Click on image to enlarge.

You Pay:

$5.00

Category: Mystery/Crime/Suspense/Thriller
Description: Indianapolis attorney Brigit Bauer has a vested interest in protecting her neighborhood from an unknown threat. She uncovers a thread which leads her through a maze of holding companies to the Chicago mob presence in her city. A journey which may very well cost her her life. Paul Patrone isn't the innocuous real estate developer he seems to be. His real job is laundering money for the mob. With his greed for wealth and recognition driving him, he's on a collision course with Bree's crusade to stop the evil in her community. As a security consultant, Tony Pendrake is used to putting his life on the line for his clients. So it isn't much of a surprise when he offers to help Bree. Of course, he hasn't told her he intends to stake his interest in her while doing so. Three head strong people. All with their own agendas. A final lethal encounter.
eBook Publisher: Atlantic Bridge, 2002 Atlantic Bridge
MemoWare PDA Bookstore Release Date: June 2002

27 Reader Ratings:

Great	Good	OK	Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [230 KB], ePub (EPUB) [196 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [199 KB], Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [700 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [224 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [203 KB], Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [244 KB], hiebook (KML) [509 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [286 KB], iSilo (PDB) [185 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [230 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [268 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [302 KB]
Words: 69350
Reading time: 198-277 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"This book starts out with a bang and doesn't stop until the very last page. If you like action packed, heart stopping murder mysteries then this one is not to be missed."--Kathy Boswell, Kathy's Faves and Raves

"Author Monette Michaels will once again razzle and dazzle you with twists and turns, bringing you into the book as the story unfolds, making it seem as if you are there on the scene. Vested Interests brings you more than a simple mystery and suspense, Ms. Michaels also fills the pages with laughter and sorrow, love and danger. This is definitely a book that will have you up way into the early morning hours reading, unable to put down until the last page is turned."--Tracy Eastgate, Tracy's Book Reviews

Prologue

7:45 a.m., Friday, April 26.

Clockwork. Joey appreciated it--especially when he was planning random acts of violence. For fifteen years, killing in all its myriad forms had been his job. He was good at it.

He'd watched the lawyer's office and home for more than two weeks getting the patterns of her life and those of her office staff down like they were his own. In all the jobs Joey had done in the past, he'd made it a matter of pride to make a good, clean kill the first time. To do that, organization and planning were the keys. Joey had it set in his mind now, and today was the day. By ten o'clock this morning, Brigit Bauer was going to die--a victim of an extremely well-planned, random act.

Joey strolled into the building where Brigit had her office and headed for the stairs leading to the second floor. Of the few people in the building, not one paid any attention to him. Joey knew himself to be a nondescript person, which was good for a career hit man. People never seemed to remember him. If they did, he wouldn't be so good at his job.

As was the norm for this time of day, the second floor of Morrison Opera Place was deserted. The building, a rehabilitated theater from the '30s, had a fifty per cent vacancy rate, making it perfect for Joey's purposes. He met no one as he took the fire stairs from the back of the second floor hall up to the third where the lawyer's office was located.

His timing was on the mark. The secretary had gone down the hall to get water for the coffee. During his reconnaissances, he'd noted it was her practice to stop and gossip with the receptionist in the advertising firm near the restrooms. Joey knew she would be gone for fifteen minutes--never more and never less--and more than enough time for him to plant the vehicle of the lawyer's demise.

Moving the few steps from the fire stairs door, Joey slipped through the open doorway into the office. Glancing from side to side, he moved down a dimly lit, book-lined hallway to what he'd surmised was a break area. In this room, he found the pastries the secretary had picked up that morning at a bakery down the street from the office building. Among those pastries was what he'd learned was the lawyer's favorite, a blueberry cake donut.

Habits, both bad and good, were devices used by Joey. Many of his victims had been brought down by their slavish devotion to their routines, their addictions. Brigit Bauer's fetish for blueberry donuts for breakfast would be her downfall.

Taking the capped syringe filled with Oleander sap from his pocket, Joey injected the fast-acting poison into the donut. She would never know what hit her.

Personally, Joey would have planned a more dramatic end for the lady, but his employer wanted it to look like an accidental death, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like the Tylenol poisonings many years ago. Since variety had always been one of his calling cards, Joey didn't mind a bloodless hit once in a while. In fact, an occasional hit of this type was good for his reputation; it showed he was creative and cunning. He prided himself on the fact that no two hits were ever alike.

Pocketing the recapped syringe, he left the office. No one had seen him. It had taken him less than three minutes in the office. Five minutes later, he sauntered out of the building and down the street where he entered a coffee shop to wait on the results of his morning's work. He'd continue to watch the building until she came to work and, then, until the ambulance or police came. Only after he was sure his job was done, would he call his client and arrange to get the rest of his money--$50,000 for a piece-of-cake hit.