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Aces
by Jaye Roycraft
Category: Romance/Suspense/Thriller
Description: Welcome to Aces, Arizona, where the big excitement on Saturday night is the sand drags, and folks look forward to the annual sidewalk egg fry contest. That's fine with Devon Dawes. Peace and quiet are just what she's looking for after the death of her brother in a big-city police chase. Small town life is also just right with Rick Tredino, whose career as an undercover Phoenix cop nearly cost him his life when the woman he loved betrayed him. But Aces has also attracted a stalker bent on revenge. The stalker, dubbed "Mr. Ace" for his habit of sending an ace playing card with each threat, brings Devon and Rick, now a part-time P.I., together, but Rick's progress on the case goes nowhere. Are the threats a result of Devon's strong public stand against police pursuits? Or are they connected to the youth center Devon runs--retribution from troubled teens Devon was forced to turn over to the police? Rick's efforts to protect Devon are hampered as much by her dislike of cops as by Mr. Ace himself. When their tumultuous professional relationship turns personal, the past catches up with Devon and Rick. In spite of her attraction to him, Devon doesn't want Rick invading the walls she built up to deal with her grief. And the last time Rick got close to a woman, he almost died. The strain of the past breaks them apart just as Mr. Ace gets ready to deal his final card, only this time it isn't just vengeance on his mind...it's murder.
eBook Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press, 2004 WHISKEY CREEK PRESS
eBookwise Release Date: May 2005
 
13 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [291 KB]
Words: 70233
Reading time: 200-280 min.
As if they had a mind of their own, the fourteen sheets that passed for a newspaper wriggled from Devon's grasp and flopped to the tabletop, the back two pages floating open from the impact. Her can of diet soda, already wet with condensation, rolled from her fingertips, and she fumbled to right it as she dropped her lunch cooler and the morning's mail to the table with a sigh. It was another one of those days. A small ad caught her eye. Free Crime Prevention Survey, Commercial or Residential, No Obligation. Marshall Security, Full Line of Security and Investigative Services, 256 Coyote Lane, Aces, Arizona. She lingered over the ad as she popped open her soda, downed a long swallow, and reached into her cooler for her turkey, tomato, and alfalfa sprout sandwich. Sure, she thought, no obligation, right. A free five-minute survey and they talk you into laying out several hundred dollars for a security system. Still... The phone call, still fresh in her mind, replayed again, the voice in her mind as clear as it had been two days ago. "Devon ... are you as hot in person as you are on TV? I can't wait to find out. Did you get my calling card?"
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