By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Dale Mayer

Riches to rags. …
Hidden guns, …
old but not forgotten wounds, …
and a buried treasure!

Finding an Uzi in the urn at the shattered mausoleum is exciting and frustrating. Yet Doreen can’t delve into the case, and Mack has been firm about that. She struggles to focus on other cases from her journalist files, in particular the Bob Small file. Only her plan goes off the rails when Nan and her cronies show up at her door, with the Rosemoor bus, intent on heading to the excitement happening at the cemetery.

When a grave is opened to reveal its shocking contents, the city is on high alert, as gang members arrive, circling around, looking for a rumored buried treasure, all connected to a man who died six months ago. Between crooked lawyers, greedy family members, changes of heart, and everyone else out looking for a buried treasure, Corporal Mack Moreau is on his toes. Especially as Doreen and her animal cohorts are in the middle once again.

But no one could possibly envision where this case ends up—right back in the cemetery where it all started …

What starts as a stroll through the cemetery after a funeral ends up with not only the title of Doreen’s new case but also her being sent home with Arnold while Mack stayed behind to work.

Once home waiting for Mack to call her, she makes the mistake of not checking before answering her phone and it’s her soon to be ex, Matthew. After a not so pleasant sort of conversation that she hangs up on him, she lets Nick know that he called, and she answered. Nick decides it’s time to turn up the heat and get this divorce done. This leads to Matthew threatening her and Nick moving the court case up.

In the meantime, Mack is dealing with the Uzi they found and then the larger stash in a second grave. It’s a dangerous situation and he doesn’t want Doreen involved. She’s really trying to stay out of it and starts looking into the Bob Small case. She needs to contact Hinja’s great niece Mila since there’s a possibility, he’s involved in the Uzi case. What she finds is more disturbing, apparently at Hinja’s funeral there was a old man Mila didn’t know. He admired her hair, which is curly and Bob Smith’s type. Doreen warns her to be vigilant, so nothing happens to her.

More calls from Matthew as he gets more and more annoying. But when he shows up Mack puts a stop to his intrusion.

This is a favorite scene.

As Mathew turned, a bit astonished, there was Mack, an avenging angel, standing firm, his hands on his hips, glaring at Mathew. He looked back at Doreen and snapped, “And you have some explaining to do.”

She winced. “I opened the door. I won’t get off the hook on that one, will I?”

“No, you won’t,” Mack declared, turning his attention back to Mathew. “And I have a cell waiting for you.” Mack turned and pointed to Arnold and Chester, big grins on their faces and handcuffs in their hands.

Before Mathew had a chance to argue, he was handcuffed and led away to a cruiser.

Doreen stared at Mack in astonishment, then called out to Mathew, as he was being led to the car, “That new jewelry looks good on you.”

Mathew turned, and the sight of her with Mack seemed to be Mathew’s undoing. He started swearing and cussing and threatening her. At that, Mack noted in a clipped voice, “That gives us a whole lot more ammunition,” he told Mathew, “so keep it up.”

Almost as if Mack finally got through to Mathew that this was serious, Mathew shut up and allowed himself to be put into the back of the cruiser. With that, Chester got into the front seat with Arnold, and they drove off.

She turned to look at Mack. “I know I did wrong. I checked one of the side windows, but I couldn’t see who was on the porch. And you told me that you were watching to see if he flew in and would let me know.”

He groaned. “How is it you always turn this around to me?”

She smiled at him. “It depends on whether or not you’ll yell at me.”

He glared at her. “You know what you deserve.”

She opened her arms. “Not to be yelled at. It was already bad enough having him here.”

Instantly Mack’s anger fell away, and he opened his arms.

She stepped into them, smiling, as Mack wrapped his arms tightly around her. She muttered, “I really don’t like that man.”

Mack snorted. “Fine time to figure that out,” he replied, with a headshake.

“You’ll tell your brother?”

“Oh, I’m so going to tell him. Now we’ll charge him with threatening you again, trying to force his way inside, and anything else I can think of,” Mack declared, with a glare in her direction. “What did he want?”

“He said that he wasn’t leaving until we settled the divorce and that I was supposed to accept what he had offered and to stop being greedy and that I didn’t deserve all his money.”

“Of course, and what did you say?”

“I told him that he was supposed to talk to the lawyers.”

“That would have maybe been okay, except he was already past it, I presume.”

“Yeah, he started getting really angry at that point. I don’t think he likes Nick very much.”

Mack chuckled. “No. When my brother’s on your side, it’s a good place to have him. However, when he’s against you, I’m pretty sure he’s scary.”

“Well, I’m done with enough scary in this lifetime,” she muttered. “Can’t say I want more scariness.” He gave her a gentle squeeze, then nudged her back indoors. “We’re creating a scene.”

She looked around to see Richard, standing there, glaring at her. She glared back at him.

“You see? You’re causing trouble again.” Richard shook a fist at her.

She picked up her own fist and shook it at him. “You could have called the cops and given me a hand.”

He looked at her in surprise.

“You mean, you needed help?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

“Oh.” With that, he went inside.

She looked back at Mack. “You know that it’s not easy living here, right?”

He sighed, pulled her inside, and closed the door. He then greeted the animals that were all over him. “What did Mugs do?”

“He wouldn’t stop barking at Mathew,” she replied, “which upset Mathew too.”

“Yeah, I suppose Mugs knows what Mathew is like?”

“Somewhat, yes. Mugs always was perfectly groomed and looked after because of Mathew’s strict rules, so I don’t know if Mathew knows how badly dogs can act. Mugs was definitely on my side.”

“In that case, good boy,” he said to Mugs, who was quite happy to get any accolades coming his way, so took advantage and rubbed all over Mack.

She shook her head. “Even when I think I’m doing right, I’m not doing right,” she muttered.

He sighed. “Don’t start that. You’re doing just fine.”

“Yeah, doesn’t feel that way,” she said. “Even with your help and Nick’s, I still can’t get the divorce done.”

“Oh, we’ll get it through now,” Mack stated, “and we’ll have quite a few extra charges that Mathew must consider too.”

“Will you really charge him?” she asked.

“Yeah, or use it as pressure to get him to do whatever he needs to do to get this done and gone and to ensure he never crosses your pathway again.”

“And then what happens if he doesn’t?” He gave her a wolfish smile.

“Then we get to throw the book at him,” he said cheerfully.

“Can’t you do that now?” she complained. “And skip all the rest of it?”

He burst out laughing. “Remember that part about still needing to follow the law?”

“I think the law needs to change,” she announced.

He nodded. “A lot of parts in the law do need to be changed,” he agreed. “What then? Will you become a lawyer now?”

She looked at him and shuddered. “I don’t think I could do that job.”

“No, I don’t think you could. Besides, that’s what Nick does best, and I don’t think he wants any competition.”

She snorted at that. “Yeah, I think he’s scared of me as it is.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Mack muttered. “Lots of people are.”

“I’m not scary,” she protested. “Why would you even say that?”

He rolled his eyes, as she led them into the kitchen, and asked her, “How about coffee?”

She looked at him in delight. “Can you stay?”

“I can stay a little bit,” he replied, “while they arraign Mathew down at the station.”

“Good. Can they throw away the key too, or at least give it to Chester to lose it for a while?” she muttered.

He chuckled. “They will treat him as well as they can, but they won’t go overboard. They all know who he is, and they know what he’s doing.”

“Good,” she muttered. “I never did anything to him, you know? It feels very strange to even be in this position now.”
Dale Mayer. Uzi-in-the-Urn-Dale-Mayers-re (Kindle Locations 1186-1242). Kindle Edition.

There really is a lot going on in this book and Mack even lets her go back to the cemetery to snoop. She doesn’t find answers then but does get creeped out over a man lurking nearby.

So many threads to follow here, we learn a bit more about Matthew and his dealings. Doreen somehow manages to unravel most of them but has Mack with her to check things out.

Of course, the real heroes are Thaddeus, Goliath and Mugs.

I really can’t wait for the next book in this series. There’s still so much at stake.

5 Contented Purrs for Dale!

Dale Mayer

Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).

She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!

To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.