Full Sail: Chapter One

TJ Wilde has been busy the last five years. A good job, a good guy, and a nice house. Stevie, her dumpster rescue kitten and Wyatt, a two-year old Bernese Mountain dog rescue complete their little family. But TJ is restless and looking for adventure. Be careful what you wish for…

The eBook is available now at this link.

As is my custom, here is Chapter One:

ONE

Murder is my favorite crime – LAURA

Fuck! I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain in Southern California. I was soaked to the skin standing in a torrential downpour underneath the fishing pier at Venice Beach. A few miles down the road from the ritziest of Malibu mansions and the kitschy fun of Santa Monica Pier’s Pacific Park. Grateful Colby convinced me to buy what had to be a military-grade phone. It was holding up to the deluge better than I. Of course, I would never tell him he was right. Keep him guessing. That was my relationship philosophy.

I had been following the ping of my best friend Mimi’s phone, but it had suddenly stopped, leaving me anxious and stranded, dodging the incoming tide. I tamped down the growing dread. She was in serious trouble, but I wasn’t sure what kind of trouble. Was she a fugitive on the run, or had some harm come to her? Either prospect was frightening.

I tracked her phone to this all-but-abandoned location when it abruptly went dark. Either a dead battery or someone saw me and suspected her cell was giving away her position and shut it off. I shook my phone in some irrational attempt to make the little red dot come back. 

Dammit, Mimi, where the hell are you? And why hadn’t Colby responded to any of my texts? What kind of fiancé was he, anyway? Oh, yeah, one with a stressful and, at the moment, very demanding job as a U.S. Marshal. Still, I felt deserted and desolate, and it was pissing me off.

A gust of wind howled under the dock, blowing sheets of rain at me, just as an enormous wave crashed inches from my drenched running shoes. I dashed toward the sand berm, scrambled over it to the walkway, and onto the pier. Striding the length of it, I looked from one end of the shoreline to the other, searching in vain for any sign of Mimi.

Squelching my growing panic, I replayed the previous night. What was the mysterious meeting that was so important she would be late to our dinner? Why didn’t she wait until I could go with her? Why was she always so impulsive? And yes, I was self-aware enough to understand the irony in that question.

Two weeks ago, my phone rang, and Mimi, breathless as usual, asked me if I wanted to get paid to fly to Los Angeles. I didn’t even wait for the reason. I said yes. I should have waited for the reason.

Chapter Two is here.