| Author: | Margarite St. John | ISBN: | 1230000226421 |
| Publisher: | Bauer Communications Inc. | Publication: | March 18, 2014 |
| Imprint: | Language: | English |
| Author: | Margarite St. John |
| ISBN: | 1230000226421 |
| Publisher: | Bauer Communications Inc. |
| Publication: | March 18, 2014 |
| Imprint: | |
| Language: | English |
At 33, Alexandra “Lexie” Royce is beautiful, smart, newly divorced, and very, very rich. She and her half-brother, Rolland, are the owners of Summit City Metals and Scrapyard, a fourth-generation family business which has been losing steam ever since the sudden death of their father four years earlier.
But the family business in Fort Wayne, Indiana isn’t what made Lexie rich. Just before the market crash of 2008, she sold her junk-removal and shredder businesses, which she had franchised, to a multi-national waste conglomerate. Now she’s a speaker at conferences for women entrepreneurs, appears on cable business shows, and is asked by a New York publisher to write a self-help guide for women entrepreneurs.
Though money is good to have, it doesn’t cure loneliness, mend relationships, or make Lexie wiser. In fact, it blinds her to the dangers around her.
She is reunited with her old high-school boyfriend, Steve Wright, but he’s still angry about their breakup fifteen years’ earlier and, besides, he has a young girlfriend who’s expecting to marry him. Lexie’s affection for him is tested when Steve becomes a murder suspect and is rumored to be having an affair with an old friend.
Lexie’s brother, known as “Rolie” for his pudgy shape and the Rolls Royce he owns, is a gambler and drug dealer. Though he neglects the family business despite a hefty salary for running it, he expects his sister to invest in Summit City Metals to benefit him and his mother. When Lexie resists, his harassment of her escalates
Ferrell Hawke, her abusive ex-husband, claims an aristocratic heritage in England. He thinks Lexie hid her assets when they were divorced, and now that he has an expensive new girlfriend, wants to re-open the settlement so he can get his hands on a few more millions. He’s made her life such hell that Lexie sleeps with a gun on her night table.
Robert Passwatter, Fort Wayne’s financial genius who founded Passwatter Global Investments, is an old family friend and advisor. Though he’s like a second father to Lexie, he nevertheless takes Rolie’s side against her, chides her for being selfish, and warns her not to marry again.
Even Lexie’s step-mother, Matilda, and her old friend and office manager, Jean Arnold, take advantage of her. The best friend she has turns out to be the least expected -- Drago Bott, a small-time con man who is her housekeeper’s son and her brother’s chauffeur and drug enforcer.
When a pervert starts breaking into women’s houses to steal their underwear and then beautiful young women are found murdered, Lexie has no idea that she’s in danger too until she impulsively retreats to a beautiful lodge in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to write a book and think about her engagement.
Only then does she learn she’s the next victim.
At 33, Alexandra “Lexie” Royce is beautiful, smart, newly divorced, and very, very rich. She and her half-brother, Rolland, are the owners of Summit City Metals and Scrapyard, a fourth-generation family business which has been losing steam ever since the sudden death of their father four years earlier.
But the family business in Fort Wayne, Indiana isn’t what made Lexie rich. Just before the market crash of 2008, she sold her junk-removal and shredder businesses, which she had franchised, to a multi-national waste conglomerate. Now she’s a speaker at conferences for women entrepreneurs, appears on cable business shows, and is asked by a New York publisher to write a self-help guide for women entrepreneurs.
Though money is good to have, it doesn’t cure loneliness, mend relationships, or make Lexie wiser. In fact, it blinds her to the dangers around her.
She is reunited with her old high-school boyfriend, Steve Wright, but he’s still angry about their breakup fifteen years’ earlier and, besides, he has a young girlfriend who’s expecting to marry him. Lexie’s affection for him is tested when Steve becomes a murder suspect and is rumored to be having an affair with an old friend.
Lexie’s brother, known as “Rolie” for his pudgy shape and the Rolls Royce he owns, is a gambler and drug dealer. Though he neglects the family business despite a hefty salary for running it, he expects his sister to invest in Summit City Metals to benefit him and his mother. When Lexie resists, his harassment of her escalates
Ferrell Hawke, her abusive ex-husband, claims an aristocratic heritage in England. He thinks Lexie hid her assets when they were divorced, and now that he has an expensive new girlfriend, wants to re-open the settlement so he can get his hands on a few more millions. He’s made her life such hell that Lexie sleeps with a gun on her night table.
Robert Passwatter, Fort Wayne’s financial genius who founded Passwatter Global Investments, is an old family friend and advisor. Though he’s like a second father to Lexie, he nevertheless takes Rolie’s side against her, chides her for being selfish, and warns her not to marry again.
Even Lexie’s step-mother, Matilda, and her old friend and office manager, Jean Arnold, take advantage of her. The best friend she has turns out to be the least expected -- Drago Bott, a small-time con man who is her housekeeper’s son and her brother’s chauffeur and drug enforcer.
When a pervert starts breaking into women’s houses to steal their underwear and then beautiful young women are found murdered, Lexie has no idea that she’s in danger too until she impulsively retreats to a beautiful lodge in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to write a book and think about her engagement.
Only then does she learn she’s the next victim.
