Dark Pursuit
Page 25
Darell raised his eyebrows. “Remember, you promised to help me.”
“I know. I will.”
“You sure you understand what it will mean? How thoroughly I’ll have to interview you? Reliving difficult events is never easy.”
Nor was baring one’s soul.
“I know. But I’m ready.”
He read the thought she would not express. She needed to do this, as he did.
“Good.” He waved a hand at her. “Now get out of here. I have to get to work.”
“Okay, bye!” The door closed.
Darell shuffled to his desk and sat down. The desktop page gleamed so empty. So frightening.
Writing would still be difficult, even if he didn’t need to plot. He’d have to fight his wandering concentration constantly. But he would prevail.
Write a page a day—and you have a book in a year.
Darell took a deep breath and reached for the mouse.
“Help me on this one, God.”
The prayer blurted out, surprising him. Quite the first in his writing career. But apropos. Necessary.
This book would be from his heart, with his own chapters in first person. It would be his penance. His coming clean. Not that it wasn’t an amazing story. But to tell it with truth, every detail the way it really happened, required airing his own weaknesses and destructive pride. It meant admitting the lifelong dark pursuit that had cost him so much.
When all was said and done, his reputation as the formidable King of Suspense would be forever tarnished.
So be it.
Darell opened a new file.
Kaitlan had come home. Next year she’d present him with a great grandchild. But somewhere in England he still had a daughter—Kaitlan’s mother—whom he had driven away. Who he hoped would read this book. And hear.
The white page awaited.
How far would he get in his work today? Anticipation pulsed through him at the thought. At least the first few pages were already written.
Settling himself, poising fingers over the keys, Darell Brooke typed his cover page.
For my daughter,
Sarah Sering,
with love
Chapter 1
“Ever hear the dead knocking?”
Leland Hugh watches the psychiatrist ponder his question, no reaction on the man’s lined, learned face. The doctor lists to one side in his chair, a fist under his sagging jowl. The picture of unshakable confidence.
“No, can’t say I have.”
Hugh nods and gazes at the floor. “I do. At night, always at night.”
“Why do they knock?”
His eyes raise to look straight into the doctor’s. “They want my soul.”
No response but a mere inclining of the head. The intentional silence pulses, waiting for an explanation. Psychiatrists are good at that.
“I took theirs, you see. Put them in their graves early.” Deep inside Hugh, the anger and fear begin to swirl. He swallows, voice tightening. “They’re supposed to stay in the grave. Who’d ever think the dead would demand their revenge?”
From outside the door, at the windows, in the closet, in the walls—they used to knock. Now, in his jail cell the noises come from beneath the floor. Harassing, insistent, hate-filled, and bitter sounds that pound his ears and drill his brain until sleep will not, cannot come.
“Do you ever answer?”
Shock twists Hugh’s lips. “Answer?”
The psychiatrist’s face remains placid. The slight, knowing curve to his mouth makes Hugh want to slug him.
“You think they’re not real, don’t you?” Hugh steeples his fingers with mocking erudition. “Yes, esteemed colleagues.” He affects an arrogant highbrow voice. “I have determined the subject suffers from EGS—Extreme Guilt Syndrome, the roots of which run so deep as never to be extirpated, with symptoms aggrandizing into myriad areas of the subject’s life and resulting in perceived paranormal phenomena.”
He drops both hands in his lap, lowering his chin to look derisively at the good doctor.
The man inhales slowly. “Do you feel guilt for the murders?”
“Why should I? They deserved it.”
He pushes to his feet.
He pushes to his feet. He slumps back in his chair.
He slumps back in his chair. He aims a hard look
He aims a hard look
The psychiatrist.
Hugh’s hands fist,
He cannot
He can only
He
XXX
“Aaghh!” I smacked the keyboard and shoved away from my desk. All concentration drained from my mind like water from a leaky pan.
The characters froze.
I lowered my head, raking gnarled fingers into the front of my scalp. For a time there I’d almost had it—that ancient joy of thoughts flowing and fingers typing. In the last hour I’d managed to write three or four paragraphs. Now—nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
King of Suspense. I laughed, a bitter sound that singed my throat. Ninety-nine novels written in forty-three years. Well over a hundred million copies sold. Twenty-one major motion pictures made from my books. Countless magazine articles about my career, fan letters, invitations to celebrity parties. Now look at me. Two years after the auto accident and still only half-mobile. And wielding a mere fraction of the brain power I used to have.
What good is an author who can’t hold a plot in his head? …
Violet Dawn
Kanner Lake Series
Brandilyn Collins
Something sinuous in the water brushed against Paige’s knee. She jerked her leg away.
What was that? She rose to a sitting position, groped around with her left hand.
Fine wisps wound themselves around her fingers.
Hair?
She yanked backward, but the tendrils clung. Something solid bumped her wrist.
Paige gasped. With one frantic motion she shook her arm free, grabbed the side of the hot tub, and heaved herself out.
Paige Williams slips into her hot tub in the blackness of night—and finds herself face to face with death.
Alone, terrified, fleeing a dark past, Paige must make an unthinkable choice.
In Violet Dawn, hurtling events and richly drawn characters collide in a breathless story of murder, the need to belong, and faith’s first glimmer. One woman’s secrets unleash an entire town’s pursuit, and the truth proves as elusive as the killer in their midst.
Softcover: 978-0-310-25223-8
Pick up a copy today at your favorite bookstore!
Dread Champion
Brandilyn Collins
Chelsea Adams has visions. But they have no place in a courtroom.
As a juror for a murder trial, Chelsea must rely only on the evidence. And this circumstantial evidence is strong—Darren Welk killed his wife.
Or did he?
The trial is a nightmare for Chelsea. The other jurors belittle her Christian faith. As testimony unfolds, truth and secrets blur. Chelsea’s visiting niece stumbles into peril surrounding the case, and Chelsea cannot protect her. God sends visions—frightening, vivid. But what do they mean? Even as Chelsea finds out, what can she do? She is helpless, and danger is closing in….
Masterfully crafted, Dread Champion is a novel in which appearancescan deceive and the unknown can transform the meaning of known facts. One man’s guilt or innocence is just a single link in a chain of hidden evil … and God uses the unlikeliest of people to accomplish his purposes.
Softcover: 978-0-310-23827-0
Pick up a copy today at your favorite bookstore!
Eyes of Elisha
Brandilyn Collins
The murder was ugly.
The killer was sure no one saw him.
Someone did.
In a horrifying vision, Chelsea Adams has relived the victim’s last moments. But who will believe her? Certainly not the police, who must rely on hard evidence. Nor her husband, who bare
ly tolerates Chelsea’s newfound Christian faith. Besides, he’s about to hire the man who Chelsea is certain is the killer to be a vice president in his company.
Torn between what she knows and the burden of proof, Chelsea must follow God’s leading and trust him for protection. Meanwhile, the murderer is at liberty. And he’s not about to take Chelsea’s involvement lying down.
Softcover: 978-0-310-23968-0
Pick up a copy today at your favorite bookstore!
Hidden Faces Series
Brandilyn Collins
Brink of Death
Terror rocks Grove Landing when a woman is murdered in her home. The victim’s young daughter, Erin, witnessed the crime but is too traumatized to give a description. Desperate detectivesask neighbor Annie Kingston, with a background in art, to interview Erin for a composite. But what if Annie’s lack of experience in forensic art leads Erin astray? The detectives could end up searching for a face that doesn’t exist, leaving the real killer to stalk the neighborhood.
Softcover: 978-0-310-25103-3
Stain of Guilt
For the highly succesful TV show American Fugitive, forensic artist Annie Kingston agrees to draw the updated face of Bill Bland, a cunning fugitive wanted for a double murder committed twenty years ago. In studying the man and his crime, Annie knows she must descend into the mind of a killer—a mind of greed, darkness … and death. Book Two in the Hidden Faces Series.
Softcover: 978-0-310-25104-0
Dead of Night
The Redding, California, area is terrorized by a serial killer with an unusual method for murder. Annie Kingston is called in to draw sketches of the victims’ faces so they can be identified. As the body count rises, the pressure increases to find this heinous killer. The Sheriff thinks he’s close—maybe too close. How can Annie—and her son—stay safe as the killer closes in? Book Three in the Hidden Faces Series.
Softcover: 978-0-310-25105-7
Web of Lies
In the fourth and final book of the Hidden Faces Series, Annie Kingston and a new ally—Chelsea Adams from Eyes of Elisha—are drawn into a terrifying battle against time, greed, and a deadly opponent.
Softcover: 978-0-310-25106-4
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