I offer an ebook called Escape for subscribing to my blog. You can get the whole thing free… or you can catch Escape on Vocal and read the first three chapters. You can click from one to the next at the end of each segment.

If you want to catch a little of Planning Vengeance (which has just had an update on Amazon…) then there is this clip available on Vocal. Or you can get the whole book for just THREE BUCKS. If you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can read ANY of my books on Amazon for free… all are enrolled in KU.

The next one (chronologically on Vocal) is an excerpt from Lies and Omissions. So, you can pick up a clip for L&O on Vocal or buy it on Amazon.

Triple Cross was the next one that I set up to have an excerpt on Vocal.

From the book Who, What, When, Why? I included a bunch of clips. All of the Vocal links (a couple are multi-part, so the first one is linked) are as follows. The Cliff The Angel The Busboy

From the book Grafton, I included a clip from Melody on Vocal. I really ended up liking her backstory. She doesn’t get enough play in the mainline books… at least not befitting how important her character is to the stories. But here she was able to shine. I think she was pretty good in the other Grafton stories, too.

Finally, Unknown Caller. There is only one excerpt, but I did a bonus story ONLY on Vocal. So, the excerpt on Vocal is here, but the bonus story about Colt on Vocal is here…

“You must be Mr. Grafton… that would make you Mrs. Grafton,” the woman said, grabbing each of them in an embrace.  “Thank you for coming… food’s right through here.  I’m Celia, Jaden’s mother.”

“Everyone just calls me Gunny,” he said.

“And, please, call me Melody.” 

“Jaden will be so excited you came,” his mother said, “he thinks you hung the moon, Gunny.  And he has never been as excited about school as he is now.”

“He’s a good man, Celia,” Gunny said, his grin crinkling his face beneath his bushy beard. 

Celia led them through the house and out the back.  It was chilly, but there was a big crowd, maybe thirty people, Gunny thought, mostly gathered around a grill, a smoker and a table loaded with food. 

“Jaden, Mr. Grafton is here,” Celia shouted into the yard. 

A moment later, Jaden, followed by Tisha, emerged from a clot of people near the table and trotted over to greet the teacher. 

“Let’s get you some food,” he said.

***

Gunny and Melody made rounds, talking with a score of people each.  Sometimes together, other times apart.  Everyone knew who they were, they were the only white people at the mostly family gathering.  Unsurprisingly, they were treated like family. 

Tisha was sitting on one of the old swings in the backyard, Jaden leaned against the swing set talking with her.  He’d had a crush on her for years, but only in the last couple of weeks, since they had started running, had he been able to spend any time with her.  Getting to know her only made him like her more. 

“Your uncle sure has taken a liking to Sarge,” she said. 

“He was a Marine… I think he was in Vietnam, too.  They probably have some stories they are sharing with each other,” Jaden replied.  “But I don’t know… he never talks about stuff from back then.” 

“Funny watching them now… you’d think they were best friends.” 

“Kinda makes me happy.  Mom says that Uncle Roger wasn’t the same after that, you know?  I mean, he isn’t messed up, but I guess he was different when they were kids.”

***

Gunny carried a shopping bag of food out to the Suburban while Celia and Melody stood in the kitchen and talked.  Melody was drying dishes as Celia washed.  The Graftons had stayed behind as everything broke up, determined to help clean up.  They had also both spent a while talking with Jaden’s mom. 

As Jaden came back from walking Tisha home, Melody was walking out the door, headed for the Suburban.  Gunny was next to the passenger side, waiting for his wife.  Celia waved as Gunny climbed into the truck and Melody walked around to the passenger side.  He waved at them as they pulled out of the driveway. 

“They are good people,” Celia commented to her son as she held the door for him.  “I’m glad they came today.  Not just to say thank you for Sergeant Grafton getting you to school, but ‘cuz of your uncle.  I haven’t seen Roger smile like that in years,” she said quietly. 

Roger was still in the living room, finishing his beer as the TV played in the background.  Sunday Night Football was on, but he didn’t seem to care less about it… which was unusual. 

“Son,” Uncle Roger said to Jaden, “damn sure glad you invited that old jarhead to the party.  He’s a hell of a man.”

“Yes, Sir.  Good teacher, too.”

“I didn’t know him over there, but we knew a few of the same people.  And I knew of him.  Ain’t many men that have a reputation that carried on half a world and thirty years away.  Least not a good reputation.”

“So, did you guys fight together?” Jaden asked, Celia looking on.

“No… nothing like that.  What he did… I didn’t do that.  He was what they call ‘Force Recon’ and what he did was serious work.  When things was ugly, they called in the Marines.  When the Marines thought things was nasty… they called in Recon.  And if what I remember is right, when regular Recon thought it was impossible, they called in his unit.”

“So, Sergeant Grafton was a bad-ass?” Jaden asked. 

“Don’t talk like that, Jaden,” Celia quickly interjected. 

“Naw, Jaden.  He was who the bad-asses called when they were scared,” Roger laughed.  “He’s the kind of guy you want to be friends with.”

“So, what were you guys talking about for so long, Roger?” Celia asked. 

Roger wiped a tear from his eye real quick.  He looked down at the floor, then up again.  He’d erased the pain from his eyes when he looked back up.  “He just asked me if I was ok.”

“What’dya mean?” Jaden asked. 

“Told me he has nightmares sometimes… asked me about mine.  We just talked a little about it.  It’s been twenty-five years since I talked to someone that knew what it was like.”

For the next hour, the three of them sat in the living room talking.  Uncle Roger had been through a lot, but he’d locked it away and tried to forget it.  Gunny had been the first person he’d been able to really talk with… that understood what he had gone through.  Even Roger and Celia’s dad, who’d seen a little combat during World War Two, had a hard time wrapping his mind around the conditions in Vietnam. 

It wasn’t just the rain and the mud and jungle.  It was that every moment of the day, on-duty or off, they were in danger.  Even when they were well back from the front lines, guys were getting killed. 

His father had understood and dealt with the racism from fellow Marines and officers, and that was hard, too.  But the worst was knowing that you could be a hundred miles from the fighting, and a kid could throw a hand grenade into the latrine while you were dropping off your morning load. 

And when you were out in the jungle, every time a leaf moved, it could be a sniper.  Every squish in the mud.  Every person you saw… man, woman or child… they might be your executioner. 

He didn’t tell his sister or his nephew that Gunny had given him a card, too.  He didn’t mention that Gunny had told him that he could call, day or night.  Or that there were a couple of other numbers written on that card, and if he called, someone would talk to him.  He didn’t share that Gunny had told him that he had the nightmares, too.  Or that the numbers on the card were the people he talked to.

She had a break from Eric during second period and was able to sit with Jakob in Science.  He had asked her if she could go to a movie with him on Valentine’s Day, and she was really excited, hoping her parents would let her go.  Then it occurred to her that more and more, when she thought of Gunny and Melody, she thought of them as “Mom and Dad” rather than by name.  That gave her a smile as science ended. 

English was another matter.  Eric was in her third period, and he was at it again.  She did everything she could to stay calm.  If there had been another seat in the class, she would have moved to it, but she had already asked Mr. Silas if she could switch to another seat and he’d refused her.  She didn’t know why, but she was pretty sure he didn’t like her.

As class was ending, she gathered her books and started out of the class.  Her locker was in the hall just outside, and she hurried to put her stuff away so she could get to lunch.  She spun her lock and opened the locker, putting her books inside. 

As she turned, Eric reached out and grabbed her chest.  “I bet you like it when ‘Jakob the tard’ does that, don’t you?  You puttin’ out for him yet?  I hear that you are a dirty girl.”

She hadn’t even thought about what she was doing.  She swept up with her arm, driving into his forearm and knocking it away from her.  Then she jabbed her other fist into his stomach with a lightning quick punch, knocking the breath out of him. 

As he went down, she felt a hand grab her left shoulder.  She reached across with her right hand and grabbed it, spinning around.  She twisted it around, and looked up into the eyes of Mr. Silas, wincing in pain.  She dropped his wrist and he grabbed it with his other hand. 

“Office, NOW,” he commanded through clenched teeth. 

Mali calmly turned and closed her locker.  Tears streamed down her cheeks as she slowly walked to the office.  She knew she was in deep trouble.  Before she went around the corner to the hall toward the office at the front of the building, she turned and saw that Eric Paulson was still on the floor and there was a crowd gathered around him.  There were muted whispers as she passed.  She clearly heard one person say that she wouldn’t be back…

She walked into the office and approached the receptionist.  After letting her know that Mr. Silas had sent her, she sat on the bench by the opposite wall.  A minute later the principal came out, glanced at her and left.  She was back a few minutes later.  When she came back into the office, Eric Paulson was in tow.  She took him into her office.  The receptionist started calling Gunny, but unable to get him, called Melody. 

Eric walked out of the office.  He looked over to her and whispered that she was going to be deported, sent back to Afghanistan.  Mali hung her head in shame.  She had really messed up and she knew it.  As she sat there waiting, the words she heard in the hall kept echoing back into her mind… she won’t be back…

She’d worked so hard to fit in.  But now she had injured another student and a teacher.  She walked over to the reception desk to get a tissue and blow her nose.  When she looked down in front of the receptionist, there were two forms… suspension and expulsion. 

She could barely see Melody through her tears as she walked past the receptionist and back to the principal’s private office. 

with a body covered in a sheet.  He peeled the sheet back, revealing her face. 

Melody stepped back.  “Yes… I’m fairly certain that is her.”

Marlow started to slide the body back in.

“Wait, may I take a closer look?”

Melody leaned over and looked at Karie’s body.  She looked at her face… her eyelids.  “Can I pull the sheet down further?”

“I suppose,” Marlow said, hesitantly. 

Melody pulled the sheet down to Karie’s chest, then picked up the side and looked at her hand.  She covered her hand again and went to look at her toes.  She rushed back up and pulled the sheet down a little more. 

“Miss Jenkins?” Phillips said.

“I’m sorry… something isn’t right.”  She pulled the sheet back over the young woman’s body.  “It’s her, Karen Adams, but he did something to her, I think.  Can we talk… somewhere else?”

“Certainly,” Marlow said, leading her from the room again.  “How about my office?” 

As they rode the elevator up to the Detective’s Bullpen, Phillips offered her coffee, which she refused.  When they entered Marlow’s office, he held the chair as he beckoned her to sit down. 

“So, what seems to be the issue, Miss Jenkins?  You said something was wrong.” 

“I’m sorry, Detective Marlow.  Karie and I had gotten our nails done last Saturday.  We were doubling with a guy she knew and his friend, and anyway… we got our nails done.”  Melody held out her hand, showing the detectives her fingernails.  “They were the same color… Karie’s and mine.”

The two men looked at her expectantly.  Both leaned in.  “And?” Marlow said. 

“Hers are a different color.  And they are flawless.”  Melody held her hand up again.  “See these little chips?  And the edges are worn.  Hers weren’t like that.  And her toenails were painted to match… which they weren’t when she left yesterday.”

“You think that means something… the color of her toenails?” Phillips said, raising an eyebrow.

“It is something.  Either she went and got a manicure and pedicure after she was picked up for the date and before she was murdered, or someone gave her one after.  And did you see her make-up?  It was flawless.  Like it was fresh.  Her lipstick didn’t even look like it was blotted.”

“You think the killer put on make-up and did her nails after killing her?”  Marlow asked.

“I saw in the paper that there had been other victims a few years ago.  Is there anything in the file about something similar?” Melody asked. 

“We’ll look into it, Miss Jenkins.  Thank you for coming in to identify her.  I’ll have Detective Phillips drive you home.  If you could also give him the next of kin information for Miss Adams, we would appreciate it.”

Marlow and Phillips both rose.  Melody knew the interview was over and rose as well.  She followed Phillips through the labyrinthine corridors and back out to his car so that he could escort her home. 

***

The knock at the door startled Melody as she sat at the small kitchen table, her dinner and her biology notebook spread out in front of her.  She had a test Monday, and she knew she needed to do really well on it to keep up her grade point average. 

She jumped up and ran to the door.  “Who is it?”

“Miss Jenkins?  I’m Harv Adams, Karie’s father.”

“Oh, my gosh, one second.”

She pulled the chain and unlocked the door.

“Hi Mr. Adams.  Please call me Melody.  I’m so sorry about what happened to Karie.  I only moved in a few months ago, but she was really nice.  It has been devastating.  I can only imagine what you are going through.”

“Thank you, Melody,” he said.  He wore a smile, but she could see the sadness and pain in his eyes.  Eyes that were the same blue as his daughter. 

“Please, come in.  Have a seat.  Would you like anything?  Coffee, a soft drink?”

“No, but thank you, Melody.  I just wanted to talk with you.  I wanted to know if there was anything that the police didn’t tell me.  You knew her… you lived with her.  Maybe something about her boyfriend.”

“I don’t think she really had a boyfriend.  She dated around a little. The last guy she went out with… I think his name was John… they had been out a couple of times, I think, but we doubled the Saturday two weeks ago, and she was with a different young man.”

“I see…  And you didn’t think it was odd that she wasn’t home the next morning?  The police detective told me you didn’t contact them until the night after she was killed.”

“I waitress at the café around the corner, and I usually leave a little before five in the morning.  We almost always see each other around dinner, but especially if she had a date, I would be asleep when she got home and gone before she woke up.”

“I’m sorry, Melody.  I think that came out wrong.  It wouldn’t have made a difference if you’d called them the night before.  I’ve read the full report, and the coroner estimated that she died between nine and midnight.”

“It’s ok, Mr. Adams.  I understand.”  The last thing she wanted to do was tell a grieving father that his daughter regularly didn’t come home until the morning after dates, nor that it wasn’t just one boyfriend with whom she spent the night.  “And then the whole thing with the fingernails and make-up.  That weirded me out.”

“Fingernails and make-up?  That wasn’t in the report.”

“I told them when I went to identify her.  It looked like someone had just done her make-up, and I know that her fingernails and toenails were freshly painted.  They were a different color than when she left for her date.”

“That wasn’t in the report…”

“It might be nothing.  It was just something I noticed.  They said they were going to look into it.  Maybe the other girls were different,” Melody said. 

“May I make a long-distance call, Melody?” 

“Sure.  Please, be my guest.”

Harvey Adams picked up the phone and quickly dialed a long-distance number.  He sat there, drumming on the table as he waited for the answer, clearly a man unaccustomed to waiting. 

“This is Special Agent Harvey Adams, please put me through to Agent Sean Burke.”

…

“Burke, Adams.  I am talking with the young woman that lived with my daughter.  She mentioned a fresh manicure and pedicure on my daughter, and possibly freshly applied make-up.”

…

“Yeah, me too.”

…

“See if there is anything that hits anywhere with that in the description.”

…

“Thank you, Sean.  Yeah, the funeral is tomorrow, here.  I’ll call you in a few days to see what you find out.”

Harv Adams hung up the phone.  He wiped his hand over his face, leaving his eyes closed for a few moments.  When he opened them again, he had to wipe away the tears. 

“I guess you are in the FBI or something?” Melody said. 

“Yes.  Thirty-years.  I mostly teach now, but I used to be a field agent.”

“Please let me know if anything comes of that.  I’d like to know.”

“I will, Melody.  I need to go now, but I hope to see you tomorrow at the funeral.  There won’t be many there.  Just a few family, some close friends.  We’re having a wake in Chicago for her next week.  That’s where most of her friends will be.  This is where she always considered home, though.”

“I’ll be there, Mr. Adams.”

He rose from the couch and Melody gave him a long hug before he wiped his eyes, took a deep breath and headed out of the small apartment. 

***

She picked up a black dress in the morning to wear to the funeral that afternoon.  As he’d said, there were only a few people gathered in the small chapel.  Karie’s mother had passed away a couple of years before from cancer.  Her older brother, her father, her grandmother on her mother’s side, and a couple of cousins were all that were in attendance at the graveside service. 

“I assume you are Miss Jenkins,” Karie’s brother said, approaching her.  “I’m Karl.”

“Melody.”  He shook her offered hand. 

“Thank you for being here, Melody.  You might not know, but what you said to my father yesterday has really brought a change.  I flew out to Quantico to be with him after I heard, and for the last several days, he hadn’t slept or eaten.  Losing Mom was hard on him, and Karie was his favorite.  His little girl, you know?  But then yesterday, I guess you told him about something you saw.  My dad was back.  He has purpose.  Thank you.”

Melody reached out and hugged him.  “If there is anything I can do, Karl, I would love to… Karie was really nice.”

“Let me buy you dinner,” Karl said.  “We can talk about my sister.”

“Sure…  Let me go home and change.”

“I’ll pick you up in half an hour,” Karl said.  “And thank you for everything.” Melody slowly walked back to her car.  She was a little freaked out by Karie’s brother asking her out, basically at his sister’s funeral, but somehow, he’d managed to not sound creepy doing it.  And she thought he was really good-looking, in a bookish sort of way, which also happened to be her type.  Not terribly tall, and with a solid but not stocky build, short hair, glasses and the same pretty blue eyes as his father and sister, Karl Adams was exactly the kind of guy she liked to date.  Oddly, most of the guys that asked her out were more along the jock or partier type. 

Melody walked around looking, an uneasy feeling growing in her stomach.  It wasn’t the first time she’d had a gut-level feeling about something being wrong, and she prayed that she was wrong. 

After looking around the kitchen, she realized that what she really needed was a visit to the grocery store.  It would either be eggs for dinner, or a trek out of the building again.  After slinging eggs all morning, she decided that a trip to the store was in order… and since she had a pocket full of tips, maybe dinner out. 

***

She wasn’t normally a big consumer of newspapers, but as she made her way through the market, she dropped a fresh copy of the afternoon paper into her basket.  She made her way to the front of the store with the few items she needed, and quickly paid the cashier.  Luckily, the rain had stopped, and it was a short walk home. 

After unloading the small supply of groceries, she flopped onto the couch to rest and then start studying.  She hated biology with a passion… but it was a core class she had to get through. 

But before that, she picked up the newspaper. 

Crescent City Killer Strikes Again

That was a headline that grabbed her attention.  She hadn’t even noticed it just below the fold when she had picked the paper up.  Above the fold was a story about the problems at the Franklin National Bank, and how if it failed it would ripple across the economy. 

As she looked through the story that had caught her attention, she noted that a young woman, blonde, early to mid-twenties, had been murdered near Lee Circle.  She had been wearing a rose-colored skirt and ivory blouse and a jacket matching the skirt had been found nearby, but police were searching for a clue as to the woman’s identity.  The murder shared similarities to three other murders that had happened a couple of years prior. 

Melody leapt off the couch and ran into Karie’s room.  She flung open her closet and started digging through her outfits.  Karie had an outfit just like what had been described… and it was eight o’clock and there still hadn’t been word from her.  The skirt and jacket were nowhere to be found.

She ran back to the living room and looked for the article again.  They had a tip line, which she quickly dialed.

“My roommate hasn’t been here since yesterday, and she matches the description of the victim I saw in the paper,” she said to the person manning the phone bank. 

…

“Blonde, twenty-one, blue eyes.  Medium weight, tall… probably five-nine.  The jacket has brass buttons.”

…

“No, sometimes she isn’t at home overnight, but she didn’t take her notebook and she had a class today.”

…

“A little over twenty-four hours…  Yesterday about six.  She left with her boyfriend for dinner.”

…

“No… not really.  John something.  They had only gone out a couple of times.”

…

“Sure,” she finished, giving the detective her address. 

She collapsed back on the couch, worry washing over her like a wave.  She picked the paper back up and carefully read the description.  There had been no mention of the buttons in describing the jacket.  She wondered if it had been held back, the detective she had talked with was very interested in that detail. 

Thirty minutes later she tossed the biology notes back on the table as she was startled by a knock at the door. 

“Who is it?” she said through the door.

“Police, ma’am.  Is this Melody Jenkins?”

“Yes, just a moment.”  She unlocked the door, leaving the chain hooked.  When she glanced out, two men in suits were staring back, one holding his badge up.  “Hang on.”  She closed the door and undid the chain.  “Please, come in.”

“Thank you,” the shorter one said.  “I’m Detective Marlow, and this is Detective Phillips.  We wanted to follow up with you on your missing roommate.”

“It’s the button, isn’t it?” Melody asked, holding the eyes of Detective Marlow. 

“What makes you say that, Miss Jenkins?”

“Because it wasn’t in the paper.  As soon as I read it, I looked through the closet for that jacket.  It wasn’t there.  I had tried to find one just like it… hers was a little big for me… and I couldn’t.  But the way the shiny brass buttons looked… I remembered them.”

“Do you have any photographs of your roommate… Miss Karen Adams?”

“No, but she might have some pictures in her room.  Give me a moment and I can look.  And she goes by Karie.”  Melody walked out of the living room and walked into Karie’s rooms.  She quickly went through her bedside table and found a picture of her that was a few years old.  It was her with her family on vacation. 

When she came back to the living room, the two detectives were seated on the couch.  She handed Marlow the picture.  “There might be more… I think this one is about three years old.  I’m pretty sure that is her family… they were on vacation.”

“Can we keep this, Miss Jenkins?” Phillips asked. 

“If it were mine, I would gladly let you keep it.  I hope all of this is a big mix-up, and Karie walks through the door and rolls her eyes at me having been worried.”

“We understand… if she wasn’t the victim, she could certainly have the photograph back.  We would have no need of it.”

“Then, please… take it.”

“One other thing, Miss Jenkins, could you come with us to look at the victim to see if it is your friend?” Phillips asked. 

“I guess,” Melody replied, nervously.