by Elise Sax
Sorry I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. I’ll be away for a couple weeks. You know…doing super-secret, dusty stuff that I can’t talk about. Don’t make any decisions while I’m away. I enjoyed your performance at the hospital. You have a very impressive mind.
And the rest of your parts aren’t bad, either.
--Yours,
Boone Goodnight (the older and better brother)
I read the note three times, searching for more messages in the words. Happy, I tucked it into my purse and after saying goodbye to Faye, went out through the courtyard to the front gate.
I was surprised to see Amos waiting for me in his SUV. He stuck his head out the open window. “I think we found her,” he said.
“Who?” But I knew who he meant. Her. The girl. I ran around to the other side of the car and climbed into the passenger seat. “Is she all right? Where did you find her?”
Amos turned the car around and drove away. “There’s some bad news. We found her on the bank of the Snake River. In a shallow grave.”
“What?” I was honestly shocked. “Are you sure it’s her?”
“Fits your description. Blond, young, thin, wearing men’s pajama pants and an old, small Goodnight UFOs t-shirt.”
“I didn’t help her,” I said, my voice barely audible. “I promised to help her.”
“You can’t help everyone. You helped Silas. That’s more than I could do.”
We drove to the makeshift morgue at the Sheriff’s Department. I followed Amos inside and downstairs. “Are you ready to ID her?” he asked me, gently.
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I guess so.”
He opened a door, and I walked inside to a bright room with a dead body lying on a table in the middle of it. It was definitely her. The girl with no name. The girl who asked me to help her and to watch out for myself. The girl who told me that there are others out there like her.
Like her, dead on a table?
I shuddered, and Amos came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Is it her?”
“Yes,” I said. “But she looks so dead. Like she’s been dead for a long time.”
“The coroner puts the time of death as Monday morning.”
I turned around and looked up into his eyes. “No. That’s impossible. That can’t be. I spoke with her Monday night. And then again on Wednesday.”
“The coroner said she’s been dead for as long as ten days, but his best guess is Monday.”
I tried to make sense out of it, but I couldn’t. “How did she die?” I asked, finally.
“Murder. Strangulation.”
“We have to find the killer,” I said. “And the others.”
Be sure to watch for the next installment of the Goodnight Mysteries: A Doom with a View. Sign up for my newsletter to be the first to know when it’s released.
http://elisesax.com/mailing-list.php
Would you like to see how it all began? Read An Affair to Dismember, the first book in the Matchmaker Mysteries.
Also by Elise Sax
Matchmaker Mysteries Series
Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda
Road to Matchmaker
An Affair to Dismember
Citizen Pain
The Wizards of Saws
Field of Screams
From Fear to Eternity
West Side Gory
Scareplane
It Happened One Fright
The Big Kill
It’s a Wonderful Knife
Ship of Ghouls
Goodnight Mysteries Series
Die Noon
Doom With A View
Five Wishes Series
Going Down
Man Candy
Hot Wired
Just Sacked
Wicked Ride
Five Wishes Series
Three More Wishes Series
Blown Away
Inn & Out
Quick Bang
Three More Wishes Series
Forever Series
Forever Now
Bounty
Switched
Moving Violations
About the Author
Elise Sax writes hilarious happy endings. She worked as a journalist, mostly in Paris, France for many years but always wanted to write fiction. Finally, she decided to go for her dream and write a novel. She was thrilled when An Affair to Dismember, the first in the Matchmaker Mysteries series, was sold at auction.
Elise is an overwhelmed single mother of two boys in Southern California. She's an avid traveler, a swing dancer, an occasional piano player, and an online shopping junkie.
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