Kidnapped #MysterySuspense #YA

Kidnapped at the Midnight Sun
by Lisa Hall Deckert

“Oh my God, Nali, this says that somebody has Tori,” Kara said. “What if they hurt her? What if they already hurt her? Oh my God, what if they kill her? What are we going to do?”
I felt just as panicky as Kara did, but I tried to act calm. “Take a breath, Kara. Coach Kim is on her way up. The note is for her.”
Kim arrived quickly. “What is this all about? Did I hear you say kidnapped?”
“Look, here is the note,” I said. “Wait, don’t touch it!”
It was too late. Kim had already picked up the paper.

We have VicTorIA.
No Police and she won’T
be harmed. Tell no One.
InSTRUCTionS to FOllOw.

Beth was being watched, just as they had said she would be... #Fantasy #MysterySuspense

Sangian: Returning

by Alan Dean


He was nervous, fear flickered on the edge of his resolve, but he didn’t move. He could see her clearly despite the lack of light. His eyes had got used to the dark. He could see her face, her smooth, clear skin. Flawless, like it had never seen the sun. She was only a foot or so from him. He knew she would have to see him; that she must have done so already. He knew he had to act or his moment of glory would pass by forever.
Pulse racing he stepped forward. She stopped, but didn’t look at him. She continued facing the way she’d been walking as though it was something else she’d stopped for, not a strange man on a deserted path in a darkened park, but something more usual, something not in the least threatening. Her manner disquieted him. He needed some show of fear to bolster him, and its absence sucked away his resolve. He stopped and waited in confusion for something to happen, for her to run so he could give chase and overpower her.
The girl turned her head slowly and looked straight at him. Bright sparkling almond-shaped eyes held his gaze and a flicker of somewhere long distant found its way through his defenses. He let his eyes drop. He’d not meant to, he knew it was a sign of failure, of weakness, but she was stronger than he was. He could sense that, and he feared that even his gesture of submission would not end what he had started. But no blows came. No sharp stab of pain. He looked up again hopefully. Perhaps she was smiling. Maybe it was something else she wanted, but she’d gone and the path was empty.

Rabbit in the Road... #Thriller #Paranormal

Rabbit in the Road

by Danika D. Potts and Oliver Campbell


He gave me a name one day, walking back from the shack. "Rabbit In The Road," he said, pinching my cheek. "You ever see a rabbit run away from headlights in the road? They don't care where they go, they’re just runnin', fast as they can." He passed me the full blackberry basket to carry. "Rabbits are real damn stupid," He said softly. "Better to know what you're runnin' into, not just what you're runnin' away from. So you're Rabbit In The Road, until you know better."
I thought maybe I was starting to.

Nothing gets the blood flowing quite like seeing a ghost... #MysterySuspense #Thriller

Buried Secrets

by Brandi Salazar


Coming to a stop below the attic door, James reached up and tugged on the long cord that released the stairs, and pulled them down. On shaky legs, his breaths coming in short, labored bursts, he scaled the stairs slowly until he could just peak his head over the floorboards. From this vantage point, James had a direct line of sight between the many boxes leading a straight path to the dormer window where silver moonlight poured in washing the room in its unearthly glow. And there, sitting in front of the window, sat the filmy apparition of a young girl. She had her back turned toward him, but when James gasped his shock, she slowly turned her head, and when her eyes fell on him, she grinned.
Fear crippled him and James lost his footing. He grabbed for the floorboards, but it was too late. He fell, tumbling backward down the staircase and landing with a thud on the floor below. Panicking, James didn’t need time to recover. He leapt to his feet, and with desperation born of fear, he hauled the steps up, tucking them back into the ceiling and locking them in place. Then he turned and raced back to his room, slamming the door and locking himself inside until morning.

Welcome to Cherry... #Paranormal #YA

Ink

by Holly Hood


I felt him following me as I made it passed the rocks now. I really wasn’t sure if I wanted this guy knowing where I lived. After all he was wielding a baseball bat. And I had just seen him strike several people with that bat. What if he struck me?

One Lie Can Destroy All Truths #YA #Mystery

Deck of Lies, Book 1: Justice

by Jade Varden


“Oh, Rain,” she squeezed me, and for several minutes we stood there and cried together. Finally she pulled away, wiping tears off her cheeks. “Honey, what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. And Aaron. And my…and…everybody.”
“Rain,” her brown eyes, so much like my mother’s, were filled with pain as she reached out to brush a stray curl behind my ear. “You can’t be here.”
“But you haven’t been answering my calls! I had to come here.”
“Oh, Rain,” she turned away, bowing her head to hide behind a black curtain of hair. “I can’t take your calls. I can’t talk to you, and neither can Aaron. Not right now.”
“What? But Aunt Ronnie-”
“It’s not me, Rain, it’s the lawyer.” She held up her hands defensively.
“Rain? Rain!”
My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment I couldn’t catch it to speak. “Aaron!”
He appeared at the top of the stairs. Aunt Ronnie stepped before me, blocking my view of him just as he came into sight. “No. Aaron, back upstairs. Do you want to make things worse than they already are? Rain, you’ve got to go.” She put her hands on my shoulders and bodily turned me toward the door. “Aaron, upstairs!”
I’d heard her use that firm tone only once before, when I was six. I’d found the birth control pills in her purse and thought they were candy. Aaron was no longer rushing down the stairs, and I had no choice but to let her physically push me out the front door.
“Aunt Ronnie,” I turned and seized her hand, my eyes boring into hers. “Just tell me why they did it. Just tell me they aren’t terrible people.”

The Palaver Tree - Truth was never as deceptive as this ... #MysterySuspense #Thriller

The Palaver Tree

by Wendy Unsworth

The Palaver Tree Having made the decision to teach in Africa, Ellie desperately tries to persuade her friend, Diane to agree....

it’s pointless kidding myself. I’m not going to go off travelling the world on my own. This way I’ll be helping to teach all the children you raise money for. We’ll be a team. Wouldn’t that be great? Come on, I need you to come around on this or I won’t go!’ She put a hand across the table and squeezed Diane’s arm. ‘I’ll be a miserable hermit and it’ll be all your fault.’
Diane laid down her fork, placed her own hand over Ellie’s and gave it one last try. ‘Ducana is thousands of miles away stuck in the middle of the dark ages. The place is unhealthy; the water is full of horrible bugs. There are snakes and spiders and mosquitoes, Dysentery, malaria, AIDS, for God’s sake.’
Ellie let out an explosive snort, ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I’m going to catch that!’
‘Don’t be flippant Ellie. It’s my duty, as your loyal friend, to point out the bad bits.’
‘Would you like coffee? Or tea?’
‘Coffee, I think, good and strong.’ Diane had tried scaring her off and that wasn’t going to work. ‘Okay then, I would miss you,’ she said and gave Ellie a puppy dog look that was promptly ignored.
’Gabriel will look after me, you know him well enough to trust that he would never have asked if it wasn’t going to be safe. I’ll never get a chance like this again and I only even considered it because you’ve known Gabriel for a long time and think so highly of him.’ When Diane didn’t immediately jump in to agree she added, ‘you do, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do.’

Caught with his hand in the cookie jar... #MysterySuspense #Romance

Playing Fields

by Karen Stillwagon


“Oh Baby, if I can’t have you now my balls are going to burst!” Good lord there have been many bad lines muttered in a bar but this is by far the worst. But I agreed to take the case and I was here to do a job. But if I had to deal with this guy for too much longer I’d have to hurt him. Finding him was easy. He was the one making his rounds to all the single women, and subsequently getting rejected by the same. The night was too young and the crowd too sober for him to find any takers. After securing a place at the bar where crowd was in view, I lean over to order a drink, wearing my black sundress that fits like a glove, my breasts all but falling out, and Charlie makes his approach.

My name is Cassidy Fields. My job is to follow husbands...

New England mystery on Kindle: Yankee Swat #MysterySuspense

Yankee Swat

By Myrica Blue

I had noticed that he was carrying a long object wrapped in paper, but I’d figured it was a golf club. “That’s the Boston Post cane?”

“Yep.” He tore the paper off and handed it across my desk. It was made of smooth, polished dark wood – ebony wood from the Congo, according to Pudge Loring’s letter – topped with a shiny gold head. The head was surprisingly heavy and engraved. I ran a finger over it.

“This is just gold plate, right?”

Coot shrugged. “I don’t really know.”

“What’s it worth?”

“I don’t know that either,” he said, suddenly thoughtful. “In fact, I don’t even know if the town ever insured it. Like I said, I wasn’t on the board the last time they gave it out and I never really thought about it.”

“Did your uncle carry it around with him?”

Coot shook his head. “I had forgotten he even had it, until the paper brought it up. It wasn’t in the car when he crashed, if that’s what you’re wondering. My wife found it at his house.”

"Shadow Path" by P.L. Blair

Tevis placed a hand on the left temple of the corpse. "Most of the brain has been destroyed by the blast." He sounded distant, talking to himself, thinking out loud rather than answering the Wizard's question. "I feel … cold. Freezing. Like wind sweeping off a great field of ice. It has dissipated very little, even after all this time. You are very strong, Coira.” His voice dropped to little more than a barely heard murmur. “You are hiding something from us — trying to hide something."

His voice dropped even lower, whispering words Kat couldn't understand – didn't think she would've understood them even if she could've heard them clearly. He closed his eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead, rolled down to drip from his chin. Kat had never seen Tevis sweat before — never seen him look so pale. "Tevis ..." She reached toward him.

Arvandus caught her hand. "He casts a spell," the Wizard said. "It would be dangerous to disturb him now — dangerous for you as well as him."

"Death By A Dark Horse" by Susan Schreyer

Thea Campbell's horse has been stolen and although she has found him she's also found something else more sinister...

"Are you okay, buddy? We're going home. I won't let anyone drive off with you again. I'm so sorry." I kissed his nose once more, and gave him a cursory nose-to-toes examination, checking for any obvious signs of injury. He looked okay. I stroked his neck.

"Come on, Blackie. Gate. Let's go home." He heaved a sigh and moved off in the direction of the barn. 

I grabbed a halter and lead rope out of the truck, and dialed 9-1-1. As I walked I explained the situation to the operator and gave her Valerie's address. 

"Has the horse been injured or abused in any way?" she asked.

"Not that I can tell right now, but I haven't had a chance to thoroughly check him." I reached the gate, my attention divided between managing the latch and the phone call. "I'm—" I stopped. Something was wrong. Where was Blackie?

The wind shifted, blowing my hair across my eyes. With my hands otherwise occupied, I turned my face into the breeze to clear my vision and inhaled stench so dense it had weight.

A thousand spiders crawled up my spine.

From "Levels Of Deception"by Susan Schreyer

Thea Campbell has figured out how to deal with the unexpected problems she's encountered while doing research in the university's museum when she overhears an unsettling conversation...

I hiked my bag more securely on my shoulder. Okay, then. I'd faced her once. I could face her again. As I rounded a turn in the corridor Dr. Fogel's voice echoed softly ahead, coming toward me but still some ways away. Hope I could avoid Mrs. Peabody again quickened the pat-pat of my sneakered feet until Scott's angry, strident pitch cut off Andrew Fogel's quiet tone, halting my rush.

"If you don't do something I'll --"

"You'll do nothing. I'm certain he already suspects me. If you're found out it will --"

Their voices were getting closer.

"I won't jeopardize our plan." Scott's tone was a sneer. "But I'm telling you we have to do something about her."

Her? Her who? Her me? What had I done? Crap.

 There was nowhere to hide.

From "An Error In Judgment" by Susan Schreyer

Thea Campbell is attending the annual awards banquet for the Puget Sound Dressage Society and has been called to the stage to receive an award when the presenter collapses...

The room erupted in a cacophony of shouts and gasps. I leaped forward, dropped to my knees, and with two efficient flicks, undid his tie. 

Footsteps pounded across the stage behind me. Sig's eyes fluttered open.

"Lay still. You'll be okay." As I fumbled with his collar buttons, his hands shot up, capturing both my wrists in a crushing grip. I yelped and tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let go. His eyes focused on mine, desperate, commanding.

"Hudson … Paul Hudson … tell him …." His voice was raw with pleading. Even as it failed him, his eyes continued to beg.

A woman, kneeling on the other side of Sig, undid his shirt button. "Try to stay calm, Mr. Paalmann. I'm a doctor. An ambulance is on the way."

I tugged against his grip, but his rigid fingers would not release me.

 

"Tell him," he repeated.

"Tell him what?" I glanced at the doctor, who met my gaze and shook her head.

With enormous effort Sig tried again. "Tell Hudson … Andrea … must understand … my name. It must have my name."

From "Night Medicine" by Axel Brand

“No, Miss Vestal. But somewhere, somehow, a dead girl named Sandy Millbank got the name of an abortionist, who probably botched the job. She was very, very dead when we found her in the ferns, and we want the person who killed her. We want that person very badly, so that he doesn’t botch any more jobs, or take the lives of any more sweet girls who’re at the beginning of their lives.”

For once Wendy Vestal’s frost thawed a little. “It’s hard to be a woman, and you men don’t know that,” she said.

“Why there? Why there at the ferns, next to the West African lioness?” Sonntag asked.

“Because someone in Ranger Girls loved and honored her,” she said.

At last. “Someone in Ranger Girls knew she had reached the top rank?”

“Everyone in Ranger Girls knew she was a Lioness. There are only a few Lionesses in the United States, sir.”

“Someone in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, took her there. Do you know what she looked like when we found her?”

“I’m afraid I don’t want to know.”

“Someone placed her in a bed of ferns. Do you know what else?”

Miss Vestal simply stared.

From "Kansas Dreamer: Fury in Sumner County" by Kae Cheatham

Disquiet filled her. It seemed she would be ill, her stomach rolling, fingertips chilled. And the vision returned: The man smiles at her. Fringe. Dark. Falling.

“Marshal,” she said, her voice tight. “Marshal Stamford!” She jerked Phineas to a stop.

Stamford turned, smiling as he reined up his horse. Cra-ack! His lips formed a grimace, green eyes wide with surprise as he jolted forward, still in the saddle, but he held his right shoulder and clutched his horse’s neck, struggling for balance. His horse tossed its head and pranced. Ellen spurred Phineas forward, vaguely hearing Lutecia’s exhortation to take cover. She grabbed the sorrel’s headstall. Craack, came another shot. Phineas snorted. Ellen urged Stamford’s horse toward the tall serviceberry bushes beside the trail. Two shots came from Lutecia’s Pettingill.

“Get down!” Stamford growled at her. “It’s you he’s after!” The dark stain on his jacket spread as he took control of his horse and slid to the ground. With his left hand, he pulled his rifle from the scabbard.

Craack! Phineas jerked. Red blossomed across the big draft’s left ear and the horse whinnied a protest and bolted into the thickets.

“Run, Ellen! We’ll hold him down!” Lutecia called.

From "Reel Life Crime" by Cary Pepper

The damn fool kid. Was the car worth it? Did he really think his father was going to press charges? Or was he just trying to stick it to the old man, the way, he was so sure, the old man had been sticking it to him the entire 17 years of his angry young life. Maybe he was just being 17.

He’d taken the old man’s Lamborghini. The 1972 Miura with the collector’s plates and the drop-dead price tag.

“It’s a P400 Miura SV,” Lathrop told Sampas, and waited for a reaction. When he got none, he continued. “Only 142 were made. Or 147, depending on who you talk to. Only 21 were approved for import into the United States.”

Sampas had never been wowed by cars, but clearly he was supposed to say something. “Sounds like a very nice car,” he mustered.

“Ferruccio Lamborghini called it his ideal sports car,” Lathrop explained, his voice a nuanced blend of pride and condescension. “It’s also been called the most beautiful sports car ever built. Frank Sinatra, Rod Stewart, the Shah of Iran, and the king of Saudi Arabia have all owned one. Yes, I’d say it’s a very nice car.”

From "Slaying Season: A Jake Goodman Mystery" by James Laabs

The Lincoln State Abes, a small underdog school are playing the UCLA Bruins...

UCLA drove down the field as the game clock wound down and had the ball at the six-yard-line with fifteen seconds left in the game. If UCLA scored a touchdown, it would be a second straight disappointing loss for the Abes.

Luckily for Lincoln State, Onolulo Kahona didn’t learn very much about football growing up in American Samoa. He never heard the storied history of the UCLA Bruins and didn’t know that the Rose Bowl was built in 1922 and hosted some of the most famous sporting events of the twentieth century. All he knew was that his beloved grandmother, his favorite person on the the planet, was sitting in the stands. She had come all the way from Samoa just to see him play this strange game she knew nothing about. More than anything in the universe, he wanted to impress her.  The monstrous Samoan garnered every bit of strength on the next play and ran over the huge UCLA left tackle like he wasn’t there. The game ended the same way it started, with Onolulo Kahona sacking the quarterback and knocking the ball loose. Another Lincoln State lineman fell on the ball as the clock ticked to zero. 

From "Committed" by Brenda L. Foster

“Logan! Turn that jeep around and come home now!” Derek shouted.
“I have to go Derek! Messiah is cold and alone somewhere,” Logan said softly yet determinedly.

“Logan, I forbid you to go!” Derek was adamant but kept a cool head.
“You forbid me, Derek?” When Logan repeated what he said, he knew it didn’t matter then. She was going anyway. He cursed beneath his breath and tried a new angle.
“What about our talk?” he asked. “It’s our anniversary!” Logan’s body tensed from the annoyance of her husband’s single mindedness and for the moment she had had enough. There was a four year old kid missing in a city with several feet of snow and all he could think about was himself. She hung up and tossed her phone onto the passenger seat. When the line went dead, in frustration, Derek tossed his phone on the bed and dropped himself into his lazy boy chair. “Damn…” he moaned.

From "Harmonica + Gig" by RJ Astruc

In the summer of 2057 a nineteen-year-old Joaquin Magdellin had chased a whim and a peroxide blonde down a stretch of WestAsian coastline. After five days without a word his over-anxious parents contacted the police. For weeks their plight headlined internet dailies and six AsiaNational television channels. But if Joaquin had been remiss in advising his family of his plans, he had not forgotten to tell Harry, phoning her collect from a cut-rate backpacker hostel in Bombay.

‘Missing your legs, baby,’ he’d slurred into the vidphone, sunburnt and cheerful. ‘These Indians are a fucken riot. Want me to bring you back a cheap carpet?’

He called her again in 2060 before embarking on a four month lone odyssey through barely-charted bushlands--a journey to find himself, he explained. Self-awareness, SouthAsian style. He sent her a series of postcards via vidphone, posing barechested and openhearted against backdrops of ghost-tree gullies and featureless plains of red sand; she watched him clamber up razor-back ridges and down dunes from the comfort of her living room.

From "Legends of Tsalagee" by Phil Truman

The villains, Red Randy and Threebuck, have gone on a moonlight raid to a barn where they’ve been led to believe there’s an artifact which will help them locate the Lost Treasure of Belle Starr...


“What are you doing?” Randy asked. He’d reached the shaded side of a tractor parked in the barn yard, and squatted looking back. Threebuck stood frozen in the moonlight.

“Did you hear something?” Threebuck whispered.

“Hear what?” Randy whispered back, irritated.

“Sounded like a bear or something.”

“You’re plum spooked. Ain’t no bears out here. Now come on!”

At the barn door, itself in deep shadow, Randy lifted a latch piece, and slid a bar back along its guide. He stopped when the metal screeched. Looking back, he waited. Only a few chickens inside clucked; Randy slid the bar further. One of the large doors swung outward, creaking softly. The men looked furtively about again, then slipped inside. Shafts of moonlight filtered in through cracks on the moonlit side of the barn speckling the contents and the dirt floor inside…most of the interior lay in inky shadow.

“Give me the flashlight,” Randy whispered to Threebuck. There was a palpable pause. Randy snapped his fingers and said again, “C’mon. Gimme the flashlight.”

“I thought you brought it.”

Randy whisper-swore at Threebuck. Turning back to feel his way forward, he kicked a galvanized bucket sending it careening noisily into a stall post.