Danita Minnis

All month long, March 1st – 31st, there are over 400 prizes up for grabs. The grand prize is a $100 gift card!

Remember, you have to be registered at TRR to play the game – Click the TRR logo above to log in!

The first person to answer Falcon’s question below correctly on the TRR Website wins a copy of Falcon’s Angel. This question is featured today, March 27, 2013, so don’t miss it!

I’ve posted an excerpt to celebrate TRR’s birthday – Enjoy!

 

Answer to win!

In Falcon’s Angel, Falcon goes undercover to catch a thief but he’s not fooling someone. Who would that be?

1. The Maestro

2. Angel

3. il Dragone

4. Sam

Excerpt

At midnight, he was still sitting at the desk in his bedroom, going over a list of persons of interest Rome headquarters had faxed to him. Some of the mug shots and names on the report were familiar, ranging from local small-time offenders to known felons of leading crime families. The people on the list were not of the caliber he was looking for. He was after an art connoisseur, a classical fanatic who knew the history of the Stradivarius and coveted it.

Falcon picked the phone up on the first ring. “Yeah.” He brought up the image of the earring on the laptop in front of him.

“The dragon. A symbol of wisdom and longevity, but also of divinity,” Granger said. “It represents the unity of heaven and earth by combining the forms of the earthbound serpent and the airborne bird. This is il Dragone, the symbol of Saint Mercurialis. Legend has it that this Saint Mercurialis was the first bishop of Forlì around the first century A.D., and he was against paganism. The story is that he saved the city by killing a dragon. Where did you get this thing?”

“She pulled it off the guy’s ear when he attacked her.”

Granger chuckled. “She’s a feisty one, huh?”

Falcon chuckled. “At dinner, she asked me about reporting the mugging to the polizia. I told her it was a waste of time, the guy is probably long gone by now. She can’t identify him in a lineup.”

“Things like this happen all the time in the city.” Granger was chomping on something. Sounded like the phone.

“I don’t want the local authorities getting involved in this. They will just interfere in the investigation. I don’t know, Grange. When she came to me about the polizia, I wondered why a thief would want to report the attempted theft of a priceless violin.”

“We’ve seen stranger things in this business.”

You’ve got that right. He remembered that night with their silent thief. “If it was a matter of one thief stealing from another, she would be turning herself in if she went to the police,” he pointed out. “Then again, she could be looking for protection. Whoever is after the Strad wouldn’t come near her if she cooperated with the authorities.”

And I would be protecting one thief from another…

But something was not right. Falcon saw that dark shadow climbing the church wall again. That was not his imagination. There was more to this, more to her. He just needed some time to get to the bottom of it, and he wanted more time with Angelina.

This was harder than he thought it would be. He wanted her, wanted the Stradivarius also, but he couldn’t have them both.

When he finally confronted her about the violin, it would all be over. The well-oiled machine that was the Organization would take over, making some very unpleasant arrangements for her future.

He already knew he would not let that happen. If he had to, he would shield her, a possible thief, from lawful processes. The why of that, he didn’t want to examine. He just had to make sure she was safe before he made the move back to New York.

“Whoever it was isn’t going to give up so easily.” Granger interrupted his thoughts.

Looking around his makeshift command center, he said, “I’m ready for the next attempt.”

“So, you two had dinner, huh?”

“Yeah, hours ago. And guess what?”

Granger stopped chomping. “What?”

“I don’t feel the need to eat around the clock like you do. Isn’t there some work a tech guru like you should be doing when you can’t sleep?”

“I just did it. How was dessert?”

“You’re fishing.”

“Hey, you sound different when you don’t talk about her, buddy,” Granger prodded. “I thought we were friends.”

“Don’t get emotional, Grange, it’s just a job.”

“Ah yes, the notoriously tight-lipped Falcon replies. But you are even more tight-lipped now, which is why I’m curious. You sure you’re not falling for the leading lady again?”

“It’s not going to happen. This isn’t like New York.”

“You almost had the Jeweler. Almost. Do me one favor; don’t get too close to this one.”

The Jeweler was not of Angelina’s caliber. He wasn’t about to tell Granger that because he didn’t want to invite any more questions that he didn’t intend to answer. “Give it a rest, will you?”

“I’m just saying let’s keep an open mind,” Granger said. “Maybe your little prodigy was attacked that night in the marketplace, and maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was drawing you out into the open because she knew you were watching her.”

After a long beat of silence, Granger cleared his throat. “Speaking of the Jeweler, that reminds me. Jacobs checked in. He wanted me to tell you that it looks like she took the Ming trio a couple of weeks ago. He’s working on it with the Chinese officials.”

“She’s crisscrossing the globe.”

“Last week’s job in New York was clean. In and out. Darien said the Jeweler got the diamonds but left no traces. There’s a viable lead in Montreal. Darien is sending a team there to sniff her out since you’re tied up here. He thinks it’s going to take another couple of weeks.”

“I’ll call him later,” Falcon said, studying the gold earring in his palm. It was inlaid with a darker burnished gold on the wings and tail. Its eyes and fiery breath were made of rubies. “So, this is a pagan’s earring.”

Granger put on his professor’s voice. “The design is the late Gothic period. Note the decorative coloring and flowing lines, the emphasis on pageantry. You’ve got yourself a piece of Florentine art, my friend. I would say circa 1400 A.D. Oh, one more thing…it’s full of blood.”

“I cleaned it before I sent you the image.”

“No. I mean there’s blood in the stone. You’ll have to send it to me so I can analyze it.”

Falcon leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk between two computer screens. “Some type of religious order. I checked the database. Save for certain rogue warriors that strayed from the path, there isn’t anything substantial on these groups. They prefer to remain low key and rarely tangle with the law.”

“So, what’s your girlfriend’s name, anyway?”

“I call her Angel. I’ll talk to you later, Everett.”

“Hey, don’t call me…”

He hung up and spent the next hour online researching Saint Mercurialis and the city of Forlì in the Emilia-Romagna region.

When he finally went to bed, he wondered what this ancient saint had to do with Angelina and the Stradivarius.