Paramedic and deputy coroner Zoe Chambers responds to a shooting and discovers her longtime friend, Horace Pavelka, has gunned down a man who’d bullied him mercilessly for decades. Ruled self-defense, no charges are filed. When another of his tormentors turns up dead in Horace’s kitchen, Police Chief Pete Adams questions the man’s innocence in both cases…especially after Horace and his girlfriend go into hiding.
While fighting to clear her friend, Zoe is handed the opportunity to finally learn what really happened to her long-lost sibling. What starts out as a quick road trip on a quest for answers leads her to an unfamiliar city in the middle of a November blizzard, where she finds way more trouble than she bargained for.
Pete’s own search for his missing fiancée and a missing murderer ultimately traps him in a web of deception. Face-to-face with one of the most cunning and deadly killers of his law enforcement career, Pete realizes too late that this confrontation may well be his last.
Character Guest Post
My name is Zoe Chambers. I’m a paramedic and a deputy coroner in Monongahela County, which is about thirty miles southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It’s farm country. More horses and cows than people. I’ve lived here all my life and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Another thing I can’t quite imagine is being part of a real family.
My dad died almost thirty years ago. I was eight. My mom didn’t handle it well. She remarried to my dad’s best friend, who did the best he could to be a father to me. But when I was a teenager, they decided to move to Florida. My mom didn’t argue when I insisted on staying behind. I told her I wanted to finish high school where I’d started it. That should’ve raised red flags. Let’s face it, I wasn’t even close to being on the honor roll. Back then, education wasn’t my first priority.
Thankfully, my best friend’s parents took me in. They were the closest thing to a real family I’d known in a long time.
My relationship with my mom and stepdad continues to be strained. Now, my family consists of my co-workers at the ambulance service. And my fiancé. Pete Adams and I became close pals long before the relationship went beyond mere friendship. Last summer he proposed, and I accepted. Maybe I can finally have that family I’ve craved.
But then there’s my long-lost sibling. Not the brother I thought had come into my life last spring. That relationship was tragic and complicated. It nearly killed me. And Pete. Just when I thought I was getting past that awful night, my mother called and dropped a bomb. I really did have another sibling out there. A half sibling. My father had a love child with a high school sweetheart long before he and my mom hooked up.
That was months ago. I haven’t made a move to follow up on the news. For one thing, I don’t know where to start. My mother would never help me. For another, I’m not ready. Not after everything that went down the last time.
But then yesterday, I had a visit from a friend who’s an investigative journalist. She told me she has information about my dad’s other child. A brother. All I have to do is tell her I’m ready to start the search.
Am I’m ready for a real family? I don’t know. I really don’t know.
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