The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
I walked out onto the balcony to enjoy the rest of my coffee and to watch the sunrise. I sat in a thoughtless trance looking eastward until the sun’s rays teased drops of sweat from my forehead. I placed my coffee mug on the table beside me and raised the umbrella to block the sun. I sat back down and closed my eyes. After opening my eyes every few minutes to watch water drip from the metal railing from last night’s heavy frost, my mind summoned up the memory of the sunrise from the morning I woke up in my sleeping bag just a few short hours after Randall, James, and John had returned to Club Eden without Wendi and Cindi in the back of James’s van. I fell asleep and dreamed that I was the sun on a man’s body, without a mind, never caring what happened on the earth’s end of the rays I constantly beamed. As the sun, I was just about to talk with God in my dream when I heard Gina’s phone vibrating on the nightstand beside my bed. I normally kept it on me but today I hadn’t even gotten dressed. The only time I had been out of the phone’s reach was a couple of minutes back and forth from the kitchen to get my coffee.
I picked up the phone and answered, “Micaden the scorekeeper.”
“I’ve been caught. They know about me.” Gina’s voice was garbled, frantic, and loud.
“Slow down Gina. How do you know this?”
“I just received an email from my auto-recorder in Wade’s study at the church. Apparently Wade and James just had a meeting that ended a little over 30 minutes ago. The recorder will not send me a transcript until 30 minutes has elapsed since the last word spoken.” Gina said.
“Tell me what’s on the transcript.”
“They have to know I was in Wade’s study here at home last night. Wade had a wedding at Meadowbrook Farm so I spent nearly an hour snooping around. That’s what they were talking about this morning. It was like they videotaped me and had watched their tape. James was so mad at Wade I thought he was going to kill him. He accused Wade of trying to get caught, of trying to destroy Club Eden by leaving the financial journal unlocked at home. James also said that I would know about the sex trafficking and that alone could get the two of them a prison sentence.” Gina said.
“Here’s what you need to do. Quickly grab Wade’s file, the one with all the bank statements, and come here. Gina, I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay with Wade any longer. You must get out of there. Do it now, don’t worry about packing a suitcase or anything.”
“I’ll see you just as soon as I can.” Gina said.
The Pencil-Driven Life 