Отрывок из книги
Samantha Green was feeling sure-footed and self-secure again as she walked her four miles on the Forum Nature Trail with her beloved dog, Teddy. Sam was excited to see a call coming in from her boss at Heartland Global Insurance, Tony Jackson. She had spent too many days becoming more and more angry as she watched her boyfriend of one year, Mark Wentworth, load up his belongings. Sam had said goodbye to him for the last time and sent him packing when she caught him kissing another woman. The call from Tony was to put his most talented investigator on a new case in Seattle, which meant Sam would be going back to the Pacific Northwest, where she had completed a case only a month ago. As the lead investigator for Heartland Global Insurance, Sam’s job was to investigate insurance claims of their most important clients, usually wealthy ones. Most of the cases involve the theft of valuable art collections but Sam has also investigated her share of claims where a greedy spouse has killed for insurance money.
Barely a year ago, Samantha worked on a case in Orlando investigating the theft of several stolen paintings. Although the case was solved and the artwork recovered, she still held her conviction that the cops had the wrong guys. Two small-time local crooks were arrested and charged with the theft of the paintings and the murder of an Orlando detective, who Samantha came to know while working on that case. The detective was killed when his car blew up, but the murder wasn’t the part of the investigation that concerned Samantha. She strongly suspected the involvement of Milos Dragic, the owner of a high-end sound system company. Dragic’s company, Resident Resonance, had wired the client’s mansion for sound and Samantha suspected they were actually the thieves, despite the confession from the two petty crooks. And now her boss told her that he believed Milos Dragic was somehow involved in the new case in Seattle. She asked him to explain it further as she watched Teddy dance on his leash, anxious to continue their walk.
.....
“Oh, Unk. Before I let you go, have you ever heard of a book called The Rising of the Empire by a Vanja Ra. . .” Sam halted while she looked up the name.
“Radic. Vanja Radic. Of course I’ve heard of it. Why do you ask?” Unk found himself again trying to control his voice when his niece mentioned the book that had occupied a chunk of his life.
.....
