Illusions of Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

monstrosity that resembled a cross between a Hummer and an army tank. Since she rarely drove, she decided the BMW would be the lesser of two evils.
    She headed north toward Walton Springs and popped another two Aleve and guzzled the remaining half of her bottled water, fortifying herself for what lay ahead.
    Ambivalence filled her. The South—and Walton Springs—weren’t home. Her parents moved there from the Pacific Heights area in San Francisco while she was away at college. Karlyn made excuses not to come visit—Maymesters, a year of study abroad, a summer internship in Boston and then one in New York that was vital to her degree and career goals.
    Besides, why bother? Home never had been home, not in a traditional sense. Home conjured pictures of leisurely family dinners. Doing chores together. Parents putting together bicycles on Christmas Eve so Santa wouldn’t disappoint.
    All that was as foreign to Karlyn as a homeless orphan from Harlem being adopted by a doting billionaire and thrust into life in Beverly Hills.
    Dinners in the Campbell home consisted of a tray in her room. Her father was always in his study writing, the unspoken Do Not Disturb sign keeping him from meals. That or book tours and the lecture circuit all added up to no time spent together.
    Besides, Martha Campbell didn’t cook, so Karlyn’s dinner usually consisted of a sandwich she made herself.
    And vacations? Unheard of. Her classmates went from the Grand Canyon to the Grand Caymans, New York City to Disney World. But Broderick Campbell was too famous to go anywhere. He’d be recognized, and he hated that. He cherished privacy over riding on Space Mountain with his only child.
    So when she twirled her baton at a football game or danced a ballet solo, no loving adult in the audience cheered her on.
    Just like no one cheered on her fast-rising career in publishing.
    Her father remained critical of her writing. Karlyn stopped showing him anything by the time she turned fourteen. When she actually published her first historical romance novel, she flew to Georgia with the first copy off the press, signed and dedicated to her parents. Her father swiped the paperback from her hands, vanished into his study, and emerged three hours later uttering one word.
    Rubbish .
    Nothing but that one, scathing word of criticism.
    At that, something broke inside her. All the hurt and anger built up from childhood crashed. And then the void arose, a black hole as vast as the Bermuda Triangle. Karlyn felt absolutely nothing for the two people that supposedly raised her.
    She’d raised herself—and hadn’t done a bad job. She graduated from a prestigious Ivy League university. Landed a job within a month of graduation. Published her first novel at twenty-three. Everything seemed to be golden in her life as her writing career took off faster than a Triple Crown winner.
    Except when it came to men. Total strikeouts in that area. From unrequited love to broken love affairs and now the huge disaster of divorce. Men were the oil to Karlyn’s water. They just didn’t mix.
    As she cruised down the highway, she spoke aloud a vow she intended to keep.
    “I, Karlyn Campbell, do solemnly swear I will not get involved with a man for the next ten years. Minimum. Look briefly at a good ass—maybe—but that’s as far as it will go.”
    She glanced into her rearview mirror and saw the determination on her features. If anything, her stubbornness would allow her to keep the promise to herself.
    And then she remembered the one good man in her life.
    She added an addendum. “All except the amazing Matt Collins, of course. And any other interesting, fictional man I can create and have total control over.”
    She brusquely nodded for good measure. “I promise I will create good men who will make even better women happy. Furthermore, I swear to kill off any man that is mean, unfaithful, or uninteresting.”
    Karlyn chuckled at her resolve. She supposed a shrink would say she