Color Blind

Kate McKinnon is back -- and this time it's personal. When two hideously eviscerated bodies are discovered and the only link between them is a bizarre painting left at each crime scene, the NYPD turns to former cop Kate McKinnon, the woman who brought the serial killer the Death Artist to justice. Having settled back into her satisfying life as art historian, published author, host of a weekly PBS television series, and wife of one of New York's top lawyers, Kate wants no part of it. But Kate's sense of tranquillity is shattered when this new sequence of murders strikes too close to home. With grief and fury to fuel her, she rejoins her former partner, detective Floyd Brown, and his elite homicide squad on the hunt for a vicious psychopath known as the Color-Blind Killer. In her rage and desperation, Kate allows herself to be drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse. She abandons her glamorous life for the gritty streets of Manhattan, immersing herself in a world where brutality and madness appear to be the norm, where those closest to her may have betrayed her -- and where, in the end, nothing is what it seems.

Color Blind
A Novel of Suspense

Chapter One

"Hold on a sec." Kate unhooked her black lace bra, lay back ontothe all-white bed, pillows, silk spread pushed aside.

"I was just getting to that."

"The bedspread or my bra?"

"Who cares about the spread?" Richard smiled, crow's-feet deepeningat the corners of his dark blue eyes.

"I do. And I'd think you would know that after almost ten years ofmarriage."

"Is this going to be a discussion?" Richard's lips grazed one of Kate'sbreasts.

Kate shivered, then sighed. "No discussion." She slid her arms overhis neck, thinking how much she loved him, perhaps even more so nowthan she did when they had first met and he'd courted her -- RichardRothstein the dashing bachelor lawyer, Kate McKinnon the Astoria cop.Talk about an odd couple. At least on the surface. Not so different onceyou stripped away Richard's glossy facade to find the boy fromBrooklyn; or added the polished veneer that Kate had worked so hardto acquire after she'd left the force, returned to her first love, art history,earned the Ph.D. that became the art book that became her very ownPBS series, Artists' Lives. All of it a surprise to her still.

If anyone had bothered to ask the young girl from Astoria where she'd be at forty she would never have predicted any kind of fame, certainlynot riches. Exchange a row house for a penthouse? Sometimes evenKate had trouble believing it. She was lucky and she knew it. Perhapsthat was why she devoted half her time to the educational foundationLet There Be a Future -- the one that funded inner-city kids from gradeschool through college.

Saving kids. Hell, she didn't need a psychiatrist to explain that one toher -- the motherless girl from Queens. Though when she could finallyafford to she'd spent some time on the couch trying to get past it, or atleast understand it: her mother's early death -- a suicide -- and all theguilt she'd felt, as if somehow she'd been the cause.

It was the shrink who got Kate to see that following in her father'sfootsteps -- becoming a cop -- had more than a little to do with trying toplease him and make up for his losing his wife, who, by the way, if anyonecared, happened to be her mother.

Just about every other man in her family -- uncles, cousins -- had beena cop. Kate was the first woman. And even with her making detective intwo short years, getting her father's attention and approval had provedelusive. But when they assigned her to runaways and she'd gotten thechance to save kids, it all became worth it. Back then, DetectiveMcKinnon thought she could save everyone -- but those missing teenshad taken a toll.

How many times can I have my heart broken?

A question she'd put to herself, her shrink, her chief in Astoria, andlater to Richard, who had promised to try and mend the many fissuresand cracks when he proposed marriage and offered her a way out. Andso far he'd done a pretty good job.

"Love you," she whispered.

Richard smiled at his wife, took in her unconventional beauty -- thelong straight nose, expressive brows over piercing green eyes. He ran hishand through her thick dark hair that Kate had only recently begun tospend way too much money on -- having the few gray strands spun intogold. A gift to herself for her forty-second birthday.

"Anyone ever tell you you're gorgeous?"

"No. Not recently." Kate leveled a stare at Richard. "Get it?"

Richard painted a sheepish grin across his features. "Sorry."

"Forgiven," said Kate, moving her hand down Richard's back andunder the waistband of his pajamas -- ones she'd bought in Florencewhen she was there to deliver a lecture on up-and-coming Americanartists at the Accademia only last month.

Richard rolled off her, pushed his pajamas down, kicked until theyfell off.

Sometimes, thought Kate, observing her tall, athletic husband kickingaway, he seemed like a little boy, even with his forty-fifth birthday onlya week away. Maybe, she mused, as he maneuvered himself back on topof her, all men are boys, which, at the moment, was just fine with her.Kate kissed his mouth, then ran her lips lightly over his ear.

Richard moved to Kate's neck, tongue skiing along her collarboneuntil reaching her breast.

Through half-closed eyes Kate took in Richard's brown-gray curls,freckles on the tops of his shoulders. Was it only a year ago she'd comeso close to losing him; to believing he had betrayed her?

The Death Artist.

An image flashed behind Kate's eyes: Richard's onyx-and-gold cufflink half-hidden under the edge of a Persian rug, catching a hint of light,but enough to be noticed -- at the scene of a murder.

"Richard, you won't ever lie to me again, will you?"

Richard's shoulders sagged. "What? No. Why ... now?"

"Nothing. Sorry. Never mind."

Richard expelled a loud breath, sat up. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing. I -- I was just ... remembering,"

"We've been through it, haven't we, Kate? A dozen times. I thoughtit was ancient history."

"It is. Forgive me." Kate was sorry she'd spoken, wanted to take itall back, have Richard's hand on her thigh, tongue on her breast."Tell you what," she said, laying her hand on his cheek, "I promiseto shut up completely if you just go back to where you left off,okay?" Her fingers flitted over the hair on his chest, then down,lightly skimming his half-erect cock, back and forth, feeling it gethard again.

"Deal," said Richard, burying his head in her neck, adding a playfulbite.

"Ow!"

"You're not allowed to say anything, remember?"

Kate lay back, closed her eyes. But a second later another imageflashed: a body on a kitchen floor -- and blood everywhere ...

Color Blind
A Novel of Suspense. Copyright © by Jonathan Santlofer. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Color Blind: A Novel of Suspense by Jonathan Santlofer
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