The truth can be deadly.
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Shady Justice
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by Rena Koontz
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Genre: Thriller, Romantic Suspense
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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?
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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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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.
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How it all started
If you’re already familiar with me as an author, you’ve heard this story.
I guess I’ve always been a writer. I say that because when my mother died and my sister and I were cleaning out her cedar chest, I found a stack of rubber-banded pages, a few in envelopes, some folded, a couple on five-inch spiral notebook paper.
They were notes I’d written to my mother when I was younger, beginning with the lined paper we used in grade school when we learned to write. Remember those? Two bold lines with a dashed line in between so we knew where the lower-case letters stopped. I was pretty good at staying in the lines.
In high school, when my English teacher asked what I planned to do with my life and scoffed at my answer – “I want to be a teacher – he chided me that every female in the building planned to be a teacher. Didn’t I know I had a talent for writing?
I hadn’t yet discovered the collection of missives my mother kept, some starting with “once upon a time” and my favorite, “Mother, I don’t think you love me anymore.”
So no, I didn’t think I could write. He convinced me to enter an essay contest that I won! It was the first time I ever saw my name in print in a publication. Couple that with the first novel I stole from my sister’s reading shelf, The Flame and The Flower, and I was hooked. I wanted to write a book like that someday.
I made my career as a newspaper reporter, which involved writing every day, most days with a deadline looming. And I won awards so I was good at it.
Always in the back of my mind, though, was that thought that I wanted to write a book like Kathleen Woodiwiss had done.
“One book,” I told my husband. “I just want to see my name on the cover of one book.”
My first book was published in 2012. Shady Justice is number 10. I’m already 18,000 words into book number 11. And again, my peers have honored me with awards and five-star reviews.
I guess I really can write!
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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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