Authors: Joanne Pence
One O'Clock Hustle: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 1) (20 page)
He turned his back to the window and leaned against it as he watched Rebecca talk on the phone. At times like this, when she was in full scowl-on-her-face, tough-cop mode that shut him out as completely as if a jail door stood between them, he wondered what possessed him that he found himself wanting to be around her. She was the type of woman a guy could get serious about, and he’d given up on serious relationships four years ago. But here he was, facing her again.
He kept trying to meet someone who would help him forget “Inspector Mayfield” as she used to insist he call her. And he met plenty of women. Gorgeous women. Wealthy women. Women interested in him for who he was and for all he had accomplished in his life. But they didn’t make him feel alive the way one ferocious scowl did from Rebecca—or make him feel as elated as when she deigned to smile at him.
She put down the phone and faced him. Her voice shook as she struggled with her emotions. “I talked to Karen’s old boss, Chief Reiner at the Richmond precinct. He said the Sausalito Police just contacted him. They told him very little, and he thinks they don’t yet have any leads on the killer. All he knows is that Karen was living in Sausalito with a boyfriend.”
Bill Sutter walked back in, carrying a cup of coffee and a carton of fat-free plain cottage cheese. Richie shuddered at the sight of it, then returned to Rebecca’s desk and sat.
Rebecca faced Sutter. “Did you know Officer Karen Larkin from the Richmond station?”
“No.”
“She was killed.”
He grimaced. “Sorry to hear it.” Richie had been told that, as Sutter reached retirement age, he developed a phobia about dying on the job. Now, he opened a folder and hunkered down with it as if trying to bury himself in his paperwork, probably in an attempt to push Rebecca’s words from his mind.
Rebecca stared at the phone.
Normally, if Richie saw someone looking so sad after hearing a friend passed away, he’d do something, like give her a hug. Not the Inspector. He knew he’d be hurt—911 bad—if he tried it.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “You need time away from your desk. Time to think about and mourn your friend.”
She stood and put on her black leather jacket. “I’m going to Sausalito. I’ll tell them what I know about Karen, and ask what they know about her murder.” She called out to her partner. “I’m taking off, Bill. See you Monday.”
Sutter’s eyebrows rose as he watched her and Richie leave together.
As they waited for the elevator, Richie said, “I’m going with you. I’ll drive.”
She looked as if she was about to argue, but then sadness filled her eyes and she bowed her head a moment. Finally, she nodded. Even tough cops, he realized, sometimes didn’t want to be alone.
Continue with Two O'Clock Heist on Amazon
…
Also, in case you missed it,
Rebecca and Richie meet and share their first
mystery/adventure in the novella,
The Thirteenth Santa
, available on Amazon or wherever e-books and print books are sold.
Joanne Pence was born and raised in northern California, and now makes her home in Idaho. She has been an award-winning, USA Today best-selling author of mysteries, and has also written suspense, historical fiction, contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and fantasy.
Joanne hopes you'll enjoy her books, which present a variety of times, places, and reading experiences, from mysterious to thrilling, emotional to lightly humorous, as well as powerful tales of times long past.
Visit her at
www.joannepence.com
. Also, to hear about new books, please sign up for Joanne's
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Ancient Echoes
Over two hundred years ago, a covert expedition shadowing Lewis and Clark disappeared in the wilderness of Central Idaho. Now, seven anthropology students and their professor vanish in the same area. The key to finding them lies in an ancient secret, one that men throughout history have sought to unveil.
Michael Rempart is a brilliant archeologist with a colorful and controversial career, but he is plagued by a sense of the supernatural and a spiritual intuitiveness. Joining Michael are a CIA consultant on paranormal phenomena, a washed-up local sheriff, and a former scholar of Egyptology. All must overcome their personal demons as they attempt to save the students and learn the expedition's terrible secret.
Seems Like Old Times
When Lee Reynolds, nationally known television news anchor, returns to the small town where she was born to sell her now-vacant childhood home, little does she expect to find that her first love has moved back to town. Nor does she expect that her feelings for him are still so strong.
Tony Santos had been a major league baseball player, but now finds his days of glory gone. He's gone back home to raise his young son as a single dad.
Both Tony and Lee have changed a lot. Yet, being with him, she finds that in her heart, it seems like old times...
Dance With A Gunfighter
Gabriella Devere wants vengeance. She grows up quickly when she witnesses the murder of her family by a gang of outlaws, and vows to make them pay for their crime. When the law won't help her, she takes matters into her own hands.
Jess McLowry left his war-torn Southern home to head West, where he hired out his gun. When he learns what happened to Gabriella's family, and what she plans, he knows a young woman like her will have no chance against the outlaws, and vows to save her the way he couldn't save his own family.
But the price of vengeance is high and Gabriella's willingness to sacrifice everything ultimately leads to the book's deadly and startling conclusion.
This harsh and gritty tale of the old West was named a finalist for the Willa Cather Literary Award in Historical Fiction.
The Ghost of Squire House
For decades, the home built by reclusive artist, Paul Squire, has stood empty on a windswept cliff overlooking the ocean. Those who attempted to live in the home soon fled in terror. Jennifer Barrett knows nothing of the history of the house she inherited. All she knows is she's glad for the chance to make a new life for herself.
It's Paul Squire's duty to rid his home of intruders, but something about this latest newcomer's vulnerable status...and resemblance of someone from his past...dulls his resolve. Jennifer would like to find a real flesh-and-blood man to liven her days and nights—someone to share her life with—but living in the artist's house, studying his paintings, she is surprised at how close she feels to him.
A compelling, prickly ghost with a tortured, guilt-ridden past, and a lonely heroine determined to start fresh, find themselves in a battle of wills and emotion in this ghostly fantasy of love, time, and chance.
Gold Mountain
Against the background of San Francisco at the time of the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 comes a tale of love and loss. Ruth Greer, wealthy daughter of a shipping magnate, finds a young boy who has run away from his home in Chinatown—an area of gambling parlors, opium dens, sing-song girls, as well as families trying to eke out a living. It is also home to a number of highbinder tongs, the infamous “hatchet men” of Chinese lore.
There, Ruth meets the boy's father, Li Han-lin, the handsome, enigmatic leader of one such tong, and discovers he is neither as frightening, cruel, or wanton as reputation would have her believe. As Ruth's fascination with the area grows, she finds herself pulled deeper into the intrigue of the lawless area, and Han-lin's life. But the two are from completely different worlds, and when both worlds are shattered by the earthquake and fire that destroys San Francisco, they face their ultimate test.
Dangerous Journey
C.J. Perkins is trying to find her brother who went missing while on a Peace Corps assignment in Asia. All she knows is that the disappearance has something to do with a “White Dragon.” Darius Kane, adventurer and bounty hunter, seems to be her only hope, and she practically shanghais him into helping her.
With a touch of the romantic adventure film Romancing the Stone, C.J. and Darius follow a trail that takes them through the narrow streets of Hong Kong, the backrooms of San Francisco's Chinatown, and the wild jungles of Borneo as they pursue both her brother and the White Dragon. The closer C.J. gets to them, the more danger she finds herself in—and it's not just danger of losing her life, but also of losing her heart.
[This is a completely revised author's edition of novel previously published as Armed and Dangerous.]
The Angie Amalfi Mysteries
Gourmet cook, sometime food columnist, sometime restaurant critic, and generally “underemployed” person Angelina Amalfi burst upon the mystery scene in SOMETHING'S COOKING, in which she met San Francisco Homicide Inspector Paavo Smith. Since that time—over the course of 15 books and a novella—she's wanted two things in life, a good job...and Paavo.
Here’s a brief outline of each book in the order written:
Something’s Cooking
For sassy and single food writer Angie Amalfi, life’s a banquet—until the man who’s been contributing unusual recipes for her food column is found dead. But Angie is hardly one to simper in fear—so instead she simmers over the delectable homicide detective assigned to the case.
Too Many Cooks
In TOO MANY COOKS, Angie’s talked her way into a job on a pompous, third-rate chef’s radio call-in show. But when a successful and much envied restaurateur is poisoned, Angie finds the case far more interesting than trying to make her pretentious boss sound good.
Cooking Up Trouble
Angie Amalfi’s latest job, developing the menu for a new inn, sounds enticing—especially since it means spending a week in scenic Northern California with her homicide-detective boyfriend. But once she arrives at the soon-to-be-opened Hill Haven Inn, she’s not so sure anymore. The added ingredients of an ominous treat, a missing person, and a woman making eyes at her man leave Angie convinced that the only recipe in this inn’s kitchen is one for disaster.
Cooking Most Deadly
Food columnist Angie Amalfi has it all. But while she’s wondering if it’s time to cut the wedding cake with her boyfriend, Paavo, he becomes obsessed with a grisly homicide that has claimed two female victims. Angie becomes the next target of a vendetta that stretches from the dining rooms of San Francisco’s elite to the seedy Tenderloin.
Cook’s Night Out
Angie has decided to make her culinary name by creating the perfect chocolate confection: angelinas. Donating her delicious rejects to a local mission, Angie soon finds that the mission harbors more than the needy, and to save not only her life, but Paavo’s as well, she’s going to have to discover the truth faster than you can beat egg whites to a peak.
Cooks Overboard
Angie Amalfi’s long-awaited vacation with her detective boyfriend has all the ingredients of a romantic getaway—a sail to Acapulco aboard a freighter, no crowds, no Homicide Department worries, and a red bikini. But it isn’t long before Angie’s Love Boat fantasies are headed for stormy seas—the cook tries to jump off the ship, Paavo is acting mighty strange, and someone’s added murder to the menu…
A Cook In Time
Angie Amalfi has a way with food and people, but her newest business idea is turning out to be shakier than a fruit-filled gelatin mold. Now, her first—and only—clients for “Fantasy Dinners” are none other than a group of UFO chasers and government conspiracy fanatics. But when it seems that the group has a hidden agenda greater than anything on the X-Files, Angie’s determined to find out the truth before it takes her out of this world…for good.
To Catch A Cook
Between her latest “sure-fire” foray into the food industry—video restaurant reviews—and her concern over Paavo’s depressed state, Angie’s plate is full to overflowing. Paavo has never come to terms with the fact that his mother abandoned him when he was four, leaving behind only a mysterious present. But when the token disappears, Angie discovers a lethal goulash of intrigue, betrayal, and mayhem that may spell disaster for her and Paavo.
Bell, Cook, and Candle
For once, Angie’s newest culinary venture, “Comical Cakes,” seems to be a roaring success! But there’s nothing funny about her boyfriend Paavo’s latest case—a series of baffling murders that may be rooted in satanic ritual. And it gets harder to focus on pastry alone when strange “accidents” and desecrations to her baked creations begin occurring with frightening regularity—leaving Angie to wonder whether she may end up as devil’s food of a different kind.
If Cooks Could Kill
Angie Amalfi’s culinary adventures always seem to fall flat, so now she’s decided to cook up something different: love. But her earnest attempts at matchmaking don’t go so well—her friend Connie is stood up by a no-show jock. Now Connie’s fallen for a tarnished loner, and soon finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. Angie’s determined to find the real killer, but when the trail leads to the kitchen of her favorite restaurant, she fears she’s about to discover a family recipe that dishes out disaster…and murder!
Two Cooks A-Killing
Angie hates to leave the side of her hunky fiancé, Paavo, but she gets an offer she can’t refuse. She’ll be preparing the banquet for her favorite soap opera’s reunion special, on the estate where the show was originally filmed! But when a corpse turns up in the mansion’s cellar, and Angie starts snooping around to investigate a past on-set death, she discovers that real-life events may be even more theatrical than the soap’s on-screen drama.
Courting Disaster
Against her instincts, Angie agrees to let her control-freak mother plan her engagement party—she’s just too busy to do it herself. And Angie’s even more swamped when murder enters the picture. Now she must follow the trail of a mysterious pregnant kitchen helper at a nearby Greek eatery—a woman who her friendly neighbor Stan is infatuated with. And when Angie gets a little too close to the action, it looks like her fiancé Paavo may end up celebrating solo, after the untimely d.o.a. of his hapless fiancé!
Red Hot Murder
Angie and Paavo have had enough familial input regarding their upcoming wedding to last a lifetime. So Angie leaps at the chance to spend some time with her fiancé in a sun-drenched Arizona town. But when a wealthy local is murdered, uncovering a hotbed of deadly town secrets, Angie’s getaway with her lover is starting to look more and more like her final meal.
The DaVinci Cook
Just when dilettante chef Angie Amalfi’s checkered culinary career seems to be looking up, she has to drop everything and hightail it to Rome. Her realtor sister is in a stew—accused of murder. To make matters worse, a priceless religious relic is missing as well—so the Amalfi girls are joining forces in the Eternal City…and diving head-first into a simmering cauldron of big trouble.
Cooking Spirits
Culinary queen Angie Amalfi has put aside her gourmet utensils to concentrate on her upcoming wedding, but instead of the answer to her heart's desires, she scrambles to deal with wedding planners with bizarre ideas, wedding dresses that don't flatter, squabbling relatives, and worries over where she and Paavo will live after the wedding. But all of that pales when Angie finds the perfect house for them, except for one little problem—the house may be haunted.
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The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries
The Thirteenth Santa (a novella)
One O’Clock Hustle