Camy Tang's Blog, page 106

Excerpt - Final Resort by Dana Mentink

Final Resort
By Dana Mentink

Ava Stanton has no need for love or tales of hidden treasure—until her uncle is kidnapped at her family's ski resort. Now she needs help from professional treasure hunter Luca Gage…the man she'd tried to forget. Signs point to a fortune hidden in the mountain, and Ava and Luca need to find her uncle before his assailant finds them. As their search for treasure draws them closer together, Ava must decide how long she'll run from love. She doesn't have much time, because something is buried under Whisper Mountain—and someone is willing to do anything to get to it.

Excerpt of chapter one:

Ava Stanton jumped when a bevy of quail scattered as she got out of the car, snow whisking in tiny puffs under their feet. One shot her a beady-eyed look as if to ask why in the world a woman would be out on the remote mountain road by herself, especially as another wave of winter storms rolled in across the Sierras. Ava wondered the same thing, pulling her knit cap farther down over her short blond hair. The family of quail left a profound silence behind as they moved away. In the distance, she caught the sound of skiers on the slopes of the neighboring Gold Summit Lodge which butted up against Whisper Mountain Resort property.

Won't be our property much longer.

The thought sent a wave of despair through her. She shook it off. Too much coffee. Too little sleep. She was fatigued mentally and physically from the extra skiing classes she'd been teaching in Westbow, a town about twenty miles away where she rented a room. A useless effort. Hadn't made a dent in the debt that buried Whisper Mountain.

The sky was cloudy and ominous. Shadows shifted on the lumps of snow that had collected on the steep slope overlooking an iced-over Melody Lake at the periphery of the Whisper Mountain Resort property.

She did not know the real name of the lake, only the nickname given to the small body of water by her uncle the day they'd scattered her mother's ashes there, accompanied by the mournful singing of the birds. Melody Lake. How often she'd visited, watching the seasons morph from summer to the white cocoon of winter, the water gradually sealing over like her own grief. Sealed over, but still just as present.

The delicate cover of ice sparkled at her.

Thin ice.

How appropriate. Whatever her uncle Paul was involved in this time, he was no doubt teetering on the edge of another disaster. There was hardly much left to lose. Whisper Mountain was officially defunct, closed at the cusp of the ski season because there was no longer money enough to maintain the slopes and lodge. They'd kept the toboggan run open the past several years, but now there was not even money to keep that going. Thanks in part to Uncle Paul's penchant for disastrous get-rich-quick schemes, the land would have to be sold without further delay. Looking along the graceful peaks adorned with white-crusted fir trees, her heart squeezed painfully. It was still Stanton-owned, at least for a few more months.

Again she looked toward the distant slopes of Gold Summit, partially owned by the wealthy Gage family. The rumor mill held that Luca, one of the sons, and his sister were visiting. Luca's green eyes and infectious grin twirled in her memory. She'd read that he'd started a treasure hunting business. The perfect job for a guy perpetually in motion. When times were better, her father had frequently hosted marshmallow roasts attended by Wyatt Gage and his then-teen children. Happy days. Long gone.

She got back into the car to check her phone. She reread Paul's old text, replete with errors.

Found my purl. Meet me at yer mothers lake. Secret.

What was it this time? Uncle Paul referred to his "pearl" for as long as she'd known him, a term applied to every treasure in the long list he'd pursued over the years. A new stock market tip? An undiscovered platinum mine that would save their bankrupt Whisper Mountain Resort? His latest woman? During his last phone call, he refused to talk other than to say he'd contact her soon. Not like the jovial Uncle Paul, the trickster, the showman.

She caught the sound of a set of boots crunching down the road. Uncle Paul appeared, wild black hair threaded with silver curling from under his red knit cap. He saw her and waved, looking around carefully before he marched down the slope to meet her.

He clasped her in a bear hug, cold cheek pressed to hers. "Avy, honey. You get more gorgeous every time I see you." He pulled away to look into her face. "It's those blue eyes. Like perfect lapis lazuli. Remind me of a set of stones I picked up in Myanmar."

She could not resist the flattery and bestowed a kiss on his cheek. "All right. It's only been a couple of months since we were together, so you don't need to go overboard. I didn't even know you were back in California." She looked for her uncle's ever-present shadow. "Where's Mack Dog?"

"In the truck."

Uncle Paul pointed to the top of the hill. She could just make out a glimmer of his dented pickup.

"He's getting old now. Doesn't like snow in his paws." He sighed. "Me, too, getting old. Been thinking about a lot of things lately."

The edge of melancholy in his words was so unlike him. "Where have you been? Why did you want to meet me?" She shivered and pulled her scarf tighter. "If you're going to try to talk me out of selling the place, it won't work. I've been the legal owner since I turned twenty-five two years ago."

"Yes, I am, but not for the reason you think." His eyes flickered over the frozen lake below them. He sighed, long and low, a sound so mournful that Ava felt a sudden twinge of dread.

"We don't have any choice but to sell it," she began, readying for yet another argument. "Dad thinks so, too." Her father had thought so for years and hadn't been shy about his opinions. She wished he was here now, but the winters were too harsh for a paraplegic in his condition.

He cut her off with a wave of his mittened hand.

"Ava, I know I messed up. Your mother left this place to us, and I took advantage. I blew it. Took money out figuring I could make it back and then some, but I never did."

She hated the tone of defeat in her uncle's voice. "You meant no harm. I know that."

He shook his head, sending a sprinkling of snow loose into the air that mingled with the flakes just starting to fall. "In my mind I knew I could make Whisper sparkle by the time you were old enough to take the reins, to bring it back to the days when there were people all over the mountain and wagon rides and campfires at midnight. You remember?"

"I remember."

"I know I was a wedge between your father and mother. Maybe if I'd stayed away, been more responsible, things would have turned out differently."

"My father would still be disabled from the wreck, and Mom would still have given up." She heard the bitter edge in her own words.

Uncle Paul heard it, too. The lines around his mouth deepened.

He flicked a glance toward the ridge above them where clouds massed in fantastic formation. "This time I really found it." He moved closer and took her by the shoulders. "As soon as I get it authenticated, we're going to have enough money to save Whisper Mountain with plenty left over."

Ava knew enough not to feed into her uncle's pie-in-the-sky notions. Even though she was barely twenty-seven, she had to be the mature voice of reason. "Whatever you think you've found, leave it where it is. I'm selling. I've got no choice."

He looked behind them at the stretch of road that meandered up to the top of the next hill separating Whisper Mountain from Gold Summit, immediately to the west of them. A lacy curtain of snow had begun to fall, the flakes blown around them by a frigid wind.

"Why did we have to meet here?" she demanded again.

He shrugged, but she thought she saw a shimmer of fear in his eyes. "Proper thing, to tell you here that Whisper Mountain is saved. I come here to pray all the time and you used to, didn't you, Ave? Do you still come?"

She shook her head. "Not anymore." Whisper Mountain was a place dead to her, buried in the past. The only reason she'd returned from Westbow was to sell it. Snow settled onto her lashes and she brushed it away.

She'd lost too much because of her mother's suicide ten years before. Ava's own life would forever be bisected by her mother's decision, into the time when she had been a normal, happy teen and after, when the world became an uncertain place. The source of her pain was right here on this piece of snow-covered world, and she was finally going to let it go.

"Uncle Paul, tell me—" she broke off as he started visibly, body tense.

"Did you hear that?"

"What?" she said, trying to pinpoint the source of his concern.

"I thought I heard Mack Dog. He must have gotten out and gone wandering again."

They both stood motionless, listening. The sound of an engine floated through the air and a snowmobile appeared at the bottom of the slope.

Paul's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Who is that?" she asked.

The snowmobile took off in their direction, gaining speed as it went. Ava stood frozen as it barreled toward them. Surely, the driver would stop, slow down as he approached.

He didn't. Incredibly, he seemed only to increase his speed. Paul shoved Ava away. "Get in the car."

"Wait," she screamed as Paul took off heading for the trees.

The snowmobile roared closer, changing course to target Uncle Paul.

"Get away, Ava," Uncle Paul yelled over his shoulder. "Get away now."

Luca looked over the pristine slope, skis poised to begin the descent. He could not keep from turning his gaze to the valley down below, ringed with hills. He remembered his high school winter breaks spent skiing here. His heart replayed the memory of the young woman who was so at home on the snow she seemed to fly over it, like a hawk skimming over the crystal world below. He was proficient on skis but never as good as she was, not even close. He wondered if she ever visited here, now that her property was closed up. Everything had changed her senior year after the car accident crippled her father and her mother committed suicide six months later.

"Hey, there," Stephanie said softly. "Lost in thought?"

He avoided looking at his sister. Even though he was elated that she and her high school sweetheart, Tate, had reunited in the course of their last treasure hunt, the happiness that shone on her face reminded him that he had just ended things with a woman he'd dated casually. There was no spark there, no spring of devotion like he'd seen in the eyes of his sister when she talked about Tate. "No, just remembering how good the runs were on Whisper Mountain."

She didn't answer, pushing a strand of her short dark hair back under her ski cap, gazing into the distance at the empty slopes. "It's a prime piece of real estate. Do you think Dad will buy it?"

He nodded. "I think he'd be a fool not to. Anyway, let's get some slope time before Victor lines up our new mission." Victor was the eldest Gage sibling and recently married in a double wedding along with Tate and Stephanie. It was fitting, as their last job at Treasure Seekers had turned up an eighteen-million-dollar violin and nearly gotten them all killed at the hands of a psychopath. They were all due for some good times.

Stephanie shivered, and he knew she was reliving the memories of their near escape, too. "Let's get back. Tate's probably missing us."

Luca grinned. "Missing you. We're still not best buds."

"That's because you're both stubborn gorillas."

"True, but he's your stubborn gorilla now, and he looks at you like he can't believe you're really his."

She blushed. "It drives him crazy that his bum leg keeps him down there while I'm up here, so I suspect he's strong-armed someone into giving him a pair of skis. I'd better get back before he thinks he's ready for the expert slopes."

"You go on," Luca said with a chuckle. "I'm going to take it slow. Meet you down there."

"Take it slow? Since when?" Stephanie cocked her head and gave him that look. "Sure?"

"Sure."

"All right, but don't do anything crazy on the slopes. There's a storm coming in. Remember, you're a treasure hunter, not an Olympic athlete." She swished away down the hill, skis gliding smoothly over the sparkling ground.

She was right, he was a treasure hunter at heart and it had been his idea to form the Treasure Seekers agency in the first place. He'd told himself it was to help his brother Victor deal with his first wife's sudden death, but it was more than likely a way to soothe his constant restlessness. In the off season when he wasn't piloting a helicopter for the U.S. Forest Service, there was not enough to keep him busy and busy was the only thing that kept him sane. He was the kid in grade school who could never seem to stay in his seat. Some things hadn't changed.

He and his siblings had found treasures, all right, everything from lost masterpieces to priceless stamps, yet he always experienced a letdown after each case, as if the treasure, rich though it was, was somehow not the prize he was meant to be looking for.

"Earthly treasures aren't going to satisfy," he could hear his father say. But he felt so alive when he was deep in the throes of a search, however dissatisfying the ending might be.

He shook the thoughts away and pulled his goggles into place.

One more run.

He shouldn't be skiing here, so close to the shut-down Whisper property. He puzzled over why the fond memories of his past there felt so strong. Idly he wondered what Ava would do after her family's property was sold. At least the sale might afford them some security. That's what Luca's father believed when he proposed buying it pending Luca's report.

Head out of the clouds, Luca.

He mentally picked out the path he intended to take down the mountain and readied himself to push off. A streak of black caught his attention. He jerked toward the movement, thinking he had imagined it until the shape zinged again through the white-robed trees finally coming to a stop on a flat rock that protruded above the snow. The dog barked, a loud, agitated sound that cut through the quiet of the snow-covered hollow.

Luca stared at the animal. Even though he could not figure out what a dog would be doing alone out here on the slopes, he was far more surprised by one particular detail. The animal was big, a scruffy black-and-tan creature that spoke of German shepherd parentage with something fluffier mixed in, but the strangest thing about him was his left ear, the top of which had been cut off somehow long ago, leaving a flattened tip.

Luca had known a dog with just such an ear, but he could not believe it. Ava's dreamer of an uncle owned a critter that answered to the same description, but it could not be one and the same. Uncle Paul, last Luca had heard, was lying low to escape a group of unsavory folks from whom he'd borrowed money.

"Mack Dog?" Luca yelled out, amazed that he remembered the name.

The dog jerked as if he'd gotten a shock, stood up and wagged a tentative tail in Luca's direction.

A noise from over the hill made them both tense. Luca was not sure but it might have been a shout or maybe just the echo of some agitated bird.

Mack Dog leaped from the rock, floundering in the snow before he began an awkward journey in the direction of the noise, bulldozing his way through the frozen piles, standing every few feet on his rear legs to get his visual bearings.

Luca watched the dog in amazement.

How could it be Mack Dog?
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Excerpt - TORN LOYALTIES by Vicki Hinze

Torn Loyalties
By Vicki Hinze

Madison McKay doesn't trust anyone. The former military woman and owner of Lost, Inc., learned about betrayal the hard way, in work and in love. That's why she'd never let herself fall for ex-military special investigator Grant Deaver. Yet when Madison is framed for a security breach at a top secret military facility, she's forced to put her life in Grant's hands. But after she discovers that he's been deceiving her, everything will be torn apart unless Grant can convince her to trust him with her life…and her heart.

Excerpt of chapter one:

Under the cover of deep darkness, Madison McKay slid on her belly in the dirt, lifted the binoculars to her eyes, then peered through a break in the thick woods and studied the distant top secret facility known as the Nest.

It had grown. A lot. In her days as an analyst there, the majority of the structures, a labyrinth of bunkers, had been built underground. Now, not one but four large buildings jutted into the night sky. A wide stretch of asphalt surrounded them, forming a clearing that ensured any approach would be noticed. Armed guards stood posted every twenty feet on the ground near concrete barricades, their backs to the buildings, and more soldiers were staggered on the rooftops. Obviously the commander expected something unusual to happen.

An attack? Unlikely. Only a handful of people assigned to the military installation surrounding the Nest knew the facility hidden at its core existed. So what had the Nest on high alert?

Her stomach burned; her fingers tingled. Northwest Florida had pretty mild winters, but being out in the woods, exposed to stiff winds and lying flat on the cold ground was enough to numb her gloved fingers and the tip of her masked nose. The stomach burn was acid due to sheer nerves.

Getting caught on the base without authorization would be bad, but getting caught on the perimeter of the Nest…

Not daring to think about the consequences, she cut off those thoughts, and kept watch.

Hours passed. Her eyelids grew heavy, then heavier, lulling her to doze off. She fought the temptation. Stay awake, Madison. Of all places, here—must stay alert.

Her resolve redoubled, she kept her breathing shallow, hoping that the mask would keep her exhaled breaths from fogging the air. Even something that slight from this distance could be noted. She kept watching, kept waiting.

Dawn threatened. Soon it would expose her, and in the past four hours, the only noteworthy observations she'd seen were changing of the guards. The soldiers had been relieved and replaced every hour, and that frequency proved telling. Whatever event or threat they expected hadn't yet passed and the commander wanted the soldiers fresh, sharp and on their toes.

In the year she'd been stationed at the Nest, they'd only been on high alert once, for a practice drill in a readiness exercise that had lasted less than two hours. A string of forty-seven eighteen-wheelers had been stopped at the main facility's outer gate. Soldiers had driven the trucks into the Nest, parked at the loading docks and unloaded boxes. The trucks were then returned to the outer gates and their drivers departed with them. The installation had been deemed ready.

Ready for what? No one, not even Madison, who analyzed delivery efficiency of the boxed contents defined only by one-word codes like Seeds or Purifier, had a clue.

But this alert was different, and two facts proved it: the absence of activity during the alert negated it being a readiness exercise drill, and the tension in the guards proved whatever initiated the alert was not ordinary.

The first signs of dawn pierced the horizon, tingeing it with a thin, pale streak that would soon thicken to daybreak. Her instincts told her to stay put, but she didn't dare. If discovered, she'd never be in a position to expose the truth. The commander would see to that…and possibly to a lot more.

Disappointment battered her. Tonight, after the St. Valentine's ball, she'd try again. Whatever happened here would happen at night.

The wind gusted. Madison's eyes teared. She blinked hard and fast. If the commander and/or his vice commander had done what she suspected, she had to be vigilant and cautious. She was the only thing left standing between them and their possible actions, and those actions could not happen again. Not on her watch. No more lost ones could be sacrificed here. They must find their way home….

Tonight. Tomorrow night. Six months of nights— whatever it takes, Madison promised herself, then rose to a crouch and scanned the woods. Stealth and hy-peralert, noting nothing unexpected, she moved from bush to tree through the thick woods, stepping lightly to avoid creating magnified sounds of dry leaves and twigs crunching underfoot.

With a scant fifteen minutes to spare before daylight exposed her, she left the restricted area and reached the public highway, then sprinted in the woods alongside the road to the sheltered spot where she'd parked her car to hide it from view.

Something odd was definitely going on out there. Whether or not it was connected to her case, she had no idea—yet. Bitterness filled her throat. Swallowing it, she eased into her silver Jaguar still hidden by darkness and shut the door.

"You want to explain what you're doing out there?"

Madison's heart rocketed. A man in her car. Oh, no. She'd been caught!

Madison squinted in the half-light, trying to identify the deeply shadowed silhouette of the man in her passenger seat. She recognized him.

Grant Deaver!

Her heart rate shot off the charts, and she inwardly groaned. Given the choice of a firing squad of the guards or this man, she'd take the firing squad. Them, she knew she couldn't trust. But Grant? The jury was still out on him. "You want to explain how you got into my car?"

He held up a key. "I used this."

She should have picked up on his cologne as soon as she opened the door. But she'd been so lost in thought that she'd missed it. Bad mistake. "Funny, I don't recall giving you a key to my vehicle."

"We've been dating since October, Madison," he reminded her. "Totally plausible you did and forgot it."

She hadn't forgotten a thing. He'd found the spare key she stowed in a magnetic case under the back bumper. "For the record, while you're endearing, your being here is not." He'd scared ten years off her, though she didn't mention it. She'd learned the hard way that exposing vulnerabilities was often interpreted as giving others a license to use them against you. Yes, they were dating. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But she strongly suspected he was under orders to spy on her and her staff. Of course, she kept him close. How else could she protect her staff or herself? That she found him attractive anyway, well, that was a challenge she just had to fight. "Why are you following me—and where's your car?"

"No car."

"You walked all the way out here?" It was ten miles into North Bay proper. Why would he do that? And how had he known where she'd be? Fair questions she needed answered after she got away from this facility. She cranked the engine and pulled over the deep shoulder and onto the road.

"My transportation is insignificant." He frowned at her. "And gauging by what I've observed—you pulling surveillance on an off-limits, highly classified military installation—you're hardly in a position to ask anyone questions." He lifted an irritated hand. "Dressed in covert operation gear with greasepaint smeared all over your face." She passed him her binoculars. "What are you doing out there at all, much less dressed like that? Are you trying to get yourself shot?"

She lowered the mask, let its strings loosely loop her neck and braked to a stop at the traffic light. The office or home?

Definitely not home. Not with him in the car. She'd shower and change at the office. It'd be hours before anyone else arrived. She hung a left and cruised past the sign to North Bay. "Since this is my car and you're in it uninvited, I'm perfectly positioned to ask whatever questions I want." She spared him a glance. "Why are you following me and how did you find me?"

Concern and anger feuded in his eyes, shone in the reflective light from the dash. "You were edgy all day—even more so than usual, which is saying something. You denied anything was up, so I had a friend drop me off."

So now two people had followed her and knew where she'd gone. Oh, definitely not good. "So because I chose not to answer you, you have the right to shadow me?" She slid him a mild frown. "If I wanted to disclose, I'd disclose." Inside, a part of her felt pleased he was concerned and wanted to protect her. Not surprising; he was a Christian, but one in an awkward position. She buried her emotional pleasure under the real facts. No way did she dare trust him. "Who brought you out here?"

"Mrs. Renault."

Her assistant. Pins of betrayal pricked and peppered her skin. "You're kidding me."

"She knows the danger, Madison."

She did. She'd been married to the former base commander. Still, telling Grant where Madison was and bringing him out there? What had Mrs. Renault been thinking?

"Don't get knotted up at her. I was worried about you and so was she." He paused and lowered his voice, not bothering to remove the sarcasm lacing it. "Worry. That's something normal people do when they care about someone—in between the times they're questioning their sanity for caring for someone as stubborn as you."

She opened her mouth to object. Before she got out the first word, he cut her off.

"You know what? Don't even bother. This has gone on long enough." He sighed irritably and dragged a hand through his short brown hair. "What's it going to take for you to trust me, Madison?"

That trust question had simmered unspoken between them from the start. She'd wished a hundred times in the past four months she could just drag the matter out into the open. But now that it was in the open, all she wanted to do was shove it back into the shadows.

Instead, she clicked her blinker with her pinkie, signaling a left turn. Trust was hard for her, maybe impossible, and for just cause. Once betrayed, twice shy. Still, he deserved an answer, so she gave him the only one she could. "I don't know."

"Since I hired on with you at Lost, Inc., you've put me through test after test—and you've poured on even more of them in our personal relationship." He lifted a warning finger. "This is not the time for you to say we don't have a personal relationship."

She'd like to deny it, but she couldn't. First, it wasn't true. They did have a relationship. A mostly adversarial one, but after four months under horrific conditions, she had to admit there was also a spark between them that promised they could be very good together…maybe. Eventually. And, keeping it real and fair, she had tested him to the max professionally and personally. Every single time, he'd passed with flying colors. Yet even that hadn't removed her doubts and resolved her trust issues.

"Not disputing the relationship," he said. "That's progress. Yet you don't know what it's going to take to trust me. And if you don't know, then obviously I can't know." He sighed again. More deeply. "So let's try a different question. How about keeping it simple—just tell me about this jaunt of yours tonight?"

Boldly stated, and a fair question. Right after the agency's open house during the annual Fall Festival back in October, she'd been invited to the military installation and quizzed about a security breach at the Nest. It had been easy to see they were after someone to blame. She'd countered by hiring Grant. He'd just left active duty working in the Office of Special Investigations for the very commander and vice commander who had questioned her, and she needed to keep an eye on him. Keep your friends close andyour enemies closer. Commander Talbot and Vice Commander Dayton were also the reason she was watching the Nest. She strongly suspected those two men had links to two civilian murders that unfortunately everyone except her deemed solved. The cases had been officially closed.

That was her initial connection to Grant Deaver. And while he hadn't sold her out—yet—he had reported Lost, Inc., events back to Talbot and Dayton, purportedly defending her agency. Still, the commander had a security breach at the Nest, and he and his vice commander were trying their best to blame it on someone at her agency. With Grant reporting to them, how could she trust him?

Tempted to blast that question at him, she fingered the Purple Heart medal in her jacket pocket to steady herself. This would be a dangerous time to lose her temper. Trust him with the truth? Oh, how she wished she could. "I can't answer that, either."

He grumbled under his breath. "How can you be attracted enough to me to date me but not trust me at all? I don't get it, Madison."

"Neither do I," she admitted, hating being put on the spot like this. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't be attracted and I'd never put you on my payroll—"

"I think I've just been insulted."

Two hundred pounds and six feet of bruised male ego she did not need. "That came out wrong." She glanced at him then back at the road. "Of course I'm attracted to you. What woman wouldn't be? What I meant was there's something about you that gets to me, but I wish it didn't."

"Because I'm on your payroll."

"Not really." Oh, she didn't want to get into this. Weary already, she didn't want to resurrect old wounds.

He flicked at the door handle with his fingertips. "You know, I'd really like to get out of this car, walk away from you and never look back—"

Panic threatened. "Grant, don't. Please." She didn't want him to go. She wanted… She didn't know what she wanted, but she wanted him with her.

"I won't." His frown deepened to a scowl. "Because as unfair as this situation is, I understand, and I'm as conflicted about you as you are about me."

The attraction was mutual…and mutually disdainful. That pricked more than her pride. It pricked her heart. "Sometimes God has a bizarre sense of humor."

"Apparently." He lifted a finger. "Watch that deer."

Spotting it on the edge of the road, Madison slowed and veered into the other lane to give the animal a wide berth. "Listen, I admit that this case has me worked up, and I'm touchier than usual because of it. It's also been a really long night. Can we talk about this later?" After she thawed out would be good.

"'This case,' you said. So you were at the Nest because of the David Pace and Beth Crane murders." Grant's frustration showed in his expression.
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Review: Friday dreaming

Friday dreaming by Elizabeth Bailey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Very cute, sweet Regency romance. The characters are a bit young--heroine is 19? 21? and hero is only about 23. I would definitely recommend this for any teenage historical romance lovers--the dialogue and emotions seemed very YA to me, in a funny and sweet way.



View all my reviews

Winner and excerpt - PLAIN PURSUIT by Alison Stone

The winner of
Plain Pursuit
by Alison Stone
is
Rhonda M.

Congratulations! (I've emailed you. Please email me at camy {at] camytang[dot}com if you didn’t get the email message.)

I know the rest of you are crying in your BBQ pork ribs that you didn’t win. Cheer up! Order the book!


Danger in Amish Country

When her brother is killed in a small Amish town, Anna Quinn discovers she's an unwelcome outsider. But the FBI agent investigating the case is right at home—because Eli Miller was born and raised in Apple Creek's Plain community. Eli left his Amish faith behind long ago, but his heart is rooted in a local cold case he can't forget—a mystery with strange connections to Anna's loss. Desperate to uncover the truth, Anna and Eli are faced with stony silences and secrets…secrets that someone wants to keep buried in the past.

Excerpt of chapter one:

The pungent odor of manure and smoldering wreckage clogged Anna's throat. As she coughed, she tented her hand over her eyes to shield them from the lowering sun. Stalks and stalks of corn swayed under brisk winds, masking the point of impact where the singleengine plane plummeted into the earth. An unmistakable desire to scream overwhelmed her. She clamped her jaw to quell her emotions. She had to hold it together for now. Swallowing hard, she tried to rid her mouth of the horrible taste floating in the air. Across the country road from her parked vehicle, first responders fastened the straps to secure the crumpled plane to a flatbed truck.

Turning her back, she flattened her palms against the window of her car. She closed her eyes as the world seemed to slow to a crawl. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. Her brother was dead. She was alone.

Anna turned around and leaned back against her car. She ran a hand across her damp forehead. It was unusually hot for early October in western New York. The heat rolled off the asphalt, scorching her cheeks. The bold blue numbers 977 stood out on the tail of the plane, remarkably unscathed among the heap of metal. Her brother had sent her a photo of the plane a few weeks ago. He had been so proud of his purchase. She had thought he was crazy. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she realized she had never responded to his email. She had been so wrapped up in her job as a high school counselor at the start of a new school year. Now it was too late to tell him anything.

Her brother had always been there for her when it truly counted. Now only one thing remained for her to do. She closed her eyes. Dear Lord, please welcome my brother into Your arms. A tear tracked down her warm cheek.

"Anna Quinn." A male voice sounded from behind her. Swiping at her wet cheeks, she glanced over the hood of her car, surprised to see a tall gentleman striding toward her with a confidence normally reserved for those in law enforcement. Her legs felt weak and she took a deep breath to tamp down her initial trepidation. His dark suit fit his broad shoulders impeccably but seemed out of place among the uniformed first responders dotting the countryside. The intensity in his brown eyes unnerved her.

"Yes, I'm Anna." Dread whispered across the fine hairs on the back of her neck, but she kept her voice even. Her brother was dead. How much worse could it get? Foreboding gnawed at her insides. Past experience told her it could always get worse.

"I'm Special Agent Eli Miller." She accepted his outstretched hand. Warmth spread through her palm. Self-aware, she reclaimed her hand and crossed her arms tightly against her body. Thrusting her chin upward, she met his gaze. The compassion in his brown eyes almost crumbled her composure. She wondered fleetingly what it would be like to take comfort in his strong arms. To rely on someone besides herself.

Heat crept up her cheeks when she realized he was waiting for some kind of response. "You called me about the crash," she said.

The call was a blur, yet she had recognized the soothing timbre of his voice. She had barely gotten the name of the town before she hit End and sat dumbfounded in the guidance office where she worked sixty miles away in Buffalo. She had left without explaining her emergency to anyone in the office.

Anna's chest tightened. "How did you know to call me?"

The deep rumble of the flatbed truck's diesel engine fired to life, drawing the man's attention. The corners of his mouth tugged down. "Your brother asked me to call you."

Anna wasn't sure she had heard him correctly over the noise of the truck as it eased onto the narrow country road. She tracked the twisted metal of her brother's plane on top of the flatbed truck until it reached the crest of the hill. Then she turned to face him. Goose bumps swept over her as the significance of his words took shape.

"When…?" She hesitated, her pulse whooshing in her ears. Had she misunderstood? Was her brother in a hospital somewhere? A flicker of hope sparked deep within her. "When did Daniel ask you to call me? My brother's…dead?" Rubbing her temples, her scrutiny fell to his suit, his authoritative stance. The world seemed to sway with the cornstalks. "You told me he had been killed."

Concern flashing in his eyes, the man caught her arm. "Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mislead you. Your brother died in the crash." He guided her to the driver's side of her vehicle and opened the door. "Here. Sit down."

Anna sat sideways on the seat, her feet resting on the door frame. "When did you talk to my brother?" She stared at the agent's polished shoes, trying to puzzle it all out. Finally, she met his eyes. "Was he in trouble?"

"Your brother and I talked last week." Special Agent Eli Miller rested his elbow on the open door. "Daniel told me to call you if anything should happen to him." He seemed to be gauging her expression for a reaction.

Anna scrunched up her face. "If anything happened?" She pointed to the field. "Like if he was killed in a plane crash?"

"I don't think he could have predicted that, but yes, he asked me to call you." He reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out a worn business card with a familiar logo on it. She straightened her back. Years ago, after she had landed her first job as a high school counselor, she had dropped the card into a care package for her brother stationed in Iraq.

"Daniel gave you that? I don't understand." She rubbed her forehead, wishing she could fill her lungs with fresh air—air without this horrible smell.

"He wasn't only worried about his own safety." He never lifted his pensive gaze from her face. "He was worried about yours."

"My safety?"

"Has anything out of the ordinary happened lately?"

Anna bit her bottom lip. Her mind's eye drifted to the strange note she had found on her car after school last week. She shrugged. "Someone left a note on my car. It was nothing." She struggled to recall the exact words on the note. "I think it said, 'You're next.'"

"Did you report it?"

Anna laughed, the mirthless sound grating her nerves. "No…I'm a high school counselor. A few faculty cars had been egged the week before. That's all it was." She scooted out of the car and brushed past him, turning her back to the crash site. "I took the job to help kids. If I ratted them out every time they looked at me sideways, they wouldn't trust me." Goodness knew where she'd be if her high school counselor hadn't reached out to her.

"Anything strange besides the note?" The concern in his voice melted her composure.

Tears blurred her vision and she quickly blinked them away. "Other than the occasional disgruntled student—who is harmless, I can assure you—I live a pretty boring life."

"Is there anyone you want me to call for you?"

"No," she whispered, staring over the cornfields. An uneasiness seeped into her bones. Her brother tended to be the paranoid one, not her. But she couldn't dismiss it. History told her things weren't always what they seemed. "Can I see your credentials?" Anna met his assessing gaze; flecks of yellow accented his brown eyes. She turned the leather ID holder over in her hands. Special Agent Eli R. Miller. It seemed legitimate.

"You met my brother in person?" She studied him, eager to read any clues from the smooth planes of his handsome face. She wanted to ask: Did Daniel seem okay? Was he thin? Dragging a hand over her hair to smooth the few strands that had fallen out of her ponytail, she was ashamed she didn't know the answers. Ashamed she had grown estranged from her big brother. Dear Lord, please forgive me. Let me find peace through this nightmare.

Special Agent Miller hiked a dark eyebrow. "Yes. We talked briefly a week ago. I had some questions concerning his return to Apple Creek."

Anna jerked her head back. "I don't understand. He was in Apple Creek working on his photography. Why would the FBI be concerned about my brother's whereabouts?" Foreboding mingled with the acrid fumes hanging in the air.

"Your brother went to Genwego State University, right?"

"Yes." She furrowed her brow. "He dropped out his senior year. What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm working a cold case. I've been re-interviewing people who lived in the area ten years ago."

"Was my brother able to help you?"

"No. But when I met with him, he was worried about his safety and yours. I had a sense he was somewhat relieved I had contacted him."

"Do you think I'm in danger?"

They locked eyes. He seemed to hesitate a moment before saying no.

She reached into her car and pulled out her purse. She dug out a new business card. Holding it between two fingers, she offered it to him. "May I trade you?"

He accepted the new card and handed her the old one. She flipped it over. In her handwriting on the back she had written: I'm only a phone call away. The faded ink was water-stained, but the message was clear. Yet the phone calls between her and her brother had become few and far between.

As she slipped the old business card into a pocket of her purse, the clip clop clip of what sounded like a horse reached her ears. She froze as a horse and buggy made its way along the country road. A man in a brimmed straw hat gently flicked the reins, urging the horse on. Tipping his hat, he seemed to make direct eye contact with the FBI agent as he passed.

Outlined against the purple and pink hues of the evening sky, the buggy maintained its steady progress until it crested the hill and disappeared. Anna made a full circle, taking in her surroundings, including the vast cornfield that greeted her brother's demise. She had been so focused on the crash site—on her distress—she hadn't noticed a neat farmhouse at the top of a long driveway across from the cornfields. A white split-rail fence ran the length of the property. A buggy, the same style as the one that had passed, sat next to the barn a hundred feet or so from the house. The early-evening shadows muted the details, but she realized something she had missed in her distracted state. "An Amish family lives here."

Special Agent Miller nodded, seemingly unfazed. Obviously he wasn't likely to miss such specifics. Besides, he had been in Apple Creek before now.

"My brother's plane crashed on an Amish farm? Ironic." A nervous giggle escaped her lips. "The very community that shuns most technology has one of man's modern marvels plummeting to earth on their soil."

Awareness heated her face when she found him regarding her with a quizzical look. "I'm sorry. I tend to talk too much when I'm upset." Her gaze drifted back toward the crash site, hidden by the tall cornstalks. "Thank God no one on the ground was hurt."

Special Agent Miller nodded but didn't say anything. His economy of words wore on her patience. Fisting her hands, she resisted the urge to slug the information out of him.

Crossing her arms, Anna narrowed her gaze. It wasn't beyond a law enforcement officer to lie to get what he wanted. She had learned that the hard way. "Why are you really here, Special Agent Eli Miller?"

The pain in Anna's eyes spoke volumes despite her display of false bravado. Eli refused to add to her burden, but his conscience didn't allow him to flat-out lie, either. "As I said, your brother's name came up in regard to a ten-year-old cold case." The words rang oddly distant in his ears. This wasn't exactly any case.

"Is…was—" she quickly changed tense "—Daniel in some kind of trouble?" Her pink-rimmed hazel eyes pleaded for the truth.

"Ma'am." A baby-faced police officer emerged from the cornfield carrying a green garment. "I understand you're the deceased's sister." Nodding, Anna's eyes widened. "This was in the plane." He held out what looked to be an army jacket.

She grabbed the garment and hugged it to her chest. "Thank you." The officer tipped his hat, respectful of her loss.

"We need someone to identify the body." The officer tapped his fingers nervously against his thigh.

Anna dropped her head and covered her mouth with her hands. "I don't know…."

"Where's the sheriff?" Eli asked. "I thought he'd be out here."

"No, sir, I'm handling this one." The officer tucked his thumbs into his belt and looked at Anna. "We really need you to identify the body, Miss Quinn."

Growing impatient with the officer's insistence, Eli stepped forward, partially blocking Anna in a protective gesture. "I knew the deceased. I'll do it."

Anna lifted her head. "This is something I need to do." Her voice broke over the last few words. "Where.?" Her gaze drifted toward the cornstalks as if she imagined traipsing through the field and finding her brother's bruised and battered body on the ground.

The officer's wary gaze moved to Eli, then back to her. "The morgue is at Apple Creek Hospital. I can take you. It's getting dark and it's easy to get turned around on these country roads."

"Let me drive you." Eli placed his hand on her trembling arm.

Anna nodded, the corners of her mouth pulling down. "Is it okay if I leave my car parked on the main road?"

Eli took her keys, their fingers brushing in the exchange. Anna's eyes snapped to his and he smiled reassuringly. "Let me move your car off the road."

After he moved her vehicle, he guided her with a hand at the small of her back to his SUV parked in the Amish family's yard. No one was outside the neat farmhouse. Just as well. He had all the information he needed for now. The officer in charge had informed him no one on the ground had been hurt in the crash. Thank God.

Eli opened the car door for Anna. Her long lashes brushed her porcelain skin as she ducked into the vehicle. With his hand still on the door handle, his focus drifted to the familiar farmhouse. A young girl emerged from the house, her pale blue gown rustling around her ankles as she sprinted across the grass toward the building next door. The Amish girl reached the neighboring house without so much as turning her bonneted head. Longing for a simpler life filled him.

Squaring his shoulders, Eli strode around the front of the vehicle. The case he was working on had never been easy. The death of Daniel Quinn was an unexpected complication. But even though he was dead, Eli still had to get answers. For the family. For himself.
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Excerpt - DETECTION MISSION by Margaret Daley

Detection Mission
By Margaret Daley

Who is she?

While looking for a missing child in Sagebrush, Texas, K-9 detective Lee Calloway and his border-collie partner find someone else. A mystery woman running for her life, scared and injured. But she has no idea who she is—or why someone is after her. Lee's unit suspects "Heidi" is a criminal who knows more than she's saying, yet his gut instinct says she's innocent. Lee vows to protect her until her memory returns, but now someone is desperate to ensure that never happens.

Excerpt of chapter one:

Who am I?

She bent over the bathroom sink in her hospital room, cupped her hands and splashed some cold water on her face. As though that would suddenly make her remember who she was. She studied herself in the mirror and didn't recognize the person looking back at her. That revelation only intensified the panic she'd been struggling with ever since she woke up from a coma yesterday. Her fingers clenched the countertop.

Earlier, the nurse had brought her a few toiletries since she didn't have any. After brushing her hair and putting it into a ponytail, she stared at the red gash, recently healed, above her eyebrow. She closed her eyes and tried to recall how it had happened. The screech of tires echoed through her mind. The sensation of gripping a steering wheel made her hands ache. She looked down at them, her knuckles white.

A car wreck?

A sound coming from the other room invaded the quiet. The sudden intrusion kicked up her heartbeat. She moved toward the door, putting her hand around the knob. But when two deep male voices drifted to her, she stopped and pressed her ear against the wood to listen.

"Where is she?"

"Who?"

"The patient who belongs in this room."

"I don't know. I'm here to clean her room. She wasn't in here when I arrived."

The sound of the two men talking about her sent her pulse racing even more. Why? It seemed innocent enough. But she couldn't calm the pounding against her chest. Her breathing shortened. One of the voices was familiar. But how could that be? The only interactions she'd had since she'd regained consciousness were with women. She eased the door open an inch and had a pencil-narrow view into the room.

"I can come back another time. You'll have to ask the nurse where the patient is." The guy who was there to clean her room shifted back and forth while holding a plastic bag in one hand and a dry mop in the other.

The other man, just out of sight to the left, said, "I will." That was the voice she'd heard somewhere before this. She wished she could see him.

Instead, she examined the features of the custodian with a beard and dark-slashing eyebrows over a piercing gray gaze. Although he was a complete stranger there was something about his frosty eyes that scared her. She eased the door shut and leaned against it.

Fear from somewhere deep inside her swelled to the surface. She couldn't get a decent breath. She tried to search her mind for any clue to who she was, to the man with the familiar-sounding voice. A voice with a rough edge to it.

But what bothered her the most were the custodian's gray eyes. Why? Did she know him? Someone from her past? Then why couldn't she muster the strength to go out there and demand to know who she was?

Of course that conundrum led to lots of other baffling questions.

Like…how did she end up in the hospital?

And were the police interested in her? The nurse last night had told her they would be glad she had awakened, that they needed to talk to her. Why? She knew nothing. At all. Her mind was a blank.

A suffocating pressure in her chest made it difficult to breathe. A sense of danger pressed in on her. According to Nurse Gail, the police had found her in the Lost Woods several weeks ago. She'd been hurt and disoriented. After she was brought here to the hospital she'd slipped into a coma from a head injury. No one knew how she'd received that wound.

But why hadn't anyone reported her missing? Come forward to identify her?

Tears flooded her eyes. She squeezed them shut, refusing to give in to crying. From somewhere she sensed she'd given up doing that a long time ago.

A knock at the bathroom door caught her by surprise. She gasped, then went still, hoping the person went away.

"Are you all right in there?"

She stiffened at the sound of that familiar voice. Words jammed her throat.

"Ma'am? Are you okay? Should I call the nurse?"

"Who are you?" she finally managed to ask, her voice wobbly.

"I'm Lee Calloway with the K-9 Unit of the Sagebrush Police Department." Something in his tone conveyed a concern, urging her to leave the relative safety of the bathroom. Was he the cop who found her? Was that why he sounded familiar to her?

Laying her trembling hand on the knob, she turned it and opened the door a few inches. "Sagebrush? Where is that?" The large muscular man, resplendent in a dark navy blue police uniform, stepped back. The sight of his badge riveted her attention. Sweat coated her forehead.

"In Texas, southwest of San Antonio."

Texas? Did she live here? Maybe someone knew her, had come forward to identify her after all. "Who am I?"

The corner of his mouth hiked into a lopsided grin. "That, ma'am, is one of the questions I'm here to ask you."

"One?" Again she stared at the badge for a long moment before she lifted her gaze to take in his face. For a few seconds, she lingered on his mouth curved in that smile. She tore her attention from his lips and tracked upward until she connected with his dark brown eyes. "You don't know who I am, then?" She'd hoped that was why he was there.

"No, ma'am. When we apprehended you, you didn't have any ID on you. At the time you kept babbling you didn't know your name."

"I still don't," she whispered more to herself, but he heard her.

"We ran your fingerprints, but there wasn't a match in the database. And from our inquiries around Sagebrush, no one knows you here…and you weren't reported missing."

She moved into her hospital room. Aware of its suddenly small dimensions, she kept herself near the door to the corridor. "You said you apprehended me. Am I under arrest?" As she asked that question, she couldn't believe she would be. It didn't feel right—in her gut. She couldn't be a criminal, could she?

"As far as we know, you have done nothing wrong, but we found you in the Lost Woods running from someone or something. You couldn't tell us anything about that. You were scared, had a nasty gash on your head, cuts and bruises all over you. You lost consciousness shortly after I found you. Do you remember anything about that?"

She took in his features—short, sandy-brown hair, piercing dark eyes with long lashes, a dimple in his left cheek when he smiled. A vague memory tugged at her. His face looming over her. "Did you chase me?" Behind her eyes a hammering sensation grew as if the stress of trying to remember was taking its toll on her.

"When you saw me, you ran, and I went after you."

"Why did you chase me?" she asked.

"We believe you might be a witness to a crime that occurred in the Lost Woods."

"I am?" Trying to think overloaded her mind, a blank one with only shadowy figures wavering, never staying long enough for her to really see them.

"We were looking for a seven-year-old, Brady Billows, who went missing."

"I don't know him. Did you find him?" The thought of a child in danger pushed all her problems into the background.

"Yes, he's safely home with his mother now. That ended well."

"That's good," she said with a sigh.

Exhaustion spread through her the longer she stood. The officer was between her and the bed. But if she didn't sit down soon, she would collapse. She moved to the side, intending to skirt around him, when his cell phone rang.

He answered. "Calloway here." His calm expression evolved into a frown that grooved lines into his forehead. "I'm on my way. I'll meet you there." He returned his cell to his pocket. "Sorry, there's been a development in the Lost Woods. I'll come back later."

She flattened herself against the wall to allow him to pass her in the short hallway to the door. "A development? What?"

"Nothing you need to be worried about," he said, and left the room.

Then why was she worried?

Lee Calloway drove toward the west end of the Lost Woods where the patrol officer and witness were waiting. From what the dispatcher had told him, there might be another crime committed in the woods on the outskirts of Sagebrush.

The same area where he found the woman in the hospital room several weeks ago, running as though someone was after her. As far as the police were concerned she was a Jane Doe. What had happened to her? Why was she running in the woods? Who was she running from? Did she know anything about the boy's kidnapping?

He didn't like mysteries. Probably why he became a cop in the first place. He was always trying to get to the bottom of things. Would he be able to with this beautiful, mysterious woman or would she remain an enigma? The doctor had said she could have amnesia when she woke up, and that certainly seemed to be the case. She might recover all her memory or part of it, but some people never did.

Had her head injury been the sole reason she couldn't remember, or was it more than that? Some kind of psychological or physical trauma beyond the obvious wound she had sustained? The coma she slipped into was caused by the head injury, according to the doctor. But how and why did she receive it? Still no answer to that question.

Lee parked near the trailhead into the Lost Woods where the police officer and a young man dressed in a jogging suit waited. When Lee climbed from his SUV, he went to the back and lifted the door. Kip, his black-and-white border collie who worked as a cadaver dog, sat with his tail sweeping back and forth.

Lee rubbed him behind his ears, one of his favorite places to be scratched. "You ready to work?"

Kip barked.

Lee hooked the leash to his dog's halter. "Then let's go."

Kip jumped from the back of the vehicle and trotted next to Lee as he covered the distance to the patrol officer.

"What do we have here?" Lee asked, assessing the young man who kept darting glances toward the woods a few yards away.

The patrol officer started to say something, but the jogger interjected, "I decided to run in a different part of the forest today. I won't do that again. In fact, I may never run here again."

"What did you find?"

"Blood, lots of it. I tripped on a root, stumbled and fell. That's when I saw it."

"Show me."

The jogger shuffled his feet nervously. "It's a ways in."

"Fine."

"I'll stay back. Another K-9 team is coming to help in a search if it's needed," the patrol officer said.

Lee nodded in agreement and then followed the young man on the path.

"These woods used to be safe. There was a shooting here not long ago. A kidnapped boy found here. What's happening in Sagebrush?"

"That's what I aim to find out." As well as the whole Sagebrush special operations K-9 Unit. Their captain's father had been beaten and was still in the hospital, unresponsive. On top of that, Captain Slade McNeal's dog, Rio, was stolen at the same time and hadn't turned up.

Something big was going down in here. According to Pauly Keevers, a snitch, a major crime syndicate was operating in town so low under the radar that no one knew who The Boss was or the second-in-command. Both used ruthless tactics to get their way.

"I fell over there." The young man stopped on the path and stepped around some brush. "There's the blood."

Lee stooped to examine a pile of dead leaves caught against the trunk of a tree. Dried blood caked them. He peered up at the man. "Thanks. I'll take it from here."

"Do I have to stay? I need to get to work soon."

"Does the officer have all your contact information?" Lee asked.

"Yes, he does."

"Okay, then…you're free to go. Just let the officer know I'm setting up a search."

As the young man jogged away, Lee rose and took Kip off his leash. If there was a body to be found, his cadaver dog would find it. And from the indication of the amount of blood loss, there very likely was a body somewhere. Kip put his nose to the ground and set out. Lee kept him in sight as his border collie went to work.

Ten minutes later, Kip stopped and barked. When Lee approached his dog, he stood next to a spot of disturbed ground, his head down, staring at the churned earth.

"What have you found?"

Kip barked again, his gaze still trained on the dirt.

Lee put on some latex gloves, stooped and began to dig carefully. From his dog's behavior, something dead was buried here. When he saw a piece of blue fabric, he ceased.

"Good boy," Lee said, as he always did whenever his cadaver dog found a body, then he scratched Kip's favorite place before rising. "I'm calling this in." He rotated in a slow circle, searching the area for any other signs of another grave.

Pulling out his cell, he placed a call to the station to report a body being found. Then while he waited for the crime-scene techs to show up, he checked the surrounding area in case there was another body. There were several low-level criminals missing, including Pauly Keevers who had assisted them recently. Was the body Kip discovered one of them? And could there be other graves in the woods?
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This week, the featured book is: The Prince She Had to Marry by Christine Rimmer (Harlequin Special Edition)

Camy’s Black Thumb and FORMULA FOR DANGER giveaway

I blogged at the Love Inspired Authors blog last week about my basil plants, and my giveaway is still going on! Click here to read the post and enter the giveaway!

The "real" Steven Nishimoto from A DANGEROUS STAGE

Those of you who’ve read A Dangerous Stage will recognize a new character I introduced in that book, Steven Nishimoto, who interacts with Charles a bit.

My character Steven created the company Neesh, the most high-profile computer company in San Francisco. The profits from Neesh rival Apple.

Steven is half-Asian (half Japanese), tall with the regal bearing of a prince. He’s lean, muscular, and athletic, with a shaved head and hazel eyes. He’s 55 years old, but he’s run 10 marathons and is in training for a new one after taking a hiatus from running for several years.

When I was writing the book, I was groping for a name for this character and that’s when I decided to use the name of a young man I know from church, the “real” Steven Nishimoto!

Captain Caffeine and I were youth leaders for the real Steven Nishimoto when he was in high school, and now that he’s out of college, he has taken over as youth director for our church youth group. (So basically, after we were his youth leaders, now he’s sort of our boss. :)

The real Steve is quite a bit younger but just as athletic. The real Steve is also full Japanese rather than half-Japanese, like my character is.

I cannibalized Steve’s name because at the time he was training for his first marathon, and in my book, my character was also training for a marathon. It was fun to write about my character Steven when the character is so different from the actual young man I know. :)

Steve has a clip that was filmed by Nike so you can see him in action!

Interview and ebook giveaway - PLAIN PURSUIT by Alison Stone

Today, I have an interview with Love Inspired Suspense author Alison Stone!

Alison's Bio

Alison Stone left snowy Buffalo, New York and headed a thousand miles south to earn an industrial engineering degree at Georgia Tech in Hotlanta. Go Yellow Jackets! She loved the South, but true love brought her back North.

After the birth of her second child, Alison left Corporate America for full-time motherhood. She credits an advertisement for writing children's books for sparking her interest in writing. She never did complete a children's book, but she did have success writing articles for local publications before finding her true calling, writing romantic suspense.

Alison lives in Western New York with her husband of twenty years and their four children where the summers are absolutely gorgeous and the winters are perfect for curling up with a good book--or writing one.

Random Acts and Too Close to Home were released by Samhain Publishing in 2012. Plain Pursuit, a Harlequin Love inspired Suspense, is available now.

Besides writing, Alison keeps busy volunteering at her children's schools, driving her girls to dance, and watching her boys race motocross.

She’s always at the following locations:
Website: http://www.alisonstone.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonStoneA...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alison_Stone
Blog: http://alisonstone.wordpress.com/

And now, here’s me and Alison!

What inspired you to write the storyline/characters of PLAIN PURSUIT?

In 2011, I attended the RWA conference in NYC. An editor from Harlequin said she would love to see more Amish suspense. I had long been fascinated with the Amish and figured this was my chance to learn more about the Amish and break into Harlequin. Before I even checked out of the hotel in NYC, I had an idea. What if a plane crashed in Amish country? Less than a year later, I had sold Plain Pursuit to Love Inspired Suspense.


If your heroine were in an ice cream shop, what flavor would she get and why?

I believe Anna would choose vanilla. She had a very traumatic childhood and she prefers a life that’s somewhat predicable and free of conflict. Of course, that all changes when she crosses paths with Eli Miller, former Amish turned FBI agent.

What actor would you choose to portray your hero?

Great question. When I tell people my latest release is set in an Amish community, they all rave about Harrison Ford in the 1985 movie Witness. Since that movie came out more than twenty-five years ago, I suppose I should pick a, shall I say, younger actor? How about Bradley Cooper? He’d made a nice FBI agent.

What was the funnest part in writing PLAIN PURSUIT?

Believe it or not, the research provided some of the more fun moments in writing PLAIN PURSUIT. There is an Amish community about 60 miles south of Buffalo where I live. My daughters were fascinated with the young children in the Amish clothes riding in the back of a buggy. We live in world of car seats, seatbelts and air bags. Wow! Parents actually let their kids nearly hang off the back of a wagon? The Amish-made chocolate was a real treat, too.

On the drive home, I was pulled over for speeding in a small farming community. I have never been pulled over. Ever. After the nice police officer let me off with a parking ticket (phew!), my young daughters and I laughed. I guess if you’re going faster than the horse and buggies, you’re going too fast.

Thank you for hosting me, Camy!

Camy: Thanks for being here, Alison!

Today I’m giving away an EBOOK copy of
Plain Pursuit
by Alison Stone

Danger in Amish Country

When her brother is killed in a small Amish town, Anna Quinn discovers she's an unwelcome outsider. But the FBI agent investigating the case is right at home—because Eli Miller was born and raised in Apple Creek's Plain community. Eli left his Amish faith behind long ago, but his heart is rooted in a local cold case he can't forget—a mystery with strange connections to Anna's loss. Desperate to uncover the truth, Anna and Eli are faced with stony silences and secrets…secrets that someone wants to keep buried in the past.

To enter:

You must join my email newsletter to be eligible for this contest. Fill out the form below. Be sure to read the rules.

Extra Twitter entries: Get one extra entry per day if you tweet about this giveaway:
@camytang is giving away Christian romantic suspense ebook Alison Stone’s Love Inspired Suspense PLAIN PURSUIT! http://is.gd/4G9AiX
(Be sure to include @camytang so I can see your tweet and give you your extra entry.)

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Winner and excerpt - GUARDING THE WITNESS by Margaret Daley

The winner of
Guarding the Witness
by Margaret Daley
is
Rachel K.!

Congratulations! (I've emailed you. Please email me at camy {at] camytang[dot}com if you didn’t get the email message.)

I know the rest of you are crying in your pesto pasta that you didn’t win. Cheer up! Order the book!

Running out of time…

After two months of protective custody, bodyguard Arianna Jackson is days away from testifying at a murder trial when the unthinkable happens. Her Alaska safe house is attacked, and Arianna is forced to go on the run with U.S. Marshal Brody Callahan. Arianna is used to issuing orders, not taking them, but now, out in the wild, with a bounty on her head and a killer on her heels, she has only one hope of making it to testify—the handsome protector at her side.

Excerpt of chapter one:

Two months later, a helicopter banked to the left and descended toward the clearing where Deputy U.S. Marshal Brody Callahan's new assignment, Arianna Jackson, was being guarded by three marshals. His team would relieve them, so he used his vantage point above the forest to check out the area. Knowing the terrain that surrounded the safe house had saved his life several times. The cabin backed up against a medium-size mountain range on the north and west while the other two sides were made up of a wall of spruces, pines, hemlocks and other varieties of trees that stretched out for miles. A rugged land—manageable only as long as the weather cooperated. It was the end of July, but it had been known to snow at that time in Alaska near the Artic Circle. He had to be prepared for all contingencies.

As they dropped toward the clearing, Deputy U.S. Marshal Ted Banks came out of the cabin, staying back by the door, his hand hovering near his gun in his holster. Alert. Ted was a good marshal Brody had worked with before.

The helicopter's landing skids connected with the ground, jolting Brody slightly. Over the whirring noise of the rotors, he yelled to the pilot, "This shouldn't take long."

With duffel bags in hand, Brody jumped to the rocky earth closest to the cabin while his two partners exited from the other side. Brody ran toward Ted, who held out his hand and said in a booming voice, "Glad to see you."

"Ready to see your wife, are you?"

"Yep. I hope you've honed your Scrabble skills. This one is ruthless when it comes to the game. I'm going to brush up on my vocabulary with a dictionary before I play her again."

"I've read her file." Arianna Jackson was the star witness for the trial of Joseph Rainwater, the head of a large crime syndicate in Alaska, because she'd witnessed Rainwater killing Thomas Perkins. The man had bled out before the EMTs arrived.

"Doesn't do her justice. I don't have anything to add to my earlier phone report this morning. C'mon. I'll introduce you two." Ted peered over Brody's shoulder at his partners, Kevin Laird and Mark Baylor, approaching them while carrying a bag and three boxes of provisions. Ted nodded to them before turning to open the door.

As Brody entered, he panned the rustic interior with a high ceiling, noting where the few windows were located, the large fireplace against the back wall, the hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the kitchen area off the living room. Three duffel bags sat by the door. Then his gaze connected with the witness he was to protect.

Arianna Jackson.

Tall, with white-blond hair and cool gray eyes, she resembled a Nordic princess. Still, he could tell she was very capable of taking care of herself from the way she carried herself, right down to the sharp perusal she gave him. From what he'd read, Ms. Jackson had been a good bodyguard caught in a bad situation. Her life would never be the same after this.

She tossed the dish towel she held onto the kitchen counter, never taking her gaze off him. She assessed and catalogued him, not one emotion on her face to indicate what she had decided about him. That piqued his interest.

"These three are our replacements—Brody Callahan, Kevin Laird and Mark Baylor. This is Arianna Jackson," Ted said. Then he headed toward the door, the tension from his body fading with each step. "It's been quiet this past week except for a pesky mama bear and her cubs." He shoved into Brody's hand a sheet of paper with instructions on how to avoid a bear encounter.

"Good. Have you seen anyone in the area?"

"Nope, just the wildlife. We are, even for Alaska, out in the boonies," Ted said, giving him a salute. "Hope the next time I see you is in Anchorage. Goodbye, Ari-anna."

Brody looked from Ted, almost fleeing, to Carla Matthews not far behind him, to Dan Mitchell, the third Deputy U.S. Marshal on team number one, who would be on vacation on a beach in Hawaii. Brody clenched his jaw, curling his fingers around the handle of his bag so tightly his skin stretched taut over his knuckles. Carla shot him a piercing glance before disappearing outside. Slowly, Brody released his grip on his duffel bag, and it dropped to the floor with a thud.

Good thing Ted and Dan worked with Carla. He had once and wouldn't again. He'd learned the hard way to never get involved with a colleague. In fact, she'd been one of the reasons he'd transferred to Alaska from Los Angeles. It had been a hard shock to find out she'd been recruited to be on the detail protecting Arianna Jackson. At least she would return to L.A. when this trial was over.

Brody swung his attention to his witness, who watched team one leave. These assignments were never easy on anyone involved. The pressure was intense. Never able to let down your guard. And with Ms. Jackson the stakes were even higher because Joseph Rainwater was determined his crime syndicate would find her and take her out, along with anyone else in their way. And the man had the resources and money to carry out that threat.

Her gaze linked with his. "The bedroom on the right is where you all can bunk," Ms. Jackson said in a no-nonsense voice as she rotated back to finish drying the few dishes in the drain board.

Patience, Lord. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need every ounce of it this next week. He was guarding a woman who was used to guarding others. He doubted she would like to follow orders when she was used to giving them.

Brody nodded to Kevin and Mark to go ahead and take their duffel bags into the room assigned to them by their witness. Then Brody covered the distance between him and Ms. Jackson. "We need to talk."

She turned her head and tilted it. One eyebrow rose. "We do? Am I going to get the lecture about not going outside, to follow all your ord—directions?"

"No, because you guard people for a living and you know what to do. But I do have some news I thought you deserved to know."

Her body stiffening, she faced him fully, her shoulders thrust back as though she were at attention.

"What?"

"Esther Perkins is missing."

Arianna clenched her hands. "No one would tell me anything about Esther other than she was being taken care of. She didn't witness the murder. She couldn't testify about it. What happened?"

"Rainwater thought she might know something concerning the ledger and went after her. Or rather he sent a couple of his men since Rainwater is sitting in jail. We moved her out of state while she tried to help us find that ledger even from long distance."

"So the police never could locate it?"

"No. They figure it has to be important since Rainwater personally killed a man over it. Usually others do his dirty work. The ledger probably details his contacts and operation. Thomas Perkins was in a position to know that information."

"So how did Esther go missing? Maybe she just left the program." She knew that was wishful thinking. When she'd stressed the importance of staying put, the woman always did. She'd been scared of her husband and now knowing who he'd worked for she was even more afraid.

"No, the Deputy U.S. Marshal running the case said it didn't look like she had. It had been obvious there had been a fight. There was blood found on the carpet. It was her type."

Her fingernails dug into her palms. Anger tangled with sadness and won. "She didn't have a detail on her?"

"She was relocated with a new identity thousands of miles away."

"Then maybe you have a leak somewhere." She pivoted back to the sink, her stomach roiling with rage that a good woman was probably dead. This all wouldn't have happened if they had stayed at Esther lawyer's office for another hour or so. Why, God? It had tested her faith; and now with the Rainwater situation her doubts concerning the Lord had multiplied. As had her doubts about herself.

For the past four years she'd worked for Guardians, Inc., a group of female bodyguards run by Kyra Hunt. In that time, she had seen some vile people who would hurt others without hesitation. She'd thought she had been tough enough for the job, especially with all she'd seen in the military in the Middle East during several tours. Now she was wondering if this was a good time to change jobs.

The continual silence from Brody after her accusation made her slant a look over her shoulder. A frown slashed across his face, the first sign of emotion from him.

His gaze roped hers. "It's more likely Esther contacted someone when she shouldn't. Let slip where she was. We've never lost a witness if they followed the rules."

"Take it from me—this isn't easy to do. Walk away from everyone you know and start a new life. I can't even call my mother or anyone else from my past." Ari-anna had always called her mom at least once a week, even when she was on a job, to make sure everything was going all right, wishfully hoping one of those times her father would talk with her. He never had, which broke her heart each time. Not being able to at least talk with her mom, except that one time right after the incident in the Perkinses' library, added family heartache on top of everything else.

"All I can tell you is that the U.S. Marshals Service is doing everything they can to locate Mrs. Perkins."

Left unsaid was "dead or alive." She closed her eyes, weariness attacking her from all sides. Since coming to the cabin, she hadn't slept more than a few hours here and there. The marshals had moved her from Anchorage because they'd worried the safe house had been compromised. If that place had been, why not this one?

That question plagued her every waking moment. It was hard to rest when she didn't know the people involved in her protection. When she did lie down, she'd managed to catch some sleep because she had her gun with her. She'd brought extra money, a switchblade and her gun without the marshals' knowledge. In case something went down, she wanted to be prepared. That was the only way she would agree to all of this. She would see to her own protection. She didn't trust anyone but herself to keep her alive.

Not even God anymore. That thought crept into her mind and prodded her memories. She wouldn't think about the reason she'd left the army, much to her brothers' and father's dismay. But how could she trust again when one of her team had sold her out? In the end it wasn't the Lord who had saved her. She'd saved herself.

That was when she'd vowed to protect others. She never wanted another to live in fear the way she had—scared she would go to prison for a crime she hadn't committed.

She turned toward the marshal, appreciating what her clients must have felt when she'd guarded them and told them what to do. "Promise me you'll let me know if you all find Esther. She was my client. I feel responsible for her."

"You did everything you could. If you hadn't been there, she would have been dead next to her husband."

"And now she may be dead, her body somewhere no one has found yet. May never find."

"Yes," Deputy U.S. Marshal Brody Callahan said over the sound of the helicopter taking off.

The blunt reality of what might have happened to Esther, and still could happen, hung in the air between Arianna and the marshal. She went back to drying the lunch dishes. Anything to keep her occupied. If this inactivity didn't end soon, she might go running through the woods screaming.

Mark Baylor, the oldest of the three marshals, with a touch of gray at his temples, strode to the door. "I'm gonna take a stroll around the perimeter."

Usually one marshal stayed outside while two were inside—often one of them taking his turn sleeping. That was the way it had been set up with Ted and his team.

"Do you need any help?" The deep, husky voice of Brody Callahan, the marshal who seemed to be in charge, broke into her thoughts.

"With cleaning up?" she asked, surprised by the question.

"Yes."

She glanced back at him. Six inches taller than her five-feet-eleven frame, Brody carried himself with confidence, which in its own way did ease her anxiety about her situation. His figure, with not an ounce of fat on him and a broad, muscular chest, spoke of a man that kept himself in shape. "I've got it under control." About the only thing in my life that is.

"We equally share the duties while we're here."

"That's good to know. I don't cook."

"You don't?"

She finished drying the last plate. "Never had a reason to learn. I went from living at home with my family to the army. Then when I started working for Guardians, Inc., I found myself on assignment most of the time with wealthy clients who had cooks." She shrugged. "The short amount of time I was in Dallas I ate out or ate frozen dinners."

"That's okay. I love to cook," Kevin Laird, the youngest of the marshals, announced as he came into the living room.

Brody chuckled. "That's why I like to team up with Kevin when I can. He can make the most boring food taste decent."

"Good. I'm not averse to edible food." Arianna moved out of the kitchen area, trying to decide what she should do next. Let's see…maybe a crossword puzzle. Or better yet, solitaire. She still had at least fifty varieties to work her way through. The thought of more days like the past week heightened her boredom level to critical.

She began to pace from one of the few windows, drapes pulled, to the hearth. It was empty and cold. They couldn't have a fire even at night when it did get chilly since it indicated someone was at the place. She counted her steps, mentally mapping out an escape route if she needed it. Her thoughts were interrupted when Kevin spoke up from the kitchen.

"This is a park ranger's cabin. Where's the guy that usually stays here?"

"On an extended vacation." Brody prowled the living room in a different direction from her.

"Does he know we're using it?" Arianna asked as she peeked out the window. The previous set of marshals had told her about the cabin, but only now had she started to wonder what the tenant had been told.

"No, the cabin belongs to the park service. No one knows you're here or that the U.S. Marshals Service is using it to protect a witness. A bogus agency has rented it while the park ranger is gone. They think we're here on vacation." Brody parted the drapes and looked out the only other window in the room.

"When's he due back?" Arianna spied a bull moose in the thick of the trees. Seeing the beautiful animals was the one thrill she got being where she was. She loved animals, but because of her job, she hadn't been able to have any—not even a goldfish.

"Not for two more weeks. Do you see it?" Brody's gaze captured hers, nodding in the direction of the moose.

"He's beautiful. I wish I could go outside and take a picture. I took the Perkins assignment because it was in Alaska. After I finished guarding her, I was going to take a long overdue vacation and do some touring of the countryside up here. The most exciting thing that's happened to me this week was the helicopter ride to this cabin. Breathtaking scenery."

"Don't even think about going outside to snap a picture."
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Excerpt - TRACKING JUSTICE by Shirlee McCoy

Tracking Justice
By Shirlee McCoy

In the night, a young boy goes missing from his bedroom. Police detective Austin Black assures desperate single mother Eva Billows that he'll find her son. He has to, so he can put to rest his own harrowing memories. With his search-and-rescue bloodhound, Justice, Austin searches every inch of Sagebrush, Texas. And when Eva insists on helping, Austin can't turn her away. Eva trusts no one, especially police, but this time, Austin—and Justice—won't let her down.

Excerpt of chapter one:

Police detective Austin Black glanced at the illuminated numbers on the dashboard clock as he raced up Oak Drive. Two in the morning. Not a good time to get a call about a missing child.

Then again, there was never a good time for that; never a good time to look in the eyes of a mother or father and see terror and worry or to follow a scent trail and know that it might lead to a joyful reunion or a sorrowful goodbye.

If it led anywhere.

Sometimes trails went cold, scents were lost and the missing were never found.

Knowing that didn't make it any easier to accept.

Austin wanted to find them all. Bring them all home safe.

Hopefully, this time, he would.

He pulled into the driveway of a small, bungalow-style house, its white porch gleaming in exterior lights that glowed on either side of the door. Just four houses down from the scene of a violent crime and the theft of a trained police dog the previous afternoon. An odd coincidence.

Or maybe not.

Two calls to the same street within nine hours? Not something that happened often in a place like Sagebrush, Texas.

Justice whined, his dark nose pressed against the grate that separated him from the SUV's backseat. A three-year-old bloodhound, he was trained in search and rescue and knew when it was time to work. Knew and was ready, even after the eight-hour search they'd been on earlier.

Austin jumped out of the vehicle and started up the driveway, filing away information as he went. Lights on in the front of the house. An old station wagon parked on the curb. Windows closed. Locked?

A woman darted out the front door, pale hair flowing behind her, a loose robe flapping in the cold night air as she ran toward him. "Thank God you got here so quickly. I don't know where he could have gone."

"You called about a missing child?"

"Yes. My son."

"The dispatcher said that you don't know how long he's been gone?" Austin had heard the call go out shortly after he'd left his captain's place. Hours of searching for Slade's stolen police dog, Rio, had turned up nothing but a deadend scent trail and mounting frustration. Austin had been exhausted and ready to go home. Now he felt wired and ready to hit the trail again.

"I thought that I heard Brady call for me, and when I walked into his room, he was gone. That was about ten minutes ago."

"Has he ever run away?"

"No."

"Ever talked about it?"

"No! Now, please, can you help me find him?" She ran back up the porch stairs, her bare feet padding on the whitewashed wood.

Austin jogged after her, stepping into a small living room. Neat as a pin except for a small pile of Legos on a light oak coffee table and a college textbook abandoned on a threadbare sofa. No sign of the woman.

"Ma'am?" he called, moving toward a narrow hallway that led toward the back of the house.

"Here." She waved from a doorway at the end of the hall. "This is my son's room."

Austin followed her into the tiny room. Blue walls. Blue bedding tangled and dripping over the side of the twin mattress. Crisp white curtains. A blanket lay on the floor near the open window, the frayed edges ruffled by the wind.

"How old is your son, Ms…?"

"Billows. Eva. He's seven."

Billows?

The name sparked a memory, but Austin couldn't quite grab hold of it. "Did you and your son have an argument about something? Maybe a missed curfew or—"

"He's seven. He's not even allowed to be outside by himself." Her voice broke, but her eyes were dry, her face pale and pinched with worry. A pretty face. A young one, too. Maybe twenty-three or four. Too young, it seemed, to have a seven-year-old.

"Did you argue about homework? Grades?"

"We didn't argue about anything, Officer—?"

"Detective Austin Black. I'm with Sagebrush Police Department's Special Operations K-9 Unit."

"You have a search-and-rescue dog with you?" Her face brightened, hope gleaming in her emerald eyes. "I can give you something of his. A shirt or—"

"Hold on." He grabbed her arm as she tried to move past. "I need to get a little more information first."

"Find my son. Then I'll give you whatever information you want."

"Unfortunately, without the information, I won't know where to begin searching for your son."

"How about you start out there?" She gestured out the window.

"Was it open when you came in the room?"

"Yes. And the curtains were just like that. One hanging outside. Like, maybe…" She pressed her lips together.

"What?"

"It looks like someone carried Brady out the window, and Brady grabbed the curtain to try to keep from being taken. But I don't know how anyone could have gotten into his room. The window was locked.All the doors and windows were locked."

He nodded. He could see the scenario she'd outlined playing out. The little boy woken from a sound sleep, dragged from his bed and out the window, grabbing on to whatever he could to keep from being kidnapped.

He could see it, but that didn't mean it had happened that way. Most children were abducted by family or friends, and most didn't even know they were being abducted when it happened.

"You're sure everything was locked?"

"Of course." She frowned. "I always double-check. I have ever since."

"What?"

"Nothing that matters. I just need to find my son." Hiding something?

Maybe. She seemed more terrified than nervous, but that didn't mean she didn't know something about what had happened to her son.

"Everything matters when a child is missing, Eva."

Missing.

Gone.

Disappeared.

The words just kept coming. Kept filling Eva's head and her heart and her lungs until she wasn't sure she could breathe.

"Do you need to sit down?" Detective Black touched her elbow, his dark blue eyes staring straight into hers.

"I need to find my son." The words stuck in her throat, caught on the roof of her mouth, and she didn't know if they even made a sound when they escaped through her lips.

"I'm going to help you do that. I promise. But I need to know if there's some reason why you were careful to keep your doors and windows locked. Someone you were afraid of." His voice was warm and smooth as honey straight from the hive, and Eva might actually believe every word he was saying if she weren't so terrified.

"My parents were killed two years ago, but it had nothing to do with me or my son."

"The killer was caught?"

"No."

"Is it possible—"

"It's not possible!" She nearly shouted, and Detective Black frowned. "I was estranged from my father when the murders occurred. There's no connection between my life now and what happened to my parents." She tried again. Tried to sound reasonable and responsible because she was afraid if she didn't, the detective would linger in Brady's room for hours instead of going to look for him.

"Is Brady's father around?" He leaned out the window without touching it, eyeing the packed earth beneath.

Did he see anything there?

She wanted to ask, wanted to beg him to get his dog and go after her son, wanted to go after Brady herself, run into the darkness and scream his name over and over again until she found him.

"No," she answered a little too sharply, and Detective Black raised a raven-black eyebrow. "You're not on good terms?"

"We're not on any terms."

"When was the last time you and Brady saw him?"

"Brady has never seen him," she retorted. "The last time I saw Rick was six months before my son was born."

"Have you spoken to him on th—"

"I haven't had any contact with him since the day I told him I was pregnant. He's not in my life. He's not in Brady's life. He didn't want to be. He was married, okay? He and his wife moved to Las Vegas two months before Brady's birth. That's it. The whole story." She'd been nineteen and foolish enough to believe every lie Rick had told. It didn't hurt like it used to, but admitting it to the detective still made her blush.

"Is there anyone else? A boyfriend? Fiance?"

"No. Just me and Brady. That's all there's ever been." She swallowed hard and turned away. Holding back tears because crying wouldn't solve her problems. Wouldn't help her son.

"When did you last see Brady?"

"I checked on him at midnight. Right before I went to bed. He was sleeping."

"You went to bed after that?"

"Yes! I went to bed. I fell asleep. I thought I heard Brady call for me, and I went to his room. He was gone. Now, will you please go find him?"

"I will. A soon as—"

The doorbell rang and Eva jumped, her heart soaring with wild hope.

Brady.

Please, God, let it be him.

She shoved past Detective Black, not caring about niceties. Not caring about anything but getting to the door, opening it, seeing Brady's face. Only it wasn't him.

Her heart sank as she looked into the eyes of a uniformed officer.

"Ms. Billows? I'm Officer Desmond Cunningham. We have a report of a missing child?"

"My son. There's already a detective here."

"He's with our K-9 Unit. He'll start searching for your son while I interview you."

Thank You, God. Thank You, thank You, thank You.

She stepped back so he could enter the house, wishing she'd had time to straighten up the living room, put the sofa cover over her threadbare couch. A twenty-dollar Goodwill find that worked fine for her and Brady but wasn't great for company.

Such a silly thing to think about.

Such a stupid thing when her son was missing.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, sick with dread and fear.

"He's been gone for twenty minutes already," she said, the horror of the words filling her mouth with the coppery taste of blood.

"It takes a little time to get a search team mobilized, ma'am, but we'll have plenty of people out here before you know it." Officer Cunningham offered a reassuring smile, his dark eyes filled with sympathy.

Seeing it there in the depth of his gaze was too difficult, made the tears she'd been holding back too tempting. She turned away, met Detective Black's steady gaze.

Deep blue. Bottomless. Unreadable.

"Were you home this afternoon, Eva?" he asked, and she shook her head because she wasn't sure she could speak without tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Was Brady?"

"He was with his babysitter. Mrs. Daphne lives two doors down," she managed to say past the lump in her throat.

"Is that close to Slade McNeal's place?" he asked. And odd question, but she'd answer whatever he asked if it meant getting him outside searching for Brady.

"Yes."

Detective Black and Officer Cunningham exchanged a look she couldn't read. One that excluded her, made her even more terrified than she already was.

"What's going on?"

"Captain McNeal's father was attacked today. His dog, Rio, was stolen. The person responsible is still on the loose."

"What does that have to do with Brady?" she asked, but she knew, the cold icy feeling in her heart making her shake.

"It's going to be okay." Detective Black walked across the room and opened the front door. "I'm going to get Justice. Eva, if you want to get a photo of your son and an article of his clothing. Something that he wore today, preferably. I'll be back in a minute."

She ran into Brady's room, trying not to think about Slade's father, his missing K-9 partner. Trying not to think about how pale and quiet Brady had been when she'd picked him up from Mrs. Daphne's house.

He hadn't eaten much for dinner.

Maybe he'd just been sick. A stomach virus. Kids got those all the time.

She wanted to believe that accounted for his silence at the dinner table, his desire to go to bed early.

Check the window again, Momma. Did you check it?

The words seemed to echo in Brady's empty room.

She should have asked him why he was worried about the window lock. Should have pressed him about his day, asked just one more time if everything was okay.

If she had—

"Did you find something?" Detective Black walked into the room, a bloodhound padding along beside him. Orange vest and droopy ears, a wet nose and big, dark eyes. Brady would have loved to see him.

The thought burned behind Eva's eyes, and she ran to the closet, yanked out the T-shirt Brady had worn to school.

Blue today. Orange tomorrow!

"This is the shirt he wore today." She handed the detective Brady's T-shirt before she gave into temptation and pressed it to her face, inhaled her son's little-boy scent.

Please, God. Please.

"He asked me to check the window lock twice. He seemed quiet at dinner. I thought he might be getting sick, but maybe…" Her guilt spilled out, and she had to stop the words so that the tears didn't spill out, too.

"Your son's disappearance might not have anything to do with what happened at Slade's house."

"But you think that it does?"

"Do you have a recent photo?" He didn't respond to her comment, and she knew that he did.

She hadn't realized she could be any more petrified than she'd been when she'd walked into Brady's room and seen his open window.

She could be.

She was.

Cold air blew in, carrying a hint of rain or snow. And, somewhere out in the darkness, Brady was scared and probably calling for her. A tear dripped down her cheek.

"Eva, I need that photo," Detective Black said gently, and she ran from the room, ran into hers. So close to Brady's.

She'd planned it that way when she'd decided which of the three bedrooms she'd take and which Brady would have.

So close, but she hadn't heard a sound until he'd cried for her.

She grabbed the framed school photo from her night-stand, pressed it to her chest.

"Got it?" Detective Black walked into the room with his bloodhound, and Eva didn't care that she'd left her wait-ressing uniform in a stack on a chair. She didn't care that a pile of college books and papers lay beside her bed. She didn't care about anything but handing him the photo and watching him walk out the door to find her son.

"This was taken a few months ago." She handed him the photo, and he studied it for a moment.

"Cute kid," he said with a small smile, and she nodded because she couldn't speak past the tears that clogged her throat.

The doorbell rang again. This time she didn't run to answer it. Didn't believe that somehow Brady would magically appear on the porch, tired and scared but with some explanation that would make sense. Maybe some story about sleepwalking or thinking that Mrs. Daphne's dog was outside whining for his attention.

She walked into the living room, her heart heavy and aching, her chest tight.

Captain Slade McNeal stood near the front door, his dark hair mussed, his face drawn and weary. "Eva, I'm sorry I couldn't be here sooner. I had to wait for my son's babysitter to arrive."

"It's okay." Her voice sounded hollow and old.

"Have you found any evidence, Cunningham?" Slade turned to the patrol officer.

"I checked the back window. It looks like someone popped the lock on it. I've already called for an evidence team."

"Good. Are you going to take Justice out to track Brady, Austin?"

"Yes. We'll start around back and work our way from there."

"I'll come with you." Eva pulled her old wool coat from the closet near the door. There was no way she could put Brady's life in someone else's hands. No way she could trust that anyone else would look as hard or as long as she would. He was her son, after all. Her responsibility.

"The best thing you can do for your son is stay here and answer the captain's questions. The more information you provide, the faster we can narrow down our search." Austin walked onto the porch, and she followed.

He might not want her to help with the search, but she had no intention of staying behind. Brady needed her, and she needed to be there for him. That was the way it had been from the moment he was born, the bond between them so strong that she'd thought that nothing would ever tear them apart.

Something had.

Someone had.

She clenched her fist.

Brady was okay. He had to be.
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