With The Spell, His Eyes and Mistaken Bride out on submission and waiting for edits on Ghost of a Chance, Amazonia and The Photograph, I’ve been working on The Glass Cage, Book 2 of the McKenna crime series. The Glass Cage picks up after Kelly escapes the stalker in The Spell and this time she’s dealing with a boss that she’s not sure about.

I’m a pantster writer — I let the characters tell me what their story is and where they think it should go. Of course, in Amazonia, in the middle of Michael LaRosa telling me his story, Stavin and Blaise started telling me theirs and at about 30,000 words there was a HUGE detour into their stories. I finally got them to pipe down when I decided to do their own full length books. That mean reworking those 30,000 words. Whew. I tend to hit a wall at 40,000 words and in the last 5-7,000. I think that last block happens because I know I’m going to soon say goodbye to the characters. Not that I won’t be hanging with them on my 4-5 edits, and then again during the submission and signing process. But knowing how their story ends is its own goodbye.

And now with the Glass Cage, at 72,000 words in the first draft, I know where it’s going to go. I’m also at that last 5,000 word point. And here is where that fine line between Legal and Not comes in.

Kelly’s boss has a self-stated goal of helping re-entry women (i.e., women who have been out of the work force and need to find some sort of work) jobs. Her special focus is on women over 40 who have virtually no skills. And some of the things the boss does, walk the fine line between legal and not.

Is it illegal to bid on Ebay items at work? No, but it is against most company policies to use the internet for personal use. Can you be fired for it? In some jobs, yes.

Is bidding on Ebay gambling? In some places, yes.

Is it illegal to video and audio tape your employees? It depends. Depending on where and if you tell them, it’s probably not. It can be a violation of privacy and that’s a slap on the hand. It can be in volation of federal wire tape laws, but if someone is going to tape you like that, you may be a bit afraid of coming forward. Retaliation is a HUGE deterent. And if you lose your case, you still have to go to work and deal with the bully boss, don’t you? And what about looking for another job after you come out about what’s going on? There certainly won’t be a letter of recommenation from the boss you sent to jail.

Now, getting into some decided illegal things — filing a bogus insurance claim. Illegal? Yes. Who’s going to catch you doing it? Filing several? Well duh. Sending the money off shore? Maybe. You gotta be caught.

In the real world it’s a matter of getting caught and who does the catching and whether or not they come forward. In the real world, big wigs have, until now, gotten off. Companies don’t want their clients to know that their money went down the tubes or into an executive’s pocket. So instead of pressing charges they either go to their insurance company and file a claim, or just go on, hoping for the best. Yes, they “let the bad guy” go, usually giving them a “nice” settlement to just go away. No one knows what they’ve gone — or almost no one, not anyone who would really want to know. No crime is reported for the good of the company. After all, if you had a bunch of bucks in a venture and suddenly you found out one of the big wigs made off with a few million, would you leave YOUR money there? Just in case someone else was working with her?

So this is what my heroine is dealing with — a boss who’s walking the fine line between legal and not and she can’t exactly go to her ATF boyfriend on this one…

how does my heroine get justice?

At least in fiction you can bring the bad guys to justice in a way you like best.