Dangerous Dreams: A Leah Nash Prequel Novella

By Susan Hunter

A LEAH NASH PREQUEL NOVELLA

See how it all began!

A young Leah Nash chases down stories for her fledgling newspaper… and witnesses a shocking crime in the making. Join Leah as she tackles her very first mystery with her signature flair and tenacity.

This novella contains a sample of DANGEROUS HABITS, the first of the Leah Nash Mysteries.

DANGEROUS DREAMS is the prequel novella in the Leah Nash series of complex, fast-paced murder mysteries featuring quick-witted dialogue, daring female characters, and plots with lots of twists and turns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Severn River Publishing
• Release date: Feb 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393827047

Book preview

Dangerous Dreams

Dangerous Dreams

Susan Hunter

Severn River Publishing

Copyright © 2017 by Susan Hunter.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Severn River Publishing

www.SevernRiverPublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-951249-66-3 (Paperback)

Contents

Also By Susan Hunter

Dangerous Dreams

Love Reading Mysteries & Thrillers?

You Might Also Enjoy…

Thanks for Reading

Next in Series

DANGEROUS HABITS: Chapter 1

DANGEROUS HABITS: Chapter 2

DANGEROUS HABITS: Chapter 3

DANGEROUS HABITS: Chapter 4

Read Dangerous Habits

About the Author

Also By Susan Hunter

Leah Nash Mysteries

Dangerous Habits

Dangerous Mistakes

Dangerous Places

Dangerous Secrets

Dangerous Flaws

Dangerous Ground

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Dangerous Dreams

This is boring. Let’s ride our bikes over to the park before it gets dark.

No, Coop. We’re supposed to be surveilling. My best friend, David Cooper, and I were sitting on a platform we’d built high in a tree on the edge of the bike trail that ran behind our neighborhood.

You’re not surveilling, Leah. You’re just spying on people.

No, I’m not. But he was right. I couldn’t help it. Our perch near the top of the old maple gave me a mesmerizing glimpse into other people’s lives. I watched them mowing their lawns, grilling hamburgers, splashing in pools, doing all the summer things families do. I watched them with a bittersweet longing my almost twelve-year-old self couldn’t articulate. The year before, my younger sister Annie had died in a fire. My dad couldn’t cope. He took off, leaving me, my mother, and my baby sister Lacey behind, without caring how much harder that made things for us.

"I’m just looking for things to report in next month’s Life on the Street. Deadline is Thursday."

At the beginning of the summer, our small-town Wisconsin paper, The Himmel Times Weekly, had turned me down for a job on the grounds that at age eleven, I was too young. So, I started my own neighborhood paper with a name that was an homage to one of my favorite, though forbidden, television shows. Maybe favorite because it was forbidden: Homicide, Life on the Street.

I was the editor, publisher, photographer, and sole reporter. Coop was my reluctant layout artist, only because he had access to his dad’s Macintosh, the coolest computer in 1996. I’d sold all twenty copies of the first edition in June and upped my run to twenty-five for July. I had hopes for a similar increase in circulation with the August edition that was about ready to go to press. But for that, I needed a really major event to report on.

What about the Carsons’ trip to the Dells?

Everybody’s been to the Dells, I said with a shrug. "I’ll probably use it in the Street Beats section with the stuff about the giant wasp nest at the Straubes’ place, and the electrical fire at the Tanners’ house. But I want something, you know, big! Something that will really grab people. Come on, get your binoculars, see if anything is going on," I said, lifting my own to my eyes. As I swept the scene below, I gave a running commentary on what I observed.

Looks like the McCreerys are getting a new TV. Mrs. Cornell is deadheading her flowers. Uh-oh, Mrs. Tanner is smoking behind her garage again. I broke off and put my binoculars down.

"You know, I watched a cool movie with my mom last night, Rear Window. It’s really old, like from the fifties or something, but it was good. It’s about a guy with a broken leg who doesn’t have anything to do while he’s in a cast, so he starts watching what’s going on in the apartment building across from him."

He sounds like kind of a creeper. Why didn’t he just watch TV?

Maybe they didn’t have television back then. He’s not a creeper. He sees a murder, and he catches the killer!

I don’t think we’re going to catch a killer.

I didn’t say we were. I just said we might see something for the paper. Look, if you don’t want to help, just go then.

He was unperturbed by my attempt to shame him into staying.

I will. I’m supposed to be home before dark. My mom said she’ll ground me if I’m late one more time.

There’s loads of time before dark. You know, for someone who wants to be a cop some day, you don’t seem that interested in investigating.

We’re not investigating. We’re just hanging around in a tree staring at people.

He was pretty much right, but I had backed myself too far into a corner to admit I was ready to go, too.

OK. Fine. Go then. I’ll let you know if I see a murder after you leave.

OK. Later.

Of course, I didn’t see a murder, or a break-in. Not even anyone spitting on the sidewalk. In fact, after Coop left, I stretched out on my back on the platform, intending to stay there just long enough for him to get down and be well on his way before I followed. But as I watched the branches overhead sway in the light summer breeze, the soft whispers of the leaves lulled me into sleep.

I woke to the rattling call of a sandhill crane flying near. It wasn’t dark yet, but getting awfully close. I sat up groggily. Then I reached for my binoculars for one last look. The sun hadn’t quite set, but it wouldn’t be long before the street lights came on. I caught movement in the second-floor window of the Bakers’ house. The battling Bakers, some of my mother’s friends called them. I looked closer.

Mrs. Baker stood with her back to the window. From behind, she looked younger—taller and slimmer than she really was. Her