Betty's (Little Basement) Garden (40 page)

“I never told you the end of Stuart Love's story,” Jeff quietly said.

“Ah, the ghost who haunted the family on the river…how does the story end?”

“I told you how they realized the edges around them softened and they stopped hurting each other.”

“Yes.”

“Well, one day, Stuart left and never came back. The mother of the family told me that after a few weeks, she'd figured out why Stuart chose them. He was trying to save them, just like he saved that little girl from drowning.”

“Save them from what?” Betty asked.

“Themselves.”

Betty nodded. A warm breeze moved across her, signaling a storm heading in. Soon the ground would turn to mud and the air would cool. The seat on the motorcycle would be wet and her hair would be a mess. Everything would be perfect in its beautiful imperfection.

Laurel Dewey was born and raised in Los Angeles. She is the author of two nonfiction books on plant medicine, a Silver Spur nominated Western novella, hundreds of articles, and three novels in her Jane Perry suspense series,
Protector
,
Redemption
, and
Revelations
along with the Jane Perry novelettes
An Unfinished Death
and
Promissory Payback
and the story collection
Unrevealed.

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Hello, readers,

If this is the first novel of mine that you've read, I wanted to let you know that I have also written a mystery/thriller series that features the very tough Denver homicide detective, Jane Perry. As poised and precise as Betty Craven is, Jane Perry is gruff and foul-mouthed. While Betty is completely at home in the kitchen, Jane is more like a guest in hers. Betty grew up in a controlling but caring home; Jane suffered abuse and abandonment and was forced to grow up quickly.

These two women seem like polar opposites, right? Well, yes and no. They might look different and their personal lives may have little in common. But the engine that moves them both mentally and physically is the same. Just like Betty Craven goes hell bent toward her goals, Jane Perry rolls over any barriers that get in her way. As compassionate as Betty is with her friends, Jane equally pours her heart and soul into each victim she encounters. Betty and Jane each have the ability to attract mystical and unexplained phenomena to them. Both women are strong fighters, capable of standing up for themselves, but they also share a clumsiness and fear when it comes to their personal lives. In the end, it's their mutual grit and determination that readers relate to.

So, for all of you who have not read any of the Jane Perry novels, novellas, or the short story collection, I wanted to give you a brief tour of each book,
in the order I think they should be read.
My wish is that you get to know Jane Perry and cheer her on in the same way you rooted for Betty in this book.

Jane Perry hasn't hit bottom yet, but she's about to. In this prequel to the novel,
Protector
, we meet Jane as she battles the bottle and dives into a strange dream world that appears to be connected to a case being worked at Denver Headquarters. In the dream, Jane meets Devinder Bashir, an East Indian man who is thought to have committed suicide and shamed his family with his alleged sexual fetishes. But the gentleman Jane meets in her altered reality is nothing like the twisted man the cops believe he was. To make matters more complex, he tells Jane he was murdered and he needs her help to clear his good name. Even though Jane questions her grasp on reality, she's compelled to explore Devinder's death and set him free from purgatory.

In this novella, I wanted readers to meet Jane in all her complicated glory. Her tough, no nonsense attitude is obvious but so is her drive to help the victims of crimes….even if this particular victim is already dead. I also wanted to introduce readers to the mystical themes within the Jane Perry series that operates alongside the crime thriller genre. As this novella ends, there's a tease for what is about to happen in the first full-length novel of the series….

Jane is still struggling with her addiction to alcohol and verging on a nervous breakdown. Her mental health is seriously put to the test when a family she was protecting from harm is brutally killed on her watch. Riddled with guilt and plagued by increasingly strange visions that she chalks up to one too many whiskeys, Jane finds her past colliding with her present and readers learn
why
Jane behaves the way she does. In the midst of this chaos, nine-year-old Emily Lawrence witnesses the bloody murder of both her parents but cannot remember what she saw due to emotional trauma. When an attempt is made on Emily's life, Jane is assigned to protect the child and help her remember what she witnessed. The connections that Jane and Emily share during their journey together are both profound and otherworldly. As the killer closes in on Emily, Jane is propelled into her worst nightmare and is forced into a decision that will alter her life forever.

This story takes place six months after
Protector
ends. Because of events in the previous novel, Jane is on her own and working as a private investigator. But she's hit a brick wall in her career. Her personal life is improving as she finally begins to address her addictions. But as this story unfolds, her faith is shaken by several events. Through a series of strange coincidences, she meets a grandmotherly Bohemian, Kit Clark. Kit hires Jane to track down Lou Peters, the man who allegedly murdered her granddaughter years ago. Lou was released due to insufficient evidence but Kit is convinced this charismatic thirty-three year old is responsible for the kidnapping of another teenage girl in California. Jane isn't sold on this theory but takes on the case because she needs the money and feels a strange kinship with Kit. As they dive deeper into the girl's disappearance, Jane's world is rocked by more personal disclosures from her buried past. The roller coaster of emotion continues as time runs out for the missing teenager and it's up to Jane to rescue her before the killer ends her life.

This short interlude between novels finds Jane back at work with Denver Homicide. She's called to a case in an upscale Denver neighborhood where the body of a wealthy woman has been found on her bed, naked and hogtied. In the dead woman's mouth, they find shredded promissory notes; the words “Karma is a Bitch” is written in lipstick on her dead body. The victim, Carolyn Handel, scammed friends and acquaintances out of their life savings in an elaborate Ponzi scheme. As Jane digs into the potential suspects, it becomes clear that many people had both motive and desire to kill the gold digger. The question is, who benefits the most from her death?

This story takes place fifteen months after the events in
Redemption
. As the story opens, Jane is hit hard by troubling personal developments. She wants to take time off from the job but that's not going to happen. Instead, her partner on the job, Sergeant Weyler, asks her to accompany him to Midas, Colorado to help investigate the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old boy. Initial reports reveal that the boy was kidnapped on a remote bridge as he was attempting suicide. As strange as that appears, the case is about to get weirder. The main suspect is Jordan Copeland, a loner who lives in the woods and was released from prison after serving more than thirty years for murdering another boy when he was a teenager. But Jane questions Jordan's guilt. She soon discovers Midas is a town of secrets and every resident she encounters has something to hide. As the odd clues to the boy's disappearance become more complex, Jane soon learns that buried secrets take on a life of their own and hamper her investigation. In the midst of all this, the possibility of love enters Jane's life from the most unlikely of places.
Revelations
is the most personal novel of the series, as readers begin to see a softer and more vulnerable Jane.

This compilation of short stories covers four separate cases that Jane Perry finds herself involved in. The common denominators these stories share are the unseen, or
unrevealed
motives, desires, fears and secrets that plague each of the victims. How far will some people go to hide the truth? As each short story unfolds, the answers to that question will shock many readers.