Scene Stealer

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Scene Stealer by Elise Warner

A cozy mystery (Not your usual romantic suspense.)

After a chance encounter on the subway, Miss Augusta Weidenmaier, a retired schoolteacher living in New York’s Greenwich Village, is determined to help the police in the search for missing nine-year-old child actor Kevin Corcoran. Never mind that she has no training in law enforcement—she spent decades teaching. She knows when someone is lying.

In Chap. 15, Kevin’s father, a suspect, sneaks into the hospital to see Jean, his estranged wife, and Kevin’s mother.

Excerpt from Chap. 15
The dream fades. Someone is sitting on a hard, plastic chair next to the hospital bed. Charles wasn’t a hallucination brought on by a combination of tranquilizers and fear. Her hand gripped the sheet.
“It’s all right, Jean.” He tried to pat her hand with his. Charles wasn’t used to small tender gestures.
“Kevin’s with you, isn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t take Kevin without telling you, Jean.” He groped for his next words. “I couldn’t hurt you or Kevin. You believe me, don’t you?”
She did. Charles Corcoran was not a liar.
“He could be sick or hurt or dead.”
“Kevin’s not dead. I’m going to find him. I swear it.”
“What will we do?” Her hand reached for his. The hand was cold. She studied his face; he looked emaciated. The penetrating blue eyes lost in shadowed cavities.
A quiver of fear made her hand tremble. Charles was different. Was he telling her the truth? She needed to trust him.
“Tell me everything, Jean. Does anyone have a reason to dislike you or the boy? Think. Someone, anyone, you might have forgotten to tell the police about?”
The photo in the gossip column. “Lawrence Dunn. He’s in a one man show at an off-Broadway theatre called Saint Genesis. He and Kevin auditioned for the “Cowboy Bob’s Big, Bad Burger” commercial.”
Jean hesitated. “At first, Dunn was charming and then they read together. Kevin was asked to wait; Lawrence Dunn dismissed. Actors are rejected more often than not, Kevin is just a little boy; it wasn’t his fault Dunn didn’t get the job.”
“Stage mother!” Dunn had hurled the words at her making them sound obscene.
“It’s my fault. I wanted Kevin to be an actor. I wanted everyone to know his name.”
“Jean, I’m going to find Kevin.”
Charles kissed her forehead. She buried her face in his chest but the scent of bay rum mixed with the acrid odor of sweat. An odor foreign to the man she had married. Jean slipped out of the embrace, rested her head against the pillows. She closed her eyes—wanting to tell him to go away—afraid to say the words out loud.


Steal Stealer is available at Amazon www.amazon.com/scenestealer-ebook/dp/B003NX7BSA www.barnesandnoble.com www.carinapress.com and wherever eBooks are sold An audio version has been produced by www.audible.com

To learn more about me:

www.elisewarner.blogspot.com

www.elisewarner.com