Текст книги "Guest Of Honor: A Novelette"

Автор книги: Mark S. R. Peterson

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 4 страниц)

An excerpt from thriller novel Beholder’s Eye 

A thriller written by Mark S. R. Peterson

PROLOGUE

Stephanie turns down the side street, and floors it.

“Whoa, Mom, slow down,” her daughter Kelsey says, bracing a hand up on the dash.

“I can’t, I’m gonna be late.”

Kelsey pulls out her phone.  “I have time.  I can walk from here.  It’s not that far.”

Stephanie slows as she comes to a four-way stop sign—one of three, and this is supposed to be a shortcut—and, once she determines no other cars are nearby, she rolls on through the crosswalk and accelerates.

“Seriously, Mom, I can walk.  It won’t take me long.”

She soon comes to the second stop sign.

Ding!

She peers down at the gas gauge.  The yellow low fuel light is on.

No, no, no!  Mr. Perkins is gonna yell at me if I’m late again.  Christ, why does this have to happen to me?  I wish we wouldn’t have needed to use Kelsey’s car fund to pay for some of Joe’s medical bills.  But we had to.  I suppose I could dip into the life insurance savings he left us and get her something.  It’ll have to be safe.  And cheap.

She stops.

Fifth and Franklin.  Okay, with the school only five blocks away, she should be okay.  If I take a left here, I think there’s a Holiday station on the way I can hit.  Then I should get to work on time.  But I have to go right now.

“Okay,” Stephanie says.  “Be safe.”

Kelsey grabs her bag and purse.  “I always am, Mom.”

As soon as her daughter exits, she takes a hard left and speeds away, well past the speed limit.

Thank God no cops are nearby.

* * *

Claudia Raynes sits at the dining room table, and sets her backpack on the floor.  “Dad’s coming home tonight?” she asks.

Her Mom, Anna, picks up her cell.  “His plane should be landing in ninety minutes.”

“Too bad I can’t stay home from school to see him.  Is he going into work today?”

Anna shakes her head.  “He promised he wouldn’t go in until tomorrow.  Unless a huge crisis comes up.”

Claudia’s younger sisters, Emily and June, skip downstairs, each wearing shirts bearing their favorite Disney characters.  “Dad’s coming home?” asks Emily, the middle child, glancing back towards the front door.

“Yeah, Daddy!” June exclaims.

“He’ll be here when Mom gets done with work,” says Claudia.

“He promised to take us to King Chester’s when he got back,” Emily says.  “Can we go, Mom?  Please, can we?  I know it’s a school night and all, but he promised.”

Anna grins.  “As long as I can get my own personal veggie pizza, we all can go.”

“Yeah!”

“So, Dad isn’t going to be like an FBI agent or anything, right?” asks Claudia.  She opens her backpack, and pulls out her history homework.  She checks her answers for probably the tenth time.

Good, I was right.  I was worried I wrote something different for the question on Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech.

“No, he was just training at their academy,” Anna says.  “All new investigators go there.”

“What’s a cademy?” asks June.

“An academy is like school for adults,” Claudia says.

June giggles.  “Daddy had to go back to school?”

“You know where he’s been for the past eight weeks.  Did you think he went to Disney World or something?”

June giggles again while taking a bowl out of the cupboard.  “That would be fun.”

“He’s gonna go back to working his weird hours again, isn’t he?” Claudia asks her Mom.  “I hated it when he worked his vampire hours.”

“I don’t think he’ll be doing night shifts,” Anna says.  “But they could be longer days, depending on if he’s working on a large investigation.”

I hope not.

* * *

When the blue car races over from the other side of the street, skidding to a stop right next to her, Kelsey wonders if it’s one of her friends showing off their new car.

Or Greg.

No, it wouldn’t be Greg.  He loves his crotch rocket too much.  That’s why we only lasted two months.

In a flash, the driver leaps out and smacks her alongside the neck.  The last thing she remembers before completely blacking out is being tossed into the back seat.

To purchase the thriller novel Beholder’s Eye, click here for links to your favorite retailers. 

For more thrillers in the Central Division Series, please click on the link for a complete listing.