Psychological thriller concept-- need improvement advice

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The anti-heroine protagonist is a single woman in her early forties. She's neurotic, childlike, insecure, and seems a bit nerdy with her long skirted dress, acne scars, semi-high/semi-raspy voice and nostalgic, secretarial glasses. Recent tests have proven that one of her big fears is true: she's unable to conceive, period. She's in an existential crisis, and with no relatives that are either living or on speaking terms, she has no real means of passing on her legacy. She has a well paying office job that gives her no satisfaction. It is when she considers adoption that things start to kick in. She is introduced to a teenage couple looking to place their unborn child. They're great friends at first, but the teens see a dark side to our cute lady, and decide to cancel any placement plans.

She doesn't like that.
Not. One. Bit.

Those kids are going to learn, somehow, someway, not to cross a woman with nothing to lose...

To me psychological thrillers are chilling in their small realistic details.

Her career, as stated, is unrealistic and flat. There are no well paying office jobs. There are well paying jobs done in offices, but they're referred to as professional titles; accountant, engineer, etc. (Anyone who has established a professional career has outgrown childlike and insecure.) And frankly, the workplace simply doesn't reward childlike and insecure with a living wage unless there are extenuating circumstances such as; a relative owns the company.

I am assuming that the plot requires her to have some expendable income in addition to being financially independent. Has she inherited money? Or has she been wreaking havoc in a business she inherited and runs?

Or give her a job or special interest that has some skills/assets that can be put to chilling use; it's especially chilling if the job is mundane and the skills/assets are used in very unexpected ways. (I'd avoid computer hacking because this has been written to death already.)

She will need a back-story which explains how she arrived to her 40s still childlike, etc, but has expendable income. The back-story needn't be spelled out in detail, it can be presented in broad brush strokes but it needs to be plausible, congruent with her immaturity and explain her financial independence. Fleshing out this area of the character's life may also yield a lot of plot movement

It seems like you're so intent on making your characters so flawed that no one could possibly like them or relate to them successfully. Throttle back on the 'transgression for transgression's sake', and write characters you'd realistically encounter and possibly even like to be around, even if they're not entirely good people.

Recent addition, a response to MountainLaurel: Mary Smith (the protagonist) is an OB/GYN, meaning she has the medical expertise necessary to safely deliver a child.

Yikes

This sounds more like a short-story in the making than a novel though; unless abduction and and baby-stealing is just a portion of the story and not the whole of it.

For some reason I was reminded of Pablo Francisco's "Little Tortilla Boy" skit. Sorry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9pAv-z2ens I don't know, I find that hilarious, but true.

It's hard, for a book, I don't know, for a movie, you need to add more explosions! But in seriousness, though, instead of making her completely neurotic and mad, you need to narrow down her flaws into just one flaw that rules her entire life. Like, the character you're thinking of, you gotta make her be otherwise good, EXCEPT for this one thing. What I'm talking about is, read up on, say, serial killers or whatever, they're generally pretty normal seeming, but just one flaw in them overrides everything else in them and they have an insatiable urge to do whatever bad stuff they do.

Like just watching the news, after someone murders their wife or family or something, usually, when the neighbors are interviewed, it's "Aww, he was such a nice guy, I can't believe he did that." It's kinda rare when neighbors are interviewed and say "Yeah, he was such an as*hole, it's not surprising at all." My friend has personal experience in this, 2 people that owned an airsoft store near where he lived killed a cop and died on a shootout in a bank robbery, and were under investigation for a string of bank robberies. Nobody expected it at all, everyone just said they seemed kinda nice and whatever. That's how you gotta make your protagonist, just one "except..." throwing a wrench into her entire character and causing her to be evil.

That and you need the cool movie preview voice guy to do the movie preview or talk about the book, that'll instantly make it 100x better and more exciting sounding.

I say the same thing as Zokk and 1000Knives. Your protagonist seems too one-dimensionally unlikeable. There's nothing wrong with having a villain as a protagonist, but even then, they should have a few characteristics that make them interesting instead of being simply irredeemably despicable. Why should I care about your MC or anyone else in your story?

Tidbits about Mary
-Loves reading comic books, especially Superman
-Most of her relatives are either dead or not on speaking terms, leaving her isolated.
-Wants to "live on", to have someone or someway of keeping her memory alive.
-Very friendly. It's not an act, it is genuine.
-Not evil or insane, just fragile, eccentric, and baby-crazy. Her biological clock is ticking in her skull.
-Sees a lot of herself in the teenage couple, and wants their child so much that she is willing bring them to a secluded area and strip naked in front of them, showing SPOILER ALERT: her deformed vagina and the scars she received from her abusive ex-husband. While holding them at gunpoint, tears in her eyes.

OK, the very friendly part is a good start. You've made this character more than one-dimensionally unlikeable now.

I guess because I know so many artists, I was imagining Mary more as the art type. This would open up her possibly being a tenured art teacher in a school gaining admiration from youths/teens, as well as trust. Having talent as a teacher and an artist could give her expendable income from art sales through alumni sales from her art school, as well as her teaching salary. Her quirks would be more easily written off by society as "artsy", and her dark side could be revealed through her private art collection and works. Her OBGYN knowledge could possibly come from some volunteer work at a local clinic? Helping teen mothers to express their anxiety through art? That would give her access to supplies, drugs, maybe kidnapping an ob nurse?
Just brainstorming...Not trying to take over. Sorry if I sort of did, your story idea is so good that my brain started churning out complimentary ideas. Please tell me to back off if I've intruded too much. I do tend to get carried away with things that really catch my interest.
Can't wait to read your first chapters, whoever Mary is.