The truth can be deadly.
Shady Justice
by Rena Koontz
Genre: Thriller, Romantic Suspense
TV Crime Reporter Rylee Lapiz is determined to discover who murdered
her best friend’s mother. When her confidential informant is also
brutally killed, panic hits her like a tsunami wave. Will she be the
killer’s next target?
It’s a horrifying fact that the
two homicides are linked, and she knew both victims. What connects
the socialite with the drug addict? Reporting these stories is no
longer merely an assignment, it’s a personal quest to avenge their
deaths. But uncovering the truth is dangerous. Dread drowns her in
denial as she delves deeper into the crimes. She’s terrified that
she might personally know a murderer.
Her dogged
investigation uncovers critical evidence the police overlooked. But
instead of listening, she’s astonished and frustrated when
detectives begin to suspect her. Is there anyone she can
trust?
Buy Shady Justice and follow Rylee Lapiz
as she navigates a treacherous landscape of deceit and betrayal in
search of the facts. Every reveal could be her last. Can she report
the truth before becoming the next victim?
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Shady Justice
Rena Koontz
Excerpt 1
Chapter 1
The woman was so badly beaten, Steel Chaney vomited
his breakfast bagel in the grass at the side of the concrete driveway. So much
for bragging that after twenty years on the job, he’d seen it all.
Christ, there was nothing left of her face to
identify. Her mouth was a bloody hollow where teeth should be. The tips of all
ten fingers were scorched black. Were they burned before or after she died? For
her sake, he hoped it was postmortem. Someone sure as hell didn’t want her
identified.
Chaney spit the last of the sour taste away, wiped his
mouth on his coat sleeve, and turned back to the car. The poor woman was
stuffed inside the trunk on her back, her legs pinned beneath her. They had to
be broken. Blood soaked her clothes, seeping to the area rug underneath her
body, turning it pitch black. Her killer had wrapped her in this piece of
carpet to transport her from the murder site. Blood matted in her dirty blond
hair where her skull was crushed. Caked strands knotted around gold circle earrings.
Her eyes were swollen shut, a palette of eggplant purple and midnight blue. A
bloodied gold chain fell toward the back of her neck. Robbery was not a motive
for this act of violence.
He narrowed his focus to the interior of the trunk.
Empty except for three forty-pound bags of cat litter shoved to the rear. What
the fuck?
“Steel?”
He turned toward Parker Bentley, the rookie detective
he mentored. As rookies go, she was smarter than most and still hungry to
learn. He’d balked at taking on a trainee, assuming his seniority exempted him
from babysitting. It hadn’t. His argument, that a three-month mentoring period
was ridiculous given the years and experience most cops already had by the time
they expressed interest in the detective bureau, fell on deaf ears, all because
two years ago the mayor got his tit in the wringer over some detective new to
the job who went rogue and then claimed lack of training. So now, they had
training.
Shady Justice
Rena Koontz
Excerpt 2
His stomach growled. Since he’d emptied it in the
grass, he craved a cup of coffee. As if reading his mind, the local crime
reporter for the TV station he regularly watched stepped into his line of
vision, two lidded coffee cups in her hands. She grinned, raised the cups in
the air and lured him to the yellow crime scene tape cordoning off the area.
“Good morning, Detective. Black right? I brought one
for Parker, too.” Funny, he’d been dealing with her longer than Bentley, but
she never called him by his first name. He wondered again about Bentley’s
affinity with women.
“Lois Lane, fancy seeing you here.” He reached for the
Dunkin’ cup.
Rylee Lapiz grinned. “Heard it on the scanner. Was on
my way to City Hall for a budget meeting. Thought I’d swing by and hear you
tell me you can’t tell me anything.”
Chaney genuinely laughed, always amused by her
optimism. “I can’t tell you anything.”
“I figured. Doesn’t hurt to ask, though. Can you at
least tell me if it’s male or female? That would give me enough to tweet for
the morning news and might make my editor tell me to stay here. The City’s in
financial trouble. There’s nothing new to report there.”
“Since when do you cover politics?” She’d been the
crime reporter for more than two years, to his knowledge. Always hustling, even
though her news station was rated fourth in the market. In his opinion, her
station was the best and most accurate, even when it came to forecasting the
weather, which his arthritis did equally as well.
“Covering for the beat guy. He called in sick. I hoped
you’d rescue me and give me a story.”
He laughed, admitting to himself that he enjoyed
talking with her as much as he did verbally sparring with Bentley. In general,
he hated the news media but, as reporters went, Lapiz was fair, totally
unimpressed with herself despite having accumulated numerous journalism awards.
She’d proven she was interested in only the facts and not sensational headlines,
like her competitors. And she’d earned his trust a year ago when details about
a murder were communicated to him with her in earshot. He’d instructed her the
information was off the record and she’d kept her word and not reported it
until he consented. It wouldn’t hurt to toss her a crumb.
“Female.”
“Old or young? White or black.”
He chuckled. “You said only one question.”
“Technically I didn’t but—” Her focus moved behind him
and he turned to see Bentley approaching, tapping the side of her face with her
forefinger. She reached for the cup Lapiz held out.
What’s in a name?
I’ve often been asked how I come up with names for my
characters.
I always tell folks, “It’s easy. If I like you, I use your
name in a book. If I don’t like you, I put you in my book and kill you.”
I threaten my hairstylist monthly with that one.
There is probably a science to picking character names. I
remember a speaker once admonishing that the name must fit the character, go
with the story, and provide a hint to the reader about the person. Someone else
lectured that chosen character names should be unique.
All that leaves me scratching my head.
The character names in Shady Justice are mostly based
on the dog names in the obedience class I attended with my German Shepard.
Bentley, Cooper, Rylee (spelled differently), and Sophie are
all dog buds to my dog, Warren. I couldn’t very well use Hercules so I used
Betty, his owner.
Sometimes I simply look around. Sandford Accent? The Accent
shaker was sitting on the kitchen counter. Steel Chaney? I’m from Pittsburgh so
any time I can work the Steelers into a book, I do.
And the name Parker? That’s based on the cutest teenager I
met two years ago whose eyes shone when she learned I was an author.
Breathlessly, she confided that she too wanted to write someday. When I said I
liked her name because it was different and maybe I’d name a character after
her someday, you would have thought I gave her an unlimited gift card to Ulta.
Parker Bentley is a badass detective in Shady Justice,
determined to find an elusive killer. Here you go, Parker. Shady Justice
is for you.
Rena Koontz is an award-winning author who was a career journalist. She writes about real events she covered as a news reporter in Pittsburgh, PA. and Cleveland, OH., weaving them into intriguing love stories. Her passions are her husband and her dog. Not necessarily in that order.
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