The Villa of Mysteries
Chapter One
Bobby and Lianne Dexter were good people. They owned a brand-new timber mansion on an acre plot cut into a vast green swath of pines thirty miles outside Seattle. They put in long hours for Microsoft down the road, Bobby in marketing, Lianne in finance. They hiked every weekend and, once a year, made it to the summit of Mount Rainier. They worked out too, though Bobby still couldn’t keep what he called the “family tummy-pudge” coming through over the belt of his jeans. And that at just thirty-three.
The Dexters were quiet, comfortably wealthy middle-class Americans. Except for two weeks a year, in spring, when they went abroad on vacation. They’d reasoned this through. It was all a question of balance. Work hard for fifty weeks of the year. Party hard for the remaining two. Preferably somewhere the locals didn’t know you, where different rules applied. Or maybe di ... read full excerpt from The Villa of Mysteries ebook
