Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of audiobooks, ebooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3: Into Death
    Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3: Into Death
    Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3: Into Death
    Ebook56 pages34 minutes

    Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3: Into Death

    By M.A. Lee

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Pranks and tricks cause inconvenience, misery, and embarrassment.

     

    After one prank goes too far and injury occurs, will Isabella locate the trickster before the next mishap turns deadly?

     

    "Black Heart" is the third short story in the collection Sailing with Mystery. The collection continues the mystery adventures of the artist Isabella Newcombe Tarrant, featured in the Into Death series. Her introduction is in the novel Digging into Death.

    . ~ . ~ . ~ .

    Writer M.A. Lee has published over 15 historical mystery novels and two novellas. With Edie Roones, she penned 10 short stories in the Wild Sherwood series, featuring characters of the Robin Hood legends as well as new characters, all encountering the dangerous faeries of British mythology.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherM.A. Lee
    Release dateJun 20, 2023
    ISBN9798986770178
    Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3: Into Death
    Read preview

    Read more from M.A. Lee

    Related to Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3

    Related ebooks

    Amateur Sleuths For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Black Heart ~ Sailing with Mystery 3 - M.A. Lee

      Black Heart

      1

      C ome to Cairo. See the pyramids, her friend had Nedda urged. I will run mad if I have no one reasonable to talk with.

      Isabella agreed with excitement. Nine days in a hotel in Port Said with nothing to do didn’t appeal.

      She never expected to stand on the desert road for an hour, waiting for the following truck to arrive and rescue them.

      Everything around was dry desert, peaked dunes to one side of the half-burned road and ridges of mixed sienna and umber rising as a buttress against the drifting sand. Deep shadows in the ridges looked like the eyepits of a skull. The shadow-black rocks crumbled from heat and time. To her, the whole landscape looked alien, stark and intriguing.

      The Egyptian desert looked nothing like Crete, where she had met her husband Madoc. The darker sandy rocks reminded her of the American southwest, where Aunt Letitia and Uncle Roger had lived, all red rock canyons or endless stretches of barren plains. Yet the desert southwest had scrubby pines, knotted junipers, and creosote bushes. Wildlife abounded: pinyon jays and wrens and thrashers, jackrabbits and coyote and deer.

      Here, she only saw a distant falcon soaring on the updrafts. Nothing appeared to move in the landscape. Isabella had wanted to sketch a long-eared fennec or the precious-looking gerbil or a sleek gazelle. She’d only heard the zit-zit-dweedle of the scrub warbler once, as their truck jounced through the outskirts of Cairo.

      Fanning herself with her wide-brimmed straw hat, she turned to watch the men standing at the road, a few yards behind the truck that had caused their halt a half-hour ago. Arms emphasizing his points, the Egyptian driver talked with Col. Werthy, Richard Owen, and Neal Gallagher. The four men had changed the first punctured tyre. It lay beside them, useless, for a tyre on the other side had also gone flat.

      No one had apparently considered a second tyre blown, yet here they all stood, driver and the fifteen passengers who had crowded into the truck’s cargo box. And they all watched the shimmering distance towards Cairo, hoping the second truck would arrive soon.

      Nedda dropped the hand shading her eyes and turned to Isabella. She looked cool and crisp in her khaki traveling suit. Isabella, in blue cotton, felt a wrinkled lump melting in the rising heat. The ends of the green scarf tied about her dark hair fluttered in the breeze. I’m going back into the truck before I’m burned to a crisp.

      A tarp for shade was fixed above the truck box. While driving, the wind blew under the tarp and cooled them. Without movement, the dark canvas would trap the heat.

      The canopy will block the breeze, she warned.

      I can tolerate heat. I cannot stand being fried. I think my nose is burned. Nedda touched the tip gingerly.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 3