Title: The White Lily
Author:
Susanne Matthews
The Harvester is out there … watching, waiting, biding
his time.
FBI cult specialist Lilith Munroe lives in dread that
one day the man who tortured her when a case went bad will find her again. So
leaving her sanctuary in Quantico to join the Harvester Task Force in Boston is
her version of hell. But the Harvester is kidnapping babies, and Lilith’s
profiling skills may mean the difference between life and death for the most
innocent in society.
Australian millionaire and former member of the New
Horizon commune Jacob Andrews returns to the United States searching for his
sister. Instead of the happy reunion he expects, he discovers she is dead and
his twin brother may be responsible. He agrees to lend his law enforcement
skills to help find his former cult leader before the man can implement his
plan to kill millions.
Now uneasy partners, Jacob and Lilith must learn to
trust each other even as they fight their growing attraction. But when Lilith’s
greatest fears materialize, will Jacob be able to set aside his anger and save
the woman he loves?
Sensuality Level: Sensual
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EXCERPT: “If I call today, Toba, my manager, can
have portable housing in place within a week. I can charter a plane to take
them there, and we can keep the whole thing quiet. No one will even know they
aren’t still in those jail cells. You can send along some police officers to
monitor them until I can set up permanent security. I’ve no desire to put my
homeland at risk either. They’ll require medical screening and may have to be
vaccinated. You’ll have to deal with passports and immigration, but if they’ve
been convicted of a crime, it won’t work. I have some sway with the people in
power, but I can’t make them accept convicted criminals. So, the carrot I’ll
hold up for these members’ help is a new life and immunity from prosecution if
they can help me find the Prophet.”
“Are you insane?” The words shot from her
mouth. “These people aided and abetted in the murder of four women and the
kidnapping of four others. One of them may even be the man who murdered your
sister, and you want to give them a ‘get out of jail card’ and a home in a
tropical paradise? They’re criminals. At the moment, by refusing to cooperate
with us, they’re hindering prosecution, too. We can’t just reward them with a
better life.”
“Why not?” he asked calmly, disconcerting
her. Why weren’t Rob and Trevor backing her up on this?
“Doesn’t the DA do the same thing when he
makes a deal with a mobster who provides evidence against his employers? Isn’t
a new life and a new identity what your witness protection plan promises? I may
live in Australia, Munroe, but I do read the papers and watch television. I’ll
wager those criminals committed far greater crimes than the former residents of
New Horizon. You said there were, what, sixteen prisoners? How many are men?”
“Four,” she admitted.
“And were they armed? Did any one of them
have the knife that slit my sister’s throat?”
“No,” Rob answered for her. “We haven’t
found that weapon yet.”
“And to the best of your knowledge, did
those particular men try to kill anyone?”
“No. They weren’t armed that night. According
to the intel we had, they simply did the heavy work on the farm, but there were
additional weapons in the house.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that they could’ve
taken up arms under different circumstances, but how can the women be held
accountable? Didn’t you tell me they had no rights, that they were treated like
second-class citizens, animals really?”
“More or less,” she said belligerently,
knowing instinctively where he was going with this and hating it.
“Then, Agent Munroe, how can twelve women
be held accountable for obeying orders? For doing what they were told to do to
avoid being punished? If there’s one thing I remember clearly about my uncle,
it’s that he enjoyed watching people punished. Remember what my uncle did to me
when I opposed him. One of his men may have wielded the whip, but he watched
every one of those lashes rip open my back and chest.”
“But they’re still accessories,” she
maintained mulishly, more because she needed to forget how helpless she’d been
at the hands of the Faithful Followers of the Word. In the FFOW, women had been
powerless to do anything but obey. She hadn’t seen any punished, but every now
and then, one had disappeared for a few days at a time. They’d come back, pale
and quiet, and she’d assumed they’d been ill. How foolish of her. People tended
to see what they wanted to see, and apparently, so did she. Those long, brown
robes would’ve hidden a multitude of marks.
“Like Eloise was? Look what happened to her
when she defied him. The only thing that fits about my sister’s murder is that
my uncle discovered she was planning to leave the country and ordered her
killed. No one defies him and escapes unscathed. Fear is a powerful weapon in
controlling others, and if he added drugs to the mix ...”
About the author:
Susanne Matthews was born and raised in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. She’s always
been an avid reader of all types of books, but with a penchant for happily ever
after romances. In her imagination, she travelled to foreign lands, past and
present, and soared into the future. A retired educator, Susanne spends her
time writing and creating adventures for her readers. She loves the ins and
outs of romance, and the complex journey it takes to get from the first word to
the last period of a novel. As she writes, her characters take on a life of
their own, and she shares their fears and agonies on the road to self-discovery
and love.
Follow Susanne on her: Website Blog Facebook
page Twitter @jandsmatt
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author page and Goodreads
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1 comment:
Thanks for having me!
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