Guarding Lacey: A Smokey Dalton Story

By Kris Nelscott

Private detective Smokey Dalton does his best to protect his adopted family, from his 11-year-old son Jimmy to his friends, the Grimshaws. But Smokey can’t see everything. Jimmy notices that Lacey Grimshaw—“thirteen going on trouble,” Smokey says—skips school to hang out with an adult man. Jimmy doesn’t want to tattle, but he’s worried about Lacey. So he pretends he’s Smokey, and follows her, learning secrets that will change him—and Lacey—forever.

“Excellent...Kris Nelscott’s first short case for Smokey Dalton requires him to be as sensitive and brave as her novels (do).”
—Kirkus

“(A) crime writer deliberately taking chances.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Kris Nelscott has created an intriguing character in Smokey Dalton, a tough-guy black private eye based in Chicago.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year and it was also nominated for a Shamus award for The Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year.
Entertainment Weekly says her equals are Walter Mosley and Raymond Chandler. Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series” and Salon says “Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author.”
For more information about Kris Nelscott, or author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s other works, please go to KrisNelscott.com or KristineKathrynRusch.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476081540

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

GUARDING LACEY

Copyright © 2012 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

First published in Chicago Blues,

edited by Libby Fischer Hellmann, Bleak House Books, 2007.

Published by WMG Publishing

Cover and Layout copyright © 2012 by WMG Publishing

Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing

Cover art copyright © 2012 by Andy2000soft/Dreamstime

Smashwords Edition

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Information

THE SMOKEY DALTON SERIES

in order:

Novels

A Dangerous Road

Smoke-Filled Rooms

Thin Walls

Stone Cribs

War at Home

Days of Rage

Street Justice (March 2014)

Short Stories

Family Affair

Guarding Lacey

EVERY OTHER MORNING, my dad drives me and my cousins to school, except he’s not really my dad and they’re not really my cousins. My dad—his name is Smokey—he says we’re family, and I guess he’s right about that.

He sure guards us like family. When Smoke drives (I known Smoke since I was three; I just can’t get used to calling him Dad), he lines us up like little ducklings, and makes us walk hand-in-hand into the school.

The duckling thing is hardest in the winter. It’s the beginning of 1970—a decade Smoke says’ll be better than the last one—and there’s been ice. We lose our balance if even one person slips (and it’s usually Noreen, who’s six, and never pays attention), and we just look plain silly.

I’m tired of looking silly,