Stalked

About the Book

With an "imposter" who has managed to stray from the U.S. Witness Protection Program now undergoing investigation, the young woman he has chosen to terrorize begins a tentative romance with the police officer who has taken on the case.

Meet Nikki Rand, recent college graduate, now working for the local newspaper in her area. Dealing with a new and painful break-up, Nikki has just about given up on any kind of romance in her life. She throws herself completely into her work in an effort to fill the void, leaving little time on the side for fun or social activities. Ironically, though, it is not until her friends finally convince her that she needs to get out more often, that she really should start going out with them, that her problems really begin! An unsuspecting Nikki becomes the target of a dangerous stalker who has a twisted agenda all of his own. Posing as a city policeman, he is everywhere, watching her every move, randomly using his perceived authority to terrorize her, and she struggles to understand why it is her he has singled out, what she could have possibly done to enrage this stranger so badly. She discovers that the laws for harassment and stalking are so gray and undefined, there is really nowhere to turn for help. Finally in desperation, she confides in an acquaintance she has met at the gym; a young city police recruit with a die-hard sense of dedication to duty, who, unfortunately also carries very little time and experience under the polish of his newly-acquired gun belt.

Keith Raynor, newly-hired city police officer, is surprised when little Nikki, a girl he hardly knows, asks for his help. Still a rookie on the beat, he knows he is way out of his professional element. Doing his time on the street, policy requires that his job is to simply take Nikki´s report and then turn the case over to the Investigative Division to handle. But to complicate matters even more, the stalker, Seth Sullivan, is also a newly-hired police officer, though he has mysteriously joined the department with no real references, and is, for some reason, highly respected by all the Brass. Though Keith tries to follow the proper channels of procedure, none of his reports are taken seriously, and he begins to question the ethicacy of the situation, begins to feel the impending reality that government bureaucracy is creating throughout the department. Frustrated and with nowhere else to turn, he decides that in order to save the life of Nikki Rand, the object of the stalker, and also the woman with whom he has managed to become completely enamored, he will have to take on the case, himself, even if it ultimately means he comes out of it with no job.

The discovery of Seth Sullivan´s true identity is only the tip of the iceberg in uncovering the mystery of the unstable man´s obsession. Having accepted a highly secretive mission during the conflict with Grenada in the early 1980´s, "Teddy Baxter" had agreed to the terms of the military; to carry out the mission, then to be reported "mission-in-action." He would then be given a new identity and a comfortable sum of money over the course of his life in exchange for his "disappearance." He would be required to sever all ties with his former life. Even his family must believe him dead. Teddy is agreeable to all terms except one; he secretly refuses to abandon his high school girlfriend whom he had planned to marry after completing his military tour of duty. She is the only one who knows he is still alive, and he keeps in guarded contact with her, carefully plotting his return and their impending disappearance together. Finally, with plans fully in place, he returns to the designated spot where she is to meet him; the old, abandoned cabin still standing on the far corner of her father´s farm where they had always secretly met and dated as teenagers. But she never comes to him. Teddy waits for her, living the life of a re

About the Author

Growing up in a small town in the 1970’s – things honestly couldn’t sound much simpler. But take that simple existence, pair it with a then-unheard-of ‘chemical imbalance’ (which itself can breed very unnatural and inexplicable behaviors in its ‘aflictees’), and then you have the full range of ingredients necessary to cook up a good, seedy book. Handled with wit and humor, in this, her third work, ‘The Beast Within – Living with OCD,’ author Angie O’Neal describes the trials and tribulations of growing up with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. “Had I not actually possessed one of these chemical imbalances, myself,” she says, “like anyone else, I know I’d find the actual existence of these ‘conditions’ a little hard to fathom as well.” Writing has always been one of her hobbies. But in 1993, after earning her English degree from North Carolina State University, Angie decided to take her writing to the next level. To date, she has three books in print; ‘Stalked’ and ‘See No Evil,’ which are both fictional murder mysteries, and her latest, ‘The Beast Within – Living With OCD,’ an autobiographical account of growing up ‘different’ in such an unforgiving world. And are there plans for a new project on the horizon? “Yes,” she confirms. The groundwork for her fourth book, ‘Cop’s Wife – The Silent Partner,’ has already been laid out. The second of her autobiographies, it is expected to be completed by June, 2005 and available for purchase by October of that same year.