Protector - Laurel Dewey [212]
“Fuckin’ bitch!” Carlos screamed, nailing Jane with another savage smack.
Jane managed to roll onto her back and slam the side of the pool cue against Carlos’s forehead. The momentary dazing afforded her the opportunity to struggle to her knees, just as a burly male bar patron jumped into the mêlée. Chaos broke loose as the muscle-bound guy pounded Carlos’s head against the pool table until he passed out. Jane, slightly woozy from the two punishing blows that Carlos had delivered, ducked under the pool table and swept Nico’s handgun under a nearby chair. But as she turned her body, the thick envelope of cash slid out of her jacket and onto the floor, spreading several hundred dollar bills under the pool table. Jane reached for the envelope, but Nico quickly snagged it and disappeared with Camerón into the dark recesses of the bar.
Jane achingly emerged from underneath the pool table just as the beer keg clock came loose and smashed to the floor. A stream of blood spilled from Jane’s lip and she stood, disheveled, amidst the chaotic aftermath.
All eyes in the bar focused on her.
But one set of probing eyes was more intensely interested in her than the rest.
So begins Jane’s next adventure. After the events in Protector, Jane has resigned from the Denver Police Department. Trying to make her living as a private investigator, she finds her past haunting her at every turn and her old demons rising up to torment her. Seeking some level of comfort at an AA meeting, Jane encounters a woman who knows what Jane does for a living. The woman wants Jane to drive with her from Colorado to Northern California in search of a man who matches the description of the killer who murdered her granddaughter many years before. She’s convinced that the man has started to kill again and she wants to stop him.
Jane thinks the woman is crazy—especially when she discovers that she’s a New Age devotee—but Jane is desperate for work. They head out on the road, gathering critical information about the killer, and themselves, along the way. Jane has recently experienced several events in her life that seem to border on the paranormal, though she is a complete skeptic in that regard. Now, those experiences come with greater frequency. And when the trail of the killer leads to a fundamentalist church, the consequences of belief and faith propel her toward a deadly confrontation.
Once again, Laurel Dewey has created a novel as rich in character as it is in suspense. Juxtaposing spirituality and religion, mission and manipulation, revenge and redemption, this is a powerful, taut mystery that will confirm the author as a top-flight storyteller.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
The Story Plant
The Aronica-Miller Publishing Project, LLC
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Copyright © 2007 by Laurel Dewey
eISBN : 978-0-984-19053-9
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