THE DIRTY BLONDE by Tim Smith

THE DIRTY BLONDE by Tim Smith

Vic Fallon Book 3

A tough private eye gets involved with a blonde beauty in a search for her missing husband—but how many more wives are waiting in the wings?

Former cop Vic Fallon is content to live in Sandusky, Ohio, on his disability settlement and take the occasional private eye job when he isn’t fishing. He doesn’t really want to get involved in a missing persons case, but when Amy Bergen arrives from Tennessee looking for her estranged husband who’s avoiding divorce court, Vic is taken in by her southern charm and agrees to help her. His search brings him into contact with a local gangster wannabe, a crooked cop and a gambling syndicate. When another woman shows up claiming to be the missing man’s wife, the case takes a bizarre turn. Can Vic find the wayward husband before all of his wives catch up with him? Will his feelings for Amy develop into something more than professional?

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~Excerpt~

Detective Dave Becker sat behind his desk at the Sandusky, Ohio Police Department, looking at the complaint report in his hand. He reached up with his free hand to tug at the open collar of his short-sleeved shirt, then lightly scratched behind his ear. The air conditioner was on but not working efficiently enough to impact the late June heat. He exhaled a slow breath and looked at the woman seated across his desk. She was a petite, busty blonde in her early thirties, about five-feet-five with light blue eyes, who had traveled to the northern Ohio village from Tennessee. Becker mentally prepared himself for the speech he was about to give.

“I’m sorry, Miss Bergen, but this isn’t really a police matter. You say your husband…”

“Ex-husband,” Amy Bergen corrected in a voice that had a slight southern drawl. “I mean, he will be my ex as soon you track him down and get him to sign the divorce papers. Then I can get together with my new beau.”

“As I was saying, this really isn’t something we can help you with.”

Amy looked surprised. “You do look for missing persons, right?”

“Yes, but your husband…”

“Soon to be ex-husband.”

“Right. Your soon-to-be-ex-husband isn’t technically missing. You say he left…where did you say you were from?”

“Lenoir City, Tennessee. It’s just outside Knoxville.”

“He left Lenoir City and you think he came here, but if he isn’t wanted for a crime and there are no outstanding warrants, there’s nothing we can do.”

She exhaled an exasperated breath. “Well, I just find that hard to believe. Back home the police would’ve served those papers and made him sign them.”

Becker shrugged. “I’m sorry, but unless the police or court issues a warrant, we can’t do anything.”

“There must be something. I tracked that polecat to this part of your lovely state on my own. He can’t be that hard to find.”

Becker opened his desk drawer, withdrew a business card then handed it across the desk. “That’s the card for someone who may be able to help you.”

Amy scrutinized it. “Vic Fallon,” she recited then looked at Becker. “What is he, some high-priced private eye?”

“Not exactly. He’s a friend who used to be a cop. He does this sort of thing once in awhile. If you can’t reach him at the number on that card, try Freighters Lounge on Marblehead.”

“Try what on where?”

“Freighters Lounge is a local bar where he hangs out. Marblehead Peninsula is about ten miles from here. Just go west on State Route 2 and follow the signs. Anyone can tell you how to get there if you get lost.”

Amy stood and politely extended her hand across the desk. “Thank you for your time, Detective Becker.”

Becker smiled, shook hands with her then watched her leave his office. He lowered his eyelids slightly. Oh, if only I weren’t married…

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BENT BOOT ROAD by Lynn Rae

BENT BOOT ROAD by Lynn Rae

Lydia Back has problems; a dead end job cataloging artifacts no one wants to see, an office in a dusty basement storage room, and she’s just discovered that her friend is missing. Adding to her frustration is the arrival of a too charming private investigator who needs her help.

Carter Harris has no problems; he has his own successful business and is enjoying a few days in a scenic southern Ohio town to gather information on a missing professor. But his local contact turns out to be an uncooperative woman who prefers traipsing around in the forest to having a civilized conversation with him.

Together, they begin to uncover some of the secrets that lurk under the surface of other people’s lives and to appreciate each other’s abilities. When danger threatens, both Carter and Lydia realize it will be impossible to survive alone.

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 ~Excerpt~

“I know that my hat looks stupid, but it does keep the ticks from dropping out of the trees right into your hair, like this one must have done.”

Carter had a feeling she was gloating, but the idea of something sucking his blood was so revolting he wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying. They were back at the Inn, and he was sitting on the toilet as Lydia dispassionately looked at him. He recalled that just the previous evening, he had been taking care of her hands in her bathroom, so it seemed like this was completing the circle. Although he would have rather had cuts and bruises than some bug burrowing into him.

“We seem to be doing this a lot, sitting in bathrooms and administering first aid.” He began to speak, mostly to take his mind off of what she was doing.

“It’s a rough and tumble life.” Lydia started to move the hair on his head to give her access to the tick. He’d felt the bug as they left the Mullins’ house and had almost driven off the side of the road with shock. He felt a slight tug and she grunted. “They must like the taste of you. Do you want to see it?”

“No.”

She tapped the tweezers in a disposable cup and then began to check his scalp for more of the disgusting things. Despite thinking about what might be crawling around on him, he found that as she ran her fingers through his hair he grew more and more relaxed. She was quiet and worked slowly, and his relaxation began to shift in another direction, something more focused and compelling. Which meant he needed to stop it now. So he reached up and caught one of her wrists. “I’ll check, you don’t need to do that.”

Taking a step back, she watched him rub his scalp gingerly. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“Check your skin too, and your back in the mirror.” She backed away and left the bathroom “When are you picking me up for dinner with Reggie?”

“At six.” Carter hadn’t felt any more suspicious bumps, and he was dreading checking the rest of his body in the shower he’d soon be taking. “Hey Back, what about you?”

“What about me?” Her voice floated in from the living room. It sounded like she was almost out in the hallway already.

“Do you want me to check you?”

“Nope, I can take care of myself.” And with that the door closed with a thump and she was gone.

“I can take care of myself too.” Carter grumbled as he began to strip, carefully shaking each article of clothing to see if anything nasty had hitched a ride. He’d actually had a pretty good day so far, the police had opened a missing person file on Dr. Cooper, they had discovered that he had been somewhere on Friday, and he had hopes that the upcoming dinner with Reggie might result in even more useful information. Of course, he had just had a parasite pulled out of his skin by a confusing woman who knew what to do with a machete.

He wasn’t sure what to make of Back. She seemed to alternate between liking him and then rushing to get away from him. As he stepped into the shower and ran the water, he thought about her in a shower and his body began to wake up. Just what he needed to confuse the situation, an attraction to a sarcastic woman who lived in the middle of nowhere. In order to divert himself from speculating on what she looked like beneath that absurd, if practical, overall, he began to run his hands over his skin to check for more ticks. That was not erotic at all. But Back would be doing the same thing as soon as she got to her apartment. He should have offered her a turn in his shower, or they could have shared a shower and he could have helped her check her back. And backside. And now he was getting warmed up again. He had been alone too long if just thinking about a woman he barely knew was enough to get him hard. There was no room in his life for a long-distance relationship, as if he would even want such a thing with an aggravating person like Lydia Back. There were plenty of sweet, kind women in Columbus that he could take a shower with. And in his experience, he hadn’t needed to check them for ticks first.

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THE SECOND TIME AROUND by Michelle Levigne

Book one in award-winning author Michelle Levigne's Tabor Heights, Ohio inspirational romance series.

Daniel Morgan's past returned to haunt him when a freshman girl showed up wearing his college sweetheart's face.

Lynette Tyler was determined not to face her past, when she learned her daughter's favorite new teacher was the man she had forced out of her life when she got pregnant.

When Daniel learns that Kat is his daughter, he dares to ask God for the dream he had let go years before... to finally be a family. He pursues Lynnete's love through tragedy and shame, learning to forgive each other and themselves. The biggest hurdle isn't whether Kat would forgive them when she finally finds out the truth, but whether Lynette can let go of the past long enough to let them have a future together.

EXCERPT

Butler Williams University
Tabor Heights, Ohio
Monday, August 28

Dr. Daniel Morgan didn’t believe in ghosts, so he didn’t have an explanation for the vision that settled into the second seat, far left row, of his freshman theater history class on the first day of the fall semester. Fortunately, the auburn-haired freshman girl with Lynette Teague’s face was one of the first into the room, so Daniel didn’t stand there with his last two years at Northwestern University flashing through his mind while his new students sat and fidgeted and stared. He yanked himself back to the present, avoided looking at that part of the room, and pushed his heartbreak back into his memories for the duration of the first day lecture.

And the next three classes.

He retreated to his cramped, book-lined office in the basement of the theater arts building, and sat with his feet propped up on his desk, staring at the toes of his new sneakers — always a new pair for the start of the school year — trying to figure out what he felt.

“Morgan?” Bekka Sanderson, his student assistant, hung against the frame of his doorway, looking just as drained by the first-day-of-classes mayhem as he felt. Her belt-length straight brown hair had escaped the twistee that restrained it when she met him with his coffee and bagel at seven a.m. and helped him finish assembling the syllabi for all this classes. “You okay?”

The fact that she called him Morgan rather than ‘Dr. Morgan Sir’ meant there were no emergencies or bombs ready to drop on him.

For that, he breathed a sigh of thankfulness to God.

“I just realized that it’s been more than twenty years since I was in those kids’ shoes.” Daniel let his feet drop down to the cement floor. Bekka knew everything and everyone in the entire Humanities Department at Butler Williams. What were the chances she would know the name of the girl in his first period class, with Lynette Teague’s face and hair?

“Bekka?” an unfamiliar female voice called from out in the euphemistically labeled lobby of the theater department’s office. It was more prop storage room and workspace than an area to lounge, and served as an auxiliary costume department for big productions.

“In here.” Bekka turned and gestured. “Don’t go scaring me, Morgan. The General is the one who gives us the ‘I’m getting too old for this’ routine just before auditions for the Christmas play. I’m the one who’s too old to be playing psychologist for the whole department.”

“You’re my Gal Friday. Tell the General and Joel Randolph to keep their grimy—” Daniel stopped short as the girl from the first period class peered over Bekka’s shoulder. He swallowed hard and put on his friendliest smile. “Hello. I hope you’re not here to drop my class after one day.”

The freshman girl laughed. He was relieved when that wasn’t Lynette’s musical laugh. Her hair, hanging nearly to the pocket of her shirt, was curlier than Lynette’s straight auburn, a little darker, and her nose wasn’t the tiny, up-tilted button that demanded kissing and always turned red with the first hint of autumn chill. “No way. It was the best part of the day.”

“Because I was the only professor who didn’t take roll call, you mean?”

“Uh… yeah.” She shrugged, grinning, and that wasn’t Lynette’s smile. For which he thanked God again. “I’m Kat Tyler.”

“Nice to meet you, Kat. Who’s your advisor?”

“Dr. Defiore.”

“You have to call him the General — you’re part of the theater gang now,” Bekka said.

“You just missed him,” Daniel added.

“I’m not here to see him,” Kat said, and tipped her head in Bekka’s direction.

“We’re hitting the cafeteria for dinner. The food is fantastic at the beginning of the year,” Bekka said. “Besides, you know how my grandparents are at the start of the term. I don’t need another lecture over dinner on how I should be studying accounting, when I have homework for every single class already. We’d better run. See you tomorrow.”

“Bright and early. Double chocolate muffin this time,” Daniel added.

“Seig heil.” Bekka saluted, two fingers off her eyebrow, and left with Kat, both girls laughing.

Daniel held onto his smile until he heard the wheeze of the ancient pneumatic door leading to the stairwell. Then he slouched in his chair and raked his fingers through his hair. He definitely felt old today.

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ALISON'S JOURNEY by Amey S Tippett

Alison's life is perfect. Married to Eric, a handsome, wealthy man, she teaches 5th grade - just for fun - and is the envy of all her friends. But beneath the surface, Eric is an abusive monster. Able to take no more, Alison flees her "perfect life" with only her clothes, her car and her two cats.

After a mad dash across the country, she lands in Grabill, a backwoods Ohio town with seemingly little to offer. But if anyone knows that appearances are deceiving, Alison does. So, she takes her chances on Grabill and, eventually, on mechanic Tyler Coffey, embarking on a journey of a whole other kind.

Alison's Journey is the touching story of a woman who finds that, rather than having run away, she has come home. Debut author Amey Tippett takes readers on a sweetly emotional journey as Alison rediscovers herself and her ability to trust, finding out what love really is.


Alison's Journey

Chapter One

The gray light of early morning filtered in through the large glass door, bathing the room with an otherworldly quality. Each item in the tidy space was placed exactly. Not a speck of dust could be seen. And that was exactly the way he liked it.

Alison, her short red hair falling in her eyes, absently wiped cat hair from the sofa on which she sat. He’d be furious if he knew that her precious children had been sleeping on his furniture again. He had, after all, gotten mad at her for less. Did it matter anymore?

She pulled her legs up underneath her. Nothing in her life made sense. She had everything she’d thought she’d always wanted, but it didn’t satisfy her. Instead, she felt inferior, as if she was somehow less than she ought to be.

Absolutely everything in Eric’s life was perfect. His house, located in the hills of Los Angeles, was a showcase for his wealth. Everything—his cars, his collectibles, even his dog—proved that he had the perfect life. Why not the perfect wife? Why couldn’t she be perfect too? Wouldn’t that have made everything so much easier? Alison was anything but perfect.

She replayed her mistakes in her head. There were so many of them; each deserving punishment. Inwardly, she knew they weren’t really mistakes, but living with him made her doubt herself so much that she wondered. Could she really be as bad as he said?

Yesterday evening had started innocently enough, with Alison’s late return home from school. It was the last day; she’d had things to pack and people to chat with. It was any normal last day. And yet, it hadn’t been normal at all.

She’d entered the house at half-past six. Eric usually didn’t make it home until seven, so she’d figured that she’d have time to relax and take off her shoes before she dove into the process of making dinner. She’d even mused that Eric might like to celebrate her summer vacation by going out.

She’d been wrong.

All she’d done was walk into the bedroom and take off her shoes. Eric had been there, a panther stalking his prey. His blue eyes shot ice at her as he demanded to know where she’d been.

“But Eric, I’ve been finishing up at school,” she remembered saying petulantly. “You know the last day takes time.” From the way he’d looked at her, she’d known that she was scum on the bottom of his shoe. She’d curled into herself, hoping that he’d believe her. “ Sweetie,” she’d said in a small voice, “I love you. Please don’t do this.”

The rest of the evening had been a blur. He hadn’t believed her. In his mind, she couldn’t have been at work so late. She had been out with some man, making a fool of him. That was always his belief. She remembered some shouting…and the hitting. And then there were the inevitable strains of making up. The dinner—made by her as a plea for forgiveness—and the sex were just tokens in a game she had long ago learned to play.

Leaning back against the couch, Alison called softly to Pigwidgeon and Hedwig. The two small balls of grey fur leapt up beside her, mewing softly. She reached over to pet each one in turn and wondered when her husband had turned into such a monster. He’d been this way so long. Maybe he’d always been horrible and she had just started noticing it.

She sat quietly, wishing…wishing what? That life would be octant suddenly Eric would change into the Prince Charming she’d always dreamed of? Perhaps, she thought to herself, it was time to grow up.

Alison reached up and touched her cheek. Wincing in pain, she realized that although the room might look perfect, her situation certainly wasn’t. And now, before he returned, was the time to do something about it.

Oh God! What was she going to do? Where could she go? Home to her parents? No, it would be better if she just made a fresh start somewhere new. But where? Would Eric come looking for her? He’d always threatened to leave her if she didn’t straighten up and become perfect. There was no chance of that happening.

She shrugged. Maybe he’d act like she’d never existed. That was more like him. Mistakes were something that just didn’t happen in the life of Eric Shaw.

Alison got off the couch and went into the bedroom. She walked over to her vanity and looked in the mirror. There was a bruise forming around her eye. There was also the vague imprint of Eric’s thumb turning a sickly shade of purple on her neck. Without looking, she knew that there were similar marks on her back, shoulders and thighs.

The bruises were much less visible this time. That would make life outside of the house easier. He had ceased his tantrum before he’d hurt her enough to require a trip to the emergency room, so although it was painful to move about the house, she was thankful for the ability to move at all.

Alison made a quick mental list of the things she would need. It wasn’t much. A few clothes and the cats were truly all she wanted. Everything else was really his, anyway. She had a bank account that she should probably close, but otherwise her life didn’t seem to have much in the way of material possessions.

She went to the bedroom and carefully went through the closets, taking only what she really needed to get by. The fancy dresses, the shoes, and even some of her more casual clothes remained in the closet while she pulled out jeans, t-shirts and more travel-suited attire.

What should she do about the car? She was trying not to take much that his money had purchased, but she needed a form of transportation. And the car was in her name, not his. Perhaps that was the one and only exception to the rule.

She wandered through the house, calling to the cats. After loudly protesting their confinement, each went into a soft-sided carrier. The carriers and her single duffel bag easily found places in the VW.

Alison went back into the house. She silently walked from room to room, trying to find something she’d left behind. Or perhaps trying to find a reason to stay. She found nothing.

The tour ended in the kitchen. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she walked to the telephone stand. She removed her rings, placed them carefully on the message pad, and then walked out without a tear or even a backward glance.

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