Mischief Becomes Her

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and

never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“Michaels has done it again … Witty dialogue

peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It

“[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals

wrapped around a sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of The Philadelphia Story.”

—Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

“A cheerful, lighthearted read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

Also available fromKasey Michaelsand MIRA Books and Mills & Boon

DIAL M FOR MISCHIEF

BECKET’S LAST STAND THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL A RECKLESS BEAUTY THE PASSION OF AN ANGEL THE SECRETS OF THE HEART A MOST UNSUITABLE GROOM EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSIE THE DANGEROUS DEBUTANTE A GENTLEMAN BY ANY OTHER NAME THE BUTLER DID IT

Kasey

Michaels

Mischief

Becomes Her

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dear Reader,

When you’re the baby of the family, Daddy’s Little Princess, you might grow up with certain assumptions. For Jessica Sunshine, one of those beliefs is that Daddy can do no wrong. Her older sisters, Jolie and Jade, most definitely mourned their father’s unexpected death, but Jessica was devastated on so many levels. Illusions left over from childhood were shattered cruelly when she learned that Teddy Sunshine wasn’t only gone, but was accused of murdering a Philadelphia mayoral candidate’s wife before taking his own life.

Jessica, now a cable news journalist, joins her sisters in their search for the truth—for surely what the world believes of Teddy Sunshine cannot be the truth. She enlists the reluctant aid of police lieutenant Matt Denby as she goes on a crusade to solve old crimes and new, never doubting her father’s innocence.

What Jolie Sunshine learned in Dial M for Mischief Jessica adds to in Mischief Becomes Her, paving the way for Jade Sunshine to fit in the last, potentially damning pieces in Mischief 24/7.

Sit back and watch as Jessica Sunshine takes crimesolving to a whole new level, daring any mischief, breaking rules and making up her own as she goes along, while finding more startling pieces to the complicated puzzle that surrounds Teddy’s death.

Because Jessica is Daddy’s Little Princess, she’s a woman on a mission, and nobody had better get in her way! Did you hear that, Matt?

Enjoy!

Kasey Michaels

To Kathy Fry and Joann Gartner

Thanks for keeping the family fed!

“JESS? HEADS UP there, kiddo. We’re back to you in five…” Kevin Mulhally held up his right hand and went silent for the rest of the count. Four, three, two, one…

Jessica Sunshine, her professional stone face in place, waited a single heartbeat after the producer pointed a finger at her and then smiled into the camera as if delighted to see her cable TV audience.

“And welcome back,” she said smoothly, pushing a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Again, tonight’s special live segment of The Sunshine Report is devoted to this reporter’s personal tragedy—the loss of my father, retired police detective Theodore Sunshine, and the accusation that he murdered the wife of front-running Philadelphia mayoral candi- date Joshua Brainard before taking his own life. And I’m here to tell you, folks, that accusation’s a bunch of horse hockey pucks.”

Jessica ignored the audible intake of breath from her sister Jolie, seated in the only other chair on the small carpeted dais that looked good on TV but was really threadbare in spots and still held a stain caused by Chickpea the Clown when he’d lost his three-martini lunch during his interview with her last month. Confront a guy in white-face with photographs of him buying a nickel bag behind the Dumpster outside the studio while filming a week’s worth of his popular kiddie show and you just don’t know what will happen.

“That sound you just heard,” Jessica continued, “was that of my big sister, Hollywood star and general all-round good person, Jolie Sunshine, being horrified by her baby sister yet again, showing that those birth-order studies are true—the baby of the family is often the most prone to making waves. I don’t know why they’re shocked, either striving middle child Jolie or our perfect firstborn sister, Jade. I mean, really folks, you’re not shocked, right? And you’ve only known me for two years. They’ve known me forever. Jolie,” she said, swiveling her chair to face her sister, certain the camera would follow her, “do you disagree with anything I said?”

Jolie Sunshine—slim, tall, brunette and looking coolly beautiful and at ease in front of the camera— tipped her head to one side. “You mean, am I shocked? Hardly. Not when I spent several years answering the phone only to be asked if the mouth was at home.”

Jessica laughed as she tossed back her hair once more. Jessica’s greatest on-air assets were her spectacular good looks—a face and body that could have helped her if, like Jolie, she had set her sights on Hollywood. Luckily, as she pursued a career in television journalism, she also brought along a sharp-as-tacks brain and more guts than most of the men in her professional orbit.