Hey, I’m Kelly Pruett and I’m a private eye. Okay, I’ll be honest, I have a PI license, but mostly I’m a process server, glorified courier to the courthouse where I get to dig through some files, and do occasional stakeouts. But I’m ahead of myself. You want to know what I do in a day, and first things first. Coffee. Always coffee. I don’t get far without it. Day old and black, when I’m hunkered down and watching someone’s house, which is where I got the bad habit to begin with. Home brew is set to be ready when I wake up in between work gigs. Then there’s Floyd. My droopy faced Basset hound and sidekick. I don’t do much else until he’s taken care of.

I spend the weekends with my eight-year old, curly red-haired daughter, Mitz. I only occasionally end up having to work when we’re together, and it’s usually a service that couldn’t get done during the week for a lot of reasons. My type of job isn’t that traditional Monday through Friday, nine to five, if you know what I mean. But I do try to avoid it because then I have to ask my ex-mother-in-law and neighbor for help. And I’m not so good at that—asking for help that is.

Monday morning, I rouse Mitz early from her bed at my dad’s house in Portland. I say it’s my dad’s house because it always will be his. Despite that I grew up there, it’s where I escaped when my marriage went sour, and he left the house to me in his will—the house, his business, and a few other surprises he didn’t bother to mention.

After a quick breakfast, I drive up to Washington and drop my daughter off directly at Washington School for the Deaf and then me and Floyd, head to my office, R&K Investigations, where I never know what I’ll face. When my dad was alive, it was easy. It was usually a call from a law firm we work with to pick up a summons and complaint, protective order, or a subpoena for court appearances that had to be served. Most often, I’d run right out and pick up the documents, and then head out to serve them.

Every so often, when Dad was willing to share, I did get assigned those tedious stakeouts I spoke about, and they usually had to do with following some dirtbag who was stepping out on their spouse. Probably with their spouse’s best friend. Who said it only happened once. Yeah, right.

But I digress. Stakeouts and record searches can be a grind. They’re also part of being a PI, which I always wanted to be. And while not over stimulating, a record search is where I first met one particular blond cop that has me making excuses to get back to the courthouse whenever I can. So no complaints there.

Anyway, process serving has been my area of expertise for my dad’s company. To be honest, when I lost him last year, not much had changed. That is until that Friday when everything did. A lady showed up looking for my dad. She didn’t know he’d died, and I hadn’t updated the website yet. Another one of my to-dos. After I gave her the news, she hired me instead.

My ex-mother-in-law and ex-husband would have preferred I didn’t answer my office door that Friday afternoon, but I think it’s just what I needed. One thing that is true about my days, with the divorce and my dad’s death, it’s been lonely and I’ve been feeling lost. That’s why when that Friday knock came, I was all over it. Had I known then what I know now, I’m not sure I would have made the same choices. But then again. . .

Derailed is the first book in the NEW “Kelly Pruett” private investigator mystery series, coming May 12, 2020.

A dying wish. A secret world.
Can this grieving investigator stay on the right track?

PI Kelly Pruett is determined to make it on her own. And juggling clients at her late father’s detective agency, a controlling ex, and caring for a deaf daughter was never going to be easy. So she takes it as a good sign when a letter left by her dad ties into an unsolved case of a young woman struck by a train.

Hunting down the one person who can prove the mysterious death was not just a drunken accident, Kelly discovers this witness is in no condition to talk. And the closer she gets to the truth the longer her list of sleazy suspects with murderous motives grows.

On a crash course with a killer, she must piece together the puzzle of what really happened to the victim that rainy night, before her own fate is sealed and she loses everything near and dear, including her life.

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Meet the author
Mary Keliikoa spent the first 18 years of her adult life working around lawyers. Combining her love of all things legal and books, she creates a twisting mystery where justice prevails. She has had a short story published in Woman’s World and is the author of the PI Kelly Pruett series which debuts with Derailed in May 2020.

At home in Washington, she enjoys spending time with her family and her writing companions/fur-kids, Bella, a bossy golden retriever and August, her mischievous kitty. When she’s not at home, you can find Mary on a beach on the Big Island where she and her husband recharge. But even under the palm trees and blazing sun she’s plotting her next murder—novel that is.  Visit Mary’s website at marykeliikoa.com.

All comments are welcomed.