Mari Bauer was born and raised in rural Northwest Iowa. She has been Editor and Publisher of the Holstein Advance since 1994. She has studied forensics, police procedure, and psychology at a local college to allow her writing to be authentic. Mari resides on a small acreage in rural Iowa, raising and training horses, enjoying her dogs, but most of all spending time with her daughter, Kelsey and son, Tyler.
Maddy Sheridan, 36-year investigative reporter, lives by one rule, professional and personal life, never the two shall meet. Maddy has been running from her past for ten years in effort to keep from remembering what her mind has blocked out. After not working a case with friend and police source Detective Jackson Parker for a couple of months, Maddy decides to tag along on a missing persons scene. For unknown reasons this time there is tension between them, an attraction between them which Maddy fears violates her rule, but the fuse, has been lit and even though it’s slow burning, it can’t be put out. What appeared to be a simple missing person’s case turns into a serial murder investigation. When FBI SSA Bryan Mayland, Maddy’s former partner and lover is assigned to the case, tensions run high as Mayland forces Maddy’s hand into rejoining the Bureau. He not only puts her emotions at risk, but also the mental stability she has worked so hard to hang on to. Maddy’s role as an investigative reporter, a FBI profiler, and a crime scene expert move her to the forefront of the investigation and the personal target of the killer they seek.
Excerpt
Maddy rode in silence. They drove up a small service road that led to a rural area known as Bacon Creek Park. It was very nice recreational area where a creek had been dammed up to make way for great bass fishing, had a swimming area, offered canoeing, camping and ample walking paths. They had taken an area and fenced it off so people could bring their dogs to run. This was the area that Jack had referred to.
The park had been closed off to public traffic. Jack flashed his badge and the unies waved him through. Police cars, both marked and unmarked, lined the road. The Crime Scene Unit was already on the scene as well as the morgue wagon. Officers could be seen making a trek back and forth from the vehicles to the scene.
Jack turned the car off but left the keys in it, “In case you get hot.” He got out and took off his jacket and threw it in the back seat. A hint of perspiration was already revealing its self down his back and under his arms. He shut the door behind him and then looked through the window at Maddy. “Maddy stay!”
As he walked in front of the car and began to walk up the grassy hill, she poked her head out the window. “Woof!”
Jack glared at her, he was not amused and to top things off, he flipped her off!
Damn, he was really stressing. Was he that freaked out because DCI was in the mix or was there something else to this? It wasn’t even sure if this body had anything to do with the missing women.
Maddy sat in the car for what seemed like an eternity. She could have this much fun at the office, at least she could move around. All the action was up there and she couldn’t get a taste of it. Out of boredom she began to snoop around Jack’s car. Of course he wouldn’t have anything fun like a pair of handcuffs, or a gun, not even a taser. What kind of cop was he? She popped open the center counsel and dug through it. “My, my, my…what do we have here?” she smiled as she held up a clearance pass. She didn’t think about her promise to Jack, only now she could get close to the action. Surely he would understand, she was just doing her job anyway she could.
Maddy reached over and turned the ignition on and rolled up the windows. She got out and locked the car behind her. She untucked her blouse and attached the badge to its hem and proceeded to walk up the hill. A couple of unies gave her the once over, but when she flashed the badge they let her walk on by. Her nerves were hopping and she was excited. What was wrong with her, getting off on seeing a dead body? As she moved through the crowd of cops, she began to smell decomposing flesh, which once you smelt that it was forever imprinted in your brain. When the scent grew almost stronger than her stomach could tolerate she knew she was close to the source. She managed to poke her head between some plainclothes cops to see what was going on.
The area had been taped off in grids surrounding the site. The grave was shallow, approximately three feet deep and six feet long. During the course of unearthing the body, mounds of soil were piled around the body. CSU personnel were carefully moving debris away from the body while a couple of photographers were diligently taking photos of the body and scene at every conceivable angle. The body in the grave was definitely that of a woman, small in stature. Her body appeared to be wrapped in some kind of gauzy material and it was hard to see any real detail. On thing Maddy noticed however was the girl’s hair, it was very long, and a dark chestnut color.
“She’s not one of missing vics,” she said flatly before she even realized it. Several men turned and looked at her with a surprised and questioning look.
Maddy felt one pair of eyes burning into her. Jack. Their eyes locked. His were bearing down on her, his face flushed red and she was sure it wasn’t from the heat. She saw Captain Thomas pull him aside and say something.
Jack quickly moved through the crowd and was soon escorting her out by her elbow. His grasp on her was tight and even hurt a little bit. She tried to pull away. “I can walk back on my own,” she snapped.
He didn’t release her. He didn’t speak to her. He wouldn’t even look at her. He took her to his car. “Give me my keys.”
She handed them to him and he popped the locks. “Get your purse.”
She knelt in and grabbed it. When she turned around to face Jack, he grabbed the clearance badge, snatched it off her shirt and threw it in the car not caring where it landed. He got on his radio and called for Bobby Russell to bring a squad car around.
Maddy had never seen Jack so angry with her before and she knew better to even open her mouth.
Jack spun her around to face him. “Maddy, you knew. I told you how important this was and it was not the time nor place for your bullshit. I took you at your word, I trusted you. Now my ass is in hot water with the Captain, you made me look like a total dumb fuck to the DCI officers. I should have known better to bring you here, that I couldn’t trust you. Stupid move on my part”
Bobby pulled up in a cruiser. Jack opened the passenger side door and practically shoved her in the car. “Escort Miss Sheridan to her vehicle, Bobby. Thank you.”
Maddy started to say something and Jack cut her off. “Don’t Maddy, don’t make it worse by opening up your mouth. There is nothing you can say or do right now that’s going to fix things. Just leave.” He turned and hiked back up the grassy hill.
She told Bobby that her car was parked at Perkins and then sat quietly going over what happened in her mind. She had fucked up, big time. This could be it; Jack was probably done with her. An hour ago he was asking if something was going on between them and now he couldn’t stand the sight of her. Most times she didn’t give her antics much thought, but she was feeling remorse over this one.
Bobby glanced at her with a smirk on his face. “You get the feeling you’ve fallen from grace?”
“Shut the hell up Bobby,” was all she said to him. They rode the rest of the way in silence.
A raw in your face story of teenage love, lust, murder, and revenge set in the Bronx in the early seventies, where the cold business world of organize crime melds with the brutality of street gang warlords that ignites a winner takes all battle for u
