Read Orchid Blues Online

Authors: Stuart Woods

Tags: #Suspense, #Thriller, #Mystery

Orchid Blues

Orchid Blues
Stuart Woods

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

 

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Thirty-eight

Thirty-nine

Forty

Forty-one

Forty-two

Forty-three

Forty-four

Forty-five

Forty-six

Forty-seven

Forty-eight

Forty-nine

Fifty

Fifty-one

Fifty-two

Fifty-three

Fifty-four

Fifty-five

Fifty-six

Fifty-seven

Fifty-eight

Fifty-nine

Sixty

Sixty-one

Sixty-two

 

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Teaser chapter

Praise for the Novels of Stuart Woods

Orchid Blues

 

“Mr. Woods delivers smart characters and dialogue with a nice swing to it… . Holly and Ham are engaging … with lots of gumption and tough-talking banter between them… . Mr. Woods, like his characters, has an appealing way of making things nice and clear.”


The New York Times

 

“His action scenes are clean and sharp.”


Publishers Weekly

 

“Fast paced and exciting … sure to please his fans.”


Booklist

 

“[Will] keep you turning pages.”—
Kirkus Reviews

 

 

Cold Paradise

 

“A delightful tale of sex and violence …
Sopranos-
style … slick, sophisticated fun.”—
The Washington Post

 

“Woods delivers his most riveting and glamorous Barrington novel yet.”—
Vero Beach Press Journal
(FL)

 

“Plenty of action plus a surprise ending.”


The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News
(Stuart, FL)

 

“Roller-coaster plotting.”—
The Denver Post

 

 

L.A. Dead

 

“Scrumptious!”—
The New York Times

 

“Alive with action … so delightfully, typically Woods, it will send his fans into paroxysms of joy… . Entertainment novels can’t get any better than this.”

—The Associated Press

 

“The best novel in the series. With an exclamation point, Stuart Woods makes it evident that he is a force in the mystery genre.”—
Midwest Book Review

 

“One of the smoothest writers in the pop-literature biz and always a pleasure to read… . A stylish whodunit.”


The Detroit News

 

“Barrington’s fans will likely welcome the detective’s newest California-chic adventure.”—
Publishers Weekly

 

“An exciting story, and Stuart Woods tells it well.”


Winston-Salem Journal

 

“[A] nerve-racking thriller.”


The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News
(Stuart, FL)

 

 

… And His Other Novels

 

“An action-packed puzzler.”—
People

 

“Keeps you turning page after page.”


The Washington Post

 

“A whale of a story.”—
The New York Times

 

“Blackmail, murder, suspense, love—what else could you want in a book?”—
Cosmopolitan

 

“Terrific.”—Pat Conroy

 

“A fast-paced thriller.”—
Rocky Mountain News

 

“Another gem… . A book to read and get chills from on even the hottest day.”—
The San Diego Union-Tribune

 

“Woods delivers a marvelously sophisticated, thoroughly modern, old-fashioned read.”


Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

BOOKS BY STUART WOODS

FICTION

Santa Fe Dead
Beverly Hills Dead
Shoot Him If He Runs

Short Straw
Dark Harbor

Iron Orchid
1
Two Dollar Bill

The Prince of Beverly Hills
Reckless Abandon

Capital Crimes

Dirty Work

Blood Orchid
1
The Short Forever

Orchid Blues
1
Cold Paradise

L.A. Dead

The Run

Worst Fears Realized

Orchid Beach
1
Swimming to Catalina

Dead in the Water

Dirt

Choke
Imperfect Strangers
Heat
Dead Eyes
L.A. Times
Santa Fe Rules
New York Dead

Palindrome
Grass Roots

White Cargo
Deep Lie

Under the Lake
Run Before the Wind

Chiefs

 

TRAVEL

A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns
of Britain and Ireland (1979)

 

 

MEMOIR

Blue Water, Green Skipper (1977)

SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,
Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a G. P. Putnam’s Sons edition.

 

First Signet Printing, October 2002

 

Copyright © Stuart Woods, 2001

Excerpt from
Blood Orchid
copyright © Stuart Woods, 2002
All rights reserved

 

 

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

 

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

eISBN : 978-1-101-09838-7

http://us.penguingroup.com

This book is for
Phil and Susan Dusenberry.

One

HE WAITED UNTIL THE LAST OF THE LINE HAD entered the cinema for the eight o’clock movie.

“All right, let’s take a tour,” he said to the boy at the wheel.

The boy drove slowly around the parking lot.

“Here,” he said.

The boy stopped the car.

The man looked at the parked vehicle. It was an older Ford commercial van, well cared for and clean. “Wait a minute,” he said. He got out of the car and grabbed his tool bag. “Drive over to the edge of the parking lot and wait. When you see the van’s headlights go on, follow me home. I’ll be making a lot of turns.”

“Yessir,” the boy said.

He slipped a pair of rubber gloves on, then walked over to the van and tried the door. Unlocked. It took him less than a minute to punch the steering lock and start the van. He switched on the lights and checked the odometer: 48,000 miles; not bad. He backed out of the parking space and drove out of the lot, onto the highway. In the rearview mirror he watched the boy fall in behind him, well back. He drove for a couple of minutes, constantly making turns, checking the mirror; then he turned down a dirt road, drove a hundred yards and stopped. The boy stopped behind him. He sat in the van and watched the traffic pass on the highway for five minutes; then he made a U-turn and went back to the highway and headed west. He had two hours before the van’s owner would come out of the movies and discover his loss, but he needed only half an hour.

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