Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Murder in the South of France
Book One in the Maggie Newberry Mystery Series
Maggie Newberry is an advertising copywriter who’s fast on her feet and a little stunned that she’s 32 years old and hasn’t yet found “the one.” When her long-missing sister is murdered, Maggie finds herself flying to Paris and Cannes to find the little niece no one in the family even knew existed—and trying to stop her sister’s murderer before it’s too late for any of them to have a happy ending.
When handsome but very mysterious Laurent Dernier arrives upon the scene, it is not clear whether the sexy Frenchman will help or hinder the investigation into Maggie’s sister’s death. One thing is for sure, in every way that matters, he’s a beast!
MURDER IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
About the Author
Next books in the series
PART I
A Sea Change
Chapter One
Maggie looked at the draped body on the stainless steel gurney. There was no point in waiting any longer. She took a breath and nodded at the medical examiner, who pulled back the cover to reveal the upper portion of the body. Maggie gagged at the stench and covered her mouth and nose with both hands.
She had been warned that after four days in the water there would be little to see in the way of identifiable features. Even so, Maggie realized she had been expecting to see her sister’s face.
It was unrecognizable.
“Mademoiselle?”
Maggie tore her eyes from the amorphous, feature-less face, cheeks bloated beyond anyone’s ability to discern identity, only the drab brown hair looking remotely like Elise’s. She looked helplessly at the medical examiner. He gave a loud, annoyed sigh, covered the body with a practiced flick of his wrist and turned to the counter behind him, where he picked up a small dish and presented it to her.
Nestled in the little laboratory dish was a charm bracelet, one of two she and Elise had been given by their grandmother when they turned sixteen.
Maggie’s eyes filled with tears and she looked back at the form hidden under the laboratory drape. “It’s her,” she said, hardly recognizing her own voice, so raw and full of pain. “It’s my sister, Elise Newberry.”
A DNA test at a private lab back in the States would provide final confirmation of the news she and her family had been expecting to hear for three long years. As she turned away to exit the morgue’s presentation room, eyes streaming, she realized that even though she and her family had been preparing for this moment for years she still wasn’t ready for it.
Three hours later, Maggie sat in the terrace café of the Carlton Hotel and tried to process all that had happened in the few short days since her family had received the phone call informing them Elise was dead. Maggie had volunteered to identify the remains instead of her parents for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact there was now Elise’s daughter to locate and bring home.
Elise’s daughter, whom no one in the family had ever met or even seen a photo of. Whom, up until a year ago, no one even knew existed.
Maggie pulled out the card with Roger Bentley’s name and number on it and reflected on the phone call her father had received from Bentley four days earlier. Although the details of how Bentley knew to contact John Newberry in the first place were unclear, he had told her father he was in possession of information that could help them locate Elise’s missing child Nicole. Before that phone call, the family hadn’t even known Nicole existed, let alone was missing.
Now part one was done. The worst part. The grisly part. Maggie had seen and confirmed the last of her dearest sister in a French morgue. She glanced at her purse with the French certificate of death inside. She had spent the morning making the arrangements with the city morgue and the police department to have the body shipped back to Atlanta. Surely that will give Mom and Dad some peace? Having her back—even this way—is having her home.
Maggie took a deep breath.
