Devious Minds
(A Shelby Nichols Adventure Series #8)
by Colleen Helme
Blurb:
It’s been almost a year since a near-fatal gunshot wound left Shelby Nichols with the ability to read minds. In that time she’s faced one problem after another. She’s been shot at, framed for murder, and targeted by a serial killer, just to name a few. Now she’s trying to help her lawyer husband win a murder trial that will enable him to become a partner in his law firm. Sounds easy, right? But nothing ever goes as planned when it comes to Shelby Nichols.
When special agent, Blake Beauchaine, shows up to collect a debt from Shelby, things get even more complicated, and Shelby is soon on her way to Paris. A routine meeting with a rogue agent reveals a sinister plot, putting Shelby into the cross-hairs of a known terrorist. Even worse, she doesn’t speak French, so it seems her mind-reading abilities won’t help her this time.
Things go from bad to downright dangerous for Shelby, especially since her usual guardians, Uncle Joey, and his hit-man, Ramos, are back in the states. Lost and on her own in the streets of Paris, can Shelby escape the cold-blooded killer in time to stop his devious plans, or will this be the end of the line for Shelby Nichols?
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Excerpt
The first day of spring arrived,
filling me with an overwhelming sense of freedom. Even though the temperature
wasn’t real warm, it meant that winter was officially over. Even better, a ride
on the motorcycle behind Ramos was now a possibility.
I’d missed that and I’d missed
him. He’d been gone for two weeks helping Uncle Joey take care of some
out-of-town business. I wasn’t exactly sure what that entailed and... believe
me, I didn’t want to know. Jackie, Uncle Joey’s secretary and wife, told me
they were both due back in the next few days, and deep down where I didn’t want
to admit it, I could hardly wait to see them again.
That probably made me a bad
person, since I worked for Uncle Joey, and he was a mob-boss. Ramos was his
hit-man and he’d saved my life a few times. I had to admit, it was a far cry
from the first time I’d met Ramos almost a year ago, when he was thinking he
might have to kill me for the big boss.
I’d had to tell Uncle Joey my
secret that I could read minds to stop that from happening. Since then, my
skills had come in handy for Uncle Joey, and gotten me into a lot of trouble.
But he’d always been there to bail me out, both literally and figuratively.
So now I helped Uncle Joey, not
because I was forced into it, but because I wanted to. That was just twisted on
so many levels, and he wasn’t even my real uncle. But I couldn’t seem to stop,
so I did my best to keep on the right side of things.
Ramos was another part of that
story. He was one hot and swoon-worthy man any woman would fall for. I had to
keep reminding myself that I was happily married every time I laid eyes on him.
He was the quintessential bad boy and, like a decadent chocolate dessert with
whipped cream and a cherry on top, something that I might want in the worst
way, but would also be very bad for me.
If I wasn’t married with kids...
well, who knew what could happen, but I loved my husband and children, and
Ramos respected that. Even so, there were still times when my heart seemed to
have a mind of its own around him, and I’d have to rein it in or lose control,
which was not an option.
Only a handful of people knew I
could read minds, and I liked it that way. I told everyone else I had
premonitions, and that mostly worked. I also had my own consulting agency,
which included helping the police along with my own clients. Because of that, I
managed to get into even more trouble, and that wasn’t counting the mob-boss
part.
Like now.
My husband, Chris, had asked for
my help on a hard case. He was an associate partner in the prestigious law firm
of Cohen, Larsen and Pratt. This case was the single most important event of
Chris’ career, mostly because the partners were looking to replace the Cohen
part of the firm, and changing it to Larsen, Pratt and... Nichols.
This was a huge deal, and I
wondered if the fact that Chris handled all of Uncle Joey’s accounts had
something to do with it. Probably, but I wasn’t touching that with a ten foot
pole. This put a lot of pressure on me. Not as much as Chris, but still… I
didn’t want to screw it up for him.
That brought me to my problem. I
wasn’t sure I wanted to help Chris, mostly because he was defending a woman
accused of killing her husband, and ten million dollars from the life insurance
policy was in the balance. To complicate matters even more, the husband’s
company was one of Chris’ biggest clients.
If they won, Chris’ firm would get
a nice, fat share, and also keep the company as a client. But from everything
he’d told me, she sounded guilty as sin. If I listened to her thoughts, I’d know
for sure, and that would just ruin everything. It made me realize that
sometimes my ‘gift’ wasn’t so great. Not when I had to use it to get someone
off who actually deserved some jail time.
But... wasn’t that what I did for
Uncle Joey? So how was this any worse?
In fact, I’d recently made a deal
with a government agent to keep Uncle Joey out of prison. In exchange for my
help on one of his cases, he’d agreed to make any charges against Uncle Joey
disappear. When Uncle Joey found out what I’d done, he wasn’t too happy with
me. Especially since he thought I’d told Blake Beauchaine I could read minds.
Once he knew I hadn’t, and Blake
just wanted me for what he thought were my mad interrogation skills, he’d
calmed down. Still, Uncle Joey told me he could have handled anything Blake
might have thrown at him without my deal. To be honest, it kind of hurt my
feelings. Then he made me promise to involve him if Blake ever came to collect.
So now on top of everything else,
I had Blake’s phone call to look forward to, and Uncle Joey to involve after
that. It was enough to give me an ulcer.
“Shelby? We’re ready for you,”
Chris said, poking his head out of the conference room.
The Shelby Nichols Adventure Series
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About The Author
You can find Colleen at
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