58 Faces

58 FACES by Kat Duncan
The Wild Rose Press
January 12, 2011

Chief of surgery at a small children's hospital, Caroline's last hope to save it from financial ruin evaporates when she loses the Blue Diamond case to greedy Evan Quinn. When Evan buys the hospital property for high profit condo conversion, Caroline's hatred shifts into full red-alert. But Evan is not her real enemy. Rolf, the hospital's chief administrator, has had his eye on the blue diamond since he learned of it from his Nazi grandfather. To be the 58th face to possess the Blue Diamond, one for each of its facets, grants the owner unlimited power. Rolf plans to kill the current owners and use the diamond to build his Neo-Nazi regime. Can Caroline give up her hatred and Evan his greed before Rolf kills them both?

58 Faces Excerpt:
"If I wasn't sworn as a doctor, I'd pull this trigger."
A flash lit the darkness. An ear-shattering echo reverberated in the concrete vault. Evan staggered. Caroline dropped the gun, and its over-sensitized trigger fired again. It spun like a top on the concrete. She rushed forward.
"Evan. Evan. Are you hurt? Where? I didn't pull the trigger. It just went off in my hand." She grabbed his shoulders, bracing him, scanning him for a wound.
He steadied himself and pushed her aside. "You missed." He stared at the gun lying on the floor. He picked it up and hefted it, his brows pinched in thought. Pointing it away from her, he firmly grasped the weapon and gently tapped its side. It fired.
He turned on her, his mouth thinned into a grimace, his eyes squinting.
She put up her hands. "Evan, don't…"
He tipped the gun toward the ceiling and with a snap, removed the clip. He tossed the pieces in opposite directions. They spun and clattered on the concrete floor. In a few quick steps, he closed the distance between them. His broad hands engulfed her shoulders, infusing her shivering body with a surge of solid warmth.
"That gun was rigged by an expert. An expert who arranged for us to meet here. Then disappeared.”

Author Bio: As a young child, Kat once tried to confess the telling of her stories to her parish priest because she thought they fit the definition the nuns gave for 'telling a lie'. The wise priest asked her if her stories were told to hurt other people. "Oh, no!" she replied, "I only tell them to make people happy." The priest asked her if she had any other sins to confess and when she didn't, he advised her to continue telling her stories and then he assigned her a few prayers to say for those who could not hear them. Kat has been telling her 'lies' ever since and writing stories to entertain and enlighten. After a successful career as a software engineer, Kat decided she needed something different to do. She's now a tutor of adolescents with special needs. With one teenager in high school (home school) and another in college, every moment of her meager spare time is spent creating romances.

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Web Link: www.katduncan.net
Blog: www.katduncan.net/writeabout