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Risky Pursuit
by Nancy G. West
Risky Pursuit
Young Adult/Cozy Mystery
Publisher : Fire & Ice Young Adult Books (March 25, 2025)
Paperback : 330 pages
ISBN-13 : 979-8886533804
Digital ASIN : B0F285GVPD
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High school senior Decker Savage, burdened by his baby brother’s death and dreading his parents’ impending divorce, sees his mother with a scruffy stranger and follows him to a dark house. He hears shouts upstairs, a man hits the floor, and the culprit escapes. Decker follows the victim’s ambulance. Through their mutual love of baseball, they become friends; but the elderly man can’t remember who attacked him, and Decker fears the assailant will return. His grades crater, his relationships go south, his baseball skills are erratic, and by entering the man’s house, he broke the law.
He suffers anonymous attacks and receives threatening notes. If he doesn’t forget the man and the house, he, his family, and his friend will be the next victims. Will Decker be able to uncover the culprit’s identify, solve the mystery, and stop the attacks?
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Enjoy this peek inside:
Decker Savage’s unstable world gets worse . . . .
Chapter One
Decker Savage entered the dimly-lit Broadway Café and made his way to the back. He settled in a worn booth, unable to tell where the depressive gray bubble around him ended and the dreary diner began. His family was disintegrating.
His last high school semester started mid-January, but Christmas lights still hung from the muddy-orange ceiling. A waiter sauntered up.
“Get you something?”
Revive my baby brother? Make Dad move back home? Ease Mom’s stress? “A Coke, I guess. Thanks.” He pointed at the ceiling. “Celebrating?”
“Manager left them up for the 2012 Super Bowl on February 5th.”
Just before his nineteenth birthday. Whoopee. Frigid wind whistled outside through leftover holiday decorations. They’d probably stay up through February, too. The 1950s Schwinn bicycle hanging from the ceiling added rusty chrome to the dinge. Interesting touch. Lyrics from Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” blasted through corner speakers, “…like a plastic bag drifting through the wind. …” Trapped inside that bag, drifting, he lacked energy to punch his way out. “…one blow from caving in…”
Empty tables squatted around, but anonymous men drank in somber booths planted at the side of the room under dim bulbs strung from the ceiling. A couple guys from school slouched in a booth. He had no desire to socialize and didn’t know them anyway. They weren’t baseball players. With their hoodies up, cell phones highlighting their shrouded faces, they resembled thirteenth-century monks. Nobody came here but kids and losers. He didn’t know why he came.
The front door creaked open periodically, the weak light inside barely enough to reorient patrons who came in from the suburban business corridor and melted into the dark, seeking solace. A man in the front booth nearest the door crouched in the corner of his booth, stringy hair lapping over his collar, his fedora stretched down over his forehead. Each time the door opened, the scruffy man cringed lower, pulled the hat over one eye and stared warily at the door. Who did he fear? The drug lord he owed money? A cop?
A woman entered, her shadow backlit from outside. The man in the booth sat straighter. Decker squinted, wondering who she was. When a sliver of light crossed her face, his breath caught. It was his mother.
Decker slid lower, chest tight, and followed her with his gaze as she made her way to the stranger’s booth. Wide-eyed, he watched her lower herself into the seat across from him. When her mouth curved into a hesitant smile, his jaw dropped. Why would she meet this disheveled man who didn’t bother to get up when she approached? They talked intently, the man curving toward her, his bulk blocking his mother’s face from Decker’s view. With Adele belting out “Someone Like You,” he couldn’t hear a word they said. Heads down, they concentrated on each other. He couldn’t stretch to catch more of her expression or she would see him. He thought she smiled once. She hadn’t done that in a long time. Why would she meet a strange man in this murky place? Was he the cause of their crumbling family? He sat frozen, unable to decide what to do.
He could confront them but what would he say? Ask Mom why she was there? Storm up like her silly-ass protector and ask the guy point-blank who he was and what he was doing with his mother? Right. He hated confrontation. He always had. He despised his trait of hanging back. Dad got pissed off when he didn’t act. He’d never been adept at hand-to-hand combat; the guy might rear up and clock him.
Breathing fast, his jaw tense, confusion and anger pulsed through him. He knew he was a factor in his parents’ probable divorce. If this character was involved, it was even worse. Could his mother be so fickle? So disloyal to his father to take up with this lowlife? His stomach knotted. He compared the man’s head and shoulders to Dad’s. The guy appeared solid, but not that great a specimen. He squinted daggers at the back of his stupid hat. She’s not your girlfriend, creepo. She’s Dad’s wife.
What could she possibly have in common with this man? Did she think Dad was having an affair, and this guy was some PI she hired to track him? They were strategizing? His head started to ache. The scumbag shifted his weight in the booth like he was about to stand. Decker tensed. The snake might be about to leave.
Before Decker could make a move, two girls bounced into the diner laughing—buddies of Ashley, the girl he liked and had just gotten to know. If they spotted him, they’d give him away. It’d be hard to explain why he sat in a dingy diner spying on his mother. He had to get out of the booth before anybody recognized him. He slouched farther down, raised his arm to cover his face, and squirmed toward the edge of the seat. From the corner of his eye, he saw the stranger with his mom spring up and shoulder his way toward the front door. He caught surprise on Mom’s face. She pressed back against the cushion, looking perplexed. Her lips thinned and quivered. Then her eyes filled and she banged her fist on the table. She slipped from the booth, stood straight, took a deep breath, and followed the man outside.
Decker slid his feet outside the booth. As soon as his body cleared the table, he doubled over and headed for the back of the diner. The waiter hollered at him. “You all right?” Thank God he didn’t use Decker’s name. He pointed to his stomach and gestured with a circular hand motion. “Oh, yeah,” the man said. “Nothing worse. Bath room is back there. Hope you make it.”
He crossed the room stretched across the back of the diner past the U-shaped booth with its plastic covered table. Covers of albums he used to like shone through scratched laminate. He swiveled between the table and a pool table and headed for the bathroom, trying not to draw attention. He spotted a third door on the back wall near the restrooms. If it was an exit he could get through, he could ease around the side of the building and catch the man before he took off in his car. What if his mom caught up to the guy? What if he grabbed her? His stomached roiled. It wouldn’t take much for him to throw up. He slipped into the bathroom, made a retching sound and struggled to quell his nausea. He flushed the toilet and ran water, the force clanging rusty pipes. He thought he made enough racket but should wait a few seconds before opening the door. What if one of the girls decided to use the adjacent bathroom? Hearing no footsteps, he cracked the door. Ashley’s friends perched in a booth toward the front of the diner, engrossed in conversation. He had to make a move. He inched toward the third door hoping it was an exit, leaned against it, and squeezed through.
Moist frigid air attacked his lungs. The man had trekked from the front of the diner around the side of the building and plodded steadily uphill. He saw no sign of his mother. If he raced across the vacant lot behind the diner toward the dense wall of trees marking the property line, moonlight shining off the diner roof would highlight him. He slipped off the back steps, crouched to the right and held his breath, hoping the overhang hid him in darkness.
Between the church on the left and houses on the right, the man leaned up the hill with purposeful strides. Decker picked a moment he thought was safe, sprinted across the vacant lot, hid in a thicket of trees near the street, and watched the man tromp up the steep hill in freezing weather. Nobody walked in San Antonio’s slushy winters if they didn’t have to. Why would he try to escape on foot? Didn’t the creep drive a car? Did he ask Mom to meet him? He obviously upset her. Was this creep going to meet her somewhere else?
Could he be one of Mom’s clients? His type wasn’t usually interested in design or decoration. He didn’t bother to fix himself up. His heart beat wildly. Should he follow the burly man no matter what? Despising himself for vacillating, he took a deep breath and made a dash to the next thicket. He watched the stranger trudge farther up the dark street and forced his body to move after him.
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About Nancy G. West
Nancy West is a recovering business major who discovered that creating stories is a lot more fun than accounting. Her novel of psychological suspense, Nine Days to Evil, won the Clue Award, and The Plunge, a mystery/suspense novella, was a June 2019 selection for ALA’s book club and is Book 1 of the spinoff series, Aggie Mundeen Lake Mysteries. Her Aggie Mundeen Rom-Com Mysteries included a Lefty Award Finalist, Chanticleer Awards, and a Raven Award from Uncaged Book Reviews. She loves writing stories about ordinary teens and adults thrown into dangerous, suspenseful situations…a literary thriller, like Risky Pursuit.
Author Links: Contact Nancy / Website / Facebook
Purchase Link – Amazon /
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