's a definite plus for me. I just hope I can manage to sleep without a background of emergency calls and cop chatter."

"If you didn't snore like an adenoidal walrus," Casey replied, "I wouldn't need the police scanner for white noise." She surveyed slate blue walls, crisp white curtains, a four-poster bed covered with a hand-stitched patchwork quilt, a high-backed rocking chair and a braided rug on the polished oak floor. Comfortable. Country. But not excessively artsy-craftsy. Gingham geese, painted wooden spoons and dust-catching wreaths made her itch all over. "Maybe you should see your doctor, Stu. You were noisy before, but that bullet made it worse."

Stu touched the puckered scar tissue along the furrow in his cheek. "Good thing they were able to sew it shut or I'd be playing my face like a flute." He whistled a few bars of "Yankee Doodle," and tapped his cheeks with his fingers.

Casey grinned. "A star is born. I'll alert the media."

"You are the media, babe. But back to that bullet. Let's not forget that I took it saving your life. Some women would be grateful. They'd consider my snoring an affirmation of existence. Why don't you get some of those tapes? Waves? Wind in the trees?"

"Because I--"

"--can't ever really relax." He finished the sentence. "And with a scanner by the bed you can work even while you sleep." He rolled his eyes toward his sister who stood in the doorway behind them. "Millions of women in this world and I fall for a TV news director."

Shannon Rodgers took a step into the room, twisting the end of the long braid that secured dark, wavy hair. Her anxious eyes shifted from Stu to Casey. She chewed at her lower lip.

"We bicker all the time," Casey reassured her.

"Yeah," Stu agreed. "You'll know if it turns into a real fight. We'll stop speaking."

"This is a beautiful room." Casey changed the subject. "Is the quilt an heirloom?"

"Yes," Shannon nodded, her eyes brightening. "Lane's grandmother made it out of scraps she'd saved since the Depression." She chewed her lip again. "If you need a police scanner, Casey, I could probably borrow an old one from the town constable. Except..."

"She doesn't need a scanner," Stu insisted, flopping across the bed. Springs creaked and the frame shimmied like an exotic dancer hoping for a twenty-dollar tip. "She needs to take time off. Rest. Relax."

"Except what?" Casey asked Shannon.

"Except you wouldn't hear much of anything. Nothing big ever happens around here." Shannon completed her thought. "Oh, there are false alarms, chimney fires, maybe a burglary, a few speeders, sometimes even a drug bust--but it won't be anything like Albuquerque. And in the winter it's really quiet. Lane says that after Labor Day the natives have the Catskill Mountains pretty much to themselves. Except for hunting season, of course."

A place where nothing big ever happened--a journalist's idea of hell. But a good place for a rest. Casey crossed to the window and looked out at the looming mass of Guardian Mountain. A few bright tatters of color still fluttered like ragged pennants from the branches of sugar maples, and oaks held tight to their rusty leaves. White birches, stripped of their golden foliage, shone like weathered bones against the dull green of pines and hemlocks hugging the sloping ridges. "Are there a lot of hunters?"

Shannon crossed to stand beside Casey. Small, slim, and relatively serious, she was nothing like her older brother. Half-brother, Casey corrected herself. Different fathers. "More than some of us would like," Shannon told her. "Guys who can't tell a deer from a cow and who blaze away at the least little sound, even if they can't see what's making it."

"Great." Stu plumped a pillow behind his head. The bed jounced and squeaked. "A ready-made excuse for not going on one of Casey's torture hikes." He yawned and tugged a T-shirt over the bulge of his stomach; it read "I Completed the Couch Potato 1 K Stroll." "Nothing but relaxation ahead. Turkey, football, stuffing, football, mashed potatoes, football, pumpkin pie, long naps. Ummm." He closed his eyes and stretched.

Casey nodded toward the mountain. "Is he right? Is it dangerous? We won't be able to walk in the woods?"

"Walk?" Stu sat up, drawing another sharp protest from the bed. "You don't walk. You don't know how to walk. You march at cardiac-arrest speed."

"Anything faster than a crawl is cardiac arrest speed to those who believe that nutritionists consider butter a vegetable."

Stu mimed stunned surprise, eyes and mouth open wide. "It isn't? They don't?"

Casey snorted. Shannon shook her head. She must have been a tough audience for him when she was a little girl, Casey thought. Which is probably why, as an adult, he worked overtime to be funny. He was fortunate to have a career in radio and an audience that appreciated him. "Back to my original question: is everyone grounded until hunting season ends? Do we have to stay indoors, or can we venture out only if we wear orange vests and carry cow bells?"

Shannon didn't crack a smile. She shook her head again. "Orange is a good idea, but the bells might be annoying. Anyway, hunters are barred from posted state parks, and lots of private property is off-limits. And they can't discharge their guns within five hundred feet of a house, so that leaves a lot of room to ramble." She pointed to a silver-framed photograph on the dresser, a shot of a placid lake mirroring maples blazing with autumn colors. "We could walk up to Coronet Lake. It's about two miles."

"All uphill, probably," Stu groaned.

"Only two-thirds of the way there," Shannon informed him. "And one third on the way back."

"Probably just a gentle slope, too," Stu growled. "Not unlike Everest."

Casey rolled her eyes, stretched her arms over her head and bent to touch her toes. She checked her watch. Three-thirty. "We could get to the lake and back by dinnertime, easy."

"Easy for who?" Stu groaned again. "The sun sets pretty damn early in these parts and I'm not hiking in the woods after dark. There are coyotes around here. And bears. Maybe even wolves."

"That's why we need you to come along."

Stu sat up and squared his shoulders. "Ah. You women admit you need a manly man. You need me to protect you."

"No. We need you so we don't have to outrun the wolves."

"Huh?"

Casey grinned. "If a pack of wolves comes after us, all Shannon and I have to do is outrun you."

Shannon giggled. "And that should be easy."