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Found And Lost
By Holly Jacobs Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-44200-9
Chapter One
SPLAT! When Markie Walkowicz and her friends used to whack each other with snowballs during rare Philadelphia snowfalls, that's what it sounded like.
Splat, splat. They'd scream at the top of their lungs as snowballs whizzed back and forth.
It wasn't the fact that it was cold enough for snowballs that brought the word splat to Markie's mind on this particular Monday morning. It was the fact that the porch was rushing toward her face at an alarming rate.
Or rather, she was rushing toward the porch as she'd tripped and fallen.
Splat!
She landed hard in an inelegant heap. It took her a stunned moment to suck some frigid air into her rather deflated lungs.
It figured, she thought.
It just figured.
Markie was always more accident-prone when she was running late. And she was running so late this morning that she quickly decided a fast fall on the porch was better than the myriad of other accidents she might have attracted. Last time she was running this late, her front tire was flat.
She examined her throbbing knee, noting she had a hole in her stocking. She was going to have to go back in and change them, which meant she was going to be even later, but probably not as late as when she'd had to change that tire.
Panty hose might be torturous to put on, but they weren't nearly as difficult to manage as lug nuts.
Markie got up and immediately spotted what she'd tripped over.
It was a man.
Adecidedly blue-looking man, laid out in front of her door.
Ablue man wearing a green and orange plaid suit that was decades out of style.
"Mister?" she said, even though she instinctively knew she'd get no response.
The man's arm was thrown over his face. She reached out to touch his hand.
It was cold.
Markie screamed as she scrambled to her feet.
Screamed like a girl.
Loud, long and piercing.
Marquette Ann Walkowicz was the type of woman who prided herself on avoiding such feminine cliches as shrieking. She just didn't do it. Not about bugs, or even snakes.
No, Markie Walkowicz was not the type of woman who screamed like a girl.
But tripping over a dead body on the porch on a Monday morning when she was already late ... well, that warranted a scream or two.
She stood for a moment, staring at the ugly plaid suit the dead man was wearing. It was so hideous that it was easy to focus on.
What to do?
What to do?
It was like trying to think through mud. Her brain had shut down as she stared at row after row of ugly pumpkin-orange and avocado-green plaid.
What to do?
It wasn't as if she had personal experience with discovering corpses on a front porch.
What to do?
She read a lot of women's magazines and they always had helpful hints on everything from hairstyles to how to please a man in bed, but she'd never seen an article about what to do when you trip over a dead body.
What to do?
What to do? 911.
Those three little numbers popped into her mind, glowing like some sanity-saving beacon.
She'd call 911 and they'd know what to do.
Markie did a ginger little leap over the body and into the house and then slammed the door.
Not only did she slam the door, she locked it, throwing the dead bolt and hooking up the chain.
After all, who knew how the man had died?
Maybe there was a murderer lurking in the bushes.
She rushed to close the front drapes and then ran to the phone. Her fingers were shaking as she punched those three numbers.
"911," the operator said. "What is the nature of your emergency?"
It took a second for her scream-strained vocal cords to respond to her command that they now produce a normal sound.
"There's a dead body on my porch," she finally managed in one quick burst.
"Your name?" the operator asked, no hint of shock or panic.
"Markie Walkowicz."
"And your address is?" the woman asked, continuing her calm questioning as if people called her all the time because they'd found bodies on their porches.
Markie had worked at a vast number of jobs over the years, but she was sure she'd never want a job where getting calls about corpses on the porch was par for the course.
"Ma'am, your address?" the operator asked again.
Markie told her.
"I've dispatched a unit," said Miss Calm-Cooland-Collected. "Now, we'd better check the man -"
"We'd?" Markie interrupted, with a hint of a girl-scream back in her voice.
"- and feel for a pulse," the woman continued.
Purposefully, she forced herself to beat back her rising panic and speak in a usual tone. "You said we and by we, you mean me. You want me to go feel for a pulse. Sorry, ma'am, I'm not touching him again. There is no pulse. He's blue. And before you ask, there is no way I'm putting my lips on his for mouth-to-mouth. He's blue and cold. I don't need a medical degree to know that no amount of CPR is bringing him back."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Found And Lost by Holly Jacobs Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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