Book Three: The Maison de Danse Quartet
Suspense
Date Published: 08-01-2022
Publisher: Épouvantail Books
Private investigator Joy Nakamura is working the strangest cold case of her career, the 1999 disappearance of the five Sanger children. Working the old files, she tries to make sense of a twisted and clearly delusional interview within the records, the closest thing to a confession or explanation. Fighting her personal demons and ruinous alcoholism, she latches onto a clue and goes on the hunt.
The trail leads Joy to Maison de Danse, a family compound in Ormond Beach. Gaining access,
she questions Bo and Jangles Danser, a handsome man with two distinct personalities: one well-mannered and kind; the other vicious and deadly. They are soon entangled in lies and deceits as she presses on with the investigation, determined to find out what happened to the five children.
When she next meets Izzy Danser, her world is turned upside-down as the mystery gets dark and menacing. Caught up in the family’s ménage, she’s drawn into their eccentric lives and secrets, desperate to discover what happened to the Sanger children. As she draws closer to the answer, a long black shadow threatens to consume her.
Risking her life and sanity, Joy will stop at nothing until the killer is made to pay for his crimes.
Chapter
One
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office
Case#
1503207
Unsolved
Homicide
Evidence
Item: 1747-A
Suspect
Statement Anonymously Received
The
world ended on Tuesday, June 3, 1959, at 4:17 a.m. EST. A new form of an electro-magnetic
pulse was the cause. By my calculations, it took twenty-seven seconds to round
the planet. The effect was instantaneous. The world population that year was
2,979,576,185. You can look it up. In those twenty-seven seconds, that number
was cut by ninety-nine percent.
Human
life was erased—ended—and no continent was spared. The President in the Oval
Office. A housewife at the stove. A child in a rice field in China. No matter
what they were doing, all 2.9 billion dropped dead in their tracks. If it could
hear, if it had ears, it died. Man and animal tumbled like rows of dominoes.
The
pulse sounded blue. I’m not sure why. It was invisible, of course. Immediately
following was a screech of electric silver that lasted less than a minute. Then
nothing. All channels were silent. I was at the radios, monitoring all three
frequencies. The signal room was at the back of the helm.
“You
hear that?” I turned to my right.
Seaman
James ‘Jimmy’ Cavanagh was a big boy, weighing in at an easy two hundred and forty
pounds, head like a white eggplant with a tuft of blond hair never staying
down. He had a wide mouth, soft chin, tiny eyes, and a mumble, except when on
the radio. Then his voice became crisp and decisive.
He
was already dead, headset in his hands, head back, mouth yawned open to expel
his ghost. It had been nearly eleven months since I last saw a dead body. This
was the first death I hadn’t had a hand in.
After
unplugging, I draped the cloth cord over my shoulder and went to the helm
fronting the wheelhouse. Captain Collins and NCO
Hanson had both crumbled to the deck before the chart table. They lay side by
side facing each other, looking like two fallen dance partners. Both were dead
as can be.
Not so, sonar specialist, Fabian Andreoli. Fabian—a hoot, right? He was gawking at the
dead officers, having spun his chair around from the radars screens. Fabian
was movie star
handsome—tall, skeletal thin, black hair with a wave always spilling onto his
brow. All the blood had drained from his lovely face, replaced with a sickly
pallor.
His
eyes rose to mine as I entered.
“What
just happened?” he asked me. “It swept the screen for less than a second. Then
they fell.”
“Some
kind of EMP, I think.”
“Are
they?”
I
kneeled before the two fallen officers, taking each of their wrists for
Fabian’s benefit. I already knew the answer.
“Dead.
Dead as doorknobs.”
“Dead?
But the electronics, the ship is still running. I don’t understand…”
“I’m
going to go look for others. Seaman Jimmy died beside me.”
“Why
didn’t it kill you and me?”
“I
don’t know. Maybe it still will. Help me search?”
“Go ahead. I’ve got the tender boat coming
in.” There was both sadness and fear in his eyes.
He
swiveled his chair from the view of the two dead bodies to monitor the arrival
of the supply boat.
About the Author
Greg Jolley earned a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of San Francisco and lives in the very small town of Ormond Beach, Florida. When not writing, he researches historical crime, primarily those of the 1800s. Or goes surfing.
Contact Links
Twitter @gfjolle
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