He then took me up to the fourth-floor waiting area for the neuro ICU, which was across the hall from the forbidding doors that would allow us in. Boyd told me to have a seat and he’d arrange for us to visit the victim.
A few minutes later, we were admitted, and Boyd took me to the mystery woman’s room. She was covered with a white thermal blanket and was so tiny she seemed lost in the small space crowded with medical machinery, all of which was either beeping or blinking. An IV dripped slowly into tubing that fed down to her bruised arm. But that wasn’t all that was bruised.
Her thick black lashes rested against the dark purple crescents under her eyes. She had a battered forehead and a split lip, and her blond hair had been shaved away for stitches above a large lump on her forehead. She was as pale as the sheets.
“Heck fire,” I whispered. I blinked several times, wondering how anyone would recognize this woman, even someone who knew her. She was lucky she wasn’t already pushing up bluebonnets.
THE YELLOW ROSE MYSTERY SERIES
A Wedding to Die For
by Leann Sweeney
With a heart the size of Texas—and a bank account
to match—Abby Rose has just found herself
smack in the middle of a matrimonial murder and a
broken-hearted bride-to-be when a guest
gets hit over the head with a gift.
The bad reception only gets deadlier when Abby is enlisted to resolve the wedding fiasco.
Also available in the series:
Pick Your Poison
Dead Giveaway
Pushing Up Bluebonnets
“Leann Sweeney is a welcome new voice in mystery fiction.”
—Jeff Abbott
“The most likable sleuth to come along in years.”
—Rick Riordan
Available wherever books are sold or at penguin.com
Shoot from the Lip Page 30
