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 Safecracker, written in 2019, is my seventh novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Fred Martin, a 1972 graduate of Boaz High School, returns to his hometown after practicing law and living in Huntsville for over thirty-five years with two goals in mind. First, to distance himself from the loss of Susan, his wife of thirty-seven years who died in 2013 of cancer. And second, to partner with his lifelong friend, Noah Waters, to crack the safes of Elton Rawlins and Doug Barber, two men who got under their skin as high school football players.
Little did Fred and Noah realize the secrets the two old Mosler safes protected. Who murdered three Boaz High School seniors in the fall of 1973? Is a near-half-century-old plan to destroy Fred’s sister and steal the inheritance from a set of 44-year-old illegitimate twins still alive and well? How far would Fred’s mother go to protect her family?
What starts out as an almost innocent prank turns life-threateningly serious the more Fred learns and the more safes he cracks. All the while, he falls in love with Connie Stewart, his one-date high school classmate who may conceal a secret or two herself.
Chapter 63
Deidre didn’t know where she was. She knew it was late, probably going on midnight. The sun’s rays coming through the edges of the closed blinds had long faded. A severe leg cramp had been a blessing, jostling her body, causing the chair to fall over, enabling her to free her hands from the rope tied behind her back.
When Rebecca had appeared beside her cubicle, there was no choice but to obey. She had pulled up her oversized bright blue top and revealed a shiny little pistol tucked inside the waistband. It was erect and ready, silently commanding Deidre to submit.
After walking beside Rebecca all the way down three flights of stairs, outside through the Purchasing Department’s loading dock, and across the employees’ parking lot to the far back side, Deidre was ordered into the trunk. Directed to roll over. Rebecca had tied her hands behind her back and driven for at least thirty, maybe forty minutes.
“You bitch.” Rebecca said, walking into the den/kitchen combination from the back porch. Deidre had just untied her feet and was still shaking, her left leg loosening her tight thigh muscles.
Rebecca fumbled inside her purse and pulled out her 32 caliber, the one Elton had always carried while showing real estate to prospective buyers. Just as she looked up and pointed, Deidre slammed her fifty-pound heavier body into Rebecca’s semi-anorexic frame. She still managed to pull the trigger, launching the small but deadly bullet into the ceiling. With both hands, Deidre grabbed Rebecca’s right hand and the pistol. Rebecca was stronger than Deidre expected. And quicker. Excruciating pain shot through her right eye as Rebecca’s left hand and long nails clawed down her face. Deidre used her body weight to roll her and Rebecca to the left. As she did, the pistol turned upward into Rebecca’s gut and exploded.
After an hour back inside the ICU waiting area, I insisted Connie and Tyler go to her house to rest. Their story was eerily like a scene from It’s Over, a novel I had recently read by Britney Banes, a local author I had hurriedly completed a life insurance application for at the office sometime last year ten days before she was flying to Paris, France. She had given me a copy of her first book as a thank-you for me staying past Alfa’s closing time.
Earlier, after Connie had left the hospital, she had returned to Luke’s house but hadn’t stopped this time. She had driven on towards Crossville and four miles later had met Tyler walking south. Alone. His condition was good, excepting heavy sweat from a long walk.
Tyler had shared how the pastor, at first had been angry and fidgety. There was a fake-looking pistol lying on the van’s console. The overweight pastor had continued driving and talking about how his life was over. Tyler said Caleb alternated between shouting threats and confessing he was no murderer. Fifteen minutes later the pastor had pulled down an old logging road several miles past Crossville. Caleb ordered him out of the van and directed him to walk further away from the main road. After they reached the top of a steep hillside, he was ordered to sit on a decaying log and look down into a valley.
Over the next ten minutes, Tyler heard Caleb reveal how his life had devolved into a “hell of a mess.” He shared how he had gotten addicted to gambling and how stupid he had been to be seen at Tunica, Mississippi by Rebecca and Angela. Tyler said he had never heard anyone, much less a preacher, describe how he would love to tear the guts out of anything or anyone. “The damn bitch will not tell me what to do.” Tyler quoted the pastor, saying he had repeated this again the second before the fake gun blasted and the heavy man fell across the log knocking Tyler over.
It hadn’t taken the tall and skinny teenager long to skedaddle. As Connie and Tyler stood to leave the waiting room, Tyler looked over at me and said, “as long as I live, I’ll never forget the look on what was left of my uncle’s face.” My stomach didn’t have the nerve to ask Tyler what he meant. I suspected I knew.
The Pencil Driven Life 