When private investigator Daniela di Grassi is given a new case, the evidence is so compelling that even her client himself thinks he did it. Ethan White was one of the world’s top music producers, at least until last week, when his spectacular fall from grace began with the discovery of a mutilated college student in his bed.
A dead girl nobody cares about, cops with one agenda, and a prosecutor with another—nothing about this case is simple. And when Dan digs deeper into the mystery, the conflicting clues aren’t the only thing she finds intriguing. Ethan’s got his own secrets too.
As the worlds of black and white collide, who will come out on top?
White Hot is a standalone romantic suspense novel in the Blackwood Security series – no cliffhanger!
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Excerpt 1 – The job…
Three faces looked at me then dropped to my chest. I glanced down. Red lace still stuck out of the gap in my jacket, and I shot Emmy an evil glare. Why hadn’t she warned me?
A faint smirk crossed her face then disappeared almost instantly. She was in work mode. Emotionless. Dispassionate.
“The boys have come to us about doing a small job for them.”
“Like a job, job?”
Not some sort of charity work? Emmy often helped waifs and strays, but she didn’t usually bring them to the office, especially when I was there. Being around children made me miserable—a bad case of wanting what I couldn’t have, I suppose—and I tried to avoid them.
Emmy, on the other hand, believed in immersion therapy. If something made her uncomfortable, she kept doing it until it didn’t worry her anymore. Which may have worked for public speaking or a fear of spiders but not an inability to have kids. And now she’d invited a gang of them in to chat and possibly more.
“Indeed. A job, job.”
I tried to keep the incredulous look off my face. My charge-out rate was $600 an hour, and Emmy didn’t roll out of bed for less than five figures. These kids looked as if they could barely scrape together enough change for their next Happy Meal.
“Okaaaay.”
Emmy turned to the biggest of the three, who sat in the middle and wore a jacket at least four sizes too large for his skinny body. “Trick, why don’t you tell Dan the same story you told me?”
Oh, this was going to be good. Could Emmy be playing a particularly unamusing prank?
Trick started to speak, revealing a missing front tooth. Had he been fighting? Or did he just have bad dental hygiene?
“See, there’s this guy, and he’s been arrested, like. But he didn’t do it. We know that, don’t we?”
Murmurs of agreement came from both sides of him.
“He wouldn’t do nothing like that,” the kid on his left added.
“He’s too kind, you get it? He wouldn’t hurt no one. He gives up all his spare time to help us with music stuff.”
“We’re gonna make it big,” the second kid said, emphasising his words with his hands. “He told us we got talent.”
The boy might have had talent, but he also had purple hair and a ring through his nose, and someone had shaved lines through his eyebrows so they looked like tiny zebras.
The tall kid cut in again. “We got to get him out, yeah? So he can work with us kids again.”
Kid number two—Race? Vine?—spoke once more. “There ain’t no one else who cares. The rest of the grown-ups, they just tell us to shut up and keep out their ways.”
“So, what did he do?” I asked. Joyriding? Drugs? Burglary? A bit of petty theft?
“He pays for our instruments with his own money. Otherwise we wouldn’t have none.”
“I mean, what did he do to get arrested?”
“He’s teaching me to play the guitar,” said the second kid.
The third kid, the smallest one, stared at me with big blue eyes that didn’t match his darker skin, unspeaking. He was kind of cute.
I looked at Emmy, and she refused to meet my gaze. This had to be a joke, surely?
“You in the middle. Trick?” I pointed one black-tipped finger at him. “What’s your friend in jail for?”
“Oh. Yeah. Murder.”
Emmy looked nonchalantly out of the window, and I reached under the table with my foot. Dammit. She was out of range of my pointy-toed boots. She realised what I was attempting and rolled her chair back another six inches, just to be sure.
Why was she doing this to me? Was this because I accidentally pranged her Corvette the other week? I’d promised to get that repaired.
“Murder?” I asked.
“Yeah, but he didn’t do it, and we need him back because otherwise we got no chance of getting a record deal.”
A laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I tamped it down. It was too early in the morning for this. Slowly, deliberately, I reached out for the jug of coffee in front of me and poured a cup. Caffeine would help. Caffeine helped everything. I took a sip, scalding my lips before I asked the dreaded question.
“So, boys, who did he kill?”
“He didn’t!” the second kid insisted.
“Okay, who have the cops accused him of killing?”
This promised to be a long day, didn’t it?
“Just some girl. Don’t know who she was,” Trick said.
“Even if she was just some girl, Trick, murder is a very serious business.”
Oh, good grief, now I sounded like someone’s mother. Not mine, obviously. She wouldn’t have noticed if I’d held a gang initiation in the kitchen, she was so off her head on crack all the time.
He gave me a sullen look. “Yeah, I know, but it’s a setup. Someone else must have done it.”
“And we want you to find out who!” the second one said, fidgeting in his seat.
Emmy finally decided to speak. “The boys have got a proposition for us. If we help them find out who the real killer is, they’ll pay our fees out of the royalties they get for their first album.”
So, basically what she meant was that we’d be working for free, then. Not that I had anything against pro-bono work, but my diary was already rammed full with paying clients.
Her lips quirked up at the corners. “And when I say we, I mean you.”
Oh, this was definitely about the car.
Excerpt 2 – The Ghost…
White was already seated when I got there, and I peeped under the table to check the situation. The guards had secured his leg shackles to the metal chair, which was in turn bolted to the floor. A steel table stretched between us, and he fixed his eyes firmly on its scratched surface.
I sat down opposite him. “Hi.”
No answer, so I tried again.
“I’m Daniela.”
Nothing. So, this was how it was going to go.
“Would you prefer me to sing a song or tap dance? I should warn you, I’m not a great singer.”
Finally, White looked up. He hadn’t shaved for a while, and his once tidy beard had grown into an unruly black fuzz. What was the policy on razors in here? Worry lines marred his forehead, much like Ronan’s, only White’s eyes had dark circles underneath them. They never turned the lights off completely at Redding’s Gap, but I doubted the prison’s electrical policy was what had caused White’s sleepless nights.
But despite the beard and the wrinkles and the lack of rest, I couldn’t deny White was attractive. If I’d seen him in a bar, I’d definitely have given him a second glance. Those aqua eyes were clear but with a depth that spoke of hidden thoughts and secret dreams. Turbulence lurked under the surface, a whirlpool of fear that sucked me in and held me captivated. It was all I could do to tear my gaze away.
I sucked in a breath and held it. Was White going to say anything? Or would silence be his only answer?
“I don’t care.”
The words came out low and husky. In any other situation, they’d have liquified my insides, and as it was, I went kind of mushy. Get a grip, Dan.
“What do you care about?”
A whisper of a sigh escaped his lips, and his gaze dropped to the table again. Thank goodness. No photo did those eyes justice.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“To help you. I’m a private investigator assigned to your case.”
“By who?”
“Your lawyer.” More or less.
“Let me save you the trouble and him the money. Go home.”
“It took me six hours to get here.”
“Well, you wasted your time, didn’t you?”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
White lapsed back into silence, and as dead air stretched between us, I felt an uncontrollable urge to speak. What was wrong with me? Usually, I liked keeping my interviewees on edge.
“I can’t do anything if you won’t talk to me.”
“Then don’t. I’ve got nothing to say.”
