Invitation to Murder

The man was dead.

Maura had never seen a dead body before; not a real one. She'd created plenty of them in her novels, though.

Maura Ambrose was a household name, a bestselling murder mystery author who had more curiosity in her one finger than most people had in their entire being. However, walking across a corpse in print was much different than writing alone in her study.

She stared at the body, almost in awe of the artwork the killer had left for her to find.

Her daughter, Kylie stood behind her, not afraid of the scene but anxious to return to the school fundraiser which her mother had totally forgotten she was driving her to before the invitation had been sent.

"Are you done yet?" Kylie asked. Her voice inflected a bit of annoyance. Her mother was always doing  this. "Why can't you be a normal mom and scream and run away?"

"Just another minute," she said calmly, jotting thoughts in her notebook.

"I'm pretty sure the police have been called," Kylie said, looking over her shoulder listening for sirens.

"Uh huh." It was obvious she wasn't paying attention.

His mother was oblivious to the police sudden surrounding the area and putting up yellow warning tape. Mac Sutherland and his partner, Holt Martin stepped out of their aged Chevy sedan and surveyed the body. Kylie's mother didn't blink an eye when Mac stood next to her.

Kylie nodded at the detectives. She'd run into to them many times in the past few weeks. The bodies were definitely piling up.

"What is she doing?" Mac asked

Kylie shrugged. "Research. It's her own form of reality tv, I think."

Holt tapped the Maura on the shoulder. She brushed off the touch.

"Stop it," she said, annoyance filling her voice. "You know how I hate to be interrupted when I work."

Mac grabbed her arm pulling her back a few steps.

"Do you know what I hate," he asked, his low, rich voice causing her to turn and stare into his dark eyes. "People disturbing my crime scene."

"I haven't touched a thing," she said lifting her hands to show him the latex gloves she'd donned earlier. "I'm sorry, but it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. A snapshot into the mind of a killer."

Maura Ambrose stepped back noticing the growing number of officers and forensic techs marking and working the scene.

"I had no idea I'd been standing there that long. I tend to lose track of time when I'm working," she said.

"Let me tell you how this usually works," Mac said. "Most people who come across a dead body call the police and stay a comfortable distance from the scene. Why is that so hard for you to understand?"

"I had to come," she said simply pulling a small note from her pocket encased in plastic. "I was invited."