Gossamer Ghost (31 page)

Antsy and nervous now, Suzanne moved forward. She could feel the heat from the fire practically scorching her face, like having a too-close encounter with Petra's industrial-strength broiler back at the Cackleberry Club. What must the firemen be feeling inside, she wondered? What must poor Hannah be going through?

Sheriff Doogie whirled around and saw Suzanne edging up to the barricade.

“Get back!” he yelled, waving a meaty arm. “Everybody, get back!”

Suzanne retreated two paces, and then, when Doogie turned around, when he wasn't looking anymore, she crept back to where she'd been standing.

“Watch out!” cried one of the firemen who was manning a hose and shooting water through one of the front windows. “They're coming out.”

Everyone peered expectantly through the drift of smoke and ashes. And then, like an apparition slowly appearing from a dense fog, the two firemen who'd made the daring foray into the burning building came into view. Their faces were smudged, their eyes red, their respirators dangled around their necks. But they carried a stretcher between them.

“They got her,” Suzanne whispered. Everyone in the crowd behind her seemed to relax and heave a deep sigh of relief.

Sheriff Doogie, who'd been clutching a blue blanket, stepped forward and laid it gingerly over the stretcher.

Thrilled that the firemen had been able to make such a daring rescue, Suzanne pressed even closer. “Is it Hannah?” she asked Doogie. She crept forward expectantly, practically bumping up against his beefy shoulder now. Surely they were going to load Hannah into the waiting ambulance. They'd rush her, lights twirling and sirens blaring, to Mercy Hospital, where Dr. Sam Hazelet, her
boyfriend
, Dr. Hazelet, would resuscitate Hannah and tell the old dear what an amazingly close call she'd had.

“Is it Hannah?” Suzanne asked again.

The brim of Doogie's modified Smokey Bear hat barely quivered. A muscle twitched in his tightly clenched jaw.

“Is she . . . ?” Suzanne was about to say
okay
.

Doogie turned to her, his eyes sorrowful, his hangdog face registering total dismay, and uttered the two fateful words that Suzanne had not expected to hear: “She's dead.”

Watch for the Next Scrapbooking Mystery

PARCHMENT AND OLD LACE

A scrap of parchment, a snippet of old lace. What look like pieces for a scrapbook collage are really clues to a murder.

And be sure to catch the next Tea Shop Mystery, also from Laura Childs and Berkley Prime Crime.

MING TEA MURDER

What begins as a black-tie event to celebrate the reconstruction of an antique Chinese teahouse suddenly spirals into murder. Who is this killer with a taste for blood and impeccable taste in Chinese art? Can Theodosia find him before she becomes a target, too?

Find out more about the author and her mysteries at laurachilds.com or become a friend on Facebook.

A WARNING TO READERS: AN ENTIRELY NEW SERIES FROM THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK!

If you enjoy pulse-pounding thrillers, if you like intriguing female protagonists, you're going to love the first book in this brand-new series.

FINDERS CREEPERS

AN AFTON TANGLER THRILLER

by Gerry Schmitt

Writing as Laura Childs, this author has brought you the
New York Times
bestselling Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbooking Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. Now, writing under her own name of Gerry Schmitt, she is bringing you an entirely new series of sharp-edged thrillers. Gerry has ratcheted up the suspense, set the stakes even higher, and created exciting, memorable characters that sizzle on the page.

We know you'll be intrigued by
Finders Creepers
, the first in this series that features Afton Tingler, single mom, Outward Bound enthusiast, and liaison officer with the Minneapolis PD, as she gets pulled into a bizarre high-profile kidnapping.