Survivor in Death

Survivor In Death by J.D. Robb
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A little girl sneaks to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get an Orange Fizzy from the refrigerator. It is totally against the rules and she is all alone and silent since the friend who spent the night wanted to sleep instead of joining in the adventure. Her brother is also upstairs asleep; she thought about including him but then decided he would only tell on her. So, here she is in the dark, huddled in the corner drinking her fizzy drink, being quiet so as not to wake her parents or the live-in housekeeper.

Just as silently a shadow moves into the room and enters the housekeeper's room. Nixie, the little girl, thinks that it is a boyfriend and that Inga and he will be doing IT. So, still silently, she creeps to the door to spy and is terrified when she sees the man slit Inga's throat and blood gushing out. Quickly, she hides under the table as the shadow rushes out and upstairs. Going back into the roon she finds Inga's link and calls 911. She creeps up the back stairs--she wants her Mom! When she arrives in the room and crawls to the bed, she crawls through the blood of her parents. Shocked and unable to understand, she hides in the closet to await help.

Dallas and Peabody arrive shortly after the black and whites. Realizing all the family is dead but someone called it is, Dallas finds the little girls huddled in the closet. Seeing her immediately takes Dallas back to her own childhood, when covered in her father's blood after she stabbed him, she hid on the streets, alone and terrified. Amazingly, instead of causing Dallas to scoop Nixie in her arms, it causes her to recoil from her. But, she does have the sense to realize this was a finely plotted and executed crime and Nixie is most likely presumed dead. But it is not Nixie, but her friend who has had her throat slit like the others. Nixie must be secured and protected and so she is brought to Roarke's mansion and turned over to Somerset.

Now, it falls to Dallas and her team to discover Why such a seemingly happy family with no indication of illegal connections would have been executed in such a fashion and Who has the ability to override the high tech security system that should have prevented them from entering the home.

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