During surveillance of a cheating husband, Jackie Briley, novice in the world of private investigating, nearly comes undone
when discovered by the focus of her stakeout. Running out the door of Bryant’s Furniture Store where she has been hiding
Ms. Briley escapes into the darkness, fearful that deceitful husband Stephen Bryant is close on her heels. Her delight in getting
away from Mr. Bryant is short-lived however, when she experiences all the phantasms and would-be threats, which she
imagines lurk on the streets in the bad part of town. While Jackie is coping with a three-hour walk home in the dark
accompanied by her every-shadow-is-a-killer imagination, her new employer Juanita Tinsley is in real trouble. She is
kidnapped. Once Jackie learns of the abduction and despite her naïveté, not to mention total lack of experience, she convinces
Juanita Tinsley’s partner to allow her to set off in pursuit of Ms. Tinsley’s abductor. There is no trail and she has no plan but
this does not prevent Jackie from flying headstrong into the unknown two days later with wealthy Warren Chandler. Jackie’s
flight out of Virginia to search for her boss is destined for New Mexico, but after meeting Warren on the plane he convinces
her to stop off in Atlanta with him before flying to the Southwest. Atlanta is not the end of Warren Chandler, however, when
Jackie throws caution to the wind and agrees to accompany him to his resort/hide-a-way in the mountains of North Carolina
where she literally falls off the cliff.
Warren’s exclusive and expensive hotel institution, the Blue Ridge Watergate, is well hidden. Established twenty years earlier
this resort caters to people who want to drop out, hide out, or to hide someone from public view. Although she’s known him
less than forty-eight hours Jackie throws off her conservative and sheltered ways and agrees to accompany Warren to the Blue
Ridge Watergate. Arriving in the late afternoon and before they settle in for the evening Warren convinces Jackie to go for a
night ride. Almost immediately the treacherous mountain roads become their nemesis, and this time the danger Jackie faces in
the dark is much more than a shadow.
Stamps Johnson, Gladys Pursor, and Sally Bedford are employees at the Blue Ridge Watergate. Each of them takes at least
one night walk, and even though their night adventures begin for different reasons the end result is the same in that each is a
part of the puzzle of Juanita Tinsley’s kidnapping. Lettie Pritchett, an older woman, believing she is safe while surfing the web
under different names, tells too much about herself to a cyber friend. These revelations later become the catalyst for abduction
and attempted murder. Lettie literally becomes the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back when she inadvertently
pushes an already fractured mind beyond the point of its endurance.
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |