Lost And Found

By H. Susan Shaw

The Finder's Series: Book 3

Mystery, 365 pages

Cover art by Richard Stroud

When her old friend asks Kate Tucker to find his sister, Kate tries to turn him down. Instead, she revisits an old love, enjoys visiting her friends, has a major race with her ex, spends too much time in the hospital, and solves the disappearance of the sister as well as the murders at a racetrack. Readers of the first two novels will not anticipate the ending of this one!

Excerpt:

I loathe being scared. Makes me feel like a big, fat, wuss. Fear and I fight as hard as I’d battle a Grizzly seeking lunch. Bear and fear, there’s a perfectly good reason those two words are similar; both critters will eat me alive.

When being attacked by either, I have the options of flight or fight. Flight feeds the enemy, be it bear or fear. Fight is the only response which provides a chance of survival with honor.

I knew this was going to be a long fight, and I meant to win. My only weapons were smarts and stubborns. So I marched onto the battlefield of a perfectly calm, charming motel in southern Maine. Came all the way from Pennsylvania to this grudge match; Kate Tucker versus the forces of evil and mean. A friend needed me to win a battle he couldn’t.

Gary Shriver wanted me to find his sister, Darla Twine. I’m a finder, so I reported for duty.

Reluctantly. I’d rather have hunted for the devil himself than Gary’s baby sister.

Such is the hazard of changing careers. A few years ago I was a simple repossessor. My finances, and some odd requests, forced me to expand to becoming a finder.

As my first client explained, to help me make the switch, “To repop a truck, you gotta find it, right? Right? First you find it? So tell me why, since I got green money, you can’t go find and repossess my tools the wife took off with? Huh? You know what welding stuff looks like, you know what she looks like. So, you find my stuff, you get it for me, and I give you cash.” Thus, I became a finder. I found the pawn shop. He proved his ownership of the equipment, then paid me an honest fee for an hour’s phone work. Often, it’s as easy as one: dial a couple of phone numbers. Two: ask a couple of questions. Three: collect a fee. Other times, not so much.

What Gary was asking was on the not-so-much side.

Darla was on my least-liked list. Her self-centered actions had disgusted me since she was a child. Darla’s history insisted she was missing because it suited her. I’d watched Gary grow up, and he was a good man and a good friend. So here I come, riding in like the white knight to the rescue.

Being a relatively sensible woman, I hadn’t just jumped in my car and headed into peril. Before I’d even responded to Gary, I’d checked the on-line issue of his local paper. Chills chased each other up and down my back when I saw headlines about a series of robberies at the Chadwick Downs horse racing track. The robberies had been capped by a double killing.

What I was searching for was in the paper also. Ed Tucker had been released from jail two weeks ago. Oh, hallelujah. An ex-husband with a grudge on the loose. He’d served his entire sentence, so there was no reason why he couldn’t go back to his hobbies; skirting the law and flaunting his defiance of it.

Bear or fear? I’d prefer the Grizzly, thank you. A more honest fight.

At my Saco destination, the Lester Motel, Shirley dashed out of the office to yank my door open and envelope me in a hug. “You drive right around to Number twenty-seven; it’s all ready for you. I have the keys right here!”

In my mirror, I saw Shirley hurrying as I parked in front of my cottage. It was right in the center of the complex. The safest location. From its blue-shuttered windows I could see the entire area. The few shrubs which grew close to the glistening white clapboards of the little house didn’t offer hiding places. I felt as insecure as if my temporary dwelling already sheltered an assassin. I’d get over it. I’d better, because for however long my stay, this was home base.

There was a surprise—a vase of flowers and a basket of fruit on the table. No card. I remembered what happened to Snow White. These perfect Red Delicious apples could be stand-ins for the one which knocked out the princess.

Before I had a chance to do more than point, Shirley said, “For you, of course. Gary dropped ‘em off when he paid the rent. He also left some papers on the coffee table. He said to tell you he’d be here around six to take you to dinner. Told me’n Charley to make you comfortable and keep you safe. As if we needed to be told! You workin’ with Gary or just visitin’ him and his kin?”

“Some of both, Shirley. Thanks for the heads-up about my dinner-date.” Message delivered, Shirley helped me rearrange the cottage to my satisfaction. Three windows and a large closet made the bigger bedroom the preferred sleeping room. Those windows were exactly why I didn’t intend to spend my nights there. Although it was daytime, we pulled the shades and drew the drapes. They would remain closed during my stay, even during cleaning.

Find and Recover

By H. Susan Shaw

Mystery – 377 pages

Cover art by Richard Stroud

Blurb:

Katherine Anne Tucker moved to Pennsylvania to get away from her abusive ex-husband. She fled straight into more danger. Her best friend was killed before Kate arrived in Bedford County, PA.

Next on the soon-to-be-dead list, Kate was attacked. While trying to aid the police in their search for the killer, Kate exposes her friend’s daughter to danger and inherits a mobile home which is immediately torched. Katherine Anne Tucker stars in this mix of murder and mayhem.

Excerpt:

“Someone’s out there, Kate.” Her voice was so hoarse I nearly asked her to repeat what she’d said. Then it sunk in.

No answer was needed—only action.

As I spun away from her and through the bedroom door, my mind was in overdrive. If I went out the kitchen door, the most direct route, the watcher in the back would see light from the opening door.

Front door, and quietly.

I sprinted down the hallway, across the foyer and out the door. I stopped to shut the door quietly.

Running on my toes, suppressing the noise of my flying feet, I darted around the shrubs toward the back yard. The T shape of the house worked to my advantage—even if reaching the backyard took longer because I had to skirt the bedroom wing, I would be hidden until I was lined up with the watcher Sara had seen. The intruder was within the triangle formed by the kitchen and bedroom walls.

Too close to people I love.

My mind was working faster than my feet. Sara’s window was only ten feet away, around the corner. To keep my presence hidden, I dropped to my knees before rounding the building’s angle. I was grateful I’d been wearing my black jeans, black top, and roper boots, rather than a skirt and pumps. My denim jacket was light blue.

Light-colored jacket shrugged off and stuffed silently under a bush, I was ready to advance to the corner and check out the yard. If I moved slowly and kept low, I should be invisible in the darkness.

I crawled to the corner, and peered around it. I saw a silhouette. Someone was there, standing in the yard.

No way to gauge height, not from where I was. The person was standing in front of the brick fireplace, about twenty-five feet from the house. All of us backyard sneaks were dressed in dark colors. I could see a pale roundness of face, turned toward the house. No other details.

Hoping for an opportunity to steal up to the watcher, I was disappointed. The fireplace was too far away. The shrubs were all close to the foundation. The entire backyard was open space. If I couldn’t use stealth, I’d use speed.

Lifting myself backwards, onto the balls of my feet, I prepared to go after the intruder. One hand still in contact with the damp grass, I was in the classic sprinter’s position. My lungs were filled with air. My muscles were taut, ready to spring. My mind was filled with outrage. I launched myself at the person staring at Sara’s home.

Running flat out, I gained speed with every step. I was more than halfway to the still figure. The back door opened.

When light filled the backyard, I was highlighted as if in a spotlight. Only a few feet from the watcher! The intruder disappeared around the house toward the driveway. That sucker could move.

Footsteps receded into the distance. From what I could hear, the runner only took a few crunching steps on the stone of the driveway before the noise changed to diminishing thuds on grass.

From the kitchen doorway, Allan demanded, “What’s going on out there? Kate? Lee? What’s happening?”

A disembodied voice behind me asked, “What did you see, Kate? Can you give me a description?”

I liked Allan, but right now I wanted to hit him. Instead, I went for the easy target. Swinging around, I planted my fists on my hips and snarled, “Why didn’t you tell him to stay on the couch?”

Lee, looming over me in the dark, ran his hand through his hair. “Frankly, I didn’t think it was necessary. I figured when I followed you out the front door, he’d stay where he was.”

Allan yelled from the lighted doorway. “Kate, Lee? What’s going on?”

Finders Keepers, Losers Dead!

By H. Susan Shaw

Mystery, 331 pages

Cover art by: Richard Stroud
Buy Link

Blurb:

Kate Tucker seeks the people who threaten her and her foster daughter. Since Kate is a finder of lost, missing, stolen, or unpaid merchandise, she uses her skills to bring a murderer to justice. If Kate doesn’t locate the killer, she and her foster daughter will be his next victims.

Excerpt:

I needed to be able to prove that this smuggling was happening. If I and my hunches hadn’t been in such an all-fired rush, maybe I could have interested the police and the Coast Guard in my theory. Then I’d have been hiding in the dark with a whole slew of good-looking uniformed men. Some days, I swear, my brain is on vacation.

I also knew I wasn't going to dash out there and grab a box and run. Those boxes seemed much too heavy.

My curiosity was killing me, though. Since I didn’t feel suicidal, I just let the curiosity hurt real bad.

Being patient and hidden were the only tools I had. If I waited long and quietly enough, maybe I could get a peek at a crate’s contents. Was I ever glad I’d brought the camera!

I had already loaded it with one roll of fresh film, still cool from the refrigerator. The other five rolls were chilling my thigh through my jeans pocket.

I loved this old manual camera. We'd seen a lot. If I had a chance for a picture, it would be a snap shot. The Canon’s controls were all set. This old heavy rig would take pictures of whatever I wanted. Good clear ones, too.

All I needed now was an opportunity.

No one was paying attention to anything but the task of unloading the boat’s cargo into the truck. The night was so still I could hear the whine and shriek of the pulley as it lifted each box out of the boat's hold.

The sound stopped, followed by curses from the busy bait shack. Both of the musclemen stopped and listened, then one of them sat his load on the wharf and re-entered Berth 19. When he called for help, the other lad sat his box on top of the first box and followed his mouth-breathing buddy.

The door was left standing open. I could see into their area well enough to watch them cross the room to the door leading to the boat.

My educated guess was the winch had jammed with a load halfway up. The water was too shallow and the area too busy to allow a box of smuggled whatevers to sit on the bottom of the bay in daylight. Cutting the line was out. For the same reasons, a load couldn't dangle halfway up the winch's line, either. The line had to be untangled and the load brought into the bait shack.

By now, I was positive whatever was in the boxes had to be illegal, immoral, or fattening. The boxes seemed too heavy to contain cholesterol-loaded goodies, so fattening was out. The immoral part was easy to disqualify; there was too much of that available right on the street. No need to import immorality.

That left illegal.