FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Bad Time To Be In It by David Burnsworth was a book that kept me on my toes while I was reading it. This was a quick read for me and I loved that about this book because I was able to read it in one day and move on to the next book in my stack. I loved that this book moved quickly because there is nothing worse than reading a mystery book that moves to slow because I always end up reading ahead because I get bored. Like I said before this book was a quick read for me and it made me want to go and read the other books in this series because I really loved these characters in this series. The author did a great job of making these characters come to life for me and because of that, I know that I will go back and read the other books in this series in the future. I know anyone who loves’s reading fast-paced mystery books will enjoy this one just as much as I did.
About The Book
Genre: Mystery Published by: Henery Press Publication Date: July 10, 2018 Number of Pages: 254 ISBN: 9781635113587 Series: Blu Carraway Mysteries #2 Purchase Links:Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo
The past is never past. Sometimes it repeats itself. And sometimes it comes back to pay a visit. Blu Carraway, flush with cash and back in business, never had it so good. Or so he thought.The reality is his love life is in shambles, his business partner is spending too much time with women half his age and not enough time on the job, and someone close goes missing. Blu’s business partner goes off the rails, his friends show their true colors, and he realizes that getting closure sometimes means walking away from everything. With a case from the past gone wrong twice, a loved one in trouble, and an unanswered marriage proposal, it’s a bad time to be in it for Blu Carraway Investigations.
About The Author
David Burnsworth became fascinated with the Deep South at a young age. After a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and fifteen years in the corporate world, he made the decision to write a novel. Bad Time To Be In It (July 2018, Henery Press) will be his sixth. Having lived on Charleston’s Sullivan’s Island for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife call South Carolina home.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
The Consultant by TJ O’Connor this was a good story, but it was hard for me to get through. I say that because I found that I had to really pay attention to was going on so that I wouldn’t get lost. Even with that being said I really did enjoy this story because it is something that I wouldn’t usually pick up and read. This book did keep me guessing right from the start. This book had suspense right from the start which is something that I really enjoyed about this book. I love books that are super suspenseful right from the start and this one is one of them. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Hunter throughout the entire book and I am not sure why I didn’t like him, but he just seemed to get on my nerves. If you love thrillers I would recommend this book to you because I know you will enjoy it but just know you have to pay attention to what going on or you might get lost.
About The Book
Genre: Thriller Published by: Oceanview Publishing Publication Date: May 15th 2018 Number of Pages: 432 ISBN: 1608092836 (ISBN13: 9781608092833) Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Terrorism hits Main Street America
When a rogue CIA consultant goes AWOL from his Middle Eastern post in response to his brother’s plea for help, he arrives just in time to witness his brother’s murder. For years, Jonathan Hunter and his brother Kevin Mallory had not spoken―until Kevin’s final words, “… Khalifah … Not Them … Maya.”
Pursuing his brother’s killer, Hunter stumbles into a nest of horrifying terrorist activity by Middle Eastern refugees, which sparks a backlash across America. In the shadows, Hunter’s mentor, the omnipotent Oscar LaRue, is playing a dangerous game with Russian Intelligence. Neither Hunter nor LaRue realizes that a new threat―the Iranian threat―has entered the game. Stakes rise as two shadowy players are one step ahead of Hunter and LaRue―Khalifah, a terrorist mastermind, and Caine, a nomadic assassin who dances with the highest bidder.
As attacks escalate and the country drifts toward another Middle East conflict, innocent refugees become trapped between the terrorists and the terrorized. Prejudice, hate, and fear vent everywhere. Is this who we’ve become? Before the country explodes, Hunter must find Khalifah, learn the next terror target, and pray he’s in time to stop further annihilation.
About The Author
Tj O’Connor is the author of The Consultant, the first of The Jonathan Hunter Thriller series and four paranormal mysteries.
Tj is an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism, investigations, and threat analysis—life experiences that drive his novels. With his former life as a government agent and years as a consultant, he has lived and worked around the world in places like Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and throughout the Americas—among others. He was raised in New York’s Hudson Valley and lives with his wife and Labrador companions in Virginia where they raised five children.
Dying to Know, Tj’s first published novel, won the 2015 Gold Medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY) for mysteries and was a Finalist for both a 2015 Silver Falchion Award and the 2014 Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Mystery Book of the Year.
Day 1: May 15, 2130 Hours, Daylight Saving Time
East Bank of the Shenandoah River, Clarke County, Virginia
The gunshots took me by surprise and, without luck, might have killed me. The first shot splayed a spiderweb across my windshield before it whistled past my head, peppering glass needles into my face. The second smashed my driver’s-side mirror. An amateur might have panic-braked and skidded to a stop—a fatal mistake. The shooter hesitated, anticipating that decision, and readied for my failure.
Training. Muscle memory. Response.
I gunned the engine, wrenched the car to the left to put more steel between me and the shooter, and sped forward, looking for cover.
My headlights exploded and flashed dark. Bullets breached the windshield. The rearview mirror and rear window were gone. Had I not flinched, one shot would have found my right eye but shredded my headrest instead.
I careened to a stop at the bottom of the boat launch— vulnerable. The shooter was ahead in the darkness, likely maneuvering for another shot. A closer shot. The kill shot. He’d be closing the distance and finding a new advantage.
Luck had its limits, so I dove from the car and rolled to cover behind it. I fought to control the adrenaline and bridle my thoughts.
Easy, Hunter, steady. Listen—watch—survive.
I stayed low and crept along the side of the car, looking for better cover. Spring rain made the darkness murky and dense. The Shenandoah River was to my left some fifty feet. A blind guess. Overhead, two dark spans of the Route 7 bridge blocked what little light there was but provided some cover from the rain. The six substructure supports in front of me might afford me cover. They also afforded the shooter cover. He was hidden and waiting. Still, Kevin Mallory was nowhere to be seen. Under normal conditions—and normal is relative with me—I might have judged the shots’ origins. Driving headlong into an ambush on terrain I’d long ago forgotten, in darkness and rain, I was all but defeated.
Silence.
Easy, Hunter, easy. Count your breaths. One, two, three.
Out there, somewhere, someone wanted me dead.
Worse. I was unarmed and alone.
Jesus. Where was Kevin?
The boat launch was just a small gravel lot tucked beneath the expanse of the Route 7 Bridge across the Shenandoah. At night it should have been empty. It was nearing ten p.m. and I hadn’t expected to find anyone but Kevin. Yet, while we’d been estranged for years, under bad circumstances, I doubted he was hunting me.
Although, I do tend to bring out the worst in people.
Ahead, perhaps seventy-five feet, a dark four-door SUV faced an old pickup. The vehicles were nose to nose like two dogs sniffing each other.
No movement. No sound.
One, two, three. I ran to the nearest bridge support, stopped, listened, and bolted to the rear of the SUV.
Silence. Safety. But something else—a dangerous odor. The pungent scent of gasoline. A lot of gasoline.
I got down on one knee and looked around. The dome light was on and the driver’s door was ajar. Something lay on the ground near the left front fender. A large, bulky something that washed an angry tide of flashbacks over me.
I’d seen silhouettes like that before.
A body.
Bodies look the same in any country, under any dark sky. It didn’t matter if it were the rocky Afghan terrain or along a quiet country river. Their lifeless, empty shells were all hopeless. All forsaken. All discards of violence. The silhouette three yards away was no different. Except this wasn’t Afghanistan or Iraq. It was home.
I made ready.
No muzzle flash. No assassin’s bullet. I crept to the SUV’s rear tire, crouched low, and slithered to the front fender.
The body was a man. He lay three feet in front of the fender and precariously vulnerable beneath the spell of the SUV’s dome light. He was tall and bulky. Not fat, but strong and muscled.
No. No. God, no!
After fifteen years of silence and thousands of miles, I knew the body—the man. His hair had grayed and his face was creased with age and strain. The years had been hard on him. Years he was here while I was forever there. Always elsewhere. He’d built a life from our loss while I’d escaped—run away. He once warned me that my life’s choice would leave me as I found him now, alone and dead. The irony churned bile inside me.
Kevin Mallory.
“Kevin,” I blurted without thinking. “Kevin, it’s me. It’s Jon.”
My mouth was a desert and the familiar brew of adrenaline and danger coursed through me. In one quick move, I leaped from the SUV’s shadow, grabbed his shoulders, and tried to drag him back to safety.
No sooner had I reached him when a figure charged from the darkness toward us. His arm leveled—one, two, three shots on the run—all hitting earth nearby. I threw myself over Kevin. Another shot sent stone fragments into my cheeks and neck. The figure reached the rear of the pickup, tossed something in the bed, fired another wild shot, and retreated at a dead run.
Lightning. A brilliant flash of light, a violent percussion, then a whoosh of fire erupted from the pickup. The flames belched up and over the side panels. They spat light and heat. The truck swelled into an inferno.
The heat singed my face. I gripped Kevin’s shoulders and dragged him the remaining feet behind the SUV. He was limp and heavy. The raging fire bathed us in light, and I finally saw him clearly. His eyes were dull and vacant. His face pale—a death mask. If life was inside, it was hidden well.
The truck was engulfed in flames, and the heat was tremendous. It reached us and felt oddly comforting amidst the spring dampness and dark.
“Kevin, hold on. Hold on.” I looked for an escape.
I saw the next shot before I heard it—a flash of light where none should be—uphill near River Road. Seasoned instincts threw me atop Kevin again. Glass crackled overhead and rained down. I grabbed for the familiar weight behind my back, but my fingers closed on nothing.
Dammit.
I hastily searched him. No weapon. All I found was an empty holster where his handgun should have been. Where was it? In a desperate move, I rolled off and snaked forward beneath the truck’s firelight and groped around where he’d been. It took several long, vulnerable seconds. I dared not breathe or even look for the shooter, fearing I’d see the shot that would end me. Finally, my fingers closed on a wet, gritty semiautomatic.
As I retreated to the SUV, something moved in the darkness. I pivoted and fired two rapid shots, spacing them three feet apart.
Response. A shot dug into the gravel inches away to my left.
Rule one of mortal combat—incoming fire has the right of way.
Retreat. The flash was a hundred feet away. The shooter had withdrawn and angled south down River Road.
Should I take him? Could I?
One, two, three. Reason, Hunter, reason.
The shooter had fired at least fifteen rounds. Fourteen at me and at least one into Kevin. Had Kevin returned fire? How many rounds did his semiautomatic have left? I was on turf all but forgotten, armed with a handgun that was perhaps near-empty. The shooter must have a high-capacity magazine with plenty of ammo to cut me to pieces. He’d already proven willing and capable of killing. He knew my location. I knew nothing.
Revenge would wait.
I sat back against the SUV’s tire and pulled Kevin close, keeping one arm around him and the other holding the handgun ready. The truck fire raged but was easing. The gasoline that had been splashed over it was consumed and only the paint and rubber were burning.
Soon, though, the fire might breach the gas tank.
I pulled Kevin close and braced myself.
“Kevin, wake up. It’s me—Jon. I’m here.”
“Jon?” His eyes fluttered and half-opened. “I . . . so sorry . . . Khalifah . . . he’s . . . find G. Find G . . .” He gasped for breath. “Khalifah . . . G . . . Baltimore . . . it’s not them. Khalifah . . . so sorry . . .”
“Sorry for what? Who’s Khalifah? Did he shoot you?”
“Tomorrow . . . not them. G . . . Khalifah is . . .” His body went limp.
I shook him easily. “Kevin, I don’t understand. Tell me again.”
“Find G . . .” His eyes fluttered again, and he clutched my arm with limp, sleepy fingers. “Find . . . Hunter . . .”
“Tell me who did this.”
“G . . . Jon . . . tell no one. Maya . . . Maya . . . Maya in Baltimore . . .” He fumbled with something from his pants pocket. He gasped for breath and pressed that something into my hand. “So sorry . . .”
I opened my hand. He’d given me a small, ripped piece of heavy folded paper with handwriting scrawled on it. I couldn’t make out the writing and stuffed it into my pocket. “Kevin, what are you saying? Hold on. Dammit, hold on.”
“Go . . . please . . . not them . . . it’s not . . .” He tried to breathe but mustered only a raspy gag.
“Kevin!”
Silence.
His body shuddered. A long, shallow sigh.
No. No. No . . .
My fingers found warm, sticky ooze soaking his shirt. The rain had slowed to a faint mist and, except for the river’s passing and the grumble of fire, there was only silence. Then, somewhere along the highway miles in the distance, sirens wailed.
“Hold on, Kevin. They’re coming. My God, hold on.”
I checked his pulse and wounds. Both were draining away life.
I pressed my hands into the ooze but couldn’t force its retreat. For a few seconds, I was fourteen again. The dull sickness invaded me as my parents were lowered side by side into the earth. The ache started in my gut and swelled until I spat bile and rage.
It was happening again.
The man who raised me—the man I’d abandoned—slipped away. The emptiness and loss attacked. I had to fight or it would destroy me again. This time, there was nowhere to run.
I closed my eyes and willed the anger in, commanding it to take hold and fill me.
I remember, Kevin. I made you a promise. I’m late, but I’m here.
He was limp, and I clutched him. A rush of words filled me that I’d wanted to say for so many years. But before I could speak just one, my brother was gone.
This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Tj O’Connor. There will be 1 winner of one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card and 4 winners of one (1) print OR eBook copy of Tj O’Connor’s The Consultant. The giveaway begins on July 1, 2018 and runs through August 1, 2018.
Open to U.S. addresses only. Void where prohibited.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Yesterday’s News by R.G. Belsky was an awesome book. There are several people at my day job that are also reading this book, so I knew it had to be good. I was shocked by how much I really enjoyed reading this book and how fast I was able to get through the book. I really enjoyed this author writing and the characters in this book. This was one of the book that I have read lately that kept me on the edge of my seat because I had to know how it end and how it ended. I spent a good chunk of the book jumping back and forth between who I thought did it but there was always one person on my list of people who did it. I won’t say if I was right or not because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who is reading the book but if you love books that keep you on the edge of your seat than I would pick this book up and check it out. If you have read this book what did you think of it?
About The Book
Genre: Mystery Published by: Oceanview Publishing Publication Date: May 1st 2018 Number of Pages: 343 ISBN: 160809281X (ISBN13: 9781608092819) Series: A CLARE CARLSON MYSTERY Learn More about Yesterday’s News & Get Your Copy From:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Oceanview Publishing | Goodreads
A classic cold case reopened—along with Pandora’s box
When eleven-year-old Lucy Devlin disappeared on her way to school more than a decade ago, it became one of the most famous missing child cases in history.
The story turned reporter Clare Carlson into a media superstar overnight. Clare broke exclusive after exclusive. She had unprecedented access to the Devlin family as she wrote about the heartbreaking search for their young daughter. She later won a Pulitzer Prize for her extraordinary coverage of the case.
Now Clare once again plunges back into this sensational story. With new evidence, new victims and new suspects – too many suspects. Everyone from members of a motorcycle gang to a prominent politician running for a US Senate seat seem to have secrets they’re hiding about what might have happened to Lucy Devlin. But Clare has her own secrets too. And, in order to untangle the truth about Lucy Devlin, she must finally confront her own tortuous past.
About The Author
R.G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City. Belsky’s crime novels reflect his extensive media background as a top editor at the New York Post, New York Daily News, Star magazine and NBC News. His previous novels include the award-winning Gil Malloy mystery series. YESTERDAY’S NEWS is the first in a new series featuring Clare Carlson, the hard-driving and tenacious news director of an NYC TV station.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Dangerous Places by Susan Hunter was an interesting book. This is the first book I have read by this author and I know that I will go back and read the other books in this series in the future because I really enjoyed Leah and the writing in this book. I have been big into cold cases lately, so this book was one that was either going to be great or horrible and I am glad that I really enjoyed this book. Even though this is the third book in the series I wasn’t super confused, but I did wish that I knew the back stories of the characters, but I was still able to follow the story, so you don’t have to read them all. I would recommend that if you are planning on read the first two books than I would start with the first book so that you know who everyone is. I couldn’t figure out what was going to happen so that was a great thing because more times than not I am able to figure it out before it ends but that didn’t happen with this book. The author did a great job of making me feel like I was there with the characters. I think anyone who is into crime/mystery books will enjoy this book just as much as I did.
About The Book
Genre: Mystery Published by: Himmel River Press Publication Date: November 2016 Number of Pages: 348 ISBN: 1540356477 (ISBN13: 9781540356475) Series: Leah Nash Mysteries #3 (Each is a Stand Alone Mystery) Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Goodreads
When teenager Heather Young disappeared from the small town of Himmel, Wisconsin everyone believed her boyfriend had killed her—though her body was never found. Twenty years later, his little sister Sammy returns to town. She begs her old friend, true crime writer Leah Nash, to prove her brother Eric isn’t a murderer.
But Sammy has no new evidence, and her brother doesn’t want Leah’s help. Leah says no—but she can’t help feeling guilty about it. That feeling gets much worse when Sammy is killed in a suspicious car accident. That’s when the independent, irreverent, unstoppable Leah takes up her cause. Her investigation takes her to some dark and dangerous places, and the truth she finds has an unexpected and shattering impact on her own life.
About The Author
Susan Hunter is a charter member of Introverts International (which meets the 12th of Never at an undisclosed location). She has worked as a reporter and managing editor, during which time she received a first-place UPI award for investigative reporting and a Michigan Press Association first place award for enterprise/feature reporting.
Susan has also taught composition at the college level, written advertising copy, newsletters, press releases, speeches, web copy, academic papers and memos. Lots and lots of memos. She lives in rural Michigan with her husband Gary, who is a man of action, not words.
During certain times of the day, she can be found wandering the mean streets of small-town Himmel, Wisconsin, dropping off a story lead at the Himmel Times Weekly, or meeting friends for a drink at McClain’s Bar and Grill.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Pump Up Your Book in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
At Shutter Speed by Rebecca Burrell was an interesting book. I was left wondering how often stuff like this really happens because I have no doubt that our government does do stuff like this but that isn’t what this review is on. This is the first book I have read by this author and I will for sure be picking up more books by her in the future. This book did take me awhile to get through because I really had to pay attention to what was going on so that I didn’t get lost. It wasn’t hard to follow per say but it did skip around the time periods and characters, so I just had to make sure that I knew would was talking and when the events were taking place. I fell in love with Leah and Matty right from the start and I felt so bad for both throughout the book. I loved watching Leah do everything that she could to find her husband and that she never let anything stop her. If you love books that have strong female leads I know you will love this book just know that it may take a little while to read because you really have to pay attention to what is going on, so you don’t get lost.
In the click of a shutter, #Resistance becomes more than just a hashtag.
Pass the bar exam. Convince someone—anyone—in the Egyptian government to admit they’ve imprisoned your husband. Don’t lose your mind. For fledgling human rights attorney Leah Cahill, the past six months have been a trial by fire, ever since Matty, a respected but troubled war photojournalist, disappeared during a crackdown in Cairo.
Leah, the daughter of a civil rights icon, grew up wanting to change the world; Matty was the one who showed her she could. Though frustrated by the US government’s new fondness for dictators, she persists, until a leaked email reveals a crumbling democracy far closer to home.
Risking her own freedom, she gains proof Matty’s being detained at a U.S. ‘black site’, stemming from his work covering the refugee crisis in Syria. Armed with his photo archives, Leah plunges into their past together, a love story spanning three continents. She uncovers secrets involving Matty’s missionary childhood, her own refugee caseload, and the only story the deeply principled reporter ever agreed to bury. It’s what got him captured—and what might still get him killed. With Leah’s last chance to save him slipping away, Matty’s biggest secret may be one he’s willing to die to protect.
About The Author
In her own fictional world, Rebecca Burrell is a secret Vatican spy, a flight nurse swooping over the frozen battlefields of Korea, or a journalist en-route to cover the latest world crisis. In real life, she’s a scientist in the medical field. She lives in Massachusetts with her family, two seriously weird cats, and a dog who’s convinced they’re taunting him.
With a click of the shutter, he captures a life—beginning, middle, or end. His photos tell tales, expose truths, open worlds. If journalism is a dying profession, I’ve been watching it kill my husband for years. But at the same time, it’s keeping us alive.
A sea of humanity undulates through Tahrir Square, respiring with simmering fervor. Sirens have been blaring since evening prayers, punctuated by dull explosions from police-fired smoke bombs. Casualties, mostly students, litter the streets. Their luckier peers are staunching head wounds with T-shirts and flushing each other’s eyes with Maalox cocktails. Hissing canisters snake through the gardens near the Egyptian Museum. Masked protestors hurl them back. Death to the dictator, death to the regime!
The museum’s been closed for ages. No one in the immediate vicinity gives a damn about antiquities, so I’ve got a front row seat in the Grand Saloon between a statue of Amenhotep and an arched window facing the square. The air tastes flinty, like gunpowder. Pinpricks of fire are creeping down my throat from the gas. In theory, I’m studying, but you can’t exactly study in the middle of a crackdown.
“Dear me, Leah.” A bespectacled face pops up beside Amenhotep—the curator, Yusef Hafez. In his cream linen suit, with a perma-smell of aged vanilla and musk, he’s something of an antiquity himself. “He hasn’t returned?”
“Soon, I’m sure,” I say. Though I’m not. Matty is somewhere in the chaos outside. Which means he has his eye to the lens, so he’ll be the last to notice when the police don their masks for another round. It means he’ll come home coughing, clothes reeking of smoke, on a rush that’ll keep him from sleeping for weeks. Weeks he’ll spend restless, wandering from room to room because he keeps imagining the smell of tear gas. Where he’ll lose ten pounds because he’ll forget to eat. Where he’ll catch one whiff of a Lucky Strike or diesel fumes and it’ll be as if someone opened a window to some long ago and far away hell. It means being locked in a constant state of vigilance, watching for signs, so I can run to the icebox for the frozen orange I keep in there, because sometimes, something cold and fragrant can bring him back before it gets worse.
It means he’ll be unfocused and get lost doing simple things, then pick fights with me over stupid crap because it’s easier than letting me help. But then he’ll finish the story and—poof— he’ll be himself again, the guy who holds me close and promises me that someday, the world will be what we both desperately want it to be. It’s our thing. We’re broke and spend our lives dodging bullets or sleeping under the stars, and time was, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. He’s the adrenaline junkie. These days, I just hang on at the fringe.
It wasn’t always this way—I spent my twenties as a humanitarian aid worker in Sudan and Uganda. The short version is that I got spooked, left the field, and went running for law school. Now I stay behind while he takes crazy risks. I should be out there too, but when one’s husband has been killing himself to put one through law school, one has no excuse for failing the bar exam. At least not twice.
“It was kind of you to let us stay here,” I say to Yusef, blinking as the dots swim on my practice test. Hours ago, as the clashes intensified, the government declared all foreign journalists ‘purveyors of fake news’, the new favorite epithet of authoritarian regimes everywhere. After they yanked our hotel permit, Yusef, an old friend of Matty’s, offered us a spare room in the basement.
Jowls turned down, he strokes the bristles of his beard. “You may need to make other arrangements. The museum is at risk. The Night Hotel has been set ablaze.”
Outside, a flickering orange glow lights the square. I tuck my study guide behind me, then stand on pins-and-needles legs for a better look. Even the palm trees are in flames. There goes the best fourteen-dollar-a-night hotel in Cairo. “When did that happen?”
“Some time ago.”
Students dance in front of the burning building, bare seconds before being swept away by police water cannons. “They could put it out if they wanted,” I say. “Guess it’s more fun to squirt protestors.”
“This is Egypt.” Frustration courses through Yusef’s voice. “We say ‘God will take care of it’. Then we do nothing.”
The last time we’d been in Cairo was during the 2011 revolution, and so much has changed. Shop windows once filled with honeyed cakes and risqué clothes are burned and boarded. Once, students danced on the rooftops, because where else would you go when the world tipped on its head? Now, if you dare go outside, you watch the rooftops for the glint of a sniper rifle sight. Revolution isn’t binary, it isn’t an endpoint, it’s a fluid state of mind, and Egypt’s has been dark for years.
“Maybe that’s what the people outside are trying to change.”
It’s not that I think arson is a good way to solve problems, but I grew up with a giant of the civil rights era telling my bedtime stories. What’s happening outside goes beyond buildings and things. Matty’s photos of sheet-wrapped corpses prove it.
Yusef clings to the crimson ropes around the colossus, contemplating his world, the hieroglyphs of Isis, the soaring majesty of Horus, the gold in Tut’s death mask. “Egypt’s greatest treasure is her history. In their anger, youth forget such things. They forget the past contains the answers.”
To me, it’s simple. These clashes are rooted in three things: power, money, and sex, which are pretty much all that people ever fight about anyhow. The men in power have all the money, and this being Egypt, they’re damned determined to control the sex, too. No one under thirty has a job, which means they can’t get married, which means they can’t get laid. So instead, shit gets lit on fire.
Someone—a teenage girl—slams the window, crazing the glass. A dozen cops in riot gear give chase, shields and batons raised. We will be free, she screams at them in Arabic, scampering into the crowd. The police start beating everyone near her.
I toss the world of contracts and torts aside. The way I should’ve done four years and a shit-ton of money ago. “That’s it.”
Yusef eyes his mummies. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” I wrap a scarf around my face, then make sure the long skirt I’m wearing covers my ankles. ‘Out’ is where people need help. ‘Out’ is where the old Leah would be. “I’m not doing any good sitting here.”
“Your husband will not like if you leave.”
Too damn bad. I snap a pair of swimming goggles on my forehead. Yusef’s been hovering all night. I figure Matty asked him to babysit, which is ironic for any number of reasons. “Probably not.”
Maybe I look like a bug-eyed Calamity Jane, but my dad, the Honorable Dale Atkins, Esq., would be ashamed if his daughter sat on her ass while thugs in riot gear form ranks across Tahrir Square.
While I’m doing the one-foot hop with my sneaker, my phone dings. Twice.
Stay put Leah
And get away from the goddamn window
I peer outside. A line of armored vehicles stretches to the cornice at the Nile end of the square. Matty is perched on the wall of the lotus pond, wearing faded jeans and a flak vest, a checkered scarf over his mouth and nose. With his wheat-colored hair and dishwater-grey eyes, he’s the kind of guy who stands out in any crowd, but it’s really damn obvious here.
It’s different for me—my Mom’s French and my Dad’s roots are Igbo, which makes guessing my race some weird game show for strangers, who seem to think I’m either Mediterranean, Hispanic, or ‘wow, for a white girl, you can really tan’. The good news is that at this time of year, I can pass for a local in Cairo. The bad news is that the secret police are out in force, so nobody’s safe out there tonight.
I dial Matty’s mobile, to remind him to cover his head, but then shots start popping and he hits the deck. The crowd scatters. He scrambles away, and I hang up, fast.
Banging my temple with the phone, I watch him scurry into an alley behind the museum. My mobile rings a few seconds later.
“Hey, babe.” His breathing is labored. “How’s the studying?”
“Are you okay?”
“Far as you know.”
A wiggle of relief hits my belly. “Butthead. I’m coming out.”
The crowd sounds go quiet. “Leah, it’s bad. There’s nothing you can do.” He sounds defeated, which is never a good sign.
“Is anyone with you?”
“Reuters has a couple stringers out here. Or maybe they’re AP. Not sure they know either.”
“Not what I meant.” Matty’s parents were missionaries who dragged him from one godforsaken hotspot to the next, and it messed him up pretty good. What I care about is whether he’s working with someone who knows him. Knows what his mind can do to him when things are ‘bad’. Which they have been. For months, ever since he got injured on his last job in Syria. On the outside, he’s still healing, but something worse is eating him from the inside, something he won’t talk about. Which isn’t exactly unusual, but it’s never been this bad for so long. We’re doing our best to smile through the pain and pretend everything is getting better. It’s killing me that it’s not.
In the background, I hear a wolf whistle. “Cahill, is that your wife? Man, I had no idea she had tits like that.”
Matty swears. “Christ, Sal.”
Saleh is Yusef’s son, a producer for CNN’s Africa desk, and I can guess what he’s looking at. A normal guy would carry a wedding photo. Maybe a vacation snap. Something that involves, say, clothes, but this is a photo of me that Matty took the first night we made love. Like…right after, and he’s been schlepping it around ever since.
He comes back on the line. “Sorry.”
“Since when are you showing that to people?”
“I wasn’t, Leah, I just…needed to see it, okay?” His voice sounds distant. Sad.
“Matty, come home. You can have the real thing.”
He exhales. “God, you have no idea. As soon as things calm down, I’m yours.”
“Hope that’s a promise.”
“It is.” He coughs, away from the receiver. “How’s your stomach? Did that tea I brought help?”
It’s a loaded question. The water in Egypt never agrees with me, and as far as he knows, that’s all it is. The two pregnancy tests I took before we came agreed, and then there’s the get-it-while-you-still-can-because-fuck-the-patriarchy IUD I had put in after the election. None of which does a damn thing to explain why I can’t even remember the last time I had a period. Or make me feel any less jumbled up inside.
“Yeah, better,” I finally say.
“Liar.” He pauses. “How about I scrounge up some of that honey candy you like?”
All I need is him. Screw that. I need him to be him—the guy who lets me help when he’s messed up, not the one who shuts me out and keeps secrets, who feels like he’s one bad day from giving up. Because from the minute we landed, my body has been doing its damnedest to convince me those stupid pregnancy tests were wrong. “I’m okay.”
Water jets sweep the crowd. The line of black uniforms holds. Fresh volleys of smoke burst forth. “Hey listen,” he says, “rumor has it the government is shutting down the internet. Can you get to my website?”
Matty, who’s a freelance journalist these days, likes to joke that he got kicked out of the Fourth Estate and into a trailer park. We met at an Iraq War protest, and even then, the news orgs were refusing to print some of the photos he took—too controversial, or they didn’t fit the narrative somebody wanted to spin. His blog is his voice, in all its raw, unfiltered glory.
“It’s been loading like a ninety-year-old turtle with a piano on its back,” I say, waking the tablet beside me. Truth told, I’ve been paying more attention to that than my review books.
Mizaru’s Window, reads the site’s header. The letters twine around a graphic of the Three Wise Monkeys—See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, a copy of one tattooed on his arm. All I know is it was some kind of farewell screw-you to his dad.
“Check your flights while you’re at it,” he says.
Originally, they were ‘our’ flights, but one of us is in the middle of documenting a war and the other has the bar exam in four days. “They’re looking for observers down in Suez. The military says eleven dead, but Amnesty thinks it’s higher. Maybe we should—”
“No.”
“I could fly out tomor—”
“I’m not going to be the reason you miss that damn test again.”
Okay, so I didn’t exactly fail the bar the first time. Long story. This time, I have a job waiting for me in DC, which I have to take if we have any hope of paying back my loans. It’s immigration law instead of human rights, which means diving into a system I know nothing about, which I’m only doing because the way things are going at home, it feels as if I have to. Except taking it means an office instead of the front lines, which comes with the guilty reminder of the moment I walked away. When we started out, Matty and I were a team, and deep down, I’m scared to admit those days are gone forever. But something has to change.
Yesterday, before we left to come here, I found him naked on the beach by my parents’ house—in February, no less—throwing sheaves of story notes and photos onto a campfire he’d started. High as a kite to boot. Once he’d sobered up, I told him that unless he got his act together, he wasn’t coming with me to DC. In hindsight, getting on a plane with him to Cairo wasn’t the best way to convince him I’m serious about leaving, but I was terrified of what might happen if I didn’t. If there’s a baby involved, I can’t bear to think what it means.
Maybe my stomach…thing…is just stress. People who accidentally get pregnant don’t have to take the bar, or soul-sucking law jobs. They get to dress up their baby girls in frilly outfits and drink Starbucks all day, don’t they?
Right Leah. Keep telling yourself that.
“I got a one-ninety-one on my practice Bar today,” I say. “Finished in under two hours. With a twenty-minute Angry Birds break.”
“Funny that your staunch opposition to the death penalty stops with cartoon pigs.”
“The evil green porkers deserve it.” And like he’s any different. “You realize two hundred is perfect?”
“I heard you,” he replies. “I’m sure the Egyptian military will be impressed if they decide to detain you for a few weeks.”
Or Borders and Customs. Sighing, I click refresh. “You realize I’m going to make a shitty lawyer if I can’t even negotiate with you.”
“You only suck at negotiating when you’re wrong.”
The cursor keeps spinning. “They must’ve pulled the plug.”
He curses. “The US producer must be having a fit. He wanted a live feed ready as soon as Jake Tapper finished feeding some White House Nazi his own nutsack.”
“Which one?”
“I can’t keep them straight. The dude who looks like his mother fucked a lightbulb.”
That’s my Matty. “I bet Jake Tapper would tell me to stay.”
“Don’t get me in the middle of your unholy crush on JT.” His voice grows muffled. “Hey listen, let me go take care of some things, then I’ll come find you.”
“Will you be long?”
“I’m staring at a nekkid picture of my gorgeous wife. Part of me is.”
“I happen to like that part. Try not to get it shot off.”
Even the happiest couples have secrets. When we met, I saw him as this exotic world traveler—born in Brazil, he spoke five languages. He grew up in places like Mozambique and Iraq; I’m an attorney’s daughter from P-town, Massachusetts, who’d dreamed of seeing the things he’d seen, and yet to realize they’d nearly killed him. He says he fell in love with me because I proved to him the world could change. I fell in love with him because he showed me what had to.
Billows of sweet, noxious smoke cloud the air as I slip out of the rear service door, needing to see for myself that he’s okay. The goggles and my scarf protect me, though I can’t stay out long. His silhouette is visible through the haze. Head tilted a little to the left, elbow raised, camera ready. I’d know it anywhere.
I’ve always loved watching him work, getting to look through his photos at the end of a day. Matty has this desperate search for humanity, but he sees it in things that are fleeting and hard to find. He lives in the infinitesimal space between the best and worst of human nature, and some days, the camera is all that keeps it from crashing down on him. Even in the worst situations, he manages to find some shred of hope. Dignity. But it’s rare to see him this at peace while he’s doing it, and I can’t help but wonder what’s changed.
Near the American University, students hold vigil beside a stone church which is set up as a makeshift field hospital. Mourners gather around a lifeless body, surrounded by others who form a solidarity wall, protecting them from the riot troops. Matty moves to an alcove by the front gate, transfixed by something on his camera LCD.
All he wants is one photo that changes the world. Nobody but journalists and history buffs remember who took the Kim Phuc photo, the naked girl running from her napalmed village, but it altered the course of the war. Nobody remembers who got the shot of the guy staring down the tanks in Tiananmen Square, but the world still wonders what happened to him. It took a while before I understood why Matty lets life take so much from him. He rejected the life his parents led, but parts stuck with him nonetheless. The need to see justice done, to give a voice to the voiceless. He keeps searching for that one seismic photo because it’s the only way he’ll ever figure out how to live with himself.
A woman with a dark, shiny braid comes over to Matty. Thirtyish, she’s dressed in a loose olive pants and a black tunic, with a rose print scarf over her hair, an Assyrian-style cross around her neck, and a downcast expression on her face. A few words pass between them. He opens the memory slot on his camera and gives her the card, which she reluctantly accepts. After that, he draws her into an embrace, planting a tender kiss on her forehead.
Just like that, I can’t breathe.
At the same moment, she glances across the square to where I’m standing, and a flicker of recognition lights her eyes. Matty notices me then too, and freezes. I catch a musky smell, a man’s smell, and I realize someone is standing behind me.
Before I can even turn, the man slides into the crowd. Western clothes. Dark, flowing hair, and a pair of silver sunglasses perched on his head, though I can’t see his face. He circles the mourners like a great cat guarding a kill. Or stalking the next.
His expression flits between bemusement and rage, the latter directed at the woman with Matty, who’s now kneeling in prayer inside the circle. “Come out, whore,” he taunts. “Do you think I can’t see you?”
Her gaze lifts. The fear is gone, replaced with anger and grief. She shifts off her knees and exits the circle, towards a young father and son standing at the gate. The boy, ragged and rail-thin, holds out a shaggy brown mongoose, which hops onto her shoulder.
The father steps protectively in front of his son. “Leave us in peace. We have beaten you. You lost.” His accent is Syrian, not Egyptian, which likely explains the haunted look on his kid’s face. “You have no power over us now. Or this woman.”
With a bemused smirk, the jerk flicks ash from his cigarette. “This is the thanks I get? Perhaps I should not be surprised.” He flashes a knife. “Offer her a place to sleep and she’ll fuck you too.”
The mourners break up in a chorus of peace-be-with-yous and as-Salamu Alaykums. The jerk shoves the father aside, then lunges for the woman. A pop-pop- pop comes from the rooftops. The crowd screams and scatters. And then my idiot husband goes and tackles the jerk.
Matty barely dodges the knife on the first swing. On the second, the mongoose leaps, sinking its teeth into the man’s neck. The knife clatters to the pavement, and the mongoose prances away, chittering triumphantly.
The woman grabs the boy by the hand and runs down an alley. The jerk gut-punches Matty, shoving him off. Inaudible words pass between them. Matty gapes at me, white-faced and startled. Grinning, the jerk flips his knife, then stalks off after the others.
Matty is slow to get up, clutching his ribs, which got broken six months ago during an airstrike in Syria. I run over and help him out of the line of fire. “You’re hurt.”
He’s got this lost, anguished expression on his face, sweat mixed with ash, greasy black smudges running from temple to chin. “She’s just someone I know, Leah—that guy…”
Mixed with the pain, there’s guilt, and I’m not sure I want to know where it came from, so I replace the lens cap. “It’s fine, you can tell me later.”
The crowd swells as we make for the safety of the museum. Smoke and flames leap through the roof of the building across the alley. “I told you to stay put,” he grouses, as a tank rumbles past.
“You know me better than that.” I stab Yusef’s spare key into the service entrance door. “What were you thinking, going after that guy?”
“I was having another goddamn flashback, okay?” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Can we not talk about it?”
Something hits me hard, deep in the stomach. We’ve spent half our marriage dealing with his flashbacks. It’s not why he did it.
“Fine,” I say, struggling to figure out what he’s not telling me. Which seems to be how I spend most of my time these days. “Then let’s talk about her.”
He peels the goggles off my head, hands coming to rest on my face. His skin feels raw, about a million degrees. “Stop looking at me like that.” He walks me into the darkness of the unlit entryway. “You know I’m no cheat. She’s a source. A friend.”
What I want him to say is why the ‘friend’ with the jealous eyes and curvy figure was acting if she knows me. Why he was comforting her. I’d settle for some hint of why she’s in trouble in the first place, but if she’s a source, with Matty, that’s the end of it. I know he’s no cheat, sure, but he’s never been as secretive and self-destructive and just plain messed up as he’s been the last few months either.
I want to blurt out I think I’m pregnant, but the words won’t come. I’ve seen too much of the world to want to bring a child into it, and any time it’s come up, he jokes that his brain should be donated to science, not inflicted on another generation. Kids were never in our plan. But here we are, and I need him to tell me he’ll find a way to crawl out from whatever he’s under, that he’ll do it for me and the baby because he loves us. Yet I love him enough to know it’s not that simple.
The basement smells of must. A strange, sweet salt tickles my nose. Down here, it’s a maze of painted metal boxes and shelves, filled with dusty artifacts collected god knows when. He’s wandering between them, lost and unfocused, so I take his camera and set it on a nearby crate. “Matty, where are we?”
He blinks, scanning around. “Cairo, right?”
Anxious, I step between his knees, resting my forehead on his, but when I move my hand to his arm, he flinches. My hand comes away warm and sticky. I grab his wrist and pull up his sleeve, revealing a two-inch dig right below the monkey tattoo on his biceps. I know it’s from a bullet, which is bad enough, but he’s written his name and my cell phone number in thick, permanent marker on his arm. Suddenly I’m fighting tears.
“Hey, ssh, ssh,” he says. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I’m here, right?”
Over our years together, I’ve watched him bury a dozen friends, sometimes nothing more than memories in empty coffins. I’ve been stuck half a world away when the internet discovers the latest video of some fuckwit beheading a journalist. Worry isn’t a choice, it’s something that tattooed itself onto my heart long ago.
“C’mon, tough guy. You and I have a date with the first aid kit.”
He buries his face in my neck and slips his hands under my skirt, cupping my rear. “Leah, I don’t need a damn Band-Aid. I need you.”
His kiss swallows the night, deep, wet, and lingering. He wants me to let this go, but we both know I can’t. “What’s wrong?” I say, caressing his temple. “Are you in trouble?”
“Nothing a good lawyer couldn’t handle.” He nudges my knees apart with his hip, shucking his T-shirt. “Though I’ve got something else for her to handle instead.”
I count the scars on his torso, making sure there are no new ones. Darfur above his left hip, Kirkuk across his left pec, Aleppo all down his right side. “You’re burning up.”
“Can’t help it.” He lifts my top over my head. “Is this okay?”
He asks, because once, someone didn’t. It’s not something I think about much these days. “It is if you tell me what’s going on.”
A kiss, a nibble, a caress of my hip. “I’m making love to my wife.” He peels down the cup of my bra, flicking his tongue over my nipple. “Who should know I’m completely mad about her.”
“Completely mad about something.” I say, surrendering in a swirl of emotion, dust, and our own tangled history. Fine, I need him too.
But then comes a commotion upstairs. Smashing glass, running footsteps. Bitter, angry shouts. Looters. Yusef’s muffled shouts rise above the fray.
Matty’s weight drops onto me. With a groan of frustration, he rolls off, contemplating the ceiling. “He’s about to get himself killed over some clay pot, isn’t he?”
As he buttons his jeans, I sit up. “Where’s my skirt?”
Leaning over for a quick kiss, he snags his shirt. “Stay. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
I snag it back, draping it over my breasts. “Seriously—what’s got you so spooked?”
He stops, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Does that mean he knows? I bite my lip. “For starters, you could tell me how you feel about it.”
His brow furrows. “Are we talking about the same thing?”
I can’t make myself say it, so I put my hand over my midsection. His jaw goes slack, and a rush of breath escapes from his lungs. “God, Leah, I—”
There’s another crash, a scream. Eyes closed, he kisses my forehead. “I love you, but right now I am scared to death. I’ll be right back. Then we’ll talk. I swear.”
Scared to death is better than I expected. “Okay. Go.”
As the sound of his footsteps fades, I slip on his shirt, and while I’m buttoning it up, I notice he didn’t take his camera. Given that it’s his sixth appendage, it’s odd. Not to mention the frustrated way he tossed it onto his bag. As if he’s tired of it ruling his life.
When I turn it on, an error comes up on the display, and that’s when I remember him passing the card to that woman.
Who is she? What did she want with it?
The looting upstairs reaches a fever-pitch. Ear-splitting scrapes, floor-shaking thuds, triumphant shouts. It’s either looters or a herd of zebras dancing Swan Lake.
My phone buzzes. Matty’s number comes up on the display. I hit answer. “Hey, where are you?”
“Out,” he says, breathing heavily. “Needed a smoke.”
Everything inside me goes cold. We have a code phrase. In case something ever goes bad. That was it.
Adrenaline puts a tremor in my hands. My legs. My pulse poundsin my ears, loud enough I can hear it. Forcing down the panic, I try to remember the questions we worked out, the ones we agreed to use if someone could be listening. “Could you get some ibuprofen while you’re out?” Can you get away?
Muffled sirens, people shouting. “Stores are closed, babe.”
My legs go weak. “Matty—”
“Check my bag,” he says. “Side pocket. Should be some in there.”
I dive on his old green duffel, hands trembling. The pocket is empty, but the lining is ripped. Inside, I find a Brazilian passport in my name. He has dual citizenship—there are places he goes where being American is a bad idea—but if I have it too, it’s news to me.
“What’s going on? Where did this come from?”
“I got your back, baby.”
“Is this about—?”
“Stop.” A rush of breath comes out of the receiver. “You don’t know anything. I haven’t told you a thing, right?”
“Matty please…”
Echoing sounds, like footsteps off an alley. More than one pair. “Say it, Leah.”
“Would I be asking if you had?”
He drops his voice low. “Listen to me. Put on my sweats. Tie the biggest goddamn knot in the waist you can because there are gangs out here who will make you regret it if you don’t. Then get your ass to the embass—”
A low pi-too sound, like gas escaping in a rush. He gasps and drops the phone. My heart stops. “Matty, say something, please.”
When he picks it up again, his voice is slurred. “I love you—you know that, right?”
I lose it. “You’re supposed to come home, Matty. You promised you’d always come home.”
“No choice,” he murmurs again. “You’re the only home I ever knew.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Hiding by Jenny Morton Potts wasn’t my favorite book. I say that because I had a hard time following what was going on and who was talking. I am not sure why that was, but it made reading the book super hard for me. I did enjoy the authors writing but I just couldn’t stay interested in the plot of this book. It also could be because this isn’t a genre that I usually read so I just wasn’t super interested. I really liked Rebecca from the start and I couldn’t stand Keller right from the start. He just acted super strange though out the book and because of that he just got on my nerves. I had no idea how this book was going to end so that was a good thing because I get tired of being able to figure out how the book is going to end. If you are interested in this genre than I would give this book a shot but it wasn’t a good fit for me.
Book Details
Genre: Psychological Thriller Published by: Cahoots Publishing Publication Date: February 2018 Number of Pages: 323 ISBN: 1976862817 (ISBN13: 9781976862816) Check out Hiding onAmazon | Goodreads
Keller Baye and Rebecca Brown live on different sides of the Atlantic. Until she falls in love with him, Rebecca knows nothing of Keller. But he’s known about her for a very long time, and now he wants to destroy her.
This is the story of two families. One living under the threat of execution in North Carolina. The other caught up in a dark mystery in the Scottish Highlands. The families’ paths are destined to cross. But why? And can anything save them when that happens?
About The Author
Jenny is a novelist, screenplay writer and playwright. After a series of ‘proper jobs’, she realised she was living someone else’s life and escaped to Gascony to make gîtes. Knee deep in cement and pregnant, Jenny was happy. Then autism and a distracted spine surgeon wiped out the order. Returned to wonderful England, to write her socks off.
Jenny would like to see the Northern Lights but worries that’s the best bit and should be saved till last. Very happily, and gratefully, settled with family.
There was a walk now. They passed doors, like random choices. They all looked the same, all the colour of pale nicotine. But some of those doors were in the business of living and some were not. As you walked past them, you could feel hope slipping away. Which door? Which one? It was like a game the devil might play as you entered hell. Eventually the passengers reached the end of their journey and were shown into another room which was similar in size to the last but with what looked like a window on one side. The window was dark for the moment, with a black blind pulled down and opposite, there was a gallery with seating. The seating was slightly raked, like a theatre. They were here for a performance.
‘That’s 11.30 gone now,’ someone said from the far end.
‘Show must go on.’ Keller mumbled.
There was a crackle and then an audio test from the speaker in the corner. Keller imagined that President Descher had arranged a televised viewing and that all over the State the people could see and hear this: factory workers, grandmothers, schoolchildren, stopping what they’re doing and watching. From the audio speaker, Keller recognised words from the phonetic alphabet, then the date, today, June 23rd 2021, the location, the prisoner’s name and number HCI 72259-931 and the time scheduled for execution.
Keller knew that the duration for the poison to act was ten minutes maximum and that the ratio to be injected was set against the inmate’s weight and height.
Somewhere behind him, Keller could hear mumbling about the victims’ families and an officer explained that they were seated separately, in another viewing room. He imagined that the families’ room was crowded, since eight victims had lost their lives that day.
At 11.45 am, the time was announced once more on the speaker and the blind was pulled up manually, revealing the execution chamber. Keller had forgotten who was seated directly next to him now, but whoever it was flinched.
The prisoner was already strapped onto the gurney. There was a sheet over his body but you could see where the constraint buckles jutted up into the clean white cotton. His left arm was exposed however and the intravenous tube was already in. He was clean shaven. Keller had never seen him without a beard. He could almost pretend he did not know him.
Three Harfield guards came into the chamber now. They did not look at the window, which to them was a mirror. Who would want to see themselves doing what they were about to do, even if it was their duty. The three guards were each handed a syringe. The content of one of the syringes was deadly and the other two contained a harmless fluid. The guards would never know who among them administered the lethal injection.
The condemned man’s chest began to rise and fall. He blinked rapidly and his Adam’s apple bulged in his throat, as he struggled to find an impossible place between dignity and the screaming of his nerves to stay alive.
Keller murmured, ‘There is nothing to do now but die.’
A man in the chamber who had been out of their view, moved into sight. He was dressed in a plain dark suit. He identified himself as Warden James and held up a chart. His hand was steady enough, his white knuckles though suggested a very tight grip on that chart.
Keller stared down at the inmate who seemed to be staring back, though Keller knew that the glass was one way and that all the condemned could see was a reflection of his own final scene. All the same, their eyes met.
Warden James turned to the prisoner. ‘Is there anything you would like to say or read before we administer this lethal injection?’
‘Yes.’
Keller frowned down at the neighboring lap. It was the redhead next to him, the PhD student, twisting that engagement ring. The girl who more than likely had it all, the girl who could not cope without her cell, was barely coping at all. Keller could feel her trembling against the length of his torso and the anger in his veins burned. The young woman held her hand up to her mouth and whispered into it, ‘God, dear God.’
The Warden lowered his eyes to Prisoner HCI 72259-931 on the gurney and blinked several times. He said to the inmate, ‘Go ahead, what do you want to say.’
‘I would like to ask a question.’
‘What is your question?’
‘I would like to ask a question and have it answered.’
Warden James looked around the room at the other officials.
‘Go ahead and ask your question.’
‘Not until you tell me that I will have an answer.’
Keller smiled and nudged the redhead. ‘You see? Make the most of every goddamned moment.’
The young woman was on the edge of her seat and on the edge of tears.
In the chamber, the suits and uniforms huddled and muttered amongst themselves and the Warden came free of the pack once more.
‘We shall try to answer your question. And cannot commit beyond that. I ask you therefore again, is there anything you would like to say?’
The inmate tried to lift his head but the strap across his brow was held tight. He cleared his throat and said in that thick Carolina accent that Keller thought he’d forgotten but which now reignited in his memory and ripped through his heart.
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