Business As Usual: A Mike Ash Crime Novel

by DL Ashmore

Synopsis

Tampa homicide detective Mike Ash is on a disturbing emotional roller coaster! When he gets a promotion and is out of town leading a seminar on police investigations-he learns of the death of his dear friend and fellow army ranger, Dennis Stokely. While grieving for Dennis, his relationship with Terri Foster is deepening in intimacy and he strives to trust her with his heart.

Meanwhile he investigates several other deaths: suicide, accidental, and murder. He tries to help their families to cope with their losses. He is also able to prevent a teacher's home from blowing up, but not her murder. Still Mike helps the perpetrator to obtain leniency, then has second thoughts when yet another murder occurs.

Before he can sort out the clues further, Terri is kidnapped! Now he experiences fear on a level he had never before encountered.

Release date: September 7, 2020

Print pages: 242

Sample

Terri Foster awoke, or more accurately, came to, in the dark with a splitting headache. The gag in her mouth would not allow her to speak. She was blindfolded, her hands were tied behind her back and her ankles were bound together with zip ties. She rolled over onto her back. Her hands felt of the floor: plywood. Terri listened carefully. The acoustics suggested that she was in the back of a van or SUV. The exhaust was on the passenger side, all the way in the back. The engine was misfiring intermittently, possibly from bad spark plugs. The random ‘pop!’ ‘pop!’ suggested that unburned fuel and air were being pushed into the exhaust system where they were ignited by superheated exhaust gas. Stretching out her legs carefully, Terri was unable to feel a back seat. ‘This could be a van,’ she thought. There was also a faint odor of death or decomposition, though she could not determine its origin. Rolling over carefully onto her side, Terri felt along the inside rear of the passenger side. ‘Yes! There it is!’ she thought: an A-frame structure made of angle iron on which the spare tire was mounted. She carefully felt along the front leg of the structure and found it. ‘Yes!’ she thought once again. Her father, a welder, had taught her that sometimes angle iron could have small, sharp points or ‘burrs.’ Positioning herself carefully and gritting her teeth against the pain, Terri moved her left hand quickly across the burr. The sharp pain was followed immediately by a warm, sticky feeling on the edge of her left hand. Blood! Exactly what she wanted! Where her blood was, left discretely on the inside of this angle iron frame, so was her DNA.

‘Whatever happens to me, here’s a small forensic bread crumb,’ she thought. ‘Mike, honey, if you don’t find me in time, don’t blame yourself. Always remember that the time we spent together was the best time of my life.’ Terri was trying not to cry. ‘God, I am so afraid! Please save me! Help Mike to find me before it’s too late. Please, God!’