That's right, COPPER LAKE, the 3rd entry into the Stutter Creek companion series is on sale for only 99¢ for the month of BOOKTOBER! Grab your ebook now. And don't forget to leave the light on ...
Excerpt: Kendra stepped onto the porch and pushed her way inside the empty house. The silence enveloped her as surely as if cotton wool had been stuffed into her ears.
“What’s the matter with your face?” she grinned. “You look like you tangled with a wildcat.” She aimed at his groin and pulled the trigger.
There were times I wanted to scream or run and hide somewhere as the book delivered graphic details of the found bodies. I felt like I was reading a Stephen King novel that makes you jump at every noise. The author has done an amazing job of writing a story that clearly will have you on the edge of your seat. I have not read a book this well defined in horror in quite some time. The serial killer is diabolical and quite possibly the scariest character I have ever read. "I reviewed this for Lone Star Book Blogs"
He strode to the kitchen and immediately noticed the coffee maker still on. He turned it off and opened the door leading to the garage. Try as he might, Woody couldn’t dispel the feeling of ghosts looking over his shoulder—the living ghosts of her children as they’d been at Thanksgiving. It was as if they were all there with him, urging him to hurry and find their mom.
Her pickup was in the garage, the engine as cold as the coffee.
He dashed back into the living room, grabbed up her handbag, and dumped out the contents. When he spied her key ring, he plucked it up and hurried back to the garage to make certain she wasn’t slumped over behind the wheel of her truck. The tinted windows made the cab seem like a cave. Woody unlocked the driver’s door and climbed inside.
The clean, crisp smell of her perfume lingered in the fabric of the seats.
Woody inhaled deeply, remembering how he’d once breathed in her whispered words in the hallway of a Holiday Inn.
His heart thrummed inside the cage of his ribs.
She’s off on a hike, his mind insisted. She went for a hike and went farther than she intended. She’ll come bursting through the front door any minute and proceed to chew my ass from here to Kingdom Come for jumping to conclusions.
But that idea didn’t ring true.
Ken would never go hiking and leave her phone at home, and the front door unlocked. Especially not at night. Not when she was supposed to meet me over an hour ago. No way.
He closed and relocked the pickup and made his way through the rest of the old house checking every room, every closet, and under every bed.
He even checked the attic.
Still nothing.
Nothing out of place, nothing overturned. No sign of a struggle. No sign of life.
Afterthought: FOR A DIGITAL REVIEW COPY, SIMPLY LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.
Grand Prize Giveaway COPPER LAKE BOOK 3 - Stutter Creek Suspense series
Can Detective Kendra Dean solve the crimes of this sadistic
killer, or will she become another of his strange tattoos?
If you would like to WIN THE GRAND PRIZE (which means you could be a character in my next novel), simply sign up for my Every-now-and-then Newsletter right over there
I'll let Random.org choose the winner on Valentine's Day. That's all there is to it. I'll send the winner an email asking what name he/she would like their character to go by (could even be a nickname), and then I'll let you know when it's released in the next few months.
The bones were wet and cold. The clay in the soil trapped the moisture as efficiently as a layer of mulch in a flower bed. When Edgar held the femur up to the moonlight, he was thrilled to observe how fully the dirt and mold had settled into the cuts. It created an inky labyrinthine abstract on the once-white surface. He caressed the soil around the bones, and then lifted the rest of them from their shallow bed.
The press dubbed him the killer cartographer because he carves the map coordinates of each victim on the femur of the one before. Then he tattoos the information on his skin. Can Detective Kendra Dean bring him to justice, or will she become his next tattoo?
On my evening constitutional with Dude -- my hubby -- this old Evanescence song came up on my iPod playlist. It's always been one of my faves, and it seems to fit what my character, Detective Kendra Dean, is going through in this scene from my Work in Progress, COPPER LAKE, the third book in the Stutter Creek suspense series from 5 Prince Books.
This scene is where Kendra and her younger partner, Woodrow, find themselves in a small bar far from home while wrapping up a prisoner transport job. Kendra is a career detective who always tried to keep her job related horror stories away from her home life. She'd thought she was doing the right thing until recently when her husband, Bill, told her he was leaving, he was tired of being in their marriage alone.
After ordering their drinks—beer
for him, White Russian for her—Woody excused himself to the men’s room.
When
he returned, his path led directly behind her chair. He must have noticed her
rubbing at her neck and shoulders because he stopped and gave her a
thirty-second massage.
“Ahh,”
she said. “Everything’s in knots.”
“I
hear ya." He rolled his own head around slowly. “Not used to riding
fourteen hours with a perp sitting behind me. Even if he was behind wire and asleep
most of the time.” He took his seat across from her again.
Kendra
shrugged and met his grin with a tired one of her own. “The things we do for
the job.” She took another sip of her drink and inspected the nearly deserted
bar. “Thank God there’s not much going on.”
Woody
nodded. “I’ll be ready to hit the sack after this.” He glanced around.
“It’d be our luck for a fight to break out. Guess we’re taking quite a chance
having a drink when we’re technically still on-the-job.”
Kendra
raised her short glass. “Here’s to taking chances.”
“Amen.”
Woody clinked his beer bottle against her glass.
When
a slow song came on the jukebox, he stood and held out his hand. “Take another
chance?”
She
took one more sip of her drink and then placed her hand in his. It’s only one
song, she remembered telling herself. But a flame of longing grew in her belly
as she allowed him to pull her in close. He didn’t press her body to his; he simply
curled his large hand around hers and held it against his chest while the music
led them around the tiny dance floor. When she chanced a glance at his face,
she was surprised to find his eyes were closed.
She
relaxed and rested her temple against the shelf of his chin. Even now, chained to the floor in this nightmarish bunker, she could
still recall the way she felt in his arms, as if she’d just arrived home from a
long, arduous, journey. Kendra also remembered wondering how long it had been
since she and Bill had gone dancing. How long it had been since they had held
each other so tenderly and carefully.
When
the music stopped, they both opened their eyes. What the hell am I doing? She stepped back, head down, not looking
at him until they paid their bill and left.
