ShakirBaigChapters

Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck

2011-09-06T00:08:00.001-07:00

Antarctica, Present Day
In the final seconds before impact, John "Buck" Banyon, arguably one of the wealthiest hotel owners in North America, released the U-shaped steering column. He folded his large arms over his chest, obscuring the hand-stitched, gold lettering across a bomber jacket that simply read "Buck." He knew he was as good as dead as soon as the engine restart had failed and all the other backup systems which had at first gone crazy winked out one by one. There was no time now for another restart and bailing out was a joke in this weather. He snorted at the white-filled cockpit screen and whispered a final "fuck it," as the altimeter told him the ground was just about in his face.
Banyon had invited his senior executive team and their wives or lovers on a reward-for-service flight in his private jet, the Perseus--a one-day flight out of southern Australia over the Antarctic. He had made the trip several times alone and this time he hoped to show his young Turks that there was more to Buck Banyon than making money and eighteen-hour days. There was such rare and exotic beauty here; you could keep your wildlife colonies--he could see a fucking penguin at the zoo any day. But down here he had seen things only a handful of people on earth had witnessed: rare green sunsets where the sun hovered at the horizon for hours and a band of emerald flashed out between ice and sky; floating ice mountains caused by the stillness of the air creating the mirage of an ice peak which seemed to lift off and hover hundreds of feet above the ground.
He should have known better; you fall in love with the Antarctic and she'll hurt you. Buck had forgotten one thing; she was as beautiful as she was unpredictable. Even though he had checked the meteorology ser vice before leaving, the icy continent had surprised him with a monstrous katabatic flow jump. She hid them behind mountains and deep crevices; and then when you were close enough she revealed them in all their ferocious power--mile-high walls of snow and wind and fury that climbed rapidly over a rise in the landscape.
Light that was once so clean and clear you could see for hundreds of miles in all directions suddenly became confused and scattered by rushing snow and ice. The result was a freezing whiteout where the sky and the ground became one and there was no more horizon. In seconds, temperatures dropped by a hundred degrees and winds jumped by that amount again. A rule book didn't exist for what to do when you were caught within one; you just avoided them--and once inside them, a plane just ceased to exist.
Buck's ten passengers were not as calm as he was; the cacophony from the main cabin resembled something from one of Dante's stories on the torments of hell. Martinis and cocktails were voided onto the plush velvet seats which the passengers were crushed back into as they felt the combination of velocity and steep descent.
The seventy-foot white dart fell at roughly 500 miles per hour towards the Antarctic ice on a terminal pitch; its small but powerful turbofan jets had ceased to function in the blasting icy air above the blinding white landscape. As it plummeted towards the desolate ice plains below it was all but silent, save for a high-pitched whistling that could have been mistaken for a lost snow petrel calling to its fellow wanderers. This too vanished in the louder scream of the ferocious katabatic storm pummelling the skin of the sleek metal bird.
The initial impact, when it came, was more like the sound of a giant pillow striking an unmade bed than the metallic explosive noise of 30,000 pounds of metal impacting on a hard surface. A funnel-shaped plume of snow and ice was blown a hundred feet into the air, followed by a secondary spout of rock, debris and a hollow boom as the once sleek Challenger jet at last struck solid stone. The plane penetrated the ice surface like a bullet through glass, opening a ragged black hole into a cavern hundreds of feet below. The echoes of the impact reverberated down into the tunnels for miles, bouncing off walls and ceilings as the silent stone caught and then transferred the terrible sounds of the collision.
Silence once more returned to this subterranean world--but only briefly.
The creature lifted itself from the water and sampled the air. The vibrations from the high caverns drew forth a race memory dormant for generations as it dragged itself from its primordial lair in confusion. In its darkened world it had long learned to be silent, but the noises and vibrations from the ceiling caverns excited it and it rushed towards the high caves, making a sound like a river of boiling mud.
It would take hours for it to reach the crash site, but already it could detect the faint smell of molten alloy, fuel and something else--something none of its kind had sensed in many millennia. It moved its great mucous-covered bulk forward quickly, hunger now driving it onwards.
Excerpted from Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck.
Copyright © 2009 by Greig Beck.
Published in September 2010 by St. Martin's Paperbacks.
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.
(Continues...)

Dr. Placebo, Book Two by Nkosi Moyo

2011-09-06T00:07:00.001-07:00

From the minute he saw her in the crowded Wal-Mart store, he knew trouble would soon follow. If he played his cards right, however, no one would even know. If he played his cards right, things could turn out to be no trouble at all. Now the question was; could he still do it? Did he still have what it took? Those were questions he couldn’t answer at that very minute. It bothered him that, even for a second, he’d doubted himself. He hated that. He hated it because he knew that no amount of self-doubt would prevent what was to follow. There was no way of avoiding it. A familiar feeling churned through his stomach. His chest rose as he took in a deep breath. This was a feeling he knew well. Even though he’d never seen her before, he knew right there, he’d have to do it.

He found himself gripping his shopping cart so tightly his nails dug into his palms. The resulting pain was only a minor distraction. Without prying his eyes off her, he brought his hands together and rubbed them briefly, before grasping the shopping cart handle again. A voice he hadn’t heard in a while whispered softly in the back of his mind. Right now he was on the verge of breaking commandment number one: Never let them know you’re watching.
He looked around. The crowd in the grocery section of the department store was a mixture of those who seemed to be in a great hurry but had no idea where to find what they wanted and those who appeared to be in the middle of a leisurely stroll whose only purpose was to admire the store displays. No one was looking at him. He felt sure no one had noticed him leering at her. A sigh of relief left his lips. Commandment number two – Never let anyone else know that you’re watching – had not been broken.
He looked ahead. She was still there, walking along and stopping at the entrance of each aisle. She appeared to be pondering whether or not she needed anything from each aisle she came to. Turning to one side, he looked at a shelf. He had to appear casual. He had to look like he had nothing but shopping on his mind. So far, no one had noticed that he had been staring at her. But what about those security cameras, hooded behind their black glass domes, dotting the ceiling of the store? Was it possible that one of them had caught him in his moment of captivation? Even if one of them had caught him, did it really matter? He felt sure that nothing in his demeanor betrayed what was running through his mind. Even if other shoppers noticed the beads of sweat collecting on his forehead, they wouldn’t know their cause.
He wiped his forehead, and the cold and clammy layer of wetness left a shiny smudge on the back of his hand. He looked at it briefly before wiping his forehead again, this time with his upper arm.
He turned his head back to the side aisle. She was still there, now almost towards the far end. He had to make sure he didn’t lose her. He wasn’t going to allow this one to get away. He knew her type well. She was the type that would keep him awake at night. If this one was going to keep him up at night, it wasn’t going to be because he had managed to let her get away. It was going to be because she was his current project. Yes, project was a much better term for it. He nodded slightly in satisfaction, happy with how he had made the switch to referring to them as projects instead of victims. That had been very clever of him. After all, what he engaged in were victimless incidents. They were incidents, not crimes. Of course that wasn’t the view that law enforcement would take. That’s why extreme caution was warranted. As long as he stuck to the commandments, Dr. Placebo, Book Two by Nkosi Moyo 3 he would be fine. These would continue to be victimless incidents and not crimes.
He gripped the handle of his shopping cart and began to follow her. The sweat that had collected on his palms surprised him. Was he that much out of practice? How long had it been since he’d had such a project? He couldn’t remember. Anyway, that was not so important. It was far more important that he make sure that he didn’t lose this one. Tilting his head from one side to the other, he peered through the crowd. She was getting too far away from him for comfort. The crowd suddenly seemed to be much thicker than it had been just a few minutes ago. He had to hurry in order to catch up with her.
Suddenly, she was no longer there. He had lost her! How had he allowed this to happen? He couldn’t even tell where he had last spotted her. The pressure that welled up in his chest was unbearable. He was sure he wasn’t going to be able to suppress the scream that he felt building up inside. The urge to dash screaming in the direction he had last seen her was overwhelming. But what good would that do? He had to calm himself down. He had to calmly but briskly walk after her. He had to find her. He had to find her right now.
As suddenly as she had disappeared, she came briefly into view again as she turned into an aisle. With his nostrils flared in determination, he took off towards her. He wasn’t going to take his eyes off the entrance of the aisle he had seen her enter. The crashing sound that followed startled him as well as a few others in the immediate area. In his haste he had failed to see another shopper coming out of one of the aisles. Their carts had collided, causing everyone around them to stop what they were doing and stare.
A petite girl who didn’t look old enough to be pregnant clung to the handle of the offending cart. Her swollen belly, appearing to weigh about as much as her tiny frame, was partially exposed where her pink T-shirt should have met her brown knee-length skirt. He wasn’t sure if that was a fashion statement or if she simply couldn’t afford clothes that fit.
He spoke first. “I’m sorry.”
For what seemed like an eternity, she said nothing. She just stood there, mouth partially open. Finally she said, “I’m sorry. I should have been paying more attention. Sometimes it’s hard to pay attention to everything when I’m trying to keep them in line.” She motioned to three kids standing next to her.
He looked at the kids and concluded that she was dressed the way she was not as a fashion statement but because she couldn’t afford better fitting clothing. Looking at the children’s dirty bare feet, he wondered whether the store’s “No shoes, no shirt, no service” policy only applied to grownups. The children, a boy who looked to be around eight years old and two girls probably seven and five years old, looked at each other before appearing to find some fascination with the store’s floor tiles.
He said, “That’s okay, ma’am. No harm done. Have a nice day.” He smiled before pulling his cart back, redirecting it and moving on.
He had told the pregnant girl that no harm had been done but he wasn’t too sure about that. Had that short delay caused him to lose subject of his next project? His eyes quickly focused on the frozen-food aisle he had seen her go into. Rapidly, he made his way towards it. His head was already leaning into the aisle before he could fully turn into it. There she was! He stifled a gasp as he took in her physique. Since he was standing behind her, he could look at her without any fear of being spotted by her. Every inch of her body exemplified feminine athleticism. Her snugly fitting white T-shirt tucked into her tight black jogging shorts made for a pleasing clothing-to-skin ratio.
He was still trying to determine whether or not she had any panties on beneath her jogging shorts, when she turned to open one of the upright freezer doors. With the smoothness of a seasoned veteran he turned and opened a door as well. Normally, the cold temperatures were unbearable to him in this area of the store. Today, however, was different. Today he had a project on his mind.
It was about time he got back into working on such projects regularly. But what if he made a mistake? What if he was caught? That would be the end of everything. There was no way something like that could be kept out of the headlines. Not only would the Athens and University of Georgia papers splash it all over their front pages, the Atlanta paper too would probably find the story too juicy to overlook. Then there was the possibility of TV news crews. He could picture them camped outside his apartment, waiting to catch a glimpse of him. Of course that would be assuming he was out on bail. The fact he was a twentyeight- year-old male teacher at an all-girl private school could quite easily fuel the story nationwide. All that notoriety would kill him. It would kill his parents too.
Carefully, he stole a look in her direction. She still had the freezer door open. She appeared to be comparing the nutritional information labels on her selections. That made sense. She looked like the type that would do that. Her shape of body didn’t come from just chomping down anything that was put in front of her. She made her selection, putting it in her cart before proceeding down the aisle. He had to see her from the front. He needed to see her from the front. Walking past her and then turning around to look at her wouldn’t be a good idea. That would be a good way of violating the first commandment. Turning his cart, he began to walk away from her. He was going to walk up the next aisle and then re-enter the aisle she was on from the direction she was facing. That way, if their eyes happened to meet, he would look just like another shopper wandering around in the store.
Walking quickly, he made it through the next aisle. Assuming what he was sure was the facial expression of a shopper deep in thought, he entered the aisle he had left her in. He made sure not to immediately look for her. That would be stupid. He hadn’t got where he was and successfully completed all his other projects by being stupid. From the corner of his eye, he could see that she was still in that aisle. He hoped the sweat that was once again collecting on his forehead would not betray him. He looked up and down the freezer shelves, and all the while his focus was on her. Once again, questions flooded his mind about the possible consequences of embarking on this new project.
There was still time to safely back out. He could sleep well at night knowing there was no possibility of being caught. But could he really sleep well if he didn’t go through with this? When he felt the moment was right, he cast his eyes in her direction. The second his eyes fell on her face, everything changed.
All doubts melted, evaporating into the air around him. Abandoning this project would not help him sleep well at night. Not taking the project is what would keep him awake at night. For the first time in a long time he looked at his endeavors and saw a clear victim. He could no longer pretend that he was engaging in victimless incidents. There was a definite victim here. He was the victim. He had to follow this through. How could he resist that kind of beauty? He was powerless to do anything else. An unfamiliar sadness descended on him. Who was really in charge in these situations? Had he been fooling himself all these years by thinking that he was in control? Wasn’t it the power of the subjects of his projects that controlled him?
He looked away from her. As they walked past each other going in opposite directions, she appeared oblivious to his presence. A distinct scent trailed behind her. It was a scent he expected a woman like her to have. It was mild yet seductive and refused to be ignored. How could he expect himself not to take her as his next project? His earlier thoughts slowly evolved into feelings of anger. Feeling like a victim didn’t sit well with him. He wanted to be in charge. He wanted to be in control. He wanted to be sure that what he did took place because he decided he wanted it to happen. He was the man, he was in charge and nothing was going to convince him that what he engaged in entailed victims, himself included.
He reached the end of the aisle. Turning, he checked to see if she was still in the same aisle. She was. He knew he was going to have to act quickly. If he wasn’t careful he would lose her in the crowd again. He had to follow her. Maybe there was a victim after all. However, there was no question about who the victim was. He was the victim. He was a victim of that fateful day by the river.
Continues...

I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson

2011-09-06T00:06:00.001-07:00

Home
Monday, 1:37 a.m. How did I get here? Can someone please tell me that? Not in this kitchen, I mean in this life. It is the morning of the school carol concert and I am hitting mince pies. No, let us be quite clear about this, I am distressing mince pies, an altogether more demanding and subtle process.
Discarding the Sainsbury luxury packaging, I winkle the pies out of their pleated foil cups, place them on a chopping board and bring down a rolling pin on their blameless floury faces. This is not as easy as it sounds, believe me. Hit the pies too hard and they drop a kind of fat-lady curtsy, skirts of pastry bulging out at the sides, and the fruit starts to ooze. But with a firm downward motion-imagine enough pressure to crush a small beetle-you can start a crumbly little landslide, giving the pastry a pleasing homemade appearance. And homemade is what I'm after here. Home is where the heart is. Home is where the good mother is, baking for her children.
All this trouble because of a letter Emily brought back from school ten days ago, now stuck on the fridge with a Tinky Winky magnet, asking if "parents could please make a voluntary contribution of appropriate festive refreshments" for the Christmas party they always put on after the carols. The note is printed in berry red and at the bottom, next to Miss Empson's signature, there is a snowman wearing a mortarboard and a shy grin. But do not be deceived by the strenuous tone of informality or the outbreak of chummy exclamation marks!!! Oh, no. Notes from school are written in code, a code buried so cunningly in the text that it could only be deciphered at Bletchley Park or by guilty women in the advanced stages of sleep deprivation.
Take that word "parents," for example. When they write parents what they really mean, what they still mean, is mothers. (Has a father who has a wife on the premises ever read a note from school? Technically, it's not impossible, I suppose, but the note will have been a party invitation and, furthermore, it will have been an invitation to a party that has taken place at least ten days earlier.) And "voluntary"? Voluntary is teacher-speak for "On pain of death and/or your child failing to gain a place at the senior school of your choice." As for "appropriate festive refreshments," these are definitely not something bought by a lazy cheat in a supermarket.
How do I know that? Because I still recall the look my own mother exchanged with Mrs. Frieda Davies in 1974, when a small boy in a dusty green parka approached the altar at Harvest Festival with two tins of Libby's cling peaches in a shoe box. The look was unforgettable. It said, What kind of sorry slattern has popped down to the Spar on the corner to celebrate God's bounty when what the good Lord clearly requires is a fruit medley in a basket with cellophane wrap? Or a plaited bread? Frieda Davies's bread, maneuvered the length of the church by her twins, was plaited as thickly as the tresses of a Rhinemaiden.
"You see, Katharine," Mrs. Davies explained later, doing that disapproving upsneeze thing with her sinuses over teacakes, "there are mothers who make an effort like your mum and me. And then you get the type of person who"-prolonged sniff-"don't make the effort."
Of course I knew who they were: Women Who Cut Corners. Even back in 1974, the dirty word had started to spread about mothers who went out to work. Females who wore trouser suits and even, it was alleged, allowed their children to watch television while it was still light. Rumors of neglect clung to these creatures like dust to their pelmets.
So before I was really old enough to understand what being a woman meant, I already understood that the world of women was divided in two: there were proper mothers, self-sacrificing bakers of apple pies and well-scrubbed invigilators of the washtub, and there were the other sort. At the age of thirty-five, I know precisely which kind I am, and I suppose that's what I'm doing here in the small hours of the thirteenth of December, hitting mince pies with a rolling pin till they look like something mother-made. Women used to have time to make mince pies and had to fake orgasms. Now we can manage the orgasms, but we have to fake the mince pies. And they call this progress.
"Damn. Damn. Where has Paula hidden the sieve?"
"Kate, what do you think you're doing? It's two o'clock in the morning!"
Richard is standing in the kitchen doorway, wincing at the light. Rich with his Jermyn Street pajamas, washed and tumbled to Babygro bobbliness. Rich with his acres of English reasonableness and his fraying kindness. Slow Richard, my American colleague Candy calls him, because work at his ethical architecture firm has slowed almost to a standstill, and it takes him half an hour to take the bin out and he's always telling me to slow down.
"Slow down, Katie, you're like that funfair ride. What's it called? The one where the screaming people stick to the side so long as the damn thing keeps spinning?"
"Centrifugal force."
"I know that. I meant what's the ride called?"
"No idea. Wall of Death?"
"Exactly."
I can see his point. I'm not so far gone that I can't grasp there has to be more to life than forging pastries at midnight. And tiredness. Deep-sea-diver tiredness, voyage-to-the-bottom-of-fatigue tiredness; I've never really come up from it since Emily was born, to be honest. Five years of walking round in a lead suit of sleeplessness. But what's the alternative? Go into school this afternoon and brazen it out, slam a box of Sainsbury's finest down on the table of festive offerings? Then, to the Mummy Who's Never There and the Mummy Who Shouts, Emily can add the Mummy Who Didn't Make an Effort. Twenty years from now, when my daughter is arrested in the grounds of Buckingham Palace for attempting to kidnap the king, a criminal psychologist will appear on the news and say, "Friends trace the start of Emily Shattock's mental problems to a school carol concert where her mother, a shadowy presence in her life, humiliated her in front of her classmates."
"Kate? Hello?"
"I need the sieve, Richard."
"What for?"
"So I can cover the mince pies with icing sugar."
"Why?"
"Because they are too evenly colored, and everyone at school will know I haven't made them myself, that's why."
Richard blinks slowly, like Stan Laurel taking in another fine mess. "Not why icing sugar, why cooking? Katie, are you mad? You only got back from the States three hours ago. No one expects you to produce anything for the carol concert."
"Well, I expect me to." The anger in my voice takes me by surprise and I notice Richard flinch. "So, where has Paula hidden the sodding sieve?"
Rich looks older suddenly. The frown line, once an amused exclamation mark between my husband's eyebrows, has deepened and widened without my noticing into a five-bar gate. My lovely funny Richard, who once looked at me as Dennis Quaid looked at Ellen Barkin in The Big Easy and now, thirteen years into an equal, mutually supportive partnership, looks at me the way a smoking beagle looks at a medical researcher-aware that such experiments may need to be conducted for the sake of human progress but still somehow pleading for release.
"Don't shout." He sighs. "You'll wake them." One candy-striped arm gestures upstairs where our children are asleep. "Anyway, Paula hasn't hidden it. You've got to stop blaming the nanny for everything, Kate. The sieve lives in the drawer next to the microwave."
"No, it lives right here in this cupboard."
"Not since 1997 it doesn't."
"Are you implying that I haven't used my own sieve for three years?"
"Darling, to my certain knowledge you have never met your sieve. Please come to bed. You have to be up in five hours."
Seeing Richard go upstairs, I long to follow him but I can't leave the kitchen in this state. I just can't. The room bears signs of heavy fighting; there is Lego shrapnel over a wide area, and a couple of mutilated Barbies-one legless, one headless-are having some kind of picnic on our tartan travel rug, which is still matted with grass from its last outing on Primrose Hill in August. Over by the vegetable rack, on the floor, there is a heap of raisins which I'm sure was there the morning I left for the airport. Some things have altered in my absence: half a dozen apples have been added to the big glass bowl on the pine table that sits next to the doors leading out to the garden, but no one has thought to discard the old fruit beneath and the pears at the bottom have started weeping a sticky amber resin. As I throw each pear in the bin, I shudder a little at the touch of rotten flesh. After washing and drying the bowl, I carefully wipe any stray amber goo off the apples and put them back. The whole operation takes maybe seven minutes. Next I start to swab the drifts of icing sugar off the stainless steel worktop, but the act of scouring releases an evil odor. I sniff the dishcloth. Slimy with bacteria, it has the sweet sickening stench of dead-flower water. Exactly how rancid would a dishcloth have to be before someone else in this house thought to throw it away?
I ram the dishcloth in the overflowing bin and look under the sink for a new one. There is no new one. Of course, there is no new one, Kate, you haven't been here to buy a new one. Retrieve old dishcloth from the bin and soak it in hot water with a dot of bleach. All I need to do now is put Emily's wings and halo out for the morning.
Have just turned off the lights and am starting up the stairs when I have a bad thought. If Paula sees the Sainsbury's cartons in the bin, she will spread news of my Great Mince Pie forgery on the nanny grapevine. Oh, hell. Retrieving the cartons from the bin, I wrap them inside yesterday's paper and carry the bundle at arm's length out through the front door. Looking right and left to make sure I am unobserved, I slip them into the big black sack in front of the house. Finally, with the evidence of my guilt disposed of, I follow my husband up to bed.
Through the landing window and the December fog, a crescent moon is reclining in its deck chair over London. Even the moon gets to put its feet up once a month. Man in the Moon, of course. If it was a Woman in the Moon, she'd never sit down. Well, would she?
I take my time brushing my teeth. A count of twenty for each molar. If I stay in the bathroom long enough, Richard will fall asleep and will not try to have sex with me. If we don't have sex, I can skip a shower in the morning. If I skip the shower, I will have time to start on the e-mails that have built up while I've been away and maybe even get some presents bought on the way to work. Only ten shopping days to Christmas, and I am in possession of precisely nine gifts, which leaves twelve to get plus stocking fillers for the children. And still no delivery from KwikToy, the rapid on-line present service.
"Kate, are you coming to bed?" Rich calls from the bedroom.
His voice sounds slurry with sleep. Good.
"I have something I need to talk to you about. Kate?"
"In a minute," I say. "Just going up to make sure they're OK."
I climb the flight of stairs to the next landing. The carpet is so badly frayed up here that the lip of each step looks like the dead grass you find under a marquee five days after a wedding. Someone's going to have an accident one of these days. At the top, I catch my breath and silently curse these tall thin London houses. Standing in the stillness outside the children's doors, I can hear their different styles of sleeping-his piglet snufflings, her princess sighs.
When I can't sleep and, believe me, I would dream of sleep if my mind weren't too full of other stuff for dreams, I like to creep into Ben's room and sit on the blue chair and just watch him. My baby looks as though he has hurled himself at unconsciousness, like a very small man trying to leap aboard an accelerating bus. Tonight, he's sprawled the length of the cot on his front, arms extended, tiny fingers curled round an invisible pole. Nestled to his cheek is the disgusting kangaroo that he worships-a shelf full of the finest stuffed animals an anxious parent can buy, and what does he choose to love? A cross-eyed marsupial from Woolworth's remainder bin. Ben can't tell us when he's tired yet, so he simply says Roo instead. He can't sleep without Roo because Roo to him means sleep.
It's the first time I've seen my son in four days. Four days, three nights. First there was the trip to Stockholm to spend some face time with a jumpy new client, then Rod Task called from the office and told me to get my ass over to New York and hold the hand of an old client who needed reassuring that the new client wasn't taking up too much of my time.
Benjamin never holds my absences against me. Too little still. He always greets me with helpless delight like a fan windmilling arms at a Hollywood premiere. Not his sister, though. Emily is five years old and full of jealous wisdom. Mummy's return is always the cue for an intricate sequence of snubs and punishments.
"Actually, Paula reads me that story."
"But I want Dadda to give me a bath."
Wallis Simpson got a warmer welcome from the Queen Mother than I get from Emily after a business trip. But I bear it. My heart sort of pleats inside and somehow I bear it. Maybe I think I deserve it.
I leave Ben snoring softly and gently push the door of the other room. Bathed in the candied glow of her Cinderella light, my daughter is, as is her preference, naked as a newborn. (Clothes, unless you count bridal or princess wear, are a constant irritation to her.) When I pull the duvet up, her legs twitch in protest like a laboratory frog. Even when she was a baby, Emily couldn't stand being covered. I bought her one of those zip-up sleep bags, but she thrashed around in it and blew out her cheeks like the God of Wind in the corner of old maps, till I had to admit defeat and gave it away. Even in sleep, when my girl's face has the furzy bloom of an apricot, you can see the determined jut to her chin. Her last school report said, Emily is a very competitive little girl and will need to learn to lose more gracefully.
"Remind you of anyone, Kate?," said Richard and let out that trodden-puppy yelp he has developed lately.
There have been times over the past hyear when I have tried to explain to my daugher-I felt she was old enough to hear this-why Mummy has to go to work. Because Mum and Ded both need to earn money to pay for our house and for all the things she enjoys doing like ballet lessons and going on holiday.
(Continues...)

The Stranger You Seek: A Novel by Amanda Kyle Williams

2011-09-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

In the sweltering heat of an Atlanta summer, a killer is pushing the city to its breaking point, preying on the unsuspecting, writing taunting letters to the media, promising more death....

My name is Keye Street. First name from my Asian grandfather; my adoptive parents awarded me the second. By trade I am a detective, private, that is, a process server and bail recovery agent. In life, I am a dry alcoholic, a passionate believer in Krystal cheeseburgers and Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and a former behavioral analyst for the FBI. How I ended up here in the South, where I have the distinction of looking like what they still call a damn foreigner in most parts of Georgia and sounding like a hick everywhere else in the world, is a mystery Emily and Howard Street have never fully unraveled for me. I know they had wanted a child so badly they adopted a scrawny Chinese American with questionable genes from an orphanage. My grandparents and guardians had been murdered and my biological parents consisted of two drug addicts and one exotic dancer. I have no memory of them. They took flight shortly after my birth. I can only manage a word or two in Chinese, but my mother, Emily Street, who is as proficient in innuendo as anyone I've ever known, taught me a lot about the subtle and passive-aggressive language of southern women. They had tried for a cute little white kid, but something in my father's past, something they have for my entire life flat-out refused to share with me, got them rejected. It didn't take me long to understand that southerners are deeply secretive.
I embraced the South as a child, loved it passionately and love it still. You learn to forgive it for its narrow mind and growing pains because it has a huge heart. You forgive the stifling summers because spring is lush and pastel sprinkled, because November is astonishing in flame and crimson and gold, because winter is merciful and brief, because corn bread and sweet tea and fried chicken are every bit as vital to a Sunday as getting dressed up for church, and because any southerner worth their salt says please and thank you. It's soft air and summer vines, pine woods and fat homegrown tomatoes. It's pulling the fruit right off a peach tree and letting the juice run down your chin. It's a closeted and profound appreciation for our neighbors in Alabama who bear the brunt of the Bubba jokes. The South gets in your blood and nose and skin bone-deep. I am less a part of the South than it is a part of me. It's a romantic notion, being overcome by geography. But we are all a little starry-eyed down here. We're Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara and Rosa Parks all at once.
My African American brother, Jimmy, whom my parents adopted two years after I moved in, had a different experience entirely. Not being white, we were both subjected to ignorance and stereotyping, but even that seemed to work in my favor and against Jimmy. People were often surprised that I spoke English and charmed that I spoke it with a southern accent. They also assumed my Asian heritage made me above average. I was expected and encouraged to excel. The same people would have crossed the street at night to avoid sharing a sidewalk with my brother, assuming that being both black and male he was also dangerous. He'd picked up our mother's coastal Carolina accent, the type usually reserved for southern whites in a primarily white neighborhood at a time when diversity was not necessarily something to be celebrated. He couldn't seem to find a comfortable slot for himself in any community, and he spent high school applying to West Coast universities and carefully plotting his escape. Jimmy's a planner. And careful with everything. Never screwed up his credit, never got fired, never had addiction issues, and never rode down Fifth Avenue in New York City after a few too many with his head sticking through the sunroof of a limo yelling "Hey, y'all" like I did. Jimmy's the well- behaved child. He now lives in Seattle with his lover, Paul, and not even the promise of Mother's blackberry cobbler is an attractive enough offer to bring him home to Georgia.
How I came to be here this night, edging my way along an old frame porch, double-clutching my 10mm Glock, body pressed flat against the house, peeling paint sticking to the back of my black T-shirt and drifting onto cracked wood, is another story entirely.
I had once been called Special Agent Street. It has a nice ring, doesn't it? I was superbly trained for this kind of work, had done my time in the field before transferring to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) at Quantico as a criminal investigative analyst, a profiler. A few years later, the FBI took away my security pass and my gun, and handed me a separation notice.
"You have the brains and the talent, Dr. Street. You merely lack focus."
I remember thinking at that moment that the only thing I really lacked was a drink, which was, of course, part of the problem.
I was escorted that day to the FBI garage, where my old convertible, a '69 Impala, white-on-white and about half a mile long, was parked at an angle over the line between two spaces. Fire one Special Agent, get back two parking spots. Sweet deal.
Now, four years later, I passed under the curtained front window and congratulated myself on accomplishing this soundlessly. Then the rotting porch creaked. The strobe from a television danced across the windows, volume so low I could barely make it out. I waited, still, listening for any movement inside, then stuck my head round and tried to peek between the curtains. I could see the outline of a man. Whoa! A big outline.
Jobs like this can be tricky. Bail jumpers move fast. You've got to go in when you can and take your chances. No time to learn the neighborhood, the routines, the visitors. I was here without the benefit of surveillance, without backup, going in cold with my heart thundering against my chest and adrenaline surging like water through a fire hose. I could taste it. Almonds and saccharin. I was scared shitless and I liked it.
2
The streetlamps were out, the night draped in billowy white clouds that cast a faint light across the overgrown yard and locked in the heat like a blanket. Atlanta in summer-suffocating and damp. Nerves and humidity sent sweat trickling from my hairline and over my darkened cheekbones. I was grease-painted and dressed for night work, crouching near the front door, searching my black canvas backpack for Tom. Anyway I called it Tom, as in Peeping Tom, a thirty-six-inch fiber optic tube with a miniature screen attached to one end, an electronic eye to the other. Tom takes a lot of the guesswork out of jobs like this. As I twisted and turned the tiny tube under the door, I got a pretty good look at the front room.
The subject, Antonio Johnson, was a repeat violent offender. He'd been out of prison for two months when he robbed a convenience store. I had traced him to Canada three weeks ago and lost him. But his ex-wife was in Atlanta and Johnson had a history of stalking her. She'd been getting hang-ups again. A trace of the calls, with the help of a friend at APD, led to a pay phone in a sleazy motel in Atlanta's crack- infested West End. I found people there who knew Johnson. One of them ratted him out for thirty dollars. He was staying at a place off Jonesboro Road near Boulevard and the federal penitentiary. There even locals check their car doors at stoplights and commuters take the long way around after dark.
I could see him on the three-inch viewer, sitting on a ragged couch, feet on the edge of a wooden utility spool coffee table. He appeared to be alone, a beer in his right hand, his left hand in his lap and partially hidden from view. You hiding something under there, big guy?
Hovering in the damp air around the front porch, just above the sweet, sick scent of trash and empty beer cans, was the aroma of something synthetic like Super Glue and Styrofoam.
I released the safety on the Glock, then tapped on the front door. I was going to use my best woman-in-distress voice, say I needed a phone, say I had a flat, say something, anything, to get the door open. I wasn't sure. I'd learned to improvise since I'd been on my own.
Johnson didn't hesitate. I got a glimpse on my tiny viewer of something coming out of his lap seconds before he blew a hole in the door near my ear the size of a softball. The blast was cannon-loud, splintered the door, and left me light-headed and tumbling off the porch to safer ground.
Another blast. The front windows exploded. Glass flew like shrapnel. I balled up against the side of the porch and felt the sting on my neck and arms and knew I was cut, then rose up enough to get a shot off in the general direction of the front window. I didn't want to shoot him. I merely wanted him to back off a little.
. . . Then silence.
I took the porch steps in a half crouch, made it to the door. Still quiet. I tried reaching through the hole in the door to unlatch it. That's when I heard it, a shotgun, a goddamn pump-action, and if you've ever heard the sound, you'll never forget it-the foregrip sliding back, one shell ejecting, another pushing into the carrier, the bolt closing. It happens in a split second with a good operator, and Johnson had had plenty of practice.
I pressed my back against the house, took a breath, took a moment. A quick reality check is always a good idea in these situations. Did I really want to get killed bringing in this guy? Hell no, I did not, but the adrenal flood of mania this kind of event produces propelled me forward rather than back, which perhaps illustrates most effectively the differences between those of us in this business and the sane population.
Boom! Johnson let the shotgun loose once more. I felt it under my feet, like a fireworks show when the ground shakes. He was probably making his own loads. God only knew what he was firing at me. Another chunk of front door blew out. Then the pop, pop, pop, pop of an automatic weapon.
On three, I told myself.
. . . One . . . Two . . . Two and a half . . . Two and three quarters. Fuck! Three!
I put everything I had behind one of the black combat boots I wear for this kind of work and went for the space just above the front doorknob. It had no fight left, splintered and swung open. I flattened back against the house and waited.
. . . Silence.
Glock steadied with both hands, heart slamming so hard I felt a vein in my throat tick, tick, ticking against my shirt collar. I stepped around the corner and surveyed the front room, a living-room/dining- room combo pack. I could see the kitchen beyond that, a hallway. I was figuring the place for two bedrooms and a bath. I'd poked around outside for quite a while before making my move, counting doors and windows. So where was he? A bedroom, the hallway?
. . . Then pop, pop, pop. I hit the floor and rolled into the tiny dining room, got off a few rounds in case he had any ideas about coming to find me.
"Bail recovery, Mr. Johnson! Drop your weapon and come out with your hands behind your head. Do it now!"
"A chick?" Johnson yelled back, and laughed. "No fucking way!"
Then I heard the back door opening, the screen slamming. I rushed into the kitchen and saw the door swinging half off its hinges, and beyond that the white letters on Johnson's T-shirt bobbed across the dark backyard toward the fence.
I took the back steps into the yard and watched with some satisfaction as Johnson neared the fence and the gate. I'd left something back there in case it came to this, which had been a pretty good bet.
It didn't take long. It was a postage-stamp small yard with a chain- link fence and a horseshoe lever on the gate. Johnson grabbed the fence, and just as he tried to hoist himself over, a blue-white explosion knocked him backward. Just a little black powder, some petroleum jelly, a battery and a couple of wires, a few fireworks to slow him down. My ears rang from five feet away and for a couple of seconds I had to fight my way through a million tiny flashbulbs.
Johnson lay there like a slug, motionless. I approached him cautiously, Glock steady, and checked him for signs of life. Breathing fine. Out cold. I pulled his big arms up behind him. His palms were scorched.
"It wasn't supposed to be quite that dramatic," I told his limp body as I snapped cuffs on his wrists and threaded a belt around his waist and through the cuffs. "But then I really don't know shit about explosives."
I rolled him onto his back. With one size-thirteen shoe in each hand, I attempted to drag him by the ankles. Damn. The guy was at least two- sixty and dead weight. I'm five-five on tiptoes and one-ten if I drink enough water. I moved him about three inches before I gave up. I could have used my mobile phone to call the cops for a pickup, but the girl jokes would have run for weeks at APD.
I plopped down on the ground and poked him in the ribs with my Glock. "Come on, you big fat baby, wake up."
His eyelids rose a full minute before his eyes were able to focus.
"Hi," I said cheerfully, shining my flashlight into his bloodshot brown eyes. I was holding it cop-style over my shoulder and near my face. "Remember me?"
He squirmed angrily, then made grunting animal sounds when he realized his hands were locked behind him.
"Now, would you like to walk your fat ass to my car, or you want me to call the cops?"
"Who you if you ain't no cop?"
I thought about that. It wasn't a bad question. "Soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know," I promised him, nudging him again to get him on his feet. But he was having trouble getting up without his hands. I got behind him and pushed.
"Ever think about a diet?"
"You like it, bitch," Johnson slurred. He seemed a little loopy. "You want some Antonio. You know you do."
Oh yeah, bring it on. Nothing like a big ole fat man with a prison record.
"Okay, Lard Boy. Lets you and me take a drive."
(Continues...)

Sins of the Night (Dark-Hunter, Book 8) by Sherrilyn Kenyon

2011-09-06T00:03:00.001-07:00

Katoteros
Death was ever swirling through the halls of this nether realm that existed far beyond the reach of mankind. It didn't haunt here. It lived here. In fact, it was a natural state of being. As the Alexion for Katoteros, he had long grown accustomed to its constant presence. To the sight, sound, scent and taste of death.
Everything mortal died.
For that matter, Alexion himself had died twice only to be reborn to his current state. But as he stared into the eerie red mists of the sfora-an ancient Atlantean orb that could see into the past, present and future-he felt an unfamiliar twinge of emotion.
That poor woman-child. Her life had been too abbreviated. No one deserved to die by the hands of the Daimons who sucked the souls out of humans so that they could artificially elongate their short lives. And certainly no human deserved to die at the hands of the Dark-Hunters who had been created solely to kill the Daimons before those stolen souls perished from the universe forever.
It was the job of all Dark-Hunters to protect life, not to take it.
As Alexion sat quietly in the dim light of his room he wanted to feel outraged by her death. Indignant.
But he felt nothing. He always felt nothing. Just a cold, horrifying logic that bore no emotions whatsoever. He could only observe life, he couldn't live it.
Time would march on and nothing would change.
It was the way of things.
But her death was a catalyst for something greater. With Marco's actions, he had set into motion his own demise, just as the girl had the moment she'd decided to study late.
And just like the girl, Marco wouldn't see his own death coming until it was too late for him to avert it.
Alexion shook his head at the irony. It was time for him to return to the dimension of the living and do his duty once more. Marco and Kyros were drawing together Dark-Hunters and trying to convert them to their misbegotten cause and they wouldn't stop until he forced them to.
Their plan was to rebel against Artemis and Acheron. And Alexion's job was to kill any who refused to see reason.
Standing up, he started away from the orb when he saw the images on the wall around him change. Gone were the Daimons and Marco.
In their place was her.
Alexion paused as he saw the French Dark-Huntress fighting another group of Daimons not far from her own home in Tupelo. She was intrepid and quick as she danced around the male Daimons who were trying to kill her. Her movements were beautiful and swift, like a frenetic dance.
She laughed defiantly at them, and for an instant he could almost feel her passion. Her conviction. She reveled in her life so greatly that her feelings were able to reach out across the dimensions that separated them and almost warm him.
Closing his eyes, he savored that fleeting twinge of humanity.
Her name was Danger and there was something about her that almost touched him.
And for some reason he didn't comprehend, he didn't want to see her die.
But that was foolish. Nothing could ever touch the Alexion.
Even so, he could hear Acheron's voice in his head.
Some of them might be saved and those were the ones Acheron wanted him to focus on. Save what you can, my brother. You can't decide for anyone. Let them choose their own fates. There is nothing to be done for the ones who won't listen-but for the one who does ...
It's worth it.
Perhaps, but what concerned him most was how little he cared whether or not they lived anymore. Duty. Honor. Existing. Those were the things he knew.
He was becoming unsalvageable. How much longer until he refused to even render a choice? It would be easy, really. Pop in, strike them down, and come home.
Why go through the motions of trying to save anyone when me Dark-Hunters were the ones who damned themselves to begin with?
No, he wasn't Acheron after all. His patience had run out long ago. He no longer cared what happened to any of them.
But as he watched Danger slay the last of her Daimons, he did feel something. It was quick and fluttering, like a dull spasm.
For the first time in centuries, he wanted to change what was to come-he just didn't know why. Why should he care?
Holding his hand up, he banished the images from his walls.
Even so, he continued to see the future clearly in his mind. If Danger continued on her course, she, like her friends, would die during the Krisi-the judgment Alexion would soon deliver. Her loyalty to them would be her death.
But she wasn't the only one who could perish by Alexion's hand. Alexion closed his eyes and summoned another Dark-Hunter into his mind.
Kyros.
He was setting the course for the downfall of not only himself but for all the others too.
This time, there was no mistaking the pain Alexion felt. It was so unexpected that it actually made him flinch. It was the last remnant of his humanity and he was relieved that he still held even a tiny ounce of it.
No, he couldn't just stand by and see the man die. Not if he could help it.
"Nothing is ever truly set by fate. In one blink, everything changes. Even though it should be a clear, sunny day, the softest whisper into the wind can became a hurricane that destroys everything it touches."
How many times had Acheron told him that?
Everything was coming to a head again and Alexion wanted to change what was meant to be.
It was odd to have such vivid feelings now after all these centuries of experiencing absolutely nothing.
There's always hope.
Yeah, right. He'd long forgotten the sensation of hope. Life went on. People went on. Death went on. Tragedy. Success. It all cycled through there and here. Nothing ever changed.
And yet he felt different for once. Marco had gone Rogue and aided the Daimons. There was nothing to be done for him. And even worse, there were others who were quickly following his lead. Others who were allowing him and Kyros to turn their minds away from the truth. The Dark-Hunters in Northern Mississippi were coming together to rebel against Acheron and Artemis.
It was something that had to be stopped.
His resolve set, he made his way out of his room in the southernmost point of Acheron's palace and headed down the gilded back hallway that ran from his elaborate chambers to the centrally located throne room. The black-veined marble floor was somewhat cold against his bare feet. Had he still been human, that cold would be absolutely biting. As it was, he could only acknowledge the temperature, he couldn't really feel it. And yet that coldness seemed to seep all the way through him.
Reaching the twelve-foot door that was made of gold, he pushed it open to find Acheron on his throne while Acheron's demon, Simi, was lying on her stomach in the far corner of the room, watching QVC.
The demon, who appeared to be a human woman around the age of twenty, was dressed in red vinyl. Her ever-changing horns matched her clothes perfectly and her long black hair was braided down her back. She had a giant, half-empty bowl of popcorn cradled in her arms while her tail whipped around her head as if swishing in time to the countdown clock.
"Akri?" the she-demon demanded. "Where's my plastic?"
As he always did while at home in Katoteros, Acheron wore his black formesta-a long robelike garment that was left open in front, baring his chest and black leather pants. It was made of heavy silk that was embroidered on the back with a gold sun pierced by three silver lightning bolts-a mark that had been branded onto Alexion's shoulder.
Acheron's long black hair was left unbound, hanging about his shoulders. He sat on the gilded throne strumming a solid black electric guitar that played perfectly without the benefit of an amplifier. The wall to his left was a series of television monitors all of which showed the cartoon Johnny Bravo.
"I don't know, Sim," Acheron said distractedly. "Ask Alexion."
Before Alexion could reach Acheron's throne, the demon appeared before him, hovering in midair while her large red and black wings flapped to support her weight. Her wings, like her horns and eyes, were ever-changing in their color to fit her mood and momentary taste. Her hair color changed too, but it was linked to Acheron, therefore her hair color was always identical to his.
"Where's my plastic, Lexie?"
He gave her a patient but strict stare. Simi had been nothing more than a very small child nine thousand years ago when Acheron had brought him here to live. One of the duties Acheron had assigned to him was to help watch over her and to keep her out of trouble.
Yeah. That was next to impossible.
Not to mention, he was every bit as guilty of spoiling her as Acheron was. Like his boss, he couldn't seem to help himself. There was something innately compelling, endearing, and ultimately sweet about the demon. Something that made him love her like a daughter. In all the worlds, she and Acheron were the only two things that still made him feel any human emotion. He loved them both and he would die to protect them.
But as her "other" father, he knew he owed it to Simi and to the world to try and teach her some restraint.
"You don't need to buy anything else, Simi."
Her singsongy response was quick and automatic. "Yes I do."
"No" he insisted. "You don't. You already have more than enough baubles to keep you occupied."
She pouted at him while her eyes flamed red and her tail flicked around. "Gimme my plastic, Lexie. Now!"
"No"
She wailed, then spun around toward Acheron and flew to his throne. Suddenly QVC appeared on his monitors.
"Simi ..." Acheron said. "I was watching something."
"Oh, pooh, it's a stupid cartoon. The Simi wants her Diamonique, akri, and she wants it now!"
Acheron passed an exasperated look toward Alexion. "Give her the credit cards."
Alexion glared at him. "She's so spoiled, she's rotten. She must learn to control her impulses."
Acheron cocked a brow at him. "And how long have you been trying to teach her restraint, Alexion?"
That didn't bear commenting on. There were some things in life that were indeed futile. But immortality was boring enough. Trying to control Simi often added a lot of spark to it. "I finally got her to sit in front of the television quietly ... Sort of."
Acheron rolled his eyes. "Yeah, after five thousand years of trying. She's a demon, Lex. Restraint isn't in her makeup."
Before Alexion could argue, the box where he kept Simi's credit cards appeared in the air before her.
"Ha!" Simi said to him in a delighted tone before she seized the box and rocked with it in her arms. Her happiness died as she realized it was locked. She pinned Alexion with a menacing glare. "Open it"
Before he could refuse, it popped open.
"Thank you, akri!" Simi shouted as she grabbed her cards, then fluttered away and headed for her cell phone.
Alexion made a sound of disgust at Acheron as the box vanished. "I can't believe you just did that."
The monitors returned to the cartoon. Acheron didn't say anything as he reached down to feed his black guitar pick to the tiny pterygsauras that was perched on the arm of his throne. The small, orange dragonlike creature chirped before it swallowed the plastic whole. Alexion wasn't sure where the pterygsauri came from. For the last nine thousand years, there had always been six of them here in the throne room.
Alexion still wasn't sure if they were the same six or not. All he knew for certain was that Acheron loved and pampered his pets and as the Alexion, he did too.
Acheron patted the creature's scaly head as it preened and sang happily, then looked back down at his guitar.
"I know why you're here, Alexion," he said, as another pick appeared in his hand. He strummed a melodious chord. "The answer is no."
Alexion feigned a frown he didn't feel. "Why?"
"Because you can't help them. Kyros made his choices long ago and now he has to-"
"Bullshit!"
Acheron paused his hand in mid-strum, then gave him an angry stare. The swirling silver eyes turned red, warning that the destroyer side of Acheron was coming to the forefront.
Alexion didn't care. He'd served Acheron long enough to know his master wouldn't kill him for insubordination. At least none that was this mild. "I know you know everything, boss. I got that a long time ago. But you've also taught me the value of free will. True, Kyros has made some bad choices, but if I go to him as me, I know I can talk him out of this."
"Alexion ..."
"C'mon, akri. In over nine thousand years, I have never once asked you for a favor. Never. But I can't just go in and let him die like the others. I have to try. Don't you understand? We were human together. Brothers in arms and in spirit. Our children played together. He died saving my life. I owe him one last chance."
Acheron gave a heavy sigh as he began playing "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." "Fine. Go. But know that as you do this, whatever he decides, it's not your fault. I knew this moment was coming from the day he was created. His choices are his own. You can't accept responsibility for his mistakes."
Alexion understood. "How long do you give me?"
"You know the limits of your existence. You can have no more than ten days before you have to return. At the end of the month, you must render my judgment to them."
Alexion nodded. "Thank you, akri."
"Don't thank me, Alexion. This is distasteful work I'm sending you to do."
"I know."
Acheron looked up to stare at him. There was something in his swirling silver gaze that was different this time. Something ...
He didn't know, but it sent a raw chill over him. "What?" he asked.
"Nothing." Acheron went back to playing the guitar.
Alexion's stomach knotted in apprehension. What did the boss know that he wasn't sharing?
"I really hate it when you don't tell me things."
Acheron gave a lopsided grin at that. "I know."
Alexion stepped back, intending to return to his room, but before he could turn around, he felt himself slipping. One minute he was in the throne room at Katoteros and, in the next, he was lying facedown on a cold, dark street.
Pain slammed into him with resounding waves of agony that took his breath as he felt the rough, pungent asphalt against his face and hands.
As a Shade in Katoteros, he didn't really feel or experience anything this real. Food had no taste, his senses were all muted. But now that Acheron had placed him in the human world ...
Ow! Everything hurt. His body, his skin. Most of all his skinned-up knees.
Alexion rolled over and waited for his body to fully transition into his control again. There was always a burn when he came to earth, a brief period for him to get used to breathing and "living" again. As his senses awoke, Alexion realized he could hear people fighting around him. Was it a battle?
Acheron had done that to him a few times in the past. It was sometimes easier to drop him unnoticed into the middle of the chaos. But this didn't look like a war zone. It looked like ...
A back street.
Alexion pushed himself to his feet and then froze as he realized what was happening. There were six Daimons and a human fighting in the alley. He tried to focus his sight to be sure, but everything around him was still fuzzy.
"Okay, boss," Alexion said under his breath. "If I need glasses, fix it, 'cause I can hardly see shit right now."
His sight cleared instantly. "Thanks. But you know, a little warning before you dumped my ass out here would have been nice." He straightened his long, white cashmere coat with a tug. "By the way, couldn't you, just once, drop me either in a La-Z-Boy or on a bed?"
All he heard was the sound of Acheron's short, evil laugh in his head. Acheron and his sick sense of humor. He could be one serious bastard when he wanted to. "Thanks a lot." Alexion let out a long, irritated breath.
Turning his attention to the fight, he focused on the group. The human was a short man, probably no taller than five five or five six and appeared to be in his mid-twenties. As the man turned toward him and Alexion saw his face, he realized who he was. Keller Mallory, a Dark-Hunter Squire-one of the people who helped to shield and protect a Dark-Hunter's identity from the humans.
Squires weren't supposed to engage Daimons, but since Squires were integral to the Dark-Hunter world, they were prone to be targeted.
Apparently, tonight was Keller's turn to get his butt kicked.
Alexion rushed toward the Daimon who was headed at Keller from his back. He grabbed the Daimon and flung him away from the Squire.
"Run!" Keller said to him.
(Continues...)

Vanish (Jane Rizzoli, Book 5) by Tess Gerritsen

2011-09-02T10:51:00.001-07:00

Dr. Maura Isles had not smelled fresh air all day. Since seven that morning she had been inhaling the scent of death, an aroma so familiar to her that she did not recoil as her knife sliced cold skin, as foul odors wafted up from exposed organs. The police officers who occasionally stood in the room to observe postmortems were not so stoic. Sometimes Maura caught a whiff of the Vicks ointment that they dabbed in their nostrils to mask the stench. Sometimes even Vicks was not enough, and she’d see them suddenly go wobbly and turn away, to gag over the sink. Cops were not accustomed, as she was, to the astringent bite of formalin, the sulfurous aroma of decaying membranes.
Today, there was an incongruous note of sweetness added to that bouquet of odors: the scent of coconut oil, emanating from the skin of Mrs. Gloria Leder, who now lay on the autopsy table. She was fifty years old, a divorcee with broad hips and heavy breasts and toenails painted a brilliant pink. Deep tan lines marked the edges of the bathing suit she had been wearing when she was found dead beside her apartment swimming pool. It had been a bikini—not the most flattering choice for a body sagging with middle age. When was the last time I had the chance to put on my bathing suit? Maura thought, and she felt an absurd flash of envy for Mrs. Gloria Leder, who’d spent the last moments of her life enjoying this summer day. It was almost August, and Maura had not yet visited the beach or sat by a swimming pool or even sunbathed in her own backyard.
“Rum and Coke,” said the young cop standing at the foot of the table. “I think that’s what she had in her glass. It was sitting next to her patio chair.”
This was the first time Maura had seen Officer Buchanan in her morgue. He made her nervous, the way he kept fussing with his paper mask and shifting from foot to foot. The boy looked way too young to be a cop. They were all starting to look too young.
“Did you retain the contents of that glass?” she asked Officer Buchanan.
“Uh . . . no, ma’am. I took a good whiff. She was definitely drinking a rum and Coke.”
“At nine A.M.?” Maura looked across the table at her assistant, Yoshima. As usual, he was silent, but she saw one dark eyebrow tilt up, as eloquent a comment as she would get from Yoshima.
“She didn’t get down too much of it,” said Officer Buchanan.
“The glass was still pretty full.”
“Okay,” said Maura. “Let’s take a look at her back.”
Together, she and Yoshima log-rolled the corpse onto its side.
“There’s a tattoo here on the hip,” noted Maura. “Little blue butterfly.”
“Geez,” said Buchanan. “A woman her age?”
Maura glanced up. “You think fifty’s ancient, do you?”
“I mean—well, that’s my mom’s age.”
Careful, boy. I’m only ten years younger.
She picked up the knife and began to cut. This was her fifth postmortem of the day, and she made swift work of it. With Dr. Costas on vacation, and a multivehicle accident the night before, the cold room had been crammed with body bags that morning. Even as she’d worked her way through the backlog, two more bodies had been delivered to the refrigerator. Those would have to wait until tomorrow. The morgue’s clerical staff had already left for the evening, and Yoshima kept looking at the clock, obviously anxious to be on his way home.
She incised skin, gutted the thorax and abdomen. Removed dripping organs and placed them on the cutting board to be sectioned. Little by little, Gloria Leder revealed her secrets: a fatty liver, the telltale sign of a few too many rums and Cokes. A uterus knobby with fibroids.
And finally, when they opened the cranium, the reason for her death. Maura saw it as she lifted the brain in her gloved hands. “Subarachnoid hemorrhage,” she said, and glanced up at Buchanan. He was looking far paler than when he had first walked into the room. “This woman probably had a berry aneurysm—a weak spot in one of the arteries at the base of the brain. Hypertension would have exacerbated it.”
Buchanan swallowed, his gaze focused on the flap of loose skin that had been Gloria Leder’s scalp, now peeled forward over the face. That’s the part that usually horrified them, the point at which so many of them winced or turned away—when the face collapses like a tired rubber mask.
“So . . . you’re saying it’s a natural death?” he asked softly.
“Correct. There’s nothing more you need to see here.”
The young man was already stripping off his gown as he retreated from the table. “I think I need some fresh air . . .”
So do I, thought Maura. It’s a summer night, my garden needs watering, and I have not been outside all day.
But an hour later she was still in the building, sitting at her desk reviewing lab slips and dictated reports. Though she had changed out of her scrub suit, the smell of the morgue still seemed to cling to her, a scent that no amount of soap and water could eradicate, because the memory itself was what lingered. She picked up the Dictaphone and began to record her report on Gloria Leder.
“Fifty-year-old white woman found slumped in a patio chair near her apartment swimming pool. She is a well-developed, wellnourished woman with no visible trauma. External exam reveals an old surgical scar on her abdomen, probably from an appendectomy. There is a small tattoo of a butterfly on her . . .” She paused, picturing the tattoo. Was it on the left or the right hip? God, I’m so tired, she thought. I can’t remember. What a trivial detail. It made no difference to her conclusions, but she hated being inaccurate.
She rose from her chair and walked the deserted hallway to the stairwell, where her footfalls echoed on concrete steps. Pushing into the lab, she turned on the lights and saw that Yoshima had left the room in pristine condition as usual, the tables wiped down and gleaming, the floors mopped clean. She crossed to the cold room and pulled open the heavy locker door. Wisps of cold mist curled out. She took in a reflexive breath of air, as though about to plunge into foul water, and stepped into the locker.
Eight gurneys were occupied; most were awaiting pickup by funeral homes. Moving down the row, she checked the tags until she found Gloria Leder’s. She unzipped the bag, slipped her hands under the corpse’s buttocks and rolled her sideways just far enough to catch a glimpse of the tattoo.
It was on the left hip.
She closed the bag again and was just about to swing the door shut when she froze. Turning, she stared into the cold room.
Did I just hear something?
The fan came on, blowing icy air from the vents. Yes, that’s all it was, she thought. The fan. Or the refrigerator compressor. Or water cycling in the pipes. It was time to go home. She was so tired, she was starting to imagine things.
Again she turned to leave.
Again she froze. Turning, she stared at the row of body bags. Her heart was thumping so hard now, all she could hear was the beat of her own pulse.
Something moved in here. I’m sure of it.
She unzipped the first bag and stared down at a man whose chest had been sutured closed. Already autopsied, she thought. Definitely dead.
Which one? Which one made the noise?
She yanked open the next bag, and confronted a bruised face, a shattered skull. Dead.
With shaking hands she unzipped the third bag. The plastic parted, and she saw the face of a pale young woman with black hair and cyanotic lips. Opening the bag all the way, she exposed a wet blouse, the fabric clinging to white flesh, the skin glistening with chilly droplets of water. She peeled open the blouse and saw full breasts, a slim waist. The torso was still intact, not yet incised by the pathologist’s knife. The fingers and toes were purple, the arms marbled with blue.
She pressed her fingers to the woman’s neck and felt icy skin. Bending close to the lips, she waited for the whisper of a breath, the faintest puff of air against her cheek.
The corpse opened its eyes.
Maura gasped and lurched backward. She collided with the gurney behind her, and almost fell as the wheels rolled away. She scrambled back to her feet and saw that the woman’s eyes were still open, but unfocused. Blue-tinged lips formed soundless words.
Get her out of the refrigerator! Get her warm!
Maura shoved the gurney toward the door but it didn’t budge; in her panic she’d forgotten to unlock the wheels. She stamped down on the release lever and pushed again. This time it rolled, rattling out of the cold room into the warmer loading area.
The woman’s eyes had drifted shut again. Leaning close, Maura could feel no air moving past the lips. Oh Jesus. I can’t lose you now.
She knew nothing about this stranger—not her name, nor her medical history. This woman could be teeming with viruses, yet she sealed her mouth over the woman’s, and almost gagged at the taste of chilled flesh. She delivered three deep breaths, and pressed her fingers to the neck to check for a carotid pulse.
Am I imagining it? Is that my own pulse I feel, throbbing in my fingers?
She grabbed the wall phone and dialed 911.
“Emergency operator.”
“This is Dr. Isles in the medical examiner’s office. I need an ambulance. There’s a woman here, in respiratory arrest—”
“Excuse me, did you say the medical examiner’s office?”
“Yes! I’m at the rear of the building, just inside the loading bay. We’re on Albany Street, right across from the medical center!”
“I’m dispatching an ambulance now.”
Maura hung up. Once again, she quelled her disgust as she pressed her lips to the woman’s. Three more quick breaths, then her fingers were back on the carotid.
A pulse. There was definitely a pulse!
Suddenly she heard a wheeze, a cough. The woman was moving air now, mucus rattling in her throat.
Stay with me. Breathe, lady. Breathe!
A loud whoop announced the arrival of the ambulance. She shoved open the rear doors and stood squinting against flashing lights as the vehicle backed up to the dock. Two EMTs jumped out, hauling their kits.
“She’s in here!” Maura called.
“Still in respiratory arrest?”
“No, she’s breathing now. And I can feel a pulse.”
The two men trotted into the building and halted, staring at the woman on the gurney. “Jesus,” one of them murmured. “Is that a body bag?”
“I found her in the cold room,” said Maura. “By now, she’s probably hypothermic.”
“Oh, man. If this isn’t your worst nightmare.”
Out came the oxygen mask and IV lines. They slapped on EKG leads. On the monitor, a slow sinus rhythm blipped like a lazy cartoonist’s pen. The woman had a heartbeat and she was breathing, yet she still looked dead.
Looping a tourniquet around one flaccid arm, the EMT asked: “What’s her story? How did she get here?”
“I don’t know anything about her,” said Maura. “I came down to check on another body in the cold room and I heard this one moving.”
“Does this, uh, happen very often here?”
“This is a first time for me.” And she hoped to God it was the last.
“How long has she been in your refrigerator?”
Maura glanced at the hanging clipboard, where the day’s deliveries were recorded, and saw that a Jane Doe had arrived at the morgue around noon. Eight hours ago. Eight hours zipped in a shroud. What if she’d ended up on my table? What if I had sliced into her chest? Rummaging through the receiving in-basket, she found the envelope containing the woman’s paperwork. “Weymouth Fire and Rescue brought her in,” she said. “An apparent drowning . . .”
“Whoa, Nelly!” The EMT had just stabbed an IV needle into a vein and the patient suddenly jerked to life, her torso bucking on the gurney. The IV site magically puffed blue as the punctured vein hemorrhaged into the skin.
“Shit, lost the site. Help me hold her down!”
“Man, this gal’s gonna get up and walk away.”
“She’s really fighting now. I can’t get the IV started.”
“Then let’s just get her on the stretcher and move her.”
“Where are you taking her?” Maura said.
“Right across the street. The ER. If you have any paperwork they’ll want a copy.”
She nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
* * *
A long line of patients stood waiting to register at the ER window, and the triage nurse behind the desk refused to meet Maura’s attempts to catch her eye. On this busy night, it would take a severed limb and spurting blood to justify cutting to the front of the line, but Maura ignored the nasty looks of other patients and pushed straight to the window. She rapped on the glass.
“You’ll have to wait your turn,” the triage nurse said.
“I’m Dr. Isles. I have a patient’s transfer papers. The doctor will want them.”
“Which patient?”
“The woman they just brought in from across the street.”
“You mean that lady from the morgue?”
Maura paused, suddenly aware that the other patients in line could hear every word. “Yes,” was all she said.
“Come on through, then. They want to talk to you. They’re having trouble with her.”
The door lock buzzed open, and Maura pushed through, into the treatment area. She saw immediately what the triage nurse had meant by trouble. Jane Doe had not yet been moved into a treatment room, but was still lying in the hallway, her body now draped with a heating blanket. The two EMTs and a nurse struggled to control her.
“Tighten that strap!”
“Shit—her hand’s out again—”
“Forget the oxygen mask. She doesn’t need it.”
“Watch that IV! We’re going to lose it!”
Maura lunged toward the stretcher and grabbed the patient’s wrist before she could pull out the intravenous catheter. Long black hair lashed Maura’s face as the woman tried to twist free.
(Continues...)

Only Yours (Fool's Gold) by Susan Mallery

2011-09-02T10:50:00.001-07:00

Montana Hendrix has found her calling—working with therapy dogs. With a career she loves in a hometown she adores, she's finally ready to look for her own happily ever after. Could one of her dogs help her find Mr. Right… or maybe Dr. Right?

Montana Hendrix's perfectly good morning was thwarted by a hotdog, a four-year-old boy and a Lab and Golden Retriever mix named Fluffy.
Things had started out well enough with Montana determined to get the nearly year-old dog into a therapy dog training program. Sure Fluffy was exuberant and clumsy, with a habit of eating anything and simply being too happy, but she had a huge heart. If she was, in simple terms, a screw-up, Montana refused to hold that against her. Montana knew what it was like to fail to meet her potential, to always feel she wasn't good enough. She'd made a career out of it. Fluffy was not going to suffer the way she had. And even if she was projecting a little to much onto an innocent dog, well, sometimes that happened.
So there she was, on a beautiful Fool's Gold summer morning, walking Fluffy...or possibly being walked by Fluffy.
"Think calm," Montana told the dog, holding firmly onto the leash. "Therapy dogs are calm. Therapy dogs understand restraint."
Fluffy gave her a doggie grin, then nearly knocked over a trash can with a sweep of her ever-moving tail. Restraint wasn't in Fluffy's vocabulary. She was barely calm in her sleep.
Later Montana would tell herself she should have seen it coming. This particular morning was the first weekend after school had let out and there was a festival to celebrate. Street vendors had been setting up for days. Although it was early, the smell of hot dogs and barbecue filled the air. The sidewalks were crowded and Fluffy kept pulling toward the children playing in the park. Her expression was clear—she wanted to be playing, too.
Up ahead, a mother paid for a hot dog. Her young son took it eagerly, but spotted Fluffy before he took a bite. He grinned at Fluffy and held out the food. At that exact moment, Montana was distracted by the latest display in Morgan's Bookstore and accidentally loosened her grip. Fluffy lunged, the leash slipped and that was where the trouble started.
Offering a hot dog from a distance might have seemed like a good idea...until a ninety-pound dog came barreling toward him. The little boy shrieked, dropped the hot dog and ran behind his mother. The poor woman had missed the beginning of the encounter. All she saw was a crazy looking dog headed right for her and her son. She screamed.
Montana started after Fluffy, yelling for her to stop. But it was as effective as telling the earth to slow down its rotation. Nothing much happened.
The mother scooped up her little boy and ducked behind the lemonade stand. Fluffy picked up the hot dog without breaking stride and swallowed it in one gulp, then kept on going. Apparently freedom called.
Montana hurried after her, the new summer sandals she'd bought last week cutting into her feet. She knew she had to get Fluffy. The dog was sweet, but not very well trained. Montana's boss, Max Thurman, has made it clear that Fluffy was not therapy dog material. If word of today's disaster reached him, he would insist the dog leave the program. Montana couldn't stand for that to happen.
Fluffy was a lot faster than her and quickly ran out of sight. Montana followed the sound of shrieks and screams, making her way through the streets of town, dodging a peanut cart and narrowly missing a close encounter with two guys on bikes. She turned a corner just in time to see a tail disappearing into a tall building with automatic doors.
"No," Montana breathed, staring up at the hospital. "Not there. Anywhere but there."
She raced forward, inwardly cringing at the thought of what Fluffy could do in a place like that. Big puppy feet on slippery floors were not a happy thought. She ran up the six steps leading to the entrance and dashed inside only to find a trail of havoc marking the way.
A supply cart was pushed against the wall. Linens spilled onto a floor. A little girl in a wheelchair grinned and pointed down the hall. Montana heard someone yell by the elevators and prayed Fluffy wouldn't slip onto one.
She got to the bank of elevators only to find several people willing to tell her that yes, a dog did get on. She watched the light panel to see the elevator had stopped on the fourth floor, then jumped in the next one and rode up.
The doors opened to the sound of screams. A chair lay on its side. More linens were scattered on the floor, along with a couple of charts. Up ahead double doors marked the entrance to the burn unit. Various signs explained about what could and couldn't go into that part of the hospital. A joyous bark told her Fluffy had violated every single posted rule.
Not knowing what else to do, she followed the sound and pushed through the doors. Up ahead several nurses were trying to corral the happy dog while Fluffy did her best to lick all of them at the same time. When Montana called her, the dog actually turned and raced toward her. A doctor walked out of a room just ahead of the dog.
Fluffy did her best to stop. Montana saw her puppy paws scramble as the dog tried to slow. But she couldn't get traction on the floor. She started to slide, her butt went down, her front paws braced and then she was zipping along in a sitting position. She plowed directly into the doctor, sending him tumbling into Montana.
The doctor was about six inches taller and a whole lot heavier. His shoulder hit her chest, knocking the air out of her. They sailed across the floor, flying a few feet before stopping against the very hard floor, his body slamming into hers.
Montana lay there, dazed. She couldn't breathe. All she felt was dead weight on top of her and a warm tongue licking her bare ankle.
The man got off of her and knelt beside her.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded.
She shook her head, then managed to gasp in air. Fluffy moved closer and sat down, looking calm and well-behaved. A trick Montana wasn't going to fall for.
The man reached for her. He ran his large, long-fingered hands up and down her legs and arms, then felt the back of her head. His touch was impersonal, but it was the most action she'd had in months. Before she could figure out if she liked it, she looked at his face.
He was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. Eyes the color of green smoke, fringed by dark lashes. A perfect mouth, with a strong jaw. His cheekbone—
"She's fine," he said, turning to speak with someone behind him.
When he shifted his head she saw the other side of his face. Thick red scars grew from his shirt collar, along the side of his neck to his left jaw and cheek. They spiraled, creating an angry pattern that looked painful and pulled his skin.
She had a feeling her shock showed, but he didn't seem to notice. Instead he grabbed her hand and pulled to her to feet.
"Dizzy?" he asked curtly.
"No," she managed, now that she could breathe again.
"Good." He moved closer. "What the hell is wrong with you? What kind of irresponsible idiot allows something like this to happen? You should be arrested and charged with attempted murder. Do you know what kind of germs that dog has? That you have? This is burn unit. These patients are vulnerable to infection. They are suffering with a level of pain you can't begin to imagine. Because of you, they might suffer more. If that happens, you will be responsible."
She took a step back. "I'm sorry," she began.
"Do you think anyone here gives a damn about you being sorry? Your thoughtless and incompetence are criminal."
She could feel his rage in every word. Even more scary than what he was saying was the way he was saying it. Not with a loud voice and a lot of energy, but with a coldness that left her feeling small and stupid. He stared at her as if she were little more than a bug.
"I didn't—"
"Think," he interrupted. "Yes, that much is clear. I doubt you think much about anything. Now get out."
Embarrassment gripped her. She was aware of the other staff members hovering close by, listening.
Montana knew that having Fluffy run through the hospital was a bad thing. But it wasn't like she'd planned the event.
"It was an accident," she said, raising her chin.
"That's not an excuse."
"I suppose you've never made a mistake."
His gray-green eyes flashed with derision. "Have you ever had a burn? Touched a hot pan or the burner on a stove? Do you remember what that felt like? Imagine that over a significant part of your body. The pain never goes away. The healing process is slow and what we do here to help it along is excruciating. On this ward, an infection kills. So any mistakes I've made have no bearing on this discussion."
There was no point in telling him that the work she did was important. She often came to the hospital with therapy dogs. Those therapy dogs helped patients heal, especially children. But she suspected this particular man wouldn't care about that.
"You're right," she said slowly. "There's no excuse for what happened here today. I'm sorry."
His mouth twisted. "Get out."
His complete dismissal stunned her. "Excuse me?"
"Are you deaf? Get out. Go away. Take your damn dog with you and don't come back."
Montana was willing to admit fault and take the blame, but to have her apology ignored was just plain rude. Being a screw-up didn't mean she was a bad person.
"You're a doctor?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer to the question.
The man's eyes narrowed. "Yes."
"You might want to take that stick out of your ass. It'll make it easier to pretend to be human, which will probably help your patients."
With that she grabbed Fluffy's leash, ignored the fact that the dog was licking the doctor's hand and walked out of the burn unit, her head held high.
On her way back to the kennel, she kept a firm grip on Fluffy, but no amount of holding could erase the fact that they'd both messed up big time. Montana loved her job. It had taken her a long time to find out what she was supposed to do with her life. She loved training the dogs, working with kids at the hospital and the older folks at the nursing home. She'd started a reading program at all five of the local elementary schools.
She could lose everything because of what had happened today. If the administrator called Max and insisted Montana not be allowed back in the hospital, her boss would fire her. A fair amount of the therapy work took place there. If she couldn't go to the hospital, she wasn't much use to him. And then what?
She knew she only had herself to blame. Max had made it clear Fluffy wasn't going to be successful in the program, but Montana had wanted to give the dog another chance.
All her life Montana had been different. On her good days, she told herself she was a little flakey. On her bad days, well, the words were a lot worse than that.
Regardless of the label, it appeared that nothing had changed. That she was still incapable of getting anything right. This time it was going to cost her.
#
Order was restored on the burn ward in a matter of minutes. Simon Bradley dismissed the intruder from his mind and continued his rounds. His last patient of the morning was the most worrisome. Nine year-old Kalinda Riley had been brought in two days before when the family's gas barbecue had exploded. Kalinda had been the only one hurt.
She'd been burned over forty percent of her body. He'd performed surgery yesterday. If she survived, it would be the first operation of many. For the rest of her life, her existence would be defined by her burns. He should know.
Her parents were devastated and frightened. They wanted answers and he had none to give them. The next few weeks would decide if the little girl lived or died. He didn't like to guess or assume, but he also couldn't escape the heaviness in his chest.
"Doctor Bradley."
He smiled at Kalinda's mother. Mrs. Riley was not yet thirty and probably pretty when she wasn't pale with worry and fear. Kalinda was their only child.
"She's been quiet," her mother continued.
"We're keeping her sedated as she heals."
"There was a dog here before."
Simon tensed. "It won't happen again."
Mrs. Riley touched his arm. "She opened her eyes when she heard the commotion. She asked to see the puppy."
Simon turned toward Kalinda's room. The child shouldn't be that lucid. He would examine her, then look over her medications.
"Did she say if she was in pain?" he asked.
Later they would teach her ways to manage her discomfort. That's what they called it. Discomfort. Not agony or torture or suffering. All the things a serious burn could be. Later she would learn about breathing and meditation and visualization. For now, drugs would get her through.
"She said she wanted to hold the puppy."
He drew in a breath. "It was an eighty pound mutt that doesn't belong in a hospital."
"Oh." Mrs. Riley's eyes filled with tears. "We had a dog. A small Yorkie. She died a few months ago. I know Kalinda misses her terribly. I remember reading something about hospitals using therapy dogs. Do you think that would help?"
Because she was a mother who loved her child and would do anything to help her. To keep her from suffering. Simon had seen it hundreds of time. The greatness of a parent's love never ceased to amaze him. Perhaps because he hadn't experienced it himself.
Simon would rather eat glass than have a filthy animal in his burn unit, but he also understood that the healing powers of the human body could be triggered by unexpected sources. If Kalinda was to survive, she would need something close to a miracle.
"I'll see what I can find out," he said, and turned toward his patient's room.
"Thank you," Mrs. Riley said, smiling bravely through her tears. "You've been amazing."
He'd done very little. Surgery was a learned skill. The gift he brought to those skills came at a price, but one he was willing to pay. He lived for his patients, to heal them as much as humanly possible and then move on. To the next tragedy. The next child whose life changed in a single flash and the lick of a flame.
Continues...

The Submission: A Novel by Amy Waldman

2011-09-02T10:49:00.001-07:00

A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner’s name—and discover he is an American Muslim. Instantly they are cast into roiling debate about the claims of grief, the ambiguities of art, and the meaning of Islam. Their conflicted response is only a preamble to the country’s.

"The names," Claire said. "What about the names?"
"They're a record, not a gesture," the sculptor replied. Ariana's words brought nods from the other artists, the critic, and the two purveyors of public art arrayed along the dining table, united beneath her sway. She was the jury's most famous figure, its dominant personality, Claire's biggest problem.
Ariana had seated herself at the head of the table, as if she were presiding. For the previous four months they had deliberated at a table that had no head, being round. It was in an office suite high above the gouged earth, and there the other jurors had deferred to the widow's desire to sit with her back to the window, so that the charnel ground below was only a gray blur when Claire walked to her chair. But tonight the jury was gathered, for its last arguments, at Gracie Mansion's long table. Ariana, without consultation or, it appeared, compunction, had taken pride of place, giving notice of her intent to prevail.
"The names of the dead are expected; required, in fact, by the competition rules," she continued. For such a scouring woman, her voice was honeyed. "In the right memorial, the names won't be the source of the emotion."
"They will for me," Claire said tightly, taking some satisfaction in the downcast eyes and guilty looks along the table. They'd all lost, of course--lost the sense that their nation was invulnerable; lost their city's most recognizable icons; maybe lost friends or acquaintances. But only she had lost her husband.
She wasn't above reminding them of that tonight, when they would at last settle on the memorial. They had winnowed five thousand entries, all anonymous, down to two. The final pruning should have beeneasy. But after three hours of talk, two rounds of voting, and too much wine from the mayor's private reserve, the conversation had turned ragged, snappish, repetitive. The Garden was too beautiful, Ariana and the other artists kept saying of Claire's choice. They saw for a living, yet when it came to the Garden they wouldn't see what she saw.
The concept was simple: a walled, rectangular garden guided by rigorous geometry. At the center would be a raised pavilion meant for contemplation. Two broad, perpendicular canals quartered the six-acre space. Pathways within each quadrant imposed a grid on the trees, both living and steel, that were studded in orchard-like rows. A white perimeter wall, twenty-seven feet high, enclosed the entire space. The victims would be listed on the wall's interior, their names patterned to mimic the geometric cladding of the destroyed buildings. The steel trees reincarnated the buildings even more literally: they would be made from their salvaged scraps.
Four drawings showed the Garden across the seasons. Claire's favorite was the chiaroscuro of winter. A snow shroud over the ground; leafless living trees gone to pewter; cast-steel trees glinting with the rose light of late afternoon; the onyx surfaces of the canals shining like crossed swords. Black letters scored on the white wall. Beauty wasn't a crime, but there was more than beauty here. Even Ariana conceded that the spartan steel trees were an unexpected touch--reminders that a garden, for all its reliance on nature, was man-made, perfect for a city in which plastic bags wafted along with birds and air-conditioner runoff mixed in with rain. Their forms would look organic, but they would resist a garden's seasonal ebb and flow.
"The Void is too dark for us," Claire said now, as she had before. Us: the families of the dead. Only she, on the jury, stood for Us. She loathed the Void, the other finalist, Ariana's favorite, and Claire was sure the other families would, too. There was nothing void-like about it. A towering black granite rectangle, some twelve stories high, centered in a huge oval pool, it came off in the drawings as a great gash against the sky. The names of the dead were to be carved onto its surface, which would reflect into the water below. It mimicked the Vietnam Veterans Memorial but, to Claire, missed the point. Such abstraction worked when humans could lay their hands on it, draw near enough to alter the scale. But the names on the Void couldn't be reached or even seen properly. The only advantage the design had was height. Claire worried that some of thefamilies--so jingoistic, so literal-minded--might see the Garden as conceding territory to America's enemies, even if that territory was air.
"Gardens are fetishes of the European bourgeoisie," Ariana said, pointing to the dining-room walls, which were papered with a panorama of lush trees through which tiny, formally dressed men and women strolled. Ariana herself was, as usual, dressed entirely in a shade of gruel that she had patented in homage to and ridicule of Yves Klein's brilliant blue. The mockery of pretension, Claire decided, could also be pretentious.
"Aristocratic fetishes," the jury's lone historian corrected. "The bourgeoisie aping the aristocracy."
"It's French, the wallpaper," the mayor's aide, his woman on the jury, piped up.
"My point being," Ariana went on, "that gardens aren't our vernacular. We have parks. Formal gardens aren't our lineage."
"Experiences matter more than lineages," Claire said.
"No, lineages are experiences. We're coded to have certain emotions in certain kinds of places."
"Graveyards," Claire said, an old tenacity rising within her. "Why are they often the loveliest places in cities? There's a poem--George Herbert--with the lines: 'Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart / Could have recover'd greennesse?'" A college friend had written the scrap of poetry in a condolence card. "The Garden," she continued, "will be a place where we--where the widows, their children, anyone--can stumble on joy. My husband ..." she said, and everyone leaned in to listen. She changed her mind and stopped speaking, but the words hung in the air like a trail of smoke.
Which Ariana blew away. "I'm sorry, but a memorial isn't a graveyard. It's a national symbol, an historic signifier, a way to make sure anyone who visits--no matter how attenuated their link in time or geography to the attack--understands how it felt, what it meant. The Void is visceral, angry, dark, raw, because there was no joy on that day. You can't tell if that slab is rising or falling, which is honest--it speaks exactly to this moment in history. It's created destruction, which robs the real destruction of its power, dialectically speaking. The Garden speaks to a longing we have for healing. It's a very natural impulse, but maybe not our most sophisticated one."
"You have something against healing?" Claire asked.
"We disagree on the best way to bring it about," Ariana answered."I think you have to confront the pain, face it, even wallow in it, before you can move on."
"I'll take that under consideration," Claire retorted. Her hand clamped over her wineglass before the waiter could fill it.

Paul could barely track who was saying what. His jurors had devoured the comfort food he had requested--fried chicken, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts with bacon--but the comfort was scant. He prided himself on getting along with formidable women--was, after all, married to one--but Claire Burwell and Ariana Montagu together strained him, their opposing sureties clashing like electric fields, the room crackling with their animus. In her critique of the Garden's beauty, of beauty itself, Paul sensed Ariana implying something about Claire.
His mind wandered to the coming days, weeks, months. They would announce the winning design. Then he and Edith would visit the Zabar's at their home in Menerbes, a respite for Paul between the months of deliberation and the fund-raising for the memorial that would begin on his return. It would be a major challenge, with the construction of each of the two finalists estimated at $100 million, minimum, but Paul enjoyed parting his friends from serious money. Countless ordinary Americans were sure to open their wallets, too.
Then this chairmanship would lead to others, or so Edith assured him. Unlike many of her friends, his wife did not collect Chanel suits or Harry Winston baubles, although she had quantities of both. Her eye was for prestigious positions, and so she imagined Paul as chairman of the public library, where he already sat on the board. It had more money than the Met, and Edith had pronounced Paul "literary," although Paul himself wasn't sure he'd read a novel since The Bonfire of the Vanities.
"Perhaps we should talk more about the local context," said Madeline, a community power broker from the neighborhood ringing the site. As if on cue, Ariana extracted from her bag a drawing she had made of the Void to show how well it would play against the cityscape. The Void's "vertical properties," she said, echoed Manhattan's. Claire arched her eyebrows at Paul. Ariana's "sketch," as she called it, was better than the drawings accompanying the submission. Claire had complained to Paul more than once that she suspected Ariana knew the Void's designer--a student, a protégé?--because she seemed so eager to help italong. Maybe, although he didn't think Ariana had done any more for her favorite than Claire had for hers. For all her poise, Claire couldn't seem to handle not getting her way. Nor could Ariana, who was used to dominating juries without this one's slippery quota of sentiment.
The group retreated to the parlor, with its warm yellow walls, for dessert. Jorge, the chef at Gracie Mansion, wheeled in a cart laden with cakes and cookies. Then he unveiled, with little fanfare, a three-foot-high gingerbread reconstruction of the vanished towers. The shapes were unmistakable. The silence was profound.
"It's not meant to be eaten," Jorge said, suddenly shy. "It's a tribute."
"Of course," said Claire, then added, with more warmth, "It's like a fairy tale." Chandelier light glinted off the poured-sugar windows.
Paul had piled his plate with everything but the gingerbread when Ariana planted herself in front of him like a tiny spear. In concert they drifted toward a secluded corner behind the piano.
"I'm concerned, Paul," Ariana said. "I don't want our decision based too much on"--the last word almost lowed--"emotion."
"We're selecting a memorial, Ariana. I'm not sure emotion can be left out of it entirely."
"You know what I mean. I worry that Claire's feelings are having disproportionate impact."
"Ariana, some might argue that you have disproportionate impact. Your opinions command enormous respect."
"Not compared to a family member. Sorrow can be a bully."
"So can taste."
"As it should be, but we're talking about something more profound than taste here. Judgment. Having a family member in the room--it's like we're letting the patient, not the doctor, decide on the best course of treatment. A little clinical distance is healthy."
Out of the corner of his eye, Paul saw Claire deep in conversation with the city's preeminent critic of public art. She had seven inches on him, with her heels, but she made no effort to slouch. Dressed tonight in a fitted black sheath--the color, Paul suspected, no incidental choice--she was a woman who knew how to outfit herself for maximum advantage. Paul respected this, although respect was perhaps the wrong word for how she figured in his imaginings. Not for the first time, he rued his age (twenty-five years her senior), his hair loss, and his loyalty--more institutional than personal, perhaps--to his marriage. He watched herdetach herself from the critic to follow yet another juror from the room.
"I know she's affecting," he heard; his eyeing of Claire had been unsubtle. He turned sharply toward Ariana, who continued: "But the Garden's too soft. Designed to please the same Americans who love impressionism."
"I happen to like impressionism," Paul said, not sure whether to pretend he was joking. "I can't muzzle Claire, and you know the family members are more likely to support our design if they feel part of the process. We need the emotional information she provides."
"Paul, you know there's a whole critique out there. If we pick the wrong memorial, if we yield to sentimentalism, it only confirms--"
"I know the concerns," he said gruffly: that it was too soon for a memorial, the ground barely cleared; that the country hadn't yet won or lost the war, couldn't even agree, exactly, on who or what it was fighting. But everything happened faster these days--the building up and tearing down of idols; the spread of disease and rumor and trends; the cycling of news; the development of new monetary instruments, which in turn had speeded Paul's own retirement from the chairmanship of the investment bank. So why not the memorial, too? Commercial exigencies were at work, it was true: the developer who controlled the site wanted to remonetize it and needed a memorial to do so, since Americans seemed unlikely to accept the maximization of office space as the most eloquent rejoinder to terrorism. But there were patriotic exigencies, too. The longer that space stayed clear, the more it became a symbol of defeat, of surrender, something for "them," whoever they were, to mock. A memorial only to America's diminished greatness, its new vulnerability to attack by a fanatic band, mediocrities in all but murder. Paul would never put it so crudely, but the blank space was embarrassing. Filling in that blank, as much as Edith's ambitions, was why he had wanted to chair the jury. Its work would mark not only his beloved city but history, too.
Ariana was waiting for more from Paul. "You're wasting your time on me," he said brusquely. The winner needed ten of thirteen votes; Paul had made clear he would abandon neutrality only if a finalist was one short. "If I were you, I'd go rescue Maria from Claire."

Claire had seen Maria heading outside, cigarette in hand, and hurried after her. She had been pleading--no other word for it--with the critic, telling him, "Just because we're memorializing the dead doesn't mean we need to create a dead place," watching him roll his head as if his neck hurt from looking up at her. But she also had been scavenging her memory for tidbits from law school: the science of juries. The Asch experiments, what did Asch show? How easily people were influenced by other people's perceptions. Conformity. Group polarization. Normative pressures. Reputational cascades: how the desire for social approval influences the way people think and act. Which meant Claire's best chance was to get jurors alone. Maria was a public art curator who had made her mark placing large-scale artworks, including one of Ariana's, around Manhattan. This made her an unlikely defector, but Claire had to try.
"Got an extra?" she asked.
Maria handed her a cigarette. "I wouldn't have pegged you as a smoker."
"Only occasionally," Claire lied. As in never.
They were standing on the veranda, the lawn spread before them, its majestic trees mere smudges in the dark, the lights of the bridges and boroughs like proximate constellations. Maria ashed complacently over the railing onto the lawn, and although it struck Claire as somehow disrespectful, she did the same.
"A ruined garden within the walls--that I could get behind," Maria said.
"Excuse me?"
"It would be so powerful as a work of art, would answer any worries about erasing the hard memories. We have to think of history here, the long view, a symbolism that will speak to people a hundred years from now. Great art transcends its time."
"A ruined garden has no hope and that's unacceptable," Claire said, unable to help her sharpness. "You all keep talking about the long view, but the long view includes us. My children, my grandchildren, people with a direct connection to this attack are going to be around for the next hundred years, and maybe that's a blip when you look back at the Venus of Willendorf, but it certainly seems a long time now. So I don't see why our interests should count any less. You know, the other night I dreamed about that black pool around the Void, that my husband's handwas reaching up from the water to pull me down into it. That's the effect the Void has. So you can go there and congratulate yourself on what a brilliant artistic statement you made, but I don't think family members will be lining up to visit."
Her anger was no less genuine for her having learned, months back, its power. On a wintry afternoon, as she and the other widows left a meeting with the director of the government's compensation fund, a reporter in the waiting press pack had shouted, "How do you answer Americans who say they're tired of your sense of entitlement, that you're being greedy?" Claire had gripped her purse to keep her hands from shaking, but she didn't bother to mute the tremble in her voice. "Entitlement? Was that the word you used?" The reporter shrank back. "Was I entitled to lose my husband? Was I entitled to have to explain to my children why they will never know their father, to have to raise them alone? Am I entitled to live knowing the suffering my husband endured? This isn't about greed. Do your homework: I don't need a penny of this compensation and don't plan to keep it. This isn't about money. It's about justice, accountability. And yes, I am entitled to that."
She claimed, later, to have been unaware the television cameras were rolling, but they captured every word. The clip of the death-pale blonde in the black coat was replayed so often that for days she couldn't turn on the television without seeing herself. Letters of support poured in, and Claire found herself a star widow. She hadn't meant to make a political statement, in truth had been offended by the notion that she was grubbing for money and was seeking to set herself apart from those who were. Instead she emerged as their champion, the Secretary of Sorrow Services. Her leadership, she knew, was the reason the governor had picked her for the jury.
On the veranda Maria was eyeing her quizzically. Claire met her stare and took a drag so dizzying she had to grip the railing for support. She felt only a little guilty. Everything she said had been true except her certainty that the hand reaching up was Cal's.

Maria switched first. "The Garden," she said bravely. Claire started to mouth "Thank you," then thought better of it. The critic came next. "The Garden." This gave slightly less pleasure: Claire, studying his bassethound face and poodle hair, had the disappointed sense that he hadchanged his vote because he was tired. Still, the Garden had eight votes now, which meant victory was in sight. But instead of celebrating, Claire began to sink inside. Tomorrow, absent the memorial competition, her life would lose its last bit of temporary form. She had no need of income, given her inheritance from Cal, and no commanding new cause. Her future was gilded blankness.
Aftermath had filled the two years since Cal's death, the surge of grief yielding to the slow leak of mourning, the tedium of recovery, bathetic new routines that felt old from the get-go. Forms and more forms. Bulletins from the medical examiner: another fragment of her husband had been found. The cancellation of credit cards, driver's license, club memberships, magazine subscriptions, contracts to buy works of art; the selling of cars and a sailboat; the scrubbing of his name from trusts and bank accounts and the boards of companies and nonprofits--all of it done with a ruthless efficiency that implicated her in his effacement. Offering her children memories of their father, only to load the past with so much value it strained beneath the weight.
But aftermath had to end. She sensed herself concluding a passage that had begun fourteen years ago, when a blue-eyed man notable less for good looks than for sheer vitality and humor and confidence had stopped her as she came off the tennis court he was taking over and said, "I'm going to marry you."
The comment, she would come to learn, was typical of Calder Burwell, a man with a temperament so sunny that Claire nicknamed him California, even though it was she, having grown up there, who knew the state's true fickle weather: the frost and drought that had kept her grandfather, a citrus farmer, perched near ruin for years before her father plunged straight into it. Of all her anguished, unanswerable wonderings about Cal's death--where, how, how much pain--the worst, somehow, was the fear that his last moments had buckled his abiding optimism. She wanted him to have died believing that he would live. The Garden was an allegory. Like Cal, it insisted that change was not just possible, but certain.

"It's eleven o'clock," Paul said. "I think someone may need to reconsider his or her vote. How can we ask this country to come together in healing if this jury can't?"
Guilty looks. A long silence. And finally, from the historian, an almost speculative "Well ..." All bleary eyes turned to him, but he said nothing more, as if he had realized he held the fate of a six-acre chunk of Manhattan in his hands.
"Ian?" Paul prodded.
Even if inebriated, Ian wasn't going without a lecture. He noted the beginnings of public gardens in suburban cemeteries in eighteenthcentury Europe, segued into the garden-based reforms of Daniel Schreber in Germany ("We're interested in his social reforms, not the 'reforms' he carried out on his poor sons"), jumped to the horror conveyed by Lutyens's Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval, in which seventy-three thousand names--"Seventy-three thousand!" Ian exclaimed--were inscribed on its interior walls, pondered the difference between "national memory" and "veteran's memory" at Verdun, and concluded, some fifteen minutes later, with: "And so, the Garden."
Paul, then, would be the tenth and final vote, and this didn't displease him. He had insisted, for himself, on not just public neutrality but internal neutrality as well, so that no design had been allowed to catch his fancy. But over the course of the evening he had begun rooting for the Garden. "Stumble on joy"--the phrase had knocked something loose in him. Joy: What did it feel like? Trying to remember, he was overcome by longing. He knew satisfaction, the exhilaration of success, contentment, and happiness to the extent he could identify it. But joy? He must have felt it when his sons were born--that kind of event would surely occasion it--but he couldn't remember. Joy: it was like a handle with no cupboard, a secret he didn't know. He wondered if Claire did.
"The Garden," he said, and the room broke loose, less with pleasure than relief.
"Thank you, Paul. Thank you, everyone," Claire whispered.
Paul slumped in his chair and allowed himself some sentimental chauvinism. The dark horse had won--he hadn't thought Claire could trump Ariana--and this seemed appropriately American. Champagne appeared, corks popped, a euphonious clamor filled the room. Paul clinked his flute to command their attention for a moment of silence in the victims' honor. As heads bowed, he glimpsed the part in Claire's hair, the line as sharp and white as a jet's contrail, the intimacy as unexpected as a flash of thigh. Then he remembered to think of the dead.
He thought, too, of the day, as he hadn't for a long time. He hadbeen stuck in uptown traffic when his secretary called to say there had been an accident or attack and it might affect the markets. He was still going into the office in those days, not having learned yet that in an investment bank, "emeritus" translated to "no longer one of us." When the traffic stopped completely, Paul got out of the car. Others were standing outside looking south, some shielding their eyes with their hands, all exchanging useless information. Edith called, sobbing "It's falling down, it's falling down," the nursery-rhyme words, then the mobile network went dead. "Hello? Hello? Honey?" all around, then a silence of Pompeian density so disturbing that Paul was grateful when Sami, his driver, broke it to say, "Oh sir, I hope it's not the Arabs," which of course it would turn out to be.
Oh sir, I hope it's not the Arabs. Sami wasn't Arab, but he was Muslim. (Eighty percent of Muslims were not Arab: this was one of those facts many learned and earnestly repeated in the wake of the attack, without knowing exactly what they were trying to say, or rather knowing that they were trying to say that not all Muslims were as problematic as the Arab ones, but not wanting to say exactly that.) Paul had known his driver was Muslim but never dwelt on it. Now, despite all efforts otherwise, he felt uncomfortable, and three months later, when a sorrowful Sami--was he ever any other way?--begged leave to return to Pakistan because his father was dying, Paul was relieved, although he hated to admit it. He promised Sami an excellent recommendation if he returned, politely declined to take on his cousin, and hired a Russian.
The trauma, for Paul, had come later, when he watched the replay, pledged allegiance to the devastation. You couldn't call yourself an American if you hadn't, in solidarity, watched your fellow Americans being pulverized, yet what kind of American did watching create? A traumatized victim? A charged-up avenger? A queasy voyeur? Paul, and he suspected many Americans, harbored all of these protagonists. The memorial was meant to tame them.
Not just any memorial now but the Garden. Paul began his remarks by encouraging the jurors to "go out there and sell it, sell it hard," then, rethinking his word choice, urged them to "advocate" for it instead. The soft patter of the minute-taker's typing filled the interstices of his speech, and the specter of the historical record spurred him to unsteady rhetorical heights. He drew all eyes to a gilded round mirror topped with an eagle shedding its ball and chain.
"Now, as at America's founding, there are forces opposed to the values we stand for, who are threatened by our devotion to freedom." The governor's man alone nodded at Paul's words. "But we have not been bowed, will not be. 'Despotism can only exist in darkness,' James Madison said, and all of you, in working so hard to memorialize the dead, have kept the lights burning in the firmament. You handled a sacred trust with grace and dignity, and your country will feel the benefit."
Time to put a face on the design, a name with it. Another unfamiliar feeling for Paul: avid, almost childlike curiosity--glee, even--at that rarity, a genuine surprise. Best if the designer was a complete unknown or a famous artist; either would make for a compelling story to sell the design. He clumsily punched away at a cell phone that sat on the table before him. "Please bring the file for submission number 4879," he said into the phone, enunciating the numbers slowly to avoid misunderstanding. "Four eight seven nine," he repeated, then waited for the digits to be repeated back to him.

The jury's chief assistant entered a few minutes later, aglow with his own importance. His long fingers clasped a slim envelope, eight and a half by eleven inches, sealed as protocol demanded. "I am dying with anticipation," Lanny breathed as he handed the envelope to Paul, who made no reply. The envelope's numbers and bar code matched those of the Garden; the envelope's seal was unbroken. Paul made sure both the jurors and the minute-taker noted this and waited for the reluctant assistant to take his leave.
Once the door shut, Paul picked up the silver letter opener the young man had left behind--he did have a flair for detail--and slit the flap, taking care (again, the specter of history) not to tear the envelope. His caution somehow recalled Jacob, his eldest son, at a childhood birthday party, obsessively trying not to rip the wrapping paper, even then misunderstanding where value lay. An impatient Paul had told him to hurry it along.
Hurry it along: the same message from the room's quiet, in which the jurors seemed to breathe as one. He pulled out the paper, sensing thirteen pairs of eyes upon him. To know the winner's identity before the jury, not to mention the mayor or governor or president, should havebeen a small but satisfying token of his stature. What better measure of how high Paul Joseph Rubin, grandson of a Russian Jewish peasant, had climbed? And yet reading the name brought no pleasure, only a painful tightening in his jaw.
A dark horse indeed.
Copyright © 2011 by Amy Waldman
(Continues...)

My Purple Toes by Blair Hahn

2011-09-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

"My Purple Toes" and "My Purple Kisses" donates a significant portion of its proceeds to benefit children in the United States and around the world through nonprofit,Soles4Souls,which collects and distributes shoes at no cost to people in need (www.giveshoes.org).

My Purple Toes, a 2010 Moonbeam Children's Book Award winner, is a creative children's picture book written for children under eight-years-old that tells a story about a father's experience navigating life with purple painted toenails. From mom to the kids to their dog, everyone reacts differently to dad's purple toes showing their surprise, embarrassment, and even laughter. The book takes the reader through the seasons, bath time and finally to bed.
Throughout the book, children can look for dad's toes in various environments and also find a friendly frog with purple toes that hides on each page. In addition to entertaining, My Purple Toes teaches a simple, yet relevant lesson about the importance of acceptance, enjoying life and being different.
My Purple Toes, the first of the Purple Series, features cheerful, imaginative illustrations by artist Tate Nation in a large easy to read picture book that is ideal for young children.

T-R-O-U-B-L-E (Texas Heat) [Kindle Edition] by Sable Hunter

2011-09-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Trouble comes calling on Kyler Landon. He falls hard and fast for his beautiful, mysterious neighbor after she saves him from a rattlesnake attack. The sexual tension mounts between them with each sensual encounter, but he soon realizes that Cooper has been hurt and is leery of men. So he sets out to teach her that a real man can be gentle, loving, and sexy as hell.

“No man will ever want you, you ugly cow.” Richard held Cooper down with a knee in her spine, her right arm twisted painfully behind her back. Just taking a breath was difficult. “Do you understand me, you fat slob?” She had learned a long time ago not to talk back to him. Any conceived challenge was instantly met with vicious retaliation.
“Yes sir, I understand. Nobody wants me.” Tears flowed down her cheeks in silent sorrow.
“Did you or did you not speak to Clyde Fisher at the drug store today?” A hard jerk on her hair caused her neck to pop and sent a sharp pain cascading through her shoulders.
“Yes sir, I asked him about his daughter. I had heard she had a baby.” A whispered answer was all she was allowed. She swore, one day she would rip his measly balls out of their dried up sac.
“Ted saw you flirting with Fisher. He couldn’t wait to call me and embarrass me. If you want to suck somebody’s dick, why didn’t you say so?” How was she supposed to answer that?
“Richard, I didn’t do anything that could be construed as flirting. I didn’t offer to give him oral sex, I promise.” Like she would know how. Richard’s penis and testicles were so shrunk by steroids they were practically useless. The same drug had fried his brain, so there was no use trying to argue with him.
“How could I believe anything you say? You’re a liar; a big fat liar.” As he hissed the last few words, he pulled back hard on her arm and she felt the bone leave the socket in a flash of white-hot agony.
With a jerk, Cooper woke up drenched in sweat. When would she ever be free of these nightmares? It had been almost two years since her husband had went missing in the wilderness near the Rio Grande River; he was presumed dead and Cooper couldn’t have been happier. If anyone deserved to die, it was Richard Hawkins. She got up and turned the oscillating fan on full blast. She was wet with sweat, born of simple fear. Throwing herself back on the bed, she tried to focus on something more pleasant.
Perhaps she should try the exercise again. Feeling like a fool, Cooper Lawson lay on her lonely bed and began to tentatively touch herself between the legs. She could do this. She knew she could. Gingerly, her fingers moved up and down her private area. After a few half-hearted swipes, Cooper finally admitted two layers of cotton might be dulling the sensation. Trying to relax, she took a series of deep breaths. Logically, she ran through a series of facts designed to put her at ease. The lights were turned down, the door was locked, and there was no reason to be afraid. “Might as well slip into something more comfortable,” she mumbled out loud then laughed. “Lord, I am so pitiful. I’m a nervous wreck, and the only person I’m trying to seduce is myself.” The sound of her voice echoed dully against the rough log walls. Talking to herself was a habit she had valiantly attempted to avoid. Tonight, however, was a totally different set of circumstances. She was entering virgin territory, and she needed all the support she could muster. “Virgin territory, how apropos, Cooper.” Even though she had been married for almost three years, technically, she was still a virgin. That was probably one for the record books. There hadn’t been too many normal things about her marriage, but when your spouse is a madman, you couldn’t expect things to be run of the mill.
Focusing on the play of shadows on the curtains, she pulled up her gown and pulled down her plain, white panties. Smiling at the predicament she found herself in, Cooper mentally squared her shoulders and forged ahead. “This is going to feel fabulous. It will probably become a habit. I’ll get addicted to masturbation, go half-blind, and have to buy spectacles.” Another bout of giggles reverberated around the small room—at least she could laugh.
Over the past few weeks, she had begun to make peace with herself. It was past time to take charge of her life and put all the pain and mistakes to rest. She had a new home, a new job and maybe one day soon, she would have some friends. Tonight, she would embark upon a new adventure—a sex life—of sorts. Dr. Horton, her therapist, had given her this chore as a homework assignment. “Masturbation for extra credit, yeah right.”
She had not attempted to pleasure herself in years; it had rarely crossed her mind. Before Richard, she had been so brain-washed by the Southern Baptist mentality; she had herself convinced just thinking about masturbation was a sin. Cooper had gotten over worrying about sin. No matter how many prayers she offered up, God had not chosen to protect her from Richard’s cruel fists. So Cooper had given up on the idea of making God happy, one way or the other.
Finding her clitoris, Coop made a swirling motion with the pads of her fingers. The small, hard knot of nerves was surprised at the attention. Instead of poking its shy head out of its little hood, it drew up tighter than a turtle in its shell. Still, it felt pretty good. In fact, she found the act somewhat comforting, and it made her feel a bit drowsy. Stifling another giggle, Cooper realized she was so exciting, she was about to put herself to sleep. Catatonia was not exactly the response she was hoping to achieve.
Remembering the instructions she had poured over this afternoon, she wiggled in the bed and made a nest for herself under the covers. Spreading her legs wider, she brought her knees up so she could slide her fingers up and down her slit. Cooper wondered if Richard had managed to kill her sexuality. Moisture pooled behind her eyelids instead of inside her vulva. Forcing her attention back to the slightly unpleasant task, she reminded herself that even though her late husband tried to destroy her hopes and dreams, he had not been successful in destroying her. Moving her hips up and down, she tried to simulate the movement she would make if a lover were pumping his cock in and out of her vagina. Of course, the lover was faceless and safe. The only qualifications he had to meet were that he be kind, gentle, and interested in giving her pleasure, not pain.
After a few tense moments of awkward stimulation, she paused again to evaluate the sensations coming from her pursuit of hedonism.
Nada. Nothing. Less than nothing.
Biting her lower lip, she exhaled a long breath and decided to give it one more shot. With a tad more pressure, she manipulated the place that, supposedly, could give her relief. Crap, you couldn’t prove it by her. Concentrating, with a near comical frown on her face she rubbed and rocked, seeking the elusive climax. Again, not a dang thing.
Pressing her free hand over her eyes, she huffed in frustration. Everything she had ever read told her an orgasm was one of the great stress relievers in life. Boy, could she do with a little less stress. The whole week had been tense. Aw hell, who was she trying to kid? The last four years had been enough to send her around the bend. Face it, everything about this stupid exercise had been nerve racking. Cooper had practically broke into hives at the local bookstore when the cheeky little clerk had smirked at her choice of ‘Self-Love, a Woman’s Guide to Masturbation.’ Desperation had given her just enough backbone to stand there and brave the pitying looks and the rude comments. She had nearly died when the sales woman had suggested that maybe she should look into a Jenny Craig membership instead of buying a book. At the snide remark, Cooper had merely smiled and stared at the floor. She wasn’t about to try and explain to the ultra-skinny salesperson she had no intention of attempting to snare a flesh and blood man to take care of her needs. The self-help book epitomized the totality of her future sexual endeavors.
Sadly, Cooper had thought she looked nice in the new outfit she had worn to the mall. Her full, dark hair was having a fair-to-middling day, and she had put on just enough makeup to make her nut-brown eyes shine with what would pass for excitement. Sure, as always, her hips and breasts were excessively generous, but overall, she wouldn’t send small children screaming to their mothers. Regardless, the thoughtless words from the bookstore employee had sucked all the joy out of the day, and had almost reduced her to tears. Why people felt the need to point out another person’s shortcomings was a mystery to Cooper. She would never dream of embarrassing a person in that way. Unfortunately, she was used to it. Richard had never let an opportunity go by to belittle or demean her, and neither had his friends. It had become a sport to them.
Back to the job at hand—ugh. Shoving her white eyelet gown down, she decided to attempt another strategy the masturbation guidebook had suggested. Fantasizing—something she had not done in years. Usually, her nights had been spent hoping to avoid a painful confrontation with her husband, not dreaming of intimate circumstances with anyone else. Now she was about to try. Could she do it?
Going back in time, she tried to recall what she had once hoped for her love life. Well, for starters, the man in question would want her. Just her. Cooper Lawson. His arms would be a haven and his touch would be gentle. He would draw her close and she would feel desired and precious. A big, but kind hand would smooth down her back and nudge her closer, and she would allow her own fingers to glide up his hard shoulders and around his neck. His heat would tempt her to lean up and press a sweet kiss to his throat. Yeah, she could picture this.
Despite her best efforts to keep her lover anonymous, a face began to take form in her mind’s eye. It was her neighbor, her drop-dead, gorgeous neighbor. She had no idea what his first name was, but his mailbox said K. Landon. Over the past few weeks, she couldn’t help but notice him and his great body. She might be emotionally scarred and physically unappealing, but she wasn’t blind. The neighbor in question had a habit of working outdoors—sans shirt, naturally—and she had been fortunate enough to drive by a few times when he had been outside. Everything about him appealed to her. She liked the way he walked and she liked the way he would kneel down and pet his dog. Heck, she even liked the way he wiped the sweat off his brow with his muscular forearm. As long as he was in his yard and she was twenty feet away in her car, behind a heavily tinted windshield, she could indulge in the absolute pleasure of just looking at him and wishing things could be different.
Cooper knew she would never have the privilege of touching him, but, well, looking didn’t cost a dime. And she had been looking. In fact, she had been looking so closely she had run her car off the road twice, mesmerized by the mere sight of him.
So what would it hurt to use a mental picture of him to jump-start her frozen libido? Here goes. In her imagination, she held Mr. Landon close and let him touch her any way he wanted. Concentrating on these memories and fantasies, Cooper placed her palms over her own breasts and began to rub. How she wished she were a little bit smaller up top. Her palms were not big enough to completely cover the over-abundant mounds. Udders were what Richard had called her breasts. He had made her so paranoid about her body she had resorted to wearing sack dresses and other clothes two or three sizes too big, just so her real shape would be less noticeable. Her fingers stilled as she recalled the unpleasant memories, but she forced the images aside, replacing Richard’s countenance with her neighbor’s face.
This was safe. It wasn’t real. Not only would he never hurt her. He would never judge her, either. Dr. Horton applauded her admission that the verbal abuse she had endured had actually hurt more than the physical abuse. Broken bones healed faster than a wounded spirit ever could. Therefore, dreaming was safe. What would it be like to kiss him? Wetting her mouth with her tongue, she pretended her lips were brushing over his chest. She thought about moving her kiss up over his jaw line, which would be rough with a day’s growth of beard. All the while, she played with her nipples and considered how wonderful it would be to have a man touch her there, pulling on them gently with his lips. A tingle began deep within her; an ache that made her spread her legs even wider, seeking a tender fulfillment. With one hand, she continued to massage her breasts. She kneaded her nipples, teasing them with a variation of pressure–rubbing and squeezing. It felt good, better than she had ever imagined. With the other hand, she parted her folds, slipped one finger deep inside her, and pushed. Rhythmically, Cooper slid her finger in and out of her vagina. The tingle spread. Her breath hitched in her throat. Giving in to an urge to lift her hips, she continued to pleasure herself. Never had she felt so empty. Never had she so longed to be filled. His hand would be bigger than hers is, his touch would be more insistent. K. Landon would have no problem making her come.
Wait…wait…almost…almost…maybe…No. It was gone.
Cooper let out a frustrated breath. So close. Damn! It was no use. She needed help. She needed a lot of help. Help that even her therapist could not provide. Moreover, since she wasn’t about to actually ask her hot, hunky neighbor to assist her in achieving orgasm, it was time to invest in something much more practical. Throwing back the covers, she resolutely climbed from the bed.
The house was so quiet. She padded over to the desk to use the laptop. Every step she took echoed through the thick silence. Folding her long legs under her, she sat with chin in hand, considering what she was about to do. It was a drastic step for Cooper. Hopefully, the item she was about to order would be delivered in plain, brown paper wrapping. If anyone discovered the nature of her purchase, she would curl up and die. A sex toy, of all things!
Growing up, she had never understood what people meant by the phrase, ‘the silence is deafening’. Now she knew. Even the noise the computer made while booting up was welcome. It had been three months since she had arrived in Redland, and during that time, not another living soul had entered her little house. Since Richard had disappeared, she had made her escape from Riverbend and had been moving around, afraid his brother or one of the others would try to bring her back home. So far, no one had bothered her. Maybe. There was the odd rattling of the front door knob the other night, and then when she misplaced her keys after she returned from the post office. She wasn’t like that; she didn’t just lose things or misplace items. Cooper tried not to let her imagination run away with her. She had been through a whole hell of a lot, maybe her mind was playing tricks on her.
Glancing around at the small cabin, she wanted so badly to feel safe. Lisa’s loan of her grandfather’s hunting cabin had been a godsend. It was located in the midst of the East Texas backwoods. Surely, no one would ever think of looking for her here.
There was a bright side, she reminded herself. Dr. Horton always said to look for the bright side. Now, she didn’t have to lay awake and dread hearing the front door open, listen to heavy boots coming down the hall, knowing she was about to be jerked out of the bed and beaten senseless. Yes, considering she didn’t have to be terrified of Richard anymore, enduring a little loneliness was no big deal.
Some people say you can’t miss what you’ve never had, but Cooper was proving them wrong. Cooper missed intimacy with a man. She missed being held. At twenty-three, she had seldom been touched with anything that resembled kindness. Four long years of isolation and misery. The emergency room visits hadn’t even counted, because the doctor and nurses at the small county hospital who treated her injuries, had been in Richard’s back pocket. Her body was so conditioned to anticipate violence; that being touched by anyone, now, was going to be a problem.
If things had been different, would she have enjoyed sex? Of course, she was ill equipped for it; but there were women who looked as she did, and they seemed to have fulfilling sex lives. And she would, too. Soon.
Just not with a man.
Not yet, anyway. Someday, Dr. Horton assured her, she would meet a man who could care about her. Dr. Horton told her she was a ‘lovely person’. Nevertheless, dear Dr. Horton was getting old and his eyesight was failing. Still, what he said sounded good. To find someone who could look past her flaws and see the woman who had so much love to give—that was a dream worth having.
Someday.
But for now, what she needed was a dildo.
Continues...

Three Weeks to Say Goodbye by C.J. Box

2011-09-01T00:11:00.002-07:00

It was Saturday morning, November 3, and the fi rst thing I noticed when I entered my office was that my telephone message light was blinking. Since I’d left the building late the night before, it meant someone had called my extension during the night. Odd.
My name is Jack McGuane. I was thirty- four years old at the time. Melissa, my wife, was the same age. I assume you’ve heard my name, or seen my image on the news, although with everything going on in the world I can understand if you missed me the first time. Our story, in the big scheme of things, is a drop in the river.
I was a Travel Development Specialist for the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, the city agency charged with bidding on and hosting conventions and encouraging tourism to Denver. Every city has one. I worked hard, often staying late and, if necessary, coming in on a Saturday. It’s important to me that I work hard, even in a bureaucratic environment where it’s not necessarily encouraged or rewarded. You see, I’m not the smartest guy in the world, or the best educated. My background doesn’t suit me for the job. But my ace in the hole is that I work harder than anyone around me, even when I don’t have to. I am the bane of an offi ce filled with bureaucrats, and I’m proud of it. It’s the only thing I’ve got.
Before doing anything, though, I punched the button to retrieve my voice mail.
“Jack, this is Julie Perala. At the agency . . .”
I stared at the speaker. Her voice was tight, cautious, not the confident and compassionate Julie Perala from the adoption agency Melissa and I had spent hours with while we went through the long process of adopting Angelina, our nine-month-old. My first thought was that we somehow owed them more money.
“Jack, I hate to call you at work on a Friday. I hope you get this and can call me back right away. I need to talk with you immediately—before Sunday, if possible.”
She left the agency number and her cell-phone number, and I wrote them down.
Then: “Jack, I’m so sorry.”
After a few beats of silence, as if she wanted to say more but wouldn’t or couldn’t, she hung up.
I sat back in my chair, then listened to the message again and checked the time stamp. It had arrived at 8:45 Friday eveining.
I tried the agency number first, not surprised that it went straight to voice mail. Then I called her cell.
“Yes?”
“Julie, this is Jack McGuane.”
“Oh.”
“You said to call immediately. You’ve got me scared here with your message. What’s going on?”
“You don’t know?”
“How would I know? Know what?”
There was anger and panic in her voice.
“Martin Dearborn hasn’t called you? He’s your attorney, isn’t he? Our lawyers were supposed to call him. Oh dear.”
My heart sped up, and the receiver became slick in my hand. “Julie, I don’t know anything. Dearborn never
called. Please, what is this about?”
“God, I hate to be the one to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
A beat. “The biological father wants Angelina back.”
I made her repeat it in case I hadn’t heard correctly. She did.
“So what if he wants her back,” I said. “We adopted her. She’s our daughter now. Who cares what he wants?”
“You don’t understand—it’s complicated.”
I pictured Melissa and Angelina at home having a lazy Saturday morning. “Of course we’ll work this out,” I said. “This is all some kind of big misunderstanding. It’ll all be fine.” Despite my words, my mouth tasted like metal.
Said Julie, “The birth father never signed away parental custody, Jack. The mother did, but the father didn’t. It’s a terrible situation. Your lawyer should have explained all of this to you. I don’t want to be the one going over legalities because I’m not qualified. As I said, it’s complicated . . .”
“This cannot be happening,” I said.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “She’s been with us nine months. The birth mother selected us.”
“I know. I was there.”
“Tell me how to make this go away,” I said, sitting up in my chair, leaning over the desk. “Do we pay off the kid, or what?”
Julie was silent for a long time.
“Julie, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Meet me at your agency now.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“I can’t. I shouldn’t even be talking with you. I should never have called. The lawyers and my executives said not to make direct contact, but I felt I had to.”
“Why didn’t you call us at home?”
“I got cold feet,” she said. “You don’t know how much I wished I could erase that message I left for you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, “but you can’t walk away. I need to understand what you’re saying. You’ve got to work with me to make this kid go away. You owe us that.”
I heard a series of staccato sounds and thought the connection was going bad. Then I realized she was crying.
Finally, she said, “There’s a restaurant near here called Sunrise Sunset. On South Wadsworth. I can meet you there in an hour.”
“I might be a little late. I’ve got to run home and get Melissa. She’ll want to hear this. And on such short notice, we’ll probably have Angelina with us.”
“I was hoping . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Hoping what? That I wouldn’t bring them?”
“Yes. It makes it harder . . . I was hoping maybe you and I could meet alone.”
I slammed the phone down. Stunned, I wrote down the address of the restaurant.
I sensed Linda Van Gear’s arrival before she leaned into my office. She had a presence that preceded her. It could also be called very strong perfume, which she seemed to push ahead in front of her, like a surging trio of small, leashed dogs. Linda was my boss.
She was an imposing, no-nonsense woman, a force of nature. Melissa once referred to Linda as “a caricature of a broad.” Linda was brash, made-up, coiffed with a swept-back helmet of stiff hair like the overlapping armored plates of a prehistoric dinosaur. She looked like she wore suits with shoulder pads, but they were her shoulders. Her lips were red, red, red, and there was usually a lipstick line across the front of her teeth, which she moistened often with darts from a pointed tongue. Linda, like a lot of the people who worked international tourism marketing, had once had dreams of being an actress or at least some kind of indefinable celebrity, someone who judged amateurs on a reality singing show. Linda was not well liked by the women in our office or by many in the tourism industry, but I got along with her. I got a kick out of her because everything about her was out front in spades.
“Hello, darlin’,” she said, sticking her head in the doorway, “I see you found the leads.”
I hadn’t even noticed them, but they were there: a bulging manila envelope filled with business cards that smelled of her perfume, cigarette smoke, and spilled wine.
“They’re right here.”
“Couple of hot ones in there,” she said with mock enthusiasm. “They’ll singe your fingers when you touch them. Let’s meet on them in a half an hour.” She squinted, looking me over, asked, “Are you okay?”
“No I’m not.”
I didn’t really want to get into details, but felt I needed to explain the situation to her in order to postpone the meeting.
She listened with glistening eyes. She loved this kind of thing, I realized. She loved drama, and I was providing it.
“Some boy wants custody of your baby?” she asked.
“Yes, but I’m going to fi ght it.”
“The baby obsession skipped this broad,” she said. “I guess I never really understood it.” She shook her head. She had no children and had made it clear she never wanted any.
I nodded like I understood. Fragile ground, here.
She said, “Look, you know I’m leaving for Taiwan with the governor Monday. We’ve got to get together before then. Hell, I dragged my jet-lagged ass out of bed just to meet you here this morning. We need to meet.”
“We will,” I said. “Let me call you as soon as I talk to Julie Perala. That’s all I ask.”
“That’s a lot,” she said, clearly angry.
“I’ll call,” I said. “I’ll even come meet you at your house if you want.”
“Plan on it,” she said, turning on her heel and clicking down the hallway, her shoes sounding like manic sticks on the rim of a drum in the empty hallway.
Melissa was on the floor with Angelina when I came in the door. Before I could speak, Melissa said, “What’s wrong?”
“Julie Perala called. She says there’s a problem with the adoption.”
Melissa went white, and she looked from me to Angelina and back.
“She said the father wants her back.”
“Back?” Melissa said, her voice rising in volume, “Back? He’s never even seen her!”
I met Melissa when we were both students at Montana State University thirteen years before. She was a lean jade-eyed brunette—attractive, smart, athletic, earthy, selfconfident—with high cheekbones and a full, expressive mouth that tended to betray whatever she was thinking. She sparkled. I was drawn to her immediately in a crazy, almost chemical way. I could sense when she entered a crowded room even before I could see her. She was taken at the time, though, involved in a long-term relationship with the star running back. They were a remarkably handsome couple, and I despised him for no reason other than she was his. Still, I pined for her. The thought of her kept me awake at night. When their breakup became news, I told my friend Cody, “I’m going to marry her.” He said, “In your dreams,” and I said, “Yes, in my dreams.” He said, “You’ve got it bad,” and urged me to forget about her and go out and get drunk and get laid. Instead, I asked her out and became Mr. Rebound. She thought I was solid and amusing. I found, to my delight, that I could make her laugh. All I ever wanted to do, all I still want to do all these years later, is make her happy. After we’d been married three years, she said she wanted children. That was the next step, the next easy, logical step. Or so we thought.
The look on her face now crushed me and angered me and made me want to pound someone.
I walked over and picked up Angelina, who squealed. Until this little girl entered our lives, I didn’t know how much I could care. She was beautiful—dark-haired, cherubic. Her eyes were big and wide open—as if she were always in a state of delighted surprise. Hair that stuck straight up in spots when she woke up from a nap. Four pearly teeth, two top, two bottom. She had a wonderful laugh that started deep in her belly, then took over her entire body. Her laugh was infectious, and we’d start laughing, too, which made her laugh even harder, until she was limp. She laughed so hard we actually asked our pediatrician if there was a problem, and he just shook his head at us. Recently, she’d learned to say “Da” and “Ma.” The way she looked at me, like I was the greatest and strongest creature on the planet, made me want to save and protect her from anything and anybody. She was my little girl, and like Melissa, she made me think differently about my place on earth. In her eyes, I was a god who as yet could do no wrong. I was a giant—her giant. I wanted to never disappoint her. And as the bearer of this news, I felt I had.
***
I thought I’d misunderstood the address or name of the meeting place as we entered because I couldn’t locate Julie Perala at any of the tables or booths. I was lifting the cell to call her when I saw her wave from a private room in the back used for meetings and parties. I pocketed the phone.
Julie Perala was broad-faced and broad-hipped, with soft eyes and a comforting professional smile. There was something both compassionate and pragmatic about her, and we had liked her instantly when we met with her so many months before for our orientation. She seemed especially sensitive to our situation without being cloying, and was by far more knowledgeable about “placements” than anyone else we had met at other agencies. Nothing made her happier to be alive, she told us, than a placement where all three parties were perfectly served—the birth mother, the adoptive parents, and the child. She was to be trusted, and we trusted her. I also noticed, at times when she let her guard down, a ribald sense of humor. I had the feeling she’d be a hoot with a few drinks in her.
“Coffee?” she asked. “I’ve already had breakfast.”
“No thanks,” I said, pausing.
Melissa held Angelina tight to her and glared at Julie Perala with eyes I hoped would never be aimed at me.
“I know the manager,” she said, answering a question I was about to ask, “and knew I could get this room in the back. Please close the door.”
I did, and sat down as she was pouring coffee from a thermos carafe.
“I’m taking a real chance meeting with you,” she said, not meeting my eyes, concentrating on pouring. “The agency would kill me if they knew. We’ve all been advised to communicate only through the lawyers now.”
“But,” I said, prompting her.
“But I like you and Melissa very much. You’re good, normal people. I know you love Angelina. I felt I owed you a frank discussion.”
“I appreciate that.”
Melissa continued to glare.
Julie said, “If this comes back to bite me, well, I’ll be very disappointed. But I hoped we could talk without lawyers around, at least this once.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
It took her a moment to form her words. “I can’t tell you how bad I feel about this situation,” she said. “This should never happen to a nice couple like you.”
“I agree.”
“We shouldn’t have kept it a secret from you that Judge John Moreland contacted us three months ago,” she said. “Our hope was we could settle it internally, and we offered to do exactly that. Our hope was you would never be troubled about it at all, that you wouldn’t even know.”
“Who is Judge Moreland?” I asked. “The biological father?”
“No, no. The biological father is his son, Garrett. Garrett is a senior at Cherry Creek High School. He’s eighteen years old.”
“Unbelievable,” I said.
She shrugged and showed her palms to me. “I agree. But if we’d been able to resolve it internally, we wouldn’t be here now. There wouldn’t be a problem at all.”
I said, “Ninety- nine percent. Remember when you used that figure when I asked about the birth father signing away his parental rights?”
Her face clouded. “I remember. And it’s true. It really is. I’ve been involved in nearly a thousand placements in my life, and this is the first time this has ever happened. We just didn’t think it could.”
“Didn’t you say you tried to find the birth father?”
Melissa asked bitterly. “Didn’t you say he’d agreed to sign the papers?”
She nodded.
“What happened?”
“We tracked him down in the Netherlands, where he was on vacation with his mother. He was staying with his mother’s relatives, I guess. I didn’t talk with him, but a coworker did. She explained the situation to him, and she said he was surprised. He agreed to sign away custody and he gave us a fax number where he could be reached. We sent the papers over.”
“But he never signed them,” I said.
“We dropped the ball,” she said. “The woman who’d made contact left the agency. If any of us had had any inkling at all that he would refuse to sign, we would have kept you abreast of the situation. But as far as we knew, it was his wish not to be a parent. We can’t coerce him, you know. We can’t pressure. It has to be his decision.”
My anger was building to the point that I had to look away from her.
“Legally, we covered our bases,” she said sympathetically, almost apologetically to us. “We placed public notices for him and did everything we’re required to do. Not having the signed papers isn’t that unusual, because the family court judge always—and I mean always—awards full custody to the adoptive parents in a case like this. After all, we can’t let a nonresponsive birth father hold up a placement, can we?”
“Did you contact Garrett’s father?” I asked. “Is that how he got involved?”
“We normally don’t contact the parents of the birth father. That’s considered coercive.”
“But you knew about him? You knew about John Moreland?”
Excerpted From Three Weeks To Say Goodbye by C.J. Box.
Copyright © 2008 by C.J. Box.
Published in January 2009 St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.
(Continues...)

SIDE by SIDE with HEART and MIND by Allan A. Cimino

2011-09-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

Anyone who was married and divorced. Had a relationship then separated. Who has fallen in love, for a second time, and thought it was, or might have been impossible. Writing thoughts of that person they have fallen in love with, either in person or from a distance. Someone who used their imagination, to view the world in their mind, and see it come to a reality, would enjoy reading this book.

ACHE OF A TEAR
Swells up inside....Tries to hide
The ache of a tear that was formed
When it breaks out...Your heart speaks
Each day i wait..Is another day gone
A relationship that's not going on
My soul weeps for the love i need
Brings tears to my eyes, an ache to my heart
From that moment..i feel..when will it start
Feel like i'm lost...Floating around
Looking..Searching..For her to be found
My days are passing..My nights....alone
Hoping for someone to share my home
Things i possess, the things i own
That person for me...To be mine alone
I'll share my life...Give her my heart
From that moment on..She's a new start
Emotions i feel..The emptyness inside
Will all seise to exist..Fill me with pride
I long to hold...Feel her touch
Make me realize..That i've gained so much
A new love..in search..for me to begin
To revive my spirit...My soul from within
Continues...

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller

2011-09-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

Mum says, "Don't come creeping into our room at night."
They sleep with loaded guns beside them on the bedside rugs. She says, "Don't startle us when we're sleeping."
"Why not?"
"We might shoot you."
"Oh."
"By mistake."
"Okay." As it is, there seems a good enough chance of getting shot on purpose. "Okay, I won't."
So if I wake in the night and need Mum and Dad, I call Vanessa, because she isn't armed. "Van! Van, hey!" I hiss across the room until she wakes up. And then Van has to light a candle and escort me to the loo, where I pee sleepily into the flickering yellow light and Van keeps the candle high, looking for snakes and scorpions and baboon spiders.
Mum won't kill snakes because she says they help to keep the rats down (but she rescued a nest of baby mice from the barns and left them to grow in my cupboard, where they ate holes in the family's winter jerseys). Mum won't kill scorpions either; she catches them and lets them go free in the pool and Vanessa and I have to rake the pool before we can swim. We fling the scorps as far as we can across the brown and withering lawn, chase the ducks and geese out, and then lower ourselves gingerly into the pool, whose sides wave green and long and soft and grasping with algae. And Mum won't kill spiders because she says it will bring bad luck.
I tell her, "I'd say we have pretty rotten luck as it is."
"Then think how much worse it would be if we killed spiders."
I have my feet off the floor when I pee.
"Hurry up, man."
"Okay, okay."
"It's like Victoria Falls."
"I really had to go."
I have been holding my pee for a long, long time and staring out the window to try and guess how close it is to morning. Maybe I could hold it until morning. But then I notice that it is the deep-black-sky quiet time of night, which is the halfway time between the sun setting and the sun rising when even the night animals are quiet-as if they, like day animals, take a break in the middle of their work to rest. I can't hear Vanessa breathing; she has gone into her deep middle-of-the-night silence. Dad is not snoring nor is he shouting in his sleep. The baby is still in her crib but the smell of her is warm and animal with wet nappy. It will be a long time until morning.
Then Vanessa hands me the candle-"You keep boogies for me now"-and she pees.
"See, you had to go, too."
"Only 'cos you had to."
There is a hot breeze blowing through the window, the cold sinking night air shifting the heat of the day up. The breeze has trapped midday scents; the prevalent cloying of
the leach field, the green soap which has spilled out from the laundry and landed on the patted-down red earth, the wood smoke from the fires that heat our water, the boiled-meat smell of dog food.
We debate the merits of flushing the loo.
"We shouldn't waste the water." Even when there isn't a drought we can't waste water, just in case one day there is a drought. Anyway, Dad has said, "Steady on with the loo paper, you kids. And don't flush the bloody loo all the time. The leach field can't handle it."
"But that's two pees in there."
"So? It's only pee."
"Agh sis, man, but it'll be smelly by tomorrow. And you peed as much as a horse."
"It's not my fault."
"You can flush."
"You're taller."
"I'll hold the candle."
Van holds the candle high. I lower the toilet lid, stand on it and lift up the block of hardwood that covers the cistern, and reach down for the chain. Mum has glued a girlie-magazine picture to this block of hardwood: a blond woman in few clothes, with breasts like naked cow udders, and she's all arched in a strange pouty contortion, like she's got backache. Which maybe she has, from the weight of the udders. The picture is from Scope magazine.
We aren't allowed to look at Scope magazine.
"Why?"
"Because we aren't those sorts of people," says Mum.
"But we have a picture from Scope magazine on the loo lid."
"That's a joke."
"Oh." And then, "What sort of joke?"
"Stop twittering on."
A pause. "What sort of people are we, then?"
"We have breeding," says Mum firmly.
"Oh." Like the dairy cows and our special expensive bulls (who are named Humani, Jack, and Bulawayo).
"Which is better than having money," she adds.
I look at her sideways, considering for a moment. "I'd rather have money than breeding," I say.
Mum says, "Anyone can have money." As if it's something you might pick up from the public toilets in OK Bazaar Grocery Store in Umtali.
"Ja, but we don't."
Mum sighs. "I'm trying to read, Bobo."
"Can you read to me?"
Mum sighs again. "All right," she says, "just one chapter." But it is teatime before we look up from The Prince and the Pauper.
The loo gurgles and splutters, and then a torrent of water shakes down, spilling slightly over the bowl.
"Sis, man," says Vanessa.
You never know what you're going to get with this loo. Sometimes it refuses to flush at all and other times it's like this, water on your feet.
I follow Vanessa back to the bedroom. The way candlelight falls, we're walking into blackness, blinded by the flame of the candle, unable to see our feet. So at the same moment we get the creeps, the neck-prickling terrorist-under-the-bed creeps, and we abandon ourselves to fear. The candle blows out. We skid into our room and leap for the beds, our feet quickly tucked under us. We're both panting, feeling foolish, trying to calm our breathing as if we weren't scared at all.
Vanessa says, "There's a terrorist under your bed, I can see him."
"No you can't, how can you see him? The candle's out."
"Struze fact."
And I start to cry.
"Jeez, I'm only joking."
I cry harder.
"Shhh, man. You'll wake up Olivia. You'll wake up Mum and Dad."
Which is what I'm trying to do, without being shot. I want everyone awake and noisy to chase away the terrorist-under-my-bed.
"Here," she says, "you can sleep with Fred if you stop crying."
So I stop crying and Vanessa pads over the bare cement floor and brings me the cat, fast asleep in a snail-circle on her arms. She puts him on the pillow and I put an arm over the vibrating, purring body. Fred finds my earlobe and starts to suck. He's always sucked our earlobes. Our hair is sucked into thin, slimy, knotted ropes near the ears.
Mum says, "No wonder you have worms all the time."
I lie with my arms over the cat, awake and waiting. African dawn, noisy with animals and the servants and Dad waking up and a tractor coughing into life somewhere down at the workshop, clutters into the room. The bantam hens start to crow and stretch, tumbling out of their roosts in the tree behind the bathroom to peck at the reflection of themselves in the window. Mum comes in smelling of Vicks VapoRub and tea and warm bed and scoops the sleeping baby up to her shoulder.
I can hear July setting tea on the veranda and I can smell the first, fresh singe of Dad's morning cigarette. I balance Fred on my shoulder and come out for tea: strong with no sugar, a splash of milk, the way Mum likes it. Fred has a saucer of milk.
"Morning, Chookies," says Dad, not looking at me, smoking. He is looking far off into the hills, where the border between Rhodesia and Mozambique melts blue-gray, even in the pre-hazy clear of early morning.
"Morning, Dad."
"Sleep all right?"
"Like a log," I tell him. "You?"
Dad grunts, stamps out his cigarette, drains his teacup, balances his bush hat on his head, and strides out into the yard to make the most of the little chill the night has left us with which to fight the gathering soupy heat of day.
getting there:
zambia, 1987
To begin with, before Independence, I am at school with white children only. "A" schools, they are called: superior schools with the best teachers and facilities. The black children go to "C" schools. In-between children who are neither black nor white (Indian or a mixture of races) go to "B" schools.
The Indians and coloureds (who are neither completely this nor completely that) and blacks are allowed into my school the year I turn eleven, when the war is over. The blacks laugh at me when they see me stripped naked after swimming or tennis, when my shoulders and arms are angry sunburnt red.
"Argh! I smell roasting pork!" they shriek.
"Who fried the bacon?"
"Burning piggy!"
My God, I am the wrong color. The way I am burned by the sun, scorched by flinging sand, prickled by heat. The way my skin erupts in miniature volcanoes of protest in the presence of tsetse flies, mosquitoes, ticks. The way I stand out against the khaki bush like a large marshmallow to a gook with a gun. White. African. White-African.
"But what are you?" I am asked over and over again.
"Where are you from originally?"
I began then, embarking from a hot, dry boat.
Blinking bewildered from the sausage-gut of a train.
Arriving in Rhodesia, Africa. From Derbyshire, England. I was two years old, startled and speaking toddler English. Lungs shocked by thick, hot, humid air. Senses crushed under the weight of so many stimuli.
I say, "I'm African." But not black.
And I say, "I was born in England," by mistake.
But, "I have lived in Rhodesia (which is now Zimbabwe) and in Malawi (which used to be Nyasaland) and in Zambia (which used to be Northern Rhodesia)."
And I add, "Now I live in America," through marriage.
And (full disclosure), "But my parents were born of Scottish and English parents."
What does that make me?
Mum doesn't know who she is, either.
She stayed up all night once listening to Scottish music and crying.
"This music"-her nose twitches-"is so beautiful. It makes me homesick."
Mum has lived in Africa all but three years of her life.
"But this is your home."
"But my heart"-Mum attempts to thump her chest-"is Scottish."
Oh, fergodsake. "You hated England," I point out.
Mum nods, her head swinging, like a chicken with a broken neck. "You're right," she says. "But I love Scotland."
"What," I ask, challenging, "do you love about Scotland?"
"Oh the . . . the . . ." Mum frowns at me, checks to see if I'm tricking her. "The music," she says at last, and starts to weep again. Mum hates Scotland. She hates drunk-driving laws and the cold. The cold makes her cry, and then she comes down with malaria.
Her eyes are half-mast. That's what my sister and I call it when Mum is drunk and her eyelids droop. Half-mast eyes. Like the flag at the post office whenever someone important dies, which in Zambia, with one thing and another, is every other week. Mum stares out at the home paddocks where the cattle are coming in for their evening water to the trough near the stables. The sun is full and heavy over the hills that describe the Zambia-Zaire border. "Have a drink with me, Bobo," she offers. She tries to pat the chair next to hers, misses, and feebly slaps the air, her arm like a broken wing.
I shake my head. Ordinarily I don't mind getting softly drunk next to the slowly collapsing heap that is Mum, but I have to go back to boarding school the next day, nine hours by pickup across the border to Zimbabwe. "I need to pack, Mum."
That afternoon Mum had spent hours wrapping thirty feet of electric wire around the trees in the garden so that she could pick up the World Service of the BBC. The signature tune crackled over the syrup-yellow four o'clock light just as the sun was starting to hang above the top of the msasa trees. " 'Lillibulero,' " Mum said. "That's Irish."
"You're not Irish," I pointed out.
She said, "Never said I was." And then, follow-on thought, "Where's the whisky?"
We must have heard "Lillibulero" thousands of times. Maybe millions. Before and after every news broadcast. At the top of every hour. Spluttering with static over the garden at home; incongruous from the branches of acacia trees in campsites we have set up in the bush across the countryside; singing from the bathroom in the evening.
But you never know what will set Mum off. Maybe it was "Lillibulero" coinciding with the end of the afternoon, which is a rich, sweet, cooling, melancholy time of day.
"Your Dad was English originally," I tell her, not liking the way this is going.
She said, "It doesn't count. Scottish blood cancels English blood."
By the time she has drunk a quarter of a bottle of whisky, we have lost reception from Bush House in London and the radio hisses to itself from under its fringe of bougainvillea. Mum has pulled out her old Scottish records. There are three of them. Three records of men in kilts playing bagpipes. The photographs show them marching blindly (how do they see under those dead-bear hats?) down misty Scottish cobbled streets, their faces completely blocked by their massive instruments. Mum turns the music up as loud as it will go, takes the whisky out to the veranda, and sits cross-legged on a picnic chair, humming and staring out at the night-blanketed farm.
This cross-leggedness is a hangover from the brief period in Mum's life when she took up yoga from a book. Which was better than the brief period in her life in which she explored the possibility of converting to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
(Continues...)

Shadow Cay by Leona DeRosa Bodie

2011-09-01T00:08:00.001-07:00

An instant hook thriller when paradise becomes a life-and-death nightmare. Already reeling from a rash of maritime disasters, a war and international terrorists, vigilante Madeleine Nesbitt and amateur detective Peter Duncan are destined for even darker days when they investigate the man with no conscience behind the world's most profitable enterprise. They find themselves in a sea of corruption, deception and lies.

Prologue
Mooring on Great Bahama Bank
A WHIFF OF FRESH AIR, reminding him of her perfume, stirred the anger that smoldered then flared into a rage, blazing in his gut. Claude Pelletier gritted his teeth and grabbed the wheel tighter. His wife was gone. For the first time in his life, he felt all of his fifty-seven years. A voice lighter than mist whispered: adapt or die. He pulled the half-empty bottle of rum from the cooler and chugged.
The alcohol brushed away some of the pain for a few minutes. He looked out over the water of Chub Cay, on the northeastern fringe of Great Bahama Bank. A coconut scent lingered, and palm trees hugged the coastline. The water was sparkling clear, and he counted the starfish beneath his keel. Although he was anxious to explore the Bermuda Triangle, he was tired. Claude heaved the anchor over the side and settled in for the night.
He reached for the bottle and took another swig, watching the glaring yellow ball of sun sink into the horizon. The beauty of the sunset momentarily consumed him, bringing a certain peace that tempered the bitterness in heart, if only for a short period.
With a sigh, he staggered across the deck. Halfway to the cockpit, he stumbled. The bottle of rum slid from his fingers and distilled alcohol formed a slick patch of amber. Claude swayed. He saw the boom swing and fended it off, but it swung back and caught him. He struggled to stay upright, but his feet slid out from under him. As his head hit the bronze and stainless steel winch, he heard a cracking sound and fireworks detonated in his skull. Everything went black.
CLAUDE struggled to awareness, despite the pounding in his head. It was dark. The radiant dial on his watch told him he’d been out for three hours. Slowly the gray fog cleared from his brain. He frowned. Why didn’t he hear nature’s typical night talk coming from the nearby island? A cold sweat drenched him. Something felt terribly wrong.
He crouched in the cockpit and listened, straining to hear anything ominous. He straightened up and scanned the twilight seas and the stillness. Clouds like a parade of boas slithered across the moon, turning the sky top a charred-purple. The velvet silence provoked anxiety. Claude flicked two toggle switches on the instrument panel, illuminating the foredeck and filling the cabin’s interior with light from overhead fixtures and a hurricane lamp.
He entered the galley and opened a second bottle of rum, pouring two fingers into a tumbler. Drinking should help him forget Nina’s desertion. So far, it wasn’t working. He sat down at a table in the teak-paneled salon and stared in shock at the mirror above the table. He saw the hard lines of a man he didn’t recognize. There was no sign of the burned out music teacher. Instead, looking back at him was a boat bum, his ragged gray hair spiked and his clothes rumpled. He ran his fingers over the ugly red lump near his hairline, then put down his glass and wondered if things would ever be right again.
Pouring more rum, he went to the stateroom and confronted the photograph of his wife.
“Where are you, bitch? Why aren’t you here?”
He glanced at the portholes, at the emptiness of the sea. Someone was out there. He chugged his drink. Finally peaceful and numb, he turned off the lights and slept.
CLAUDE abruptly awoke to sounds that didn't belong in the silence of the cay. The clock by the bed read 1:15 am. A wet puff of air steamed down the companionway, adding to humidity so thick his boxer shorts clung to his skin. Then he heard it. A muffled hum drifted across the water, then hushed voices. The noises slowed then stopped. Claude waited. Nothing.
Suddenly, the boat listed. Somebody's on board. Claude heard the thud of heavy boots topside and could tell there was more than one intruder. The skin on his neck prickled. His only thought was to flee, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. He had no weapons. He bolted from the stateroom, through the galley and hid in the farthest corner of the second stateroom.
“Won't do you any good to hide,” a cold, hard voice called. “Come out where we can see you. We won't hurt you.”
The sliding stateroom door squealed open. Claude clutched a corner of the bedcover. Someone grabbed it, at the same time the room exploded with light.
“Who are you?” Claude could barely speak for the suffocating pressure in his chest. “I can't see you.” No answer. The flashlight's beam strayed from his face. He stared into the darkness, praying. He heard the metallic click of a safety and watched in horror as cowboy boots and a blur of denim rushed toward him. Cold steel pressed into his temple.
“Please,” he begged, “please don't hurt me.”
“Dis ain't part of the deal,” a voice called from outside.
Claude caught sight of a short man, dressed in fatigues. When the man with the gun turned toward him, Claude made his move, lunging toward the gunman, grabbing him in a chokehold. The struggle was short-lived. Claude heard the gunfire. He looked down at his chest. A strained whine rose in his throat and he felt himself falling, falling, falling...
TWO hundred and forty-five miles away, a young girl frowned in her sleep, as she tossed and turned in her bed, struggling to escape an image of a rumpled and frightened gray-haired man she'd never seen in her life.
Part One
A SWING OF TIDES
Chapter 1
THE NEXT DAY: February 13, 1991 Neumans Cay, Southern Exumas, Bahamas
RICO SALAZAR CHECKED HIS WATCH, then scanned the horizon. Nothing. Quarter to ten and still not even a glimpse of the long-awaited powerboat. His crew had to arrive soon. They should have called an hour ago. Discretion had always been crucial, now even more so, especially if they were followed.
With only the warmth of the sun and the whispering sea for company, he scrutinized the quiet lagoon and the mile-long stretch of beach. He didn’t see a single soul. Only he and several crabs moved in the stillness.
Standing on a knoll, flanked by palm trees, Rico gazed at Exuma Bank’s clear waters. The squeal of an osprey, plunge-diving feet first into the surf, startled him. He marveled at the raptor’s fluid motion, as it skewered a bluefish then flapped its wings and resumed flight, soaring over him. Rico squinted at the fish that dangled midair, face forward, still squirming.
An instant later, a single drop—the bright color of blood—dripped from the sky. He told himself the splatter on his shirt was a bad omen and Rico remembered his crew hadn’t called. He glanced down at the blood. Maybe, they couldn’t.
His island, Neumans Cay, was a part of the Exuma Cays, a chain of three hundred sixty islands in the Central Bahamas. The virgin beachfront suggested the cay was a blank canvas, bound for obscurity. He knew otherwise. Just two miles inland lay the epicenter of his island-based import/export company, miles from any traveler's radar. He meant to keep it that way.
RICO had literally stumbled upon the island. Like an over-ripe mango ready for plucking, the islet offered golden opportunities. Oozing out like nectar from rotten fruit, the temptations began here too.
He thought back to his discovery of eleven years ago. Searching for investment property, he'd cruised into a mild thunderstorm, along the western border of the Great Bahama Bank. Within minutes, a seventy-knot squall howled, as staccato bolts of lightning split the sky.
Visibility became a problem and he was disoriented. Flashes of light, shadows of trees and foaming seas jumped around him, flickering like a flawed movie, making the picture oddly disturbing. Chaotic seas stirred giant waves, coming at him from all directions. He edged to the stern, struggling to stand upright, as the boat rocked.
Naldo, his right hand man, shouted for Rico's attention. “The storm's fouled the communication system!” The dying wind finally swept past them.
“My God, look at this place,” Rico bellowed. “We're in the middle of nowhere. Where the hell are we?”
“According to my calculations, we’re about a hundred and twenty miles off course,” Naldo responded.
As Rico studied his surroundings, he could barely conceal his enthusiasm. He spied the southern anchorage and his gut told him this was it. He could easily move through these waters. “What a place for my operation. It's a hell of a find,” he said to Naldo. He pointed to its two entrances and natural deep water. “Ocean access.”
RICO had bought one hundred and eighty acres on Neumans Cay, which included a handsome house, a small marina that accommodated large ships and a resort, to house business associates and guests. He constructed warehouses, barracks and a dock, with wide slips. Inside his concrete “Berlin Wall,” he built an airstrip and erected a mast-type radio, high on the island's southwest tip.
To assure his privacy, he fired a barrage of bullets into the cottages on the northern shoreline. Fifteen owners slammed their windows shut, locked their doors and dove to the floor. The natives, traumatized by their trigger-happy neighbor, hunkered down in their bungalows, like shell-shocked soldiers. From that point on, they stayed out of his way. None of them realized he'd built a 4500-foot runway, protected by radar, bodyguards and Doberman attack dogs.
HE smiled at the memory. He’d moved onto the island and now owned and controlled half of the island's six square miles. Bribes to the Bahamian Prime Minister assured large cargo planes, shuttling product from Colombia to the island base, and small planes, ferrying contraband into the U.S., operated with no interference. A few other well-placed bribes meant business boomed and officials did nothing to stop his irregular and profitable activities. His business continued to grow, as did his fortune.
Hundreds of cocaine deliveries were shipped into Neumans Cay from the Exuma Sound's northeastern cut, his own channel to the Atlantic. While other dealers relied on human mules on commercial flights, the Salazar Cartel used submarines, go-fast boats and small aircraft. He revolutionized the trade, by transporting drugs to the U.S. in the keels of tankers. For the past ten years, Neumans Cay had flourished as a multinational smuggling and refueling hub.
Rico scratched the scar on his chin, studying the varied shades of azure between water and sky. He had lived too hard, worked too hard and come too far to lose everything. He'd paid his dues. Despite the pale aquas and deeper teals of the banks, and the midnight blue of the ocean floor, his mind suddenly sank back into the mire of his childhood. No matter how hard he tried to forget, the nights and the stench slithered back anyway. His mind went back to Cali, Colombia, when he was nine. He doubted the memory would ever fade.
THE steamy night smelled like cooked garbage and raw sewage. In the dark alley, sweat from ninety-two degree heat rolled down his face as he groped inside a rusty icebox, until his fingers landed on two hunks, which he slowly withdrew.
He glanced at the green mold on the cheese and the black spores on the bread then shoved the morsels into his mouth. Nothing he had eaten in a week tasted so good. If he’d had found these bits of food earlier, he wouldn’t have eaten the cockroaches.
Rico had never known who his father was. His mother was an alcoholic prostitute, who made no attempt to hide her profession from her son. Rico hated her. Hated seeing men on top of her. Hated the fact she spent any money she earned on booze. Hated rummaging through garbage cans for food. Hating the beatings he endured, when he came home empty-handed from his forays for food. He'd felt no grief, when she failed to return to their filthy shanty one night and he learned she'd been killed by a vicious customer. He wasn’t surprised. A crow had crashed into his bedroom window the previous morning. That always meant bad news coming.
Rico had learned the trade early on. He sold his body to the young and old alike, male or female. He was a survivor. He darted from filthy streets to cavernous spaces, near dismal underpasses, where the homeless huddled in abandoned, overgrown parking lots and homesteaded soiled cardboard boxes. The streets were the only home he had. While he was good looking, he got by primarily on his charm.
That changed, when a rich old woman, with rheumy eyes and yellow craters for cheekbones, took pity and welcomed him into her home. She became his abuela, his foster grandmother, and spoiled him shamelessly. Despite his own manipulation, he never completely understood why the seventy-six year old woman took him in, but he loved her, because she taught him how to live. Gradually, the sheen wore off his image of the old woman. It was nothing she did, nothing she said. Still, he sensed things were changing in some way.
Things shifted the afternoon a crow hit the window in the living room with a loud thud. He remembered the other crow at the window, the morning before his mother died. Dead birds meant death.
That evening, his abuela hobbled across the room to kiss him goodnight. She flashed a hideous grin, showing teeth that looked like cracked nutshells. When her silhouette crossed his bed and her hand touched his shoulder, the hair on his neck bristled.
A curious shadow lowered over his bed. Her misshapen limbs blotted out the lights from the antiquated homes outside his window. For an instant, he saw his mother's features superimposed on abuela's face. His foster grandmother became a dead ringer for his mother.
From that point on, he hated loving her. Depending on a woman was a nightmare. The obsession consumed his days and nights. He felt like a monster, hiding behind a perfect mask. Whenever he saw her crooked grin, the rotten teeth, the webs of wrinkles, the parchment skin draped over her sparse frame in loose folds, his blood chilled. Rico thought such frailty meant death was near.
He was wrong. The old woman didn't die. He endured the situation for eight long years. One afternoon, he knew he could stand it no longer. She 'd looked at him with her brown-toothed smirk, drool dribbling from the corner of her mouth, and the decision was made. He followed her across the room, his rubber soles making no sound on the hardwood floor. With almost no effort, his strong hands heaved her toward the ledge.
Her eyes flickered to his, filled with confusion. She started to shriek.
Afraid of losing his resolve, he quickly shoved her again and listened to her scream, as she tumbled off the ledge, plunging four stories to the ground. He took several deep, calming breaths, then smiled, imagining his mother falling to her death.
The old woman had no children or grandchildren. She'd had no one to love, but Rico. He inherited the house and all her money. How grateful he'd been. Her wealth transformed him into a wealthy college student.
IN addition to his education in business and finance, Rico quickly learned what products did well in the market place and those that would always be in demand. After graduation, he instinctively cultivated the same plant his Andean Indian ancestors had, before the Spanish occupation. He'd carved a special niche for himself and, in ten years, had jockeyed his way into the major leagues. He was proud of his global connections and the financial empire he'd built, with production facilities in Colombia, Chile, Peru and Boliva.
He sometimes wondered what would have happened, if he'd taken another road, if he and Jeanette had made a life together. He'd probably be living in the States, bored stiff. Instead, now that his island had become a major transfer point, his world had more curves and excitement than a roller coaster. He'd found the gateway to an oasis, comprising more than seven hundred uninhabited islands and cays. And he'd be damned if anyone was going to interfere with it. He'd do whatever he had to do to protect his empire.
RICO’S thoughts were pulled back to the present by the sound of quick footsteps on the sand behind him.
“Oye, Rico.”
Finally. Naldo Perez, his second in command, tugged on his shoulder. Relief lasted a fleeting second. Rico shifted his sights back to the waterfront, his breathing labored. Think, don’t panic. He couldn’t run. He’d find a way. Only cowards gave up, and he’d never been a coward.
“Boss, what’s a matter?”
“Got things on my mind, that’s all. Don’t keep me guessing. How’d the new recruit do last night?”
“He doesn’t have the guts for our kinda work.”
“You know what to do.”
“Seguro que sì. Done.”
Rico shrugged at his lieutenant's comment. His concerns were far more important than one individual who couldn't work with the team he'd assembled. His entire business was threatened. His instincts warned him he had to be extremely careful. While he might not be able to stop progress, he intended to do everything possible to redirect it and save his empire.
“Something wrong, Boss?"
Rico turned and studied Naldo, from his cowboy boots up to his worried face. “Yeah.” He again scanned the water, then turned back to Naldo. “You know the new hydrofoil that's supposed to link the islands?”
“Sure. What's that got to do with us?”
“Their Exuma trip touches a bit of the ocean, overnights in Georgetown and returns the next day.”
“Yeah? So?”
“They'll make unscheduled stops near our remote outposts.”
“Caramba!” Naldo immediately grasped the dangers.
"What should we do?”
“That's what I'm trying to figure out. Not a word to anyone, Naldo. I'll find a solution. Okay?”
Naldo nodded and turned back to the compound. Rico continued to stare across the water. If passengers were shuttled to the Southern Exumas, throngs might descend. Who wouldn't want a day beyond the reach of cars, a day without the clang and clatter of civilization? Who wouldn't want a piece of paradise?
No, a route through the Exumas was way too close. Rico wouldn’t accept such a threat to his world. He couldn't do that. He'd find a way to protect himself and all he'd built up over the past eleven years.
Continues...

Secret Obsession by Kimberla Lawson Roby

2011-09-01T00:07:00.001-07:00

"In SECRET OBSESSION, I wanted to show what happens when damaging secrets are hidden for a great number of years and how severe the consequences can be when they are exposed." --Kimberla Lawson Roby

Prologue
Paige Donohue glanced around the elegant dining room and literally wanted to die. She hated visiting her sister, she hated all that Camille had been blessed with, and most important, she hated her. In fact, she always had, ever since childhood, thanks to the way their parents had doted on Camille and treated her like she was just a bit more precious. They’d gone out of their way, confirming the idea that Camille was the better daughter, their golden child so to speak, and that Paige was the very least of their worries. They’d even as much as told Paige this very thing on several different occasions—maybe not directly, of course, but their actions had made their feelings dreadfully clear. Such as the time when she’d turned sixteen, and they’d told her how they simply couldn’t afford to give her the same pricey, sweet sixteen party they’d given Camille, just two years before, since they now had to save all their money for Camille’s graduation gala. Worse, they’d never even apologized for it and had merely expected Paige to accept their decision. They’d expected her to do the same thing she’d been forced to do when they’d purchased Camille that brand new SUV right before she’d left for college but had convinced Paige that there was nothing wrong with driving her sister’s hand-me-down, ten-year-old Camry when she’d graduated—that is, since Paige would only be traveling ten miles down the road to a junior college. It was true that Camille had done much better than Paige in high school, and yes, Camille had practically breezed through Marquette with honors, and right after, had immediately been hired by one of Chicago’s top advertising firms. But had that given George and Maxine Donahue the right to treat their younger daughter like she didn’t matter? Had it been okay for them to boast about Camille’s high accomplishments to anyone who would listen and then constantly compare those accomplishments to all that Paige had failed at? Had it been okay for them to insist that maybe if Paige had been just a tad more like Camille, they’d have been a lot prouder of her?
Even today, Paige still hadn’t forgiven them, doubted she ever would, and pretty much kept her distance. From her parents, anyway, because when it came to Camille, Paige had always visited her regularly and never let on how she truly felt about her—not once. They did everything sisters should do together, and Paige went out of her way letting Camille know that she loved her and would give her life for her if she had to. She’d done all of this for years because she needed her sister to love and trust her completely. She needed her to trust her so much, that she would never suspect what was coming. Paige had denied herself for fifteen agonizing years, partly because she didn’t want to hurt Crystal and PJ, her adorable niece and nephew, but as of a few months ago, they’d turned ten and twelve, respectively—meaning they were older and wiser and would handle things a lot better now. They would still be hurt, that much she knew for sure, but not devastated.
Paige smiled at her sister, then at her flawless-looking brother-in-law, Pierce, and then at the children. She lifted one of the freshly-baked dinner rolls from the basket, set it back onto the table and pretended she couldn’t be happier.
“So, how’s business this month?” Camille asked Paige, referring to the public relations firm Paige had founded shortly after being laid off from her previous job.
“Not bad. I’m still working with my three ongoing clients, and I just contracted two short-term clients a couple of days ago.”
“That’s really great, sis,” Camille said and Paige could tell Camille was genuinely happy for her. Too bad Paige could barely stand the sight of her—too bad Paige envied everything about her sister, including her beautiful, extremely thick, off-black, shoulder length hair and her ridiculously-toned, five-foot-ten-inch frame. Even sitting down, there was no mistaking how statuesque and attractive Camille was, and suddenly, Paige felt ill. So much so, she wanted to leave. But she knew escaping the situation wouldn’t help her, and she pulled herself together. “I think it’s wonderful how you were able to start your own business and find so much success with it,” Pierce said. “Truly impressive.”
“Why, thank you,” Paige said, wanting to hug him.
Pierce was an honestly good man who had always been very kind to her, and she loved him for it. He was one of the best men she knew, and while he’d graduated at the top of his MBA class fourteen years ago and was now a top bank executive earning well into the mid-six figures, he treated her as an equal. He never talked down to her the way her parents did, and she appreciated that. She appreciated everything about him and had felt this way ever since first laying eyes on him. As a matter of fact, it seemed only days ago when Camille had finally decided to bring Pierce to their parents’ home for dinner. He’d been the perfect gentleman, and Paige had known immediately that Camille wasn’t about to let him get away. So, there was no surprise when the two of them had announced their engagement only three months later and had begun planning the wedding of the century. Their parents had even taken out a sizable home equity loan, used a portion of their savings and their mother had acted as though she’d been the one who was actually getting married. She’d been so excited about her first daughter tying the knot, and to Paige’s great disappointment, Camille and Pierce’s wedding had ended up being the most talked about nuptials in Covington Park—the south suburb of Chicago where Paige and Camille had grown up and where they all still resided. Paige also remembered how miserable she’d been, standing next to her sister, serving as her maid of honor, and how she’d wished it was her who’d met the perfect man and was going to live happily ever after.
But the longer Paige sat reminiscing about her overall relationship with her sister and how terribly her parents had treated her, the more certain she was of her decision. She was going to take what rightly should have been hers from the very beginning: her brother-in-law, Pierce Montgomery. She would take what belonged to her, which wouldn’t be very difficult, considering how there had always been an obvious attraction between the two of them—Paige may not have been as tall as Camille, but she’d been told on more than a number of occasions that she was beautiful. So, yes, things would work out just the way they were supposed to, and soon, Pierce would realize he’d fallen in love with the wrong sister. Soon, Pierce would fall madly in love with Paige, he would ask his darling wife for a divorce, and he and Paige would marry at a lovely resort in the Caribbean. They would become husband and wife the way God intended. Paige knew this because she’d plotted a very clever plan.
Chapter 1
One Week Later
Paige smiled at Owen Richardson, her boyfriend of one year and wondered how she’d tolerated him for so long. But she knew why. He worshiped the ground she walked on, and the sex between them could sometimes be out of this world. Still, he was no Pierce Montgomery. He wasn’t even half the man her brother-in-law was, not when you compared their looks, charisma and personality. And Owen’s financial situation had never sat well with her, either. Of course, there was no denying that he did earn a great salary as a fireman, but he didn’t bring in nearly enough money to excite Paige. He didn’t make the kind of money that would keep her satisfied or afford her a much more glamorous home—something much better than the average-looking one she lived in currently.
Owen took a bite of the chicken quesadilla they’d just had delivered and then drank a sip of soda. “Such a great movie, isn’t it, baby?”
“Yeah, it really is,” Paige said, referring to The Blind Side, which she’d already seen with a friend when it was first released at the theater and also two other times on one of the pay channels.
“I just love how the Touhys took in Michael Oher, loved him like he was their own child and also made sure he got a great education. Not to mention, you could tell he’d been a great kid all along. Just needed someone to guide and care about him.”
“Yeah, that really was sweet of them,” Paige said, barely paying Owen any attention because she was now daydreaming about Pierce—wondering what he was doing and whether he was thinking of her as well. Oh how she desperately wanted to be with him and couldn’t wait to begin implementing the fabulous strategy she’d come up with. Her plan was absolutely brilliant, and she couldn’t help smiling when she thought about the future outcome. Just visualizing the two of them together forever made her tingly all over.
“Paige!” she heard Owen yelling. “Have you heard a word I said?”
“What? Of course, I have.”
“Then, why did I have to call your name three different times before you answered? I mean, what are you so preoccupied about?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t seem like nothing to me.”
“You’re just paranoid.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he said, turning back toward the television with an annoyed look on his face.
Paige knew he hadn’t believed her and now had a slight attitude, but in truth, she couldn’t have cared less.
They watched another twenty minutes of the movie and then out of know where, Owen’s face softened, and he got serious.
He muted the volume on the remote and turned his body completely toward her. Paige wondered what this was all about.
“You know,” he said. “I’ve been debating whether to have this discussion with you for a good while now, but for some reason, tonight feels right. We just made the most passionate love, and I’ve never been more sure about our relationship.”
Paige wasn’t sure she liked where this conversation was headed and didn’t say anything.
“You know I love you, right?” he said, continuing.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I love you more than anything in this world.”
Paige fell silent again and when Owen moved from the sofa and down to the floor on one knee, her heart dropped. He positioned himself directly in front of her and then pulled out a tiny, royal blue, velvet box. “Paige Donohue, will you marry me?”
Paige was taken aback and still had no words to speak. She tried answering him or to at least make some sort of comment, but she couldn’t.
“Sweetheart, I know we haven’t spoken much about marriage, but I don’t think my feelings about you have ever been a secret. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you, so how about it? Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
“I…I…Look, Owen,” she finally said. “This is truly very kind of you, but I’m sorry to say that I’m not ready for marriage.”
Owen stared at her, clearly hurt by her rejection. “But why?”
“Because I’m just not.”
“So does this mean you don’t love me?”
“No. It doesn’t mean that at all, but I have to be honest. I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”
Owen sighed deeply, got to his feet and sat back down on the sofa. Paige saw how devastated, heartbroken and confused he was, but there was nothing she could do about it.
“I’m really sorry,” she said, innocently.
Owen set the tiny box down on the glass coffee table. “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “I feel like a complete fool. Especially, since you’ve been telling me for months that you did love me.”
“That’s because I do. But not in the way a woman should love a man when she’s ready to marry him.”
Owen looked at her, noticeably perturbed. “Well, Paige, if you weren’t in love with me and you’ve known that you weren’t all this time, then why have you been allowing me to pay half of your car note every month and take you shopping in stores I really couldn’t afford? Not to mention the cash I gave you from almost every paycheck.”
“I don’t get what you mean,” she said, acting as though she didn’t understand what he was saying.
“You know exactly what I mean. Why did you use me the way you did?”
Paige raised her eyebrows, now losing patience with him. “Look, Owen. I never forced you to do any of those things. You helped with my car payment and bought nice things for me all on your own.”
Owen folded his arms. “So, not once, did you hint around about how tough things were for you or how hard it was paying all your bills? Not once did you tell me you were experiencing a slow period with clients and that you didn’t know what you were going to do?”
Paige looked away from him, knowing she had hinted a few times about her eight-hundred-dollar Lexus car payment on purpose and how she had also lured him into high-end department stores, only to express how much she loved a certain dress or handbag. She’d told him how she wished she could buy some of those things but just couldn’t afford it. She’d done this because she’d learned early on that Owen did care a lot for her and wanted her to be happy. She’d discovered how compassionate he was, and right or wrong, she’d preyed on his sympathy every chance she’d gotten. Now, though, she wanted nothing to do with the idea of marrying him and hoped he would eventually understand that.
“So, what does this mean for us?” he asked still angry. “I mean, do you think you’ll ever be in love with me? Will you ever want to become my wife?”
Paige hesitated for a few seconds then said, “No. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see that happening.”
“Wow,” he said.
Paige placed her hand on the side of his arm. “I really am sorry.”
Still, Owen grabbed his jeans and sweater from the back of the sofa and slipped them on. “I don’t know when I’ve ever been more disappointed or pissed off. But hey, I guess it is what it is.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Owen. I never meant for things to turn out this way,” she said because she honestly hadn’t planned on their relationship ending so soon. Although, deep down, she had to admit that she wasn’t terribly bothered by it because once she and Pierce finally got together, she would have had to end things with Owen anyhow. She would have had to notify him abruptly, and that scenario might have made things worse.
Owen pulled on his leather jacket and walked toward the front door, and Paige followed behind him.
“I know I’ve apologized, but I just want to say again, how sorry I am.”
“I’ll see you later, Paige,” he said, opening the door.
“Owen, I know you’re upset right now, but I do hope we can still be friends.”
Owen walked out of the condo and never looked back at her.
Paige watched him stroll toward the driveway and get into his car. She truly was very sorry, but she could never love him the way he wanted her to, so there was no since delaying the inevitable. Surprisingly, though, she did feel a little sad and felt bad for Owen, but she had to move on. What she had to do now was focus on more critical matters—her brother-in-law—and this, of course, made her smile again. The whole idea of it all lifted her spirits and made her want to take a shower and turn in early. That way she would have even longer to dream about her future husband.
Yes, life was going to be just grand once Paige became the next Mrs. Pierce Montgomery—something that would happen a lot sooner than anyone could imagine.
Chapter 2
Glass shattered, and Paige’s eyes popped wide open. Then, she heard a loud thud and looked over at the clock. But as soon as she did, the intruder rushed into the bedroom. She quickly grabbed her cordless phone, but the tall muscular man, snatched it away from her and slammed it against the wall.
The moonlight shone through Paige’s window, and she could now see part of his face. “Are you absolutely sure you want to go through with this?” the man asked.
“I’ve never been more sure about anything.”
At first the man hesitated, but then he grabbed both her legs and dragged her closer to him.”
Paige squirmed to the other side of the bed, but when he pulled her back, he slapped her so brutally she saw stars.
“That’s it,” she said, moaning in pain. “But harder.”
The man sighed but did as he was told. He beat her repeatedly with both his fists, and Paige broke into real tears.
Next, the man pulled out a gun and struck her across the face with it. He struck her three different times, and Paige bellowed out in sheer agony.
The man backed away from her. “Paige, please. I just can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can!” she exclaimed. “You promised me you would. Now come on!”
The intruder sighed again, set his gun down on the nightstand, and savagely ripped Paige’s nightgown apart. Then, he lunged on top of her, and the two of them struggled like long-time enemies.
At the same time, though, Paige hoped Pierce would appreciate the fact that she’d literally had to concoct this whole rape scheme just so they could be together. She hadn’t wanted to take things this far, having to endure such excruciating and violent physical pain, but it was a sacrifice she’d been fully willing to make. She’d done so, because she knew it was all going to be very much worth her while in the end—she knew when it was all said and done, Pierce would thank her profusely and would be glad to know she was the kind of woman who was willing to do anything. Anything at all to be with him.
Continues...

Solacers by Arion Golmakani

2011-09-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Solacers tells the touching story of a 5-year old child's search for family life and safety following the divorce of his parents in Iran during the 1960s. The first child of a heartless father and a discarded mother is left to fend for himself on the streets of Mashhad, seeking food and shelter wherever he can.

A night in winter of 1962
Like a gentle wind Baba zigzagged through the scattered, early evening traffic. He rode his bicycle with the grace of a nobleman riding on the back of a horse. His upper body remained upright and motionless as he pedaled. Without looking at his legs it was difficult to tell he was riding a bicycle. Even the frigid winter air that smashed against my numbed face like a leather belt seemed incapable of disturbing his thoughts and bringing him back from wherever they had taken him. Every now and then I turned my head around and looked up at him, hoping to catch his glance, but to no avail. Baba’s small brown pupils had sown his soul to a distant horizon far beyond the city structures in front of us. I wondered if he was thinking about me. I wondered if, had he had the means to care for me, he would not have gotten rid of me.
Sitting in front of Baba, I gripped the cold chrome handlebar of his bicycle tightly with my bare hands, which had already turned purple with cold. Winters were brutal here. My ears were trapping the frigid wind and allowing pain and cold to penetrate deep inside my head. I was too sheepish to let go of the handlebar and cover my ears with my hands. I wished I had a hat, the kind that came all the way down and over the ears. With my chapped lips squeezed tightly together, I was squinting and holding my breath for as long as I could at a time, in an attempt to keep the cold out. I was being taken back by my stepfather to a foster home I had just run away from. I missed my mother and my baby brother Mehdi already.
I loved Baba. He was my mother’s husband and the closest thing to a father figure I ever came to know. My mother called him Mansoor Aqa—Mr. Mansoor—but I preferred calling him Baba, Farsi for daddy. He was the first to introduce me to all the things that were wonderful in life back when I was little: cinema, Pepsi-Cola, and ice cream. In his early twenties, Baba was a relatively tall and handsome man with broad shoulders and a John Wayne attitude. Men with dishonorable veiled intentions wouldn’t dare follow my mother home from the market anymore, or frighten her at odd hours of the night by serenading her from the alley next to our home—not after Baba came into our life. He was fearless and strong and could take on more than one man without ruffling his perfect hair. I had seen him in action a few times. He spoke very softly but, if a situation arose, he was lethal with his fists. A tailor by trade, he had the appearance of the movie stars of the 1950s black-and-white films that he used to take me to see on Fridays.
Before Baba, the only men I knew were my mother’s brothers and father, who were from the countryside and dressed and spoke a certain way. They wore suits made from inexpensive fabrics that, after a few weeks of wear, began to sag and bulge around the elbows and the knees. The sleeves of their jackets never seemed to reach their wrists, and after a few washes the hems of their pants would no longer hang past their ankles. They did not believe in ironing clothes, thinking it would reduce the life of the fabric. Baba, on the other hand, always wore new clothes made from European fabric, perfectly pressed at all times. My mother used to say, “You can slice a melon with the creases on Mansoor Aqa’s trousers.” Besides my birth father, he was the only man I personally knew who wore a necktie and starched white shirts. Baba had a thin, perfectly trimmed mustache that was an indispensable part of his upper lip. His face was neatly shaved and splashed with European aftershaves, his hair greased and combed backward and to the side at all times.
I oftentimes overheard the other women in the house muttering while doing their laundry or washing dishes by the fountain; why, with so many eligible virgin girls in the world, would a handsome young bachelor like Mansoor Aqa travel from Orumiyeh clear across the country to Mashhad and marry a divorced woman with a child? My mother fervently believed that Baba showing up in her life was the direct result of her prayers being answered by Imam Reza. As for myself, I was just grateful for Baba being in our life—the “hows” and “whys” of him choosing my mother didn’t matter much to me at all. He altered our uncertain and droning existence from the very first day that he set foot in our lives, introducing us to color when gray was all that my mother and I were accustomed to. He possessed all the attributes that a six-year-old boy like me wished for in a father; he was strong, fun and loving.
On both sides of Naderi Avenue, under the dark ultramarine sky of early evening, strings of hanging lights and buzzing mantel lanterns lit up the sidewalks. Beneath them merchants laid out a masterful display of seasonal fruits and sweet-smelling baked and deep-fried goods. Pyramids of shimmering sweet lemons, oranges, persimmons, pomegranates and large soft date fruits colored the sidewalks, enticing the taste buds of hungry pedestrians rushing home. The dense cold air, saturated with the delicious aromas of sugar, rosewater, and cardamom escaping trays of various native sweets, filled my lungs. Just seeing the mounds of syrupy fritters and baklavas on display at the storefronts and on top of wooden pushcarts hurt my jaws. I could swear all these treats were winking at me invitingly as Baba pedaled past them. I remember when he first married my mother, on Thursday evenings Baba always came home with a box or a bag of some treat under his arm—be it pastries, sweets, or fresh fruits.
I’d been very hungry earlier that day. My mother was too busy worrying how Baba was going to react when he came home and found me there; she couldn’t think of anything else, much less feeding me. A few hours before it was time for Baba to return from work, she became uneasy, walking around the little room, murmuring to herself and praying. The last time I ran away from a foster home, Baba was not at all pleased. The frowning faces of my mother and Baba and the deafening silence around the next morning’s breakfast sofreh—a tablecloth-like sheet of plastic or fabric spread on the floor and used to serve food on—told me that they’d had another fight over me while I was asleep. Despite Baba’s insistence that my mother be firm with my birth father by sending me back to the foster home, my mother was reluctant. She just wanted her son to be with her and didn’t care much about the principle of things or teaching her ex-husband any lessons.
My heart fell when I heard the distinct sound of Baba’s stern footsteps coming from the adjacent narrow foyer. His face turned crimson when he walked in through the door and found me in his home again. He looked disappointed, mostly at my mother for her indecisiveness. My mother’s face shrunk into a look of anguish as she softly said hello to Baba.
After a brief pause and contemplation, without taking his shoes off and sitting down, as he often did when he returned home from work, he threw his hands into the air and said in his sweet Turkish-Tehranian accent, “I can’t do it, Soory joon [dear Soory]. I am only a tailor, working like a donkey six days a week just to pay the rent for this little matchbox we live in—and to fill my wife and children’s bellies.” He refused to touch the cup of hot tea my mother had placed for him on a small chrome tray on the rug.
“You don’t seem to get it, Soory. Alireza’s father should be taking care of Alireza. He has the means; I don’t. Every time this boy runs away and comes here and you don’t object, you are indirectly telling your ex-husband that it is alright for him to be an irresponsible bastard.”
My mother stood like a sad little orphan, looking down at the patterns of the shabby red Persian rug covering the floor, and softly said, “He is just a child. God would not be pleased with me if I tell my own son he cannot come here. What can I do, Mansoor Aqa?”
“I have said a thousand times and I say it again, take him to his father’s home and leave him at his doorstep. The pimp would have no choice then but to take care of his own son. As God is my witness, Soory, I love Alireza like my own son, but it burns my ass knowing that man collects a good and easy salary from the military on the first of every month while I have to feed his flesh and blood. I, a perfect stranger from Orumiyeh who six days a week sits behind a sewing machine and earns his every rial needle by needle with his fingers. Do you think God is pleased with that?”
I was not the subject of a new discussion that evening. The two of them had been down this path many times before. In fact, my mother had been on the receiving end of similar remarks and advice from others besides Baba for a long time now, often right in front of me.
“Take Alireza to his father,” they would say to her. “Why should you sacrifice your marriage and youth for his kid while he is enjoying life in the arms of his new wife?”
Standing submissively with her back against the damp wall of their small and dimly lit room, her hands hanging in front of her one over the other, my mother didn’t utter another word. Her head was hung downward, her lips puckered, and her eyebrows pulled together—a silent display of protest as well as a gesture of reluctant surrender. A gesture I knew all too well by now. Baba was the man and this was his home. That was how she saw it. That was how she had been told and taught by her parents to see it. She was a woman—and women had no voices where she came from. She was lucky to have found a young and handsome bachelor wanting to marry her, willing to take her and her son into his home, she always told me. This man who could have chosen a virgin with dowries that could fill two large rooms had chosen her instead, and for that she could not be ungrateful.
Through the entire discussion, I was curled up in the corner of the room, sitting on the floor next to the crib of my baby half-brother Mehdi and hugging my knees. I gazed in envy at Mehdi’s chubby, rosy cheeks as he peacefully slept while my fate was once again being debated. Purposely, I tried to make myself appear less significant, hoping that would sway Baba’s heart and he would change his mind about taking me back to the foster home. But I knew it was too late for that. I wasn’t welcome here anymore. In fact, I knew that, as long as my birth father was alive, I was not welcome anywhere. For someone in my situation, having a father alive and well was a big liability.
My father’s professional and subsequent financial success after divorcing my mother was only the icing on the bitter cake of animosity that everyone on my mother’s side had baked for him. Divorcing my mother was the real catalyst of their anger, however, and in many ways the main source of my misfortune. In my parents’ village, everyone knew everyone else. It seemed that half of the people of the village were related to my mother and the other half to my father—in one form or another. And those who were not related to either side had ties to my father’s new wife, who was also from the same village.
Assad Banafsheh—Assad, son of Banafsheh—had divorced the daughter of Qolumali Qassob—QolumAli the butcher. In a society where the motto for the bride was “Go to your husband’s home in a white dress and leave only in a white shroud,” divorce was the kiss of death for a woman, as it inevitably brought shame upon her family. A divorced young woman was often viewed as a rejected product and a liability to her parents and for that, my father was not forgiven. Emotions ran high, especially on my mother’s side, where my father was deeply despised. This was bad news for me. I looked like my father, grinned like my father, and was, without question, my father’s son—as I was reminded regularly by my mother’s relatives. And to my father and his side of the family, I was the son of Soory, a name that was not uttered kindly by my father and his mother in particular. My presence seemed to peel at the scabs of the wounds caused by the divorce, on both sides.
I wanted to promise Baba that night to eat very little from now on, to be a good boy and listen to my mother. I wanted to promise not to pee in my bed anymore. But it was too late for that. His mind had been made up for over a year now. Once again it was time for me to leave. Like a puppy that kept running away from the animal shelter and back to the only master it knew, I too kept coming back here to the only home I knew.
Baba signaled with his head that it was time to go as he walked firmly toward the door. In the dark and narrow foyer I put on my little black rubber shoes that my aunt Sarvar had gotten me from the gypsies in exchange for a small sack of dried mulberries and two rials. Feeling homesick and anxious already, I couldn’t bear the pain of separating from my mother again. I wanted to cry and beg her to let me stay but didn’t. That would only have salted the wounds of her heart even more, and I could not stand seeing my mother suffer. A droopy goodbye look was all that I could muster for her as I walked out the door and followed Baba into the dark alley. Like my grandfather’s sheep when he took one of their lambs away for slaughter, my mother stood motionless outside the doorway and watched as Baba and I disappeared around the corner on his bicycle. Her eyes spoke of the same helplessness I used to see in the eyes of those sheep.
On my signal Baba turned into a narrow side street and then into an old alleyway where my latest foster family, chosen by my birth father, lived. Fearing potholes and the gutter that ran in the middle of the dark alley, Baba stopped the bicycle and we walked the rest of the way, which wasn’t but a few hundred meters.
“Are you sure you know where they live?” Baba asked. I nodded yes. Reluctantly, I took him to the house. Walking the bicycle up to the door, he grabbed the old door knocker and gave it a few slams. Minutes later the sound of approaching footsteps could be heard from the other side of the heavy wooden door. The door’s left panel opened, its old hinges squealing under its weight. A man I knew all too well appeared in his pajama pants, with a military blanket folded in a triangle over his shoulders to keep him warm.
“Salam [Hello],” he said to Baba with a questioning look. Before Baba could introduce himself, the man noticed me half hidden in the dark, against the brick wall of his house, away from the door and Baba. I was staring at the man like a startled, featherless baby sparrow that had fallen out of its nest and was about to be touched by a human.
“It’s you!” he said somewhat unhappily, yet sounding relieved at the same time. “Where have you been, boy? My sons have looked for you everywhere!” Then he turned his attention back to Baba and asked, “And who are you, mister?”
“Salam, aqa [Hello sir].” I am his mother’s husband,” Baba replied as he extended his hand. “I understand his father has placed him in your care, so I brought him back.”
“Yes.” The man nodded unhappily as he shook Baba’s hand. “He ran away from work early this morning and we were worried what to tell his father if he never came back. It is not right, aqa. His father is a military man and could cause trouble for us if we lose his kid, you know.”
“I am Sorry, it will not happen again. He’s only a child and doesn’t understand any better. Please forgive him,” Baba assured the man while giving me a punishing look. “He has promised he will stay with you and be a good boy.”
“I hope so. Okay then. Thank you, mister, and thank God he is found. Come on, kid, let’s go inside, it is freezing out here,” the man said as he shook Baba’s hand. Baba and I exchanged a brief glance as he lifted his bicycle and turned it around. Then he disappeared into the shadows of the night. The man immediately closed and latched the door behind us and began hurrying across the tiled courtyard. I followed.
I missed my mother, Baba, and Mehdi so much.
Continues...

The Hard Way: A Reacher Novel (Jack Reacher Novels) by Lee Child

2011-09-01T00:05:00.000-07:00

JACK REACHER ORDERED espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man's life change forever. Not that the waiter was slow. Just that the move was slick. So slick, Reacher had no idea what he was watching. It was just an urban scene, repeated everywhere in the world a billion times a day: A guy unlocked a car and got in and drove away. That was all.
But that was enough.
The espresso had been close to perfect, so Reacher went back to the same cafeŽ exactly -twenty--four hours later. Two nights in the same place was unusual for Reacher, but he figured great coffee was worth a change in his routine. The café was on the west side of Sixth Avenue in New York City, in the middle of the block between Bleecker and Houston. It occupied the ground floor of an undistinguished -four--story building. The upper stories looked like anonymous rental apartments. The cafe itself looked like a transplant from a back street in Rome. Inside it had low light and scarred wooden walls and a dented chrome machine as hot and long as a locomotive, and a counter. Outside there was a single line of metal tables on the sidewalk behind a low canvas screen. Reacher took the same end table he had used the night before and chose the same seat. He stretched out and got comfortable and tipped his chair up on two legs. That put his back against the cafe's outside wall and left him looking east, across the sidewalk and the width of the avenue. He liked to sit outside in the summer, in New York City. Especially at night. He liked the electric darkness and the hot dirty air and the blasts of noise and traffic and the manic barking sirens and the crush of people. It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.
He was served by the same waiter as the night before and ordered the same drink, double espresso in a foam cup, no sugar, no spoon. He paid for it as soon as it arrived and left his change on the table. That way he could leave exactly when he wanted to without insulting the waiter or bilking the owner or stealing the china. Reacher always arranged the smallest details in his life so he could move on at a split second's notice. It was an obsessive habit. He owned nothing and carried nothing. Physically he was a big man, but he cast a small shadow and left very little in his wake.
He drank his coffee slowly and felt the night heat come up off the sidewalk. He watched cars and people. Watched taxis flow north and garbage trucks pause at the curbs. Saw knots of strange young people heading for clubs. Watched girls who had once been boys totter south. Saw a blue German sedan park on the block. Watched a compact man in a gray suit get out and walk north. Watched him thread between two sidewalk tables and head inside to where the cafe staff was clustered in back. Watched him ask them questions.
The guy was medium height, not young, not old, too solid to be called wiry, too slight to be called heavy. His hair was gray at the temples and cut short and neat. He kept himself balanced on the balls of his feet. His mouth didn't move much as he talked. But his eyes did. They flicked left and right tirelessly. The guy was about forty, Reacher guessed, and furthermore Reacher guessed he had gotten to be about forty by staying relentlessly aware of everything that was happening around him. Reacher had seen the same look in elite infantry veterans who had survived long jungle tours.
Then Reacher's waiter turned suddenly and pointed straight at him. The compact man in the gray suit stared over. Reacher stared back, over his shoulder, through the window. Eye contact was made. Without breaking it the man in the suit mouthed thank you to the waiter and started back out the way he had entered. He stepped through the door and made a right inside the low canvas screen and threaded his way down to Reacher's table. Reacher let him stand there mute for a moment while he made up his mind. Then he said "Yes," to him, like an answer, not a question.
"Yes what?" the guy said back.
"Yes whatever," Reacher said. "Yes I'm having a pleasant evening, yes you can join me, yes you can ask me whatever it is you want to ask me."
The guy scraped a chair out and sat down, his back to the river of traffic, blocking Reacher's view.
"Actually I do have a question," he said.
"I know," Reacher said. "About last night."
"How did you know that?" The guy's voice was low and quiet and his accent was flat and clipped and British.
"The waiter pointed me out," Reacher said. "And the only thing that distinguishes me from his other customers is that I was here last night and they weren't."
"You're certain about that?"
"Turn your head away," Reacher said. "Watch the traffic."
The guy turned his head away. Watched the traffic.
"Now tell me what I'm wearing," Reacher said.
"Green shirt," the British guy said. "Cotton, baggy, cheap, doesn't look new, sleeves rolled to the elbow, over a green T-shirt, also cheap and not new, a little tight, untucked over -flat--front khaki chinos, no socks, English shoes, pebbled leather, brown, not new, but not very old either, probably expensive. Frayed laces, like you pull on them too hard when you tie them. Maybe indicative of a -self--discipline obsession."
"OK," Reacher said.
"OK what?"
"You notice things," Reacher said. "And I notice things. We're two of a kind. We're peas in a pod. I'm the only customer here now who was also here last night. I'm certain of that. And that's what you asked the staff. Had to be. That's the only reason the waiter would have pointed me out."
The guy turned back.
"Did you see a car last night?" he asked.
"I saw plenty of cars last night," Reacher said. "This is Sixth Avenue."
"A Mercedes Benz. Parked over there." The guy twisted again and pointed on a slight diagonal at a length of empty curb by a fire hydrant on the other side of the street.
Reacher said, "Silver, four-door sedan, an S-420, New York vanity plates starting OSC, a lot of city miles on it. Dirty paint, scuffed tires, dinged rims, dents and scrapes on both bumpers."
The guy turned back again.
"You saw it," he said.
"It was right there," Reacher said. "Obviously I saw it."
"Did you see it leave?"
Reacher nodded. "Just before eleven -forty--five a guy got in and drove it away."
"You're not wearing a watch."
"I always know what time it is."
"It must have been closer to midnight."
"Maybe," Reacher said. "Whatever."
"Did you get a look at the driver?"
"I told you, I saw him get in and drive away."
The guy stood up.
"I need you to come with me," he said. Then he put his hand in his pocket. "I'll buy your coffee."
"I already paid for it."
"So let's go."
"Where?"
"To see my boss."
"Who's your boss?"
"A man called Lane."
"You're not a cop," Reacher said. "That's my guess. Based on observation."
"Of what?"
"Your accent. You're not American. You're British. The NYPD isn't that desperate."
"Most of us are Americans," the British guy said. "But you're right, we're not cops. We're private citizens."
"What kind?"
"The kind that will make it worth your while if you give them a description of the individual who drove that car away."
"Worth my while how?"
"Financially," the guy said. "Is there any other way?"
"Lots of other ways," Reacher said. "I think I'll stay right here."
"This is very serious."
"How?"
The guy in the suit sat down again.
"I can't tell you that," he said.
"Goodbye," Reacher said.
"Not my choice," the guy said. "Mr. Lane made it -mission--critical that nobody knows. For very good reasons."
Reacher tilted his cup and checked the contents. Nearly gone.
"You got a name?" he asked.
"Do you?"
"You first."
In response the guy stuck a thumb into the breast pocket of his suit coat and slid out a black leather business card holder. He opened it up and used the same thumb to slide out a single card. He passed it across the table. It was a handsome item. Heavy linen stock, raised lettering, ink that still looked wet. At the top it said: Operational Security Consultants.
"OSC," Reacher said. "Like the license plate."
The British guy said nothing.
Reacher smiled. "You're security consultants and you got your car stolen? I can see how that could be embarrassing."
The guy said, "It's not the car we're worried about." Lower down on the business card was a name: John Gregory. Under the name was a subscript: British Army, Retired. Then a job title: Executive Vice President.
"How long have you been out?" Reacher asked.
"Of the British Army?" the guy called Gregory said. "Seven years."
"Unit?"
"SAS."
"You've still got the look."
"You too," Gregory said. "How long have you been out?"
"Seven years," Reacher said.
"Unit?"
"U.S. Army CID, mostly."
Gregory looked up. Interested. "Investigator?"
"Mostly."
"Rank?"
"I don't remember," Reacher said. "I've been a civilian seven years."
"Don't be shy," Gregory said. "You were probably a lieutenant colonel at least."
"Major," Reacher said. "That's as far as I got."
"Career problems?"
"I had my share."
"You got a name?"
"Most people do."
"What is it?"
"Reacher."
"What are you doing now?"
"I'm trying to get a quiet cup of coffee."
"You need work?"
"No," Reacher said. "I don't."
"I was a sergeant," Gregory said.
Reacher nodded. "I figured. SAS guys usually are. And you've got the look."
"So will you come with me and talk to Mr. Lane?"
"I told you what I saw. You can pass it on."
"Mr. Lane will want to hear it direct."
Reacher checked his cup again. "Where is he?"
"Not far. Ten minutes."
"I don't know," Reacher said. "I'm enjoying my espresso."
"Bring it with you. It's in a foam cup."
"I prefer peace and quiet."
"All I want is ten minutes."
"Seems like a lot of fuss over a stolen car, even if it was a Mercedes Benz."
"This is not about the car."
"So what is it about?"
"Life and death," Gregory said. "Right now more likely death than life."
Reacher checked his cup again. There was less than a lukewarm -eighth--inch left, thick and scummy with espresso mud. That was all. He put the cup down.
"OK," he said. "So let's go."
From the Hardcover edition.
(Continues...)

Love Will Follow by Bailey Bristol

2011-09-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

Every child on the 1890's Orphan Trains hoped to be taken in by a loving family, to know what it meant to be wanted and loved. For 10-year-old Kittie Thornton, it meant leaving her brother-protector on the train and being taken in to serve an abusive family in Kansas. Now, as a frightened 18-yr-old, she must flee or die at the hands of the man who never saw her as a daughter, only as his woman.

Fly to the mountain
Fly to the sun
Fly to the apple grove
One by one
It was only an apple. And it was only an arm’s length away. Take it, and she might lose her job. Leave it, and her little Hannah Marie might die.
Kittie could hardly feel her hands as she labored over a massive pile of freshly-washed bed linens.
A cloud of steam hovered above the heavy lumps of laundry, still hot from the boiling tubs. But her fingers would be starting to freeze by the time she got half way through the pile.
At least until then she could plunge her stiffening hands into the heart of the pile for a moment’s warmth. Not too long, though, or the screaming nerves would render her hands immobile.
Her lips trembled and her heart hammered in her chest as she fed the next heavy, wet sheet through the wringer. The apple, nestled in the laundry owner’s lunch pail, seemed to swell larger each time she glanced at it from the corner of her eye. Larger, redder, shinier. And closer.
All she had to do was reach out.
“Calloway!”
Kittie lurched back from the wringer and knocked over the bench beside her. Flossie’s lunch pail flew off and the woman’s sandwich tumbled, still wrapped in waxed paper, onto the floor. The apple rolled, hit the wall, spun sideways, and came to a stop somewhere behind the coal bin.
Flossie Timberlake thumped her on the shoulder. Hard.
“Y’hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kittie whispered, staring at the trail the apple had made through the coal dust around the bin.
“You watch what yer’ doin’, girl. You ‘bout lost a hand.”
The owner of Timberlake Laundry lumbered past the upset bench and grunted as she worked to bend enough beyond her huge belly to pick up the sandwich. She waggled her fingers toward it and only succeeded in flipping it further out of reach. Disgusted, the double-chinned one-time doxy heaved herself upright and kicked the sandwich into the corner.
“If’n you finish afore I git back, start on them collars. I’ll take m’ lunch at Maloney’s fer a change.”
Kittie nodded and leaned into the crank. Sheets were the worst. The heavy wet fabric made the crank bog down so she had to push twice has hard. Distracted by the apple, she’d nearly fed her own hand through the very wringer she herself was cranking.
The tail end of the sheet slipped through the rolling jaws that squeezed every last drop of moisture into the tub below. Kittie dropped the crank, snapped the sheet three times, and ran it through the hot mangle that stood nearby. At least this part, ironing the sheets, gave her shoulders a break.
She worked the treadle with her foot and kept the sheet folded neatly in half and as flat as possible while she maneuvered it through the heated rolls of the mangle. It taunted her with searing puffs of steam so hot that she had to stretch and dodge to keep her face from getting burned. All that twisting and leaning put wrenching pressure on her right knee as she strained to keep a toe on the treadle.
If Flossie would only let her sit at the hulking machine, her face would be well away from the burning vapor. But Flossie said that sit-down jobs just made girls lazy, so Kittie was left to crouch and lean.
The lavender oil Flossie worked into the mangle’s rollers each night left a delicate scent in the crisp, warm sheets. Her devious employer believed it disguised the fact that she kept the rinsing barrel full by dumping the contents of the wringer bucket into it throughout the day.
Kittie added the last of this customer’s order to the pile that sat on the wrapping table. In just seconds she had the brown paper snug around the stack of fresh laundry and tied off with string. She marked the customer’s name with a pencil and carried it to the pickup bins.
Without breaking her resolute, shuffling stride, she snatched the apple from behind the coal bucket and the paper-wrapped sandwich from the floor and headed back to the pile of sodden linen.
“Oh, you there!”
The voice stopped Kittie dead in her tracks. She’d been caught red-handed with the sandwich and apple. Her heart thudded in her chest. Hannah Marie was going to eat tonight if she had to kill to keep the sandwich. There would be enough meat and cheese between those two slices of bread to feed her for three days.
“Miss? I should like to —”
The call was broken by a spasm of coughing. Kittie turned and looked toward the front of the laundry. It seemed impossible that the horrid hacking sounds could be coming from so slight a woman.
Kittie pocketed the sandwich and apple, forgot her guilt and pointed her stiff toes toward the makeshift front counter. Her feet wouldn’t warm up until she planted them next to the corncob burner tonight. During the day she simply scuffed along to protect them from getting banged up inside her cracked and hole-ridden shoes. Sometimes they were so cold she thought her toes might just shatter like glass if she bumped them wrong.
Flossie worked inside the main building that stayed toasty and warm from the small coal burners that heated the big wash tubs. Even on days like this the woman broke a sweat in there. Kittie’s assignments kept her in the lean-to built on at the back. It was a dilapidated excuse for an enclosure that let the frigid wind keep a constant draft through the unheated shed.
Kittie forced herself to focus on the woman who leaned on the counter. “Are you all right?” It wasn’t her place to deal with customers, but it was impossible to ignore the lady in distress. And it would keep her inside the warm sanctuary for a few precious minutes.
The woman raised her right hand and nodded feebly as she tried to hide the next spasm behind the dainty handkerchief clutched to her mouth. Her lifeless graying hair was pulled into a careful bun beneath a jaunty hat that looked out of place to Kittie, sitting as it did over gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes. Her fashionable shirtwaist and three-quarter coat would have been pretty if it hadn’t hung so oddly from her bones.
Kittie recognized the sunken eyes and gray pallor. The consumption had taken Hannah Marie’s mother just like that little more than a year ago. She fingered a wild strand of hair back into her own topknot, glad that her apron hid the shabby condition of her skirt and jerkin, and wondered what she could do for this poor woman.
Before she came up with an answer, the woman sagged into a broken-backed chair, and Kittie found herself hobbling on around the counter. She twisted the tap on the cider keg that sat in the corner and ran a cup of the sweet, golden liquid and knelt beside the woman.
Water would have been better. But the water in the big wooden tubs was not fit for drinking. Cider was the weakest thing Flossie kept in the place. And from the looks of this woman, a cup from the bottle of gin beneath the counter might just do her in.
The cup tipped as Kittie handed it to the customer, and she caught hold of it again to steady it for the wheezing lady.
“Here, now, just take a sip and let it slide down. Easy now. Just a sip. There. Don’t worry, I’ll hold it for you.” She hadn’t even realized she was gently patting the woman’s back until a bony shoulder blade shocked her and she drew her hand away.
She continued to croon until the poor woman’s spasm subsided to an occasional cough that almost sounded normal.
“I just—” she coughed and shook her head. “All I wanted—” Each time she spoke triggered another spell.
“You just wanted to bring in your laundry?”
Kittie spied a bundle that had dropped on the floor.
The woman nodded.
Kittie let go of the cup and reached for a scrap of brown paper. She traded the paper and a pencil stub she found on the counter for the cider cup. “Just write your name and I’ll see that your laundry is well taken care of, ma’am.” She tried a reassuring smile, but the woman’s distress still worried her. And truth be told, it had been so long since she’d felt like smiling, Kittie wasn’t certain that her face was screwing into an expression that would actually comfort anyone.
“Rosalinda Archer? Mrs. Archer?” She studied the scrap the woman handed back to her. The handwriting was so shaky she could barely read it. “I’ll keep this right here with your bundle. Don’t you worry now. We’ll take good care of it.”
Mrs. Archer managed a weak smile and didn’t resist Kittie’s help when she tried to struggle up from the chair.
“Is your buggy outside?”
“No, dear,” the woman whispered. Whispering seemed less likely to send her into another episode. “Bank. Just a...” She hissed in a breath and wrinkled her brow. As if by involuntary reflex, she tapped a gloved hand to her breastbone. Mrs. Archer was in pain. “...across the street.”
“Shall I walk with you?” Kittie stowed the bundle behind the chair, after tucking the paper safely beneath the knotted string. It made her nervous to see the poor woman teetering toward the door.
“Well,” Mrs. Archer whispered, “perhaps, yes, I, that would be nice.”
Despite her thinness, it was all Kittie could do to support the frail Mrs. Archer. Kittie concentrated mightily on walking flat-footed enough that she wouldn’t throw the poor woman off-balance.
Step by painful step, they conquered the short distance across the street to the Cumberland State Bank. Even as they entered the building, the woman sagged and nearly toppled.
Kittie caught the leg of a chair that sat near the door with her toe, winced silently, and dragged it away from the wall. She helped Mrs. Archer sit as she looked around desperately for someone to recognize the woman and come to her aid. The poor lady was failing fast.
“Rosie? Rose! What’s wrong?” A scrawny white-haired fellow hurried down the last few steps of a central staircase and rushed to bend over Mrs. Archer. “What happened?” He raised his pained eyes to search Kittie’s face.
“She brought laundry, sir, across the street. She needs a doctor. Right away, I think.” Kittie tried to draw away, but the woman held fiercely to her hand.
“Charles, my sweet Charles.” Mrs. Archer raised her other hand to the man’s cheek, her eyes full of a warmth Kittie had never witnessed in her eighteen years. “This young lady saved me from falling in the street. Walked...all the way here w...with me. You must thank...thank her for me.”
“Oh, no, ma’am, I—” Kittie was embarrassed that they might think she was stalling in hopes of a reward.
“There, there, Rose, I certainly will. Right after I send for the doctor.” The answering look in his eye held the same kindness, with a bright sheen of tears that glazed them over a bit.
“Now, please? Please, Charles.” Mrs. Archer turned her eyes to Kittie. “This is my husband, dear. Charles Archer.”
She squeezed Kittie’s hand so hard that Kittie’s frozen bones began to scream back. But if it helped the woman’s pain, she could squeeze them to dust.
“Just seeing that little bit of color in your cheeks is thanks enough, Mrs. Archer. Will you be alright until the doctor comes? You and Mr. Archer?”
“Yes, yes, dear. You run along. Charles?” Mrs. Archer patted Kittie’s hand and then waggled a finger back and forth, signaling Charles.
He smiled and shook his head, as if he were put out with his wife, but his eyes just softened even more. He dipped a hand into his vest pocket and pulled out a coin. Mr. Archer pressed the coin into Kittie’s hand and held her hand closed in both of his.
“You’re a good lass, a good lass.” He shook her hand inside his warm clasp. “God walks with you.”
The coin seemed to burn into her palm, and she flinched at the man’s kind words. The only thing that had walked with her for as long as she could remember was trouble. Especially in the eight years since she and Penn had lost each other. Her big brother. Her protector.
But the eyes that looked back at her offered their own reassurance. God walks with you.
Things would have to change pretty dramatically for her and Hannah Marie for Kittie to believe that. Her heart quieted, as if he were still speaking to her. And the warmth that traveled from his hands into her bones seemed to echo his words.
Kittie drew away, self-conscious in the presence of such sincerity. Such faith. “Thank you, Mr. Archer. You’d best see to the doctor now, d’ya think?”
“Go along, Charles. I’ll sit right here until you get back with the doctor. You too, um...” Rose suddenly seemed to realize she didn’t know what to call Kittie, and she flushed a bit in confused embarrassment.
“Kittie, ma’am.” She’d been using her mother’s maiden name, Calloway. But it seemed a lie using it with this nice lady. But she dared not use Thornton, either. Not yet. “Just call me Kittie.”
“Kittie. A name as sweet as the girl herself. Thank you, Kittie. I’ll be fine now. Bless you for helping me back to my Charles.”
Kittie looked down at the woman who seemed to have recovered somewhat. An impulse she had not felt in a decade swept through her, and Kittie bent and kissed Mrs. Archer’s powdered cheek before she turned and shuffled out the door.
Idiot! She should have offered to stay with Mrs. Archer in the warm bank. For a minute there her hands had almost felt human again. She had almost felt human again. They’d done that for her.
Treated her like a person.
The looks that had passed between the man and wife startled her to her very core. In her world, a woman in pain was usually fleeing from a man. This one had made an excruciatingly painful journey to get back to her man.
For weeks, hunger pangs and cold misery had kept Kittie on the edge of confusion. Weak, and struggling to focus on her tasks. But compared to Mrs. Archer, she’d felt like a gothic warrior, strong and sure. Where had the strength suddenly come from?
Wherever it had fallen from, it retreated just as quickly when her attention was drawn to her employer’s doorway. Kittie blanched and struggled with a sudden urgent impulse to turn and go with all possible haste in the opposite direction.
But Flossie was counting on her. And on her frozen stumps that passed for feet, she knew even Flossie could outrun her.
Kittie drew a shaky breath and stepped up onto the boardwalk she had left just minutes earlier. The tender words of the loving couple still tumbled around in her head. Gentle. Comforting. God walks with you. Their words plumbed the depths of love and respect that were all but extinct in Kittie’s life since she had been “rescued” from the Orphan Train.
The sounds spilling from the doorway ahead, though, were intimately familiar. And they alerted Kittie to the fact that Flossie was back from lunch. If the ruckus going on inside was any indication, the woman was in a foul mood. The words Flossie Timberlake was flinging from the back room of the second-rate laundry were as far from love and respect as gutter language could get.
Chapter Two
Fly to the washtub
Fly to the line
Fly to the hiding place
None can find
Corporal Jake Kannady strode along the boardwalk looking for the laundry house Sheriff Davies had told him about. Tomorrow was his first day on the job. He didn’t want to wear the stink of the road beneath his new tin star when he met the citizens of Mounthaven for the first time.
Deputy Sheriff Jake Kannady.
It had a nice ring to it. And this quiet Ohio town had a nice feel. He hoped it might take him a good long while to accomplish his mission, the task that had brought him to this sleepy town in the first place, just so he could stay and soak up some peace and quiet for a change.
“Owww! What the hell—?”
A battered lunch pail sailed through an open door and clipped him on the shoulder just as he passed. He spun and crouched, and realized it probably hadn’t been aimed at him. Someone inside had ducked.
He’d learned in the Cavalry to launch his senses to full alert at the first hint of attack, and they rushed to the forefront for him now. Weak female cries could barely be heard beneath the caterwauling of a huge woman whose backside took up the entire doorway at the back of the building. His eyes skimmed the words that were soaped onto the front windows.
Timberlake Laundry.
Continues...