When Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Joanna Brady's daughter Jenny goes off on a Memorial Day weekend Girl Scout campout in nearby Apache Pass, Joanna trusts that her twelve-year-old daughter will behave.

But with boy-crazy Dora Matthews as a tentmate, Jenny is seduced into taking a late night unauthorized hike into the wilderness where -- instead of smoking a clandestine cigarette -- she and Dora stumble upon the body of a murdered Phoenix woman.

Knowing that her little girl will be traumatized by her experience, Joanna must balance concern for Jenny with the demands of her new marriage and possible bid for reelection.

But when young Dora Matthews herself turns up dead two days later, Joanna's concern turns to terror. For if Constance Haskell's killer is murdering potential witnesses, Jenny may be next.

Connie Haskell had just stepped out of the shower when she heard the phone ringing. Hoping desperately to hear Ron's voice on the phone, she grabbed a towel and raced through the house, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the worn carpeting of the bedroom and hallway. For two weeks she had carried the cordless phone with her wherever she went, but when she had gone to the bathroom to shower that morning, she had forgotten somehow and left the phone sitting beside her empty coffee cup on the kitchen table.

By the time she reached the kitchen, the machine had already picked up the call. "Hello, Mrs. Haskell. This is Ken Wilson at First Bank." The disembodied voice of Connie's private banker echoed eerily across the Saltillo tile in an otherwise silent kitchen. As soon as she heard the caller's voice and knew it wasn't her husband's, Connie didn't bother to pick up the receiver. It was the same thing she had done with all the other calls that had come in during this awful time. She had sat, a virtual prisoner in her own home, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But this call from her banker probably wasn't it.

"I'm calling about your checking account," Ken Wilson continued. "As of this morning, it's seriously overdrawn. I've paid the two outstanding checks that showed up today as well as one from yesterday, but I need you to come in as soon as possible and make a deposit. If you're out of town, please call me so we can make some other arrangement to cover the overdraft. I believe you have my number, but in case you don't, here it is."

As Ken Wilson recited his direct phone number, Connie slipped unhearing onto a nearby kitchen stool. In all the years she had handled her parents' affairs -- paying bills and writing checks after her father had been incapacitated by that first crippling stroke and then for her mother after Stephen Richardson's death -- in all that time, Connie had never once bounced a check. She had written the checks and balanced the checkbooks each month under Stephen's watchful and highly critical eye. Because of stroke-induced aphasia, her father had been able to do nothing but shake his head, roll his eyes, and spit out an occasional "Stupid." But Connie had persevered. She had done the task month after month for years. After her marriage to Ron, when he had volunteered to take over the bill-paying, she had been only too happy to relinquish that onerous duty. And why not? Ron was an accountant, wasn't he? Dealing with numbers was what CPAs did.

Except Ron had been gone for two weeks now -- AWOL. For two long, agonizing weeks there had been no word to Connie. No telephone call. No letter. She hadn't reported him missing because she was ashamed and afraid. Ashamed because other people had been right about him and she'd been wrong, and afraid she might learn that there was another woman involved. The woman was bound to be far younger and far better-looking than Constance Marie Richardson Haskell. She was unable to delude herself into thinking there was a chance of foul play. No, Connie had made a point of checking Ron's carefully organized side of the closet. Her missing husband had simply packed one of his roll-aboard suitcases with a selection of slacks and custom-made, monogrammed shirts, and left.

 

"Jance delivers a devilish page-turner."

 

"Brady comes into her own in this book ... making an already appealing character even more so."

 

"The plotting is up to Jance's high standards ... bracing."

 

J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family, and Edge of Evil. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

 

 

Paradise Lost by J. A. Jance
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