Julie Miller - Beast in the Tower

The man was probably nuts. He was most certainly eccentric and showed signs of agoraphobia. Yet she’d cornered him, argued—she’d touched him. All mistakes when it came to self-preservation. He was so far out of her league—professionally, socially, economically, intellectually—that it was laughable to think she’d had the nerve to confront him.

But it was the man who had her all mixed up inside, not the name.

Her reactions to him had been varied, unexpected, overpowering. There’d been an initial rush of sexual awareness that left her feverish. He was so tall, so hardened, so male. Trading words with him made the blood hum through her veins. He was such a complexity of words and actions and mysterious motivations that she was driven to puzzle him out.

And then she’d seen his face and touched his hand and felt…pity.

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For Dr. Todd Pankratz and his staff.

Plus, to the surgical staff, admission specialists and 3rd floor nurses at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital in Hastings, Nebraska:

I owe you more than words can say here.

I feel better.

Thanks.

Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and to shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident grammar goddess. This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Julie believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.

Dr. Damon Sinclair—Brilliant researcher or mad scientist? Rumors have surrounded the reclusive billionaire since tragedy disfigured him and drove his wife to suicide.

Kit Snow—She abandoned her dreams when her parents mysteriously died. Now she’s come home to reopen their downtown diner and take care of her makeshift family.

Matthew Snow—Kit’s brother is dealing with the changes in his life by making some bad choices.

Helen Hodges—More than a housekeeper. She loves the gifted boy she raised as though he were her own flesh and blood, and the feeling’s mutual.

Easting Davitz—Damon’s executive liaison and link to the outside world.

Ken Kenichi—A foreign businessman who’d like to acquire Sinclair Labs and all its patents.

Germane Knight—He holds the secret recipe for Snow’s Barbecue Sauce. What other secrets does he possess?

J. T. Kronemeyer—The current construction foreman on the Sinclair Tower.

Miranda Sinclair—Her death haunts the husband she left behind.

The Sinclair Tower—Madman’s folly or work of art? Rising above the Kansas City skyline, this architectural wonder hides many secrets. And a few dead bodies.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Eighteen Months Ago

The dust settling from the tired old walls coated the warped, three-legged chair like a layer of gray velvet, undisturbed by the passage of time. Since it offered the only place to sit in this abandoned room, standing was the preferred option.

The room had made some banker’s assistant a nice, cozy office back in the building’s heyday. Now it was a decrepit eyesore, marred by peeling plaster and exposed studs in the crumbling walls, good for nothing more than meetings like this one.

Just another example of misused funds and misguided dreams. Dr. Damon Sinclair had been a sentimental fool to purchase this thirty-story high-rise and hire architects and historians to research its history so he could restore it to all its glory. He was an even bigger fool for trusting the wrong people.

But one man’s disadvantage was another—

“I’ve got them.”

Ah, yes, the hired help had arrived. A few minutes late, but carrying something that could make his tardiness forgivable. Anticipation cleared the sinuses and made the eyes sharply perceptive. “Let me see them.”

Electricity hadn’t run on this floor of the newly renamed Sinclair Tower for years, but the heavy flashlight provided all the illumination necessary to inspect the treasure the short, stocky workman handed over. He was breathing hard from the exertion of the past hour or so, and the grime hiding beneath his fingernails was as distasteful as the room surrounding them.

But a normal aversion to filthy things was momentarily forgotten as the culmination of so much planning was about to come to fruition. Retribution was only a fortunate by-product of the millions waiting to be made. Patience had allowed the plan to go forward, but tonight it was asking too much to wait for the privacy of a cleaner place before opening the leather-bound books.

The three binders were heavy with the weight of possibilities. Thumbing through the pages of scribbled notes and computer read-outs was like following a map to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Only, the little leprechaun sent to retrieve the map had forgotten one very important item.

Inhale deeply, exhale slowly. Patience. Patience.

“You’ve already rigged the explosion?”

The sweaty man hired for his alleged expertise nodded. “Yeah. The unstable base and volatile acid will accidentally meet in—” he paused to check his watch before raising a cocky grin “—fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds. No one will be able to trace what we’ve done, or even that we’ve been there.”

“We?”

The incompetent fool had the audacity to laugh. “Yeah, right, I know. You were never even here in the building.”

“That’s not the only mistake you’ve made, you idiot.” The binders dropped like a gauntlet between them, sending up a billowing cloud of dust.

The little leprechaun frowned, perplexed by the displeasure. “What’s wrong? Shouldn’t we be leaving?”

Sheer willpower stifled the urge to sneeze. “Where are the codes? The difference between these binders—and binders with the codes—is ten million dollars. These formulas will take years to decipher without them.”

“I looked where you said. I looked everywhere I could think of. Your information was wrong. The codes weren’t in his lab.” He backed toward the door frame and glanced into the hallway, as if expecting to be discovered. Had the idiot been followed? Maybe he’d been stupid enough to use the freight elevator, the noise of which would certainly alert those do-gooders who ran the restaurant on the ground floor that there were trespassers on the upper floors of the building.