Product Description Book 4 of the Darcy Farthing Adventures: Author Darcy Farthing is living in Washington, DC, with her fiancé, Mick Clayton. They are enjoying a much-needed respite from trauma and crime-fighting while preparing for a wedding and a romantic cruise. Everything changes when an alarming phone call halts their plans. A good friend, Charlie Scott, has mysteriously disappeared--the apparent victim of an abduction.Against Mick's wishes, on an impulse and without much thought of consequences, Darcy flies to Seattle to help Charlie's partner, Don, and their daughter, Penelope, cope with the loss. She is worried about Mick's negative attitude about the couple and worries that he is prejudiced toward her friends. As a result, she finds herself reevaluating the direction of her personal and professional life.Soon after her arrival in Seattle, she becomes immersed in the unfamiliar world of domestic partnerships, birth surrogates, and assisted reproductive technology. Don and Charlie, who became unlikely heroes in the first novel in this series, Currents Deep and Deadly, have their lives turned upside down by elusive kidnappers with no apparent motive. At the same time, their well-intentioned decision to pay a surrogate to bear their daughter for them turns into a nightmare, when the biological mother returns after eight years, claiming that Don and Charlie are not Penelope's fathers as they believed, and she wants her child back. This revelation sets in motion a series of tragic events that threatens to destroy a parent-child bond, and worse.Before the police and FBI are able to solve Charlie's kidnapping, an even more devastating case materializes when Penelope also vanishes. The FBI and Seattle police detectives frantically look for clues. In the process, they implicate a local antigay organization and its leader, two local business owners who are being harassed by anti-gay demonstrators, a flamboyant stalker who is obsessed with Don, and the birth mother herself. There is no hard evidence against any of the suspects, and the leads are curtailed when two of them are murdered. The authorities are no closer to finding Penelope and now worry that she has been abducted by a vicious killer.In the midst of turmoil surrounding Penelope's birth status and abduction, true to her nature, Darcy tries to help her friends. When she ventures into the midst of the case by conducting a freelance interview with a local clergyman, she is nearly killed in a vicious attack by an unknown assailant. Mick rushes to her side and soon overcomes his reluctance to get involved with Don and Charlie's plight. Together they try to gather information to help solve the case. Before the hostility ends, Don also becomes a victim and then a hero, and Mick must fight an unbalanced killer intent on revenge. From the Author This fourth in series is a little different from the rest in that it addresses a serious societal issue that introduces the reader to details of domestic partnerships, surrogacy, and bigotry directed at the gay community. As with all six Darcy Farthing adventures, there are characters of all persuasions across the social strata. This book even more than the rest appeals to members of the LGBTQ community because it addresses some of their issues. I hope it is educational for all readers. About the Author Arleen Alleman is a former analyst with the U.S. Government Accountability Office where she wrote extensively on many topics ranging from satellite systems to endangered species. She has a science education and worked as a fashion model, insurance adjuster, jewelry designer, and proprietor of a home décor shop. Her interests include reading, health and fitness, world religions, and travel. In fact, her world travels supply authentic backdrops and narration for her fictional stories. Born in England and raised in New Hampshire and Nevada, she now lives in Colorado with her husband, Tim. Alternate Curr