Sapphire Dubois is back in the follow-up to the international bestsellers STALKING SAPPHIRE and SILENCING SAPPHIRE, fighting her most grueling serial killer yet.
Published: October 6th, 2016
Sapphire Dubois is back in the follow-up to the international bestsellers STALKING SAPPHIRE and SILENCING SAPPHIRE, fighting her most grueling serial killer yet.
A summer has passed since the catastrophe at the country club. Heiress and vigilante Sapphire Dubois has escaped to Paris, where she has shed her rich persona and lives as the infamous Serial Catcher. When the handsome Detective Aston Ridder tracks her down, Sapphire returns home to find Beverly Hills in chaos. A new vigilante has taken over Sapphire’s old job, and will stop at nothing to get her predecessor out of the way.
Meanwhile, a man with dark intentions and a deceiving smile has nestled his way into the rich community and is killing off heiresses. It doesn’t take long before Sapphire finds that this man, the next killer she has to catch, is none other than her estranged father. Already plagued by sickening memories, Sapphire is pushed to the limit when her father initiates a deranged game that threatens both her sanity and the lives of everyone around her.
While Aston struggles to keep the woman he loves from drowning in her father’s madness, Sapphire battles to outwit her merciless opponents before time runs out and more innocent blood is spilled.
EXCERPT
“Merde!” the serial killer yelled in
French.
Sapphire
Dubois leered down at the man she’d chased from France to Italy. She’d gotten
lucky; she didn’t even have to dig most of the hole this time. It was a grave
yet to be filled. The ancient cemetery lay in darkness, but the glistening city
below the hill gave her the light she needed.
“Who
are you?” he yelled. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“That’s
funny, Monsieur,” Sapphire
said in her best French. “I’d bet my last baguette that’s exactly what the
women asked you right before you
killed them.”
He
glared up at her with a look of guilt that lacked regret; the look of a
sociopath. “Are you a cop?”
“Ha!”
Sapphire slapped her knee, then turned serious. “I’m much worse than a cop, Monsieur. I’m… your toaster
oven.”
His
head cocked. “Huh?”
Sapphire
scrambled for the French dictionary on her phone. “Ah crap! I totally meant to
say ‘your worst nightmare.’ This app sucks.”
The man
didn’t seem to care about the rating of her app; he was more concerned with
getting out of the deep grave. Self-centered creatures, serial killers.
“Save
your energy, the cops will be here to take you out in a bit. I’m sure even
Interpol is eager to get their hands inside you.”
His face
twisted in revulsion.
“I mean
of you. No, hands on you… damn it. I swear I’m usually
good at this stuff.” Sapphire’s years at Winchester Private Academy had made
her semi-fluent in French. Had she studied text books as much as she’d secretly
studied the psychology of serial killers, she may have been fluent.
Sapphire’s
high heels dug into the dirt as she walked over to the bush and grabbed the
barbed wire and a boom box manufactured in the Jurassic period.
As the
Serial Catcher—the name the American police had given Sapphire—she would have
dropped an anonymous call to give the cops the whereabouts, but she couldn’t
stick to her routine. The cops back home had kept the Serial Catcher on the DL
from the media. She wasn’t sure Interpol would, and she couldn’t have the news
get back to a certain cop in the States. Though she was sure he had no idea
Sapphire Dubois—the heiress he’d slept with—was the vigilante he’d been
searching for, he knew the Serial Catcher’s M.O. better than anyone. Sapphire
had led him to believe she was in Dubai by placing her cell in someone’s
luggage at the airport, and that’s what he needed to keep believing.
“This look
familiar?” She showed the killer the barbed wire then placed it so it’d be the
first thing the cops saw.
“Merde.” He stared at the bundle. Of
course it looked familiar. He’d been using it to cut women’s heads off all over
Europe for the past six months. The British papers had dubbed him the Barbed-wire
Butcher.
“You
like heavy metal, Monsieur? Or
are you more of a Kelly Clarkson type of guy?” Sapphire didn’t wait for an
answer. She pushed play and the song Serial
Killer filled the cemetery. “Fitting, isn’t it?”
“You’re
crazy!” He shouted in French.
“Said
the serial killer in the hole.”
It’d be easier to just kill him. Sapphire froze at the thought. She
stared at the killer pacing his pen. It
would be easier. Sapphire had trained in Mixed Martial Arts for years. She
could take him out then dig deeper down in the grave. A casket would be placed
on top and nobody would know there was a second body in there. It would be
safer for her; she wouldn’t have to worry about potential exposure.
Sapphire
shook her head to silence the thought. She turned the volume to max and picked
up her prepaid phone to make an anonymous noise complaint to the police using
her limited Italian. She hung up, then took in the view. The Leaning Tower of
Pisa looked magnificent in the distance and made her smile. The summer had been
amazing. The life of the old Sapphire—the Beverly Hills heiress who secretly
captured serial killers and pined for the cop chasing her—felt like decades
ago. That life had been complicated and full of duties she hated. She’d led a
double life. She’d faked, fibbed, and sipped champagne at the country club by
day, then hunted murderous men by night.
The new
Sapphire didn’t have to lie. She’d chased the Barbed-wire Butcher around
Europe, on and off during the summer, and not a single person had asked where
she’d been or what she’d been doing. She had ultimate freedom, a dream life.
She’d
connected the dots in Spain where she saw that a few of the victims had Liked
and Favorited Moga: mobile yoga for people on the go. Two had mentioned a
certain instructor they had the hots for. It was a classic case of Moga
groupies. Sapphire found the French travelling Moga instructor’s schedule and
raced ahead of him to Pisa. She went to eight of his classes and acted like a
super-groupie, wearing short shorts and sports bras. She’d twirled her hair and
giggled at whatever he said. By the time he’d asked her out on a “date,” she’d
gotten pretty decent at Moga. It was a win-win.
“I’m
afraid I have a train to catch.” Sapphire looked at the time. “But I’m sure
you’ll love prison, plenty of barbed-wire there for you. And, oh…” She put her
palms together and bowed. “Namasté.”
She
jogged through the cemetery as the music and the man’s scream streamed into
one. She’d stared at the leaning tower for too long and now had to haul ass in
high heels and a mini skirt to catch the train back to Paris.
The
dark gravestones panned by in her periphery and she decided to take a shortcut.
An icy claw dragged down her spine and she picked up the pace. She knew it was
just her imagination, but the cemetery was suddenly a menacing reminder of the
ghosts of her past. She raced to the moss-covered wall and scaled it. When her
feet hit the ground and the cemetery was behind her, the creepy chill eased and
the warm July wind wrapped itself around her.
Life is good, she reminded herself as she headed
for the station.
And
as everyone knows, all good things last forever.
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About the author:
Mia Thompson is a Swedish-born author living in Sacramento, California. Her international bestsellers, Stalking Sapphire and Silencing Sapphire, were published in 2013, and followed by the third book in the series, Sentencing Sapphire.
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