To Catch a Bad Guy
(Book One of the Janet Maple Series)
By
Marie Astor
To Catch a Bad Guy
by
Marie Astor
Copyright 2012 Marie Astor
Excerpt from Catching the Bad Guy copyright 2013 Marie Astor
Excerpt from Thirsty for Payback copyright 2014 Marie Astor
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Website: www.marieastor.com
Facebook: Author Marie Astor
Twitter: @marieastor
Books by Marie Astor:
Janet Maple Series
To Catch a Bad Guy
Catching the Bad Guy
Bad Guys Get Caught
Bad Guys Don’t Win
Sinful Business Series
Thirsty for Payback
Baiting Trouble
Standalone Contemporary Romance Titles
This Tangled Thing Called Love
Lucky Charm
Smitten at First Sight
More books by Marie:
A Dress in a Window (a short story collection)
Over the Mountain and Back (a young adult fantasy adventure novel)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
About Marie
Excerpt from Catching the Bad Guy Book 2 in the Janet Maple Series
Excerpt from Thirsty for Payback, Book 1 of the Sinful Business Series
Chapter 1
Janet Maple took a deep breath while she waited for her train to arrive. She was twenty-nine years old, but this morning she felt like a first-grader. The same sickening feeling churned her stomach that she remembered when she first entered a room full of strangers as a five-year-old. She was much older now – a professional with a law degree to boot, and, until recently, with a successful career at the District Attorney’s office, but today none of these things gave her comfort or confidence.
It was not merely the prospect of starting a new job that gave Janet the heebie-jeebies, but it was the fact that she would be working for Lisa Foley. Talk about stirring up old insecurities… Lisa Foley had been the queen bee in high school. Come to think of it, Lisa was still the queen bee. Every time Janet talked to her best friend from high school, Lisa never failed to bring back ‘the old glory days’ as she called them. With friends like Lisa, who needed a time machine? One could always count on Lisa’s sharp memory to recall every embarrassing incident of adolescence.
Well, the past is the past, Janet thought. I should be thankful to Lisa for giving me a job. When your former boss also happens to be your ex-boyfriend, the subject of references becomes dicey to say the least. Regardless of how stellar one’s background looks on paper, employers always want references, but Lisa had hired Janet without any references. In fact, Lisa’s phone call had come with unsettlingly perfect timing. Just as Janet was about to give up all hope of white-collar employment, her old friend had come to the rescue. That was another one of Lisa’s remarkable qualities: for as long as Janet had known her, her friend seemed to have a radar for people’s misfortunes. In high school, Lisa was always the first to know who got dumped, who didn’t make the cut on the football team, and whose parents got laid off. So it was not surprising that Lisa knew about Janet’s being “downsized” by the District Attorney’s office, and when she offered her a job as Assistant General Counsel at Bostoff Securities, Janet literally jumped at the chance.
“Janie! Come in, come in!” Lisa rose from behind her long mahogany desk and opened her arms in an offer of a hug.
“Hi, Lisa.” Janet stooped for an air kiss. At five seven, Janet was no giant, and her weight was smack in the middle of the healthy range for her height. But at five two and ninety five pounds, Lisa made everyone feel as though they were towering over her.
“Sit, sit.” Lisa waved her hand at the leather chair opposite her desk. “I’m so excited that we’ll be working together – it’s going to be just like old times.”
“I’m really glad to be here, Lisa, and thank you again for giving me the job.”
“That’s what friends are for, right? To help each other out when you’re down in the dumps,” Lisa answered her own question. “So, how was your orientation?”
When Janet started her employment at the DA’s office, there had been a rigorous four-week orientation to initiate her and fellow law school recruits into the intricacies of the Assistant District Attorneys’ job responsibilities. But here, at the Bostoff Securities, the orientation only resembled the process by its title – the entire affair had taken scarcely thirty minutes, as Janet was shoved into a tiny room for her photo ID picture and given a thick binder with the company forms to sign. Janet supposed she was an experienced attorney now, and it was time she started acting like one around Lisa.
“It went well; I got all this paperwork to complete.” Janet raised the thick folder she’d been given at the orientation.
“Don’t worry about that; it’s just your generic HR stuff. What time is it now?” Lisa fumbled with her Cartier watch. “Perfect timing; we’re going to lunch. But first, let me show you to your office.” Lisa slid from behind her desk. As usual, she looked spectacular: her navy pinstriped suit seemed to have been made for her miniature body (and it probably had been), her four-inch Louboutin stilettos elongated her slender legs, and her pixie cut emphasized the perfect features of her face. She looked like a corporate version of Winona Ryder.
As Janet followed Lisa down the hall, she made a conscious effort to resist her urge to stoop; let Lisa stand on the balls of her feet instead.
“Our offices are on the same floor as the trading floor,” Lisa explained over her shoulder as she wove her way down the mahogany-lined hallway. “But there’s a shortcut through here, so that you don’t have to enter the trading floor unless you need to. And I’ll be honest with you, I try to avoid it as much as I can. It’s a veritable zoo out there.” Lisa paused, indicating that they had arrived. “Ta-daa!” Lisa flung the door open and ushered Janet into the spacious room.
Janet bit her lip with remorse. If her office was any indication of her employment at Bostoff Securities, she owed Lisa an eternal debt of gratitude. The size of the room was about twice the size of Janet’s digs when she worked for the DA, and it even had a window! Having an office with a window had been a sign of great recognition in the DA’s el
aborate hierarchy. Granted, Janet had been only a few steps away from getting to this high honor before Alex snatched everything she had worked for four years of her life, but all that was history now, as were the long hours she’d put into her investigation, the credit Alex took for her work, and Alex himself.
“You like?” Lisa asked.
Janet snapped out of her reverie. Being caught daydreaming was not a good way to start her first day. “I love it, Lisa. Thank you.”
“I bet it beats that DA dump you’ve been slaving away at. I still can’t understand what possessed you to go there. You were always such an idealist.”
Lisa did have a point there: Janet was an idealist. Correction, Janet had been an idealist. For four years, she had toiled away as Assistant District Attorney at the New York Office for a minimum salary, but as ridiculous as it sounded, money was not the reason why she had pursued a career in law. She had wanted to help the wronged and go after the bad guys, like the guys who had stripped her retired grandfather of every penny he had ever earned, sending him into fatal cardiac arrest. But when the results of your investigation are handed over to your boss to take credit for, and you’re sent packing, it becomes hard to remain an idealist; and so far, employment at Bostoff Securities was proving to be a very comfortable reality.
“So, you’re ready for lunch? I must say you’re looking very dapper in this suit of yours.”
“Thanks.” Janet blushed, aware that her boxy brown suit was nowhere near as elegant as Lisa’s. But, on a positive note, with her salary bump at Bostoff Securities, she would finally be able to move past the one hundred dollar suit racks she’d made a habit of frequenting at J.C. Penney.
“You might want to let your hair down, though.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” Janet clasped her French twist protectively. She had spent nearly forty minutes this morning putting up her hair.
“Oh, it’s perfectly fine if you’re going for that tough prosecutor look, but if you’re looking to get a guy interested…” Her hand reached for Janet’s hair. Lisa’s four-inch heels made them almost equal in height.
“I wasn’t aware I was being set up on a date.” Janet lips knitted into a prim line – a lifelong involuntary reaction to irritation. Sure, Lisa was the boss, but that did not give her the right to control her employees’ looks and personal lives.
“Oh, come off it.” With a swoop of her hand, Lisa plucked a handful of pins from Janet’s hair, undoing her tightly knotted French twist. “There.” Lisa stood back and eyed Janet appraisingly. “Much better.”
Janet ran her hand over her hair. It was full of kinky waves from being wound up in a twist.
“Do you mind telling me what’s going on?” Janet struggled to keep her voice level for the sake of job security.
“I got you a date, you silly! Well, it’s not exactly a date…” Lisa retracted.
Janet made a mental effort to shut her mouth, as her jaw was having a hard time taking this much obnoxiousness without dropping.
“Calm down, will ya?” Lisa continued. “It’s a business lunch: we’re meeting Tom Wyman at Aquavit. Tom is a really nice guy, and he’s not too shabby in the bringing home the bacon department either, if you know what I mean. He’s a partner at Ridley Simpson.”
“Look, Lisa, I really appreciate your thinking of me, but I’m not looking to date anyone at the moment. I just got out of a relationship, and I want to take it easy for a while…”
“Please. It’s me you’re talking to – your best friend since forever.”
And now my boss. Janet forced a smile.
“The last thing you want after,” Lisa paused, making a quotation sign with her fingers, “‘getting out of a relationship’ is to take it easy. Just because you’re working for me does not mean that things have to change; I always got you dates in high school, didn’t I?”
Yes, you did, Janet thought, even when I didn’t ask you to.
Lisa glanced at her watch. “We’d better get a move on. A man like Tom Wyman should not be kept waiting. Put some makeup on, and let’s go.”
Janet raked through her handbag for her makeup case. She obediently ran a powder puff over her face and applied a quick coat of lipstick to her lips. Then she ran her comb through her hair in an attempt to tame it – a futile effort, since she still looked like she had just ridden a motorcycle without a helmet. Oh, well. At least her wild hair would compensate for her overly conservative outfit.