The Showhouse Killer

The Showhouse KillerHarborside Secrets - Book 2Katy Pierce Copyright © 2023 by Katy PierceAll rights reserved.No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. DescriptionThe writing is on the wall and it’s crystal clear. Private investigator Carlee Knight now has a target on her back. More than a decade after a malevolent serial killer once haunted Carlee’s eighth-grade class, claiming the lives of countless students, including her twin, horror has struck the quiet lakeside suburb once more. When a gristly murder of a teen boy suddenly yields fresh leads on this ice-cold case, Carlee knows she must leave her new home in Chicago and dive back into the bloody secrets of Harborside—before the next child winds up dead. As she works with her two closest colleagues, stoic Detective West and charismatic FBI Special Agent Garnett, Carlee’s search for the Eighth-Grade Killer is entangled with another death. An intern at a high-stakes realty company is found hanging from a swing set, dead of an apparent suicide. His distraught mother refuses to accept the police report… and when no one else will listen, she hires Carlee to prove it was murder. One pull of the thread leads Carlee into a perilous game of foul play and million-dollar deals that will drag her from lavish mansions to dark alleys. But there’s a dangerous shadow still following her every step. How can she defend herself against a shadow? Better yet, how can she turn this around and chase a shadow?The Show-House Killer is the second book of Katy Pierce’s Harborside Secrets mystery series, where a new danger lurks behind every twist, and the only person Carlee can trust is herself. I’d like to dedicate this book to anyone who’s afraid to walk away. If you’re in a bad place, just get up and walk away. There’s no need for you to explain yourself. It’s your life and it’s the only one you’ll ever get. Do what makes you happy. Contents 1. Chapter One 2. Chapter Two 3. Chapter Three 4. Chapter Four 5. Chapter Five 6. Chapter Six 7. Chapter Seven 8. Chapter Eight 9. Chapter Nine 10. Chapter Ten 11. Chapter Eleven 12. Chapter Twelve 13. Chapter Thirteen 14. Chapter Fourteen 15. Chapter Fifteen 16. Chapter Sixteen 17. Chapter Seventeen 18. Chapter Eighteen 19. Chapter Nineteen 20. Chapter Twenty 21. Chapter Twenty-One 22. Chapter Twenty-Two 23. Chapter Twenty-Three 24. Chapter Twenty-Four 25. Chapter Twenty-Five 26. Chapter Twenty-Six 27. Chapter Twenty-Seven 28. Chapter Twenty-Eight What's Next A Note From The Author Harborside Secrets Series Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter OneNoah was going to kill them. He had played nice, had humored Sheila for long enough. They were getting too smart for their own good, and nothing short of snapping their necks would get the job done. He’d just have to ask Sheila to forgive him after the fact. She was too soft to make the right call. Those raccoons were about to breathe their last.The rat-fingered little monsters had managed to break the raccoon-proof locks on the trash cans outside, a wasted thirty dollars. Noah sucked on his teeth. His next purchase would be traps—the lethal kind. He smiled at the thought.Right now, though, it was time to regroup and relax before the next battle in his war against the raccoons. Noah hip-checked the fridge door closed, two frosty beers in his possession, and snagged the bottle opener on his way to the living room. Sheila would kick his ass if she saw him right now, but one beer just wasn’t going to cut it. Not tonight.The plush leather armchair—his favorite place in the whole house—was waiting for him, situated in front of the sixty-five-inch TV he’d lied to Sheila about being on sale. This slice of respite had been seducing him all day. Noah took a moment to appreciate the simplicity of his throne room as he sank into the chair. He had just been to a friend’s McMansion across town, and the couches were so far from their tiny television screen, he could hardly make out what was happening.His house, by contrast, was perfect. The fact that it wasn’t technically his was a mild annoyance he preferred to overlook.Stress flowed out of his tense limbs as he leaned back and engaged the footrest. With the pop of a cap, he took a swig from one of the beers and grabbed the remote to fire up a rerun of Havelock. Noah preferred reruns of his favorite detective show to the new reality TV shit spewing from every channel these days.“What is it, Chief?” Detective Havelock asked on the screen, the show’s customary opening line. Noah could recite episodes from memory, and the lead detective’s buzz cut meant it was the second season, the best season. The season Havelock worked with that spicy FBI agent. Squinting at the screen, he tried to remember her name as he took another sip of his beer, the carbonation fizzing against his lips. The beer, the show, the chair—it all enveloped him, cocooned him in a warmth that told him everything was right in the world. He smiled to himself, his eyelids growing heavy.Bang!Noah startled awake, the bottle in his hand splashing lukewarm beer into his face, making him sputter.“What the hell?” he shouted, heart pounding and gaze darting about, trying to focus on some unseen, unknown—possibly imaginary—threat. On-screen, Havelock rushed to kick the perp’s pistol out of his hands.“It was just the show,” Noah thought aloud before laughing out a relieved, “Christ.” His buddies would’ve roasted the shit out of him for being so jumpy.He must have drifted off sometime after Havelock’s first interrogation—always the red herring—and woken up just in time for the final gunfight. He stretched in the chair and tried to find a new cozy position, but it was too late; his brain was wide awake. The energy of the house still felt off, something a second