No one can run forever.
“Shannon, I’ve known you four years…I can sense the change in you.”
Silence fell in the car. Shannon turned her head to stare out the windshield. Ben studied her.
“What happened, Shannon?” he asked quietly.
She turned back to him. “I had a dark past.”
Ben smiled slightly. “I guessed. Someone with a scar like that didn’t just sit at home knitting tea cozies.”
“I told you, I had a minor disagreement with a chain link fence. What more do you want?”
Ben laughed. “If you’re going to make it up, at least say you got it in a bar fight or something. That’s way more exciting.”
“If I told you the truth, you’d never believe me.”
“You could always try.”
She looked away.
Detective Shannon Blake has a secret. One which, for ten years, she hid behind the façade of a normal life until an unknown man is murdered in her living room, a volatile ex reappears and a brother returns from the dead, forcing her back into her dark and buried past.
Desperate to save those she has come to love as family: her partner, Detective Ben Rhodes, and friend, Detective Neil Fisher, Shannon must choose between the life she made in Vancouver and the one that haunts her in Montreal. She must face forgotten demons and memories, former friends, enemies, and above all else, the person she does not want to be.
She seeks revenge and justice. For years, Shannon suspected Jon Aspen, the drug kingpin who threatened her, abused her, and sentenced her to prison, of being involved in her mother’s disappearance. As Shannon works to dismantle Jon’s network and solve her mother’s murder, she comes to realize only one of them will survive.
* * *
Detective Shannon Blake remains one of the most vivid characters I have ever written. She appeared out of no where, surprising me by taking on a life of her own. She told me how the story was going to go, which made the whole process of writing the mystery/thriller novel, Hidden in Shadow, that much more fun. She took me to unexpected places, pushing me well beyond my writing comfort zone. With some revisions, I expect to one day see this novel in print.