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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.
Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman. Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune. She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.
Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.
Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.
Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective. The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.
While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.
Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?
Chapter 84
My cell phone vibrated just as I crested the mountain on Highway 431 coming out of Guntersville. I didn’t recognize the number, so I didn’t answer. Neither my body nor my mind wanted to talk with anyone except Regina. I had painfully waited two days after Freddie’s plea hearing. Now, I wanted to get home and confront her about Jennifer’s death and her continued lying. As I was passing the Cracker Barrel restaurant, the same number appeared on my phone. Something told me to answer. It was a frantic Regina.
“Walt, you there?”
“Yes, you sound weird.”
“I’ve been kidnapped. I think it is Sergei’s brother.”
“Oh no, where are you now?”
“I’m in the back of a truck that looks almost identical to yours. I’m in some type of dog cage in the bed of the truck under a camper shell. One like yours. Walt, I am so scared.”
“We have to think. Can you see where you are, which direction you’re heading?”
“No, I can’t see out the windows. They’ve been darkened.” Regina was silent for a moment. “Listen, I have something I have to tell you.”
“Regina, I have to find you. Can you reach over and scratch on the windows? They probably have some type of darkening tape on them.”
“I can’t get my hand through the wires on this cage.”
“Walt, I’ve been so stupid to think that I was immune from danger or attack from Thaddeus. I think they have found out that we disposed of Sergei. When I got home, the back door was busted. Just as I was turning around to leave and call the police two men rushed out onto the back porch knocked my phone out of my hand, picked me up, and put me inside this cage. I know one of the men was Semyon Ivankov, Sergei’s brother.”
“How are we talking? How did you get a phone?” I said.
“I always carry a burner phone in a case strapped to my thigh.
It’s an old trick I read about in a novel. I’ve never had to use it before.
Walt, now listen. I have to tell you something.”
“Regina, we can’t waste any time. I need to call the police.”
“Hush, listen. I killed Jennifer, your wife. I’m so sorry. It was meant to be a prank. Freddie helped me. It went horribly wrong. I had to tell you. I had to, finally, be honest with you.”
“Regina, I already know. Funny, I figured it out two days ago. I was heading home to confront you about it. What’s weird is now, it doesn’t matter. That was then. You had no criminal intent. You were young and foolish. Now, as I ride and think I may never see you again, the past, no matter what, doesn’t matter. I love you and need you today and forever. Forget this, we have to act.”
“Thank you for loving me Walt. You are unbelievably kind, tender, forgiving. I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do. I’m the one that screwed up when I gave you up at the end of high school.” “Oh no.”
“What is it?” I said.
“The road just got really bumpy and rough. We have really slowed down. I think we are probably somewhere very isolated.”
“I’m putting you on hold to call the police.”
“No, please, stay with me. Talk to me, don’t leave. I need your voice. We’ve stopped.” I could hear muffled voices and then silence for several seconds.
“She’s got a damn phone.” I heard a man with a heavy accent.
“Unlock the gate.” Another voice said.
I could hear the truck’s tailgate being slammed down and the men scuffling into the truck. I could picture one of them using a key to open a padlock. I heard squeaks as though a metal or wire gate was swinging on its hinges.
“Give me that.” The man with the heaviest accent said as I pictured Regina pushing herself backwards.”
“Walt, I love you, I love you.”
The call ended. The line went silent. I no longer could hear what was happening to Regina. Unfortunately, my imagination was out of control and I was seeing her brutalized. She was shot, kicked, stabbed, choked, slapped. I got out of my truck. For the past ten minutes I had sat in my truck after pulling into the Lowe’s parking lot. I now had to move. Or, I would suffocate.
Finally, after walking around my truck for what seemed like an hour even though it couldn’t have been five minutes, I saw a Guntersville Police car pulling into a Captain D’s drive-through lane. This reminded me to call 911. I gave the lady all the information I had, which, I knew, wasn’t enough to save Regina.
By the time I drove through Albertville, it finally dawned on me that I had Thaddeus Colburn’s phone number. I looked back through my calls, found a number that I thought was his, and pressed ‘call.’ He answered on the first ring.
“Colburn, this is Walt Shepherd. Your thugs have my Regina.
Please don’t hurt her. I will pay you any amount. I will do anything.
There is no need to hurt her.”
“Mr. Shepherd, you are a slow learner. Don’t you recall me on multiple occasions warning you to stop promoting Eric Salers?”
“You know as well as I do that he doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning the presidential election.” I said.
“I don’t know that at all. The polls show him doing quite well.
As you must know, odd things can happen.”
“Why did you kidnap Regina?”
“First, you are mistaken. I have not kidnapped anyone. Second, Regina is my friend and I would never hurt her. She is important to me.”
“You are lying. Semyon Ivankov and some other thug kidnapped Regina less than an hour ago. They have her right now at some remote place.”
“Mr. Shepherd, if you know all this, why don’t you help her?”
“Because I don’t know where she is you idiot.”
“Now, don’t get angry.”
“I’m fully angry and you will not get away with this. If you don’t call Semyon and stop him from doing something stupid I’m calling the FBI on you right now.”
“No need for that. I’m at the Hampton Inn in Guntersville. Meet me in the Catfish Cabin’s parking lot in thirty minutes and we’ll go get Regina. I know where she is.” “I’ll be there.”
The Pencil Driven Life 