Reviews of Paradise Lost: A Novel Of Suspense

"Smart and atmospheric, Paradise Lost is paradise found for anyone who loves a brain-tickling mystery. Taffy Cannon delivers a textured tale filled with nuanced characters and authentic detail, set in the affluent seaside resort of Santa Barbara. At an exclusive health spa—where beauty is sought at any price—crime, desire, and misplaced idealism clash with riveting drama in Cannon's talented hands. This is bedtime reading at its best."
—Gayle Lynds, author of The Coil and The Last Spymaster

"This gripping suspense novel will keep readers on their toes and allow them to get inside the mind of cop, victim and kidnapper alike."
—Publishers Weekly

"What a delicious novel, witty, observant, and smart! Oh yes, and brilliantly-plotted and filled with memorable characters. I loved every moment of it."
—Susan Isaacs, author of Long Time No See

"Great reading!"
—Library Journal

"Cannon balances heart and bite in her brisk new stand-alone."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Paradise Lost is an intriguing crime novel.  Both a top notch police procedural and an indepth exploration of the emotional fallout of a major crime on everyone involved from the victim to the perpetrator, cops, relatives and everyone in between. Paradise Lost is a real winner."
—Barbara Seranella, creator of the Munch Mancini crime series

Chapter One of Paradise Lost

Day One

Monday, April 3

Holly Constantine woke to the sound of a songbird trilling an early morning wake-up melody outside her cottage.  She turned off the alarm that was set to buzz in five minutes, stretched between luxuriant, silky sheets, and glanced over at the other bed.  In dim light cast by a mission shaped night light on the dresser, she could barely discern her mother's tiny body, raising an almost imperceptible lump beneath eiderdown covers.  Outside sheer curtains on the window, everything was still quite dark.

Holly felt surprisingly good, all things considered—relaxed, refreshed, well-rested.  She'd caught up on her sleep when she got home Friday night after finishing winter quarter final exams, sleeping round the clock and then some.  It was an easygoing Saturday after that, watching a British historical movie taped from PBS in the afternoon, going out for an early sushi dinner with her parents before they went to a screening.

She smiled at the thought: raw fish, the condemned woman's last meal.  Though if the truth be known, the condemned woman's actual last meal had been an enormous bowl of Breyer's peach ice cream yesterday afternoon, just before her father loaded their suitcases into Connie's Mercedes and waved a cheery good-bye as they headed north toward Santa Barbara.

Holly tiptoed into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and quickly dressed in the uniform she'd be wearing all week: heather gray sweatpants and sweatshirt, with the Paradise Plaza logo and name neatly embroidered in dark green script across her breasts.  Size XL.  Her mother's sweats, neatly folded in the dresser that held the night light, were an S.

And there you had it, in a nutshell.

She ran a comb through her hair, figuring she'd wash it when she got back from her walk.  No point in putting on any makeup just yet, either.  There were never more than three or four women on the early morning hike, and at this hour, Holly figured they wouldn't notice or care.  They never had before.

The sky was already much lighter when she slipped out of the cottage into the cool, misty morning.  This was northern California weather, really, the kind she loved.  No blazing sun demanding sunscreen and abbreviated clothing.  Maybe even a touch of drizzle, if she got lucky.

The Paradise Plaza compound seemed ghostly, all but deserted as she walked down to the courtyard to meet Lora, the staff member who'd be leading the morning walk.  Holly liked Lora.  She was lanky and effortlessly athletic, but she didn't lord it over the guests the way some fitness trainers liked to.  Empathetic, that was the word for Lora.  Also nice, just plain nice.

"Hey there, Holly!" Lora offered a sunny smile.  She wore khaki shorts, a denim jacket, and a baseball cap imprinted with a bird-of-paradise.  She pulled off the cap and ran her fingers through short, brown hair styled in a functional, no-nonsense cut.  "There's just three of us this morning, so we can go all the way to the waterfall.  It's really pretty this spring.  How've you been?"

Happy till I got here, Holly thought.  But she smiled as she answered.  It wasn't Lora's fault that she was here.  "Okay.  How about you?"

"Right as rain."  Lora turned her gaze skyward.  "Which we might just see a sprinkle of this morning.  We sure could use it.  It's been awfully dry here."

Not surprising.  Southern California was a desert.  Holly grinned conspiratorially.  "Rain's just fine with me."  She looked around.  "Who else is coming this morning?"  It didn't really matter, but she hoped it wouldn't be one of the old ladies, wives of important men.  Women who mostly came to Paradise Plaza for the cosmetic pampering and took lots of "little breaks" on the morning hillside climb.  Holly was actually looking forward to the hike, part of her physical regimen on two previous visits to Paradise Plaza.

"Vanessa Wyatt," Lora answered.  "Do you know her?"

Holly shook her head, puzzled.  "Should I?"

"She's an actress," Lora explained.  "I thought maybe..."

Holly shook her head again.  People always assumed that since her parents were Hollywood entertainment lawyers, Holly knew everyone who'd ever held a SAG card.  "Nope.  Her name sounds familiar, though."

"She used to be on The Lords of Suffolk County," Lora told her softly.  A smallish figure with a head of wild auburn hair was trudging in their direction, wearing Paradise Plaza sweats and a fearsome scowl.  "Played Susanna Lord, the Virginia bitch heiress, for years and years."  Lora turned and waved a hand in greeting.  "Morning, Vanessa!  I'm Lora and this is Holly, another guest.  It's just the three of us this morning, so we can set off now."

"Set off where?" Vanessa Wyatt came to a halt, hands on hips, and glowered.  Her accent was thickly Southern, a molasses-drenched snarl.  She glared suspiciously around the quiet compound.

"Back there."  Lora pointed to a wrought-iron gate in a stucco wall at the rear of the compound.  "We'll be hiking into the Los Padres National Forest, up the side of the mountain for about a mile, then back down again.  It's a great walk."

Vanessa Wyatt rolled her eyes, which were strikingly blue and surrounded by improbably long black lashes.  "If you say so," she murmured doubtfully.

Lora made small talk as they started off, explaining that the lack of rainfall had cut back on the number of wildflowers this year, that there was still a chance of spring rain, but that most mornings lately had been like this one, filled with a promising mist that burned completely off by noon.

As they began the gentle climb, Holly noticed with great pleasure and some pride that she had no trouble keeping pace with Lora.  Holly walked mornings up at Stanford, two miles a day and sometimes four if she woke up early enough, but that was mostly level ground.  Here the incline was steady and relatively demanding.

Too demanding, it seemed, for Miss Vanessa Wyatt, who made no secret of her lack of enthusiasm.  "Ah simply cannot believe that I'm doing such a thing," she whined, "not just getting up at such an ungodly hour, which would be quite bad enough, but actually paying y'all to make me do it."  A hundred yards down the trail she was already winded, her words puffing out in jagged clumps as she labored along.

Lora answered with a hearty chuckle.  "By the end of the week, you'll be sprinting up this path like a mountain goat.  Just you wait and see."  She herself seemed to be moving at only a fraction of her potential speed, a muscle car idling at thirty, just waiting for somebody to hit the gas.

"If I'm not dead by the end of the week," Vanessa gasped dramatically.  "I should never have worn these new shoes.  I'm getting a fearful blister on my heel."

They hiked in relative silence for fifteen minutes, a peaceful quiet punctuated only by Vanessa's occasional complaints.  Then they reached a switchback on the trail, and as they rounded the thickly vegetated curve, Holly saw what at first glance seemed a grotesque apparition.

Two tall figures clad in severe black stepped from opposite sides of the trail, directly into their path.  They wore some kind of bizarre black science fiction-type headgear that gave them the appearance of oddly misshapen insects.

Before Holly could react, the figures were right in their faces, spraying blasts of some kind of aerosol directly at them.  First they attacked Vanessa and Lora, who were slightly in the lead.  Lora leapt up in a startling martial arts kick and then backed off, while Vanessa let out a howl like a banshee and began bouncing up and down like a drop of water on a hot griddle.

Then, before she could really process what was happening around her, Holly herself was hit, feeling her eyes and face explode in pain, a burning sensation of horrifying intensity.   She yelped in dismay and anguish, screwing her eyes tightly closed, bringing her hands up to rub and feeling her fingers also burst into burning agony.

As she quietly crumpled to her knees, effectively blinded by the shrieking pain, Holly was aware of dissonant noise all around her, fracturing the quiet morning.  Vanessa Wyatt, somewhere nearby, squealed and screeched.  And behind her on the trail, somebody was crashing and running, banging into trees and howling.

Lora?  It had to be.  Lora had great reflexes, had probably seen the ambush coming more quickly than Holly or Vanessa, had gotten off that kick, might actually be able to get away...

But as the crashing grew more distant and then abruptly stopped, Holly found herself unable to focus on anything but her own burning face and hands.

Time passed, probably not much, though it was impossible to tell when every second was punctuated by screaming pain.  Then Holly heard a voice just in front of her, tinny and artificial-sounding.  It seemed to be filtered through some kind of voice changer, totally appropriate to the alien appearance of the ambushers.

"We will now rinse the spray out of your eyes and then blindfold you," the voice declared.

Holly heard a nearby splash, followed by a startled yip that had to be coming from Vanessa.  More splashing, and then she felt hands turning her head sideways just before a brief flood of water poured across her own eyes, frigid and startling.

Cold and shocking, yes, but carrying relief at the same time.  Rinsing away whatever they'd used for the attack.  Pepper spray?  Mace?  Poison?  No matter what, Holly wanted it off.  All of it, right this minute.  She offered her face and eyes eagerly to the coming stream, held her hands out to catch the water as it sluiced off her face.  The whole process was repeated half a dozen times, bringing greater relief with each cascade of water.  A sort of glugging sound accompanied it, as if they were pouring the water out of a jug.  She still couldn't really see.

More water, and still more.  She was cold now, shivering uncontrollably.  She tried to keep her sweatshirt from getting any wetter.

"As long as you cooperate," the voice announced, "you will not be hurt."

Vanessa whimpered softly.  "Oh please, no, please don't, oh please, please, please."

"Silence!"

Her next whimper was cut off abruptly, and Holly caught her breath in horror.  Surely they hadn't—

She felt a towel being rubbed on her face and hands, drying her skin with rough strokes.  Her eyes remained tightly screwed shut as she heard a ripping sound and felt a strip of wide tape being pressed against her eyes, then back around her head, then around again and again.  She knelt quietly, offering no resistance, listening to her beating heart in a morning that was once again deathly quiet.

"You will stand up now," the tinny voice ordered, shattering the silence.  "Make no attempt to get away.  You will only fail."

Somebody helped her to her feet and held her arm tightly as they marched along.  Uphill, it seemed, further along the trail.  How far had they gotten?  Where were they?  Holly hadn't taken this trail for over a year, wished she'd paid more attention to where they had been when they were overtaken.

"Climb into the vehicle," the voice commanded, offering a none-too-gentle boost as Holly clambered up into what seemed to be some kind of a van.  She sensed metal under her knees.  But before she could figure out anything more about her whereabouts, she felt a sharp sting in her thigh.

All content © 2005-11 by Taffy Cannon.