After completing The Ties That Bind, E.L. was ready to bid farewell to Georgie Connelly and her motley crew and began working on two stand alone novels. Georgie's loyal following, however, had other ideas. As readers wanted more, E.L. listened and a series was born. The third novel in The Georgie Connelly stories is The Righteous Path which again sees the characters leading the way and E.L. happy to follow them.
Synopsis
In between projects and waiting for James to return from the Gulf, Georgie is excited when her old friend Sean
Collins asks her for help in finding a missing girl. Little do they realise where their digging will lead and before too long they are caught up in the sinister world of a religious cult. As Georgie finds herself drawn further under
the thrall of Jed Monroe, the charismatic cult leader, she finds herself questioning her entire belief system. Stripping away at the layers of corruption within the cult, Georgie faces a race against time to try and determine who Jed Monroe really is.
Read the first chapter here and catch up with Georgie and her friends.
CHAPTER ONE
Georgie stared morosely at her computer, acknowledging what she had known deep down for a couple of weeks now, she was bored. Bored, bored, bored. It had been four weeks since James had left for The Gulf on his security job and, in all that time, she hadn’t done anything even remotely productive. She had gone through the motions of turning up at the office, pretending to look busy or hanging about in the nearby diner like a lovesick sap.
All this mooning about didn’t suit her and she was starting to wonder if all the promises that she and James had
made to each other hadn’t been a load of childish nonsense. They said that absence made the heart grow fonder but as far as she was concerned, the more time that came between her and James, the less real it all felt. Of course, her mood wasn’t helped by the fact that he hadn’t called her, not even once and she knew for a fact that he had called Julie several times and probably Eric as well. Okay, he would have assumed that she was on the cruise with her mother, but surely somebody would have put him right about that debacle by now.
Her thoughts were just beginning to descend into a dark place, when she heard a familiar voice at the same time
someone gave a brisk knock on her open door.
“Hey, you busy?”She looked up and came face to face with her friend, Sean Collins. He had recently returned to his job at LAPD after being suspended but he had been stripped of his rank and told in no uncertain terms that all eyes were fixed firmly on him, just waiting for one little fuck up. Sean was willing to jump through all of the departmental hoops, designed to force him to quit because essentially he loved his job.
“Detective Collins, what brings you here?” Georgie smirked. “Business or pleasure?”
“Bit of both, I hope. Have you had lunch?”
“Nope.”
“The diner?”Georgie grabbed her bag and was out of her seat almost before he had even uttered the words. The thought of becoming involved in something Sean had going on, already had the blood coursing through her veins. Following Sean towards the elevator, she bypassed Eric’s office, the last thing she wanted was for him to get wind that something was afoot but luckily for her, his door was firmly closed.
Seated across from Sean, she grinned at him happily over the plastic menu.
“So how’s life treating you?” He held up a finger to concentrate on the menu but, once they had ordered, his face
looked troubled and thoughtful.
“You know how it is. I have to keep my nose clean for a while, make sure I don’t put a foot wrong or IA will be all
over me.”
“They are lucky to have you,” she snorted in disgust.
“Yeah, try telling them that. They don’t want guys like me. They want this new breed with their expensive suits and fancy shoes, whose favourite part of the job is filling out Goddamn forms.”
Munching on their grilled sandwiches, they reflected for a moment on the absurdity of the modern world before Sean spoke with his mouth full.
“Anyway, how are you? Shame about the cruise.”
“Yeah, I should have known better, it’s not like my mother has ever been reliable.”
“Must have set you back a few bucks though?”
“You don’t even want to know.” Sean winced before he asked the question Georgie had been dreading.
“You heard from Finn?”
“Nope.”
“I guess it’s not easy to make phone calls in that part of the world.”
“He’s managed to make them to Julie.”
“Oh. Well, he probably figures you are on that cruise.” Georgie shook her head disdainfully and Sean wisely chose to leave the subject alone.
Watching her speculatively as he gulped down his coffee, Sean spoke warily.
“So are you working on a project at the moment?”
“No, I can’t seem to find any inspiration. All that stuff with Petrov and then my mother kind of threw me a loop.”
“Well I’ve got something of a situation and I wondered if it was something you might want to get involved in.”
“Really?”Georgie sat forward eagerly.
“Yeah, like I said they are watching my every move in the department so I have to tread carefully but a girl I know has asked me to look into something for her.”
“A girl?”Georgie queried, her interest already piqued, Sean had been single for as long as she had known him.
“Not like that,” he shook his head, his face suddenly unusually serious.
Georgie continued to watch him as he searched for the words to explain his situation.
“When I first became a cop, I got involved with a family when my partner and I were continually called out for
domestic disturbances. It was pretty tragic. The husband was a drunken asshole but, despite the fact that he beat the hell out of her every night, the wife would never press charges. Anyway the really sad part was that there were two little girls involved and me and my partner tried to look out for them. You know what it’s like when you first start out, you can get attached.” Georgie nodded, wondering where the hell the story was going.“Anyway, that was years ago,” he picked up. “And I kind of forgot all about it when, a couple of days ago, one of the little girls, who is now grown up, turned up at the precinct asking to speak to me.”
Georgie stared at him incredulously, “She is in trouble and she wants you to help?”
“Kind of,” he said defensively,
“But it’s not what you think.” Georgie regarded him pityingly.
“So why did she come to you?”
“Because the system won’t help her. Her sister is missing but because she is an adult nobody is going to see it as a priority. She has filed a missing persons report but it will just get buried with all the rest.”
“So why do you care?”
“Because her story is kind of interesting. I think you should meet with her, Georgie, and hear what she has to say.”
Synopsis
In between projects and waiting for James to return from the Gulf, Georgie is excited when her old friend Sean
Collins asks her for help in finding a missing girl. Little do they realise where their digging will lead and before too long they are caught up in the sinister world of a religious cult. As Georgie finds herself drawn further under
the thrall of Jed Monroe, the charismatic cult leader, she finds herself questioning her entire belief system. Stripping away at the layers of corruption within the cult, Georgie faces a race against time to try and determine who Jed Monroe really is.
Read the first chapter here and catch up with Georgie and her friends.
CHAPTER ONE
Georgie stared morosely at her computer, acknowledging what she had known deep down for a couple of weeks now, she was bored. Bored, bored, bored. It had been four weeks since James had left for The Gulf on his security job and, in all that time, she hadn’t done anything even remotely productive. She had gone through the motions of turning up at the office, pretending to look busy or hanging about in the nearby diner like a lovesick sap.
All this mooning about didn’t suit her and she was starting to wonder if all the promises that she and James had
made to each other hadn’t been a load of childish nonsense. They said that absence made the heart grow fonder but as far as she was concerned, the more time that came between her and James, the less real it all felt. Of course, her mood wasn’t helped by the fact that he hadn’t called her, not even once and she knew for a fact that he had called Julie several times and probably Eric as well. Okay, he would have assumed that she was on the cruise with her mother, but surely somebody would have put him right about that debacle by now.
Her thoughts were just beginning to descend into a dark place, when she heard a familiar voice at the same time
someone gave a brisk knock on her open door.
“Hey, you busy?”She looked up and came face to face with her friend, Sean Collins. He had recently returned to his job at LAPD after being suspended but he had been stripped of his rank and told in no uncertain terms that all eyes were fixed firmly on him, just waiting for one little fuck up. Sean was willing to jump through all of the departmental hoops, designed to force him to quit because essentially he loved his job.
“Detective Collins, what brings you here?” Georgie smirked. “Business or pleasure?”
“Bit of both, I hope. Have you had lunch?”
“Nope.”
“The diner?”Georgie grabbed her bag and was out of her seat almost before he had even uttered the words. The thought of becoming involved in something Sean had going on, already had the blood coursing through her veins. Following Sean towards the elevator, she bypassed Eric’s office, the last thing she wanted was for him to get wind that something was afoot but luckily for her, his door was firmly closed.
Seated across from Sean, she grinned at him happily over the plastic menu.
“So how’s life treating you?” He held up a finger to concentrate on the menu but, once they had ordered, his face
looked troubled and thoughtful.
“You know how it is. I have to keep my nose clean for a while, make sure I don’t put a foot wrong or IA will be all
over me.”
“They are lucky to have you,” she snorted in disgust.
“Yeah, try telling them that. They don’t want guys like me. They want this new breed with their expensive suits and fancy shoes, whose favourite part of the job is filling out Goddamn forms.”
Munching on their grilled sandwiches, they reflected for a moment on the absurdity of the modern world before Sean spoke with his mouth full.
“Anyway, how are you? Shame about the cruise.”
“Yeah, I should have known better, it’s not like my mother has ever been reliable.”
“Must have set you back a few bucks though?”
“You don’t even want to know.” Sean winced before he asked the question Georgie had been dreading.
“You heard from Finn?”
“Nope.”
“I guess it’s not easy to make phone calls in that part of the world.”
“He’s managed to make them to Julie.”
“Oh. Well, he probably figures you are on that cruise.” Georgie shook her head disdainfully and Sean wisely chose to leave the subject alone.
Watching her speculatively as he gulped down his coffee, Sean spoke warily.
“So are you working on a project at the moment?”
“No, I can’t seem to find any inspiration. All that stuff with Petrov and then my mother kind of threw me a loop.”
“Well I’ve got something of a situation and I wondered if it was something you might want to get involved in.”
“Really?”Georgie sat forward eagerly.
“Yeah, like I said they are watching my every move in the department so I have to tread carefully but a girl I know has asked me to look into something for her.”
“A girl?”Georgie queried, her interest already piqued, Sean had been single for as long as she had known him.
“Not like that,” he shook his head, his face suddenly unusually serious.
Georgie continued to watch him as he searched for the words to explain his situation.
“When I first became a cop, I got involved with a family when my partner and I were continually called out for
domestic disturbances. It was pretty tragic. The husband was a drunken asshole but, despite the fact that he beat the hell out of her every night, the wife would never press charges. Anyway the really sad part was that there were two little girls involved and me and my partner tried to look out for them. You know what it’s like when you first start out, you can get attached.” Georgie nodded, wondering where the hell the story was going.“Anyway, that was years ago,” he picked up. “And I kind of forgot all about it when, a couple of days ago, one of the little girls, who is now grown up, turned up at the precinct asking to speak to me.”
Georgie stared at him incredulously, “She is in trouble and she wants you to help?”
“Kind of,” he said defensively,
“But it’s not what you think.” Georgie regarded him pityingly.
“So why did she come to you?”
“Because the system won’t help her. Her sister is missing but because she is an adult nobody is going to see it as a priority. She has filed a missing persons report but it will just get buried with all the rest.”
“So why do you care?”
“Because her story is kind of interesting. I think you should meet with her, Georgie, and hear what she has to say.”