Reveal is currently the title for what was New Life, and this is an excerpt. I’m out of town for a few days, so I am stacking a few of these on the blog. I am delaying the release because of a new scene I’m adding. If you enjoy my writing, be sure to check out my Amazon Author Page. And don’t forget, my paperbacks are on sale for $8.99 until the end of the year (or until I get back…)

The C-130 set down at a general aviation runway in eastern North Carolina. An ambulance was sitting on the apron waiting for them. As soon as the plane stopped, the ramp folded down and the stretcher was carried out with Dave Cook on it. Patrick jogged along on one side, holding an IV bag. Hodges was on the other side carrying his heart monitor. They loaded him into the back of the ambulance as Jim, Stacy, and Pam loaded into a Suburban with Jack to follow.  

It took them fifteen minutes to get to the hospital, and the ambulance was already unloaded and pulling away from the Emergency Room doors as they arrived. Jim jumped from the truck and ran through the doors to find his father. Pam and Stacy were on his heels. Jack headed back to the airstrip.

***

“I brought you some lunch,” Amy Dixon said, walking into the waiting room. Dave Cook was in recovery from surgery. None of them had been able to see him, although his surgeon had come out to let them know he’d made it through surgery and his prognosis was hopeful. “My husband will be back here in a few hours. He wanted to make sure that Olivia Martinez and her henchmen were delivered into custody.” Stacy rushed over to her, and Amy hugged her as the younger woman told her how much she appreciated everything Jack had done.

“My husband is incredibly loyal. You are all friends,” Amy said, Stacy hugging her as she talked. “If you need anything, I’ll be in Mr. Chestik’s room with his wife and Mr. Williams until Dave is out of surgery.”

***

“Warren, you have got to stop getting shot,” Amy joked as Chestik lay in his bed.

“Getting shot does kind of suck,” he laughed back before wincing at the pain in his side. “But knowing that Jim and Stacy Cook are ok makes it hurt a lot less than normal.”

“How many times have you been shot, Warren?” Heather asked, holding her husband’s hand. “I mean… my brother told me this wasn’t the first time, but most people don’t have a frame of reference for a ‘normal pain level’ after being shot.”

“What do you think, buddy?” Roger said, “is this six or seven?”

Roger started counting off the times he could think of. Warren added one. Heather looked over at Amy with wide eyes.

“They are like my dad and my father-in-law, Heather. They were both Special Forces… freaked the rest of us out when we found out.” She turned and looked over to Chestik, “Warren, what’s important to me is that you are going to be ok.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dixon.”

As you may know if you have been following the excerpts from “New Life”, I am getting close to releasing it. Very close. Inn fact, close enough that I am working on the cover art.

I knew that I didn’t like the title “New Life”, so I was working on another. The two I have been working with are “Second Chances” and “Reveal”. Right now, “Reveal” is int he lead, so that is the one that I have built out with cover art. Although I could easily drop either name into either of the covers.

So, here they are…

• 

• 

I’ve ben going back and forth. The story has a lot of cool cars and the one on the right expresses that. However, the one on the left is more striking.

I’d LOVE to get some feedback.

This is a clip from the next book I’ll have out, shortly after the first of the year. I’m still working on the final title and then the cover art. This particular scene is after Deke’s wife’s funeral, when he figures out that the strife is not over. He makes a decision as to how to proceed.

Owen and Taki bookended Deke and Jimmy as they walked back to one of the armored, black Excursions that the company owned.  Dutch and three other guards climbed into an identical truck ahead of them.  The two vehicles pulled out of the cemetery and turned toward the cabin.  From where they were, it would be about an hour’s drive. 

Deke put his arm around his son’s shoulder and pulled him closer.  At five years old, he understood what death meant, but the finality was only now sinking in.  As he realized that his mother would never hug him again, that he wouldn’t be able to show her his latest drawing or have her tuck him into bed with a kiss on the forehead, tears started to fall from his eyes in earnest.  Even with the few words he’d been able to utter to his father, or that Taki had told his father he’d uttered to her, the older man knew exactly what he was feeling. 

“Jimmy, you know I talk to Mommy every night.  I know that she isn’t there… but I still talk to her.  You can, too,” Deke said. 

“Can she hear you?”

“I think she can, son.  I think she’s in heaven watching over us.  I know that more than anything she would want to watch you grow up… and if she can’t do it here, heaven for her would mean watching you from there.”

“Ok.  I’ll try that.  I have her picture in my room… I’ll talk to her picture.  It won’t be the same, but you’re probably right… she probably can listen to us.  I just wish she could talk back,” Jimmy said. 

“Me, too, buddy.  Me, too.”

The Excursion made the turn onto Ridgeback Road.  As much as everyone hated it, there was no way to drive to the cabin without driving past the spot Helena had died.  They would have gone somewhere else, but father and son both felt closer to her at the cabin.  It was the place she loved to be more than any other. 

The other Excursion exploded in a fireball in front of them, lifting off the ground and landing on its side.  Owen slammed on the brakes.  He smacked the shifter into reverse as the big diesel engine revved.  The rear tires spun as the axle hopped, looking for traction.  There was a Suburban behind them, and as they backed toward them, it turned to block the road. 

“Hold on, I have to ram it.  They’re blocking us in,” Owen said.  His voice carried force, but he didn’t yell the words. 

Taki pulled her handgun from her shoulder holster as she looked through the windows around the big SUV, looking for other threats. 

Their Excursion bashed into the back half of the Suburban, spinning it in the road and pushing it up on its side as bullets ricocheted off their truck.  Owen spun the wheel to the left, causing them to spin around.  He slammed the SUV into drive and stomped on the gas.  The rear glass spiderwebbed from larger caliber rounds hitting it. 

A box truck slid to a stop barely in front of them, pushing them off the side of the road.  Owen did his best to point the truck straight downhill to keep it from rolling.  They bashed through scrub and bounced over rocks as they sped down the steep incline. 

Just before they hit the lower section of road, the Excursion hit a large rock on the passenger side, forcing the truck up on its driver’s side as it hit the road. 

“Nine-one-one, what’s the nature of your emergency?” played over the truck’s speakers as Owen made the call. 

“We’re on Ridgeback Road, between the third and fourth switchback.  We’re being shot at,” he yelled, grimacing.  Blood was trickling down the side of his head, and there was a splatter of it on the inside of the window next to him where his head had stuck. 

“We have to get out of here,” Deke said. 

“This thing is a tank.  We should stay put,” Owen replied. 

“Like Dutch’s truck?  We’re getting out,” Deke repeated. 

“Mr. Swanson is right.  We need to get out and get away before they show up,” Taki said. 

She popped her seatbelt and fell on top of Owen with a grunt.  Deke undid his seatbelt and then Jimmy’s, as he held the boy in place.  Jimmy looked around, in shock, not understanding what was happening. 

Deke maneuvered past the back seat into the back of the SUV, with Jimmy following.  Taki crawled back to where they were and opened a compartment in the back.  There was a pair of rifles clamped in the hidden stash.  She pulled a release and the back door unlatched so she could open it.  She handed Deke her pistol and stepped out the back, rifle in hand. 

Owen came up behind them.  He grabbed the other rifle and squeezed around them to get out of the truck.  He wanted to be sure the area was secure before he let Jimmy and Deke out into the open. 

A round pinged off the tailgate from the road a hundred feet above. 

“Break for the downhill side on my mark.  That should be closer to the police when they come, and any pursuit coming from up the road will have trouble getting past here,” Owen said.  “When I say go, you three go.  Ok?”

“What about you?” Deke asked. 

“I’ll be right behind you.”

Owen stepped around the back of the truck and put his sights on the black Mercedes that had just come around the switchback a hundred yards away.  He unloaded a thirty-round magazine as Taki led Jimmy and Deke over the edge of the road.  He grabbed another magazine and snapped it into the rifle.  He stepped around the truck and emptied that one at the car as well.  Steam poured from the unprotected radiator. 

Swapping mags again, and grabbing a spare, he readied himself to make his sprint toward the far side of the road.  Using the truck as cover he started his run.  He built up his momentum and exploded out from behind the truck, jumping off the side of the road as rounds slammed into the ground behind him and into the trees above him. 

He landed and tried to tuck and roll, but failed miserably, landing on one leg and then smacking into a tree.  The rifle flew out of his hands, bouncing away down the hill as he dropped to the ground at the base of the tree, unable to move. 

“I’m going back up for Owen,” Taki said.  “Take Jimmy down the hill.  From the sound of the sirens, they should be here any moment.  I’ll cover you from up here.  Go,” she said. 

Deke took Jimmy’s hand and took off down the hill.  When they got to the road, they could hear gunshots from above, and there were no police vehicles in sight. 

“We need to keep moving.  Are you ok, Jimmy?”

“I’m scared, Daddy.  Is it going to be ok?” 

“It will be.  I promise.”  It wasn’t a promise just to Jimmy.  It was a promise to himself.  He realized he barely knew his own son… or his wife.  His work had consumed him and was within inches of killing him as it had killed Helena.

The two slid and bumped down another hundred feet.  As they reached the road, there was a loud explosion as a fireball rose from where the Excursion was.  Deke’s phone rang.  He looked at it for a moment.  Raul’s name popped up on the screen. 

“It’s done,” Raul said before Deke uttered a word.  “I’ll give you details when you come in, but it was bigger than I had even expected.  I also planted some emails to make a few of them think it was them trying to clean each other out.”

“Ok.  Good,” Deke said, hanging up the phone. 

He looked down at his son.  There was a look of grim determination on the face of the five-year-old.  His face was dirty from sliding down the hills, with cleaner streaks where the tears had run. 

“You want to go somewhere far away?” Deke asked the child. 

“Where Mommy is?”

“No… not there.  Just somewhere that isn’t here.  Just you and me.”

“Yeah.  I don’t like here right now.” 

Deke nodded.  “Me, either.”

He pulled his phone back out and made a call.  As he talked, they started walking down the next steep hill.  A police car streaked past behind them, not seeing them down the hill off the side of the road. 

Thirty minutes later the two emerged in a backyard in the valley.  They walked around to the front of the house and turned to walk up the sidewalk.  It was several blocks out to a main street. 

Deke flagged down a cab and asked the driver to take them to the airport.  The driver looked at him suspiciously.  “You got cash, bucko?””

Deke reached into his pocket and peeled off a fifty-dollar bill.  “This cover it?”

“Sure, climb in.  You ain’t done nothin’ illegal, have ya?” the cabbie asked. 

“No.  Just having a crap day,” Deke responded. 

“The worst,” Jimmy added. 

Fifteen minutes later they pulled up in front of the passenger terminal. 

“We need to go to the General Aviation side… where the private planes are.”

“That where you keep your private jet?” the driver said, laughing. 

“I have a whole fleet of them,” Deke said, jokingly. 

He dropped them at the curb and drove away. 

“Deke?” a man said, stepping from the office.

“Hopefully only for a little longer, Jack.  We need to disappear.”

“Glad I hadn’t left yet.  Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and we can go.”  The three of them headed inside.  Jack showed Deke and Jimmy to the maintenance employees locker room so that they could get cleaned up, while he tried to rustle up some new clothes for them.  As soon as they were ready, he led them onto the business jet and told the pilot to head for home. 

As Jimmy fell asleep in his seat, his head resting on his father’s lap, Jack asked Deke what had happened.  The two men spent the five hours of the flight talking about the day’s events. 

“I need to know if Jill Takanata and Owen Rogers are ok.  Can you find out?” Deke asked just before the plane landed. 

“Yeah.  I’ll go through channels and find out for you.  We’re already working on temporary new identities for you, too.”

If you enjoyed this, keep an eye on my Amazon Author page. There are also some other fun books available there as well.

Since this will be the next book out, I thought I would toss out another excerpt. They seem fairly popular on the blog. In the first scene, Stacy and Jim are approached by a reporter because of Stacy’s popularity at the auctions… and in the second, one of their customers lets her drive a car she designed but hadn’t been able to drive.

“Miss King,” the man said, walking quickly toward her through the hotel lobby, “can I get a moment with you?  My name is Luther Simonsen.  I’m with Motor News TV.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Simonsen?” she replied, pulling Jim back to her side with her hand in his. 

“Please, call me Luther.  We would love to profile you and your shop on MNTV.  Your car was a hit, but beyond that, the clip of you telling the little girl she could be a car designer is going viral.”

“Well, Luther, the shop belongs to both my fiancé and I… it isn’t my shop.  If you’d like to profile us and our shop, we welcome that.  But I wouldn’t want to impart a false story,” she said firmly. 

“I understand, Miss King.  We certainly don’t wish to cut… your fiancé… out.  Just women owned businesses in this industry are rare.  That is a very powerful angle.”

She led him to the seating area in the lobby and motioned for all of them to sit down.  “Luther, please call me Stacy.  My fiancé is Jim Cook.  I don’t know if you were at the Orlando auction in June, but he sold his debut car there for over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  A ’69 Lincoln Mark III.  Millie and Buck Williams bought it.  I had nothing to do with that car, and Jim was an absolute unknown.  But, because of that car, Jim pulled in commissions to build more than half a million dollars in custom cars.  And the money from that car and those commissions meant that he had the freedom to let me run wild on this car… which he’d already partially built.

“I understand the angle you are pursuing, and I would love to see more women empowered in this industry.  But to downplay Jim’s role…  I’m sorry, I can’t do that.  I think we could tell a compelling story as it is.”

“Thank you, Stacy.  Perhaps I got the wrong impression.  We still want to do that profile.  You are a hot commodity right now.”

“Luther,” Jim spoke up, “if you think she’s hot now, wait until you see what we have coming out.”

“You know our number, Mr. Simonsen.  Feel free to give us a call next week.  Right now, we have a flight to catch,” Stacy said as she and Jim rose from the sofa they’d been sitting on. 

***

Stacy slipped behind the wheel of the Mercury Marauder.  It was almost sunset, and she could see the heat rising off the road in front of her.  The temperature was hovering around a hundred degrees.  She pushed the start button and the big Merc fired to life with a roar, then steadied into a rumble of barely contained violence. 

“I think I’m actually kind of nervous,” she said, laughing to Gayle, who was sitting next to her. 

“Don’t be.  Jim did a beautiful job on the engine.  It’s as gentle as a pussycat.  I pulled it off the trailer, and it was shockingly easy to drive,” she replied. 

Stacy pushed the shifter into first gear.  She eased off the clutch and rolled forward.  This was the fourth manual transmission vehicle she’d driven, and it was very different than any of the others.  Then she punched her foot to the floor.  The front end of the car threatened to leave the ground before the rear tires broke traction, screaming in protest. 

The car slewed sideways before she lifted from the throttle, steering into the skid and pushed the clutch to the floor.  A grin broke out across her face. 

“Ok, maybe this pussycat is really a lion,” Gayle laughed. 

The cloud of tire smoke wafted past them.  A little more comfortable now, Stacy gave it a second run.  She didn’t push quite as hard, but ran the car up through third gear, hitting almost a hundred miles an hour.  She tagged the brakes, slowed and turned around and drove back past where everyone was waiting.  She slowed and then slipped back into the throttle, accelerating past the cameras at over a hundred. 

“That is pretty awesome,” she said as she stepped out of the car, the camera rolling on her.  “Jim, the powertrain you designed is breathtaking.  And the car really wants to stay planted.”  She turned to Gayle, who’d stepped up next to her, “Thank you so much for letting me drive it, Gayle.” 

“Anytime, Stacy.  And I can’t wait to see what you and Jim build next.  You two are an incomparable team,” she replied.  Gayle knew exactly how to frame the interview.  She and Stacy had talked about the TV people wanting to make it more about her and less about Jim. 

I am three steps from releasing this book. It is getting a final edit, and then I need to come up with a better title, and the cover needs to be designed. So far ,the cover struggle is the hardest one…

Yeah, so I’m a little late today. I’ve been working on my NaNoWriMo project (National Novel Writing Month) so I have been a little preoccupied. For NaNoWriMo I am writing a 50k word novel. It isn’t going as well as I’d like, but I have been staying on track as far as word counts.

Back to the reviews.

For independent authors, reviews are like lifeblood. More reviews means more visibility. More visibility means more sales. More sales means more opportunity for reviews.

A vicious circle.

The big publishers spend big money to get those early reviews. Some independent authors do as well, but for many of us, buying a bunch of positive reviews is either not practical or not something we are comfortable with. There have been more than a couple of books I’ve read that did NOT match up to their reviews.

One of the worst books I have ever read had an average review of over 4.5 stars on Amazon. These weren’t typos. Were talking about structural deficiency. Characters couldn’t have been more two-dimensional if they had been drawn on the page with crayon. Their reactions, their descriptions… everything. The action was predictable.

But worse than that, it was more like reading a book report by a twelve-year-old about a book written by another twelve-year-old… not even talented sixth graders. Major plot conflicts would be resolved invisibly. Kidnapping, held-hostage, suddenly and inexplicably freed… no narrative needed.

Bottom line… give me a read. Then, it would be really cool if you gave me a review. Thank you.

This should be my next book, but the name is going to change. It’s tough to come up with good excerpts that don’t give too much of the story away or spoil surprises that might be in the book.

Owen and Taki bookended Deke and Jimmy as they walked back to one of the black armored Excursions that the company owned.  Dutch and three other guards climbed into an identical truck ahead of them.  The two vehicles pulled out of the cemetery and turned toward the cabin.  From where they were, it would be about an hour’s drive. 

Deke put his arm around his son’s shoulder and pulled him closer.  At five years old, he understood what death meant, but the finality was only now sinking in.  As he realized that his mother would never hug him again, that he wouldn’t be able to show her his latest drawing, tears started to fall from his eyes in earnest.  Even with the few words he’d been able to utter to his father, or that Taki had told his father he’d uttered to her, the older man knew exactly what he was feeling. 

“Jimmy, you know I talk to Mommy every night.  I know that she isn’t there… but I still talk to her.  You can, too,” Deke said. 

“Can she hear you?”

“I think she can, son.  I think she’s in heaven watching over us.  I know that more than anything she would want to watch you grow up… and if she can’t do it here, heaven for her would mean watching you from there.”

“Ok.  I’ll try that.  I have her picture in my room… I’ll tell her picture.  It won’t be the same, but you’re probably right… she probably can listen to us.  I just wish she could talk back,” Jimmy said. 

“Me, too, buddy.  Me, too.”

The Excursion made the turn onto Ridgeback Road.  As much as everyone hated it, there was no way to drive to the cabin without driving past the spot Helena had died.  They would have gone somewhere else, but father and son both felt closer to her at the cabin.  It was the place she loved to be more than any other. 

The front Excursion exploded in a fireball in front of them, lifting off the ground and landing on its side.  Owen slammed on the brakes.  He smacked the shifter into reverse as the big diesel engine revved.  The rear tires spun as the axle hopped, looking for traction.  There was a Suburban behind them, and as they backed toward them, it turned to block the road. 

“Hold on, I have to ram it.  They’re blocking us in,” Owen said.  His voice carried force, but he didn’t yell the words. 

Taki pulled her handgun from her shoulder holster as she looked through the windows around the big SUV, looking for other threats. 

Their Excursion bashed into the back half of the Suburban, spinning it in the road and pushing it up on its side as bullets ricocheted off their truck.  Owen spun the wheel to the left, causing them to spin around.  He slammed the SUV into drive and stomped on the gas.  The rear glass spiderwebbed from larger caliber rounds hitting it. 

A box truck slid to a stop barely in front of them, pushing them off the side of the road.  Owen did his best to point the truck straight downhill to keep it from rolling.  They bashed through scrub and bounced over rocks as they sped down the steep incline. 

Just before they hit the lower section of road, the Excursion hit a large rock on the passenger side, forcing the truck up on its driver’s side as it hit the road. 

“Nine-one-one, what’s the nature of your emergency?” played over the truck’s speakers as Owen made the call. 

“We’re on Ridgeback Road, between the third and fourth switchback.  We’re being shot at,” he yelled, grimacing.  Blood was trickling down the side of his head, and there was a splatter of it on the inside of the window next to him where his head had stuck. 

“We have to get out of here,” Deke said. 

“This thing is a tank.  We should stay put,” Owen replied. 

“Like Dutch’s truck?  We’re getting out,” Deke repeated. 

“Mr. Swanson is right.  We need to get out and get away before they show up,” Taki said. 

She popped her seatbelt and fell on top of Owen with a grunt.  Deke undid his seatbelt and then Jimmy’s, as he held the boy in place.  Jimmy looked around, in shock, not understanding what was happening around him. 

Deke maneuvered past the back seat into the back of the SUV, with Jimmy following.  Taki crawled back to where they were and opened a compartment in the back.  There was a pair of rifles clamped in the hidden stash.  She pulled a release and the back door unlatched so she could open it.  She handed Deke her pistol and stepped out the back, rifle in hand. 

Owen came up behind them.  He grabbed the other rifle and squeezed around them to get out of the truck.  He wanted to be sure the area was secure before he let Jimmy and Deke out into the open. 

A round pinged off the tailgate from the road a hundred feet above. 

“Break for the downhill side on my mark.  That should be closer to the police when they come, and any pursuit coming from up the road will have trouble getting past here,” Owen said.  “When I say go, you three take it.  Ok?”

“What about you?” Deke asked. 

“I’ll be right behind you.”

Owen stepped around the back of the truck and put his sights on the black Mercedes that had just come around the switchback a hundred yards away.  He unloaded a thirty-round magazine as Taki led Jimmy and Deke over the edge of the road.  He grabbed another magazine and snapped it into the rifle.  He stepped around the truck and emptied that one at the car as well.  Steam poured from the unprotected radiator. 

Swapping mags again, and grabbing a spare, he readied himself to make his sprint toward the far side of the road.  Using the truck as cover he started his run.  He built up his momentum and exploded out from behind the truck, jumping off the side of the road as rounds slammed into the ground behind him and into the trees above him. 

He landed and tried to tuck and roll, but failed miserably, landing on one leg and then smacking into a tree.  The rifle flew out of his hands, bouncing away down the hill as he dropped to the ground at the base of the tree, unable to move. 

I hope you enjoyed this. The previous part was posted Monday. If you liked this, check out my Amazon Author page. I have eight books currently posted, and this one should be there before the end of the year! You can also check out my short stories on Vocal.