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A WOLF IN THE WOODS by Nancy Allen

23 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Female protagonist, Fiction, Legal thriller, Mystery, Nancy Allen, Ozark Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

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Wolf in the WoodsChapter 1

Seated at the counsel table in the Associate Circuit Court of McCown County, Missouri, Elsie Arnold watched the judge toy with the file folder before him on the bench.

Judge Calvin ran a hand through his prematurely silver hair. “I’m binding him over, ladies. But it’s a close call.”

Elsie heard her co-counsel, Assistant Prosecutor Breeon Johnson, exhale with relief. Elsie wanted to echo it. The judge was right; the preliminary hearing on the felony assault was not an open and shut case. Their victim was a homeless man who had been inebriated at the time of the attack; and though his injuries were grievous, his testimony was spotty. Seemed like he’d forgotten more than he could recall.

After the judge left the bench, Elsie twisted in her seat to check the clock at the back of the courtroom. “That ran long.”

Breeon nodded. “We’re working overtime, girl.”

Elsie snorted. For a county prosecutor, the idea of overtime was a fiction. As salaried public servants, they routinely worked long hours with no additional compensation.

The women exited the courtroom and walked the worn marble stairway down to the second floor of the century-old county building. Their footsteps echoed in the empty rotunda. The McCown County Courthouse, an imposing stone structure, had graced the center of the town square of Barton, Missouri, for over a century. While other county seats in southwest Missouri had opted to build new structures, to accommodate twenty-first century demands of security and technology, McCown County voters stubbornly clung to the old facility.

“Five thirty, and it’s a ghost town,” Elsie said.

“Not quite. My baby is waiting for me in my office.”

At the bottom of the stairway, they exchanged a look. Elsie didn’t need to speak the obvious: Breeon’s daughter would be highly impatient with the delay.

But who could blame her? Taylor was a fourteen-year-old kid. Hanging around the empty courthouse was a snooze. Breeon, a single mother who hailed from St. Louis, Missouri, tried to keep regular hours. While Bree was a dedicated prosecutor, her devotion to duty was bested by her devotion to her teenage daughter.

Elsie, on the other hand, was a local product: a Barton, Missouri, native. Still single, at the age of thirty-two. And still enjoying her extended adolescence.

As they entered the McCown County Prosecutor’s Office, Breeon made a beeline for her office. “Tay-Tay! I’m done, hon.”

Elsie poked her head into the open doorway of Breeon’s office. Taylor sat behind Breeon’s desk. Her hand was on the computer mouse.

With a sulky face, she said, “Finally. I’ve been bored af.”

“Uh-uh.” Bree’s voice was sharp. “I don’t like that af talk. Don’t use it when you’re around me, do you hear?”

Elsie’s eyes darted to the wall. The af abbreviation was a common sight in her texts. And her tweets. So much speedier than actually spelling out the words.

“Baby, have you been on my computer?”

“Yeah. Just for something to do.”

“Taylor, it’s the county’s computer. We’re not supposed to be on it for personal use.”

Taylor spun in her mother’s office chair and stretched her coltish legs across the tiled floor. “I was just doing some homework. Looking stuff up.”

“Well, remember to stay off it from now on. We don’t want Madeleine mad at us.”

Madeleine Thompson, who held the title of Prosecuting Attorney of McCown County had been known to get her nose out of joint for smaller offenses, Elsie thought.

To lighten the mood, Elsie said, “Taylor, your mom says your birthday is coming up. Just around the corner. I can hardly believe you’re almost fifteen years old.”

Taylor’s eyes lit up. “Mom, I know what I want for my birthday.”

Breeon was digging in her briefcase, sorting through files. “You already told me. Those rain boots in purple.” Bree glanced at Elsie. “Do you know what Hunter rain boots cost? It’s a crime.”

Elsie shrugged. When she was a teenager, rain boots weren’t even a thing—not in Barton, Missouri. On rainy days, she’d walked around town with wet shoes on her feet.

Taylor spoke again, with a challenge in her tone. “Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I want headshots.”

Breeon zipped her bag. “What?” she asked, incredulous.

“Headshots. By a photographer. A real one.”

Curious, Elsie stepped through the office doorway and dropped into a chair facing Bree’s desk. “What do you want pictures for? You don’t need your senior portrait till after your junior year in high school.”

“Is this for the yearbook?” Breeon asked.

Taylor’s eyes dropped.

“Not the yearbook. For modeling.”

Elsie and Bree both burst into laughter; but when a cloud crossed Taylor’s face, Elsie tried to choke it back.

Taylor’s face was stormy. “You think I’m too ugly to be a model?”

Breeon stepped over her daughter’s outstretched feet and ran a gentle hand over the girl’s hair. “Oh honey. You’re beautiful. And smart, and talented, and strong.”

“So why can’t I do modeling?”

“Baby, we’re in the Ozark hills of Missouri. Even if I wanted you to be a model—you can’t be one here. There’s no modeling industry around here.”

A glance out of the window behind Breeon’s desk provided the truth to her claim. Tree-covered hills rose up in the distance, behind the town square where the courthouse sat. Barton, Missouri, the county seat of Barton County, Missouri, was a tiny town in the hill country of the Ozarks.

A bare whisper escaped Taylor’s downturned head. “Maybe there is.”

Elsie said, “Why would you want to be a model? They don’t get to eat.”

Taylor rolled her eyes.

Undeterred, Elsie continued: “They have to starve. And their career is over before they hit thirty. And they don’t get to use their brains; they are human clothes hangers.”

Without acknowledging Elsie, Taylor bent to pick up her backpack. “I wanna go home, Mom. We have a game tonight. Coach doesn’t like it when I’m late.”

“Sure thing.” Breeon shot Elsie a pleading look over Taylor’s head. “Can you lock up, Elsie? Taylor needs to be at the gym by six thirty to warm up, and I have to fix something for her to eat.”

Taylor spoke up, with a look of anticipation. “Are we going to the grocery store? I want to get the new Cosmo.”

“No, we’re not. But I got you something better.” Bree rummaged on her desk, pulling up a manila envelope. “It came in the office mail. I wanted to surprise you.”

Taylor tore open the package. A paperback book fell out onto the desktop. She picked it up with a listless hand. “What’s this?”

“Alice Walker. My favorite of her novels. You’re such an advanced reader, I think you’re ready for it.” She kissed Taylor on the forehead, then turned to Elsie. “So you’ll lock up?”

“No problem. Hey—I’ll probably see you all over at the school gym tonight.”

Taylor’s face turned in Elsie’s direction. “You’re coming to see me play?”

“Well, I’ll be there for the ninth-grade boys’ game. I’m meeting Ashlock, since his kid’s on the team.” With an effort, Elsie kept her voice upbeat. She would much prefer to meet Detective Bob Ashlock, her current flame, in a darkened barroom after work. “But I’ll try to get there early, so I can see your team, too.”

Breeon said, “That’d be great. Right, Taylor?”

Elsie stepped over to Breeon’s desk to pick up the felony hard file they’d handled in Judge Calvin’s court while Breeon packed up her briefcase. Taylor bolted out of the office, with her mother following. Breeon’s voice called out as their steps retreated down the hallway. “See you later, Elsie.”

Elsie flipped through the file and set it down. Giving the desk a final glance, she saw that Bree’s computer was still turned on.

Their boss, Madeleine, had recently sent an office wide email, instructing the employees to log off and shut down the computers at night. It was her new “green” policy.

Elsie leaned over the desk and clicked the mouse, preparing to log off Bree’s computer. Images popped up on the screen. Elsie leaned in to examine it.

It looked like a link for a modeling agency, pitching glamorous jobs for girls from twelve to twenty-five. Elsie shook her head. “Taylor, Taylor,” she murmured.

Idly, she skimmed through the text on the screen. It promised that the agency could make a young woman’s dream of fame and fortune come true, through an international modeling career. Elsie clicked the mouse to expose the bottom of the page, pausing to study a selfie of the agent in charge. It depicted a dark-haired man with a tattoo on his neck. He wore a smarmy grin.

A chill went through her; she grimaced. It set off a buzz in Elsie’s radar. The man in the picture was not the type of individual that a mother would want sniffing around her teenage daughter.

She turned off the computer and got ready to depart. Before she turned off Breeon’s office light, she glanced down at the trashcan near the door.

At the top of the garbage was the brand new Alice Walker paperback novel. Elsie reached into the wastebasket to rescue it; but it had fallen on the remains of Breeon’s lunch. Mustard and ketchup smeared the cover. Elsie dropped it back into the can and headed for the women’s room to wash a streak of ketchup dripping from her fingers.

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From A WOLF IN THE WOODS, by Nancy Allen, published by Witness Impulse, an imprint of William Morrow. Copyright © 2018 by Nancy Allen. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollinsPublishers

 
Nancy HeadshotNancy Allen practiced law for 15 years as Assistant Missouri Attorney General and Assistant Prosecutor in her native Ozarks. She tried over 30 jury trials, including murder and sexual offenses, and is now a law instructor at Missouri State University.

Twitter @TheNancyAllen

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SMALL TOWN TROUBLE by Laura Benedict

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Cat Mystery, Fiction, Laura Benedict, Mystery, Uncategorized

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COVER FINAL small town troubleCHAPTER ONE

 There’s nothing like an overenthusiastic canine to ruin a stakeout. I have my eye on a blue sedan parked across the street from the Walsh estate where I’m visiting, but it’s deuced difficult to concentrate with an obnoxious Jack Russell terrier barking up at me from the driveway.  All of the other cars belonging to the guests of the massive party going on at the house behind me are parked in a nearby field, but the men who directed the parking are long gone. The dark-haired woman in the sedan is a latecomer, and she stares unmoving at the Walshes’ posh house, her eyes hidden by sunglasses. With no small degree of nonchalance, I stretch across the top of the deliciously warm brick pedestal at the edge of the drive and squint down at Jocko, the offending white and tan, perky-eared creature. Who has ever heard of such an idiotic moniker? Jocko, indeed.

I know for a fact that Sherlock Holmes never had to deal with such an annoying canine—not counting that Baskerville brute, of course. Sherlock, who is my role model and personal hero, made good use of an intelligent chap named Toby that was half-spaniel, but these Jack Russell types are thoroughly mad. They dash about the countryside yapping constantly, chasing down rodents (an occupation much more suited to accomplished cats such as I), and bothering horses.

I warn Jocko to calm down with a low growl. In return he whines and pants and waggles that ridiculous curled tail. What a hopeless wretch he is.

At home in Wetumpka, Alabama, my human, Tammy Lynn, would never have such a beast hanging about. But she and I came to western Kentucky to visit Erin Walsh, whose late mother was Tammy’s childhood babysitter. Unfortunately Tammy was called to Milan, Italy, to authenticate a priceless book that some monks found in their library. The Italian antiquities bureaucracy would only make it available for a few days, and she had to leave me behind with Erin.

It’s true. I don’t sound like I’m from Alabama. I spent much of the first of my nine lives studying that excellent Cumberbatch actor’s Sherlock Holmes films, and acquired a bit of an English accent. Of course only other cats like my brilliant detective father, Familiar, can hear it. But I have no problem motivating the humans around me when I engage in traditional feline vocalizations.

The woman in the car is staying put. I consider popping across the street or chasing the hapless Jocko her way to get some movement from her—angry-looking people who stare at houses usually mean danger—but the foolish dog would no doubt be run over by a passing tractor or pickup truck. One somehow feels responsible for the Jockos of the world.

Instead I leap onto the impeccably paved driveway, inches from Jocko’s head, making him jump back a mile. Anyone who says cats can’t smile has never seen me after I’ve played a clever trick.

The party has been in full swing since my third nap of the day. Most of the guests—employees and their families from Bruce Walsh’s (Erin’s father) car dealership—are swimming or fishing or careening about on noisy Jet Skis on the Cedar Grove Lake cove that meets the Walsh property. The Walshes have even set up a few picturesque changing cabanas near the property’s strip of manmade beach. The less adventurous guests are in the swimming pool or eating. But I’ve done the rounds back there and want to avoid further contact with the youngsters and their sticky hands, so I enter through the carelessly open front door with Jocko panting behind me.

Hearing angry voices I continue to the library door, which is open a few inches, and slip neatly inside. Hapless Jocko, who doesn’t seem to understand that he could push the door open a bit further to enter as well, sits down in the hall and whimpers pathetically. But Jocko’s not my concern right now.

Erin, a sweet, strawberry blonde co-ed who’s home for the summer from the University of Kentucky, leans forward, her hands balled into fists at her side. Her face is pink beneath her freckles, a sign that she’s angry and frustrated. I’ve seen that look on Tammy Lynn’s face a time or two. But when I see the other woman, who wears a canny, unpleasant grin, I understand why Erin is frustrated. The woman is her stepmother, Shelby Rae, who’s only a dozen years older than Erin. Shelby Rae is also Jocko’s human, and believes it’s her job to meddle in Erin’s business.

Neither of them glance at me as I stroll to one of the many tall windows overlooking the front garden and settle on the back of an enormous couch with stripes like a cafe awning. From there I can find out what’s wrong between Erin and Shelby Rae and observe the car out front. What does the woman in the car want? Is she dangerous? I intend to find out.

 “What in the world were you thinking, child? Your daddy’s going to be so upset. You know we think tattoos are trashy on women.”

If she hadn’t been so angry, Erin Walsh would’ve laughed out loud at her stepmother. Shelby Rae, with her bottom-grazing miniskirts and heavy makeup, had the market cornered on trashy. Her family wasn’t much better and seemed to have no visible means of support aside from the little helper checks (Shelby Rae’s words) Erin knew she’d been writing for years. But it was her condescending child that made Erin want to wipe the Corral Me Coral lipstick off Shelby Rae’s collagen-injected lips. She didn’t believe in the stereotype of an Irish temper, but she could swear she felt the anger in her bones.

“I’m not your child, Shelby Rae, and I won’t be talked to that way by you or anybody else. Daddy has asked you, and I’ve told you a thousand times, to stay out of my business.”

Seven years ago, just after Erin’s mother died, Shelby Rae, who worked as the receptionist at the dealership, had taken Erin under her twenty-something wing and become like a big sister to her. They went shopping together in Louisville, and traveled down to Nashville to see a Taylor Swift concert. They did cosmic bowling and Shelby Rae even helped her buy a bra that was more substantial than her training bra. It was Shelby Rae who drove her to the drugstore to pick out sanitary pads after Erin called her whispering, “Shelby Rae, I started.”

But two years later, Erin’s father asked her to come into the library—the very room in which they now stood—and with a beaming Shelby Rae at his side said, “We have wonderful news to tell you, honey.”

If only her father had instead taken her out alone on a walk on the lake trail, or driven her in the boat to dinner at The Captain’s Table on the other side of the lake to tell her. Or he could’ve asked her how she felt about Shelby Rae and if she thought it was a good idea for him to marry her. She might have understood. She might even have been glad to have her suspicions confirmed. She wasn’t blind or stupid. Her father sometimes stayed out late, and he and Shelby Rae shared significant looks when she came to pick up Erin. If only…

That’s not what happened, though, and here they were.

“Oh, come on. Did you forget you have a tattoo on your backside?” Erin pointed at Shelby Rae’s ample left hip. “You have a snake back there. What kind of person has a snake on their butt?”

Shelby Rae pursed her lips and stuck her recently-altered nose in the air. “It’s an asp. Like Cleopatra. And it’s gold and blue. It’s art.”

Erin scowled. “I’m nineteen. It’s perfectly legal if I want to tattoo my whole face.” She pointed to her lightly freckled forehead. “I could get a freaking butterfly parade all across here.”

In fact she’d completely forgotten about the new tattoo when she’d taken her shorts off by the pool. Seeing the tattoo, Shelby Rae had pulled Erin away from her best friend, MacKenzie Clay, and hurried her all the way into the library.  Erin only just now wondered why Shelby Rae had been watching her in the first place.

“You’re being silly.” Shelby Rae shook her head. “Only criminals have tattoos on their faces.”

“Oh, so I guess it would be okay if your Uncle Travis, who’s out back drinking Daddy’s beer and about to eat the biggest steak from the outdoor fridge, gets a tattoo on his face?”

Shelby Rae crossed her arms across her breasts. Erin knew she hadn’t had to have those fixed like she’d had her nose done. She’d once overheard one of the salesmen at the dealership comment on Shelby Rae’s enormous assets.

“Why are you so hateful, Erin? I’ve never done one single thing except be nice to you. This is a very stressful time, with the lawsuit just over with. You haven’t been here. You don’t know what it’s been like. That woman from the lawsuit has been hanging around, and I’ve hardly even seen your father for months.” Her high voice stretched into a familiar whine.

The lawsuit. Erin’s father had brushed it off whenever she called him from Lexington. A woman named Tionna Owens was killed when her car’s brakes failed just minutes after she’d left the dealership’s service department. She’d dropped in to ask them to take a quick look at the brakes because she thought there was something wrong. According to Earl Potts, the service manager, he’d told her they were very busy and she could make an appointment for another day. He said she’d grown angry and declared she would take her business elsewhere. The county didn’t find grounds to prosecute, but her family brought a civil suit against the dealership declaring that they it had a record of the car’s brake problems and a duty of care to examine it immediately. But the case had been dismissed.

“He doesn’t even listen to me,” Shelby Rae continued. “Nobody listens to me!”

“That’s because you’re a drama queen. Nobody needs your drama, and I’m sick and tired of it. Stay out of my business.” Erin knew she was being as dramatic as Shelby Rae, but she was beginning to wish she had kept her apartment in Lexington and had picked up a part-time job there for the summer, or just volunteered at a rescue shelter. Bumming around New Belford and hanging around the house—even if she was often with MacKenzie—was turning out to be a bad idea.

Shelby Rae huffed out of the library. When she pushed open the door Jocko barked up at her with frantic joy. Erin saw the startled faces of two women she didn’t recognize over Shelby Rae’s shoulder. Great. Now everyone would know they’d been arguing. How long would it be before her father was asking her why Shelby Rae was so upset?

Erin walked over to the window. The library had always been one of her favorite rooms. She put a hand on the end of the high-backed sofa and Trouble, the clever black cat Tammy Lynn had asked her to look after, nudged her hand with his velvety nose.

“Sorry about that,” she said, scratching the cat behind the ears. “I don’t really hate her. She just gets to me sometimes.”

The cat purred. Tammy Lynn had told her that Trouble was good at solving mysteries and had saved her more than once.

“Don’t worry. I can’t promise you any mysteries, but we’ll find something to do that gets us away from here.”

Erin gazed out the window as she stroked the soft fur on Trouble’s back. She could see a blue sedan parked across the road with a woman inside who appeared to be staring the house. A shiver went up Erin’s spine. She knew the woman: she was Bryn Owens , Tionna Owens’ wife.

Bryn and Tionna Owens had owned New Belford’s Two Hearts bakery together; and while Erin and MacKenzie were in high school, they often met there for coffee. Tionna had a special fondness for MacKenzie who, like Tionna, had a mother who was black and a father who was white. Erin’s eyes were opened wide when Tionna told them about times in the city when she and her parents were ignored in restaurants or cursed at on the street. Erin knew there were a few people in and around New Belford who felt the same way, but she never thought of it as affecting MacKenzie. To Erin, MacKenzie had always been just MacKenzie, her best friend since kindergarten, and MacKenzie’s parents were Mr. and Mrs. Clay. Now, she knew better.

After Tionna died in the wreck, Bryn put a closed sign in the bakery window. The sign was still there. Erin was familiar with grief. The pain in her gut had lessened considerably in the seven years since her mother had been killed, but it never really went away.

Trouble snapped to attention, slipping from beneath her hand to stand on his back legs and put his front paws against the window. The cat never missed a thing.

A rumbling motorcycle pulled up behind Bryn’s sedan and stopped. Erin wondered if this was someone she was supposed to know.

A guy wearing blue jeans and a slim black T-shirt whose sleeves took on the taut muscular shape of his upper arms and shoulders, put down the motorcycle’s kickstand and took off his helmet. When he pushed his sun-streaked brown hair from his face, she recognized his profile. His look was different—a little more relaxed and, frankly, sexier—than she remembered.

Noah Daly had been two years ahead of her in school, and he’d been a loner. A bit geeky, but still a loner. A lot of girls thought he was cute, but their mothers made sure they didn’t get too close because Noah’s father, Jeb Daly, was known to be bad news. When Noah was about to enter high school, Jeb did the unthinkable—he used a gun to rob the New Belford branch of the Kentucky Patriot Bank.

At the time of the robbery, Erin’s mother, Rita, was in the building to drop off a dozen of her special mocha and cranberry cupcakes as a birthday surprise for a friend. But it wasn’t Jeb Daly who killed Rita. Zach Wilkins, the deputy who responded to the silent alarm, shot her accidentally.

A few years later Erin’s father hired Noah Daly to work in the dealership’s service department. What had he been thinking? And what was Noah Daly doing talking to Bryn Owens?

“Here, Mom.” Noah handed his mother, Annette, an insulated tumbler of sweet iced tea. She took the tea and smiled up at him from her chair at one of the umbrella tables by the pool. Only eighteen when he was born, she was younger than the mothers of most of the guys he knew, but her beauty had faded quickly. She’d long ago started dyeing her auburn hair to hide the gray that showed up before she turned thirty. And because she worked long hours managing a big convenience store near the interstate, she didn’t get much exercise, and so carried a little extra weight. But the thing Noah noticed most about her was that her eyes didn’t sparkle as they had seemed to when he was little. Still, unlike most guys he knew, he’d never once been ashamed to be seen with his own mother.

“Why aren’t you out on the lake, honey? The Jet Skis look like so much fun. Didn’t you bring swim trunks?”

Noah glanced around him. The women near the pool wore sundresses or shorts or bathing suits, and the kids were either in the pool, or dripping water as they played close by. Most of the men he worked with were in swim trunks and T-shirts in or near the lake. All of their girlfriends wore bikinis.

“Not going in the water today, Mom. Not in the mood. I just didn’t want you to stay at the house today.”

She leaned close to him, whispering. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Noah.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? We’re here, and that’s what’s important.”

A tall man wearing relaxed khaki shorts and a comfortably faded polo shirt ducked his head beneath the umbrella and laid one of his large hands on Annette’s shoulder. The hair at his temples was gray, but the rest was what Noah had heard his mother call strawberry blond. With his friendly green eyes, Bruce Walsh always looked like he was about to share good news.

“So glad you could make it, Annette. I told Noah I hoped he’d bring you to the party this year.” He nodded to Noah. “Even if young Noah here decides to bring along a sweetheart, you’re always welcome to come, too.”

“Mr. Walsh—”

He didn’t let her finish. “Please, Annette. Call me Bruce, and don’t get up. We get to be the grownups here, right?”

“It’s a wonderful party,” she said, settling back down in her chair. “Look at all these fancy decorations! Even these pretty tumblers are red, white, and blue. I’m so happy all these children are having a good time.” As they watched, a small girl shrieked with delight as she started down the pool slide, her arms waving above her head. When she splashed into the water, then quickly popped to the surface, even Bruce laughed.

“Shelby Rae and I feel a deep sense of gratitude to the people who make Walsh Motors successful. It’s a family, and I like to take care of that family.” He held out a freshly-opened bottle of Budweiser to Noah. “Something cold? Hot day to be out on that Yamaha of yours. You know, the invitation is still open for you and the boys in the department to fish off our docks any time.”

“Thanks, Mr. Walsh.” Noah took the beer with a nod. “I’ve come out here early a few mornings this spring and summer. But I park over on the access road and fish off the far dock so I don’t disturb you all. The yellow perch and bass are running big this year.”

“Oh, that bass,” his mother said. “That’s something special.”

Bruce agreed.

To Noah, the most impressive thing about Bruce Walsh was his sincerity. Sometimes he sounded like a politician, but Noah knew that Bruce always kept his word. When he hired Noah on, he said he didn’t expect any more or any less from him than any other employee, but that it would be a great favor to him if Noah would keep his father, Jeb, from coming around after he got out of prison. Keeping the man who was ultimately responsible for his boss’s first wife’s death away from his place of business was a promise Noah had been happy to make. Especially because he didn’t want to have anything to do with his loser father either. He was glad Bruce didn’t know that promise might soon be tested.

Shelby Rae, who had married Bruce long before Noah started at the dealership, was more of a mystery. When she visited, she certainly didn’t hang around the service department. A few of the guys called her a gold digger and others referred to her as a nice piece of ass. Right now she was a dozen feet away, among a tight group of men surrounding Junior, the hired cook. The men were all older and a couple of them were checking out the plunging neckline of Shelby Rae’s short white sundress as though they wanted to fall in. One of the less obvious guys put a hand on her back, and she whipped her head around so that her long, curled ponytail nearly hit the man on the other side of her.

“Quit it, Uncle Travis!”

Noah smiled. The guy deserved it, but he merely chuckled and pushed his thin black hair away from his forehead, unfazed.

A couple of the other men, including Earl Potts, the service manager, dropped back, embarrassed. It could have been one of them instead of the intrepid Travis. He was her uncle? Talk about awkward.

Bruce and his mother were still talking. Noah wasn’t sure what he’d missed, but the conversation had turned back to the expensive tumblers used for the party’s drinks.

“Shelby Rae went a little crazy on making sure everything matched. I think she planned on about a thousand guests instead of a hundred and fifty. Everyone gets to take one home, but let’s get you a couple extra boxes, too.”

Noah’s mother laughed. “Oh, I couldn’t let you do that. They’re so expensive. I’m sure your wife will want to return the rest.” But Noah could tell from the way she was looking at the tumbler on the table that the idea excited her. They had so few nice things at home. She insisted that Noah put half his paycheck in the bank “for college, maybe, or a house of your own someday.” He hated that she worked so hard but couldn’t afford nicer things, even if they were just thick plastic drink glasses.

“You’d be doing me a favor.” Bruce gave her a wide smile, and his eyes were kind.

She blushed.

“Erin, honey?” Bruce called to his daughter, who was sitting beside MacKenzie Clay at the opposite side of the pool. “Can I get you to come here for a minute?”

Erin Walsh said something Noah couldn’t hear to MacKenzie, who had been in an economics class with him senior year. Then she gave her father a small smile and lifted her long legs from the pool to stand. She removed her reflective gold aviators from the top of her head and put them on so that her strawberry blond hair swung free. Unlike her stepmother, she was dressed down, wearing cream-colored shorts that rested softly on her narrow hips. Her purple Allman Brothers Band T-shirt was tied into a knot, revealing a triangle of pale, flat stomach. The glimpse of her skin put a different kind of knot in Noah’s stomach, and he glanced away.

He and Erin had never been friends, but they were always aware of each other. Neither of them had been allowed to attend his father’s trial because they were too young.  He saw more of her when she started at the consolidated high school as a quiet freshman. People referred to her as “Erin Walsh, that girl whose mother got killed.” But Noah thought of her as something more: the girl whose life his father had ruined. It didn’t matter that Jeb Daly had been bluffing with an empty gun during the robbery, and that it was Deputy Zachary Wilkins who actually shot Rita Walsh. His father was still responsible.

It wasn’t until last Christmas that Noah started to think of her in a much different way. She’d come into the dealership with Shelby Rae to be surprised with a spanking new Challenger that her father had bought her for Christmas. Its 700 horsepower engine only had 42 miles on it, but Noah had put twelve miles more on it himself after Earl told him to take it out to make sure it ran perfectly before Erin arrived. The sleek black car was a beauty, with sports suspension and paddle shifters on the wheel that meant the driver could switch to manual without even touching the stick.

Driving that car on the highway and on a couple of backroads he knew well had been among the sweetest fifteen minutes of Noah’s life up to that point.

But the day only improved when Bruce Walsh later called back to the department to ask that the car be brought around. Almost everyone was gone for the day, so Noah started the Challenger with the special red fob that engaged the full 700 horsepower (instead of the black fob that gave you only 500), and drove it around to the front of the dealership.

Erin stood on the sidewalk, her hair tucked into a knitted cashmere beret, her mittened hands covering her eyes like a little kid. Her father’s arm was around her shoulders. When she uncovered her eyes, Noah saw a look of pure delight. She turned and hugged her father. When she finally pulled away, a lock of her hair fell from her beret and brushed her lightly freckled cheek. It was in that moment Noah knew, given half a chance, he could fall in love with her.

Click HERE to buy the book and keep reading!

copyright 2018 by Laura Benedict 

LauraBenedictHeadshots_65-EditLaura Benedict is the Edgar- and ITW Thriller Award- nominated author of seven novels of suspense, including the forthcoming The Stranger Inside (February 2019). Small Town Trouble, her latest book, is a cozy crime novel. Her Bliss House gothic trilogy includes The Abandoned Heart, Charlotte’s Story (Booklist starred review), and Bliss House. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and in numerous anthologies like Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads, The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers, and St. Louis Noir. A native of Cincinnati, she lives in Southern Illinois with her family. Visit her at www.laurabenedict.com to read her blog and sign up for her quarterly newsletter.

Social Media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurabenedict

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Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Small-Town-Trouble-Familiar-Legacy-ebook/dp/B075YGNYGP

 

 

 

THORPE’S CANDLE by Joe Moore

08 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

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thorpes-candle-ebook-cover CHAPTER 1 – DEEP FREEZE

The North Atlantic, 1961

“We got trouble.”

The words jarred Henry Bristol from his sleep. He looked up at the weathered face of the pilot. “What?”

“I said we got trouble.” Chewing on a cigar, the pilot leaned over the makeshift seat in the back of the cargo bay where Bristol sat. “See that engine out there?”

Bristol glared out the window of the old DC-4. A black patch of oil streaked across the wing like a bloody wound.

“Pressure’s dropping like a brick and we got a blizzard down there. Got to turn around.”

“No!” Bristol’s eyes widened. He was suddenly wide awake. “I already paid you. You assured me this plane could make it with no problem. I can’t go back! Don’t you understand?” His voice rose in pitch almost to the point of cracking.

“I think you’re the one that don’t understand. We can’t make it on three engines with a payload this heavy. Got to turn around and find a place to put her down for repairs. Our best bet’s Godthab, Greenland. Get the oil leak fixed—day or two at the most.”

As the pilot turned, Bristol stood and grabbed him by the shoulder. “No! You must keep going.” He was almost a foot shorter than the burly pilot and immediately realized his bad judgment.

The pilot balled his fist in Bristol’s face. “Don’t force me to explain it again, little man. Remember, you’re not even supposed to be on this plane. Now park it and shut up.” He shoved Bristol back into the seat, turned, and made his way between the large wooden crates until he disappeared into the cockpit.

Bristol felt the plane bank. There was no going back. As far as the world he left behind was concerned, he was dead. Dead and buried. He had to convince the pilot to change his mind. Maybe he could appeal to the man’s greed. His foot nudged the duffel bag under his seat—so full of cash he could almost smell it.

He stood and pulled his coat around him. There was hardly any heat—another thing that annoyed him. Jumpy by nature, he looked around his surroundings with darting eyes, magnified through the thick lenses of wire rimmed glasses. Determined, he maneuvered past the rows of crates until he stood at the cockpit door. How much should he offer? What did it matter? He had to do whatever it took. Opening the door, he stepped inside.

The only other person on board was the copilot, a skinny man with beady eyes and a scraggly beard. He busied himself at the controls as the pilot turned to Bristol. “I told you to stay put.”

Bristol took a hesitant step forward. “I’ll pay you twice what we agreed.”

“We’re losing a hundred feet per minute.” The copilot’s voice was anxious.

“How can that be?” The pilot scanned the array of instruments. “What the hell’s going on?”

“It’s number two.” The copilot pointed to a set of dials.

“All right, triple the price.”

“Shut up!” the pilot yelled.

Bristol started to make another offer but the words never came. The DC-4 vibrated violently followed by a loud bang and the shriek of ripping metal.

“Oxygen!” the pilot called out and grabbed his mask. He turned to Bristol and pointed to an extra mask hanging over the vacant navigator’s position. “Put it on.”

Bristol grabbed the oxygen mask and shoved it to his face. The plane’s nose dropped, and he saw the churning expanse of storm clouds ahead. “What happened?” His voice was muffled behind the thick rubber.

“Propeller blade,” the pilot shouted. “Ripped off number two. Must have torn through the fuselage. We’ve lost cabin pressure.” He shut down number two engine then keyed his microphone. “Mayday! Mayday! Godthab tower, this is Arctic Air Cargo 101. We’ve lost cabin pressure and two engines. Request emergency instructions. Godthab tower, do you read?”

“Nothing but static!” the copilot said while he adjusted the knobs and dials of the radio transmitter. “We’re not getting through.”

“Keep giving out our position,” the pilot ordered as the plane plummeted into the clouds.

Like bouncing off a wall the DC-4 bucked and pitched, sending Bristol to the floor. He hit his head and felt blood flow down his face.

The tremors worsened as the pilot struggled with the controls. “I can’t turn her, rudder’s frozen. Propeller must have severed the cables.” He ripped his mask off when the altitude needle passed the ten-thousand-foot mark. The plane tossed and rocked as it continued its steady drop into the belly of the storm.

“Get back to your seat and strap in,” the pilot shouted to Bristol.

He turned to start back when the plane shook again. This time, he thought it would rip apart. Thrown forward, he smashed into one of the large wooden crates that filled the cargo bay. His head and shoulder struck with a crack, burning pain shot through his arm. Blood flowed into his eyes. He heard the wind scream across the jagged slash in the fuselage. Groping his way to his seat he swiped the blood from his forehead on his sleeve and grabbed the duffel bag.

When the plane broke through the clouds, Bristol glared out the window and saw what he thought were lights of a small town passing underneath. As quickly as they appeared, they were gone, replaced by a dense shroud of swirling white.

The DC-4 leveled off as if it were about to land. The pilot must see a place to put the plane down, Bristol thought. A cautious feeling of relief swept over him. Had the pilot heard the offer of more money? No. Too much noise and confusion. Bristol looked out the window again. For a precious few seconds a break in the storm revealed what looked like a vast colorless ocean with row upon row of giant waves frozen in place, stretching off to the horizon. What kind of nightmarish scene was this? Were his eyes playing tricks? Had the bump on his head caused him to hallucinate?

There was a rumble—must be the landing gear dropping into place. They were going to land! Bristol pressed his cheek against the cold window trying to see what lay ahead. The strange landscape rushed by—the white ocean got closer. Once they landed, he figured they could wait for the storm to pass then make their way back to the town. He would find a place to stay while the plane was repaired. A few days at the most, the pilot had said. A small price to pay for committing the perfect crime and getting away with murder. A reassuring smile crossed Bristol’s lips. Strapping himself in, he wrapped his arms around the duffel bag, holding his breath.

Like a specter appearing out of a nightmare, Arctic Air Cargo 101 swooped down and glided in across the top of the Greenland ice cap. The driving wind of the season’s worst blizzard had built up huge banks of tightly packed snow and ice. The instant the plane’s front gear bit into the white powder, the nose rammed into a snow bank and the impact crushed the cockpit killing the pilot and copilot. Bristol’s seat ripped from the floor. Still strapped in, he flew forward and collided with one of the cargo crates.

The old DC-4 groaned and shrieked as the snow swallowed it, the sounds of its agony nearly smothered by the roar of the blizzard. When only the tip of the tail stuck above the snowfield, the ripping and tearing finally stopped.

Dizzy and numb, Henry Bristol opened his eyes. In the fading glow of the cargo bay lights, all was finally calm and quiet—the howling of the storm now distant and muffled. He told himself that it was only a matter of time before a search party would come. He had always been a patient man. This time would be no different. Steam drifted up from the wound on his head as he hugged the bag and waited.

Click HERE to buy the book and keep reading!

THORPE’S CANDLE, © 2017 by Joe Moore

Joe MooreJoe Moore is co-president emeritus of the International Thriller Writers. His newest novel is THORPE’S CANDLE. Previously, with Lynn Sholes, he wrote THE DESTINY CODE, BRAIN TRUST, THE TOMB, THE SHIELD, THE BLADE (bestselling Kindle book), THOR BUNKER, THE PHOENIX APOSTLES (#1 bestselling Kindle book) along with the Cotten Stone Thriller series: THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY (#1 bestselling Kindle book), THE LAST SECRET, THE HADES PROJECT, and THE 731 LEGACY. Joe’s novels have appeared on numerous international bestseller lists and have been translated into over 24 languages.
Author Website: sholesmoore.com
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ISAIAH’S DAUGHTER by Mesu Andrews

01 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by Book Lover in Biblical Fiction, Fiction, Historical fiction, Mesu Andrews

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Isaiahs-Daughter Songs are written of sons, but daughters are left to whispers. So gather near, friend, to hear of a daughter beyond imagining. She had the heart of a lion. Braver than a soldier. Wiser than a king. She was queen in Judah long after King David’s bones had turned to dust. Long after the arrogance of Solomon’s son split Israel into two nations.

When the northern tribes seized the name Israel, the southern tribes called their new nation Judah and placed David’s descendants on their throne. Judah’s capital was the city of Jerusalem and its God was named Yahweh. But Israel bowed to pagan gods and even led some of Judah’s kings astray.

Yahweh’s prophets spewed warnings, and Judah’s brave daughter, the lion-hearted queen, dared ask the prophets why? When? And how will Yahweh’s judgment fall?
One incomparable prophet answered, foretelling Assyria’s cruelty as Yahweh’s weapon of wrath. Isaiah, a man born to royalty, shouted at kings and comforted beggars. The records proclaim him husband to a prophetess and father of two sons. This is recorded, detailed, written.

But what of his daughter?

Her story begins when the northern kingdom of Israel joins forces with Aram, a neighboring nation. They attack Judah in retribution for refusing to join their coalition against Assyria. Isaiah prophesies to Judah’s King Ahaz— a promise and a warning. Ahaz ignores both. His decision forever changes the life of Isaiah’s daughter.

Part I
Now [Ahaz, King of Judah] was told, “Aram has allied itself with [Israel]”;
so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken . . .
Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son [Jashub],
to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool. . . .
Say to
him, . . . ‘Don’t be afraid . . . because of the fierce anger of…Aram and[Israel]….
This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“‘It will not take place . . .
[but] if you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.’”
Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, “Ask the Lord your God for a sign,
whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
But Ahaz said, “I will not ask . . .”
Then Isaiah said, “. . . The Lord will bring on you and on your people
and on the house of your father a time unlike any since [Israel] broke away from Judah—
he will bring the king of Assyria.”
~ Isaiah 7:2–4, 7, 9–13, 17 ~

Chapter 1
The men of Israel took captive from their fellow Israelites who were from Judah
two hundred thousand wives, sons and daughters.
They also took a great deal of plunder, which they carried back to Samaria.
~ 2 Chronicles 28:8 ~
732 BCE (Spring)
Judean Wilderness

My friend Yaira said to be brave—but why? Brave or scared, we kept marching. She told me to be a big girl, not to cry, but I’m only five, and I’ve seen big men crying. The raw brand on my arm throbbed and smelled like burning meat. I lost count of the days we’d been marching in the desert. Long enough that the sun baked blisters all over me.

These Israel-soldiers called us “captives.” They whipped the ones who walked too slowly or cried too much. The woman in front of me kept crying for her dead children. I guess one of them looked like me because she grabbed me sometimes, as if I belonged to her. She didn’t seem to care if we were whipped for slowing the march to wherever we’re going—somewhere in Israel. Yaira would help me push her away, but it wasn’t always quick enough, and then we were all beaten. The woman was whipped until she couldn’t fight anymore. She screamed for her children until she had no voice.

I haven’t had a voice since the Israel-soldiers attacked us in Bethlehem. When soldiers came through the city gates, I screamed to my abba, but my words didn’t save him. I ran into the house, crying, but my words didn’t save Yaira from the soldiers who took her into the stable. They hurt her. More soldiers branded me even though I begged them to stop.

After all that, my words were gone.

“Ishma.” Yaira nudged me from behind. “Eat this.” My friend laid her hand on my shoulder, a small piece of bread hiding in her fist.

I shook my head. She needed it more than me.
“Take it,” she whispered louder. “Before they see.”
Yaira was twelve so I did what she said. I took the morsel and I ate it. The crumbs stuck in my mouth. We’d had no water since yesterday. Please, Yah- weh, give us water when we stop tonight.

Sometimes my prayers worked. Sometimes they didn’t. Mostly they didn’t.
As if she knew what I was thinking, Yaira whispered again. “Every day I pray for Micah to rescue us.” Her voice sounded dry like my throat. “He’ll come, Ishma. I promise. He’ll come. Yahweh will tell him and the other proph- ets where to find us.”

I kept walking, glad I had no words. Yaira wouldn’t like my questions. Why didn’t Yahweh stop the soldiers before they killed my family? Who could ever find us among so many captives? Still, Yaira had as much faith in her brother, Micah, as she did in Yahweh. Micah was her only family because their parents died a long time ago. When he couldn’t take care of her because he lived with the other prophets at their camp in Tekoa, Abba heard about Yaira and said she could live with us and serve as Ima’s maid. Yaira said Yahweh and Micah took care of her, but it seemed to me that my family did.

My face felt prickly when I thought too much about Ima and Abba. My tummy hurt too. I missed them. Who would make my favorite bread now that Ima was gone? Who would tickle me and make me giggle like Abba did?

Back in Bethlehem I held Ima’s head in my lap and watched the light leave her eyes after the soldiers speared her through. I didn’t see what they did to Abba. When the soldiers dragged me out of the house, Abba was lying by the stable with the same empty eyes as Ima. The soldiers wouldn’t let me say good-bye.

“Ishma, look!” Yaira pointed toward a gleaming white palace with black trimmings. It sat on a tall hill.

I’d never seen anything like it. Our house had been the nicest in Bethle- hem because Abba was the chief elder, but it seemed tiny compared to the palace on the hill.

“That must be Samaria, Israel’s capital,” Yaira whispered. “Micah told me that he prophesied here with Hosea.” Her breaths rumbled loud and fast as we climbed the steep hill. We kept walking, walking, walking toward the gates of the white city.

My legs ached and I stumbled, but Yaira tugged on my arms. “Don’t stop, Ishma. We’re almost there.”

I was too tired. My legs felt like water.

“Think of something else, little one,” she said. “What was Micah wearing the last time we saw him?”

That was a silly question. Micah always wore the same thing—a dirty brown robe. Abba said all prophets wore camel-hair robes, and I asked if all prophets were as serious as Micah. Abba laughed. Micah was kind but always frowning—especially on his last visit. He shouted at Abba that we must leave Bethlehem and go to Jerusalem where we would be safe behind its high walls. Ima took Yaira and me into the courtyard, but I could still hear them shouting. Abba was angry and told Micah to leave. Yaira started to cry. I hid against Ima’s legs and wrapped her cloak around me.

I wish Abba had taken us to Jerusalem.

Finally, the captive train slowed to a stop halfway up the hill, and I fell against Yaira. I covered my face with both arms, bracing for the soldier’s whip. But they didn’t beat me.

The crowd’s spreading whispers made me curious, so I lowered my arms to get a better look at Samaria’s palace on the hill. I couldn’t see over the cap- tives and soldiers, but they all asked the same question. “Why are they closing the city gates?” The sun hadn’t set, and we needed food, water, and clothes.
One of the captives pointed to a tall tower casting a long shadow over us. A gray-haired man dressed like Micah stood at the top and looked over the edge. He began shouting at the Israel-soldiers, and they shouted back. The captives huddled together while the soldiers’ faces got redder and they beat their fists against the air.

I curled into a ball, trying to make myself smaller. Yaira leaned over and covered me, like an ima bird covering her babies with its wings. Some of the soldiers began throwing stones at the watchtower. A sudden rumble of thunder boomed from a clear sky and shook the ground. Yaira and I trembled even after the rumbling stopped. I peeked up to the sky from beneath Yaira’s arms and wondered, Was that Yahweh’s voice?

Very slowly, she lowered her arms, knelt beside me, and grinned a little. “Yahweh fought for us, Ishma.”

All around us soldiers dropped their rocks. Some guards even fell to their knees. Others backed away from the captives as if touching us might hurt them.
I tapped Yaira’s arm and pointed at the man in the watchtower, shrugging my shoulders.

“His name is Oded,” she whispered. “He’s a prophet of Yahweh in Israel. He said the soldiers treated us shamefully and must free us or face Yahweh’s wrath. The city elders will lead us to Jericho where we’ll reunite with our fami- lies.” She kissed the top of my head. “We must pray the soldiers listen to Yah- weh and that Micah finds us in Jericho.”

Soldiers rose from their knees. Some still looked angry, but many stum- bled like newborn calves on unsteady legs. They slashed ropes from the cap- tives’ waists and unlocked shackles from their necks and feet. When the soldiers freed Yaira and me, she pulled me to my feet and hugged me gently, careful not to break open our wounds or sun blisters.

“We’re free,” she said, glancing around us. “I think we’re really going to be free.”

All the captives moved away from the guards—slowly, like they were drinking a bowl of hot soup, testing each sip. Could we really be released at the word of a single prophet and a rumble of thunder?

The soldiers unpacked clothing, food, and bandages they’d stolen from Judean towns, and they began passing it out to all us captives. Even the sad woman who had lost her children smiled. Celebration spread, and one word floated on the evening breeze. “Free . . . free . . . free.”

I’d heard that word many times before, but I understood it better now. A bird flew over, and I watched it circle and play in the sky. The bird was free— like us. No ropes or chains to bind it. No soldiers to burn or beat it. But when the bird settled into its peaceful nest at the fork of two branches, I knew we weren’t the same at all. My peace died in Bethlehem, and my home had been burned.

“Ishma, what is it?” Yaira tilted my chin and dried my tears. “There’s no need to cry, little one. I’m sure Micah will find us in Jericho.”
I stared into her sparkly dark eyes. She was so happy about being free, but didn’t she know? Freedom didn’t matter if we had no nest to call home. She pulled me back into a hug.

I closed my eyes and pretended to be a bird.

Bio:
Mesu Andrews and her husband, Roy, live in a log cain snuggled into the beautiful Appalachian Mountains with their dog, Zeke. The Andrews’ have two married daughters and a small tribe of grandkids. Mesu loves movies, football, waterfalls, and travel.

Biblical fiction is her favorite genre to read and write. Her first novel, Love Amid the Ashes (Revell, 2011), tells the story of Job and Dinah, winning the 2012 ECPA Book of the Year for a Debut Author. Miriam (Waterbrook/Multnomah, 2016), the second book in the Treasures of the Nile series, was a 2017 Christy finalist and tells the story of the Exodus through the eyes of Yahweh’s first prophetess. In January 2018, Isaiah’s Daughter: A Novel of Prophets and Kings (Waterbrook/Multnomah) reveals the little-known personal life of the prophet Isaiah and introduces readers to his captivating daughter.

Click HERE to buy the book and keep reading!

Excerpted from Isaiah’s Daughter by Mesu Andrews. Copyright © 2018 Mesu Andrews. Excerpted by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Mesu2Author Bio:

Mesu Andrews and her husband, Roy, live in a log cabin snuggled into the beautiful Appalachian Mountains with their dog, Zeke. The Andrews’ have two married daughters and a small tribe of grandkids. Mesu loves movies, football, waterfalls, and travel.

Biblical fiction is her favorite genre to read and write. Her first novel, Love Amid the Ashes (Revell, 2011), tells the story of Job and Dinah, winning the 2012 ECPA Book of the Year for a Debut Author. Miriam (Waterbrook/Multnomah, 2016), the second book in the Treasures of the Nile series, was a 2017 Christy finalist and tells the story of the Exodus through the eyes of Yahweh’s first prophetess. In January 2018, Isaiah’s Daughter: A Novel of Prophets and Kings (Waterbrook/Multnomah) reveals the little-known personal life of the prophet Isaiah and introduces readers to his captivating daughter.

Author website: http://www.mesuandrews.com/ to order free bookmarks, listen to audio Bible studies, or check out more fun stuff!
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STRANGE GODS by Annamaria Alfieri

20 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Fiction, Historical fiction, Mystery, Suspense

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Tags

Africa, Annamaria Alfieri, Strange Gods

strange godsChapter One

They never went out in the dark because of the animals. But this night she must, despite her fear. If she was ever to escape the boredom of life confined to the mission compound, determination had to win out over terror.

So, well before first light, she left her bedroom. The things she would need were packed and waiting for her in the Kikuyu village.

She went barefoot through the back door of the house and into the kitchen yard. Once outside she slipped on her boots and tried to step lightly. She stole past the Mission office and the school. The moonlight was dim, but adequate. Her eyes were good.

All she wanted was a bit of adventure. To go on safari. She resented being kept at home while her brother Otis was allowed to go. She was nearly six years older, yet he had already gone more times than she. The Newlands had invited her as well as Otis, but her mother had refused to allow her leave. Her mother, who tried to control every minute of her time. Well, tomorrow morning she would tell Mr. and Mrs. Newland that Mother had changed her mind. By the time her parents discovered what she had done, they would have no way to bring her back.

It was juvenile of her to be doing this. She was a grown woman, nearly twenty. But she would never have the chance to be an actual grownup, to make her own decisions. British rules of maidenhood did not allow for that.

Otis was already at the Newland farm, set to go off into the wilderness in the morning. After much cajoling, he had agreed to help her slip away and join the safari party. “We will leave at dawn,” he had said before he went. “I will ask Mr. Newland to take us near the Kikuyu village, but you will have to be there and ready by six.”

“That’s easy enough.”

“What will you say if they catch you?”

“I will go beforehand and put my rucksack and my rifle in Wangari’s hut. That way, if they see me up in the night, they will not suspect the truth.”

“Okay,” he said, grave faced. “That’s a good plan.” She loved it that he pretended to be a man. He was such a serious boy.

The chill of the wee hours made her wish for the jacket that was already at the bottom of her pack. She scanned the shadows for the slightest movement as she crossed the bare packed earth of the Mission grounds, listening with her ears, with her skin, for any sound of danger. Hippos might have come up from the river to graze. They were deadly but not quiet. The cats were silent but unlikely to be hunting here now. They came often to look for water in the dry season, but not after the long rains, when the land was moist and the water holes all round about were full.

Stupidly she thought of Tolliver. Whenever she moved from one place to another her thoughts always went to him, as if her bones and her blood vessels wanted her to move only in his direction, wherever else she was going. Tolliver, though, would never approve of her defying her parents. He was a proper Englishman. Men like him never expected a good girl to do anything but what she was told, even when she was an adult in every other way.

The moonlight threw a weak shadow beneath the thorn tree growing in the sward that separated the stone hospital from the grass and wattle school. A rustling in the underbrush halted her steps and her breath. She was between the river and whatever that was in the shadows near the chapel. If it was a hippo, it might kill her with one snap of its powerful jaws just for blocking its way back to the water. Suddenly the night was full of sound. As many cicadas as there were stars, singing out near the hospital privies. The chilling cry of hyenas behind her, beyond the coffee groves. And then the long, deep, hollow vibration of a lion’s roar that sounded as if it came from the core of the earth. The cat’s night song did not frighten her. They made that noise when they mated. She thought of Justin Tolliver again but pushed her mind away from the mating call in her own blood.

She stole toward the stable, with her eyes to her right where the rustling in the undergrowth had come from. When she heard nothing, she ran flat out until she came to the veranda of the hospital. The windows of the building were dark. Not even a candle burned in the wards. She slipped into the gloom at the near side stone wall, panting a bit, more from fear, than from running. She breathed deeply to calm her nerves. The noise of something moving came again, nearer now. She was about to back away to try to get inside the building before the animal reached her when she saw a person carrying a lantern, approaching around the far corner. It could only be Otis, come back to help her. But why would he bring the lamp? She held her breath not to shout and scold him.

She crept in his direction.

The figure carry ing the lantern became clear.

Vera gasped. “Mother!”

“Vera?”

“I—I—”

“Go to your room and stop this nonsense.”

“But, Mother . . .”

“Immediately.”

There was no disobeying her mother when she used that tone.

 

While, in the dark of night, Vera McIntosh returned to her bed, where she consoled herself with fantasies that involved kissing Justin Tolliver, the young man who was the object of her infatuation stood in the half-wrecked bar of the Masonic Hotel in Nairobi, his hands in the air and two revolvers aimed at his heart. His own weapon was still in the holster at his side. This was a tight spot where an assistant superintendent of police should never find himself, not even a neophyte like him. How he got here was as easy to explain as it was humiliating and exasperating.

His superior officer— District Superintendent of Police Jodrell— was off on home leave in England, making Tolliver answerable directly to Britain’s top man in this sector—District Commissioner Cranford.

When Tolliver was called to the hotel to take control of two drunken Europeans who were tearing up the place, he brought with him a squad of his best askaris—African policemen who could be counted on to be brave and dutiful, including the best of the lot, Kwai Libazo.

But as they jogged at double-time through the unpaved streets of the ramshackle young town, carrying flaming torches to light their way, Tolliver knew he was in danger of incurring D. C. Cranford’s wrath. He was about to make the unforgivable mistake of using African policemen against Europeans. Cranford had the strongest opinions of such matters. So Tolliver had left his squad outside the corrugated iron and wood hotel and entered the bar alone. Unfortunately, he had failed to draw his pistol before he did so. Perhaps if he had not been exhausted from doing double work for days now, including fighting a fire last night in an Indian shop on Victoria Street, or if he had cared less about what Cranford thought and more about his own skin, he would not have let these louts get the advantage of him. As it was, he was completely at their mercy, unless the askaris outside came to his aid. But why would they if they had no idea how muddle-headed he had been?

“You are being damned fools,” he said with more bravado than his predicament warranted. “If you interfere with a police officer in the execution of his duty, you are risking many years of hard imprisonment. If you hurt me, you will be up before a firing squad.”

“Bloody hell, we will,” the bigger man said with a laugh.

“Listen, you puppy, on the count of three you are turning tail outta here or you’ll be picking lead outta your legs.”

Tolliver gave them what he hoped looked like a careless, indulgent smile. “I am not leaving without putting the two of you under arrest. If you come with me peacefully, I’ll not charge you with resisting.” He took a quick step forward thinking that it might intimidate them.

The smaller of the two, a red-haired bloke with a vicious sneer, jammed his pistol into Tolliver’s stomach and said, “Stop right there or it’s the graveyard for you.”

“If you shoot me, you will be joining me there,” Tolliver said. He thought to add that the sound of a shot from inside the bar would bring in the squadron of policemen he had left guarding the entrance. But it suddenly occurred to him that all he had to do was get one of these drunks to fire a shot—not at him— but at something. Help would storm into the room forthwith.

He raised his hands higher and pulled himself up to his full height, so that he towered over the sly, little man. “How do I know that gun is loaded?” he asked.

“Easy,” his assailant said. “See that whiskey bottle on the shelf?”

“Certainly,” Tolliver said, as nonchalantly as he could. It was impossible to miss since it was the only one still standing. All the others, along with just about anything breakable in the bar had been smashed to pieces before Tolliver arrived and lay littering the floor.

The man turned his pistol away from Tolliver and without taking aim, shot the top off the bottle. His big companion looked away to see the result, and in a flash Tolliver had his pistol out and leveled at them.

In two heartbeats, Kwai Libazo was smashing through the door, his rifle at the ready.

“That was some excellent shooting,” Tolliver said as he relieved the bigger man of his weapon.

The other askaris were piling into the room.

“Libazo, handcuff these men and march them to the station.” Tolliver knew when he gave that order that Cranford would disapprove. But he’d already almost gotten himself killed trying to appease Cranford, with his British ideas about keeping the natives in their place. Given the choice between death and the D.C.’s disfavor, he would take the latter, no matter how displeasing it would be.

KEEP READING! Click here to purchase and download, and let the adventure continue!

annamariaAnnamaria Alfieri set Strange Gods in Nairobi in 1911.  The Richmond Times Dispatch said, “With the flair of Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, the cunning of Agatha Christie and Elspeth Huxley and the moral sensibility of our times, Alfieri permeates this tragic novel with a condemnation of imperialism, a palpable love of Africa, a shocking conclusion and a reminder that good does not always triumph.” –Richmond.   Kirkus Reviews compared her Invisible Country to “the notable novels of Charles Todd.”  The Christian Science Monitor chose her Blood Tango as one of ten must-read thrillers. The Washington Post said of her debut novel, “As both history and mystery, City of Silver glitters.”  She lives in New York City.

Author website: http://www.AnnamariaAlfieri.com

 

THE LEGEND OF SHEBA: Rise of a Queen by Tosca Lee

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Biblical Fiction, Fiction, Historical fiction

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Biblical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Queen of Sheba, Tosca Lee

legend of ShebaPrologue

There is the tale that is told: A desert queen journeyed north with a caravan of riches to pay tribute to a king and his One God. The story of a queen conquered by a king before she returned to her own land laden with gifts.

That is the tale you are meant to believe.

Which means most of it is a lie.

The truth is far more than even the storytellers could conjure. The riches more priceless. The secrets more corrosive. The love and betrayal more passionate and devastating, both.

Across the narrow sea, the pillars of the great temple once bore my name: Bilqis, Daughter of the Moon. Here, to the west, the palace columns bear another: Makeda, Woman of Fire. To those I served as priestess and unifier, I wore the name of my kingdom: Saba. To the Israelites, I was Queen of the spice lands they called Sheba.
They also called me whore.

I have been all and none of these, depending who tells the tale.
Across the sea in Saba, the mountain rains have ceased by now, the waters of the mighty Dhana turned to steam on the fields at dawn. In a few months the first traders will sail in the quest for incense and gold . . . bringing with them news of the king who sends them.
I have not spoken his name in years.

Yes, there is indeed a tale. But if you would have the truth from me, it begins with this:

I never meant to become queen.

Chapter One

My mother, Ismeni, was born under the glimmer of the Dog Star, when men become disoriented by its light. They said she enchanted my father, that he made her his consort with a clouded mind.
But I saw the way their gazes followed her whenever she appeared in the palace porticoes, their conversations drifting to suspended silence until she passed from sight. On the rare occasion that she took her seat beside Father’s in the Hall of Judgment, the chamber swelled like a tide drawn by the darkened moon. Bronze-skinned with brows like dove’s wings and lips for whispering prayers, my mother was the most exquisite thing in all of Saba. The trickle of rain over the highland terraces couldn’t match the music of her beaded hems nor the best frankincense of Hadramawt compete with her perfume.

Drowsing on her sofa in the hot afternoon, I would twine my fingers with hers and admire the rubies of her rings. I hoped my hands and feet would be as slender as hers. It was all I hoped; it never occurred to me that any other aspect of her beauty might be granted a mortal twice on this earth.

Many days we received gifts from my father: rare citrus imported from the north, sweet within their bitter rinds. Songbirds and ivory combs from across the narrow sea. Bolts of fine Egyptian linen, which my mother had made into gowns for me to match her own.

But my greatest treasures were the songs she sang like lullabies murmured against my ear. The ritual prayers she taught me as we knelt before her idols, the sweet waft of incense clinging to her hair. Beyond the palace, Saba sprawled from the sheer edge of the coastal range to the feet of the desert wastes. But I was content that my world stretched no farther than my mother’s chamber.

In the evenings I sat before her jewelry chest and adorned my ears with lapis, my shoulders weighed down with necklaces as she reclined by her table. It was covered in gold, a glowing thing in the low light of the lamp that seemed to gild anything near it—the side of my mother’s face, the silver cup in her hand.

And then I would dance as she clapped her hands, bracelets chiming on my ankles—the dance of the monsoon rain running through the wadi ravines, and the gentle sprinkles of summer coaxing millet from the winter-brown earth. Of the highland ibex, my arms curved over my head like great crescent horns, and the lions that stalked them, which always made her laugh. And then she would leap to her feet and join me, the tiers of carnelian beads at her neck jingling with every stamp of her heels.

“You will be more beautiful than I,” she said one night after we had fallen onto the cushions. “But beware, little Bilqis. Beauty is a weapon you can wield only for a time.”

Before I could ask what she meant she slid a heavy bangle off her wrist. It was as wide as my hand and crusted with rubies. “Do you see these stones? They are harder than quartz or emeralds. They do not break under pressure, or soften with age. Let this be a reminder, my dove, that wisdom is more lasting and therefore more precious.” She slid the bracelet onto my arm.

“But—”

“Hush now. The Sister Stars are rising—a time for new things.” She touched the amulet at my throat, a bronze sun-face inscribed on the back for my protection. “How do you like the idea of a young prince brother?”

I nestled against her, toying with the bangle. My nurse made me burn incense before the alabaster idol of Shams, the sun goddess, every month since I could remember in prayer for this very thing.
“I would like that.”

I said it because I knew it would please her. What I did not say was that I would like it far better than a sister, who would vie with me for my mother’s attention. That I could share her with a boy knowing he would eventually leave us for my father’s side—and the throne.

I vowed to pray daily that my mother’s baby would indeed be a boy.
Ten days later my mother suffered a seizure and hit her head on a marble bench inside her bath. That day I was told she had abandoned me for the afterlife, taking my unborn brother with her.

I screamed until I collapsed against the edge of her table. I called them liars and begged to see her, flailing against anyone who tried to touch me. My mother would never leave me. When they took me to her at last, I threw myself over her, clutching her cold neck until they pried me away, strands of her long hair still tangled in my fingers.

After they closed up the royal mausoleum at the temple of the moon god, Almaqah, her face was before me constantly. Sometimes I could smell her, feel the softness of her cheek against mine as I slept. She had not deserted me. I stopped speaking for nearly a year after her death. Everyone thought I had gone mute with grief. But the truth is that I would speak only to her.

I whispered to her as I lay in bed every night until her voice faded the following summer, taking some vital part of me with it. I was six years old.

Hagarlat, my father’s second wife, was neither young nor beautiful. But her presence in the palace renewed ties with the tribes to the north, and control of the trade route through the immense northern valley. If the dams and canals that channeled the summer monsoons were the lifeblood of Saba, the incense route was her breath, every exhale of her roads profitably laden with frankincense, bdellium, and myrrh.

I was eight when my half-brother broke the peace of the women’s quarter with his angry wail just before the first rains of spring.

I distrusted Hagarlat. Not because she had the face of a mottled camel or even because she had brought the squalling thing that was my brother into the world, but because she had usurped my mother’s chamber along with her jewels and made the name Ismeni seem a distant thing in the minds of everyone but me.

The palace had become foreign to me with my stepmother’s servants and uncanny priests filling its halls with their rough tribal tongue. My new relatives and even their slaves looked through me when they weren’t ordering me about, and the children I had grown up with had long distanced themselves from me during my year of silence. “Stay away from me!” one of them, a boy named Luban, said when I tried to get him to sneak out to the stables. We had spent hours feeding the camels and hiding from my nurse the year before my mother’s death. He was by now several inches taller than I and the laughter in his eyes for me was gone. “Your mother is dead and Hagarlat is queen. You’re just a bastard now.”

I blinked in astonishment at the scorn on his round face.
And then I blackened his eye.

I went that evening without supper, but I had no appetite. I had seen young friends of dead unions become the servants of the offspring who replaced them before.

“You are a princess. Do not forget who you are,” my nurse said to me that night. But I did not know who I was. Only that she and her daughter, Shara, were all that remained to me now.

Though no one else called me “bastard”—at least to my face—I did not miss the eyes that turned away, the dwindling choice of fabric for my gowns, the gifts from my father that grew more intermittent before they ceased altogether.

One day I strode boldly into Hagarlat’s chamber, where she was dictating the celebration to take place for my brother’s first birthday. “Where are the things my father sends for me?” I demanded. I heard the intake of breath around me, saw from the corner of my eye the horrified expression of my nurse, the bolts of dyed cloth and rare silk laid out across the settee.

Hagarlat turned, astonishment scrawled as clearly across her face as the henna on her forehead. Green jasper dripped from her ears.

“Why, child, has he forgotten you? And he sends so many gifts here. Ah, what a mess your face is.” She reached toward my cheek. Just as my lower lip threatened to quiver, I saw it: the ruby bangle that once belonged to my mother—the same one given to me before her death.

“Where did you get that?” I said. My nurse pulled me away, hissing at me to shush, but I would not. “That is mine!”

“What, this?” Hagarlat said. “Why, if it means so much to you, have it.” She took it off and tossed it at me. It fell on the floor at my feet.

“Forgive me, my queen!” my nurse said. I ducked the circle of her arms and snatched the bracelet from the floor. One of the rubies was missing, and I frantically began to search for it until my nurse hauled me from the chamber.

I avoided the palace as much as I could after that. I escaped to the gardens and lost myself by the pools, where I hummed my mother’s songs. Lost myself, too, in study with the tutor my father assigned to me when no one else knew what to do with me.

Within three years I had devoured the poetry of Sumer, the wisdom writings of Egypt, and the creation stories of Babylonia. I called on the palace scribes and read court documents over their shoulders when they would humor me.

For the first time since my mother’s passing to the shadow world, I found joy. My toddling brother, Dhamar, would become king. And I would slip past the palace halls with their political squabbles and private intrigues to the stories of others come alive from far-flung places. To escape all . . .

But the gaze of Hagarlat’s brother.

Sadiq was a serpent—a fat man with a languid gaze that missed nothing and a knack for convincing my father’s advisors of his usefulness. The maidservants and slaves gossiped often about him, saying he had been born under a strong omen—which really meant he had come into considerable wealth with his sister’s marriage to my father. It seemed half the palace was taken with him, though I could not fathom why.

But Sadiq was taken with only one person: me.

His eyes followed me through the porticoes. I felt the slither of them on my back and shoulders, felt them bore into me anytime I appeared in the alabaster hall.

I wasn’t the only one to notice.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Hagarlat asked your father to give you to Sadiq,” my nurse said one evening after tut-tutting over my unkempt hair. Shara, the closest thing I ever had to a sister, stared at her mother and then at me.

“He wouldn’t,” I said. “He already has Sadiq’s loyalty.”

Even then I held no illusions about my future. I would be married to some noble or another in a matter of years.

But not Sadiq.

“Hagarlat’s love of her brother is no secret,” she said, fiercely combing my hair. “And neither is her ability to secure favors from your father.”
“He’s not even a tribal chief!”

“He’s the queen’s brother. He’ll be master of waters by year’s end, mark me.”

I looked at her, incredulous. The master of waters oversaw the distribution of flow from the great wadi dam, the sluices of which irrigated the oases on either side of Marib. It was a position of power over the capital’s most influential tribes. Only a fair and respected man could arbitrate the inevitable conflicts over the allocation of waters.

Sadiq was neither.

“He’ll do nothing but collect bribes.”

“Bilqis!”

“It’s true. Sadiq is a worm sucking the tit of his sister!”

My nurse drew a sharp breath and was, I knew, on the verge of warning me to prudence. But before she got a word out, Shara dropped the bronze mirror that she had been polishing. It fell with a thud to the carpet.

“Clumsy girl!” her mother snapped. Shara didn’t seem to hear; her wide eyes were fastened on the floor.

My nurse hesitated and then gasped and dropped the handful of my hair she had begun to plait. She swept aside, her head bowed so low that I thought her neck would break.

I slowly turned on my stool.

There, in the arched doorway of our shared chamber, stood Hagarlat. The hem of her veil was pinned back from her face, a rainfall of gold fell from each ear. I rose to my feet.

For a moment, neither of us moved. Nor did I move even to bow when she walked quietly toward me. She stopped just before the mirror and bent to retrieve it as though it were a wayward toy. Appraising it once, she took the cloth from Shara’s startled hand, passed it over the surface, and then handed the mirror to me.

“So you may see more clearly,” she said. And then she walked out, dropping the cloth behind her.

The instant she was gone, my nurse and Shara turned toward me as one, their faces pale, nostrils flared with fear.

I was betrothed to Sadiq within a week.

I threw myself at my father’s feet in the audience room of his private chamber—the place where he might be not a king but a man.

“I beg you, do not give me to him,” I cried. I clasped the fine leather of his sandals, pushed up the hem of his robe to touch my forehead to the top of them.

“Bilqis,” he said with a sigh. I raised my head even as he looked away. The lines around his eyes seemed more pronounced in the low lamplight of the chamber, the characteristic kohl missing from the rim of his lower lashes.

“She did this because she heard me speak ill of Sadiq. I repent of it!” I dropped my head, clutched at his feet. “I will apologize. I will serve in her chamber. But do not do this!”

He reached for me, to draw me up. “Hagarlat would see our tribal bonds strengthened. And why not? Your brother will be king. Do you really think the queen so petty?”

I jerked away from him. “Do you not see that she hates me?” I stumbled back, away from the low dais and into the pool of lantern light before the throne, but stopped when I saw how he stared at me.
For a moment his mouth worked, though no words came out. There was a pallor to his skin that hadn’t been there before.

“Ismeni . . .” he said faintly. His hand lifted, fingers trembling in the air.

“Father?”

I went to him again but when I tried to clasp his knees he flinched away.

“Father, it is I, Bilqis!”

“It is late,” he said, eyes turned toward the latticed window.

Torchlight glowed up from the royal gardens below.

“Please, my king. I was your daughter once. If you have any love for me—”

“It is settled.” The lamp flickered and I saw it then on his face: the grimace of the years since my mother’s death. Love eclipsed by the dark moon of pain.

Sadiq seemed to be everywhere after that. He stood in the porticoes when I went out to the gardens. He loitered near the fountains as I went about my lessons. And though he did not approach me beneath the gaze of the ubiquitous guards, his eyes were as ever-present as the scorching sun.

I quit attending meals in the hall. I began to avoid my lessons. The sight of him, from the way he wore his ornamental dagger high up in his belt as though it were his very manhood to the number of rings on his fingers, repulsed me. I would feel different in time, my nurse assured me. But my only comfort was that I would never be alone with him until we married in three years. Sadiq, however, was not a man of honor.

I was twelve the first time he laid hands on me.

The soft scrape of the door woke me. I was alone and at first glance by light of the waning lamp, I thought it was Baram, the eunuch. He, too, was paunched around the middle and soft-chinned, and the only man allowed in the women’s quarter.

And then I saw the gleam of the dagger’s hilt.

He crossed the room in three strides and I bolted up, screaming for Baram. Sadiq struck me hard across the face.

I fought him as his weight fell on me, the scabbard of his dagger digging into my ribs, but he was twice my size. “Baram and the women are attending my sister, who is even now miscarrying your new brother,” he said, hotly against my ear. He was putrid with perfume and wine. “And none of them will stand against the new master of waters.”

His hand closed around my throat. His other tugged up my gown. I clawed at him until I nearly lost consciousness and then squeezed shut my eyes.

I lay in bed the next three days.

My nurse called for the physician, who could find no fever in me. Only the stupefied torpor of one who no longer wished to live in her own skin. Sadiq had managed to leave no mark on my neck or face—just the scrapes of his rings against my thighs.

I wanted to rise only to walk into the desert waste until the sands consumed me, but had no will even for that. As night came on the fourth evening, I called for my nurse. I would ask for the night shade that Hagarlat used to dilate her pupils. Or for the honey of rhododendron nectar.

But she just blinked at me and said, “Why, child? Why do you want these things? You are beautiful already and such honey will only make you ill.”

I couldn’t speak. Could not bring myself to give voice to the words.
She gave me qat to chew instead, but even the stimulant leaves would not rouse me from my bed.

The second time Sadiq forced himself on me I said, “My father will have you killed! I will accuse you before the entire council!”

“Will he? They will ask you, ‘Did you cry out? Who heard you? When I claim you tried to seduce me and voice concern about your honor, whom do you think they will believe?” And I knew he was right: he was brother to the queen and master of waters. I was the daughter of a woman born under a bad omen, too often alone.

I should have been filled with righteous fury. I should have accused him before my father if only to escape him—and any other man, as no man would marry me without a hefty bribe after that. Instead, I was overcome with shame like the rot of worms beneath the skin.
I begged Shara not to leave my bed at night. But she could not deny the queen if called for. Sadiq raped me twice more in the months that followed, even as clouds gathered over the highland terraces and the first gusts of the coming season shook the trees on the hills.

The rains came and I kept to my bed. The torrents swept down the hills through the afternoon, carrying trees and earth and any building in their way into the wadi ravines. For now, at least, I was safe; the master of waters was away from the palace, monitoring the floods and the condition of the canals with a labor force ready to repair any breach in the sluices.

Sometime before dawn, I rose and walked to the window. I was a wisp beneath my shift, having lost the young curves I had only begun to come into. Clasping the sill, I threw open the latticed shutter. As I had on so many nights since my mother’s passing, I sought out the Sister Stars. But that morning the moon obscured one of them. I stood at the window long after the sky had brightened and the stars began to fade, watching it pass before their company.

For the first time in years, I prayed. Not to Shams, the sun, who had failed to protect my mother . . . but to Almaqah, the moon god who had received her.

Save me or let me die.

That was all. I slid the ruby bracelet, the most precious thing I owned, from my arm and laid it on the sill before the fading crescent.

Later that day, men came rushing into the courtyard, their shouts rising to the open window of my chamber.

My nurse brought the news an hour later: one of the sluice gates had buckled. Sadiq had been carried away in the flood.

I raised my eyes heavenward.

I am yours.

Sadiq’s body was never found. A month after his death, Hagarlat accused me before my father. Her face was drawn, her clothing hanging on a frame grown gaunt. I had grown into my own gowns once more, as though I had acquired the lushness she had lost in her grief.

“That girl is a curse to this house.” Her voice broke. “She cursed my brother as she has cursed me! My brother her betrothed is dead and I have miscarried twice since coming into your household. Her own mother gave birth to only one child and died with a son in her belly. I tell you that girl brings death to everyone near her!”

When my father finally looked at me, I knew he saw the shadow of the woman he had married not for treaties but for love. And I understood at last why he had not sought me in my grief, or summoned me in the years of my withdrawal since her death.

“Wife,” he said, lowering his head.

“You will send her away or I will leave this court and take my son with me lest she kill him, too, as she did her own mother and unborn brother!”

I turned on her with a hiss. I was like the branch, no longer green, that splinters beneath the weight of a single bird. I was prepared to be reckless, to curse her, her son, and every hoped-for issue of her womb, and every tenant of her tribe with their camels and goats down to the last rabid dog.

But the breath I had drawn to curse her came out as a soft chuff of wonder instead. For one insane moment, I nearly laughed.
There was nothing she could do to me, nothing that could be taken from me that had not already been taken or that I had not been willing to shed—down to my very life—myself.

I, who had no power, did not need to utter a word. She had lost all supremacy over me. And in that moment, she knew it. I watched the color drain from her cheeks.

“Yes,” I said to my father. “Send me away. Let me go across the narrow sea to the land of your mother’s mother before you.”
Was that relief that flitted across his face?

I could not begrudge him his quick agreement. Almaqah had been his salvation, too.

That fall I boarded a ship with my tutor, a retinue of priests, new ministers for the growing colony, and a wealth of incense, offerings, and gifts for the temple in Punt. I was not allowed to bring my nurse or Shara with me—Hagarlat had seen to that—and so bid them both tearful goodbye, kissing their necks and commending them to the gods.

I was resolved that I would never return to the palace at Marib with its dark corridors and darker memories. That I would live my life in Punt—and in peace—all my days.

But Almaqah, once summoned, had other plans for me.

KEEP READING! Click here to purchase on Amazon. Special sale–$1.99 until March 15!

Tosca LeeTosca Lee is the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of Iscariot; The Legend of Sheba; Havah: The Story of Eve; Demon: A Memoir; and The Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker. She lives in Lincoln, NE. For more about Tosca, please visit www.toscalee.com.

E-mail: tosca@toscalee.com

THE SHIELD by Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore

02 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Fiction, Thriller

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Einstein, Joe Moore, Lynn Sholes, Maxine Decker, the Shield

shield-cover-ebook-amazon (Small)

Jump into the action with the second of the Maxine Decker thrillers by bestselling authors Sholes and Moore! 

Chapter 1 – Night Visitor

Big Bear Lake, Colorado

I sat up, startled from sleep. My first muddled thought was earthquake. The walls and windows of my cabin shuddered, shaking a picture off the wall. But then I quickly recognized the thunderous roar of a turbojet helicopter. A beam of bright light shone through the window blinds. Instinct kicked in and I rolled to my side and snatched the SIG Sauer from the nightstand drawer.

The chopper’s spotlight swept away and I used the opportunity to run to the living room with both hands locked on the 9mm’s grip.

From the light seeping through curtains and blinds I could tell my entire front yard and surrounding area were lit up as if the sun had kicked the moon to the curb. The sound of the helicopter landing was unmistakable.

I stood flush against the wall, gun still gripped with both clammy hands.

A rap on the door made me flinch, and I took aim. I’d already been shot twice in my life and had no intention of this being number three.

“Maxine Decker?”

Another strident knock.

“Agent Decker?”

“Who’s there? What do you want?”

“I need to speak with you regarding important government business.”

I edged my way to stand beside the door and pulled on a slat in the sidelight mini-blinds for a view of the porch. Backlit by the brilliance of the chopper’s spotlight was a man of medium height and trim build. Other than that, he was nothing but a silhouette.

“Identify yourself,” I yelled over the noise of the rotors.

“Peter Kepner. I’m with the government and I need to speak to you right away.”

“You must be out of the loop, Kepner. I’m no longer a federal agent. I retired from OSI.”

“I’m not OSI. I’m an emissary from Beowulf.”

“Never heard of it. And if you’re not OSI, then why do you want to talk to me?”

“In times of national security issues, Beowulf has executive authority to recruit CIA, FBI, NSA, even Air Force Office of Special Investigations agents. Retired or otherwise.”

“Tell the pilot to kill the light and shut down the engine. And tell anyone else on

board to stay put. Do it now.”

The man relayed my demand through hand signals and his radio. The spotlight dimmed and the rotors trimmed down to a slow idle.

I switched on the front porch light and pulled back the blinds on the sidelight.

“Turn around slowly.”

Kepner did a 360.

“Show me some ID. And remember I have my weapon pointed at you.”

“Got it. But for security reasons, I don’t carry any special identification. I can show you my driver’s license and a couple of credit cards.”

“I’m not Walmart, so you’re gonna have to come up with something better than that.”

He pulled an envelope from his back pocket. “Agent Decker, I have something for you. I’m sliding it under the door.”

I let the blinds snap back and saw the end of the envelope poke through. I picked it up and switched on the lamp on the foyer table. My curiosity was aroused by the embossed seal—the image of a fire-breathing dragon. Beowulf. I remembered the ancient epic poem I’d had to study in high school.

I checked to see that Kepner was still there. Then with a zip of my finger I slit the envelope.

I withdrew the stationery, shook it open, and held it close to the light. Seeing the letterhead, I whipped around and glared at the door.

Then my eyes swept the length of the paper. At the top of the stationery was the official White House letterhead. At the bottom was the supposed signature of Guy LeClaire, President of the United States.

Slowly I read the contents, then took a moment to digest it. I retrieved my cell phone from the charger on my nightstand and returned to the living room.

“You still out there, Kepner?” I called.

“Still here.”

I did a quick Google search and came up with the phone number I needed to dial according to the instructions in the letter—the White House switchboard. When my call was answered, I continued to follow the directions I was given in the letter. “I’d like to speak with Tennyson.”

“One moment, please,” the operator said.

A few seconds later, a synthesized voicemail told me to leave a message. I glanced at the letter to make sure I would reply exactly right. “I have read The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

Then I hung up and waited.

In a moment, my cell rang. “Maxine Decker,” I answered.

“Ms. Decker, this is Guy LeClaire.”

His words were steady and unmistakable with that distinctive, crisp Boston accent.

My voice had a small tremor in it, both because I was speaking with the President of the United States and because I knew that whatever the reason for Kepner’s visit, it was of utmost importance. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“I apologize for this late-night visit and call. We have a critical matter that requires swift and efficient measures. You’re needed to participate in a special assignment. Please invite Mr. Kepner inside so he can speak to you. He’ll give you more details.”

Before I could say anything else, he thanked me once more and ended the call. I stood there a minute trying to absorb what just happened. I unlocked the front door, thankful I wasn’t the sheer nightie type, instead wearing long flannel pajama bottoms and a loose-fitting tee.

With a wave of my arm, I invited Peter Kepner inside. I decided to claim the overstuffed chair and leave the sofa to him. Even though I felt confident that the visitor was legitimate, I conspicuously rested the SIG on my lap, one hand atop it. With the kind of business I’d been in for so many years, if I’d learned one thing, it was never to let my guard down. Being betrayed by my partner a few years back had clinched that for me.

I gestured for my visitor to take a seat on the couch opposite me.

Kepner sat, eyed the gun, then looked squarely at me.

“Why the personal visit, Mr. Kepner? Why not a phone call? And why couldn’t it have waited until morning? For drama’s sake?”

Other than a condescending smile, Kepner didn’t react to my jab. “What I’m about to disclose is top secret, and I can’t emphasize that enough. As with all electronic communication, there is the outside possibility of unwanted surveillance. That explains my personal visit. And, we need to move on this ASAP. Waiting until the morning would delay our response.”

Kepner leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, fingers laced. “You were a hell of a civilian OSI agent. Top in the antiquities black market. That’s why you’re Beowulf’s choice for this project.”

“Like I said, I’ve never heard of Beowulf.”

“And that’s a good thing—the way it’s supposed to be, Agent Decker.”

He wasn’t going to let go of the agent title no matter how many times I said I was retired.

Kepner steepled his fingers then aimed them at me. “Here’s the deal. There’s been a serious breach of security at the Beowulf headquarters.”

“Excuse me, but first would you elaborate a little more on what exactly Beowulf is? What’s the function or mission?”

“I can’t give you any more explanation until we are in a protected and secure environment. All I can do at this point is echo the request from the President that your assistance is needed to help with a potentially grave threat to our national security. The United States and its allies are at risk. I would like for you to get ready and leave with me as quickly as you can.”

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t return to my old occupation in any fashion. I’d consulted on one job after retiring and it had nearly gotten me killed. But this . . . this sounded like something critical that truly put the nation in peril. I felt my resolve softening.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t say.”

“So you want me to take off with you to an undisclosed location to help with an undisclosed mission involving a government operation I’ve never heard of? Right now, in the middle of the night?” I plastered a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me expression on my face.

“That’s about it.”

I chuckled. “Who said the government doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

His expression quickly reverted to somber and so did mine. This was obviously a no-bullshit situation.

“Just one more thing. Don’t pack a bag—no clothes or toiletries. But bring your ID, including your passport. Everything else will be provided for you.”

I thought the request to take my passport was strange, especially since he carried so little. “Why my passport?”

“This may eventually require international travel.”

I stood, holding the 9mm at my side.

He pointed to it. “And no guns.”

Click here to buy THE SHIELD instantly, and keep reading!

sholes-mooreAbout the authors

Lynn Sholes & Joe Moore are the #1 Amazon and international bestselling authors of THE SHIELD, THE BLADE (bestselling Amazon Kindle book), THE PHOENIX APOSTLES (#1 bestselling Amazon Kindle book) and the award-winning Cotten Stone thriller series: THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY (#1 bestselling Amazon Kindle book), THE LAST SECRET, THE HADES PROJECT, and THE 731 LEGACY. Their novels have been translated into 24 languages and are available online or at your favorite bookstore.

THE TESLA LEGACY by Rebecca Cantrell

26 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

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Greenwich Village, Houston Street, Joe Tesla, Love the Book First Chapters, Mianus Bridge, Rebecca Cantrell, The Tesla Legacy

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000448_00039]

Here is a treat! Hot off the press, read the beginning of The Tesla Legacy, the sequel to the award-winning  The World Beneath.  We bet you’ll love it!

PROLOGUE
Winter, 1896
46 E. Houston Street
New York, New York

Most men would not care about a simple pigeon, but Nikola Tesla was not most men. And so, when the pigeon found him in the vastness of the city, he recognized her as his own. Each dawn, her white wings cut through the cold air of New York and carried her over the bustle of horses and men to his windowsill. In the many months he had known her, she had come to trust him enough to feed from his palm, her cold beak tapping against his skin.

On this winter morning, he stood with his window thrown open longer than usual, waiting for her. He checked his gold pocket watch again and again.

Finally, a white dot appeared against the gray light of dawn. The dot stuttered and dropped in changing air currents. Worry fluttered in his heart as he watched her erratic flight.

She landed on the snowy windowsill, scattering clots of snow onto his rug and down toward the street below. With extreme care, he cupped her body. Her feathers were scarcely colder than the flesh beneath. Her silver eyes looked dull, but showed no alarm—she trusted him.

He brought her inside to the perch in an empty cage next to his bed. His other pigeons cooed in their cages, but she took no notice of them. Her head drooped down to her white breast. She had spent her energy reaching him.

When she warmed, he would feed her. His pigeon keeper, Mr. Smith, would arrive later that morning, and Nikola would ask him what else they could do for her. Mr. Smith had a deep knowledge of pigeons and their maladies. Surely he could make her well.

Nikola washed his hands and watched her from his stiff chair. With each blink, her familiar silver eyes disappeared for longer and longer, until they failed to open at all. Her chest no longer vibrated with breath.

With a sigh, he lifted the limp body from her perch. She had come to him, not to be healed, but to die in warmth and peace. At least he had been able to grant her that.

He cradled the soft body between his palms before placing her inside a plain wooden box lined with a monogrammed handkerchief. He wrapped the warm silk around her like a shroud. Later, he would bury her in the park, but he must first do his day’s work.

He set the box on the table next to his bed, washed his hands again, and went to breakfast. He met with Mr. Smith to tell him only that the white pigeon had passed away, and that he would bury her himself. Mr. Smith said that nothing more could have been done for her, and she was fortunate to have a safe, loving place to take her last breaths. Nikola only nodded, and Mr. Smith did not press him further.

Mr. Smith was the only person who understood about Nikola and the pigeon. Other men would have considered him mad, but Nikola had loved the hen for a long time. The sight of her coming for her morning corn had moved him more than the arrival of his most distinguished visitors. Today was to have been a day of triumph, but melancholy had marred it. She, the most loving constant in his life, had left him.

Her image followed him down to his basement. With one hand in the pocket of his overcoat, he walked through the empty room. Today’s experiment must be conducted here, and not in his upstairs laboratory—not in front of his assistants. He wanted no announcements in the press before he was ready, as had happened so often before.

Tall wood-framed cages held the tenants’ belongings—ordinary items like bedding and furniture and brass candlesticks. Between the cages ran a line of steel columns. Those steel bars faithfully bore the weight of the building above. Taken for granted, they performed their essential task year after year, unyielding and eternal.

He stopped next to the column in the center of the room. Its base rooted deep into the earth beneath his feet, and its crown rose far above his head. This humble steel would serve as the perfect material on which to test his newest device.

When he drew a metal object about twice the size of a deck of cards from the pocket of his jacket, a feeling of satisfaction dulled his grief. He held the device in his palm just as he had recently held the pigeon, with reverence. An uninformed observer would see only the object’s square base with its dial and a curiously turned steel cylinder rising a few inches from the top. This rounded casing could withstand temperatures of more than two hundred degrees and pressure of more than four hundred pounds per square inch.

Nikola visualized the highly efficient pistons he had built inside, supreme examples of the art and skill that marked his peculiar genius.

His long fingers stroked the casing. Ordinary looking, but holding immense power. He had built it to test a principle that appeared innocuous, but could destroy Earth itself—a bountiful earth that contained him, his family, and, until recently, a precious white pigeon.

No one else had recognized this resonance, nor thought to harness it, because no one else heard the vibrations of objects as he did. No one else but he felt the telltale tremble of everyday things with their fingertips.

Using simple wooden clamps, he affixed the device to the steel column, tugging on the cylinder to make certain that it couldn’t be dislodged easily. He touched two fingers to the thick column so that his fingertips barely grazed the metal. With the other hand, he turned the dial.

He pictured pistons inside moving in silent precision as they slowly accelerated to the requested speed, like a pigeon pumping its wings to fly. For a long moment he stood next to the column with his head cocked, listening with his ears as well as his fingers. He adjusted the device’s oscillation rate. Again, he waited and listened. He repeated this action countless times, seeking to tune his Oscillator to the natural vibration of the steel.

Eventually, the metal under his fingertips trembled to a faint life. His device had matched the frequency of the steel’s resonant frequency. Time would do the rest.

He left the Oscillator to its work while he unlocked a wooden storage unit containing spools of wire, a stained metal table holding egg-shaped globes of blown glass, and a ladder-back chair. He grasped the chair by its top rung and placed it next to the column, then dusted the seat with his handkerchief, sat, and crossed one long leg over the other. Again, he placed two fingers against the steel, like a doctor feeling for a pulse.

The metal’s deep song thrummed through his fingers and up his arm. The music vibrated in the synovial fluid in his shoulder, trilled through his stomach, and pressed against his ears. He closed his gray eyes to concentrate on the metal’s song, and a small smile crossed his pale face.

He was in tune with the steel.

Mesmerized, he listened too long. The steel trembled too quickly. An ordinary man might not have seen the change, but he did. Tiny oscillations, no bigger than a pigeon’s heartbeat, shivered the length of the column.

The column cracked, like lake ice breaking free after winter.
Sounds intruded on his consciousness—a siren, the tinkle of breaking glass, the creak of other steel columns flexing. His device had succeeded, but perhaps too well.

With one decisive movement, he stood and reached to turn it off. Hot steel seared his fingertips. He gritted his teeth and tried again, but the dial had frozen in position, and the clamps, too, would not budge.
His device pounded remorselessly on.

His usually calm heartbeat sputtered in his chest. If he didn’t stop the motion soon, the column itself might shatter. Even the surrounding columns might break apart. If so, this beautiful building would collapse and bury its occupants, including him and his pigeons upstairs. He would not let this building become their tomb.

He wheeled on the heel of one patent leather shoe and ran for the cage. Thinking it a useless precaution the night before, he had nonetheless given in to a niggling doubt. He had taken a sledgehammer from its usual location in the corner and rested its handle against the table’s edge.

Now he was grateful he had. In two long steps he reached the hammer. He wrapped his long white fingers around the handle and returned to his device. He lifted the hammer high and brought its head down on the deceptively small cylinder. The metal case cracked, but gears within continued to turn. He had engineered his device to withstand shock and force. Again, he brought down the hammer, and yet a third time.

The gears shrieked like a baby bird as metal ground against metal. He flinched, then hardened his heart against his creation. He smote it blow after blow until the misshapen steel fell to the floor and was still. He had stopped its mechanical heart.

Heavy fists pounded on the front door to the building, and angry voices outside shouted for admittance. He had only minutes before one of his neighbors let them inside. He must not be found down here with the device. It was still too hot to touch, so he kicked it into a corner with the toe of his shoe. He polished that toe against the back of his immaculate trousers, smoothed his hair, and settled his jacket into place.

His long legs skipped every other stair as he flew to his laboratory. He entered and closed the door quietly behind him. His assistants looked at him with surprise. He smiled to allay their suspicions and glanced around the laboratory.

Glass had broken in this room, too. The windows had given way, and one assistant sported a thin cut across his cheek. An oval bulb lay shattered on the floor.

His device’s power was writ large in the destruction that surrounded him.

Curious and exhilarating to think that something so small could produce such dramatic changes in the world. Yet he himself, like every man on Earth, had grown from something as small as an egg.
Angry voices grew louder. He couldn’t yet make out their words, but he understood the tone and recognized an Irish accent. The local constabulary, then.

Knuckles rapped against the door to his laboratory. Nikola glanced around once before calling out, “Enter!”

The door slammed open, and two men strode inside. They looked like life-size windup dolls in matching blue uniforms with silver buttons and with handlebar mustaches and worried eyes. They glared at him, although they could not know that he was at fault.

“There was an earthquake!” shouted the one in front, the leader. He was the fatter of the two, and he had the larger mustache—blond shrubbery against a face as freckled as a plover’s egg.

“A horse fell down and was almost run over by the cab.” The other policeman clenched his meaty fists.

“I don’t suppose you know about that?” asked the leader.

Both men hovered in the wooden doorway as if afraid to venture inside.

Nikola would not have let the building bury his hen, or himself. “The danger is past.”

“What danger do you mean? Why is it past?” The man’s freckles squirmed when he spoke.

“Why, the earthquake. I felt it here in the laboratory.” Nikola gestured to the broken glass on the floor so that they would see he hadn’t been spared. “It knocked my bulbs off the table and broke my windows, but it is over now, yes?”

Such a machine! It intrigued him; it did not frighten him. His heart soared at the thought of what such a device could do—send messages perhaps, or destroy rock for mining. Glorious possibilities flashed through his mind. If only mankind had the wisdom to harness such power for good use.

The freckled policeman looked at him with his mouth still partially open. Native intelligence and suspicion shone from his snapping blue eyes. “Just a simple earthquake then?”

“What else could it be, my good man?” Their imaginations could conceive of nothing but this natural explanation.

The man fingered the long black stick he carried in his belt. He looked as if he wanted to take it and strike Nikola.

Nikola drew himself up to his full height and stared him down. “That will be all.”

Anger flashed across the man’s face, but he turned away, dismissed. He had not found what he sought, and so he retreated.
Nikola thought again of the wisdom and courage his beloved bird had displayed by knowing how to find him and coming across snow and cold to say farewell. He had never met a person like her. And he never would.

He had already filed a patent for his device, which he had named the Oscillator, but he must revise the patent’s specification so that the device could not be built properly from those plans. Mankind was not ready for a weapon of such power.

He would rebuild the device, refine, and test it again, until he knew that he could control it, because he could not leave it uncompleted. After that, he would hide it away. The true device could be used only by one of uncommon courage and wisdom. He doubted that he would ever come to know such a person.
And so the device must remain hidden.

June 28, 1983
Mianus River Bridge
Greenwich, Connecticut

George Tesla was drunk. This wasn’t new for him, but the reason was. He was going to be a father. Fifty years old, and he’d knocked up a thirty-year-old carnie. Someone careful enough to live through a trapeze act ought to be careful enough to not get pregnant. But she hadn’t been.

Tatiana flat-out refused to talk about abortion or adoption or any sensible solution to the problem. She was perfectly willing to talk about leaving him to raise the baby alone, but nothing else. Her mind was set.

He leaned against the cold side of the bridge and took a long sip of Jack Daniel’s from his silver hip flask. He’d bought the flask when he was first made professor of mathematics at New York University. Another thing that would have to change, since Tatiana had told him she had no intention of giving up performing to move to New York and be a faculty wife. He couldn’t imagine the fiery Romanian trading her sequined leotards for wool skirts and pearls.

He dropped the flask in the pocket of his tweed jacket, where it clinked against the other metal object he carried. Before he met Tatiana, he’d gone on a quest to find this little thing. It had been hidden before his birth, but he’d found it anyway. He’d carried it around for years—its weight a constant reminder that he was squandering a great legacy. Many things were possible for those smart enough and daring enough. He suspected that he was neither.

A car roared down the road, its headlights blinding him. For good measure, the driver honked at him—another good citizen chastising him for being up here on a public road, drunk, at one in the morning. But he had nowhere else to be.

Seventy feet below, the black river rolled along like tar. If he jumped, that would solve his problem. He filed this away for later consideration.

He fumbled the metal object out of his pocket and set it on the railing next to him. It didn’t look like much—a square metal base with a cylinder sticking out the top—but Nikola Tesla had told his father that it could do great things. Nikola Tesla had patented it, but it had never worked. George wondered if he had patented a flawed device on purpose, to discredit his own theory. If so, maybe the object next to him could do great things.

He tapped his flask against the side of the device in a fake toast. “To great things. For one of us.”

The device didn’t answer, so he wasn’t that drunk. Maybe it knew it wouldn’t work.

But if it didn’t work, why had its creator entrusted the secret of its existence to only one man? George’s father said that he was the only one who knew about it, and he must have been, because once George had figured out its location, he’d found the device waiting for him. If anyone else had known where to find it, they would have taken it.

He dumped the flask and the device into his pocket and swung one leg over the railing. He wasn’t going to jump. He was a scientist, and he was going to do an experiment.

He rested his feet against the outside lip of the bridge. The river rushed below, dark and deep and cold, and he held on to the cold metal railing with both hands. At least now nobody above could see him and beep at him.

Eventually, he persuaded himself to unclench one hand from the railing. It took him a few tries, because he was working one-handed, and he nearly dropped the device twice, but eventually he managed to clamp it to the side of the bridge. The device stuck out like an accusing finger. Like Tatiana’s accusing finger.

He cocked his head and listened. No cars close by. The bridge was empty. Timing wouldn’t get any better than this. Time to start his experiment.

He turned the tiny dial on the top of the device. It immediately started thumping away. He gaped at it. He’d replaced the power source with batteries, but he hadn’t expected the old mechanism to work. He played with the dial, trying to match the natural resonance of the steel. Eventually, he seemed to get it dialed in, because the bridge started to vibrate against his stomach.

It didn’t feel like much, maybe like a truck driving by. Not even a truck. A car. A little convertible. Not a threat.

Headlights appeared in the distance, and he swore. From the sound of the engine, a semi-trailer truck was approaching. Probably nothing to worry about, but he ought to shut the thumper down just in case. He reached for the device, missed it on his first drunken swipe. Was it his imagination, or was the bridge shaking?

Heat blistered his fingertips when he touched the dial, and it didn’t budge. He couldn’t turn the damn thing off. He could let go and fall in the water, let all this be someone else’s problem, but his hand refused to release the railing. Maybe fear, or maybe a sense of responsibility.

Either way, he had to do something. He pulled the flask out of his pocket and used it to pound on the device. It moved a hair, then another. The truck thundered closer, its driver completely oblivious. Another truck was tucked behind it. A convoy, trucking through the night.

When the truck hit the span George was holding on to, the bridge let out a tremendous crack. The device fell, and he instinctively caught it, his hand slipping off the bridge.

He tumbled toward the river. His feet hit the water first. It felt like he’d landed on concrete, and the force drove him deep underwater. He fought for the surface. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to stand by Tatiana. He wanted to see his child.

By the time his head broke the surface, he’d traveled a hundred yards downstream, still clutching the device. The span he’d been standing on had collapsed. He watched as a semi barreled right over the broken edge of the bridge and landed nose-down on the stony bank where another truck had already fallen. The drivers were likely dead.

Another car piled on, then a screech of brakes.

His head went under. He still held the device. It had burned his palm, but he didn’t let go. He couldn’t let it out of his possession.

He’d killed the men in those trucks, the people in that car. One drunken mistake, and now those people weren’t going home to their families, to their daughters and sons. He could never make that right.
The current dragged him relentlessly onward.

Present day

Subway tunnels trap New York’s heat. Heat soaks into sticky pavements and tired sidewalks. Hot, humid air blows into the tunnels’ open mouths and lingers in the dark places until fall.

Joe Tesla tried to pretend he enjoyed the heat in the upper tunnels, but it reminded him of the second ring of hell. Summer was meant to be spent outside, basking in the sun, his father had always said. Good times, not the second ring of hell.

Joe walked between steel rails that brought trains from the rest of New York into Grand Central Terminal. His service dog, a golden retriever/yellow Labrador mix named Edison, panted at his side. They were performing what was becoming a daily ritual in which Joe went to the limits of the darkness, just to see if today he could break out into the light. Aversion therapy, psychiatrists called it.

It wasn’t working, but he would not give up. Today, more than ever, he wanted to break free of his self-imposed darkness and go outside into the light and fresh air. He wanted to go outside to say good-bye.
Ahead, a square of daylight beckoned. Gray light filtered in at the end of the rectangular tunnel. He drank in the sight of shining silver tracks, a bird’s shadow on the ground, a tree in the distance. A real, green, living tree. Outside.

He’d long ago memorized the train schedules, and he and Edison had enough time to make it to the light before the next one arrived. Following his training, Edison stayed closed by Joe’s leg and far from the third rail. They were safe, from trains at least.

Joe knelt to cover Edison’s sensitive ears as a scheduled train approached on a nearby track. It posed no threat to him, but he worried that the noise couldn’t be good for the dog. The animal’s brown eyes met his, calm as always. Nothing seemed to faze the yellow dog. If Joe could be like one creature on Earth, he’d pick Edison. Not that he got to pick.

The train passed, and Joe let go of the dog and started forward again. He was still in the shadows where the gray light didn’t reach. Hot outside air stroked his cheeks. It smelled of cinder and smog, but also a little of the sea and green grass, or so he liked to think.

He walked toward the light, and his breathing sped up. He forced himself to slow his breaths, hoping that would calm him down, but knowing it wouldn’t. He fought this knowledge with each shuddering breath. He wiped his wet forehead on his sleeve and kept breathing.

Then full adrenaline kicked in. His heart got into the action, beating at twice its normal rate. It felt as if he’d just sprinted across a football field.

If his heart didn’t stop racing, he was going to die. Panic coursed through his veins. He had to run back into the tunnels. He’d be safe there.

He used every scrap of willpower to keep his trembling legs from bolting down the tunnel of their own accord. He wasn’t going to die. Nobody ever died of a panic attack. He repeated that twice, as if his body might believe the words. It didn’t. But today he had to try harder. For his mother’s sake. And his father’s.

First, he must get his heart under control. He closed his eyes and imagined he was somewhere safe. He was standing in front of his underground house. The house was a yellow Victorian, with red and white trim, bright and sturdy, protected in its cocoon of rock. Its paint gleamed in the orange light shed by round, hand-blown light bulbs strung overhead.

He pictured each detail—the three steps up to the front porch, the white door he dusted until it gleamed, the wrought-iron wall lantern that he always left on, the windows upstairs and down decorated with stained-glass flowers and leaves. Inside that house, he was safe. He took a deep breath. Safe.

Keeping the picture of his house in his head, he took a step forward. He didn’t dare open his eyes. Edison pressed against his leg, and the contact comforted Joe. He wasn’t alone. Edison was always there. He took another step.

Hot air brushed his face, a breeze from outside. He opened his eyes the tiniest crack. A thread of light leaked in. His heart slammed against his ribs so hard it felt as if it might break out of his chest and roll into the tunnels behind him.

His breath came fast and ragged. He tried to control his breaths, slow them down, but his body had taken over. His tense muscles begged to flee. He was so close to the outside. And he couldn’t take another step.

Retching, he leaned forward. Edison fastened his teeth on Joe’s pant leg and pulled. He tottered, terrified he might fall into the light. He caught his balance and let the dog pull him backward, step by step, into the familiar darkness.

His stomach roiled. The first time he’d tried this had been after breakfast, and he’d thrown up on the tracks. He knew better now, and came here only on an empty stomach.

Edison nudged his nose under Joe’s hand and tilted his head back. He urged Joe to pet him, to relax. Joe ran his hand along the dog’s warm back. His legs still shook, but he didn’t feel as if he were about to die anymore. He petted the dog, controlled his breathing, and slowly calmed down. He wasn’t going to die, but he wasn’t going to go outside either. Not today.

He’d turned his back on the light as he fled, but he faced it again now. The entrance was an empty mouth that mocked him. The light and wind and trees might be forever out of his reach. But he had gone nearly a yard farther than yesterday. Not enough, but progress.

A train came through, again on a different track, and he covered the dog’s ears. The simple act of protecting Edison brought him all the way back to himself. After the train passed, he pulled a dog treat out of his pocket and gave it to Edison. “You earned this, buddy.”

The dog swallowed it in a single gulp.

Joe headed toward the tunnels that led to Grand Central Terminal. Today, his brain had betrayed him—something he’d grown to expect. Once, he’d prized his brain. It understood things that other brains didn’t. His brain had led him out of a difficult childhood into early entrance to Massachusetts Institute of Technology—on a full scholarship—while other boys his age were freshmen in high school. His brain had let him coast through his classes, earn his degrees, found his own company, and retire a multimillionaire before most people bought their first house. It had been a good brain, but now it wouldn’t even let him sit in the sunlight.

But he had to cut his brain some slack—it wasn’t at fault. Someone had poisoned it, and he had blood tests to prove that poison had caused his crippling agoraphobia. Since he’d found that out, he’d spent a great deal of time and money trying to discover who had poisoned him and why. He’d investigated everyone who had access to his food and drink on his last days outside, but all his inquiries had led nowhere.

A large key ring at his belt jangled when he stumbled over a train tie. The keys came with the house—they provided access to all the doors in the tunnel system. With these keys, he, and he alone, could open each door in his subterranean world and see what lay behind it. Too bad his brain wasn’t so straightforward.

Edison bumped Joe’s knee with his nose, as if to remind him he was OK. That his life still had good things. That he was safe.
If only it were that easy.

Pre-Order today and have it downloaded next Thursday!

cantrell_150pixcolorNew York Times bestselling author Rebecca Cantrell’s novels have won the Bruce Alexander and the Macavity awards and been nominated for the Barry, Mary Higgins Clark, APPY, RT Reviewers Choice, and Shriekfest Film Festival awards. She and her husband and son just left Hawaii’s sunny shores for adventures in Hannah Vogel’s hometown–Berlin.

Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Cantrell

No part of this work of fiction may be copied or distributed from this blog without express permission

PLAGUES OF EDEN by Sharon Linnéa and B.K. Sherer

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Fiction, Thriller

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archaeology, Army chaplain, Cadet Chapel, Eden Thrillers, Egypt, Jaime Richards, Plagues of Eden, Plagues of Egypt, West Point

Plagues 7 Hail

The Eden Thrillers have sold over half a million copies worldwide. Why? Start reading…

Saturday, November 10, 2007, 6:38 p.m.      Tell el-Balamun, Egypt

Dr. Samuel Golding squinted, trying in vain to focus on the mud-yellow brick from the porch of the ancient temple he was unearthing . The young archeologist had spent the last three hours on his knees, painstakingly brushing silt and dirt from the object. With a sigh, he leaned back to squat on his heels and survey the dig site. The temple was much older even than the 3rd century library sitting above it, and he no longer had enough light to continue.

Another day was now over on this, the strangest dig he’d ever worked.
Sam was the Assistant Project Leader for the British Museum excavation at Tell el-Balamun and the de facto project head, since the team leader was not available due to the unusual timing of this off-cycle dig. This project in the Central Nile Delta of Egypt would not unearth the type of tourist-frenzied structures like Luxor or Giza—which suited him just fine. The team’s work on these ancient Egyptian temples could progress with little outside interference.

He started packing up his tools for the day. The porch would wait until tomorrow. It wasn’t going anywhere.

“’Night, Boss,” said his assistant, Ibrahim. “Going into town tonight?”

“Don’t think so,” Sam replied. He brushed the dust off his signature Sandhurst t-shirt and shook out his cargo pants.

It wasn’t simply that he was tired. He wanted time to mull. Odd things had been happening on this dig, and he wanted some peace and quiet to think.

He sat down on a canvas camp chair and poured himself a glass of chardonnay from a bottle he kept in his cooler. Sometimes, these bricks seemed to him to be miniature time machines. When he touched one, it was as if he were propelled back, hearing the voices and conversations of those who had stood in this place many centuries ago. He envisioned what they were wearing, heard the sounds of the city around them, smelled the odors of animals and incense.

But now there was a discordant note. He had found several objects in this dig that, while ancient, were not from this place or time period. In fact, not even close. How to report these?

He didn’t want to do anything that would call the validity of the whole dig into question. And yet…the pieces didn’t fit.

It was the time of evening military called EENT, or early evening nautical twilight. The horizon was becoming indistinct and stars were just beginning to twinkle. It looked like there would be little haze this evening, and the clear Egyptian night would provide a nice backdrop for the heavens in all their glory. Maybe he should have been an astronomer instead of an archeologist. No, scratch that. He could enjoy the night sky without knowing how far away the stars were or what made them twinkle. But he could not pass by a mound of earth without wondering what ancient treasure might be hidden beneath.

Sam sipped his wine and looked to the northwest just in time to spot a falling star.
Wow, what a nice tail on that one…

But it didn’t fade. Instead, it seemed to grow brighter, larger.

What?

He stood and stared, unmoving, as the fireball plummeted, hitting the ground with a loud explosion a half mile to his east. In one fluid move he dropped his wine glass and dove behind the nearest dirt pile, his mind flashing back to bombs exploding when he was a young officer in Northern Ireland.

Heads began popping out of tents, just in time to see another “falling star” close in and burn up just before hitting the ground a quarter of a mile to the west.

Within moments, the camp was in pandemonium, everyone running back and forth, searching for cover. Ibrahim and one of the local diggers who were heading into town were caught between the tents and the dig’s rattletrap car. They both made a run for the extra protection of the vehicle. It was a rusty old station wagon that had survived 20 years as transport for the team. Sam watched as they each dove in a door and rolled up the windows. He wondered if he would be safer joining them than lying sprawled behind a dirt pile.

What was going on?

And then there were more. It was like a hailstorm—if the hail was made of fire.
A much larger piece headed straight for Sam’s hiding place, then split in two at the last minute. One part burned up before reaching the ground, the other impacted the car where his fellow workers had taken cover.

The largest part of the rock had crashed through the roof of the car; other parts had shorn off and hit the doors of the vehicle. One had apparently ruptured the gas line. From where he was, Sam now smelled gasoline mingling with the burning sulfur from space.

“Get out!” he screamed, standing and rushing for the station wagon.

But it was too late.

Fire continued to rain down, and some landed, still burning, close enough to the vehicle that the fumes, then the spilled gasoline on the ground, and finally the remainder of the tank, ignited.

Sam covered his head but he felt the ground shake as the car exploded. He stayed flattened against the ground, fully expecting to be hit by debris from the explosion or the sky, fully expecting the next second to be his last on Earth.

It took a moment after the explosion for the ringing in his ears to stop, and for him to regain enough equilibrium to discern which way was up. Then he raised his head, saw the burning vehicle, and launched himself toward it.

He disregarded the continuing rain of fiery meteors as he tried desperately to get to his friends. He circled the car, looking for an opening, but the fire was so hot he couldn’t get close enough to open a door. He looked through the flames for some hint of movement within, but saw and heard nothing. Several others saw what had happened and also ignored personal safety to come and try to help.

There was nothing to be done. The car was obliterated.

Another five minutes of chaos, and then darkness, and silence. As suddenly as the firestorm had begun, it was over.

Team members began emerging from tents, moving slowly and carefully in case the danger wasn’t over. Grabbing flashlights, they looked for anyone who might require assistance.

What they found was Dr. Sam Golding standing motionless in front of a burning station wagon, wondering how the ancients would have responded to the gods showing their anger by sending a mighty firestorm to obliterate whatever and whoever was below.

For this was an act of destruction, one whose consequences would reverberate for years to come.

Why had it come into their dig? Their lives? Why had it taken two of their own?
Strands of horror, hurt, anger, and loss wove together inside of Sam, a feeling as primal as had been felt in this very spot, millennia before. He dropped to his knees, screaming from his gut, until he could scream no more.

 

Saturday, November 10, 2007, 1:05 p.m.   postcard cadet chapel

Cadet Chapel, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York

Jaime stood in the back of the Cadet Chapel at West Point, hidden from view by a series of screens and surrounded by her bridesmaids: best friend Lexi Kent Monroe, sister Susan and sister-in-law Dani.

Jaime didn’t mind officiating at weddings, though given her druthers, she’d choose a funeral any day. At funerals, people were always grateful. Weddings—well, weddings were never quite the dream-come-true, and you were likely to run smack into a dozen sets of expectations.

For many years of her life, Jaime had assumed she would never get married. Not that she had anything against marriage, but she tended to fall for knight-errant types who were too busy slaying dragons to consider applying for a mortgage.

And yet, ten years ago she had become engaged to, and had married, her first knight-errant, her long-time boyfriend Paul, in the space of a week so their dying friend could help plan and host the wedding. Paul had been killed three months later. Case in point.

Even knowing the very real dangers of marrying a knight-errant, Jaime had managed to find herself another one.

“Okay, okay, I have to say it,” injected Lexi in a stage whisper. “I can’t believe Shepard’s here! A freaking rock star! And you’re not having him sing!”

The mention of Mark Shepard’s name brought Jaime up short. They were all beyond excited about having an A-list celebrity among them.

“He sang at Jaime’s first wedding,” said Susan, then she stopped herself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up Paul. Oh, I mean—”

“It’s all right,” Jaime smiled. “Shepard and Paul were close.”

“Having him here is like having Paul’s blessing,” said Lexi.

Truth was, Jaime did feel like she had Paul’s blessing. Paul would have enjoyed Yani.

However, unbeknownst to the others, Jaime no longer thought of Mark solely in the context of Paul. It was hard to hear Mark’s songs or see photos of him without remembering a particularly wonderful afternoon in France in a hot tub—and remembering Mark’s sculpted torso and the happiness  she and the musician had shared in each other’s company.

That particular night had not ended well, through no fault of Mark’s or her own.

Get a grip, Jaime, she breathed.

But why was he here?

The first notes of Handel’s “Water Music” reverberated through the huge Gothic chapel, and everyone’s adrenaline level skyrocketed.  As Dani walked out from behind the screen and started up the aisle, Jaime closed her eyes. You’ve been in war zones. You’ve been kidnapped. You’ve locked yourself in the trunk of a maniac’s BMW. If you survived that, you can surely survive this.

Susan was off, and Lexi was ready to move into place.

“Hello, Jaime,” came the familiar voice that saved her, that pulled her back to herself. It was Abe Derry, under whom she had served during Operation Iraqi Freedom. There was no one, save her own father, whom she would rather have walk her down the aisle. Not to mention, as a two-star general, Abe looked extremely impressive in his uniform.

And as a Gardener, Abe knew Yani in a way that very few others here did.

“You’re marrying Sword 23, Jaime, really?” he said with a grin.

Yes, Sword 23—as Yani was still known—was a legend among Gardeners. And yes, she was marrying him.

At that moment, the first notes of the Trumpet Voluntary began, and she and Abe took their place at the center of the very long aisle.

Jaime looked forward, under the gothic arched ceiling, past the flags hanging from the walls on either side, past the rows of brown wooden pews crowned with red hymnals. The bridesmaids had taken their places to the left. Her brother Joey and the other two groomsmen stood to the right, and Lexi’s father, the Rev. Asher Kent, stood in the center of the aisle. Everyone had turned. All eyes were on her.

Yet all that mattered was Yani, standing at the front of the chapel, at the foot of the steps, smiling at her. Even now, there was a catch in her throat whenever she saw him. When she came home from a day’s work and walked into the kitchen to see him pulling out pita bread and opening hummus, she had to pretend everything was normal. But how could it ever truly be normal? Sword 23—Yani—William Jonathan Burton, according to his Terris birth certificate—was in her kitchen.

In her living room.

In her bedroom. In her bed.

Like it was a normal thing.

Holy crap.

She would marry him fifty times, if she had to, and she would pretend he was just another groom, every time she did it.

By the time Jaime reached the rows of her family and friends, her mood had lifted considerably. It had finally become real to her that after the reception, she and Yani would have a week away, just to themselves. A whole week.  That had never happened Terris-side. And what a reception it would be!

The bride glanced to her left and saw activist and rock star Mark Shepard sitting on the aisle. Seated next to him was Chaplain Sherer, an old boss and mentor of Jaime’s, who’d met Mark at Jaime’s small wedding reception in Hochspeyer. The two of them got along well.

As Jaime passed their row, she saw that Mark was distracted.  He smiled at her as she passed, but kept glancing down. As she moved on up the aisle, she saw him lose his battle with himself and thrust his hand into his pocket to dig out his phone.

Really? I know you’re a rock star, but you can’t turn your phone off at a wedding? What could be so important that it couldn’t wait fifteen minutes?

Then they were in front of the chapel, and Abe had handed her off to her husband. Together they followed Reverend Kent past the choir stalls and up the five marble steps to the altar. Yani’s jet-black hair was cut just below his ears, and his dark eyes flashed fire. His face was nearly perfectly oval, with a square jaw that could be set at a dangerous angle. But now his whole face was smiling.

As they turned to face each other, to join hands to take their vows, it happened.

Jaime saw Yani’s watch, his top-secret watch, buzz, nearly silently, just once. For the merest split second, the watch face glowed blue. Probably no one but Jaime and Yani noticed it.

That never happened. It meant something was up – an emergency of international significance.

Now. Of course.

Frigging now.

Buy PLAGUES OF EDEN here, and keep reading!

Or start with Chasing Eden, the first of the bestselling Eden Thrillers, for only 99 cents!

The Eden Thrillers have sold over half a million copies worldwide. Plagues of Eden is the first book in the second trilogy, and a good place to start…unless you want to start at the beginning. The first book is Chasing Eden.

BIOS: Sharon Linnéa is a biographer who also writes thrillers and mysteries. She lives outside New York City with her family. B.K. Sherer is a Presbyterian minister and an active duty chaplain with the U.S. Army.

DEATH AND WHITE DIAMONDS by Jeff Markowitz

12 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

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Death and White Diamonds, First Chapter, Jeffrey Markowitz, Port Salmon, start reading

Death and White Diamonds

Just nominated for a Lovey Award by the Mystery Writers and Readers of Chicago, Death and White Diamonds dives right in…

Chapter 1
Richie

The weather was changing, clouds blocking out the stars, wind whipping the surf into a frenzy. As high tide approached, the beach was nearly gone, just a narrow strip of sand between water’s edge and dune grass, the rhythm of the waves pounding at the shore, washing away the evidence. My attention was drawn to the distant lights of a lonely freighter. There was a chill in the air. I hardly noticed. The knife was still warm in my hand.

I looked down the beach. Not ten feet away lay Lorraine, her blouse ripped, an ugly gash just above her left breast, a delicate thread of blood making its way between her breasts and running down along her abdomen. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood. Something in me stirred. Was it wrong that I saw her, at that moment, perhaps for the first time, achingly lovely?

I forced my eyes away from her chest and peered at my wristwatch, the hands luminous. Three a.m. We had walked down to the beach together shortly after midnight, through the dune grass, giggling. I’d been carrying two wine glasses and a bottle of merlot. Lorraine had been carrying a blanket. I remember thinking, at the time, the surf sounds angry. And then? I can’t remember. I’m fairly certain I wasn’t responsible for the death of Lorraine van Nessen. But it took no great powers of deduction to realize that I was going to be the prime suspect when Lorraine’s body was discovered. If Lorraine’s body was discovered.

I pictured Lorraine’s body floating out to the middle of Castleton Bay. I wondered how long it would take for her body to sink. And once it was submerged, I wondered whether it would stay underwater. I’d watched enough detective shows to realize that at least on television, bodies had a way of popping to the surface at the most inopportune moment, usually just before the first commercial break. I couldn’t take that chance.

Disposing of the body safely would be a gruesome bit of business. Still, I didn’t think Lorraine would mind.

Port Salmon was a ghost town in February, especially on the bay side of town, along Ocean Avenue, at three in the morning, the homes seasonal, rentals mostly, just a few hundred yards from the beach, but all of them empty during the off-season. Lorraine’s grandfather had built most of these homes and even in retirement, he looked after “his” houses. He remained one of the few year-round residents right up until the end. Lorraine was the only one left who made use of the house. And now that too was coming to an end.

I would have plenty of time to dispose of Lorraine’s body. I walked toward Ocean Avenue, turning back briefly to make sure that Lorraine wasn’t moving before hurrying back to the beach house. I didn’t have a plan, not at that point anyway. But I did have a glimmer of an idea.

I rooted through the cellar, searching for a proper tool. Fifteen minutes later I was back on the beach. As I made my way through the dune grass, I sensed a presence on the beach. I was not alone. Someone was crouching low over Lorraine. I held my breath, trying to get close enough to see without being seen. I looked again. Not someone, I realized. Something. A dog was sniffing at the body. I scanned the beach, praying the dog was a stray. Suddenly I felt bad for Lorraine.
Scat, I hissed, waving the hacksaw in the dog’s general direction. The dog snarled, but backed away. I threw a piece of driftwood down the beach and the dog took chase. I stared at Lorraine’s body, a woman’s body, plump and inviting, even in death, especially in death, her full hips, her perfect round breasts, the four inch gash just above her left breast. I’m sorry Lorraine, I whispered, for what I’m about to do.

It was slow work, with the hacksaw. Before long, I was breathing hard. My shirt was soaked with sweat, the sweat drying cold against my skin. I had to face a hard truth. I was out of shape, twenty pounds overweight, unused to physical labor. The hacksaw had not been designed to cut through sinew and bone. At least not by me. My arm grew numb, but I had little to show for my effort, her body scarred by the hacksaw blade, but still intact. I was making more mess than progress. The tide was coming in quickly now. I needed more time. Lorraine needed more time.

It’s funny, don’t you think? Whenever Lorraine wanted to talk about our relationship, about our future, I always put her off. We’ve got plenty of time for that later, I told her. All the time in the world. Now we needed more time.
Wrapping her scarred body in the blanket, I dragged Lorraine back through the dune grass. The path through the dunes was narrow and long. My feet sank in the soft sand. As I made my way through the dunes, the footing gradually grew firmer. When I reached the road that bordered the beach, I slung her over my shoulder and carried her across the street and down the deserted road until we arrived at the house. Pulling open the cellar door, I carried her body inside and collapsed in exhaustion at her side.

I imagine that most men would find it difficult to fall asleep next to a corpse, even if the corpse wasn’t your girlfriend, even if you weren’t about to be the prime suspect in her murder, even if you weren’t just a little bit turned on by the intimacy. I dipped my finger in the blood between her breasts. I drew my finger up to my lips. I wanted a taste. But that would be wrong. I kissed Lorraine lightly on the lips and said good-night.

I slept till mid-morning, on the floor in the cellar, Lorraine at my side, lying in a pool of dried blood and semen. I shook the stiffness from my shoulders and breathed in the day. The day, apparently, smelled of death and White Diamonds. Lorraine had a thing for Liz Taylor. Something about that made me happy.

I’m not a power tool kind of guy. When my friends talk about their home improvement projects, I fade into the background, silent, letting the do-it-yourselfers trade their tales of sheetrock and spackle, talking a language I don’t understand. I examined a large saw in the cellar, wondering what it was called – a table saw maybe – it didn’t really matter. Anything was better than making a second attempt with the hacksaw. I stared at the blade for several minutes before plugging in the saw.

Lorraine was obsessed with her weight, but she was not, in truth, a large woman. I had, on more than one occasion, picked her up and tossed her on the bed during intimate moments. But now that she was dead weight, moving her was more difficult. Lifting her, I stumbled and we both hit the floor hard. I got up slowly and rubbed my shoulder. Moving slowly now, I dragged her body up onto the table, pushing it toward the spinning blade. The machine hummed. I hummed along with it.

Making the first cut was hard, but the left hand came off easily enough. I tossed the hand in a trash bag at the foot of the saw and worked my way up her arm. I was encouraged by the results. I paused to admire the saw, the housing metallic red, the blade a beautiful steel gray, tipped in blood red. I was beginning to understand my friends’ fascination with power tools. I’d have one helluva story to tell, the next time we talked home improvement over a pitcher of pale ale.

Somehow I managed to block out the notion that it was Lorraine on the table, that it was Lorraine I was feeding to the whirring blade. Then I got to her head. Her blue eyes and blond hair. Her high cheekbones and full lips. I sat down on the cellar floor and gave myself permission to cry. I didn’t want to finish the job, but I knew there was no other way. It was time for me to man up. I cut through her neck, doing my best to avoid those baby blues staring at me, asking why. I put the head in its own trash bag, sealed it right away, and double bagged it. Once the head was removed, the job got easier. It wasn’t Lorraine anymore on the table. I found a rhythm to the job, systematically cutting and bagging and cleaning the detritus. I began to sing as I worked, without regard, at first for the song, one of my favorites, suddenly taking on a whole new meaning – The Right Tool for the Job. I smiled. It’s amazing how a little thing like that can brighten your whole day.

I tossed the final body part, Lorraine’s left foot and leg below the knee, into a trash bag and smiled at a job well-done. I looked at my watch. Two in the afternoon. It had taken nearly four hours to cut her up into disposable parts. I’d have to wait until dark before attempting to dispose of those parts. Until then, I needed a place to leave the trash bags. There was an enormous freezer in the cellar, large enough to feed a house full of guests in season. Out of season, it was easily large enough to handle Lorraine’s trash bags.

I was jazzed. I stood in front of the freezer, talking to the trash bags. I wished Lorraine were alive, so I could tell her what I had done. I had never felt quite as vibrant as I felt when I was cutting her up into little pieces. And I needed to tell her all about it. But isn’t that just like a woman? When they want to talk, they expect you to drop everything and listen. But now, when I really needed to talk to someone, Lorraine was ignoring me.

I’m not a handsome man. I’m just a little too short, a little too soft, my features a little too feminine. But covered in blood and dirt, I realized appearance was only a matter of perspective. Suddenly I felt taller, trimmer, more manly. I studied my features carefully. My face was rugged in a way I had never noticed before. I imagined myself dressed in tight blue jeans and white T-shirt, work boots and hard hat, endorsing a certain line of power tools.

I did a quick google search. You can find anything on the internet. Even so, it amazed me that they advertised so openly. There were hundreds of hits, the closest one just up the road a few miles. I’d never been to a massage parlor before. I consider myself a man of high moral standards. Under normal circumstances, I would never go to a place like that, never treat a woman that way. But these were not normal circumstances. Someone had murdered my girlfriend. I needed a woman to help me relax and Lorraine was no longer available.

I drove north on Route 9, looking for the Asian Paradise. I didn’t know what to expect and nearly turned back twice before spotting the small office building. It might have been an accountant’s office, or a dentist’s, but for the discreet sign in the window. I pulled my car into a space behind the office and parked, pleased to see a private entrance around back.

I tried the door, but it was locked. Perhaps it was closed for the winter. As I turned to leave, the door cracked open. An Asian woman of indefinable heritage and indeterminate age checked me out carefully. “Forty dollars,” she said, and smiled, pulling me inside the office.

For the next hour, it was all she said. I was relieved that she didn’t speak English. I didn’t want to know who she was, didn’t want to know what was on her mind. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do first. When she began to unbutton my shirt, I figured that I was supposed to get undressed. I stripped down to my boxer shorts and socks and waited. The Asian woman pointed and giggled. I knew what she meant, and slowly stripped off my boxer shorts. For reasons I didn’t entirely understand, I chose not to remove my socks. I lay face down on the massage table and waited.

As she worked on the knots in my shoulders, I found myself talking about Lorraine. We were not exactly lovers. What was the term the kids used? I tried to remember. Friends with benefits. That wasn’t quite right either. I wanted to explain, not for the Asian woman who was walking on my back. She had shown no evidence of knowing any English beyond her initial two-word greeting. No, I was talking to explain it to myself. Co-workers with benefits? That was closer to the truth. A matter of convenience for two lonely adults. Part of the company’s defined benefit package. Lorraine was an Assistant to the Vice President of Finance, five years older, two levels, at least, above me in the organizational chart. I was an entry-level quality assurance analyst, tracking performance by department. My job was to crunch numbers, and to display those numbers in fancy three-color pie charts, charts that were supposed to make the company look good, even when it wasn’t. I had a knack for making the numbers fit the company’s desired storyline. A generation past, I would have had a bright future at the company. But I knew it was only a matter of time before my job was outsourced to India. It was useful to have relations with an Assistant to the VP of Finance. I was going to miss her. “I’m going to miss Lorraine.”

The Asian masseuse climbed down off my back. I stopped talking while she finished the massage.

I dressed quickly and prepared to leave. The masseuse unlocked the door. “So sorry hear about Miss Lurlene. You come back, okay?”

I told myself it didn’t count as cheating. After all, Lorraine was dead. You can’t cheat on a corpse. A dismembered corpse at that. So why did I feel guilty? As I drove back to the house, I considered my options. I had come to Port Salmon at Lorraine’s urging, to spend a long week-end, off-season. I’m not one to understand the appeal of a deserted beach in the cold of February, but Lorraine had insisted, using words like trust, and commitment, and bonding. She promised me a week-end I would never forget. So why was it that I couldn’t remember what happened out there on the beach? Now Lorraine was dead, in pieces, in the freezer.

Some people might interpret my decision to chop her up as evidence of guilt. But they would be wrong. Chopping her into pieces had been a difficult, but necessary step to protect my own innocence. In my favor, no one knew I had come to Port Salmon with Lorraine. And no one knew that she was dead.

I couldn’t just carry the body parts down to the water’s edge and set them adrift like little toy boats, the S.S. Lorraine, a fleet of S.S. Lorraines, set them adrift in the current, and watch them sail off until, one by one, they sank to the bottom of the bay. Because, by morning, the currents would wash those body parts back up to shore. By morning, along with the seaweed and the hermit crabs, the driftwood, oyster shells and egg casings, the beach would be littered with Lorraine.

Buy the book and keep reading! Buy from Amazon and KEEP READING!

Death JeffJeff Markowitz is the author of the darkly comic mystery/thriller, Death and White Diamonds, as well as three books in the Cassie O’Malley mystery series. He loves to write early in the morning.  “You can usually find me at my computer at 5:30 in the morning plotting someone’s murder.” When he’s not out looking for dead bodies, Jeff keeps busy as the founder and Executive Director of a nonprofit agency serving adults with autism. Jeff is a proud member of the International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America.

Learn more at Jeff Markowitz.com

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