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Small Town. Big Murder.
The number one secret to my success as a bodyguard? Staying under the radar. But when a wildly public disaster blew up my career and reputation, my perfect, solo life took a hard left turn to crazy town. And to bodies. Lots of dead bodies.
I thought my tiny hometown of Nowhere would be the ideal out-of-the-way refuge to wait out the media storm.
It wasn’t.
My little brother had moved into a treehouse. The obscure mountain town had decided to attract tourists with the world’s largest collection of big things… Yes, Nowhere now has the world’s largest pizza cutter. And lawn flamingo. And ball of yarn…
And then I stumbled over a dead body.
All the evidence points to my brother being the bad guy. I may have been out of his life for a while—okay, five years—but I know he’s no killer. Can I clear my brother before he becomes Nowhere’s next Big Fatality?
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Murder mystery game included in the back of the book.
Targeted Age Group:: 35-85
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
A couple years ago I visited Casey, IL, a town going for the most World Record-breaking big things. The owner the knit shop (and home to the world's largest knitting needle AND crochet hook) mentioned how quirky living in the town was, and I realized it was the perfect spot for a kinda-cozy mystery.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
I knew and worked with a lot of bodyguards when I was overseas, but only met one woman in the business. The idea of a woman in personal protection fascinated me, and I began researching the industry.
Book Sample
Just to be clear, it wasn’t my fault.
It wasn’t my responsibility either. But when your client slips you a mickey, there’s a principle involved. Though after falling down a flight of hotel stairs, I wasn’t entirely sure what that principle was anymore.
I staggered to my feet, lost the rest of my dinner in a potted palm, and careened through the door into the hotel lobby.
Guests turned to stare, and why not? My blond hair fountained out of a high, pre-makeup-removal ponytail. Camo pajamas and flip-flops completed my tipsy party-girl look.
I staggered deeper into the chic gray and white lobby. Lights glinted off the chrome chandeliers, and I winced at their dizzying starbursts.
My fist clenched on my phone. Or at least I thought they did. My fingers were a little numb. But I’d expelled most of the drugs, and I was going to catch my wayward client, Toomas Koppel, and surveil him until it hurt. Him. Hurt him.
That wasn’t ego. I was well aware of my many flaws. But I also knew who I was and what I was. I was very, very good at surveillance.
Plus, I was an optimist. Personal protection agents, otherwise known as bodyguards, frequently were. We liked to think we were tough and cynical, since our job was to watch for trouble. But you didn’t get into this business if you didn’t think you and your client would survive it. Maybe that was why I’d been snookered by mine. I still had no idea why he’d drugged me, but I was going to find out.
I pushed through the hotel’s revolving door, tripped over my own feet, and fell flat on the sidewalk.
San Francisco was a beautiful city in the summer and particularly tonight. Fog coiled low above the streets and blurred the outlines of the elegant buildings like something out of a Sam Spade novel. But not even Sam Spade would voluntarily lie on a San Francisco sidewalk.
A wary doorman in green approached. “Mm, may I help you, Ms. Sommerland?”
“Where’d he go?” It was the first time I’d tried out my voice since I’d been drugged, and it was embarrassingly slurry. I clambered to my feet and rubbed my bare arms, chilled by a gust of fog. It blotted out the stars, and ghostly wisps reached with coiling arms to the street.
“Who?” the burly doorman asked.
“The guy I was with. Toomas Koppel.”
He pointed to the darkened street. My black Hummer glided past.
“Son of a…” I gaped at my swiftly vanishing vehicle. Shaking myself, I whirled on a valet. “How’d he get my car?” My Hummer was less than a year old, the first treat I’d had since my divorce. The thought of Koppel driving it made me ill.
The green-coated valet edged backward.
I exhaled, trying to get a grip. “Why did you give him my car?” I asked in a level voice.
“He had your room number,” the valet sputtered and raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “You two were together.”
My lips pinched. The entire hotel thought I was Koppel’s mistress. I didn’t look like much of a mistress. I’m a beanpole—too tall and too much lean muscle. But I’d been dressed to kill on the few occasions we’d been seen together. There were also our adjoining suites.
I scanned the street for a cab.
“Ms. Sommerland?” The bellhop pointed at my feet.
Red yarn trailed from the revolving door to one of my flip-flops. The yarn was the remains of a sweater I’d been knitting, and my left eyelid twitched. I’d been working on that sweater for weeks.
A silver-haired couple in formalwear emerged from a yellow taxi beneath the concrete awning. I yanked the yarn free and jogged erratically toward them.
The male half of the couple stuck his head in the open, front passenger-side door. He fumbled with his wallet and coughed, his mercury silk scarf dangling. “I know I’ve got a fifty in here somewhere…”
I squeezed through the open door and sat beside the cabbie. “I’ll pay it. Follow that Hummer.”
“But young lady, it’s nearly fifty dollars,” the man said. Judging by the suit, I guessed he’d come from a symphony or opera—both popular events on a Friday night.
The black-haired driver eyed me. “No one rides in front. And I don’t go anywhere until I get paid.”
I pulled my credit card out of the slipcover on the back of my phone and handed it to the cabbie. “Use this.”
“I insist on paying.” A hundred dollar bill dropped from his wallet to the sidewalk.
I leaned out and picked it up, handed it to the man. “Seriously,” I ground out. “I got this.” Straightening in the seat, I turned to the driver. “Let’s go.”
The cabbie’s jaw stuck out mulishly. “Not with you up front.”
“Fine,” I snarled, and stepped from the cab.
The old man shook his head. “But—”
“Enjoy your stay in San Francisco.” I hopped into the back and slammed the door. The cab smelled like pine freshener. “Now can we go?”
“Go where?” the driver asked.
“Follow that…” My Hummer was gone, and I bit back a curse. “Hold on.” I pulled up the anti-theft tracker on my phone. “Go two blocks east and make a left.”
He pulled from the curb. “So,” the cabbie said brightly. “You’re following someone?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“A client.” My client might be a blackmailer and all-around jerk, but he still got confidentiality. At least until he got to court.
I couldn’t wait.
The taxi sped up. “What sort of client do you have to follow?”
“The kind who stole my car.”
His shoulders twitched. “Ouchy.”
I hadn’t caught a whiff of trouble around Koppel until now. What was he up to? My stomach tumbled unpleasantly. Was this a run for the border? It made sense. Why else would he reject protection from the feds? Aside from the fact that he hated them with a red-hot passion.
I checked my phone. “Turn left at the next light.” It glowed green, turned to yellow.
“I don’t see a Hummer.” He shot through it and past rows of Victorians, partially hidden behind gloomy cypresses. “All I get are taillights.”
“Slow down. I don’t want him to see us.” It was after eleven, but that didn’t mean much in this city. Koppel was driving too fast, weaving in and out of traffic. If he scratched my new car, I was billing him double.
“And you’re getting too close again.” I glanced down at my phone.
“Are you some sort of PI?”
I snorted. As if. “No. Personal protection.”
“Uh, what now?”
“A bodyguard.” Technically, my specialty was countersurveillance, watching for trouble from afar while the client’s close protection team took care of any trouble that gets close. I was the early warning system. Tonight, that system had been compromised.
“Sure, sure…” His head bobbed. “You travel a lot?”
“Yes.” I studied my phone. “Take the next right, at the church.”
“Must be hard on relationships.”
My gaze narrowed in the rearview mirror. My relationships were just fine. I didn’t have any. And after my divorce eighteen months back, a little distance seemed like a good thing. I obviously couldn’t trust myself to make good decisions in that arena.
He cleared his throat. “Why are you wearing pajamas?” he asked. “It doesn’t seem professional.”
A mini disco ball jiggled from the rearview mirror. I had to pick a critic, a disco fan, and a chatty Cathy? It wasn’t my fault I was in pajamas. My usual dress code was business casual. “Can you just drive? And turn right at the light.”
“Looks like he’s heading to the bridge,” he said. Horns blared. “Hey, I think a Hummer just changed lanes up ahead. That yours?”
To the Golden Gate? Then Koppel wasn’t heading to Mexico. To Canada? “That’s mine. Hang back. We don’t need him to see he’s being followed.” The cabbie slowed in the traffic—still heavy even this late at night—and a horn blared behind us. “You’re still too close.”
The taxi slowed. “Lady, as car chases go, this ain’t very exciting.”
“It is for me,” I said, grim.
We followed the blinking light on my phone all the way to Sonoma, where the light stopped moving.
My pulse accelerated. Gotcha. “Slow down.”
I checked the clock on my phone. It was almost midnight, and we were nearing Sonoma’s town square. The streetlamps glowed dully in the fog.
The cabbie sighed heavily. “If I go any slower, I’ll get a ticket.”
I bounced my heel. “My car’s stopped. It’s five blocks up and another two over.”
We drove past low brick shops, arched windows dark, potted topiaries bracketing their doors.
“Over in which direction?” the cabbie asked.
“Right. Turn here.” We were heading into the business district. Was Koppel meeting someone?
I switched to my phone’s video camera. Slouching down, I raised it just above the door frame. That familiar adrenaline rush flowed through my veins. “I got you, you son of a—”
The cabbie cleared his throat. “Uh, I don’t think you’re getting your car back.” The cab glided to a stop.
I jerked upright in my seat and sucked in a breath.
My Hummer was accordioned against the grill of a tomato truck. Tomatoes and pieces of scrap metal lay scattered across the Sonoma street.
I swore and leaped from the cab, my flip-flops crunching across broken glass. “Call nine-one-one,” I shouted over one shoulder.
The door to the tomato truck snicked open. Its driver tumbled out, his seatbelt still hooked around one shoulder. It snapped free when his feet hit the reddened pavement.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” I gripped his bicep, steadying the man and held up three fingers. No bleeding. No visible wounds aside from the lump forming on his temple. The cab of the truck itself was dented but not badly damaged. The seatbelt had saved him, but he’d need to be checked out by the paramedics.
The truck driver groaned. “Three.”
“You win. Help’s on the way,” I said. “Don’t move. You’re going to be fine.” I squeezed his shoulder, hurried to my SUV, and started to reach through my broken driver’s side window.
Abruptly, I withdrew my hand. My fingers curled inward. Toomas Koppel was dead. There was no question as to how. He hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt.
The street smelled like burned rubber and marinara, and my stomach twisted. I focused on the scattered tomatoes instead of the car and what was inside it.
I’d never look at spaghetti the same way again.
The cabbie appeared at my elbow and whistled. “Damn.” He shook his head. “I called nine-one-one.”
I nodded and blinked rapidly. I’d known Koppel was a horrible human being from the jump. But after three weeks of building rapport and pretending to be the jerk’s friend, my subconscious had gotten a different message.
I returned to the truck driver. The lump on his head had, if possible, grown bigger. So… possible concussion. I sat him against a rear wheel of his truck so he wouldn’t fall.
The police arrived. I gave a young officer my statement. The cop looked at me oddly and told me to wait.
I walked across the street and called my boss, Buck Jackson. Terse, I explained the situation. The fact that my boss also happened to be my ex-husband had absolutely nothing to do with the edge to my voice.
“You were chasing him?” he shouted.
I jerked the phone away from my ear and winced. “I was following him, in a yellow cab—”
“Tell me you didn’t panic him into speeding.”
I stiffened. “Of course, I didn’t. Koppel had no idea I was on his trail. I was following the tracker on my car.”
Buck exhaled. “Okay, okay. Sorry. I know you wouldn’t spook him. Now I want you to get back in that cab—is it still there?”
I looked across the street. The cabby was sitting on the hood of his yellow cab and talking to a cop. “Looks like the driver’s being questioned.” Again. A wisp of fog twined around a streetlamp. When there was a fatality, the cops liked to take their time. That was the way it should be. So why was my stomach jumping? A crow alighted in a nearby elm tree and cawed.
“Alice?” Buck was saying. “You still there?”
I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “Yeah.” But I didn’t feel here. The early morning mist gave the scene a dreamlike quality. None of this seemed real. For a moment, I wasn’t even sure if I was real.
Was I in shock? I didn’t think so. But I’d been in this business for ten years. I’d never lost a client before, even one who’d revolted me, even one I wasn’t physically protecting.
“Koppel should never have been able to get to that valet, let alone get your car,” Buck said. “Where was his other protection team?”
“Down for the night is my guess. They probably thought he was in bed.” With me.
Buck snorted.
“We knew he didn’t trust them,” I continued, “or he wouldn’t have hired us—your firm.”
Toomas had had his own team of heavies surrounding him. And if anything looked off, I was to phone Koppel, not his team. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to work, and my shoulders curled inward. I should never have taken this assignment. But Buck had asked, and I’d been trying to prove… What? That we were really okay? Just friends? No biggie?
“Are his guys at the crash scene yet?” Buck asked.
“No,” I said, drawing the word out.
“Why weren’t you watching him?”
I sucked in my cheeks and didn’t respond, let the silence extend. Buck cursed, long and colorfully. It was an impressive display of verbiage for a man who rarely cracked a book. But like me, he’d had a lot of practice in the military. We hadn’t met there—I might have been smarter about things if we had. We’d met on assignment in Marrakesh. People do all sorts of stupid things there. But at least we knew we could work together.
“Why?” he asked. “Why’d he run?”
Heart leaden, I watched three firemen in canvas coats extract the slender body from my SUV. “Probably to prove he could.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I should have seen it coming. Koppel had been arrogant and psychotically confident. It’s why he’d relied on me and his own team rather than taking up the feds’ offer of protection. Of course he’d think he could ditch his protection.
But a man was dead. A man I’d failed to protect, a man the justice system had needed alive, even if he was a scumbag. Because he was a scumbag. My stomach rolled again.
Across the street, the tomato-truck driver rubbed the back of his neck.
Buck groaned. “This is a disaster. Is the press there yet?”
My jaw clenched. For God’s sake. Who cared about the press? “No.” If I kept to single syllables, I wouldn’t yell at him.
Though clusters of people with cell phones snapped pictures of the proceedings. And of me. It was tough to look inconspicuous when you were five-ten and wearing camo pajamas.
“And you gave your statement to the police?”
“Yes.”
“Then get out of there,” he said. “ASAP.”
I blinked, certain I’d misheard. “Excuse me?”
“Get. Out. Of. There. They’re going to pin this on you.”
“The police? They’ve got the truck driver in custody, but judging by the skid marks, Toomas was driving like a maniac. My cabbie and I didn’t get here until it was too late—”
“Finish with the police. Go back to your hotel. I’ll let the FBI know where you are. They’ll want all your surveillance footage. Don’t edit it down to what you think they want. Give them everything. Then lie low, go home.”
Another agonizing silence stretched between us. We both knew I didn’t have a home to go to. I’d been living out of suitcases since the divorce, throwing myself into one job after another, recreating the stale, globe-trotting existence that had ended my marriage. And I guess trying to prove it had been worth it.
Buck cleared his throat. “There’s something else you should know. Did Koppel, um, talk about his family?”
“A little. He said they were estranged.”
“Estranged. Good word. Yeah.”
Threads of panic squeezed past my helpless anger. “You’re stalling. Why are you stalling?”
“So, his family… They’re uh, mafia. Estonian mafia.”
I burst out laughing.
“I’m not kidding,” he said.
I wiped my eyes. “I know. I mean, Koppel told me. But he didn’t take them seriously.”
“Well, I do,” Buck said. “And his team isn’t going to want to take the blame.”
Realization chilled my blood. No, they wouldn’t want to take the blame. They’d want to blame me, the odd woman out, the person who wasn’t part of their team. And I’d been first on the crash scene.
Plus, his close protection team didn’t know about me. Koppel had insisted I stay undercover. But I couldn’t be certain he’d kept that part of the deal.
“Take a vacation,” Buck was saying.
I dragged my attention back to the conversation. “A what?”
“Is there somewhere you can lie low for a while? We need to keep you out of the public eye.”
Hot anger flushed from my heart to my scalp, but my only movement was the tightening of my hand on my phone. “We lost a client. Forget the public eye.”
“You always do this. You never took my company…”
Seriously, I finished in my mind.
He drew a deep breath. “Toomas Koppel was the key witness in the biggest underage girls and blackmail ring since Epstein. Everybody who’s anybody wanted him dead. And now Koppel is dead, and the undercover BG who was supposed to be watching him somehow let him steal her car and get himself killed.”
Since a lot of guys in protection found the term bodyguard mildly irritating in the industry, BG had become the approved substitute. “But—”
“No one’s going to believe that. They’re going to think it was murder, and you were in on it.”
A news van with a satellite dish on the hood pulled up beside a store that sold over a hundred different kinds of olive oil.
I shook my head. “But the police—”
“Aren’t you listening? I don’t care what the local police think. No one cares what the police think. In about thirty minutes the rest of the world is going to think you’re a conspirator to murder.”
I turned away from the news van. Maybe in less than thirty. I rubbed the back of my neck, my stomach tightening.
“There’s got to be somewhere you can go,” he muttered.
“Put me on another assignment, maybe in Russia…” Or maybe not Russia. The Estonian mafia might be small potatoes, but they had ties to the Russians. “Latin America?”
He laughed hollowly. “An assignment? Don’t you get it? No one’s going to want a BG who took a payoff and let their client get killed.”
My legs wobbled. I braced my hand on an ornate lamp post. A payoff? No one who mattered would believe that. I had friends in the industry, a reputation. “I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t, but no one else is going to believe you just let him borrow your car.” I could actually hear his quote marks around the word borrow.
“But it’s not true.” Despite the cool fog, sweat broke out on my brow. “I wasn’t even his close protection. No one expected me to shove him out of the way of a bullet.”
“So?” Buck demanded. “What does truth have to do with anything?”
My mind raced. I could fix this. There was always a solution, even if I hated it.
I swallowed, closed my eyes. “What about Afghanistan?” I’d gone there once to do a security training and nearly got dismembered by an angry mob with rusted farm implements. I’d gotten my client out, but it had soured me on the country.
But Afghanistan was the place that failures went to launder resumés the way the mafia laundered money. No one knew what went on in Afghanistan—they were too scared to check. Resumés came out clean.
He huffed. “Are you nuts?”
“I’ve worked there before.”
“Yeah and look how that went.”
I swallowed. There was one other place, but these days, it made Afghanistan look like a day spa. “Sudan?”
“No.” He paused. “You’re still gawking at the crime scene, aren’t you?”
“Crash scene, not crime scene.” I strode away from said scene and down a tree-lined street. “And no. I’m moving.”
“There’s nowhere to put you…” He trailed off as if he’d just gotten an idea. “Nowhere…”
I stopped short beside a mailbox. He couldn’t think… “You can’t be serious.”
“It makes sense. I’m the only one who knows where you’re really from. It’s enough to stall the press for a couple weeks, and you can get there fast. It’s only a few hours from the crime scene.”
“Crash scene.” I strode past a clothing boutique.
“And I’ll know where to find you,” he said, sounding more cheerful.
Nowhere. I shook myself. Okay. This wouldn’t be so bad. All I had to do was lie low. How hard could that be? This would blow over, and my career would get back to normal.
But that was my stupid optimism showing. I had no idea what the real problem was. The accident had set something in motion much worse than I could ever have imagined.
Author Bio:
Kirsten Weiss writes laugh-out-loud, page-turning mysteries. Her heroines aren’t perfect, but they’re smart, they struggle, and they succeed. Kirsten writes in a house high on a hill in the Colorado woods and occasionally ventures out for wine and chocolate. Or for a visit to the local pie shop.
Kirsten is best known for her Wits’ End, Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum, and Tea & Tarot cozy mystery books. So if you like funny, action-packed mysteries with complicated heroines, just turn the page…
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