Dark Storm

by Karen Harper

  The single women gathered to catch Kris’s bouquet, which she tossed over her shoulder without looking. It flew perfectly to Gina. Heck was so excited at that he hugged Nick where they stood watching. “Thanks to you and Claire getting in trouble in Cuba, boss, ’cause that led me to Gina!”

  “See, Claire,” Nick said, pounding the happy man on his back. “Our almost getting killed in Cuba was for a good cause!”

  A lot of good had come out of their toughest times, Claire realized. Nick had even given a deposition on behalf of Lincoln Yost, who was caught up in the Ralston scandal because of his ties to the Onward projects. Hometown hero that Yost still was, he did not go to prison but did have to pay such a hefty fine that he was selling his dream home and moving into a house in Golden Gate, not far from the one Will Warren had vacated.

  Clint Ralston, who had regained minimal vision, was soon to stand trial along with Jedi Brown. Of course, Nick was keeping clear of those criminal cases.

  Gina ran over with the bouquet and hugged Claire as the bride and groom began to greet their guests in an impromptu reception line near the catered food table featuring a large cake.

  “Mommy!” Lexi cried. “Jilly and I think this wedding is totally awesome!”

  Jilly’s brother, Drew, hands thrust in his pants pockets, muttered, “This isn’t as cool as some birthday parties I’ve seen, ’specially one I went to that had paintball. But I guess there’s lots of food here.”

  Claire thought it was a blessing Drew had not been here during his mother’s disappearance, because even being told about it had made him angry. So Darcy had found herself counseling Drew while counselors—and Claire—still counseled her.

  “Totally awesome?” Nick repeated what Lexi had just said when the kids ran off together again. “Why is our little girl suddenly sounding like a teenager?” He put his arm around Claire’s waist to give her a little squeeze.

  “Don’t say that. Next you’ll be signing our toddler son up for Little League or teaching him how to get clients off the hook in a court of law.”

  “Speaking of that, thank goodness Steve was finally cleared of any wrongdoing. And I’d bet that crazy cake over there that they’ll never find Will if he doesn’t want to be found.”

  They strolled toward the buffet table where there were chairs set up on the grass. The wedding cake was perfectly unique. Instead of the usual decorations of flowers, entwined hearts or a bride and groom, the baker had custom decorated it with a small plane on one side with Fly Safe written on it, and on the other side, a picture of a primitive, doll-like effigy that Kris had recently excavated from an ancient burial at the Black Bog where Claire had once worked.

  “Well,” Nick told her as they looked down at the design, “two unique people joining their lives.”

  “Like us,” she said, “and look what we’ve made of things.”

  “Meaning the calm, good times, not the mess—the dangers.”

  “Of course, and I’m not sure what you could be referring to,” she said, elbowing him gently in the ribs.

  “Ah, my beloved Claire,” he said with a little sigh. “We’ve come so far and, hopefully, have a lot farther to go.”

  “Dark storms or not, I predict a lot of happiness ahead. For Darcy and Steve, too.”

  “The two of you seem even closer than before.”

  “Working on it. By the way—you heard it here—I’m retiring from dangerous endeavors, just wait and see.”

  “Yeah, right. Heard that one before,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  Although Claire could hear Trey starting to cry for her across the way, and it wasn’t their wedding, she stood on tiptoe in the thick grass, threw her arms around Nick and kissed him hard.

  When they stepped apart, she whispered, “For better or worse, till death us do part.”

  Nodding with tears in his eyes, he said, “I’ll take the better with none of the worse, but whatever happens, to love and cherish you, I will and I do!”

  * * *

  Author’s Note

  I hope you have enjoyed this book. Perhaps you also read the earlier five novels in the South Shores series that lead up to the events in Dark Storm. But it is time for me to leave Claire and Nick Markwood and their family and friends. They have come a long way since we met them—and Claire and Nick met each other—in the first book, Chasing Shadows, when Claire was shot outside the Collier County Courthouse.

  I will miss them as well as the Naples/South Florida setting, almost as much as I miss it in reality since, after thirty lovely years, we no longer spend our winters there. It has been fun to use settings from some of the places we visited and loved in Naples and the Caribbean for this series. In this book, for example, walking out on the rocks at Doctors Pass and the Naples Botanical Garden (www.naplesgarden.org).

  I have had the idea of writing a suspense novel using the falcate orangetip butterflies as the hook since 1998, but a story never quite fit together until now. However, I thank Gary Noel Ross, butterfly consultant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for his research suggestions on this unique butterfly. Other research came from the lovely book The Spirit of Butterflies: Myth, Magic and Art by Maraleen Manos-Jones, and the Official Guide to Butterfly World, which we visited in Coconut Creek, Florida (www.butterflyworld.com).

  I thought the falcate orangetip talent for suspended animation was amazing; later, I learned that dolphins have a variation of this gift, too. But how to blend such different animals in a story? And what to do with the intriguing subject of cryonics, the ultimate suspension of life?

  I also wondered which butterflies are endangered. In my research, I learned a butterfly breed as “common” as monarchs are indeed threatened today. For example, researchers claim monarchs have decreased ninety percent over these last years, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, mostly because their milkweed habitats, necessary for their life cycle, are disappearing. Concerned citizens can visit www.edf.org/MonarchAcre to learn more about this.

  Also, I find it interesting but sad that, according to an article in the Naples Daily News of July 26, 2018, the local butterfly population has not recovered from the battering they received during Hurricane Irma. I based Hurricane Jenny loosely on Irma, which hit Southwest Florida in August of 2017. While we owned a condo in Naples, Florida, two hurricanes visited the area, and once, we lost the roof of our lanai.

  Two quick explanations of unusual things in this book—things that I hardly believed until I researched them. First of all, Lexi’s “smart” doll. The info Claire discovers online is true. I was surprised to see that such a doll can be monitored via a mobile app and Wi-Fi connectivity. An attacker can send unauthorized requests and extract information through such a doll. This can lead to malicious campaigns against caregivers or the child. The doll outlawed in Germany was called My Friend Cayla.

  Secondly, it is not “an old wives’ tale” that the sudden drop in barometric pressure during a hurricane can cause headaches, toothaches—and yes, women who are not far from delivery can go into early labor. This most often happens to women who are at least thirty-four weeks pregnant. During Hurricane Andrew in South Florida in 1992, for example, a large number of women went into labor and flocked to hospitals, and this phenomenon has been noted elsewhere.

  Thanks for support on writing this novel to my wonderful team consisting of agent Annelise Robey, editor Emily Ohanjanians, MIRA Books publicists and copy editors, to name a few. I appreciate advice from Officer Jim Parsons of the Columbus Ohio Division of Police. And to my husband, Don, for being my travel companion and proofreader.

  See you online at www.KarenHarperauthor.com or www.facebook.com/KarenHarperAuthor

  Karen Harper

  HOW I WRITE

  How I put ideas and background research into a novel is a question I’m asked a lot. Authors write many different ways, whatever works for them. With my previous career as an English teacher and as a longtime author and rabid reader, it’s something I’m always interested in.
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  One time I attended a signing at a bookstore by an author I really admired. But I was disappointed that he just did a reading, then autographed books, and didn’t give a glimpse into how he wrote his series. I decided then that I would always try to explain to readers what method of “authoring” works for me for book-length fiction.

  So, after several decades of being an author, this is basically how I write. I won’t go into idea gathering, the intentional and the serendipity. Take a look at my author’s note to get a glimpse of that for this novel. It all began when I stumbled on a mention of falcate orangetips.

  When I’m ready with an idea for a story, I send my editor ten pages or so of the possible plot. (This is typed double-spaced, so it’s about five pages long.) This is called an outline or usually a synopsis. She and I have worked together for a while, so she knows that events may change as I write, but she okays my ideas and makes early suggestions.

  In the past, such feedback has been invaluable. One time an editor told me, “The sales reps just had a book that featured an actress and it bombed, so they won’t want to see another one. Can you shelve this for now and do something different?” Publishing is a business as well as an art.

  I do plan somewhat ahead as I write, but I do not look too far out. Some writers push quickly through the entire story, then go back to delete, add or change things. I like to have each chapter quite well-written before I go on. I see each scene and chapter as the foundational building blocks to stack the rest of the story on.

  I don’t print out chapters until I have read/revised them about seven times. After I have printed out part of the story, I let it sit, then go over it with a red pen—the former English teacher coming out in me again. I then make those revisions on my laptop.

  Once I am all the way through the book and have it printed and corrected and input my changes, I reread the entire book online again, make final revisions and print out the final copy my husband proofreads. I then add his corrections. He knows to look for two things especially, besides typos: I am directionally challenged (even if I know one must drive north to reach a site, I might write it as south). Secondly, time spans give me trouble, so I have to watch a calendar to keep from messing up what day it is, how long Darcy had been gone, that sort of thing. Having a character pregnant for ten months in a book years ago has made me wary of dates.

  Besides my and my husband’s proofreading, my editor catches things and makes important suggestions. Also, a professional copy editor reads and queries any possible mistakes. It’s been a long time since a “groaner” got through one of my novels after all that attention to detail. But in an early historical novel, whereas I thought I had written “along the riverbank drums rolled,” what appeared was “along the riverbank drunks rolled.”

  The quote from another author that comes closest to an overall explanation of how I write is this one by E. L. Doctorow: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

  I have found that so true, discovering new plot possibilities by what already happened, finding surprises in what the characters do. A new turn and surprise in plot or my fictional people is always just around the next bend in the story.

  Karen Harper

  ISBN-13: 9781488088728

  Dark Storm

  Copyright © 2019 by Karen Harper

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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