Blast from the Past: Christmas Stalkings

posted in: Book Excerpts, Various Musings | 0

I’m still converting old pages on my website to blog posts.  Thanks for bearing with me.  This week, we’ll be looking at everything Bullet!  Today, a novella, Bullet 4.5, Christmas Stalkings.

Blurb:

Val, Brad, and the kids decide to take a short but needed winter vacation to get away from it all and enjoy each other’s company, but one thing is stopping them from relaxing like they should. Since fronting her new band Val Hella, Val has discovered the darker side of fame—she has a stalker, one who seems intent upon stepping up his game to get what he wants, and the ruin of their vacation becomes the least of their worries.

Excerpt:

“What’s going on, Val? You’re as white as a ghost.”

I blinked several times, almost unable to speak. Finally, I sucked down a deep breath as Brad rushed to my side and I pointed at the newspaper. “He’s here.”

He looked confused at first, but then he looked at the bottom half of the paper, after the fold. Written in blue ballpoint ink were the words I AM HERE FOR YOU. Always.

It looked like the same stilted writing from the note I’d gotten before, like someone who was actually right-handed was trying to write with his left, and it was the same creepy message—nothing actually threatening but bone-chilling as hell.

Suddenly, my brain felt like it was going to collapse in on itself. I’d been feeling stressed and edgy the last few weeks at home, and the past twenty-four hours had been heaven—soothing, no adrenaline pulsing through my veins like I needed it to live, utter calmness. But in just a few seconds, reading those six words made my blood pressure increase and my body go into hyper-vigilant mode again. Where exactly was this fucker and why wouldn’t he leave me alone? Why the hell had he followed us here?

That told me my stalker was a lot more serious than I’d initially thought. It was much worse and lots scarier now.

Brad went into protective mode. “Hold the baby,” he said, handing Hayley to me and double timing it to the door. He was wearing nothing but the pair of pajama bottoms and had no weapon. He was in a guard mindset, moving on instinct and base emotion. He should have at least grabbed a knife out of the drawer before bolting out the door, but I hadn’t been thinking either. Once he made it there, he unlocked it and threw it open, so if nothing else, he had the element of surprise.

I might have been holding Hayley, but it didn’t stop me from following Brad. By the time I got there, he was walking quickly down the hall toward the area where there were no rooms. Instead, the space overlooked a large open area around a spot where there were meeting and conference rooms, no doubt for corporate guests who couldn’t resist turning their vacation into a tax deduction. He held onto the railing while peering over, trying to see into the hallway below and then he continued walking down the hall to the glass door at the end. I called to him. “Brad.” He was a man on a mission, though, storming through the door…

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