The newest addition to The O'Connells romantic suspense series is here!  You can pick up Book 5, THE MISSING FATHER, at all eRetailers today.  Plus get your final peek at Luke's story below!

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Chapter 3

“I told you I’m innocent! What do you want from me? Why are you doing this? Where are you taking me? Seriously, I’m not the bad guy here. I didn’t do anything wrong. Who are you guys?”

Stefan Schmitz, in his late forties, with graying hair, had been in a board meeting when they walked in with security from the Harris Group. Rex had cuffed him in front of the six other men and women around the table. One had demanded to know what was going on, but they’d been in and out in less than six minutes.

Stefan was now on the floor in the back of the van, cuffed, a hood over his head. There was something about the scene, the fact that they seemed to be serving as corporate security way too much as of late, that wasn’t sitting right with Luke.

“Hey, hey! Shut up back there or I’ll tape your mouth shut,” Jess called out from the passenger seat.

Luke was behind the wheel, and Rex was in back with the guy. He heard something that sounded like duct tape ripping, and he didn’t have to look in the rear-view mirror to know that Rex had taped Stefan’s mouth. All they could hear was muffled yelling now as they made their way to the airport, mission done. The guy would be on the transport back to Washington that night, and they’d be on a commercial flight the next morning.

Then there was Sienna, whom he wanted to sit down with to find out what was really going on.

“Okay, just heard from Shaun, Matthew, and Sienna,” Jess said. “They have everything, and they’re already back at the hotel. Said something about a key, encrypted files. Whatever—it’s above my paygrade and yours. Can’t wait to get back and have a drink. We’re done.”

He pulled into the airport, up to the military plane that had been waiting. Rex had Stefan out of the back, and he was handed over to military personnel. They were now done. This part of the mission was finished.

“Let’s get out of here, get back to the hotel, have a few beers,” Rex said as he climbed back into the van.

Luke slid behind the wheel again and took in the military plane, seeing Stefan now shackled as he was led onto it, and for a minute, he sympathized, because he knew the man would never have his day in court. Whatever he’d done or whoever he’d pissed off, he’d stepped on the wrong toes.

They arrived back at the hotel and parked underground, and Luke split off from Rex and Jess as they stepped into the lobby. He took in the glass, the brass, the sofas and chairs, and the front desk as he walked over to the open bar. The place had the same high-end feel as the rest of the hotel. Shaun, Matthew, and Sienna were already sitting there, still in suits, nursing beers.

Shaun was watching everyone, his back to the wall, whereas Matthew seemed almost too cozy with Sienna.

“Hey, there, you made it. First round’s on me,” Sienna said. She ordered one of the foreign beers for Luke and slid it over to him. “Where’re Jess and Rex?”

He leaned against the bar, taking her in, lifting the bottle and gesturing to the bartender in thanks. “They’ll be right down,” he said.

Jess had to report in, and Rex was likely seeing that their guns were packed down and ready to go, stowed nowhere a maid could see if one walked in.

“So you’re heading back to Livingston after we get back to base?” Matthew asked, and Sienna too was giving him everything as she lifted her gin and soda with a twist of lime. It was the only drink he ever saw her with.

“Yes, after we finish up,” he said. “Seems Owen is in a bit of a pickle. Ryan mentioned something about girl trouble. I kind of want to check in and find out what’s what with Karen and her hubby, Jack, too. Suzanne seems happy enough, but she got royally screwed over by that asshole Toby, as Marcus put it. Then there’s my mom. Didn’t get much of a chance to really check in with her.”

Shaun lifted his Swiss beer and took a swallow. “Well, at least you have family to go back to.”

“Ah, come on, what am I, chopped liver? You know you love spending time with me,” Matthew said, moving to put his arm around Shaun, who stepped back, giving him a look as if he should know better.

“You’re lucky, Luke, having a family like you do,” Sienna said without looking his way.

Luke looked around the bar, seeing corporate types in suits, women in heels, drinking wine and the kinds of expensive drinks that banker types drank. He took in Jess and Rex coming their way and could already hear Shaun ordering their beers.

There was something about Sienna right now. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was completely off, and it bothered him. For the first time, he feared he could be jammed up for something he wouldn’t see coming. He didn’t want her anywhere near his family or discussing them.

“I am,” he said simply, then took in a tall leggy woman at the end of the bar. Her hair was light brown, her face slender, and her dress black. She was holding a glass of white, sitting alone. He couldn’t help himself. “You know what?” he said, turning to Jess and Rex, who he knew had also spotted the looker. “I’m going to check out six o’clock down there. Wish me luck.”

He picked up his beer and gestured to the bartender. “Bring the woman down there another glass of whatever she’s drinking, and bring me another one of these,” he said, then made his way down the bar.

Her hazel eyes took him in.

“Well, pardon me, ma’am. Are you with someone?” he said.

The bartender slipped her another glass of white wine, and a second beer for him followed.

“I didn’t order this,” she said, and her accent, he thought, was French.

The bartender said, “It’s from the gentleman.”

“Luke O’Connell,” he said as the bartender stepped away. “Yes, a little forward on my part, but I spotted you down here alone. You can either tell me to get lost and toss the drink in my face, or you can say thank you and we can share a drink and conversation.”

She lifted a brow but didn’t smile as she finished off her glass of wine and reached for the other one, sliding it toward herself. She lifted it and took a sip. Something about her seemed flawless. Her dress was classy, with a hint of perfect cleavage, and her fingers were slender and long and ringless.

“Well, thank you,” she said, “but I’m not about to waste a perfectly good glass of wine by tossing it in your face. So, Luke. By the accent, I take it you’re American.” She was confident, and he thought he could listen to the sound of her voice all night.

“Yeah, but I seem to be at a disadvantage here. I’ve already told you my name, but you’ve withheld yours. How about we start with introductions?” He held out his hand as he leaned on the bar. “Luke O’Connell, and your name is?”

She slid around on her stool and took him in, holding out her hand. “Rosemary. Nice to meet you. So what brings you to Geneva, Mr. O’Connell?”

“Luke,” he said, nearly cutting her off. He wasn’t sure what to make of her eyes, the light, the hint of amusement. “Business brings me here.” He held her hand, making an exaggerated motion of looking at her ring finger. “I see no ring, so I take it there’s no angry mister who’s going to show up here and start a bar brawl or shove a fist in my face.”

She said nothing for a second. “No, no one.” She didn’t pull her gaze from him. “And you, Luke, you have a wife hidden at home, a posse of kids, maybe…?”

He just laughed. “No, seems we’re the perfect match here, both single in a bar, having a drink. So tell me, Miss Rosemary, are you visiting this beautiful part of the world or do you live here?”

This time, she slid her hand away as she leaned on the bar top, so close that he got an eyeful of her cleavage. “Like you, Luke, I too am visiting.”

But Charlotte isn’t on board with Marcus’s way of thinking. Because her divorce is now final, she wants—no, expects Marcus to want the same things she does. One of those things is a committed relationship, which, to Charlotte, means marriage. For Marcus, though, marriage is only a piece of paper, and it doesn’t have anything to do with commitment.
 
However, when circumstances change for Eva, whom they both love deeply, Marcus is forced to make some hard decisions to keep both Eva and Charlotte, and he questions his reasons for not wanting marriage. What will he need to do to keep the child he and Charlotte now consider theirs?

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Who wants another sneak peek of THE SECRET HUSBAND?  The next installment in The O'Connells series will be released tomorrow, but you can read Chapter 2 now!

He says he’s innocent, and he needs her help. 



Her first response is to say no, but Karen knows Jack isn’t the kind of guy to ask for help from anyone, especially not from the ex-wife he openly despises and hasn’t seen in years. She knows there must be more to the story—but what she doesn’t know is that the mysterious circumstances surrounding the murder could be the reason their hasty marriage ended so badly.


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Chapter 2

She took in the concrete walls, the gray, the kind of place where she spent way too much time with people who’d found themselves on the wrong side of the law. This time, she struggled between being overwhelmed and numb as she listened to the echoes outside, wondering too many things.

Could the deputy who’d led her back to the interrogation room she was standing in now smell the liquor on her? She should have gone home to her one-bedroom condo. She shouldn’t be here now, and she didn’t know what she was more freaked out over, the fact that she’d dropped her little bomb about Jack Curtis to her brother when she’d sworn to take it to her grave or the fact that she was now waiting for the man she loved and hated all because he’d called her. Like, who did that? Evidently, she still hadn’t learned.

She heard the door. The sound of the county jail was one she didn’t think she’d ever get used to. Instead of sitting and waiting for her client, she stood frozen, unable to feel the dampness under her arms, the ache in her toes from the pumps she’d shoved her swollen feet back into.

Jack was a man she hadn’t seen in…how many years? Six, seven—no, eight.

There he was, being led in by a cop her brother no doubt knew. He was cuffed, in a white dress shirt and dark pants, ultra-conservative, tall, dark, and handsome. He was burned in her memory, but he wasn’t as she remembered. God damn him, he looked even better.

She just gestured to the cop with her chin as he took off the cuffs and then left the room. She still hadn’t said anything. For the first time in her life, she swore, she was at a loss for words. At the same time, the only thing that kept her standing there instead of striding over to Jack and slapping him was the fact that her fingers were digging into her bare arms, which the short cap sleeves of her dress didn’t hide.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said. Yup, that was the same deep voice that had been able to talk her into anything, including having a ring on her finger before he could yank the rug out from under her.

“I shouldn’t be here, considering the difficulties you caused me,” she said. “Pretty sure, from the restraining order and the sheriff’s last talk with me, where he reminded me to grow the fuck up, move on, and never come near you again, that this here is a bad idea for me. But you know that already, so I can’t help wondering why you called me. You killed someone?”

At least she’d managed to add a pissed-off edge to her voice even though it was killing her to stand there so calmly.

He glanced to the door, and she took in his heavy five o’clock shadow. When he rubbed both his wrists, she took in the way his sleeves were rolled up and didn’t miss the cut and elegance of his suit pants—no, a tux. It looked as if it had been made for him, by the expense of the cloth. Yeah, that was custom tailored. His fingers were bare, but then, the cops would have taken everything when they booked him.

“So they said, but it’s not true. You look good.” His blue eyes were frigid, icy, far different than hers. He lifted his chin. “I see you’re a redhead now.”

She wasn’t sure if he was mocking her, and she found herself reaching up to her hair. She’d settled on the color a few years back. It was pulled up and back, and she had to fight to keep her self-doubts, which had kicked the shit out of her confidence, from resurfacing.

“Look, Jack, you didn’t call me here to talk about the shade of my hair, and I can’t help wondering why you did call me. This makes no sense to me, because you shouldn’t be that desperate for a lawyer. The phonebook is flooded with them. Take your pick. I can’t seriously be your only option. I’m very well aware of how you feel about me. Out of all the lawyers to call, why me?”

Yes, she was dedicated, a pit bull, and she fought for her clients, but she was well aware that there were better lawyers out there. The way he was watching her had her remembering everything, the good, the horrible. He had been there one day, gone the next, walking out the door with a suitcase and his final words: It’s over.

“Why not you?” Jack said. “You’re a lawyer and you’re good, and I need one.”

She also knew bullshit. The tension was so thick that her stomach churned, and for a moment thought she might be sick. She was furious that she couldn’t feel anything for him. “Right, so you call me? You know what I remember, Jack, is the day you left me. I stood there, eating my heart, as you packed a suitcase and walked out the door, and as you did, remember what you said to me?” She had to force the lump in her throat away as she swallowed. She couldn’t finish reliving that moment. It had gutted her, the way he looked at her, the way he spoke to her.

The table was between them, and there was something about the way he stood there, so strong and tall. She wasn’t sure what to make of his expression. Evidently, she’d never been able to read him, and obviously, he wasn’t going to answer.

“You told me not to contact you, that it was over,” she said. “You told me this should never have happened, that it was a mistake—that I was a mistake. That’s what I remember.”

He’d stared at her as if he’d hated her. She’d never forget that one look. It haunted her still, and so did the papers she’d been served, which were tucked in the bottom drawer underneath the velvet box that still held his ring, which she couldn’t believe she’d kept.

“What do you want me to say, Karen, that I’m sorry? That’s not why I called you. I think you know you’d be the last person I’d call if there were another option for me.”

There it was, exactly why she didn’t understand why he was calling her now. She just shook her head, looking at a man who’d crushed her and broken her heart into a million pieces, so much so that she hadn’t thought she’d ever be whole again.

“I don’t want to rehash the past,” Jack said, “because that’s not going to get me out of this fucked-up situation. Don’t think it’s lost on me how convenient it was that all of this went down now, and I’m stuck in jail until I can go before a judge on Monday morning. Just get me out of here. I don’t want to rehash something that’s done and over.”

The dismissal in his tone was another reminder of how he seemed able to shut his feelings off with a flick of a switch. All it did was bring that long-buried hurt back, the hurt she thought she’d somehow made sense of. Apparently not. She let her arms fall to her sides, feeling that overwhelming sense of unreasonable anger.

“You know what?” she said. “You were right about something in what you said to me: This relationship of ours has run its course. Now this, here, you calling me to come and…what, get you out of jail and off a murder charge I don’t even know anything about? No. Find yourself another lawyer. Although I empathize, I won’t help you. I will not allow you to break my heart and fuck me around again. Remember the restraining order you managed to get against me? Well, it still exists, and here I am, breaking it. I still have it in my drawer at the office, kind of a reminder of how stupid I was. All you did was make a call, say I threatened you. Yeah, maybe I did in one of those hundreds of messages. Yet here you are, calling me. You killed someone? I don’t get this.” She took a step and then another, taking in the door and wanting nothing more than to get the fuck out of there.

“Karen, you don’t get it. You have every right to hate me, and I know I hurt you—but no, I didn’t kill anyone!” he yelled.

She turned, feeling his anger. At the same time, she just didn’t understand. Why her? Why had he walked away? Why had he done what he’d done? That was the one thing he’d never shared with her.

He pulled in a breath and ran his hand through his thick dark hair, the soft waves. How could she forget wanting to run her fingers through his hair? “That was the only thing I could do at the time to see that you stayed away from me,” he said. “I think you know me well enough to know that I don’t do something without a reason, and I certainly wouldn’t be calling you for help, but the thing is that you’re the only one who can help me and who I can trust.” The passion in his voice was so direct. Yeah, passion and heat had never been their problem.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “I don’t really know you. How can I be the only one who can help you? That makes absolutely no sense, Jack. What is this, this game? Is this just something else to fuck with me, to fuck with my head? It’s been a long time, and I’ve got a good thing going for myself. Why are you here, trying to mess with that?” She was leaning forward, breathing in and out. She hadn’t realized she’d been yelling back at him.

He shut his eyes and exhaled. “Please, Karen, I’m not trying to mess with you. I wouldn’t do that…” He inhaled roughly and glanced to the side. “This may sound absolutely crazy, but when I was arrested and heard the charges, the who, why, and where, all I could think of was calling you—even though I knew the best thing for you would be for me not to call. Please, Karen.”

He lifted his gaze, and all she could think was that the look in his eyes was raw and real. Maybe he was messing with her, but at the same time, she knew what she was going to say the minute she opened her mouth, and she tried to will it away.

“I hate you, Jack.”

He nodded as if he understood. “And you have every right.”

“Fine. I’ll see what I can do to get you out. No promises. Then you find yourself another lawyer.” She put her hand on the door and pounded with her fist. “Let me out,” she snapped, and the door opened.

“Karen…” he called out as she started out the door and the deputy stepped inside. “Thank you.”

She took in the motion as he was cuffed. She didn’t know a damn thing about what had happened. Instead of saying anything back, she just nodded and kept walking, knowing her brother was standing and waiting outside, and she’d just done the one thing she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do: help a man who had destroyed her and broken her heart.

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My apologies that this week's Monday Blog is arriving on Tuesday!  But here it is along with some Friessen family deals that I hope you'll enjoy.  Take care and be well-- Lorhainne

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Uncertain times indeed.
 
You’ve probably noticed that many have gone relatively silent during what can only be described as a time of craziness. Just imagine the looks someone would have gotten months ago if they’d said that an illness would basically shut the world down! Of course, authors have long written about this kind of scenario in fantasy post-apocalyptic fiction.
 
Added to this is the fact that everyone is home now, under one roof, and the crazy, busy, out-of-control speed of life has suddenly come to an absolute standstill. If you aren’t an essential service worker, you’re likely stuck at home, maybe going stir crazy. As we made our way to the store yesterday for essential groceries, even after governments assured everyone there wouldn’t be a food shortage, we were met with empty freezers of frozen vegetables, empty shelves of canned goods. At least stores seem to be enforcing limits to counter the toilet paper shortage—though I still shake my head as to why that happened in the first place.
 
The hoarders are out there, and they’re showing up earlier and earlier. All this does is bring uncertainty and panic to everyone else. You can feel the stress. At the same time, everyone is in the same boat, not knowing what’s around the corner. Schools have closed and will not reopen after spring break. How will this affect my daughter’s education? No one knows yet. Her job in the service industry ended before it could start at spring break. She expected to earn enough money to buy her first car this summer and put money away for college, but that hope has disappeared. Son number two seems to be the most secure, with a job in a grocery store, but only if the ferries keep running. As to his plan for trades school in the fall, again, who knows?
 
Whoever said whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Well, here it is, this uncertainty that will test everyone. My autistic son likely has the biggest challenge of all. Sometimes reminders are needed that those with special needs don’t process and manage stresses and uncertainties as well as others do. What is happening right now is far too abstract for them to really understand. Who isn’t watching the news? We keep up on the latest results, the latest closures, the latest enforcements, the latest panic… But this virus is so abstract, and those who are autistic, with special needs, don’t understand the implications. It’s scary, and panic can hit them. They worry everyone is going to die. My son doesn’t understand why movie theatres are closed, why his sister can’t go to school, why no one can go out. This is true of kids in general, too, but with a special needs child or young adult, it can be that much worse.
 
Yes, we all need to reassure our kids and ourselves, but let this be a reminder that those with special needs will pick up on the stress, the anxiety, and your uncertainty. And the news channels? It’s probably a good idea not to leave them running. Use your earphones and the internet to quickly check on the necessary updates so your kids, and those with special needs, don’t need to experience the dire news playing out on TV. Consider also that any ongoing therapy and outside intervention to help special needs children and young adults function at this time has pretty much ceased. It’s just you now. The thing is, as parents, we know this is just a blip, and we simply have to change up how we do things. For my autistic son, everything he once did outside in terms of socialization, he now does with just us, and it’s not the end of the world. We have a roof over our heads, and everyone is healthy.
 
Find a reason to laugh. I am, as my other son right now is out back, clearing a spot to plant a garden, digging out the rocks and shrubs from a spot that had become an au naturel bushland.
 
These are the times when you do what you can with what you have. Remember that as quick as this shutdown happened, it can and will unhappen.

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Why do so many people have such a difficult time getting past trauma?
 
Those of you who read The Third Call will know that a lot of characters in the book are haunted by their pasts, such as Reine and Eva Colbert, and especially Tommy Marshall. As one reviewer put it, “This book is one of those that interweaves several hot button topics and evokes feelings of anger, sympathy and even shock. It’s a book about a scared little girl, and her calls for help are the catalyst to a situation that quickly spirals out of control and ends in tragedy.” Thank you, Rebecca, for a fantastic and very relevant review.
 
Many of us will have seen someone going through a difficult time and making some really bad choices. How many choices did Tommy and Reine make just to survive because they didn’t see any other way? The Third Call really tackled some difficult subjects and situations where people were barely hanging on. Those are the kinds of situations that could happen to any one of us. No one is immune, but from the outside looking in, our first reaction is often to think that these people should just get over it already. When you’re living in it, though, sometimes you don’t see any other way out.
 
Deputy Marcus O’Connell is one of my all-time favorite characters. One thing about him that I like, as his sister Karen points out, is that he does his best to treat everyone with the same respect and dignity he would want to be treated with in the same circumstances. We may find it hard to have empathy, but remember that having empathy doesn’t necessarily mean giving someone a pass. It means understanding how someone can spiral into a situation they can’t see any way out of.
 
How does someone get to that place? Just remember that this is the nature of trauma and life: The more intense your emotional reaction to a situation, the more it affects you. Everyone does it. We pay attention to the cause. Reine lost her husband and was drowning in debt, and she could barely survive and ended up on the streets, having everything taken from her. Stress, grief, and everything had piled up on top of her. Then there was Tommy. What he had done was so heinous, but when we take the time to understand why he did what he did, we see a snapshot of an emotional situation. Maybe his story made you empathize with his situation and understand that not everything is so black and white.
 
When you live through a traumatic event, your brain takes a snapshot of the experience, which is called a memory. A long-term memory is created from highly emotional experiences. Most people believe that you can’t control your emotional reactions. When you have an emotional reaction to someone or something, and you allow that emotional reaction to continue for days, it becomes a mood. If you keep that same emotional reaction going for weeks or months, it becomes a temperament, and then people see only that side of you. They may ask why you’re so bitter, and at first you might explain what happened, but when your emotional reaction continues for years on end, it becomes a personality trait, just part of who you are.
 
When you recall the event, your stress hormones surge. They say, “Hey! Pay attention to what happened, because you want to be prepared if it ever happens again.” So you relive it and re-experience it every day. The problem is that 70% of people end up living their lives in stress, anticipating the worst-case scenario because of what happened to them. Maybe you lost everything, or you were the victim of something, or you were taken advantage of, or your rights were violated, or you had no voice and no way to fight back. What happens is you begin to expect the worst-case scenario to happen every day. When you recall that horrible experience, you begin to emotionally embrace it, and you condition your body into fear. When you do it enough times, your body has a panic attack. How are your reasoning skills then? You condition yourself subconsciously.
 
You may ask people, why are you this way? Why are you such an asshole? Why are you living on the streets? Why are you so angry? They might tell you that it all comes down to a traumatic experience that happened 20 years ago. You heard Reine and Tommy’s stories. The emotions of those experiences allowed you to feel something. In your own life, you may be using similar problems to reaffirm your limitations or explain to yourself why you are the way you are. Every time you recall an event, you produce the same chemistry in your body. The body has no idea if the experience you are recalling is happening now or in the past.
 
When you make the choice to change, it may seem easy enough until you take a step to actually change. Then you are going to feel uncomfortable. When you decide to step into the change, and you suddenly try to stop feeling what you usually do, you might revert to the blame game, to pointing fingers. Your body will tell you that you’ve been doing this for ten or twenty years, and you think you’re suddenly going to stop feeling shameful, or making excuses, or feeling as if the world is out to get you? When you try to stop complaining or blaming or making excuses for yourself, it becomes too much of an unknown for your body, which has been conditioned for these reactions. That’s when you hear that little voice in your head that says, Start tomorrow, not today. Just go back to bed. Maybe you tell yourself you need to clean your house or yard first, or you have some big project, or you need to do something for the kids. Or maybe your head just reminds you that this is your lot in life, and you’re just like your siblings, or your mother, or your family. You tell yourself this type of change can never work, and you need to be realistic, because this doesn’t feel right.
 
You might usually start your day with a coffee, reliving something awful that someone did or said to you. Or maybe you think about how something blew up in your face, or maybe you just conjure up the worst-case scenario as the outcome of a situation that hasn’t happened yet. The body is stronger than the mind, and the unknown is a scary place for most people. Taking a step into the unknown is something many do not want to do, yet the best way to create your future is just to create it. You may relive those horrible outcomes and situations, but what would happen if you did the opposite? What if you rehearsed in your mind what a happy outcome or situation would be instead? It doesn’t have to be grand or huge—just something small, a smile, a laugh.
 
Basically, you tell yourself what you would like an event or your day to actually look like. This is called priming. When you do this, can you imagine that you would suddenly start acting like a happy person? Wouldn’t you rather be defined by a vision of your future, not a past event or trauma? Some people will use their bosses to reaffirm their addiction to judgement, use their enemies to reaffirm their addiction to hatred, use their friends to reaffirm their addiction to suffering. But change means becoming aware of where you are putting your attention. Are you putting your energy into that emotional traumatic past? Maybe at six p.m., you’re used to getting really upset because that’s when you’re stuck in traffic. Or maybe at nine p.m., you’re used to feeling anger and outrage because you usually watch the news—and as journalists put it, if it bleeds, it leads. Or maybe at seven a.m., you’re used to drinking coffee and judging everyone and being angry and rushed, checking your emails and seeing all the fires you have to put out.
 
Most people spend their lives in lack, not having what they truly want, and this can create a downward spiral. Change is the difference between living like a victim and controlling and creating your reality. You are not your past or your trauma. Ask yourself this: Does your thinking create your environment, or does your environment create your thinking?

Did you miss my newest release? 

My latest novel, THE THIRD CALL, was released this past weekend--I really loved writing this story and hope it'll touch something in you as it has in me.  Audio and paperback versions will be available soon, but in the meantime, you can pick up the eBook from all retailers everywhere.  Enjoy this newest addition to The O'Connells series! 

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THE THIRD CALL (The O'Connells, Book 2) is now sold at your favorite digital stores.  Grab your copy today at:

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He says he’s innocent, and he needs her help. 

Her first response is to say no, but Karen knows Jack isn’t the kind of guy to ask for help from anyone, especially not from the ex-wife he openly despises and hasn’t seen in years. She knows there must be more to the story—but what she doesn’t know is that the mysterious circumstances surrounding the murder could be the reason their hasty marriage ended so badly.