Moving Target by Elizabeth Lowell

From Barnes & Noble

Elizabeth Lowell departs from her bestselling Donovan family series long enough to craft a bit of spellbinding suspense in Moving Target, a story of ancient relics, powerful magic, and timeless adventure. When Serena Charters inherits pages from a rare medieval manuscript after her grandmother’s murder, it launches her into a life-and-death race that will span an inhospitable desert and centuries of time. The pages are part of a legendary tome known as The Book of the Learned, and when Serena has them appraised, rumors of their existence trigger several events. An old man with a vile temper and a desperate need to own the pages seems ready to go to any lengths to get them. A handsome rarities expert named Erik North has his own interest in authenticating and securing the pages. And Serena, who knows only that her grandmother’s final words to her were to trust no man, must try to find the truth behind the power of the pages and the destiny that lies within her heart.

From the Publisher

"When you read this, I'll be dead...."

These are the troubling words Serena Charters's grandmother has written on a note accompanying four pages of a centuries-old illuminated manuscript delivered after the old woman's passing. That the strange inheritance has considerable worth seems obvious -- but what Serena doesn't realize is how many secrets it hides...and how many lives it has already cost.

Seeking answers, she turns for professional help to Rarities Unlimited, and specifically to Erik North, a reclusive manuscript appraiser with a passion for the past, its people, and its treasures. But Erik's careful examination of the vellum pages and the agonized jottings of a medieval scribe is raising perplexing questions -- about the true importance of Serena's legacy, the possible location of the remainder of the lost manuscript...and the senseless murder of an eccentric old woman in the blistering beat of California's Mojave Desert.

Suddenly, without warning, Serena and Erik find themselves thrust into the center of a lethal firestorm that rages between two worlds...between a past long dead yet living on in an ancient text and a contemporary landscape fraught with peril and terror. Now there is no one they dare trust except each other as they make their way across the concrete and neon deserts of Palm Springs and Los Angeles, getting closer by the minute to a shocking revelation about what really is at stake and how far a killer will go to possess a vanished treasure. In the blink of an eye, Serena Charters and Erik North have become targets of an unseen and determined stalker. And their only hope of survival is to keep moving....

A spellbinder that bristles with almost unbearable intensity, Elizabeth Lowell's Moving Target is a masterful tale of intrigue, secrets, danger, and murder -- a breathtaking work that brings one of America's favorite storytellers to an electrifying new level."

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Romantic suspense is her true forte.

News & Observer Raleigh

Elizabeth Lowell's keen ear for dialogue and intuitive characterizations consistently place her a cut above most writers in this genre.

Library Journal

When Serena inherits some rare pages from the mysterious Book of the Learned, she discovers that someone is willing to kill to keep their secrets under wraps. Of course, this being a novel by a doyenne of romantic suspense, Serena also gets involved with the man set to appraise her valuable inheritance. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A legendary illuminated manuscript has vanished—or has it? The ancient book has been handed down in the Charters clan from woman to woman, all of them named Serena. But the present Serena has inherited only four unbound pages from her grandmother, who died in a blaze set by an unknown arsonist. The rest, some 600 priceless pieces of handpainted vellum, has yet to be found. There isn't much to go on besides a Swiss bank account number and those few surviving pages, which may or may not be forgeries. Serena takes them over to the sinister mansion of Norman Warrick, a grasping, ultrarich art dealer and owner of the House of Warrick, serving grasping, ultrarich art collectors worldwide. Norman is aided in his nefarious endeavors by his equally unpleasant grown children, playboy Garrison Warrick and whiny divorcée Cleary Warrick Montclair, neither of whom seem surprised when the old man contemptuously dismisses the unbound pages as well as Serena. She then seeks out Erik North, a restorer of medieval manuscripts who also replicates them now and then. Can she trust him? Well, Erik is astoundingly handsome, incredibly sexy, well versed in medieval languages—and smitten with Serena. They join forces to track down her grandmother's killer, traveling from the Southwest to the Northeast to find "Manhattan wrapped around the House of Warrick like a concrete anaconda." Back to the Mojave they go, pursued by thugs who apparently can't be seen sneaking up through miles of empty, flat desert. Various red herrings are strewn about with abandon, wary looks and grim smiles abound. It all works out eventually. Romancer Lowell (Midnight in Ruby Bayou, 2000, etc.) has done her rare-bookresearch, and it's all here—along with a Nancy Drew-ish plot and prose that's about as subtle as a calliope.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

One Year Later
Palm Springs
Monday

Like much of the town, the law offices of Morton Hingham were left over from a more leisurely, luxuriant time. Second-story arched windows framed a view of low-roofed buildings, tall palm trees, and stony mountains that dwarfed everything human. Inside the reception area, creamy walls and rich green plants soothed the eye. Solid wood furniture gleamed with polish. The carpet was worn, but tastefully so, like a dowager princess.

The secretary-receptionist was the same. Her voice was crepe, irregular without being rough. "Ms. Charters? Mr. Hingham will see you now."

For a moment Serena stared blankly at the receptionist. In this cool, gracious room with its stately aura of law and civilization, it was hard for her to remember that her grandmother had died from a random act of violence of the kind more often associated with inner cities than with the desert's ageless wilderness.

Very few animals killed simply because they could. Homo sapiens was first among them.

"Thank you," Serena said in a husky voice.

The older woman nodded, ushered the client into Morton Hingham's office, and shut the door behind her.

A quick glance told Serena that the lawyer's office had shuttered windows and no visible wallpaper. Every vertical surface was concealed by books whose covers were as dull and dry as their titles. Various legal documents lay stacked haphazardly on Hingham's heavy desk. An array of computers along the far wall looked out of place amid all the leatherbound monuments to pastdecisions, writs, and opinions.

Hingham's swivel chair creaked and jerked when he stood to greet his client. Long past the age when other men retired, the lawyer kept his shrewd mind engaged with the trials and tangles of people generations younger than he was.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Charters," Hingham said, clearing his throat. "There is a particularly difficult custody case that..." He cleared his throat again.

"I understand," Serena said, a polite lie. "It doesn't matter." The truth. She had been quite willing to look out the windows at the mountains that had ringed her childhood and formed her adult dreams. "I take it that the State of California is ready to close the books on my grandmother's murder?"

"The books will never be closed until her killer is found. But, yes. I'm empowered as her executor to turn over to you all that remains of Lisbeth Charters's -- er, your grandmother's -- worldly goods. "

His use of her grandmother's real name -- Lisbeth Charters -- told Serena that her grandmother had trusted this man as she had trusted only one other person on earth: her granddaughter.

Then the rest of the sentence penetrated Serena's mind. She compressed her lips against bitter laughter. Worldly goods. Her grandmother had lived a simple, spartan life. Her reward had been a cruel, savage death.

"I see," Serena said neutrally. "Does the fact that I'm finally receiving my so-called inheritance mean that I'm no longer a suspect in G'mom's murder?"

The controlled anger beneath his client's voice made Hingham examine her more carefully. Middle height, casually dressed in blue jeans and an unusual woven jacket, a slender yet female body that once would have aroused him and even now interested him, red-gold hair in a long French braid down her back, triangular face with eyes as cool and measuring as a cat's. The papers in his hand told him that she was in her early thirties. Her face looked younger, though her oddly colored eyes held an unflinching power that belonged to an empress twice her age.

Lisbeth Serena Charters had had eyes like that. Violet blue. Wide-set. Fascinating.

Unnerving.

Hingham cleared his throat again. "You were never under serious suspicion, Ms. Charters. As the detective explained, it was simply routine to ascertain your whereabouts the night your grandmother died, especially as you were her sole surviving heir."

"The detective explained. It didn't change how I felt."

"Yes, well, it must have been very difficult for you."

"It still is. Even though G'mom and I weren't close, she was the only family I had."

And every day, Serena asked herself if she and her grandmother had been closer, would her grandmother still be alive?

There was no answer. There never would be.

Abruptly her hand moved in an impatient gesture. "Let's get this over with. I have work to do."

"Work?" Hingham glanced at the papers in his hand. "I understood that you were self-employed."

"Exactly. No time off for good behavior. My employer is a bitch."

A ghostly smile rearranged the wrinkles on the lawyer's face. "Would she mind if you took time for coffee?"

Serena smiled despite her unhappiness with the law, the legal profession, and the bureaucracy of the State of California. "Thanks, but I really should get back to Leucadia before the freeways turn into parking lots."

"Then if you'll be seated...?"

Despite the restlessness crackling along her nerves, Serena went to the wing chair that waited beside Hingham's desk. Outwardly calm, she forced herself to sit quietly. She had spent a lot of her life masking the energy and intelligence that poured through her with such force, they made other people nervous. Deliberately she leaned back into the chair, crossed her legs, and waited for the old lawyer to tell her what she already knew: her grandmother had no worldly goods worth mentioning.

Hingham's chair creaked sharply as he sat. "I take it you don't need all the ruffles and flourishes."

"Correct."

He nodded and shifted papers. "Your inheritance is what remains of the house and five acres it sits on. There are no liens nor outstanding debts." He handed a plat map and deed across the desk to Serena. "The taxes have been paid through last year. I filed for a reappraisal due to the fire."

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

One Year Later
Palm Springs
Monday

Like much of the town, the law offices of Morton Hingham were left over from a more leisurely, luxuriant time. Second-story arched windows framed a view of low-roofed buildings, tall palm trees, and stony mountains that dwarfed everything human. Inside the reception area, creamy walls and rich green plants soothed the eye. Solid wood furniture gleamed with polish. The carpet was worn, but tastefully so, like a dowager princess.

The secretary-receptionist was the same. Her voice was crepe, irregular without being rough. "Ms. Charters? Mr. Hingham will see you now."

For a moment Serena stared blankly at the receptionist. In this cool, gracious room with its stately aura of law and civilization, it was hard for her to remember that her grandmother had died from a random act of violence of the kind more often associated with inner cities than with the desert's ageless wilderness.

Very few animals killed simply because they could. Homo sapiens was first among them.

"Thank you," Serena said in a husky voice.

The older woman nodded, ushered the client into Morton Hingham's office, and shut the door behind her.

A quick glance told Serena that the lawyer's office had shuttered windows and no visible wallpaper. Every vertical surface was concealed by books whose covers were as dull and dry as their titles. Various legal documents lay stacked haphazardly on Hingham's heavy desk. An array of computers along the far wall looked out of place amid all the leatherboundmonuments to past decisions, writs, and opinions.

Hingham's swivel chair creaked and jerked when he stood to greet his client. Long past the age when other men retired, the lawyer kept his shrewd mind engaged with the trials and tangles of people generations younger than he was.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Charters," Hingham said, clearing his throat. "There is a particularly difficult custody case that..." He cleared his throat again.

"I understand," Serena said, a polite lie. "It doesn't matter." The truth. She had been quite willing to look out the windows at the mountains that had ringed her childhood and formed her adult dreams. "I take it that the State of California is ready to close the books on my grandmother's murder?"

"The books will never be closed until her killer is found. But, yes. I'm empowered as her executor to turn over to you all that remains of Lisbeth Charters's — er, your grandmother's — worldly goods. "

His use of her grandmother's real name — Lisbeth Charters — told Serena that her grandmother had trusted this man as she had trusted only one other person on earth: her granddaughter.

Then the rest of the sentence penetrated Serena's mind. She compressed her lips against bitter laughter. Worldly goods. Her grandmother had lived a simple, spartan life. Her reward had been a cruel, savage death.

"I see," Serena said neutrally. "Does the fact that I'm finally receiving my so-called inheritance mean that I'm no longer a suspect in G'mom's murder?"

The controlled anger beneath his client's voice made Hingham examine her more carefully. Middle height, casually dressed in blue jeans and an unusual woven jacket, a slender yet female body that once would have aroused him and even now interested him, red-gold hair in a long French braid down her back, triangular face with eyes as cool and measuring as a cat's. The papers in his hand told him that she was in her early thirties. Her face looked younger, though her oddly colored eyes held an unflinching power that belonged to an empress twice her age.

Lisbeth Serena Charters had had eyes like that. Violet blue. Wide-set. Fascinating.

Unnerving.

Hingham cleared his throat again. "You were never under serious suspicion, Ms. Charters. As the detective explained, it was simply routine to ascertain your whereabouts the night your grandmother died, especially as you were her sole surviving heir."

"The detective explained. It didn't change how I felt."

"Yes, well, it must have been very difficult for you."

"It still is. Even though G'mom and I weren't close, she was the only family I had."

And every day, Serena asked herself if she and her grandmother had been closer, would her grandmother still be alive?

There was no answer. There never would be.

Abruptly her hand moved in an impatient gesture. "Let's get this over with. I have work to do."

"Work?" Hingham glanced at the papers in his hand. "I understood that you were self-employed."

"Exactly. No time off for good behavior. My employer is a bitch."

A ghostly smile rearranged the wrinkles on the lawyer's face. "Would she mind if you took time for coffee?"

Serena smiled despite her unhappiness with the law, the legal profession, and the bureaucracy of the State of California. "Thanks, but I really should get back to Leucadia before the freeways turn into parking lots."

"Then if you'll be seated...?"

Despite the restlessness crackling along her nerves, Serena went to the wing chair that waited beside Hingham's desk. Outwardly calm, she forced herself to sit quietly. She had spent a lot of her life masking the energy and intelligence that poured through her with such force, they made other people nervous. Deliberately she leaned back into the chair, crossed her legs, and waited for the old lawyer to tell her what she already knew: her grandmother had no worldly goods worth mentioning.

Hingham's chair creaked sharply as he sat. "I take it you don't need all the ruffles and flourishes."

"Correct."

He nodded and shifted papers. "Your inheritance is what remains of the house and five acres it sits on. There are no liens nor outstanding debts." He handed a plat map and deed across the desk to Serena. "The taxes have been paid through last year. I filed for a reappraisal due to the fire."