Desert Rage (Lena Jones Series, 8, Band 8) - Hardcover

Webb, Betty

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1464203105 ISBN 13: 9781464203107

Verlag: Poisoned Pen Press, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Ferociously ambitious U.S. Senatorial candidate Juliana Thorsson has been keeping a secret.

The horrific slaughter of a prominent doctor, his wife, and their ten-year-old son brings Thorsson to Private Investigator Lena Jones. The slain family's 14-year-old, Alison, has confessed to the murders. Thorsson wants to hire Lena to discover if Alison is telling the truth, but Lena demands to know what a rising political star wants with a girl she's never met. Desperate for Lena's help, Thorsson reveals her secret - that Alison is the candidate's biological daughter. But that's not all. Thorsson then confides something more than a mere hidden pregnancy, something that could ruin her political plans forever.

Suspecting that Alison's parents had secrets of their own that could have led to the murders, Lena finally accepts Thorsson's assignment. But interviewing those who knew the family well soon puts Lena - now a strong defender of the two teens - in danger of her life.

Fast-paced, probing, and filled with the trademark twists of the Lena Jones series, Desert Rage once again shows that Betty Webb is unsparing of her characters yet writes their stories with wit and compassion.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

As a journalist, Betty Webb interviewed U.S. presidents, astronauts, and Nobel Prize winners, as well as the homeless, dying, and polygamy runaways. The dark Lena Jones mysteries are based on stories she covered as a reporter. Betty's humorous Gunn Zoo series debuted with the critically acclaimed The Anteater of Death, followed by The Koala of Death. A book reviewer at Mystery Scene Magazine, Betty is a member of National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, and the National Organization of Zoo Keepers.

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Desert Rage

A Lena Jones Mystery

By Betty Webb

Poisoned Pen Press

Copyright © 2014 Betty Webb
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4642-0310-7

CHAPTER 1

Lena

I put the phone down and turned to my partner, who was, as usual, tapping away on his keyboard. "You won't believe who just called me."

"Santa Claus," he replied, not looking up. "The Tooth Fairy."

"The Honorable Juliana Thorsson, that's who."

Jimmy stopped typing. "The politician? The one in Washington?"

"Congress is in recess, so she's back in Scottsdale and wants me to come right over."

He grinned, his white teeth gleaming against his dark face. "Trying to win your vote, huh?"

"She wouldn't say."

"There's a politician for you."

Six years earlier, Thorsson had been elected to the U.S. Congress on a platform slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. At the age of thirty-four, she had already served two terms in the Arizona Senate, where her Olympic Bronze in skeet shooting earned her instant popularity with gun-loving Arizonans. When naked pictures of our then-U.S. Congressman surfaced in the National Enquirer, she ran for his seat. The possessor of an immaculate reputation, she won in a landslide. Now she was touted as a possible senatorial candidate. After that, maybe even the presidency.

And for some mysterious reason, this political paragon had summoned me into her presence.

I looked out the window of Desert Investigations and saw no pedestrians trolling the Main Street art galleries. No wonder. July has always been a rough month here in Scottsdale, and this year promised to be one of the worst yet. Only nine in the morning and it was a hundred and three.

"Something else is interesting," I told Jimmy. "The Honorable Juliana told me not to drive my Jeep, that it was too recognizable, which means she's already researched me. Did you get the air-conditioning in your pickup fixed yet?"

"If I say I did, are you going to ask if you can borrow it?"

"I'll have to borrow it regardless."

"Then lucky you. I took it in Saturday and now it's like Alaska in there. When are you supposed to see her?"

"As soon as I can get there."

"Bring my baby back in the same condition you borrowed it, that's all I ask."

Jimmy Sisiwan has been an equal partner at Desert Investigations since it opened. A full-blooded Pima Indian who lives on the nearby reservation, he performs three-quarters of our revenue-earning work—background checks for the human resources departments of local companies. Only rarely does he share fieldwork with me, but that's the way he likes it. Especially in July.

"Have fun," he said, tossing me the keys to his Toyota.

By the grace of our landlord, Desert Investigations had been granted three covered parking spots painted with the warning FOR DESERT INVESTIGATIONS ONLY. ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED. My pictograph-decorated 1946 Jeep took one of the spots, Jimmy's Toyota another, with an empty space left for a client. Or rather, it should have been empty, considering no clients had shown up. Yet there sat a nasty-looking black Hummer 2. For the third time in a week the space-hogging beast had parked so close to my Jeep that I checked my own baby for any dings on its custom-paint job. Lucky for the Hummer's driver, there were none.

I don't like Hummers on principle. They're oversized, heavy, and present a threat to the environment. They're also pretentious, a Scottsdale trait I am heartily sick of. Out of patience with the interloper, I hauled my pen and notebook out of my carryall, and in big block letters printed, PLEASE STOP PARKING HERE; IF YOU CONTINUE, YOUR CAR WILL BE TOWED AT YOUR EXPENSE.

After tucking the note behind Big Black Hummer's windshield wiper, I hopped into Jimmy's pickup and took off for the Honorable Juliana's residence.

Although called "the West's most Western town," Scottsdale hasn't lived up to that motto for decades. Long ago, strip malls had replaced cattle ranches when housing developments sprawled across once-pristine desert. Now, except for a few rare pockets, the city looked just like any other metropolis: overdesigned and overcrowded.

So much for truth in advertising.

A half-hour of bumper-to-bumper traffic later, I arrived at Arabian Run, a bland condo community situated on the site of a former horse farm. Nothing was left of the horses except the name and the black silhouette of a horse on the gate blocking off the development from the great unwashed. When I tooted my horn, a rotund guard emerged from the de rigueur security hut. I announced myself as Miss Brown, the name the Honorable Juliana told me to use. With that, he opened the iron gate and ushered Miss Brown and her borrowed Toyota pickup through.

The view that greeted me was of uninspired, uniform buildings lined up next to each other in ranks so unbroken that back East, they would have passed for government-assisted housing. This meant that unlike many politicians, Juliana Thorsson wasn't filthy rich. Not yet, anyway. The big money would roll in when, and if, she became a U.S. senator. For now she remained ensconced in an area more middle-class than upper, in a modest condo instead of one of Scottsdale's McMansions. But the landscaping was nice. I enjoyed a slow drive through curved asphalt streets made lush with planting of purple bougainvillea, pink oleanders, and here and there—as if to remind the residents they lived in Arizona—transplanted saguaros lifted their one hundred-year-old arms to the harsh July sky.

The Honorable Juliana's condo faced the narrow greenbelt that wove its way through the complex. At first I couldn't figure out why flags dotted the grass, then realized I was looking at a putting green. Par what? Two?

With the covered parking spaces reserved for tenants only, I parked on the street and put up Jimmy's sunscreen. On the exterior the sunscreen said PALEFACE GO HOME; on the other, a picture of Geronimo loomed over the sentence: FIGHTING DOMESTIC TERRORISM SINCE 1492.

That Jimmy, such a card.

The congresswoman met me at the door. "Come in quickly so the cold air doesn't escape," she said, waving me through. She looked somewhat older than in her campaign posters, but younger than the last time I saw her on CNN arguing about immigration with Anderson Cooper. A natural honey-blond, she downplayed her Nordic good looks by dressing like a banker. Gray suit, plain white blouse, sensible black pumps, But at age thirty-six, she was still a beauty and the dowdy outfit couldn't hide it.

As soon as I stepped into the frigid house, a small dog of indeterminate breed limped up to meet me. She wore a cast on her right front foreleg, and her back was shaved almost bald, revealing a map work of sutures. When I bent down to pet her, she backed away with a whine.

Thorsson scooped the poor creature up in her arms. "She wants to be friendly but she's not ready yet."

"Looks like she's been through a lot."

"You could say that. By the way, do you have a different sunscreen you could put on that truck? The whole point of my asking you to drive a vehicle other than your Jeep was to avoid notice."

"You don't think PALEFACE GO HOME sends a nice antiimmigration message?"

She gave me a sour smile. "I'll put the dog in the bedroom, then step into the garage and get you another sunscreen to replace that anti-American message."

Less than two minutes after saying hello I already doubted I'd take her on as a client, but business is business. Until I knew enough to issue a formal turndown, I'd listen to what she had to...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Poisoned Pen Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1464203105
• ISBN 13: 9781464203107
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 392
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar