Read Online Dark Paradise by Tami Hoag - Free Book Online Page A

death Quinn had not planned to make privy to her.
    Marilee bit her lip and battled briefly with her conscience. What she
    held in her hands seemed so scant. . . . Her friend was dead. . . .
     
    A roar that sounded like an enraged moose sounded beyond the door. The
    men went down in a heap of tangled arms and legs. Marilee scooted up out
    of her chair and slipped around the desk to flip open the manila folder.
     
    Her heart stopped, wedged at the base of her throat just ahead of the
    breakfast she was still digesting.
     
    The only things left in the case file were the crime scene Polaroids.
    Lucy's body. Lifeless. Grotesque. She had lain there at the edge of that
    meadow for two days. Nothing about the corpse bore any resemblance to
    the vibrant woman Marilee had known. The brassy blond hair was a dirty,
    tangled mat. The fingernails that had been meticulously manicured and
    lacquered at all times were dirty and broken. Features were
    unrecognizable, the body bloated out of shape like a Macy's parade
    balloon. The bullet had hit her square in the back and exited through
    her chest, leaving massive destruction.
     
    Hideous. God, she's hideous. She would have hated to die this way.
     
    Alone.
     
    Ripped apart.
     
    Left for the carrion feeders.
     
    Tears spilled over her lashes. Chills raced down her from head to toe.
    Trembling, she dropped the reports on top of the pictures and ran out of
    the office, choking on the need to vomit and the necessity to breathe.
    The biker was being dragged off to a holding cell. Quinn dusted his
    pants off with his hands, glancing up from beneath his brows as Marilee
    rushed into the squad room. She swept a fist beneath both eyes, trying
    in vain to erase the evidence of her tears. She gulped a deep lungful of
    air that was sour with the scent of male sweat and bad gas. Her stomach
    rolled over like a beached salmon.
     
    "I - I - thank you for your help, Sheriff Quinn," she said, her voice
    hitching. "I - I have to go now."
     
    The sympathy in his eyes nearly undid her. "Sorry about your friend, Miz
    Jennings."
     
    The images from the Polaroids burned into the backs of her eyes. Bile
    rose up in a tide. She managed to nod.
     
    "I - I have to go."
     
    "Stop by and see Miller Daggrepont," he called as she hurried toward the
    door.
     
    The name went in one ear and out the other. The only stop she had on her
    mind at the moment was the ladies' room down the hall. Saliva pooled in
    her mouth. Lucy.
     
    Oh, Christ, Lucy. But she pulled up at the squad room door, the one
    question she had forgotten to ask stopping her short. Bracing one hand
    on the jamb to keep herself upright, she looked back at Quinn.
     
    "Who found her body?"
     
    "That'd be Del," he said with a nod. "Del Rafferty."
     
     
     
    The Mystic Moose had been the finest saloon, hotel, and house of ill
    repute for miles around during the days of the cattle barons. Of course,
    it wasn't called the Mystic Moose in those days, but the Golden
    Eagle - both for the majestic birds that hunted in the mountains around
    New Eden and for the gilded replica sent to the first proprietor of the
    hotel by Jay Gould in honor of the grand opening.
     
    Madam Belle Beauchamp had built the place with the considerable fortune
    she had accrued on her back beneath the richest of the robber barons and
    cattlemen, and on her knees peering through keyholes while those same
    gentlemen wheeled and dealed both above the tables and under them. Madam
    Belle had known all the great men of the day and had made a killing in
    the stock market.
     
    Even though she had traveled extensively, she had called New Eden home
    until her death because she loved the land, the mountains, and the
    hearty, hardworking, Godfearing, mostly honest people who had taken root
    there.
     
    No expense had been spared in the building of the hotel. Every room had
    been gaudy and grand. The chandeliers that hung in the main salon had
    been shipped west from New York City by