Major Characters

Shelby BeckerShelby Becker

Name:

Shelby Becker

Age:

24

Hair:

Blonde

Skin:

Fair, like porcelain

Occupation:

Corporate Lawyer

Personality:

Acerbic, blunt, graceful

Description:

Tall and slender, elegant and classically beautiful

Shelby and Finn attended high school together.  Shelby is extremely attracted and has dated prolifically, with her longest relationship being six months with her current partner, Taylor Devereaux.

Shelby’s mother’s name is Dayna Becker – and Shelby describes her as ‘being the best Mom in the whole world, but she’s about the bossiest, too’.

Shelby was a city girl at heart, born in Chicago and would undoubtedly live there all her life. The sights and sounds of inner city living were an integral part of who she was, what she loved.  She was far more cosmopolitan than I’d ever be and considered Chicago the most beautiful city on earth.  In school she’d been the popular girl, fashionable, top of the class and extremely intelligent. I’d been the bohemian type who was more interested in the arts, a free spirit who chose my own path and didn’t seek to pursue the trends everyone else followed. Despite our differences we became close friends, spending most of our teenage years living in each other’s pockets.  Every weekend would find Shelby staying at our house or I would stay at hers.  When Shelby’s family went on holidays I was invited to join them and in turn, Shelby would spend hours at our house, learning to bake with my Mom and joining us on camping trips.

Ash ImaharaTakahashi (Ash) Imahara

Name: Takahashi (Ash) Imahara
Age: 34
Occupation: Police Detective, Homicide
Height: 5’10”
Hair: Black
Eyes: Chocolate Brown

Ash was married about seven years ago, to Marianne.  It was a short-lived marriage of two years, destroyed by the pressures of his job.  Marianne has since gone on to remarry and have two children with her new husband.  Since his divorce, Ash has avoided dating.

Even now I had trouble recalling why they disliked one another in the first place.  There’d been cultural differences, with Ash coming from Japanese American stock and Bryan and myself being purely Irish American.  They made incongruous friends from the beginning,  Ash was dark skinned with jet black hair and chocolate brown eyes; Bryan freckled and blessed with the sky blue eyes and flaming red hair synonymous with an Irish background.  Luckily for me, I missed out on that particular legacy.As kids, Ash and Bryan had a similar height and build, but when they turned fifteen the similarities ended abruptly as Bryan reached a soaring height of six feet three inches, whilst Ash was disappointed with his full height of just a touch over five ten.  Despite their physical differences, both men shared an equal ability to attract women, with them both having handsome features and well-muscled bodies, honed through hours of physical exercise.Their friendship continued throughout high school and College, before they joined the Police Academy together.  Cementing their friendship as they worked their way up the ranks, their promotion to Detective was simultaneous.  Their paths diversified from that point, Ash moved into Homicide as Bryan drifted into the harsh world of undercover work with the Vice Squad.  For months he would disappear into the seediest areas of Chicago, immersing himself in the underbelly of the windy city.

Earl CallaghanEarl Callaghan

Earl Callaghan is Moira’s husband and Gracie’s father.  Thick brown hair, hard-bitten features and black eyes.

He was the most powerfully built man I’d ever seen, taller even than Caleb and Rafe.  With thick brown hair and hard-bitten features, it was difficult to tell his mood from the expression on his face.   To my utter shock, he burst into tears and wrapped me in his arms, sobbing against the top of my head.  His strength was so immense, he almost lifted me off the ground.  I tried to pat his shoulder, gave it up as impossible and patted his vast upper arm instead.  When he’d regained some control he released his grip and smiled.  “That bastard Caleb, s’cuse my language forced me to come down here today, telling me I needed to see how much fun Gracie and Moira were having.  I nearly shit myself, s’cuse my language when I saw my baby girl looking so upset just now, then when I saw you taking off your jacket like that, in front of God and everyone and talking her through it, it just about tore me up inside.”  He grinned down at me, black eyes sparkling in delight.  “You and Gracie showed me she’s happy enough being amongst her friends and we’ve probably done her a fuckin’ disservice, s’cuse my language, by keeping her isolated so much.”