Trifecta
Page 1
Trifecta
A Compilation of Several Works
By Pamela M. Richter
Midnight Reflections
The Living Image
The Necromancer
AMAZON KINDLE EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
Pamela M. Richter
Table of Contents
Title Page
Trifecta
Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Book Description: Midnight Reflections
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
Book Description: The Living Image
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
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CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
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CHAPTER 6
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CHAPTER 7
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CHAPTER 8
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CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
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CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
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CHAPTER 13
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CHAPTER 14
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CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
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CHAPTER 17
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CHAPTER 18
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CHAPTER 19
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CHAPTER 20
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CHAPTER 21
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CHAPTER 22
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CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
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CHAPTER 25
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CHAPTER 26
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CHAPTER 27
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CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
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CHAPTER 30
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CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
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CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
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CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
Book Discription: The Necromancer
PROLOGUE
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
Thank You!
About the author
Trifecta © 2011 Pamela M. Richter
All rights reserved
Amazon Kindle Edition License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Formatting by
Bob Houston eBook Formatting
http://About.Me/BobHouston
Contents
Title
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Midnight Reflections
Book Description: Midnight Reflections
The Living Image
Book Description: The Living Image
The Necromancer
Book Description: The Necromancer
Thank You!
About the author
Introduction
From the Urban dictionary: "1. trifecta. a perfect group of three; winning three times."
I hope you will enjoy this special edition of three of my books.
Midnight Reflections
The Living Image
The Necromancer
Acknowledgments
A big "Thank You" to all the people who read my novels.
I am so grateful for all the friends I've made since these books were published. Some having written wonderful reviews, which are so much appreciated.
A special thanks to Cindy, Elva, Bob, and Carol, Authors Shirley, Shaina, Melissa, Gordon, and Thomas, my sister Penny, and my many friends on Facebook.
I'd also like to thank Bob Houston of Bob Houston eBook Formatting for all his hard work in making my novels shine, and for providing a sounding board for some of my ideas. You can find information about his superlative formatting service here.
Have fun reading.
Readers are welcome to email me at: pam.richter@hotmail.com.
Book Description: Midnight Reflections
Julia's midnight reflections actually happened at about four in the morning. She was far from home, lonely, watching a handsome man sleeping in her bed at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Robin, the handsome man, had put himself in terrible danger so sh
e could solve a mystery. Now she was feeling guilty as hell.
Robin is obsessed with Julia. Knowing something besides her attractiveness enchanted him, he's hiding his true identity, trying to win her heart.
Julia is playing a dangerous role herself, working for a man she suspects of murder. She also suspects that Robin is much more than the simple working man he proclaims himself to be. Can she trust him?
Together they uncover information so inflammatory that they are forced to flee an angry politician who rules a dangerous and profitable drug army. His people will do anything to get into his good graces. Even murder.
CHAPTER 1
She almost turned away from the man lying so still on the bed. Her mind was momentarily playing tricks, refusing to identify him, trying to keep the pain at bay. But her body already knew. Her eyes had filled with tears. Her mind reasoned it was because the poor man was so badly hurt.
Then she noticed his hand lying outside the covers. It was raw and scraped, but artistic and beautifully formed.
Julia shook her head, still in partial denial, and a moan escaped involuntarily. How could this have happened?
"He's not your relative?" the nurse asked.
Julia looked at the woman standing at her side, blinking away tears. "This is my brother."
Julia turned back to him, her eyes widening in anguish. It was no wonder she hadn't recognized Brian at first glance. Her brother was young. Now he looked like an aged, wizened old man. His skin had turned grey and slack and he appeared desiccated, as if the vital fluids in his body had dehydrated.
All that was visible of Brian's head was his shrunken face, with pinched nose, sunken eye sockets, and a mouth which seemed to have withered around his teeth. The rest of his head looked enormous, covered with thick bandages.
"We have to move him to a private room," Julia said, still gazing at her brother. "I have to talk to his doctor. He looks so...sick."
Julia carefully picked up his hand. She leaned over him, putting his hand against her cheek. "I'm here, Brian. You're going to be fine."
There was no returning pressure from the limp fingers.
She touched his brow, smoothing it, almost expecting his eyes to open, with the quick, wide smile she was used to seeing when he surprised someone with one of his famous practical jokes. But he lay still. The only movement was a slow, almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest with each breath.
"We don't have private rooms," the nurse said crisply. "The doctor will be making rounds this evening. You can stay if you like. In the mean time, we'll take your brother off the John Doe status. You are next of kin?"
Julia took a deep breath and turned toward the nurse. "Yes. I want to talk to a doctor. Now."
The nurse explained that this was a county hospital, where the indigent, without any means to pay, were given medical treatment. There were no private rooms. The doctors rotated in from other hospitals, so speaking to one at this moment would be impossible.
"What if there's an emergency?"
"We have a doctor on call at all times," the nurse said.
How utterly unreassuring, Julia thought. What if there were several emergencies at the same time?
"I'm sure you've taken good care of my brother," Julia lied carefully. "But I want Brian moved to the best hospital in Los Angeles. I'll pay for any treatment he's had. I don't know why he was sent here. He's not destitute. What happened?"
"He didn't have identification. No wallet, no money. This is where injured and sick people go when the police don't know who they are. Lucky you found him."
Julia thought she saw a shimmer of compassion on the woman's tired face before she turned and led her to the office of the hospital administrator, where arrangements were made to take her brother to Cedars Sinai Hospital in West Los Angeles. It was the hospital where the rich and famous went. The hospital with the best doctors on staff.
The portly hospital administrator, who appeared as tired as his nurse, didn't seem to mind that Julia was taking away one of his critical patients. Particularly since she was paying for all the medical treatment. He quickly sent for the one doctor on call who could legally sign a sick patient out of the county hospital.
Julia felt like she was in a haze through the next hour. Her eyes were raw and hurt with the effort to keep them from blurring. She tried to remain oblivious to a family clustered around one of the beds, near Brian's, praying for their loved one to get well.
The transfer was risky. Brian had sustained what could be lethal injuries. The ambulance attendants were careful. It took three of them to move Brian from his hospital bed to the stretcher.
After they wheeled him outside the hospital and transferred him to an ambulance sitting in the parking lot, they waited until Julia was behind them in her car before taking off across town to Cedars.
The traffic was hideous. Typical for Los Angeles, Julia thought in frustration. The bumper to bumper flow seemed unfazed by the siren. Cars would not, or could not, make an opening for the ambulance. The heat was almost overwhelming, tempers also soaring.
Didn't they understand that the piercing, undulating siren meant that there was an emergency vehicle trying to save a life? Julia pounded her fist on the steering wheel and prayed that Brian would survive the trip.
Finally, the ambulance parked in the back of the Cedars Sinai Hospital, right next to the Emergency Room entrance. A uniformed security guard walked over and waved Julia away, pointing her toward an open parking lot a couple of blocks away.
She sat stubbornly in her car, as the guard glared at her, watching while the gurney with her brother was guided through the sliding glass doors into the hospital.
Then she accelerated with a squeal of tires to find a place to park. In her rush to make sure her brother had arrived safely she ignored the no-parking signs.
"I hate Los Angeles," Julia muttered to herself a few hours later.
She stood perfectly motionless in the hot, dusty impound lot, gazing at her car. It sat like a shiny, blue jewel among a collection of dilapidated vehicles. All had shared the same fate; towed away for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Totally focused on the huge dent in her driver's side door, she finally walked over and tried to open it. There was a horrible squealing noise. She almost moaned in sympathy as it creaked open about a foot. She managed to squeeze inside the small opening and got the registration papers from the glove compartment.
As Julia hurried to the impound office to pay her illegal parking ticket, she passed a typical denizen of this sleazy, benighted town. The man was half naked, his shirt over a shoulder, on hands and knees, gazing at the underbelly of an enormous, septic yellow truck.
The man straightened up, brushing dust off the knees of his jeans, and smiled as she passed. Julia pretended not to notice. She couldn't help noticing the dark tan, which probably indicated an incipient case of skin cancer, and the eyes, which were a startling light blue in the bronzed face.
At the impound office, she knocked at the locked door. A woman behind a grimy bullet-proof window buzzed her inside. Julia handed over the registration and produced her drivers license, trying to remain calm as she said, "My car was smashed. I can hardly open the door."
"Sign here," the woman told her, pushing over a yellow form.
"It wasn't that way when I left it."
The dark haired woman peered at the parking ticket through half glasses perched on her nose, her eyebrows rising. "In a red zone. At a hospital entrance."
Julia nodded without remorse.
"I'll send someone over to look at your car."
There was an exorbitant fee to get her car back, Julia saw when she signed the form. Besides the ticket there were additional charges for towing and storage. It didn't matter. She was frantic to get back to the hospital.
Julia could feel a headache beginning to throb as she rushed back to her car. She passed the big guy with the awful truck again. Handsome and undoubtedly a dangerous degenerate, she de
cided. They sure grew them big and healthy in this town, she mused, as she waited in the sweltering heat.
A tubby man in a greasy blue mechanic's uniform sauntered over with deliberate, thorizine slowness. Julia felt like screaming with frustration and tried to take some deep breaths as she pointed out the damage to her car. She noticed that the big dark man standing beside the hideous yellow truck was motionless, watching with concentrated attention.
"Look lady, we just tow 'em," the mechanic said with lazy apathy. "We're not liable for an old rusty dent."
Julia stared at him in disbelief. "This car is brand new. There's not a speck of rust."
She listened as the mechanic explained very clearly that they had towed the car from the front end, not from the rear. He denied any liability and strolled insolently away, chuckling and shaking his head like she was crazy.
The towing company was responsible, there was no doubt, but right now it didn't matter. Julia got inside the car and drove slowly and carefully through the gritty, bumpy lot to a security gate. She didn't want to damage her car any further. And what difference did it make, anyway, how they had towed the car from the hospital? Front end or back end, the door was ruined.
The security gate opened after what seemed like hours when she finally tooted her horn, and she drove out of the impound lot. She had been in Los Angeles for two days, leaving behind a man who wanted to marry her, and in search of her brother, Brian, who had abruptly stopped all communication after the last email, urging her to come and enjoy the wonderful California sun.
Julia felt like she was in an oven in the sweltering heat, which her car had been sitting in for several hours. She turned on the air conditioner and accelerated. Santa Monica Boulevard was packed in the evening rush hour, but as her car moved forward she grew increasingly alarmed. Something was disastrously wrong. When she pressed the accelerator the car responded sluggishly. Then it sprang forward suddenly, forcing her to slam on the breaks so she wouldn't hit the motorist in front of her.
Julia prayed she would make it back to the hospital as the car lurched along. Frustrated and aggressive L.A. drivers started honking, slowly at first, but soon there was a chorus from the parade of angry motorists behind her. Julia gritted her teeth, but was afraid to go any faster. The car was a new BMW Roadster. She had driven it across the whole country to join Brian in California, and the car's responses had almost become an extension of her own. It wasn't behaving like her car any more. It was hurt.
Julia turned into an alley to go back to the towing company. They had ruined her wonderful little car.