We're so excited to share a sneak peek at COLD MALICE by Toni Anderson - check it out below and preorder your copy, so you can dive in to COLD MALICE on September 12th!
About COLD MALICE
Available September 12th
ASAC Steve (Mac) McKenzie is out to prove himself by leading a task force investigating a series of murders in the heart of Washington, DC. His undercover work in an antigovernment compound twenty years earlier is related—as is the sweet, innocent girl he befriended back then. Now that girl is a beautiful woman, and she has something to hide.
Tess Fallon spent a lifetime trying to outrun her family’s brand of bigotry, but someone is threatening her anonymity by using the anniversary of her father’s death to carry out evil crimes and she’s terrified her younger brother is involved. She sets out to find the truth and comes face-to-face with a man she once idolized, a man she thought long dead. As the crimes escalate it becomes obvious the killer has an agenda, and Tess and Mac are running out of time to stop him.
Will the perpetrator use a decades-old dream of revolution to attack the federal government? And will the fact that Tess and Mac have fallen hard for each other give a cold-hearted killer the power to destroy them both?
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Read an excerpt from COLD MALICE
Tension sizzled through
the air as Mac watched her body language to see if it matched her words. “You
know I have to ask.”
She crossed her arms, every line of her body
defensive and resentful. “I don’t remember exactly where I was on Monday
morning.” Her eyes moved up and right.
Shit. She was lying. People lied to cops and FBI agents all the
time. The question was, what did she have to hide?
“But this morning, when
the DJ was shot”— She’d already put together what the cops were officially
refusing to admit—“ I was in a coffee shop and then on the Metro.”
“Got people who can
verify that?”
She gave him the name of
a coffee shop near Tenleytown and the metro stop where she’d got off the train.
“Don’t tell them why
you’re asking,” she said. “Please.”
He grimaced.
She cradled her forehead
in her hand and looked like she suddenly felt ill. Because, really, what were
they going to think when the FBI started asking questions about her movements?
He made himself push on. She wasn’t his friend or his date. He had a job to do.
“Any idea who might be
committing these murders?”
“I told you. I’m not in
touch with anyone from that life anymore.” “What about your brother?”
“Eddie?” An ugly laugh
escaped. “I don’t have anything to do with that wacko.”
Eddie Hines was still
incarcerated in the Idaho State Correctional Center. They’d pulled a bullet
matched to his gun out of a SWAT officer’s vertebrae. The policeman had been
lucky to not be paralyzed. To prove that point the officer turned up in a
borrowed wheelchair and a “here but for the grace of God” sign every time Eddie
came up for parole.
“I meant your other brother.”
She reached out to hold
on to the back of the couch. “He doesn’t know about any of this.”
Mac frowned. “You mean
the murders?”
“No,” she bit out
sharply. “Any of it. Not the
Pioneers. Not Kodiak Compound. Not who our family really is. Nothing.” Her
fists clenched and unclenched. “And I want it to stay that way.”
What the hell? “Where does he think he comes from?”
“I told him we were the
children of Trudy’s second-cousin on her mom’s side. I told him our parents
died up in Oregon and Trudy took us in.”
“You lied to him about
his parents?” Holy shit.
She put her hand on her
hip. “Don’t use that judgmental tone with me, Assistant Special Agent in Charge
Steve McKenzie.”
“Sorry, Tess.” He strode toward her until they
were only a foot apart. “I didn’t realize you had the monopoly on changing your
identity.”
She flinched and blinked
rapidly as if fighting tears. “If anyone should understand why I wanted to leave
that ugliness behind it should be you. You need to leave. Now.”
When he didn’t move she
went to the front door and opened it, waiting for him to take the hint. Damn.
He’d blown it. When he stood in front of her again he opened his mouth to
speak.
She beat him to it.
“Don’t leave town, right?” Bitterness was rife in the lines around her mouth.
In the bite of her tone.
“I was going to say that
if anyone from Kodiak gets in touch—”
“They won’t.”
“But if they do—”
“They won’t!” She appeared on the verge of
crying, but fighting it.
He’d seen all sorts of
tears during his time on the job. It was always the ones that didn’t fall that
affected him most.
He pulled a business card
out of his pocket, took her hand and folded her fingers over it. The skin on
skin contact made something unexpected spread through his body. Despite her
anger she felt it too— he could tell by the way her pupils widened and her lips
parted on a gasp. She tried to pull away but he didn’t let go and he didn’t
back down.
Instead he pulled her
toward him into a stiff embrace. His breath brushed her hair as he kissed the
top of her head— like she was still that little girl he’d known all those years
ago.
“I’m not the bad guy
here, Tess,” he murmured against her hair.
She kept her head bowed, and eyes closed, hand
pressed like a fiery brand against his heart.
“Neither am I, but no one
seems to care.”
She pulled away, and he
let her go. Then he walked away just like he had nearly twenty years ago.
He sat in his car,
staring at the house, knowing she was inside watching him right back.
The unexpected attraction
had caught him off guard. He’d forgotten what it felt like to actually want
someone. But he couldn’t afford to start something with the daughter of one of
the most notorious white supremacist leaders in history. That would not look
great on his résumé.
That stupid hug had
knocked him off balance and made him sit here like a damn stalker. He’d hoped
to neutralize some of the antagonism his turning up out of the blue had created
and keep her onside should he need her help in the future. But now the fresh
scent of her shampoo invaded his nostrils, and the feel of her soft skin
tantalized his senses. The sight of her in that damp robe— knowing that she was
naked underneath— had distracted the hell out of him. And damned if that
embrace hadn’t felt like coming home.
Chances were she wasn’t
involved in the current murders. It didn’t seem likely that an accountant,
raised by a woman of color, would turn around and start killing people based on
her daddy’s evil doctrine. But who knew? He’d seen crazier things in his
career. Tomorrow he’d check out her alibi and cross her off his to-do list.
More’s the pity.
And so what if his mind
turned dirty. It wasn’t going to lead anywhere. She was off limits. And he was
in control of his wants and needs.
See the COLD MALICE trailer
Did you know the first book in the Cold Justice series is available for free? Get your hands on A COLD DARK PLACE!
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About Toni Anderson
New York Times and USA Today international bestselling author, Toni Anderson, writes dark, gritty Romantic Suspense novels that have hit #1 in Barnes & Noble's Nook store, the Top 10 in Amazon and Kobo stores, and the Top 50 in iBooks. Her novels have won many awards. A former Marine Biologist from Britain, she inexplicably ended up in the geographical center of North America, about as far from the ocean as it is possible to get. She now lives in the Canadian prairies with her Irish husband and two children and spends most of her time complaining about the weather.
Toni has no explanation for her oft-times dark imagination, and only hopes the romance makes up for it. She's addicted to reading, dogs, tea, and chocolate.
If you want to know when Toni's next book will be out, visit her website (http://www.toniandersonauthor.com) and sign up for her newsletter. If you want to read other fascinating stories about life in a city that, during winter, is sometimes colder than Mars, friend her on Facebook: (https://www.facebook.com/toniannanderson).
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