As she got within a couple yards of the front steps, she stopped.  She could see the blinds move a little.  She held her arms out to her sides and slowly turned all the way around.  Her snug fitting jeans and tucked in black t-shirt making her disarmament obvious. 

“I’m not armed, Lisa,” she said loudly enough for the woman inside to hear.  “I’d like to come in and talk with you.”

“Go away!” came the shout from inside. 

“I can’t do that Lisa.  I want to help you… and to do that, I need to talk with you.  Better me than the police”

“Why’zat?” the woman shouted. 

“They are looking to find crimes, Lisa.  I’m looking to prevent them.  Why don’t you let me in.  I’m not here to hurt you.”

The front door cracked open.  Seeing the dark sliver of the inside, Melody slowly walked up the steps and through the front door, holding her hands a little above her waist, keeping them in sight of the woman waiting behind the door.  It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.  As she waited, the situation slowly came into focus. 

“Hi Lisa.  My name is Melody.  I want to help you.  Will you let me do that?” she said, finally able to see the other woman. 

“How exactly can you help me?”

“I don’t know yet.  That’s why I wanted to talk with you.  How would you like me to help you?” Melody asked. 

As she looked around, she could see the woman standing in the kitchen doorway with a hunting rifle.  Deeper in the kitchen was a toddler in a highchair scribbling in an activity book for a child that was much older.  To Melody’s right, in the living room, a beaten and bloodied man was tied to a kitchen chair. 

“I just want everyone to go away,” Lisa said, anguish in her voice. 

“I wish I could, Lisa, but I can’t do that.  Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Lisa was leaning against the doorway, her fatigue evident.  She kept taking her hand off the rifle to wipe her eyes. 

“He was beatin’ me and beatin’ my baby, so I left him.  The bastard came back ta get my baby, and I told him ta go ta hell,” Lisa said.  “I didn’t mean for all this.  I just don’t want him beatin’ my baby.”

“I understand.  But Lisa… it looks like Wallace is hurt pretty bad.  Can we let a medic look at him?”

“I don’t think I can do that, Melody,” Lisa said, sniffling. 

“Lisa, I really want to help you.  And I will.  But if Wallace dies, your little baby won’t have any parents.  He’ll be dead, and you’ll be in jail.  I can try to protect you and see if there is a way to work this out… but if he’s dead, my hands will be tied.  You understand?”

Lisa stared at her for a minute. 

“Why are you here, Melody?”

“I told you… to help you.”

“Who hired you… you said you weren’t a cop.”

“Nobody is paying me, Lisa,” Melody said calmly.  “Wallace’s parents called a friend of mine yesterday when he didn’t come home.  They were worried.  I came to get him… but now that I know about your baby, keeping her safe is the most important thing for me.  More important than Wallace or you, do you understand me, Lisa?”

“Why… why is my baby important?”

“I help people… people that are in trouble.  Especially kids.  Please let me help you and your baby.  Let me get a medic to help Wallace.”

She reluctantly nodded.  Melody slowly backed to the door.  She turned and opened it.  She motioned for Patrick to come to the door.  He already knew from listening to Melody’s comm unit, so he’d stripped off his body armor and weapons. 

With just a small medic kit he walked over to the steps and came up to the door. 

“Hi Lisa.  My name is Patrick and I’m here to help Wallace, ok?  Can I come it to look at him?”

“You have a gun?” Lisa asked. 

“No, but I have a pocketknife in case I have to cut his clothes, see?” he said, holding it in his hand. 

She nodded and Patrick walked inside.  He moved toward Wallace as his eyes adjusted, then gently cut the bonds holding the man to the chair.  He pulled him from the chair and laid him on the dirty floor of the trailer.  He cut away his shirt to look at the gunshot wound in Wallace’s chest. 

“One, his pulse is weak and thready.  He’s lost a lot of blood.  I can slow it down, but he’s gonna need emergency transport and IV fluids,” Patrick said into his radio. 

“Lisa,” Melody said, “it doesn’t look good for Wallace.  We need to get him in an ambulance and to a hospital.  Patrick is talking to our people outside.  Can we take him out there so that we can get him to a hospital?  I’ll stay with you as a hostage if you want.”

Lisa was looking around… at her baby, at her husband, at Melody, then back again. 

“I didn’t want ta kill anyone,” she said after a few minutes.  “Don’t let him die.”

Lisa collapsed to the floor, sobbing into her hands, the rifle clattering to the kitchen floor. 

“Gunny, get a stretcher up here to help Patrick get Wallace out.  No guns,” Melody said into her comms. 

Ric and Bobby came around the shed a moment later, their tactical gear stripped off.  Ric was carrying the stretcher and was first to the door.  He ignored Lisa and the gun and turned toward Patrick and the man he was on the floor with.  Bobby slid around near the unconscious man’s head, while Ric was at his feet.  They slid him over onto the stretcher and gently carried him outside. 

As Melody held Lisa, who was crying uncontrollably, an ambulance pulled up without its siren on.  A moment later, again with no siren, it quickly pulled away. 

“Lisa, why don’t you tell me what happened?” Melody said as she walked over to where the other woman was leaned against the wall. 

She slid the gun away from her and sat down next to her.  Lisa started pouring out everything that had happened to get her to where she was.  They spent a few minutes talking back and forth, Melody asking questions, Lisa answering. 

“Is Wallace gonna die?  Did I kill him?” Lisa said through her tears.

“Lisa, Patrick is the best.  He’s with Wallace and I’ll know everything that happens, ok?  Can we go outside now?” Melody said calmly. 

“Are you gonna arrest me now?” Lisa asked. 

“I told you, I’m not the police.  Do you want to carry your baby out, or me?”

“I’ll carry her,” Lisa said, sniffling again. 

The woman walked over and gently picked her baby girl up from the highchair.  She hugged her tight as she carried her outside, walking behind Melody.  Lisa looked around when she got outside, wondering where the police cars were.  When she didn’t see any, she gave Melody a confused look. 

“Lisa,” Melody said softly as she approached the woman again, “I need to get a look at you… to confirm what you said inside.  Can my husband hold your baby?” She pointed to the big man with the bushy red beard. 

“I… I guess,” Lisa replied, unease in her voice.

“Lisa, we’re not going to take your little girl away.  His name is Will, but everyone calls him Gunny.  He’ll keep your baby safe.  Trust me.”

Lisa handed her baby over to Gunny.  He started bouncing the little girl and had her laughing and squealing before Lisa and Melody could walk away.  Melody led Lisa around to the side of the shed, away from the guys on the team and asked her to lift her shirt.  Lisa complied, showing her to scrapes, scars and bruises she had all over. 

As they came back around the Sheriff’s car came rolling up to the fence around the mobile home’s yard.  The Sheriff stepped from his car, a tall man made even taller by the Stetson he set on top of his head as he cleared the car.  He rested his hand on his sidearm and made his way toward Gunny, who was bouncing the baby. 

“Very funny, Big Guy,” the girl said as she stretched.  Over the next few minutes, the rest of the students joined them outside the gym, ready for their run.  “Sergeant Grafton here thinks he might be faster than us,” Tisha informed the group.  She was giving him a little good-natured ribbing.  “How old are you, like forty-five?”

“Fifty-seven, actually.  And I didn’t say I would be faster… I just thought you guys would knock out five miles in thirty or thirty-five minutes,” Gunny told the kids. 

“Then let’s get started old man,” Jaden said as he turned to start running. 

Aside from Tisha, the teenagers all took off, leaving Gunny in their dust.  Gunny slung on the pack that had been at his feet, and quickly caught Tisha and followed the rest of the runners off school grounds, and into the neighborhood. 

After about twenty minutes of running, they were more than halfway through the route.  He and Tisha had caught all the kids except Jaden, who was still a hundred yards ahead.  They rounded the corner of a block, bringing him back into view.  Gunny watched as someone stepped in front of the youngster and barred his path, grabbing at him.  He picked up his pace and caught up with the youth a moment later. 

“Do we have a problem, here?” Gunny asked the man as he grabbed the other man’s hand. 

“I don’t have a problem, Bitch, but you will if you don’t move along,” he replied. 

“You really need to watch your language, as well as take your hand off this young man, or we will have a problem,” the large, former Marine said forcefully.

The man reached for his pocket with his loose hand, Gunny still holding a grip on the wrist of the hand he’d grabbed Jaden with.  Gunny looked down and saw him pulling a gun from his pocket.  As he squeezed the man’s left wrist, hard, he reached for his right hand… the one going for the gun.  Before the gun was completely free of the pocket, Gunny had twisted the man’s hand backward and thumbed the safety back on.  The sound of his wrist breaking was clearly heard by all the students. 

“You REALLY shouldn’t play with guns if you aren’t going to learn how to use them,” Gunny said as he twisted the gun from the man’s hand… he was no longer able to keep grip on the pistol with his broken wrist.  He let go of Jaden with the other hand and started crying out in pain. 

Without letting go of the man’s left hand, he smashed his elbow into his face, breaking his nose, which everyone also all heard. 

“You are a dead motherfucker…” he said before Gunny cut him off.

“I thought I told you to watch your language, you little punk.  And this was your only warning.  Next time I have a problem with you, I won’t be gentle.  And you better get your nose and your wrist looked at…”  Then he reached around into his pocket and pulled out the man’s driver’s license.  He noted the name and address from it and handed it back to him.  “I know who you are, Darnell Williams, and I know where you live.  You don’t want me to have to visit you.  Understand?”

The students were all shocked by the actions of their substitute teacher.  In class, despite his size and menacing appearance, he had been all smiles and patience.  At six and a half feet tall, he towered over all but the tallest students, and with his broad shoulders and thick arms, he made even them look small in comparison.  While his emotions often hid behind his bushy, rust-colored beard… with a few streaks of gray… today they were plain to see.  Gunny was angry and they could see the flash in his eyes and his shaved head turning red, like a cartoon character. 

Then he leaned in close and quietly said into his ear, “I know that you’re really just a chickenshit bully.  If you weren’t, you’d be doing something real with your life.  You mess with ANY of these kids, I’ll find you.”  Then he pushed the punk away.  “Let’s finish the run,” he said to the teens. 

Ten minutes later they trotted up to the back gym door they had left forty minutes earlier.  Gunny slung off his pack and grabbed a bottle of water.  “Tell you what, that was a nice run,” he said.  “Maybe next time we won’t be interrupted.”

“Mr. Grafton,” Jaden said quietly, even though the other students could all hear him, “That guy is one of the biggest dealers in the hood.  He isn’t gonna let that dis’ slide, Sir.  You need to watch your back.”

After getting her car started, she cooked everyone breakfast, then went to wake up Elise.  They started eating as they waited for her mother to wake up.  Elise was pumped about going to the zoo.  Her mother had been promising it for a few weeks, and she was ready. 

At eleven there was a knock at the door. 

“Elise, honey, can you get that?” Ginger called out from the kitchen, suppressing a giggle.  She snuck over to the doorway so she could see when Elise opened the door. 

The little girl unlocked the door and swung it open.  When she saw who it was, she squealed.  She flung open the screen door and leapt into Rock’s arms.  Elise’s grandmother hurried out of the living room to see what the commotion was about.

“Mr. Rock!  Are you going to the zoo with Mommy and me?” Elise asked. 

“Do you want me to?” he replied as she squeezed his neck in a hug. 

“Yes.  Yippee,” she shouted excitedly.  “Mommy… Mr. Rock is going with us.”

“I know, honey.  I invited him last night.”

Cheryl stepped into the hallway behind her daughter.  She wore a disapproving look on her face like armor as she surveyed the man standing in front of her, holding her granddaughter.  Her first thought was that he looked like a ruffian.  Bald head, beard, black leather jacket, engineer boots.  She half expected there would be the name of a motorcycle gang on the back of the jacket. 

Ginger walked over and kissed the big man on the cheek as Elise slipped out of his arms and into hers.  She let Elise drop to the floor. 

“Mom, this is Rock.  We work together.  I invited him to the zoo today with us.  He’s the one that brought me home last night when my car wouldn’t start and made arrangements to have it towed home by a friend of his,” she said, trying to work the frown off her mother’s face. 

“Ma’am,” he nodded toward her, putting his hand out.  When he shook Cheryl’s hand, his dwarfed hers.  “My real name is Clarence Rockford Meyers… but everyone called me Rock when I started playing football in high school, and then in the Army.” 

“I’m pleased to meet you, Clarence.  My name is Cheryl,” she finally managed to say.  “So, you were in the Army?”

“Yes, Ma’am.  Airborne.”

Cheryl nodded.  “You guys be safe.  I can’t wait to see my little Elise,” she said, picking up her granddaughter to give her a hug. 

Rock caught the older woman’s eye.  “They are safe with me,” he said, his expression serious before he turned back to Elise and gave her his warmest smile. 

Cheryl grabbed her daughter’s arm as Elise followed Rock out the door, “Are you sure you’re ok with him?”

“Yes, Mother.  Rock is a very nice guy.”

“Have you two…”

“No, Mother.  He just walks me to my car after late shifts to make sure I’m safe, and he’s always really nice to me.”

“Ok… but you be sure to call me a lot.  And send some pictures so I don’t worry.”

Ginger rolled her eyes, but knew it was pointless to disagree with her. 

***

They were supposed to get back before dark, but it was a couple of hours later when Rock’s Mustang pulled into the driveway.  Cheryl peered out through the curtains as Rock hefted a sleeping Elise in his arms, and Ginger unloaded a pair of giant stuffed bears from the other side of the car.  She was giggling like a schoolgirl as she followed him up onto the porch.  Cheryl opened the door, holding it for them as they passed. 

“Follow me up to Elise’s room,” Ginger said.  “She is really out, isn’t she?” 

He followed her up the stairs as she dragged the two giant bears with her.  A moment later, he re-emerged, softly treading down the steps.  He walked into the living room where Cheryl was. 

“Sorry we were late.  Elise saw a carnival and wanted to stop.  When she saw the stuffed bears, she wanted one, so I tried to win it for her.  Then ginger wanted one, too,” he smiled. 

Cheryl couldn’t help but smile back at him.  Despite her still thinking he looked like a ruffian, he looked like a happy kid, too.  That morning when she’d seen him, she had thought he was in his thirties.  As she looked at him now, she thought he might be thirty… or a little younger. 

“Ginger said she needed to get Elise ready for bed,” he added. 

“Make yourself comfortable,” Cheryl said, “I’ll go give her a hand so she can head back down.”

A couple of moments later, Ginger walked into the room and plopped down next to Rock on the sofa.  “Do you want a beer or something?”

“Water would be good, if it’s no trouble.” 

She hopped back off the sofa and quickly grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the fridge, still smiling about the day. 

“Thanks for inviting me, Ginger.  I had a blast.  I loved hanging out with you and Elise.”

“I had the best time… ever… and I’m pretty sure Elise did, too.  We should do it again,” she said, hopefully. 

“Are you asking me out?” Rock said, jokingly.

“Is that what’s it’s going to take?” Ginger replied.  Her expression belied her seriousness.  “If this had been a date, Rock, it would have been the best date I had ever been on… and the fact that my daughter loves you…  If I have to ask you on a date, I can do that.  Can I take you to dinner?”

“Wow.  I don’t know what to say.”  He looked back at her seriously.

“I get it,” she interrupted.  “Dating a woman with a child is a lot different.  We can still be friends, though.”  Ginger looked down and pulled her hand back from his leg where it had been sitting after she turned toward him.

“Ginger,” he said, his hand slipping under her chin as he turned her face back toward his, “I would be delighted to go to dinner with you.  Sorry… I’m not very good at all this.  I’ve wanted to ask you out since the first time we worked together.  I was pretty sure you’d shoot me down, though.  I always thought a guy like Greg was your type.”

“You working tomorrow?” he asked. 

“Nope.  You?” 

“No.  First night off in nine days?”

“Going out with your girlfriend?” she asked. 

“No girlfriend to go out with.”

She raised an eyebrow as she looked back over at him.  He was so far from her type it wasn’t funny.  Her type was Greg, one of the waiters.  They had been out several times.  She spun around just in time to see him walking back out into the dining room with a handful of rolled silverware to put on the tables.  He was also tall, like Rock, but slim.  He had mid-length, very stylish blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes.  He was gregarious and flirtatious, often having tables of women out for “girl’s nights” stopping in to see him. 

“Looks like you are almost done.  Let me walk you to your car,” he said. 

“Thanks, Rock.  You don’t have to… everything should be fine.”

He looked at her.  A year ago, a waitress had been assaulted.  Rock hadn’t worked there then, but he had always made sure every woman that worked there knew he would escort them to their car. 

A couple of minutes later, Ginger slipped her purse from under the bar and grabbed her jacket.  She counted out the tips from the tip-out jar from the waitstaff, to split between her and Rock. 

“You ready to rock it, Ginger?” he asked, smiling. 

She hopped off the stool and headed toward the kitchen to walk out the back, Rock next to her.  They circled through the prep area, both of them greeting a few of the kitchen staff, Rock dropping off a couple of tips to cooks that had helped him that evening or another. 

As they stepped out the door into the alley behind the restaurant, Rock turned to her, “You just upped my cred with a couple of the guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re jealous I get to walk you out.”

She smiled and grabbed his arm.  “My hero,” she joked. 

They continued to talk as he walked her to her car.  Since they were downtown, she was parked in a surface lot a couple of blocks away. 

“This is me,” she said, pointing to her boxy little car.  “Thanks again, Rock.” 

“Anytime, Ginger,” he said, holding her door and she slid in.  He gently closed her door as she slipped the key into the ignition. 

Click.  Nothing.

Click, tic, tic, tic.  Nothing. 

“Crap.  Let me call my mom,” Ginger said, climbing back out of the car. 

“You don’t need to do that.  I can give you a ride home.”

“Are you sure?  I’m like thirty minutes north.”

“Hey, damsel in distress… that’s why I’m here,” Rock replied. 

She really liked his smile.  His eyes were warm and comforting. 

“Thanks, Rock.  You’re the best.”

They started walking and he pulled out his phone and typed in a text quickly.  A moment later his phone vibrated, and he read the response. 

“I have a buddy with a towing company.  He said he can pick up the car and drop it at your house.  He owes me a few favors.  We just need to drop the key off to him.”

“You don’t have to do that, Rock?” she replied, her hand lightly settling on his arm. 

“Not a big deal.” 

It was about a ten-minute walk back to his car.  He was parked the opposite direction from the restaurant.  Ginger found herself enjoying the conversation.  She also appreciated the cool, but not cold weather as they walked. 

“Hopefully, mine starts,” he said as they approached his car, a late-model Mustang Mach I.  He held the door for her again, and she slipped into the seat.  He walked around, dropping into the driver’s seat.  His car fired up immediately. 

They continued their conversation as they met up with his friend to drop the car key off, then talking more during the drive to her house.  Ginger found that the more she talked with him, the more she enjoyed being with him.  They had worked together six months, usually sharing at least three shifts a week, and they had talked more in the hour since they had left the restaurant than they had in the previous six months.  It didn’t take her long to figure out that Rock was actually kind of shy.  He hid it well as he interacted with customers. 

“Rock, thank you so much,” she said as they sat in front of her mother’s house.  “You really went above and beyond tonight.” 

“I’m just glad I was able to help,” he replied as the tow truck backed into her driveway to drop off the car. 

“It won’t balance out everything you did for me tonight, but can I talk you into going to the zoo tomorrow with Elise and me?”

“I don’t want to intrude on time with your daughter,” he said awkwardly. 

“Are you kidding.  Elise adores you.  She’ll be thrilled.  It’ll be fun.  Please?”  She reached out and laid her hand on his. 

“I guess,” he said. 

“Awesome,” she said, excitedly.  “Meet us here at eleven.  She is going to be beside herself.  I’m excited, too.  I can’t wait.” 

She glanced through the peephole, expecting to see a badge.  Instead, she saw Walt Hooper… her pet hacker.  And his eyes were bugged out as he kept looking back and forth, up and down her hallway… the hallway that should have been secured and that he shouldn’t have had access to without going through the doorman downstairs. 

“What is going on, Walt?” she said, swinging the door open.  “How did you get into the building?”

“Your building security sucks,” he said, dropping a little contraption on the table in her kitchen as he removed his jacket and dropped heavily into a chair.  “I hacked the back door faster than most of the people here can get through with their keycard.”

“So, what has you so spooked?  It’s six-thirty-five in the morning.”

“Yeah… I waited as long as I could.  I’m going on vacation, and not taking a phone with me.  Feel free to lose my number.”

“What did you do?” she said, her eyes narrowed; accusation in her icy glare. 

“We couldn’t have this conversation on the phone.  No telling who would have listened to it.  Hell, they could still be listening,” Walt said, looking around the small dining nook.

“Walt, what are you talking about?” Vici said, pulling Walt’s eyes back to her.

“Your guy… David Cook.  I backtracked a few things.  I followed the leads you gave me last night… looked for the property records of the shopping center he’s in, and then tried to backtrack accounts… you know, the standard stuff.”

“And?”

“And… I don’t know who that guy is, but you need to let go.  Do a nice little story on his charity, if he wants you to, and then walk away.  This isn’t your normal shtick, Vici.”

“Geez, Walt?  I…  What?  I don’t get it.”

“Ok, here’s what I know.  Your guy… this David… he is not a criminal.  I’m pretty sure he’s not in witness protection.  His identity was created, about six years ago like you thought.  But whoever did the creation was not DoJ. 

“That shopping center… I’m pretty sure he owns it.  The account I thought he might be skimming from… pretty sure he owns that, too.  The other account that supports his charity work… that one is what rained hell down on me.”

Walt got up and walked into Vici’s kitchen.  He started looking around, and a minute later came out with a bottle of whiskey and a glass.  He poured himself a couple of fingers of the whiskey, and then corked the bottle again.  After putting the bottle back where he found it, he quickly downed the whiskey and set the glass on the counter. 

“I don’t know who he is.  I don’t know who the other person is.  But they know who I am.  I’m a good hacker.  One of the best.  I know that you just think of me as someone that can get into a lot of systems, but I am actually very good.  I’m not saying that just to toot my own horn.  The number of people in this country that are better at this game than me could all sit around this table with us.  You follow me?” Walt said, glancing around the room nervously again.

“Not really, Walt.  You are all over the map.  Calm down.  I can protect you.  The paper can protect you.  It’s going to be ok,” Vici told him, having no idea of what she said was true or not, but needing her friend to pull it together. 

“A few hours ago, I was sitting at my computer… the one that bounces its IP all over the planet.  I was tracing these accounts.  Then my burner phone rang.  My BURNER phone,” he said, his face only inches from her.  “A phone I have NEVER made a call from.  A phone I’ve never talked on.  I didn’t answer it.  A minute later a text scrolled across it… ‘pick up the phone, Walt’ it said.  Then it rang again, from the same unknown number.”

“Did they threaten you, Walt?”

“No.  That’s just it.  She couldn’t have been nicer.  She said, ‘Walt, you need to drop this.  Cook is a good guy, but you don’t need to dig any further.  You won’t get any answers, but eventually you will tick someone off.’  Then she asked me if I could let it go.  A second after that my whole system was remotely shut down.  I’m out of my league.”

“But there was no explicit or implicit threat?” she asked. 

“They called a phone I’ve never used.  Do you have any idea of the reach it takes to do that?”

Vici walked over to her corner desk.  She pulled out a flip phone and a charger.  Setting it on the table in front of Walt, she told him to take a vacation and keep it on, but to only use it to call her if he had a problem.  “Here’s some cash,” she said, dropping an envelope in front of him.  “I kept it for a rainy day.  It’s going to be ok, Walt.  Do you trust me?”

Currently, I have “New Life” out for its second round of “beta reads” with a different group than those that read it a couple of weeks ago. It is sitting around 90k words. My goal for a novel is 80k to 100k before adding any bonus content.

“Death Star” is sitting at about 45k words. I think that after I get done with New Life, this will be the next story to get a push. There are a few cross-over characters. And, like New Life, it shares a few character appearances from the Dixon-Prince series, but sits outside of that storyline.

Another of the novels I am working on is “At Arm’s Length“. If something is going to jump in front of Death Star, this is the one. I had one scene and the rest of the story has flowed out of that. I could easily slip a couple of Dixon-Prince characters into the story, but have resisted so far. It is sitting around 55k words.

I’m a little nervous about this one. It has a good premise, but I think I need to spend a little more time with it. I only have about 13k words in the story so far, but we haven’t really hit the main story arc. It’s called “Railroaded” and is about an unlikely friendship between a railroad executive and a waitress. This was another that had one scene that I needed to write.

NaNoWriMo is coming up in a few days, and I haven’t mentioned my project for that. “Sniper“. It has 0 words so far. I promised myself that I wouldn’t start writing it until November 1st. I have an outline (a first for me) and a good idea of where the story will take me. There are a few scenes kicking around in my head, but I am trying to avoid writing them… we’ll see how they change as they mature in my mind.

Finally, “Invisible Jack“. This may be the next installment of the Dixon-Prince series. Obviously, it is about Jack Dixon, and I think it will be more about his struggles coming to terms with his life. I feel like he needs to have a little more tarnish to get him from You Don’t Know Jack to Unknown Caller. He has come off as too perfect, but I know he really isn’t. No mistake, he’s a good guy, but not a saint. it is hanging at 22k words at the moment.