Merline Lovelace - Now You See Her (A SAMANTHA SPADE MYSTERY)

Table of Contents

PRAISE FOR ALL THE WRONG MOVES

A 21-gun salute for All the Wrong Moves , a fast-paced, original, authentic military mystery that builds to a pulse-pounding finale.

Carolyn Hart,
Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of the bestselling
Death on Demand series

All the Wrong Moves has all the right stuff... Fast-paced adventure starring an irreverent heroine youll never forget. I couldnt put it down!

Vicki Lewis Thompson,
New York Times bestselling author

Samantha is greatsassy and indomitable and believable... [The] action never stops.

Joanna Carl,
author of the bestselling Chocoholic Mysteries

Merline Lovelace once again affirms her position as a five-star author with this strong look at military testing inside a wonderfully drawn investigative thriller.

Genre Go Round Reviews

What fun! Merline Lovelace delivers a wisecracking heroine with a fascinating and interesting occupation that teams her with a cast of eccentric and peculiar characters. If you are looking for a good laugh with a strong mystery, All the Wrong Moves is the perfect choice.

Fresh Fiction

RAVES FOR MERLINE LOVELACE

Strong and clever characters populate the Lovelace world in stories that sizzle with a passion for life and love.

Nora Roberts/J. D. Robb,
New York Times bestselling author

Merline Lovelaces stories are filled with unforgettable characters... Each new book is an enjoyable adventure.

Debbie Macomber,
New York Times bestselling author

Merline Lovelace rocks! Like Nora Roberts, she delivers top-rate suspense with great characters, rich atmosphere, and a crackling plot!

Mary Jo Putney,
New York Times bestselling author

If youve never read Merline Lovelace before, youre in for a treat. Shes one of the best. Heart-stopping action and high-stakes intrigue spiked with sexy, pulse-pounding romancea reader couldnt ask for more.

Carla Neggers,
New York Times bestselling author

Lovelaces many fans have come to expect her signature strong, brave, resourceful heroines, and she doesnt disappoint.

Booklist

Compulsively readable.

Publishers Weekly

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Merline Lovelace

ALL THE WRONG MOVES

NOW YOU SEE HER

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

NOW YOU SEE HER

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / May 2010

Copyright 2010 by Merline Lovelace.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18743-2

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

http://us.penguingroup.com

To the men and women serving our country and the families who often sacrifice so much to support them.

With special thanks to:

Gerald Luedecking, Michigan police officer, U.S. Army reservist, and CID Protective Services agent, for sharing some of his incredible expertise.

My RomVets buds
women who have served or are now serving
who did their best to keep this AF vet straight
on Army ranks, MP procedures,
and investigative techniques.

And most especially Maggie Price,
my friend, fellow author, and former crime analyst
with the Oklahoma City Police Department.
When two devious minds like ours get together, watch out!

CHAPTER ONE

OKAY. I admit it. I was conducting a totally unauthorized test the bright February afternoon I got up close and personal with a stone-cold killer. My only excuse is that the gizmo submitted for my teams evaluation was too slick not to play with.

Wait! I have another excuse. Im a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. Everyone knows butter bars are all velocity and no compass heading. I suspect my boss would assert thats doubly true in my case. Sadly, I would have to agree with him. I tend to jump into things feetfirst. My brief, disastrous marriage to Charlie Numnutz Spade being a case in point.

But back to my close encounter with a killer. I had no inkling that particular life experience awaited me when my team crowded into my cubbyhole of an office that morning. If I had, I would never have glanced at, much less dug into, the cardboard carton Dennis OReilly deposited on my desk. Oblivious to my fate, I peered at the boxs Bubble-Wrapped contents.

Whats this?

This, oh Goddess of Gadgets, is the NLOS system you wanted to add to our test schedule. It just arrived.

Goddess of Gadgets is one of the titles OReilly has bestowed on me, along with Widget Woman, Techno Diva, and several others that cant be repeated in mixed company.

Ive come up with a few for him, too. Nerdo Supreme is probably the most accurate. The lenses in his black-framed glasses are an inch thick, and you can see his frizzy orange hair coming at you from a block away. But the man is an absolute wizard when it comes to deciphering and tinkering with lines of software code. Too much of a wizard according to some. Unauthorized tinkering is what landed him on my team.

What team, you ask? Our official designation is Future Systems Test CadreThree. FST-3, if youre into acronyms which everyone even remotely associated with the military seems to be. Were a tiny microbe in the vast, amorphous amoeba known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Dont let that fancy name fool you. DARPA itself conducts zero research. Instead, it doles out billions to universities and high-powered think tanks to explore new technologies that could improve or advance military operations. Over the years, DARPA fostered the technology that led to surveillance satellites, the Inter-net, stealth aircraft, laser-guided munitions, and night vision, to name just a few of its more notable projects. The agency does all this by employing super-brainiac military and civilian program managers who occupy nice, cushy, air-conditioned offices at our headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

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