With Malice

With Malice
Rachel Lee

Two seemingly unrelated murders put Tampa homicide detective Karen Sweeney in the crosshairs…Both victims were women–but what could connect an elderly nanny and a young exotic dancer? As Karen discovers, the answer is Senator Grant Lawrence, presidential contender…and a man with secrets.As she is drawn deeper into a world of lies and hidden motives, the one person Karen is half ready to trust is the senator himself, a man torn by grief and guilt, trying to protect his children. Could he have committed such crimes?And if not, then someone is trying to ruin him, and everyone around him is at risk–his children…and even Karen herself.

Detective Karen Sweeney recognized him the minute he climbed out of the cab in front of the crime scene.

Senator Grant Lawrence was sometimes referred to by the media as the next John Kennedy, and Lawrence really did have that magic. Karen, a lifelong Republican, somehow always found herself voting for Grant Lawrence, Democrat. He made sense.

She liked his attitude. And it didn’t hurt that he could give a younger Robert Redford a run for his money.

And that bundle of talent, looks and potentially huge problems was walking her way right now, being passed through the police cordon as if he were king. Nobody even asked him to wait.

This was Lawrence turf, even for the cops.

With Malice

Rachel Lee

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

WITH MALICE

Contents

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

Epilogue

Prologue

Abigail Reese was dreaming of passionate sex. She was not the woman in her dream, however. The woman in her dream was someone else, someone she knew, but whose face she could not quite place. The woman grunted and moaned, making sounds of mock resistance, her body bucking on something hard.

Then the dream shifted, in the way of dreams, and it was no longer passionate sex. It was no longer sex at all, and the woman was struggling, kicking, crying out in a weak, strangled voice. Abigail was paralyzed in her dream, unable to help the woman, nor even to open her eyes to see her face. The woman’s struggles grew more frantic and less controlled, panic and terror in the face of imminent death. Somehow gasping in a ragged breath, the woman’s voice screamed out her name.

“Abby!”

Abigail shuddered awake. For a moment she fought her body’s urge to drift back to sleep, knowing the nightmare would return. Her thin cotton nightgown clung to her damp skin like a shroud. She threw the covers off as the woman tried to call her name again.

“Ab—”

The sound died away in a gurgle.

It was not a dream.

Had she been fully awake, Abigail might have done the smart thing. She would have remembered that the children were with their father this weekend, locked her door and dialed 9-1-1. But in the manner of a woman who had cared for children for sixty of her seventy-five years, her first thoughts were not for self-protection. Adrenaline surged into her system, and she bolted out of bed with a fluid strength that would have surprised someone who looked upon her wiry, slightly bowed frame.