Body Movers

Acknowledgments

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

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

The Body Movers story has been rattling around in my brain for several years, but it took the right characters to be able to pull it off, and the sister/brother team of Carlotta and Wesley didn’t come to me until a couple of years ago in the midst of writing another book. When the story and characters finally came together, I had the feeling that I had an interesting premise for a series; next I had to find a publisher who shared my vision for bringing Body Movers to readers.

My thanks to Dianne Moggy, Margaret O’Neill Marbury and my editor Brenda Chin at MIRA Books for championing this project. Thanks, too, to my agent Kimberly Whalen of the Trident Media Group for handling the logistics. To my artist husband, Christopher Hauck, who assisted with the cover concept and who taught me how to smoke a cigar (for research). To William Waddell, high school friend and proprietor of the Globe Funeral Chapel in Olive Hill, Kentucky, who graciously provided information about the legal and proper handling of the deceased. (Some of the quirky things that happen in my story are from my imagination and do not reflect the reverence that William has for his job.) Thanks to Julie Giese for the forensics reference book and the (unused) body bag. My thanks to my critique partner, Rita Herron, for her ongoing support. And to my readers whose letters and e-mails keep me going. And finally, thanks to my wonderfully biased mom, Bonnie Bond, for the great cover quote.

“Does this make my ass look big?”

Carlotta Wren stood in the dressing room of Neiman Marcus in the Lenox Mall in Atlanta, Georgia, her arms full of designer bathing suits that Angela Ashford, one of her least favorite customers, wanted to try on. They weren’t even halfway through the selections and already Carlotta wanted to murder the woman.

She dutifully glanced at Angela’s surgically sculpted glutes falling out of a tiny patch of metallic-blue fabric. “No, your, um, ass looks…great.”

Angela tossed her blond hair over her shoulder and pouted at her rear reflection in the three-way mirror. “You think?”

Carlotta’s mouth watered to say, “Way better than it looked in high school,” but bit her tongue. It was part of the game, after all—Angela played the role of poor little rich girl with a confidence problem, and Carlotta played the stroking, sympathetic friend. Both of them deserved an Oscar.

Angela turned around and carefully rearranged her newly acquired breasts in the bikini top that barely covered her nipples. Then she slipped her narrow feet into the silver high-heeled sandals sitting nearby and performed a three-quarter turn to peruse her long, slender figure from all angles. Carlotta tried not to compare her own ample curves to the woman’s lean lines. Or her own gap-toothed grin to Angela’s perfect, Clorox smile.

She was not jealous of Angela Ashford.

“This suit is a definite maybe,” Angela announced.

Carlotta managed not to roll her eyes—the sixth “definite maybe” so far. “I have to warn you that the trim on that suit won’t hold up to chlorine.”

Angela made a face. “Good grief, I don’t actually swim in our new pool—I don’t even know how to swim. I just want to look amazing.”

Carlotta bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Do you want to choose from the ones you’ve set aside so far, or do you want to try on the rest of these?”

Angela looked irritated. “I’ll try on the rest.” Then she smiled meanly. “And I’ll be needing several new spring outfits. With shoes, of course. Peter told me to treat myself to anything I wanted since he just got a huge bonus and our wedding anniversary is coming up. He’s so generous.”

Carlotta busied herself removing the next bathing suit from its hanger, trying not to react. Peter, as in Carlotta’s former fiancé. Just like every time Angela came in for a shopping binge, Carlotta reminded herself that her relationship with Peter Ashford had ended over a decade ago. To be precise, one week after her father had skipped bail on his indictment for investment fraud and he and her mother had gone on the run. The local media had had a field day.

RANDOLPH WREN FLIES THE COOP

RANDOLPH WREN, FUGITIVE JAILBIRD

RANDOLPH WREN AND WIFE VALERIE

ABANDON CHILDREN

Just a few weeks shy of eighteen, Carlotta hadn’t been a child, but she’d led a rather charmed and sheltered life up to that point. Suddenly faced with raising her nine-year-old brother, Wesley, and with no extended family to rely upon, she had clung to her boyfriend, Peter. Too tightly, apparently, because after the headlines had exploded, he had explained over the telephone that their lives had grown too far apart—he was in college at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, and she still had to finish her last semester of high school in Atlanta. Translation: Your name is tainted and I don’t want to be associated with your family scandal.