Murder Strikes Twice: A Catrina Flaherty Mystery, Book 2 (Catrina Flaherty Mysteries) Read online

  Also by Pendelton C. Wallace

  Catrina Flaherty Mysteries

  Mirror Image

  Based on a real-life tragedy, Mirror Image is a heart-stopping tale of horrific abuse.

  Female PI Catrina Flaherty tackles one of her most difficult cases. Cat specializes in women’s issues: infidelity, messy divorces, spousal abuse, sexual harassment, etc. But her newest client, Mandy Alcott, has an unusual problem; her abusive husband is the chief of police.

  What do you do when your abuser is The Law?

  You call Cat Flaherty.

  The Ted Higuera Thrillers

  The Inside Passage (Ted Higuera Series Book 1)

  Somewhere on Canada's Inside Passage, terrorist plot to destroy a cruise ship filled with celebrities and VIP’s. Ripped from today's headlines, a group of Canadian-born terrorist plan to bring their war to the Western Hemisphere.

  It’s also the story of a young Latino man coming of age in an Anglo world. Ted Higuera and his friends stumble upon the al-Qaeda plot to blow up the cruise ship and the clock starts ticking.

  Can Ted and his friends act in time to save the thousands of people aboard the Star of the Northwest?

  Hacker for Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2)

  If Clive Cussler had written Ugly Betty, it would be Hacker for Hire.

  Hacker for Hire, a suspense novel about corporate greed and industrial espionage, is the second book in a series about Latino computer security analyst Ted Higuera and his best friend, para-legal Chris Hardwick.

  When you’re already in the top 1% of the country’s money makers, how much is enough?

  Ted and lovely PI, Catrina Flaherty, are led deep into Seattle’s Hi-Tech jungle as they stalk a killer. But the killer is also hunting them. Can they find the killer before the killer finds them?

  This is the introduction to Cat Flaherty. If you’re a fan of hers, you have to read this book.

  The Mexican Connection (Ted Higuera Series Book 3)

  In The Mexican Connection, the third book in the Ted Higuera series, Ted and Chris are lured to Mexico by an old nemesis. They are dragged into Mexico’s drug wars and have to confront the corruption of Mexico’s law enforcement. They meet a colorful cast of characters as they search from border towns to the cosmopolitan Mexico City to ancient Aztec ruins.

  In the meantime, Cat is in Mexico on a mission of her own. Her client, a Seattle housewife, if thrown into jail when her drug-dealing husband disappears, leaving her holding the bag.

  You will meet old friends, make new ones and encounter new villains as our heroes cut a wide swath through our neighbor to the south. Throw in a magical Jaguar and an Aztec god and you have a rollicking adventure tale.

  Bikini Baristas

  Bikini Baristas is a tale of Dick Randall, the owner of a chain of bikini barista stands in the Seattle area and Clayton Johnson-White, a teenage kid who thinks he’s smarter than the rest of the world.

  The story begins when Dick’s pickup truck is discovered burned-out in the California desert. What happened to him? Did he fake his death to escape his sleazy past or did the past catch up with him?

  Catrina Flahery and Ted Higuera are hired by his wife to find out what happened.

  To get away from his trailer-trash life, Clayton drops out of school and runs away into the woods of Camano Island. He breaks into vacation homes and steals what he needs.

  The case is handed to Ted’s best friend, Chris Hardwick, his first grown-up lawyer case.

  What do these two cases have in common? In the end, they come together with the force of two colliding freight trains.

  Other Books by Pendelton C. Wallace

  Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With My Father

  Blue Water & Me is a high-adventure true story of author Penn Wallace's magical first summer fishing with his father, Blue Water Charlie, off the coast of Mexico at age eleven.

  Christmas Inc.

  Amazon.com’s #1 best selling political satire.

  What would happen if Santa decided to go public and sell shares of Christmas on the NASDAQ? What would happen to the elves if he outsourced toy making to China?

  Warning: This is not a children’s book. Exposure to children under 12-years old may cause the child to stop believing in Santa Claus or take a cynical view of Christmas.

  Murder Strikes Twice

  The Catrina Flaherty Mysteries Book 2

  by

  Pendelton C. Wallace

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  Copyright © 2015 Pendelton C. Wallace

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For permission, contact Victory Press at www.pennwallace.com.

  Visit Pendelton Wallace’s Web site at www.pennwallace.com

  Contact the author at http://www.pennwallace.com/contact-penn.html.

  Cover Design by Brandi McCann

  Table of Contents

  Also by Pendelton C. Wallace

  Review Contest

  Table of Contents

  Murder Strikes Twice

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  Post Script

  About the Author

  Mirror Image Sample . . .

  Also by Pendelton C. Wallace

  Murder Strikes Twice

  The rock beneath her feet crumbled and Lauren fell into space. Plunging down the vertical cliff, her high-pitched scream echoed off the rocky precipice. At the one hundred foot mark, Lauren smashed into an outcropping of rock, her head sounding like a watermelon struck by a mallet. The body slid and rolled down the embankment. Arms and legs tossed askew. Her ribs cracked and pierced her lungs.

  She came to rest at the bottom of the gorge, like a broken toy discarded in the back yard.

  Silence filled the chasm. Birds circled on the air currents high above the cliffs. The Montana sky was still a deep cerulean blue; green fir trees still swayed to the breeze on the mountains’ slopes.

  The day went on, but Lauren lay lifeless at the foot of the cliff.

  ****

  On the cliff top, Lauren’s husband, Brody Barrett, gasped. “Oh shit.” He looked at his watch.

  3:30 PM.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Hi.”

  “Hello, Mr. Barrett,” the voice on the phone said. “I’m calling at 3:30 like you asked.”

  “Thanks, Tami. Can I talk to Debby?”

  There was a moment of silence, then a tiny voice came on the line. “Daddy?”

  “Hi, sweetheart. How’re you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “I just wanted to say hello. Mom and I will be back soon. Love you.” Brody ended the call and dialed 9-1-1.

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

  “M . . . M . . . My wife just fell off the cliff.” Brody’s voice shook as he spoke.

  “Where are you, sir?”

  “We’re on the Ptarmigan Falls Trail Road, about mile 2. Hurry! Please hurry!”

  Brody answered the operator’s questions and walked over to the ledge. He looked down to see Lauren’s body sprawled along the bottom of the gorge.

  He felt pretty good about himself. Not a bad
performance.

  After a moment looking down at the body, Brody headed back to his Jeep, opened the door and reached in the ice chest to retrieve a bottle of water.

  He took a deep breath and tensed every muscle in his body, then slowly released the tension, starting at his feet and working his way up

  ****

  Budget cuts hit Glacier National Park hard. Being understaffed, it took a half-hour for the first rangers to arrive.

  “Mr. Barrett?” the young man in the Smokey the Bear hat asked as he climbed out of his Explorer.

  “Y-Y-Yes,” Brody stammered.

  “Where is she?” the ranger asked.

  Brody walked haltingly to the cliff’s edge. “She went over here,” he said, pointing down.

  “When did this happen?” the ranger asked as he made his way to the edge of the cliff.

  “I called right away.” Brody swiped the tears from his eyes. “It was what, maybe half an hour ago.”

  “Ed,” the ranger called back. “We’re going to need climbing gear. I think I should go down and see how she is.”

  The second ranger started pulling gear from the back of the SUV.

  “Sir, please step back from the cliff,” the second ranger said as he piled gear on the ground. “We’re gonna send my partner over the cliff after her. We don’t want to go after two people.”

  “Can you tell me what happened, sir?” the first ranger asked.

  Show time!

  Brody took a deep breath. It looked like he would break into tears. “I . . . I . . . don’t know. She was snapping pictures. I heard my phone ring and came back to the Jeep to answer it. I . . . I . . . It was our daughter. She just wanted to say hi. When I turned back . . . Laurie was . . . gone.”

  Brody staggered and steadied himself against the Jeep.

  “Sir, I think you better sit down,” the ranger said as he moved beside Brody and grabbed his arm. “Here, sit in your Jeep.”

  Brody climbed in, put his head against the steering wheel and started crying.

  A call came over the radio and the ranger responded.

  Brody lifted his head slightly to watch the ranger on the radio.

  “We have an aid car on the way.” The ranger walked over to Brody’s Jeep and put his hand on Brody’s shoulder. “It’s gonna take a while, it has to come all the way from Kalispell. The Air Guard has a helicopter enroute.” He paused for a second. “Can I get you something?”

  “No . . . no . . . I’m fine.” Brody’s face turned white. “How . . . how . . . is she?”

  “We don’t know. We’re gonna go down the cliff and find out. You just sit here.”

  While the first ranger donned his climbing gear, the other attached one end of a rope to a winch on the front bumper of the Explorer, then tossed the rope over the cliff. He handed the end of a second rope to the first ranger who walked to the cliff’s edge. The second ranger put on leather gloves then took the rope, passed it around his back and braced himself against a rock.

  The first ranger turned to face the cliff and stepped off into space. He dropped about ten feet then swung into the cliff, pushed off the cliff and dropped another twenty feet. The second ranger let the rope pay out as the first bounced down the cliff face.

  It took a couple of moments for him to reach the bottom of the chasm. He unhooked the rope from his climbing harness and moved over to the still body on the ground. She looked like a rag doll, arms and legs spread out in impossible positions.

  He knew before he ever got close enough to touch her. The ranger knelt beside her and put his finger on her neck. No pulse.

  The ranger had seen dead bodies before. Vacationers found the most ingenious ways to get dead in the mountain park. He’d never seen anything like this. Blood oozed out onto the rocks and bones poked through her skin. Her head was bashed open and her brains spilled onto the ground.

  He took a deep breath, turned and looked up at his partner standing on the cliff edge a hundred and forty feet above him. He keyed the mike on his radio. “Ed, she’s gone.”

  “Roger that.” The second ranger waved down to his partner then walked over to the Jeep.

  “Mr. Barrett, I can’t tell you how sorry we are . . .”

  Brody just stared into space.

  Two Years Later

  Catrina Flaherty was a fine-looking woman, despite the passage of time. On the wrong side of forty, she usually didn’t give a fig about what she wore or how she looked; she was all business. But tonight was an exception.

  The annual fund raiser for Jackie’s House, a shelter for victims of domestic violence, at the Fairmount Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle, was a must do. Catrina, a member of the board of directors of Jackie’s House, was expected to attend this event. She might as well enjoy the chance to dress up for an evening.

  In a red low-cut, full length cocktail dress with a slit up the side that showed off her legs, Catrina knew she turned men’s heads. The three-inch heels made her legs seem to go on forever.

  The party was like all the others. She met the moneyed gentry, shook hands, hugged women in designer evening wear and commented on how good everyone looked.

  This is the bullshit I could do without.

  A petite middle-aged brunette approached her.

  “Cat, I thought you might be here.”

  “Alison, it’s good to see you again.”

  Catrina thought back to the murders at Alison’s company, Millennium Systems, the largest computer company in the world. Catrina ran down the killer of two people, one of whom didn’t deserve to die.

  “I want to introduce you to someone.” Alison shook Catrina’s hand then gestured to a good-looking man in a dark suit. “Catrina Flaherty, I’d like you to meet John Wilkinson.”

  “Ms. Flaherty, pleased to meet you.” He eagerly held out his hand.

  Catrina shook it. He had soft hands and a gentle handshake.

  “Nice to meet you too, John.”

  Wilkinson was definitely not her type. Several inches shorter than her, he was at least a decade younger.

  Why is everybody in hi-tech so young? What’s Alison thinking, dumping him on me?

  “John is the new VP of Security at Millennium Systems. I expect that you’re going to be working with him quite a bit. Oh, I see someone that I know. You kids have a good time.”

  Shit! That’s all I need, a love-struck puppy following me around.

  John couldn’t keep his eyes off Catrina’s cleavage. She wanted to say “Hey, I’m up here,” but he was an important client.

  Oh well, let him look. He’ll never get any closer than that.

  It took Catrina most of a half hour to shake the VP.

  The old girl’s still got it, she thought as she made her way to the hotel entrance.

  The party was over. It had been a long day and a longer night. The fact that her boyfriend, homicide detective sergeant Tom Bremen, couldn’t attend the event with her made it seem even longer.

  Catrina retrieved her camel-hair coat with fur-lined collar and her umbrella from the hat check and headed out into the evening chill.

  Parking in Seattle was as atrocious as the traffic. It was a long walk down Fourth Avenue to her car.

  She pulled her collar tight against the rain and chill and picked her way down the sidewalk, her heels clicking on the pavement.

  As she passed the alleyway beyond Madison Street, Catrina heard a woman scream. Her cop instincts immediately kicked in. She ran back to the alley.

  A large man in a black hoodie held a knife to the throat of a man in a tuxedo. The woman, in evening wear, screamed and held her hands to her face.

  “All right, bitch, cough it up,” Hoodie said. “I mean everything, wallet, watch, rings. And you, Mrs. Rich Bitch, I want your jewelry.”

  Catrina reacted instantly. “STOP!” She screamed in her best command voice. “POLICE. Let them go!”

  The man with the knife half turned towards her.

  She pulled off her raincoat and tossed
it at the man’s head. He swiped the coat away with one arm, looked at the elegantly dressed woman and froze, his mouth hanging open.

  The couple backed away and took off running.

  In a second, Hoodie realized his prey was escaping and turned to run them down.

  Catrina threw her umbrella like a spear. It lodged between Hoodie’s legs and he crashed to the ground.

  He was up and running again before Catrina could catch up to him. This time, he had no intention of going after his victims; he ran for his life.

  Usually a fast runner, Catrina couldn’t keep up with him in heels. She stopped and kicked off her shoes, hiked up her skirt and followed.

  The wet pavement and small pieces of glass and gravel cut her feet, but she ignored the pain.

  Hoodie turned a corner and sprinted down the side street. Catrina ran as fast as she could in a cocktail dress and bare feet.

  Shit, he’s getting away.

  Hoodie made another turn and stopped below a freeway overpass. He climbed over the chain-link fence and turned to grin at Catrina.

  Catrina planted one foot halfway up the fence, grabbed the top rail and vaulted over like a cheetah going after a gazelle. Hoodie was stunned for an instant, then turned to flee.

  Catrina was on him. As he took his first step, she shoved him in the back, causing him to stumble and fall. As he scrambled to get to his feet, Catrina kicked him in the ribs.

  The mugger came towards her with his head down and fist balled up. Catrina danced aside and planted a kick on his kneecap that sent him sprawling.

  Emitting a primal growl, the mugger limped to his feet with the knife in his hand and murder in his eyes.

  “Stupid bitch, think you can get away with that?” He spat the words at her.

  Catrina reached under her skirt and pulled out a Beretta .25 caliber semi-automatic from her thigh holster. Adrenaline charged through her system. “Drop the fucking knife or die, asshole.”