Introduction

A terrified single mother must travel through hell and back to clear her name and protect her children from their maniacal father.

Kelly Jensen is only six years old when she witnesses her mother’s murder and her father’s wrongful conviction. Thrown into foster care, Kelly is both abused and neglected, and by age fifteen she is a runaway, relying on her street smarts to become a master at identity theft. Kelly accepts the marriage proposal of a man who she thinks can offer her a better life, only to fall victim to his vicious enslavement.

Years later, estranged from her husband and struggling to support her children, Kelly becomes a suspect in the murder of her lover, a congressman. Defense attorney Jake Brooks finds Kelly irresistible, and his obsession leads him to risk his own career to help her. Together, the two uncover a sordid link among immoral foster care parents, high rollers in Vegas, politicians, Kelly’s husband, and law enforcement itself.

Kelly ultimately takes fate into her own hands—in the gray zone that exists outside the black-and-white world of the legal system.

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Excerpt

C H A P T E R 1

"Go back to bed," he commanded. "Don't move an inch." The

timbre of his voice, deep with intensity, demanding obedience.

The light from the hallway made it impossible for her to dis-

tinguish his features, but she remembered his form blocking

the entire doorway, he appeared so big.

She covered her head with the blanket, knowing she

would never forget the guttural sound that echoed in her ears.

An agonizing cry . . . A body crashing on the landing ...

Footsteps of someone running . . . Then silence. Broken by the

sound of ambulance sirens.

The little girl rolled off the bed and crawled to the door,

pushed it open. Her eyes pulled in some light from the hall

window.

On the floor, a black puddle.

"Mama?" She reached out a finger and touched the liquid.

It was warm and sticky. Her mind screamed, but her throat

4 DAPHNA EDWARDS ZIMAN

was mute. A nightmare. But the blood was real. She inched

forward and laid her head on her mother's unmoving stomach.

Commotion. Paramedics. Pairs of white shoes. Needles

penetrating her skin. A warm wave enveloping her. She was

falling, falling down. Sleep, deep and lovely . . .

"Kelly? Kelly?"

Her body jerked slightly as she came back into the present.

"Kelly? Five minutes, honey. You're on in five minutes."

"Thanks, Candi. My mind was a thousand miles away, I guess!"

Kelly said with a self-deprecating smile.

The ten o'clock show on Monday nights was usually dead, but

from behind the curtain, Kelly could hear a lively, boozy murmur

overlaid by the metallic trill of the betting machines. She took a

deep breath and held it, closing her eyes. Her last performance. She

scrolled through the next few hours in her mind, scene by scene, as if

fast-forwarding through a DVD. Finish the show. Visit Porter at his

suite at the Venetian. Say a quick good-bye. Then make a run for it.

Her bags were in the car. Her kids were ready, as she instructed Betty,

her usual nanny, when she called her before rehearsals. Only one per-

son could complicate her plan, and she prayed, as she did every night,

that this wouldn't be the night he would show up.

The lights dimmed and the drummer tapped a syncopated beat.

Kelly tugged at her wig and whispered to herself, "I am Marilyn. He

can't see me." Taking a last look in the backstage mirror, she saw once

again that the costume was perfect. A dark-brown beauty mark rode

the crest of her Ferrari-red lips. A platinum blonde curl fell across

her forehead. Her dress plunged between her breasts, slid around her

hips, and dropped into a pool of red satin over her stiletto heels.

All of a sudden the curtain was drawn and Kelly moved into the

spotlight, taking the mike in her black satin gloves. For a suspended

THE GRAY ZONE 5

instant, the audience sat hushed as if mesmerized. She heard a wom-

an's voice murmur, ". . . looks just like Marilyn."

Kelly was pleased by the effect. She began to sing, keeping her

voice soft and sultry and training her eyes on the floor. For the first

few bars of Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," she moved

her hips just barely with the beat. Once her eyes had adjusted to the

spotlight, she peered up through her false lashes and scanned the

audience.

The usual. Salesmen, a few tourists, locals. The convention

nerds were easy to spot, with plastic name tags hanging from their

necks. Two women--ex-showgirls or hookers--sat at the end of the

bar, chatting, their eyes following Kelly.

At the dark fringes of the audience, two men each sat alone. One

was football-player huge, slumped back in his chair, appreciatively

taking her in. A few tables away, white-haired and wearing golf

clothes, the other man stared at her ravenously, like a dog on a chain

eyeing a bone just out of reach.

Then Kelly ended the song, bowing low during the applause.

"Thank you, thank you very much," she breathed into the

microphone, glad the first number was over.

But as she straightened up, an icy chill seized her gut.

At the bar stood a tall man with his back to her. His dark suit

jacket tapered from broad shoulders to a fit waist. The back of his

expensive haircut was flecked with gray.

It can't be him, she told herself, willing the man to turn around,

but praying he wouldn't. You're safe, she reassured herself. It's not your

husband, not here, not tonight.

Her eyes darted over to the drummer, whose sticks were raised,

waiting for her cue. Impatiently he shrugged, unaware of the danger

she was in.

But it's not safe, her instinct insisted. Leave now. She took a

6 DAPHNA EDWARDS ZIMAN

breath. But if I leave the stage, that would draw even more attention

to me. Kelly regarded the audience once more, and her eyes fell on

a salesman in the second row. His cheeks flushed from drink, his

mouth hard, he seemed to challenge her to begin another song. It

snapped her back into her persona. Strutting across the stage, she slid

a leg through the slit in her dress and sang Cy Coleman and Dorothy

Fields's "Big Spender." I am Marilyn, she thought, and even if it is him,

he can't see the real me.

The number went on forever as Kelly watched for the man at

the bar to turn around.

Then she held the last note, closing her eyes. When she opened

them, the man's eyes were locked on hers. He leaned back against the

bar, a half smile pulling up one side of his mouth.

Kelly's dread instantly drained away. It wasn't her husband.

Relaxing into the next number, she rehearsed her plan again. It was

a good one. It would work. She just had to finish this show. When it

was over, she'd be only one painful step away from making her final

escape from Vegas.

With relief washing through her, Kelly glanced again at the man

at the bar and with a jolt realized who he was. What was Jake Brooks

doing here? For weeks this man's face had been on TV, making the

case for Jeanette Pantelli, the so-called Platinum Widow, as an abused

wife. Brooks had managed to paint his client as a damsel in distress

rather than a greedy woman who had hired a hit man to kill her hus-

band. With all the publicity, his celebrity was a certainty.

Jake Brooks gave her a full-blown smile. Kelly pulled her gaze

away. On TV, the man was handsome; in person, he was magnetic.

Even from across the room, Kelly felt a rush. She went through the

remainder of her act feeling her performance charged by his atten-

tion--until, in the middle of the next-to-last number, she saw Jake

Brooks's eyes drop to her feet and move appraisingly up her body, as

THE GRAY ZONE 7

though cataloguing each part of her. Reaching her eyes, he stared with

a challenging, yet questioning, grin. His joke evaporated the magne-

tism, and Kelly's defenses shot up. Not in this lifetime, she thought. I

don't care who you are. She was one song away from the end of her

last show on this stage, just minutes away from the hardest thing she

would ever do in her life. Before she quit, she would show this cocky

lawyer what she thought of him and his profession.

Kelly cued the drummer for her finale, Marilyn's "Let's Make

Love," and stepped off the stage. As she moved through the tables,

she noticed that the owner of the nightclub, Shrake--a mobster

whose cherubic face masked his cruelty--had taken the barstool next

to Brooks. He was speaking urgently, a briefcase open on his lap. Kel-

ly paused at a table of frat boys and poured on the Marilyn, singing to

each one as if he were the only man in the room. Running her finger

along one guy's lips, she gave his neighbor a shake of her ass. She

ruffled the third guy's hair, then slid into the last guy's lap, breathing

the lyric, "Let's make love."

She sashayed toward Brooks, and the electricity of his atten-

tion intensified, dangerous and predatory. The club owner leaned

into Brooks and whispered something, jerking his head toward the

briefcase. Without a glance toward the other man, Brooks pushed the

briefcase closed with his elbow. Kelly could just hear his cocky, off-

hand rebuff: "I don't represent bill-collecting hit men." The shorter

man scowled, snatched the briefcase, and stalked away.

Kelly slid back up to the stage, timing her arrival to the climax

of the song. Jake Brooks was still grinning as though he owned her.

With her voice riding the last note, she raised her arm toward her

head. As the drummer bashed the last beat, she grabbed a handful

of silvery-blonde hair and, in a flash, whipped off the wig and held it

in front of her like a severed head. She heard the audience gasp, felt

the cool air on her scalp and her own hair slicked back with bobby
view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. By enduring cruelties and hardship in a flawed foster care system, Kelly learns to use the power of seduction in order to survive. With a combination of cunning and resilience, she becomes the country's first identity thief, a chameleon constantly on the move. If you were in her place, how would you have adapted to survive? Do you agree with how Kelly is handling her current situation? What would you do to protect your children?
2. What do you think drives the chemistry between Kelly and Jake? In your opinion, are they capable of maintaining a lasting relationship? Should they even attempt a lasting relationship? What do you think happens after the last sentence of the book?
3. Daphna Ziman is the founder of Children Uniting Nations, a charity that provides volunteer mentors for foster children and has worked with a number of girls in foster homes over the years. She also adopted her daughter after rescuing her from a homeless shelter. What do you think was her intention in writing The Gray Zone? What do you think led her to write this book? What do you think were her desired outcomes?
4. The protagonist of the book is a notorious identity thief, but she does whatever it takes to protect her children. Do you think the justice system is clearly black and white with its laws and enforcement? Is justice itself black and white? Why do you think this book was titled “The Gray Zone”?

Weblinks

»	Author Daphne Edwards Zinman's web site
»	Publisher's Book Info

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