The Magic Arm

It only takes a moment to change your life forever. Alicia Townsend's moment was when she met a quirky PI at the mall when she was being robbed of her credit card from the ATM. He asked if she needed assistance, but Alicia's reply was, "Mother, I'd rather do it myself!" With that, she released two Tasers on the rapscallion who looked to be in his 20's and put him on the floor, while shoppers looked on in amazement at two gimps in wheelchairs taking care of business and themselves. Little did Alicia know that her life would inextricably be bound to that of Kenneth Lockwood, PI in short order due to the danger presented by the Jamaican drug lord who had killed Ken's wife and six-year old son a few years before. Alicia is a psychologist who is presently working for a large cyber-security company doing profiles on each programmer that Mr. Mason Johnstein has working in this highly sensitive field of endeavor. He does not want to have working for him anyone who is not trustworthy or who has an agenda or inclinations to sabotage his work and ruin his name and his business. He has a family to support and too much indemnity if his products do not protect his customers--many of them banks.
Alicia has been working there for about 6 months, getting to know the workers, interviewing them, giving them personality tests, and learning of their lives and aspirations. Most are young and eager – to please and to succeed – so the "pool" is full of possibilities toward swinging in either direction of "doing the right thing" or "doing what's best for ME so I will get rich"! Alicia has caught the eye of one of these men, Doug Bradford who is attracted to her beauty, but is not sure about getting close to a woman in a wheelchair. He has never been around anyone in a wheelchair. He talks to his friend about her and looks down at her in the court yard while she eats her lunch among the roses, like the roses on her flowered dress. To Doug, she looks like a Renoir painting, her shoulder-length black hair glistening in the sun. It's Spring Time; the earth is warming up, and so is Doug. His friend encourages Doug to ask the "Doc" out, but Doug is sure there must be a work rule against it.
As fate would have it, Alicia is looking the other way one morning when she is driving her power chair from her van to the building, and she collides with Doug and her footrest breaks one of his ankles. She is all-kinds-of-responsible and offers to take him to the hospital in her van. After his short overnight stay in the hospital, she learns that he has no family near or available to assist him, and his apartment is up a flight or two of stairs. So she allows him to come and stay with her until he heals or can walk on crutches. Alicia goes home to get her live-in attendant, Anna, to go into Doug's apartment to get some clothes and toiletries for Doug. And Doug takes this as the Universe speaking to him that a relationship with Alicia is meant to be! But while all this was happening, Kenneth Lockwood was interviewing with Mason Johnstein about doing some PI work for him. While there, a man bursts into Mason's office ignoring his secretary's refusals and demands with spittle flying that Johnstein give him back his money! Johnstein has conformation that someone at his business has been using his programming to steal from his clients! His worst nightmare has come true. Lockwood must find out who it is, and quick.
Then, while Alicia is occupied with Doug and her guilt at making him a gimp, Mason Johnstein is murdered, and there are no clues, and no one knows anything. Lockwood has received a two thousand dollar advance so he believes he must continue with the job for which he was paid. Kenneth has his work cut out for him. Will he find the person who did it? Is that person the thief? Will Alicia get rid of her house guest? Will Foremost Data Systems go bankrupt without Mason? Will her best- friend attendant, Anna, be upset having to care for two gimps for the price of one? Does any of this hang on Kenneth Lockwood's abilities as a PI?
This book is humorous, with insights into what it's like being disabled, and provides thrills and chills of being the prey and also giving chase to those who chase you and giving back what the bad guys are giving you. "It's not easy being around Lockwood; there's always someone who wants him dead."
~~Phyllis Ballou & Vick Fallon-- Authors