BOOK DESCRIPTION
The woman’s golden hair is spread out beneath her on the bed of leaves where she’s fallen, her beautiful blue eyes open wide. The police are calling it a random attack, but Jessie Tucker isn’t so sure – she’s seen this crime scene before… she was the victim.
Twelve years ago, Jessie Tucker was attacked as she made her way home from an outdoor concert. She still walks with a limp from that night, and every day since has been a struggle to rebuild her life. The police told her she was unlucky – that she was safe after they charged a local man for the crime. But Jessie has never managed to shake the feeling that there was someone else in the park that night… someone she knew.
But then Margaret Kincaid’s murder file lands across her desk, and Jessie knows she can’t keep silent any longer. Margaret’s wounds so exactly match her own it's spooky – but Jessie’s attacker is in prison, and Jessie has never met the victim. What links her to Margaret Kincaid, and why did the attacker let one woman live, and the other die?
Nail-biting, gripping and absolutely unputdownable! Perfect for fans of Lisa Regan, Kendra Elliot and Gregg Olsen.
Then
On the night that changed my life forever, I remember
thinking about chocolate marshmallow ice cream.
I’d bought a pint of it – my all-time, ultimate, off-the-
charts, favorite treat – and it was waiting for me at home.
That’s why I was walking through Central Park that
night. I’d attended a concert with a group of other people, but left early by myself. There was a big wait for cabs or any car to get out of there, so I decided it would be quicker to just walk through the park to the 79th Transverse Road and then out the Fifth Avenue entrance to my East Side apartment. I really wanted to open up that damn chocolate marshmallow ice cream carton.
I never worried anything bad would happen to me. Not
back then.
No, everything seemed perfect in my life before that night I went into Central Park.
I was young.
I was pretty.
I was successful.
I had absolutely no hint of the dark days ahead of me
until it was too late.
CHAPTER 1
Now
The first bulletin came on the seven o’clock morning news
while I was doing sit-ups in front of the TV.
It said there’d been a shocking murder in Central Park.The body of a young woman had been found in a wooded area
near the Park Grille Restaurant on the west side of the park.
The victim had not yet been identified. Authorities said she
had been killed sometime the night before, but no one knew
anything else about her, why she was in the park or the exact cause of death.
I had a decision to make. Should I stop doing sit-ups and
call the city desk right away? Or wait until they called me? I
knew that if I stopped my sit-ups, I’d feel guilty all morning.
Besides, the office knew where to find me.
Sure enough, some fifteen minutes later, my phone was
ringing when I came out of the shower. It was Danny Knowlton, the assistant city desk editor at the New York
Tribune, the newspaper where I work as a crime reporter.
“Listen, Jessie, there’s just been a killing—” Knowlton began.
“I’m way ahead of you. I saw the news bulletin on TV.”
“Well, we’ve got more details now. This sounds like it’s
going to be a big story.”
The victim had been identified as Margaret Kincaid, who worked as a campaign aide on the re-election committee of U.S. Senator Frank Lansdale. Margaret Kincaid was twenty-nine years old and lived downtown in the SoHo area of Manhattan. She’d only been in New York City for a few months – she was originally from Santa Barbara, California.
“If you get a cab right away, you can be at the crime scene in ten minutes,” Knowlton said.
“What’s the big hurry?” I asked, working a comb through my wet hair.
“The big hurry is I’d like to beat the other papers in town on this story.”
“Margaret Kincaid’s not going anywhere. I mean, she’s not going to jump up and walk away or anything.”
“But all the other reporters will get there first—”
“That’s not what I do, Danny.”
“What exactly is it you do again?”
Knowlton knew the answer to that, of course. I didn’t use
the police as the primary source for my crime stories. I
preferred to write about crime from the perspective of the
victim. Why did it happen to them? Who were they? What were the consequences and the repercussions of the crime?That was my specialty. I’d made a living doing that.
I glanced over at a picture of myself hanging on the wall of my apartment – a framed cover of New York Magazine. The headline said:
“STOP THE PRESSES – CENTRAL PARK VICTIM JESSIE TUCKER IS FAMOUS!”
There was a picture of me standing next to a New York
Tribune delivery truck, looking very much like a modern-day version of Lois Lane.
“Haven’t you heard?” I laughed to Danny Knowlton. “I’m a legend.”
I got dressed then. I put on a pair of Calvin Klein blue
jeans, a pink silk Christian Dior blouse, flat Italian sandals and a funky cowgirl-style belt with a big buckle that I’d bought on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village a few weeks before. I put some sunscreen on my face and pulled my wavy, dark hair into a simple ponytail. Then I checked myself out in a mirror. Not too bad for thirty-six, I told myself. Yep, all the sit- ups had really paid off.
Of course, I really had no choice in the matter. Those were the doctors’ orders. Even all these years later the daily
exercises had to be done, no matter what. But the looking good part that came with it – well, that was a nice bonus too.
I still walked with a slight limp from the injuries I suffered that night.
Every once in a while, I even had to use a cane – but never out in public where people could see me. And then there were the minor aches and pains that the doctors said would never completely go away. But, all in all, I was in pretty good shape. The scars on my body were very faint now.
But what about the scars you can't see? The ones inside you?
The doctors can’t do anything about them.
I thought about Margaret Kincaid lying dead there in
Central Park. A woman in the wrong place at the wrong time on a hot summer night. And now she was dead.
Nope, it was no surprise that the Tribune had assigned me the story.
I was the ideal reporter for it.
I was perfect.
Author Bio:
I am a New York City author who writes mystery thrillers for Bookouture about newspaper reporter Jessie Tucker. Coming this winter...THE SILENT VICTIM
Contact me at....
DanaPerryAuthor@yahoo.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanaPerryAuthor
Facebook: @danaperryauthor
PUBLICATION DATE: 20th November 2019
PRINT LENGTH: 364 pages
PUBLISHER: Bookouture
GENRE: Crime Thriller
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