Christmas Jumper

By Linda Rae Blair

Samantha Hartley has left the U.S. Army due to a bad injury. Now she has officially opened her private investigation office in DC.

Her newest client is found dead outside his posh hotel--a "jumper".

DC cops find her business card in his pocket and want to know everything, but Sam won't talk. There is a close tie to this client and she is determined to find out who killed him with or without the help of the DC cops assigned to the case.

Oh, and did I forget to say that one of them is handsome, with big brown eyes and...well, you get the point!

Sam may gain satisfaction, but she could lose her heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linda Rae Blair
• Release date: Oct 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301299614

Linda Rae Blair

Raleigh artist, Linda Rae Blair was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She has used her knowledge gained during extensive travel throughout the United States and her passion for art, history, mysteries, and scenery to create compact novels with rich characters so real you'll miss them when they're gone and places you'll swear you've been. She has lived in Seattle, WA, Monterey Bay, CA, Cincinnati, OH, and retired five years ago in the Raleigh, NC area.Her love of history is well-earned. She is a direct descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of Mayflower fame. She is also descended from a strong line of Scots-Irish immigrants to America in the 1700s. She even had a great uncle who was robbed by the infamous outlaw Belle Starr.Her Scottish love story, “Elusive”, spans 200 years of Scottish history and intrigue via setting in 1700s Scotland and early 1900s Paris and Scotland.An avid reader who inhales novels by Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown and others in the romance/mystery genres, her imagination takes you to a variety of places and times all in the same story.Her travels to the beautiful southwestern states inspired her more modern historic romance combined with mystery, “100 Years of Brotherly Love”.Her mystery series, The Preston Andrews Mysteries now has 12 published entries, beginning with “Hard Press’d” which now claims over 50,000 downloads and, most recently, the softcover print version of the series in compilation form.Ms. Blair has spent many happy hours in Virginia Beach during off-season, when the winds blow cold and hard and the salty air whips at the weather-protected palms. This is the locale chosen for her Preston Andrews series. Locals and visitors alike find many familiar frames of reference in this series.Her homage to her love for Poirot is via her teeny tiny mystery, “The Board Game Murders”.Her newest series is aimed at a slightly younger and more female audience from that of The Preston Andrews series but begins in the backstory in “Pressing Reunion”.The Samantha Hartley, PI series is lighter and features a very young and not terribly experienced private investigator just beginning her career—with a slight assist from the Director of the FBI.One thing is for certain, she combines her passions into stories interesting to history buffs, travelers, and lovers of romance and mystery.

Book preview

Prologue

Washington, DC

December 20, 2012

4:30 AM

The air rushed past him, and he realized the scream he heard was coming from him. He’d never been afraid of heights, would never be now, he guessed.

As hard as he’d fought to stay alive just months before, he would lose the fight before he could stop the…

Chapter 1

Washington, DC

December 20, 2012

5:00 AM

The city emptied out as if an epidemic of black plague was imminent. Even the President and his family had deserted the governmental ship for a holiday in Hawaii.

No matter what your religious affiliation or lack thereof, the holiday season in DC was a beautiful, happy place for those who stayed put.

For those left behind there was snow and lots of it scooped up off the streets and dumped into mountainous piles alongside the road and in front of buildings throughout the city. Long after the air began to warm, these reminders of winter would remain as if to say, "Be careful, I can return."

The colored lights, wreaths and swags of pine, red ribbons, gold ornaments decorated lampposts, store windows and the small shops in Union Station.

The entire city was decked out—the National Christmas tree and each state’s tree accompanying it lit up the park behind the White House. Concerts, speeches and children’s choirs entertained the crowds.

There were caroling and ice-skating on the Mall. Bars were lit up for the holidays and serving hot cider—spiked, of course—and eggnog. Christmas at the White House tours were allowed again, as long as the security level was green. All of these gave the city a real feeling for the holiday despite the lack of crowds between The Hill and the Federal Bank and Treasury buildings near the White House.

The Federal Government had essentially shut down and everybody had gone to his or her home state for the holidays. For the most part, those left behind were actually year-round Washington residents.

Even the red and blue lights flashing on O Street seemed festive until you saw the reason for their presence.

On the pavement beneath the brand-spanking-new 5-star Templeton hotel was the broken—no, not just broken—shattered body of a young man who would never see another holiday.

The detective on the case, Brian Newland, donned latex gloves and then carefully searched the pockets of the man’s pricy suit jacket and trousers. He noted the quality of the tailoring. God, I hate jumpers.

The guy’s from money.

He found the man’s wallet in a trouser pocket, pulled it gently but firmly from its hiding place and opened it carefully.

Brian’s hands were freezing with nothing but the latex gloves, and he was eager to don his fur-lined leather gloves as quickly as possible. The recent drop in temperatures and the accompanying snow had left DC a frigid, white wonderland, except here where the man’s life fluid spread in a lurid pattern across the icy surface.

Jason Aldridge, age twenty-five, from Boston. He handed the wallet to his partner, rapidly-closing-in-on-retirement Detective Roy Jessup.

While Jessup began going through the wallet looking for emergency information for the notification, Newland looked up at the hotel exterior, pondering the angle from the drapes blowing in the breeze of the open sliding door to the street below. The new hotel was one of very few in the area with patios in the pricier suites. He counted the rows of windows between the ground and the open patio door. Ten stories. A hell of a long way to watch the ground coming at you.

"He’s not a jumper after all. Trajectory’s wrong. He would have landed closer to the building, not out here in the street."

Newland reflected momentarily that he hadn’t so much learned about trajectory from a quantity of jumper cases, as he’d just learned from what jumper cases he had had the bad luck to work. They were a nasty business and often the body’s flight path was one of the more telling signs in determining suicide from murder.

Jessup grunted in agreement with his younger partner’s assessment. Nothing but the usual driver’s license and credit cards. Wait a minute. Here’s a business card. Well, well. He’s got a card here for a local P.I.

Oh, damn, Newland said, grunting as he stood up again—his limbs freezing in the cold. His breath was blowing clouds of white as he spoke. Give me the news.

One Sam Hartley. Got an office address over in the old Booker Building, Jessup said sarcastically.

His mood was as sour as his stomach from the acidic coffee turning bad. He wished for someone he could pass his mood on to—maybe a sleazy P.I. would just do the trick.

Well, Newland responded, obviously not a very good detective or we’d have run into him by now.

The pair enjoyed the joke at the private investigator’s expense. No business that was thriving put its offices in the ancient Booker. It was as old as dirt and, despite a beautiful, classical exterior, the inside of the place badly needed renovation or, in the opinion of a few, a wrecking ball. A really good cleaning wouldn’t hurt anything, either.

Wonder what a guy with an obviously good income, platinum card and, he looked up toward the upper floors of the hotel, probably housed here, needed with a third-rate private dick?

Chapter 2

Booker Building

221B Barker St.

Washington, DC

Three Hours Later

The desk was old and scarred but waxed until it glowed; the upholstery on the chair was worn and a little frayed along the edges of the seat cushion.

The old beige five-drawer file cabinet had gotten a coat of fresh spray paint in a shade of mauve no male would appreciate. It didn’t hide the small dent in the right side, so its position with that side away from