CELTICLADY'S REVIEWS: Specimen by Lisa Towles Book Tour! #Specimen @lisatowleswriter @authorlisatowles @SilverDaggerBookTours

While investigating a viral internet game, 17 year old Thea Riggs stumbles upon a series of unsolved murders and the global crime syndicate that orchestrated them. Can she alone bring down a secret crime syndicate, or is the cost of justice too high?

Specimen

by Lisa Towles

Genre

YA Psychological Thriller, Suspense

Thea Riggs is shocked by a dead body in the empty house she was summoned to. It feels like a setup, like she’s being framed for murder. By the time she discovers a connection between the body and the internet game everyone’s playing, it’s too late. They know she’s onto them. Now she’s their next target.

Lured to an underground San Francisco lab, she pieces together the hidden agenda behind what she’s seen – scientific experiments, a secret society of operatives, a labyrinth of lies hiding a decades-old cold case. She’s in deep and knows too much, but now they’ve threatened her mother. Can she alone bring down a secret crime syndicate, or is the cost of justice too high?

Specimen is an action-packed, Young Adult contemporary thriller. Fans of Blake Crouch and James Rollins will love Lisa Towles’ technical thrill ride. Join Thea’s quest for the truth and Buy Specimen today.

A razor sharp, edge of your seat thriller" - The Prairies Book Review

"A sharp, thought-provoking examination of technology's dark side and the elusive nature of truth"
- BookView Reviews

"A rollercoaster ride of a story that readers will find exhilarating and heart stopping"
- San Francisco Book Review

"A gripping thriller for readers who love mystery, suspense, ambition, betrayal, and intrigue"
- Literary Titan

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Chapter 1

Blood pooled under the mop of the woman’s dark brown hair, her skin a

horrid chalky color, gray almost, body awkwardly twisted like she’d been

on her way somewhere and shocked by the thrust of something blunt and

resolute intended to stop the beat of her heart, or at least her intentions. As

to what—I hadn’t gotten there yet. Was it a good day to die?

I stared down at her body from the kitchen doorway, one hand

covering my mouth to quell the shaking in my soul. I knew her. How

could this possibly be real?

The house was quiet except for the howl of wind, the Fenning’s giant

sycamore scraping the east side of the house like a demon’s fingernail.

Fitting.

Something made me turn, not a sound exactly, more like a sensation. I

gazed at the upstairs landing that overlooked a foyer the size of a

basketball court. A much better vantage point to say the least. I tore up the

stairs and pancaked myself to the cold tiles. My erratic pulse banged in my

ears. Tha-thump, tha-thump. Breathe, Thea. Breathe. Okay, my frantic

brain re-engaged for the moment, I could see this was a much safer place

to assess. The woman’s lower half was visible from here on the marble

floor beside the island – dark gray pants, expensive black heels, one of

them on and the other three inches from her body exposing a bare, grayish

foot. Lying on my stomach, pain jarred me from the phone in my pocket—

glass on bone. I hadn’t pulled it out yet or called for help because I needed

time to gather my wits, I had no idea what I’d say and, more importantly,

what if her killer was still here?

I used to think a day that began with a game of cards was destined to

be good. With a father and grandfather in the Navy, of course I grew up

playing cards. I could beat them both at cribbage by the time I was fifteen,

or maybe they let me win. There was something about numbers that had

always comforted me, like a tacit reminder of the ordered universe despite

all the visual evidence of chaos. And cribbage was a game that valued

numbers and pairs, and in my fragile heart that symmetry felt, somehow,

like safety. Okay sure, life in the Marshall Islands was a little sheltered,

but my dad wanted it that way. My mother disagreed and tried to move us

all to San Francisco, where we’d have the support of her family along with

the contemporary imprint of urban life. She won the battle but lost the

war. My father remained five thousand miles away in Majuro Atoll, and

after my brother Rudy died she and I built a new life in San Francisco’s

Mission District without them. The culture and beauty of my Islander

roots lives in my heart forever but honestly failed to prepare me for the

spectacle of Roberta Fenning’s bludgeoned body. Could anything have?

Rudy died on his seventeenth birthday, my age now, which my mother

said was like being erased by the universe and twice as bad as just losing

him. Now we can’t even celebrate his birthday without reliving the trauma

of his loss. The closest thing I had to a brother now was Fergus Wilde, my

best friend since the third grade.

“Stop dreaming and cut the deck,” Fergus had said this morning while

we drank coffee on the floor of my bedroom, preparing for another game

of cribbage during the lazy, summer lull before college. And I had been

daydreaming while he decided which cards to throw in the crib. Nothing I

hated more than wasting time. And there was nothing I wanted more than

to escape reality go back to the safety of that cribbage game right now.

My chin touching the cold floor of the Fenning’s second floor landing,

I couldn’t make my lungs remember how to work. Sucking in air, I clawed

the grout between the foyer’s white marble tiles to steady myself. That

same marble downstairs in the kitchen would now be permanently stained

with Roberta Fenning’s blood. Wait…why was there blood under my

fingernails? I hadn’t touched the body. Not even close. Had I?

I shouldn’t even be here, I realized, gasping finally like a surfer

reaching air after being held down by a set wave. My nose ran and the

fluid mixed with tears sliding down my cheeks. I couldn’t wipe it because

whoever did this to her could still be in the house watching me right now.

Stay silent. Don’t move. Two questions: would I be next and, more

importantly, why had Lise summoned me if she wasn’t even here? I

ignored the most obvious possibility because honestly it was too much

weight on my heart. I needed to get the hell out of here before the police

arrived. Had anyone even called them? Had Lise done that before she

skipped out?

I went through it in my head to sort of rehearse. I entered with my own

personal key to the Fenning estate, given to me by Lise Fenning, my other

BFF. It’s not that I lived here, necessarily, just that the house was huge

and running to answer the door every time the bell chimed was apparently

too extraordinary an effort on a regular basis. So they gave me one of the

spare keys. Lise should have been here to meet me, and she was scheduled

to be. I’d called out for her and at least expected Nanny, the live-in cook,

to be in the kitchen where I always stopped in to say hi. She’s nice, I liked

her. Today the kitchen was completely closed up. No Nanny, no Roberta,

only her discarded body staining the pristine tile with a pool of her blood.

What if they asked me if I knew her? I needed an answer ready for

that. Yes, of course I knew her, I even liked her. She was my best friend’s

mother so I’d been to that house at least once a week for years. The words

felt so strange in my mouth – was, best friend. Best friends didn’t do what

Lise has done. Roberta was the kind of woman, the kind of mother who

cared about people and wanted to know them. She’d stop me in the

hallway sometimes and grasp my shoulders, look in my eyes to not just

ask how I was doing but see for herself. My God. Roberta.

I’d only stood in the doorway and honestly didn’t take a single step

into the kitchen. But when I crouched low, I caught sight of a pooling of

blood in the back of her head, mostly dried now, and the ghastliest color

I’d ever seen on another person. I tried to remember if she’d been sick

lately, but she was fine the last time I saw her. My God, the blood. I knew

that had to mean something about the timing of her attack, but my mind

wasn’t capable of critical thinking right now. I’m not sure why, but I’d

snapped one quick photo of her lying there before charging up the grand

staircase and dropping to the floor of the landing.

From this vantage point I could see into the kitchen, her lifeless legs

visible and feet turned awkwardly inward. I might never be able to unsee

the ghoulish cast to her skin, and the way rigor mortis had frozen her

contorted fingers into these spectral claws belonging in a zombie movie. I

felt sick and rolled onto my left side before vomiting, another assault on

what had once been their pristine floor. How could this beautiful estate be

habitable again after tonight? My fingertips gripped the edge of the

staircase and pulled my body forward two inches, which gave me a bit

more view. Some kind of leather strap stuck up beneath her on the side of

the kitchen island, which I hadn’t noticed before. Was it her handbag, and

why hadn’t I noticed it when I’d been in the kitchen?

My frantic brain began some basic calculations, starting with steps. An

estimated thirty-seven to the lower landing and then roughly another

twenty to the inner front door. Could I make it there before the killer

spotted me? Wait a minute, I knew this house. There was a back bedroom.

Lise and I removed part of the flooring once to access a support pole that

weaved from the basement up to the second floor. If I could get to that

closet, I might be able to use the pole to exit the house through the

basement’s bulkhead, which would be safer than ploughing out the front

door for all of Sea Cliff to see. My wet, swollen eyes blinked through

these new possibilities, fingernails clicking the white marble, performing a

momentary risk assessment. Had the Fennings discovered our secret

escape path and blocked off the closet? If someone was still in the house,

this could be my only chance of making it out alive.

I tried texting Lise again. Where the fuck are you?? Don’t leave me

here!

I heard the clink of china from the kitchen, a saucer upended and seesawing side to side before it came to rest.

OMG. My stomach tightened with an imaginary vice grip over my

throat. That sound could mean Roberta was still alive. I pressed my hands

over my mouth to suppress the urge to call out to her, because it could also

mean that her killer was down there waiting for me.

Lisa Towles is an award-winning, Amazon bestselling crime novelist and a passionate speaker on the topics of fiction writing, creativity, and Strategic Self Care. Lisa has 11 crime novels in print with her newest title Specimen freshly released in November 2024. The first two books of her E&A Investigations Series (Hot House and Salt Island) were both #1 Amazon Kindle Bestsellers. Lisa also writes standalone thrillers, such as her 2022 political thriller, The Ridders, which won an American Fiction Award. Lisa is an active member and frequent panelist/speaker of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. She has an MBA in IT Management and works full-time in the tech industry.

Read more about Lisa’s book on her publisher’s website.

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