Praise for STEPHANIE BOND
Of Body Movers
âThis is a series the reader will want to jump on in the very beginning.â
âWriters Unlimited
âBond has successfully switched to the crime genre, bringing along her trademark humor and panache.â
âBooklist
Of Body Movers: 2 Bodies for the Price of 1
âBody Movers is one of the most delightful series I have read in quite some time.
Stephanie Bond shows her audience what a wickedly funny mystery should be all about.â
âSuspense Romance Writers
âThis series is simply splendid. Vivid, quirky, flawed, wonderful people fill its pages and you care about what happens to them. Like the prior volume, it is replete with humor as well as action. I can hardly wait to see all these characters again.â
âHuntress Reviews
Of Body Movers: 3 Men and a Body
4 1/2 stars! âBond continues her popular Body Movers series with a fast-paced and wickedly humorous story that skewers fame and celebrity obsession with deadly accuracy.â
âRomantic Times BOOKreviews
âWhere the [Body Movers] series goes next continues to be an intriguing mystery.
Readers who love a combination of suspense and sexy romance will find their thrills in Bondâs latest offering.â
âBookPage
STEPHANIE BOND
5 BODIES TO DIE FOR
The middle book in a trilogy is a bit like the middle childâit tries to please everyone, tries to fill in all the gaps to keep everyone happy and moving along. (Can you tell Iâm a middle child?) Writing this second book in the BODY MOVERS trilogy of books 4, 5 and 6 was a big challenge, and I couldnât have gotten through it without my editor Brenda Chin, who eagerly asks, âWhat happens next?â with all the confidence that I somehow know and will pull it off. Thank you, Brenda, for high expectations and constant encouragement.
Thanks, too, to Margaret OâNeill Marbury and Valerie Gray for your ongoing support of the BODY MOVERS series within MIRA, and to all the sales, marketing and production people behind the scenes who work to get the BODY MOVERS books into the hands of readers. A big, big thank-you to Michael Rehder at MIRA for designing the amazing charm-bracelet coversâI love them!
Thanks to my agent Kimberly Whalen of Trident Media Group for keeping the ball rolling. As always, thanks to my critique partner, Rita Herron, for our weekly meetings to discuss pages and possibilities over glasses of wine.
To my husband, Chris, who still moves me after eighteen-plus years.
And to my readersâthank you for allowing me to entertain you.
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
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Carlotta Wren shoved her head in the freezer, closing her eyes and allowing the frosty blast to cool the flush on her face and neck as she tried to absorb everything that had happened over the past few days.
A serial killer was on the loose in Atlanta. Dubbed The Charmed Killer by the press for his signature of leaving a charm in the mouth of his victims, the unknown assailant was racking up bodies at an astonishing rateâfour women dead in a week, culminating in the murder of an assistant district attorney. According to Detective Jack Terry, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was joining the high-profile case.
And the Wren family was firmly in the middle of the fray.
She and her brother, Wesley, had been the body movers on the first two cases, and had been called in on the third, although Carlotta had had to step aside when sheâd realized she had once crossed paths with the victim. Wesley had met the fourth victim, the deceased A.D.A., while settling his most recent legal trouble. And their father, Randolph âThe Birdâ Wren, a fugitive now for more than ten years for a white-collar crime, had been named a possible suspect. First, because one of the charms left behind had been a bird, and second, because one of the victims had worked in the same office building where he had once worked. Carlotta was sure she hadnât helped matters by handing over the charm bracelet her father had given her when she was a teenager to the police, but she was hoping it would help to clear Randolph.
Meanwhile, Jack had warned her she might have to take a polygraph to clear herself, due to her proximity to the bodies.
Minus ten points.
A moan from the living room roused Carlotta from her churning thoughts. She reached for an ice tray to fill an ice bag, but the trays were empty, of freaking course. When her gaze landed on a bag of frozen peas, she grabbed it, closed the freezer door and walked back to the living room.
Peter Ashford lay on the couch recovering from the stun-baton zap sheâd inadvertently administered when sheâd mistaken Peter for an intruder. After discovering that someone had been living in their guest bedroom unbeknownst to her and her brother, sheâd been skittish.