Trace Of Innocence

“Thanks.” He grinned. “Have to say that freedom agrees with me. You look beautiful, Billie.”

“I look sweaty and I smell like beer, but if that’s your kind of gal…”

“You’re my kind of girl.”

I blushed.

Suddenly, C.C. screamed.

I looked up at the bar’s television. The anchor said, “And in a shocking twist to the release of inmate David Falco, a woman was murdered tonight in Jersey City. Sources tell CNN that the crime included a playing card left on the body. The suicide king…”

Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for purchasing the first book of my new Billie Quinn series. I wanted to write this book to show a little of the real life of CSIs—unsung heroes who gather the evidence and analyze it in the lab. As in all my books, the heroine is surrounded by an eccentric “family”—a motley crew of misfits and unusual people who comprise her circle of friends. In this book, you’ll meet Lewis LeBarge, head of the crime lab, who has a penchant for collecting brains and photos of blood spatter; Sister C.C., a nun with a passion for prison ministry; Mikey, Billie’s brother and a ne’er-do-well—but a sweetheart anyway; and the rest of the colorful characters, such as Tommy Two Trees, an FBI agent and, like Lewis, a denizen of New Orleans.

Billie herself is brainy but street smart. Her brother and father are both involved in the mob, but she has chosen to play it mostly straight in her life. She’s haunted by her mother’s murder, which has only drawn her closer to the people she loves.

I hope you enjoy Billie and her friends as they fight to clear a man in prison for murder utilizing new DNA technology. Prepare for suspense and action…and enjoy!

Erica Orloff

www.millsandboon.co.uk

is a native New Yorker who relocated to sunny south Florida after vowing to never again dig her car out of the snow. She loves playing poker—a Bombshell trait—and likes her martinis dry. Visit her Web site at www.ericaorloff.com.

To my sister, Stacey, for always reading my books and being one of my biggest supporters.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Blood spatter was artfully arranged.

Photographs of crime-scene blood spatter, in stark black and white, were matted and framed, lining a long hallway with hardwood floors that squeaked as I walked.

I had stopped thinking of the photos as gruesome or even odd two years ago when I started working for Lewis LeBarge, my boss at New Jersey’s State Crime Laboratory and collector of all things macabre. He told me once that it came with the territory. “Spend enough time around the dead,” he had said to me, his New Orleans accent giving him a certain Southern charm, “and eventually you come up with ways to mock the Grim Reaper—just to let him know he hasn’t won…yet.” Lewis regularly talked to The Reaper like an old friend, asking him just how or why a dead body met its maker.

“Lewis?” I called out from the hallway. I had let myself in the front door of his old duplex in Weehawken.

“Up here,” he called out. “The office.”

I climbed the stairs. There were just two small bedrooms on the second story. One was the master bedroom, and the other he used as a home office, complete with Internet links to our database in the lab.

I poked my head in. “Ready?”

“For you, darlin’, always.” He winked at me, his prematurely gray hair giving him a distinguished look, making him seem older than his forty years.

I spied a new photo on the wall. The blood puddle next to the gunshot victim looked like black syrup. “Has anyone ever suggested to you that perhaps the reason you never make it past the first date with a woman is your taste in art?”

“Now, Billie, I’m just waitin’ for you to realize we’re the ones meant to be together. And until then—” he mock-sighed “—I remain alone and desperately lonely in this cold Northern city.”

“Don’t give me that…your New Orleans gentleman charm is a magnet for women. I’ve seen them clustered around you like bees buzzing around a flower.”

“I never hurt for first dates, but, as you so kindly pointed out, it’s getting to date number two that’s difficult.”

I looked over at the aquarium tank on the shelf, which housed an enormous tarantula he had named “Ripper,” after the serial killer he once wrote a thesis on. I’m not squeamish—you can’t be, working in a forensics lab—but spiders give me the creeps. Especially hairy ones.

“Maybe you should try telling them you do something sane. Boring, even. Ever try saying you’re an accountant? Working with numbers all day is certainly an improvement over saying you spent the day examining brain matter.”

“Eventually, I’d be found out. And with the exception of you, there aren’t many women who enjoy discussin’ blowflies on dead bodies and the rate of maggot infestation over a lovely supper of jambalaya.”