Trivial Deceit

There’s a killer running rampant— a serial killer. And this time it’s personal.

The streets of Portland are piling up with bodies, from petty thieves to decorated officers— no one is safe.

Not knowing who else to trust, local PD Detective Truly Payne calls in a favor with former colleague turned Keeper’s operative, CT— Charlie Tango. 


To keep the city he loves safe and catch the killer of their beloved mentor, CT jumps at the chance to work with the woman who’s always held his heart.

But the alluring beauty with a badge isn’t looking for a hero… she’s looking for a partner.

Together they stumble too close to the truth… the deadly truth that someone would do anything to keep buried.



Who do you trust when the city is crumbling under corruption? No one.

This is fantastic! It is a combination of intensity and heat from the very beginning!

Love, Love, Love!!!

Suspenseful and perfect!

This was such an exciting story full of twists and turns!

I love this series. I love this author. Just when you think Ms. St. Klaire has given you all the weird and wacky that can happen, she comes up with something else. Great book. More please!

What a book! I loved this on the edge of your seat story!

This series goes beyond a 10 stars!!

Action packed! Couldn't put it down!

Loved the characters, the excitement, just everything about this book!! Wow...just wow!

Didn’t see that coming! Awesome storyteller! You won’t be disappointed!

The murder case has everything I come to expect from Stephanie St Klaire. As usual, I was at the edge of my seat, didn't want to put the book down, and finally floored at the outcome!

SSK writes the best romantic suspense with a murder twist out there!!!

I definitely recommend this book, this series, and this author to everyone looking for something great to read!!

The twists and turns throughout the story are sure to keep you completely involved right up until the very end!!!

I guarantee it’s an exciting tale that you are going to want to read!

The latest book in the The Keepers series and Stephanie kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. With more twists and suspence around every corner!!!

Stephanie has written another five star read that is hot and suspenseful with her usual brand of humor (anyone want tacos!?!)!!!

WOW! Fantastic writing and amazing continuation of the series!!!

Truly a great story, very intense, suspenseful, exciting, and romantic. I loved it!!!

Another incredible book by St. Klaire of murder, deceit, drugs and the men and women that are trying to wipe both out of their city!!!

St. Klaire surprised me with the "who-dunit", but that's nothing new. Her books are always intriguing and twisted. A great addition to the series!

Stephanie St Klaire is a mastermind!!! This story will keep you on your toes until the every end! Cannot go wrong with her books!!!

The action and twists in the story kept me turning my pages later than I should have. I loved reading!!

I love this series with a passion!

Stephanie has a way of always keeping me guessing!!

This book had me on the edge of my seat! The twists and turns in this book keep the reader on their toes!

Stephanie has Done it Again!

Absolutely obsessed with how Stephanie St Klaire can take my love of romance and murder mystery/suspense, and wrap it up so perfectly with a bow every time!

5 Stars! No one can write a murder mystery/romantic suspense like Stephanie St. Klaire!

From the get go, SSK takes us for a rollercoaster of a ride!

It’s a Heart-pounding edge of your seat suspense filled with danger, drama, WOW moments!

Swoon-worthy and action packed!!

Wow! Another spectacular read from The Keepers series!

Once again author Stephanie St. Klaire out does herself with Trivial Deceit!

Romantic Suspense that will make your head spin!

I think every book in Stephanie St. Klaire’s Keeper’s books just get more and more amazing!

This romantic suspense had me on the edge of my seat! So many twists and trying to figure out who to trust will have your head on a swivel. 5 stars for this intense read!

Loved this! Stephanie St. Klaire pays attention to details & keeps her readers on the edge of their seats!

Action packed, emotionally thrilling roller-coaster journey filled with witty and engaging charters and so may new unexpected heart racing twists and dangerous turns. Had me on the edge of my seat and glued to my e-reader from beginning to end. Loved it!!!

Stephanie is the master of romantic suspense and I won't be hearing any different!!

So many twists and turns, heartbreak, grief, happiness, mystery, and everything else I love and expect from SSK!

This story is sooo good!! It had my heart pounding right from the start!!

The Keeper series just keeps getting better! I loved Truly and CT! SSK always deliveres an amazing story full of heart, heat, and twists and turns and this was not a disappointment.

This author did not disappoint. This novel reached out and grabbed me from the very first page and did not let go until the very last. Definitely recommended!

CHAPTER 1:
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” CT said. He bent at the knees, ending in a squatting-like position to better examine the center of a crime scene. The body. The dead body. Resting his elbow on his knee, he dropped his head as he pinched the bridge of his nose, willing away the threatening emotion.
“Can you believe I got the case?” Detective Truly Payne said. “I’m not even next in rotation.”
“Well, given he’s one of us, they wanted their best on it,” CT said, referring to their deceased friend and colleague.
“And I’ll serve justice just fine, but I suppose I’m in shock. I mean, Dixon?” She placed her hands on her half-cocked hips, swatting away the casual semi-cropped suit jacket hem that had been resting there. Her head fell back, gaze fixed on the crumbling brick and mortar ceiling where gaping holes exposed the outside. She let the sunshine breaking through warm her face on what was an otherwise cool day in the Pacific Northwest. It was a welcome distraction from the overwhelming and unsettling grief trying to surface.
“Hank Dixon carried the entire force on his back. He’s trained more officers and detectives with Portland PD than not. The man’s a damn legend,” he replied.
Truly shook her head, focused on CT. “And now he’s dead. What a waste of a good man and a really good detective.”
“Agreed,” he said, standing to face her. “Why’d you call me? You’re capable of handling this one.”
“Because this one needs a second set of eyes.”
CT grinned. “Are you sure that’s why? I’m not a detective anymore. I don’t work in law enforcement.”
“Sure you do. Just on a different level with your fancy covert abilities and resources,” Truly teased.
The corner of his mouth turned up in an ornery grin. “Are you sure that’s the only reason? Maybe you missed me?”
“No, I didn’t miss you. I just want to use your fancy covert abilities and resources. Don’t flatter yourself, Charlie Tango,” she said, slapping his chest to push him away.
“Not even a little bit?” he questioned.
“Not even a little bit,” she deadpanned. “Besides. You guys over at BK Security owe me a few favors, and I’m calling one in.”
Her sights were set on the body once again. “Something horrific happened here. He deserves everything I’ve got, and right now…that’s you.”
“Copy that.” His timbre dropped to one of remorse once again, taking in the brutal beating and torture Hank Dixon must’ve endured.
“You guys smell that?” a young crime scene tech asked as he passed by. “Pretty sure the old man shit himself. Pissed himself too. It must’ve been pretty bad.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Truly stepped in front of the tech. “Do you even know who this is?”
The tech shook his head vigorously, eyes wide, likely regretting his comment.
“One of the most respected detectives from the house. Someone who outranks everyone on this scene and has had more commendations than anyone serving in Portland. A little respect for the deceased,” Truly barked. “Get the hell out of here. Get off my crime scene.”
“But my supervisor…” the young man said.
“Tell your boss I said you can’t come back because you’re a little asshole. Maybe he’ll give you a private moment to cry over a gluten-free iced latte and kale salad with crunchy whatever to think about what you did. In fact, call your mother and tell her what you said so she knows what a prick she raised.”
“My mother’s dead,” he said.
“Yeah? Well, sorry about that.” Truly wasn’t sorry. She was still pissed off. “Call your girlfriend or boyfriend, or…I don’t give a fuck. Just get out of here.”
She waved her hand in an aggressive manner to get him out of her sight, and he complied.
“I’m not sure that’s how that works,” CT said.
She tossed her arms out. “How what works, Casper Thomas? Enlighten me.”
“Gluten-free iced latte? Not a thing. I think you meant dairy-free.” He snorted, amused by her short-tempered reaction.
“Whatever. I don’t care. He got the point. I don’t get what’s up with the new blood on the force. Seriously, they’re all insensitive shits full of…sensitivities. Who says something like that about a murder victim…right in front of them?”
CT shrugged, noting she called him by his given name, which was rare and meant she was reeling inside with emotions she’d spent most of her life avoiding. “To be fair, I don’t think he offended Hank. That guy had a red badge, so doesn’t that mean he’s new or in training or something?”
“Yeah. Who cares? Whether you’re new or a vet on the job, you don’t say crap like that,” she defended. “I don’t like him. Or people like him. They cry over nothing, then act like that? It doesn’t even make sense.”
“I think it was just an observation. He didn’t mean anything by it. We were all new at some point and said or did stupid shit.”
Truly locked his stare and bit her bottom lip, thinking about his comment. He was right. But so was she, in her mind. “Hank deserves better than that. That’s all I’m saying.”
CT nodded. “That he does. So let’s figure this out. Is there anything else you need to get off your chest before we start walking through this case?”
She paused, looking around at the various people on the scene. Some were processing it and collecting evidence, while others were securing it to avoid contamination. Others still were just curious and using their badge to confirm the rumors already spreading through the precinct.
“I don’t trust them,” she said.
His brow furrowed with confusion. “Who?”
“Any of them.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “I don’t trust anyone here. Or back at the house. Something… It feels…off.”
Nodding, he asked in an equally low tone. “Is there something or someone specific we’re talking about here?”
“No. Just my gut. It’s never a good day when one of our own falls, but Hank Dixon was a brand of his own. How the hell does he wind up in the middle of the old port district, in a run-down old building tied to a chair, tortured to death, and left in a pile of rubble? He’s too smart. Too savvy. He’d have seen something coming, and every seedy character in this town knows who he is and not to mess with him.”
“You think it was a hit,” he replied. “Given the scene, it wasn’t just a robbery, but you think this was more. Premeditated?”
“I think someone wanted Hank Dixon out of the way and off the record…forever,” Truly said. “And I think they left a message.”
“Don’t come looking?”
“Exactly. The ME report will come back with the cause of death and an inventory of every mark on his body. The death certificate will say homicide. But what none of that will say is that this was slow, painful, and they didn’t kill him until they were done torturing him because they were bored. He was clearly beaten. Stabbed. Dismembered – he no longer has ten digits. Burned, it looks like. They didn’t shoot him in the head until they were done. A shot to the head is quick, easy, painless for the vic, and cleaner for the assailant. They wanted him to feel it, all of it. And for us to see what lengths they will go to…but for what?”
“Shaking him down? Looking for information on a case, informants, witnesses that needed to be neutralized?” CT offered as an alternative argument. “Was he working on anything big? I hate to bring it up, but what about organized crime? He tended to land those cases, and this has their signature all over it.”
“Nothing that I’m aware of. Nothing out of the ordinary. Homicides have been up, mostly drug-related, but nothing out of the ordinary. You guys have kept the cartel, Russians, and Irish off our docket for a while. No gun-running or major drug muling.”
“It’s a sad day when a drug-related homicide is nothing out of the ordinary,” CT replied. “You’re right about the major crime lords. They’ve been playing nice after our last big sweep.”
“I have all of his pending cases with this one. He didn’t have a lot because the old man was on his way out.” She shook her head in disbelief. “He turned in his papers and was retiring.”
“Shit. Makes it all the way to retirement just to succumb to this.” When she didn’t say anything else and was lost in her own head while staring at the body, he interrupted her to rescue her from the dark path she was mentally traveling. “Where do we start? You have a plan, Payne?”
Truly was quick to shake off the looming dark cloud threatening to swallow her whole. “Yeah. Old-school. We start with his open cases to see if anything in there leads to here.”
“You think he got too close to something, and it got him killed?” CT asked, wondering where her mind was wandering.
“No. He was smarter than that. If he got too close to something, it wouldn’t know he was breathing down its neck. Dixon was too good to get caught. Although, maybe. He was creeping up on retirement. Maybe his guard was down? There’s a new breed of criminal out there, and they’re ruthless, smarter than ever before, and they have something in their back pocket we don’t.”
“What’s that?”
“Technology. Resources. Money. Dirty cops,” she said.
“Inside job?”
“Inside assist? Maybe.” She began to pace. “If this was anyone else. Anyone. I wouldn’t give it a second thought because anything could go wrong, but nothing got past Hank Dixon. Nothing got the jump on him, either.”
“I agree with that. Maybe you know more than you think you do,” CT reasoned. “You said you needed my help because you didn’t trust anyone. You had a gut feeling. Can you elaborate on that? All of that has to come from somewhere.”
“I don’t know. Have you ever walked into a place and everyone was looking at you like they all knew something and you…didn’t?”
“Like you walk in on a joke?”
“Like you walk in on a conspiracy,” she said with a confidence that sent a chill down his spine.
With his hands rolling in front of him, he encouraged her to elaborate. Explain herself. Justify her thoughts and dig out the root of her thinking. “Conspiracy? Based on?”
But she only shrugged. “Gut.”
He shook his head as his eyes rolled. “Gut? Are you sure that isn’t just all the tequila you consumed?”
“Nope. Gave it up. Coffee too. They were both messing with me. One was dragging me down during the day and the other keeping me up at night.”
“Maybe just switch to coffee by day and tequila at night.”
“I was,” she said while staring at her phone screen and pecking away at it.
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“You’re telling me.” She shrugged as frustration filled her expression.
“Tequila kept you up?”
“No, but the bad choices that go home with you after tequila were. Coffee just gave me the shakes. Never used to. Getting older sucks.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t just a hangover giving you the shakes?”
“Maybe.” She paused and looked up to think about what he’d just said, then went back to her phone. “I like iced tea better anyway.”
“You know that’s got caffeine in it too, right?” He snickered, trying to see what on her phone had her attention.
“It does? Huh. News to me. It’s better than all that garbage they put in creamer and those fancy syrup things for coffee. Just nature’s garden brewed in heaven’s tears.”
“Heaven’s tears?” he repeated, words laced in sarcasm. “You okay?”
“Just trying to sound…” She looked up again, searching for the right word.
“Sober?”
“I was going to say sophisticated,” she reasoned.
“Or crazy.”
“Smart.” Frustration marred her words as she slid her phone back into her pocket.
“Okay. Smart.” Now he was beginning to pace.
“Look. Something is definitely going on. You know how I am when I get a tickle on the back of my neck. Dixon was a stand-up guy. Good detective. You know that. He was too smart to back into a trap or get caught on the wrong side of a case, much less be the victim of it.”
CT turned his attention back to Hank’s body, where a forensics team was busy carefully collecting evidence. “I’ll agree with you there. This wasn’t a wrong place, wrong time kill or just being caught in the crosshairs.”
“Exactly,” she said with guarded enthusiasm. “Now you’re getting it.”
“I’m guessing you’ve already dug up his recently closed cases. Any convictions that can backfire? Does someone stand out? Maybe a connected perp with a lot to lose?”
“That’s why I called you. I called back to the house to have all his closed case files from the last six-to-twelve months pulled for my review. All are locked or missing.”
“What?”
She shrugged. “That’s what I said.”
“But they all become public record at some point. Maybe not the details, but a lot of the information. Anyone can look into a case once it’s closed. Unless it’s court sealed or matters of national security anyway. I don’t recall anything high profile recently. We’ve taken care of the big stuff at BK, and even though they had Portland PD assisting – you – they were all ultimately handed over to the feds. Anything miss my radar?”
She shook her head. “None that I can think of. I’ve been on all the big stuff because of you and BK. I took over your desk as lead when you left the department. Nothing has come through that would warrant this type of security. Hank was always sort of his own show.”
“So everything on the board is on your desk. Even Hank’s stuff,” CT concluded.
“Bingo. Things have been relatively quiet. Just the typical like I said. Domestics, gangs, narcotics, run-of-the-mill murders. The usual.”
“Then why seal them?” he asked, his confusion growing deeper – suspicion matching.
“Good question. When I asked, I was told to know my place. Solve the case. Dig deep and do real detective work.”
CT’s eyes widened with surprise. “Sergeant said that? Captain?”
“Higher,” she replied with a dramatic shrug.
“Chief?” CT realized the gravity of that observation and began to scan the scene again, seeing everyone there through a new lens.
“He was down here. Left before you arrived. Hence my call.”
“I understand, I guess.” CT was trying to justify the response she was given. “This was a fallen officer.”
“Who’s been MIA a few days. Dead maybe half that in the middle of a high-crime area? You think he was just here to offer condolences…to a dead man? How many fallen officers have you known him to visit at the crime scene after they’re…gone? This wasn’t an injured in the line of duty scenario with a laid-up officer recovering in a hospital bed.”
“You realize what you’re saying, right? What you’re semi-accusing.” CT had dropped his voice again as more people were on the scene, which meant more potential listeners. “This is the chief. Maybe he just wanted to make sure this wasn’t fucked up. That Hank gets justice. He’s one of us, Payne.”
“You still one of us, CT?”
“Always.” He nodded with a sigh.
“Then tell me this. Why was I given the case when I wasn’t next on the board?”
“Because you’re the best in the department.”
“Okay. I’ll give you that,” she agreed confidently. “Why did the chief come to me at the scene to address the files I requested shortly after calling in for them and never once assess the scene? He didn’t even look at Hank. Not once. But he told me multiple times to leave the files alone. To follow the evidence, and…and do my job.”
“So you do think this is an inside job? The chief?”
“I think you’re the only one I can trust until I can answer that confidently and with irrefutable evidence, yes.”
Something pleading or needy in her tone struck him, which wasn’t like Truly Payne – not in the least. She never flinched, much less cried, and she was tougher than most men he knew. She was smart and strong, the epitome of a badass. He knew that. She knew that. And apparently, the upper brass knew that, and that seemed to bother her more than knowing a cold-blooded killer was out there taking out highly decorated law enforcement.
“Copy that, Payne.” CT looked at his watch. “The team was debriefing when you called. They should still be assembled.”
“New case?” she asked.
“They have one now.” He chuckled. “We were just closing one and moving to the next, so your timing couldn’t be better.”
“I’ll be sure to thank the asshole who did this to Dixon then.”
“Let’s get over to Watermark and share this with the team. See if we can’t get some help on the locked files. You’re right. It’s time we pay up on a few favors.”
“A few?” she said, following him toward the street. “More than a few, CT Owens.”
“You keeping count?”
“I’d be crazy not to. Your resources make my tax-payer resources look straight off the lemon lot.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” he said, stopping at his car.
“It makes perfect sense. It’s a saying.”
He shook his head. “Nobody says that.”
She shrugged. “You’re driving. I rode over with another officer. And everyone says that.”
“I’m sure people say something similar, but it isn’t that.” He laughed. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure, it does. Basically, your office looks like the pentagon and NASA had a baby, and mine looks like Dunkin’ Donuts met a dump truck and technology doesn’t exist.”
He ran his hand down his face. “What? That doesn’t make sense either, Payne.”
She gave him a disturbing look when he opened the passenger side door for her. “What are you doing, CT?”
He looked at her, then the door. “Opening your door?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s…kind?” It was more of a question than a statement as he began to examine exactly why he was opening her door and why she had a problem with it.
“You don’t think I can do it myself?”
“Of course, I know you can do it yourself.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“I’m being a gentleman. Using my manners,” he defended, and she shrugged.
She sat in the car, put her seat belt on, then gave him an exaggerated look and motioned for him to close the door. “Are you going to close it?”
“Sure.” He shut it with more force than usual and shook his head as he rounded the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat. “I swear, the way you say things.”
“It’s poetic. I know.” Truly looked at her watch. “Can we make a quick stop on the way?”
“Let me guess…tacos?”
“What? I haven’t eaten all day, and Jalapeño’s is on the way.”