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EVERY STEP SHE TAKES
Crime Thriller
BY KELLEY ARMSTRONG

BLURB

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EVERY STEP SHE TAKES
Crime Thriller
BY KELLEY ARMSTRONG

Excerpt

For 6:45 a.m., Isabella’s hotel is remarkably busy. People who flew in Sunday night for Monday morning meetings are now hurrying off to grab breakfast. I slip inside, and I’m on the elevator before I wonder whether I’ll need a card to access the penthouse. I don’t.

When I reach Isabella’s door, it’s not quite shut, as if someone dropped off breakfast and forgot to pull it closed. That gives me pause, and my skin prickles remembering another door left ajar just a few days ago. But there’d been an explanation for that one, and there will be for this one, too.

I ring the bell. Wait. Ring again and add a knock for good measure. When she still doesn’t answer, I press my fingers to the door and push it open an inch.

“Isabella?” I call.

Music plays upstairs, and I raise my voice, but I’m still not sure she’d hear.

I send a text.

Me: The door’s open. I’m coming in.

She doesn’t respond, and I push the door and slide through.

“Isabella?” I call.

Still no answer. I walk into the living area. There’s no sign of breakfast.

I stop at the bottom of the spiral stairs leading to the second floor.

“Isabella? I’ll just wait down here, okay?”

No answer. I check my phone. No reply to my text, either.

I call Isabella’s number… and her phone rings right beside me. It’s been left on the sofa. Well, that’s not going to help.

I climb the stairs slowly, still calling her name. When I reach the top, I follow the music to the open bedroom door.

“Isabella?”

Nothing.

I peek through to see an unmade bed.

I pause as I remember all the times I’d walked past Isabella’s open bedroom door to see her making her bed the moment she rose. A habit from her grandmother, she once said. So that bed snags my attention, but at fifty, she probably no longer feels quite so compelled to heed her grandmother’s rules.

As I step back, I spot a slipper protruding from behind the bed, and I have to smile. It’s a ridiculous novelty slipper – a giant bear paw, complete with claws. My mind trips back fourteen years to Isabella walking into the kitchen wearing them.

You like my footwear? she said with a laugh. The kids got us themed slippers last year. Princess ones for me, and these for Colt. Beauty and Beast. He never wears his, so I stole them. Which one I’m wearing is a hint to my mood. She winked at me. These mean I’m preparing for a call with the studio execs, and I’m summoning my inner Beast.

That’s when I see the angle of the slipper. It hasn’t just been cast off. There’s a sliver of leg visible above it.

“Isabella!” I tear around the bed to find her supine on the floor, her head against the base of the bedroom Jacuzzi. Blood haloes her dark hair, and there’s a deep gash on her forehead.

I fall beside her and grab her shoulder.

It’s cold. Her body is cold.

No. It’s just chilly in here with the air conditioning pumping. She tripped and hit her head on the tiled step, and she’s unconscious.

She isn’t moving.

Because she’s unconscious.

Her lips aren’t moving. Her chest isn’t moving. She’s not breathing.

I can’t be sure of that. I’m not a doctor.

You know how to check. Two summers as a lifeguard, remember?

I press my fingers to the side of Isabella’s neck. Her cold, clammy neck. I tell myself it’s just cool to the touch.

Unnaturally cool, you know that.

I swallow hard. My fingers don’t detect a pulse, but with that voice of doom clanging through my head, I might not be checking properly. I try again. I watch for signs of breathing, of a heartbeat.

There are none.

Isabella is dead. She hit her head on the step and died here, alone.

That makes no sense. Look, Lucy. Think.

The gash is on her forehead, meaning she should be lying on her stomach. Instead, she’s resting peacefully on her back with her eyes closed.

Someone put her here.

Someone all but crossed her arms over her stomach, leaving her looking as peaceful as a corpse in a casket, with that halo of blood…

Why is there blood behind her head when the injury is on her forehead? There’s no trail of it down her scalp.

I see blood under her nostrils, and I realize her perfect nose isn’t quite straight. There’s smeared blood on her cheek and chin, as if partially washed away.

She’d been face down on the carpet. Face down and bleeding, and then someone turned her over and cleaned her up and left her ready for her close-up.

I stagger backward. As I do, I bump the bed. I look at it again. Only the coverlet is pushed down, crumpled, the sheet still neatly tucked in. I catch sight of a gold square on the floor and bend to see a wrapped chocolate, the type left during turndown service.

Isabella didn’t sleep in this bed. Someone just yanked back the covers

About Author Kelley Armstrong…

Links to Kelley’s websites, blogs, books, #ad, etc.:

Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/4lvIdOn

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/4khshyb

Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/every-step-she-takes-kelley-armstrong/1136814409?ean=9781915523426

Happy Reading!