Okay, this one is going way out of my comfort zone because I haven’t even gotten past chapter 3 yet, but since everyone liked RETRIBUTION, I’m doing another 2 FBI books. One isn’t a Tucker/Kella/et al book and one is. The teaser today is from the one that isn’t and it’s (tentatively titled) Children of the Prophet. It’s about a cult, 25 years after a catastrophic event occurs – think Branch Davidians.

Here’s the (tentative) cover:

I’m still structuring the book, but here’s a little of the opening. Premise – mom comes home from work and finds nanny and daughter missing…

“Hey, I’m home and I’ve got chow. Where are you, two?”

There were two glasses on the kitchen counter, small chunks of not-yet-melted ice in the bottoms. The rest of the kitchen was spotless, a testament to MaryElena’s mild cleaning OCD.

Blythe moved from the kitchen to the hallway.

“Joy? MaryElena?”

Her voice echoed through the house.

The afternoon sun was low now, the living room still lit well from the sun filtering through the glass patio doors. They were closed and a quick peek through the glass into the fenced-in backyard showed it empty, the swing set still, the patio furniture in place and unused.

“Where the heck are you two?”

Mild irritation laced her voice.

Methodically, Blythe moved about the house. First, to her nanny’s tiny bedroom off the kitchen, which smelled faintly of roses from the air freshener sitting on top of the small dresser. The bed was made, as always, the hospital corners crisp and tight, the room neat, without a speck of dust.  

Then, on to the den.

Empty. The television was cold when Blythe touched it.

Up the stairs to the second floor. Joy’s bedroom to the right of the staircase was its usual chaos of strewn outfits she’d tried on for the day flung across her bed, her required summer reading books on the floor next to it, and a few dresser drawers partly opened. Her daughter’s habit of pulling clothing items from her closet and drawers and never putting anything back in place was a growing concern to a mother who liked everything Marie Kondo tidy.

The bathrooms next, then to her own bedroom, and the small home office she’d fashioned for herself. All appeared as she’d left them that morning.

“This is ridiculous,” she murmured to the empty rooms. Annoyance pushed the mild irritation to the sidelines. “You could have at least left me a note.”

She tugged her phone from her pocket and pressed her Nanny’s speed dial number again.

Somewhere in the house, the ringtone MaryElena had assigned to her employer pinged, soft and faint.

“What the—”

Blythe followed the sound. Down the stairs to the first level. Through the hallway.

It was louder in the kitchen, but still muffled.

It’s coming from the basement.

A growing sense of unease pushed the previous pique away.

Blythe slowly pulled open the basement door only to have the noise stop abruptly. With a shaky finger, she pressed the speed dial again. Within seconds, the tone started, the sound jingling up the stairs. Blythe reached out a hand and flicked the light switch on the wall to illuminate the darkened room below her.

Cautiously, she took each step down the wooden staircase, gripping the handrail with fingers now visibly trembling. The basement was the one area in the house she’d yet to refinish, promising herself at least twice a year she’d call a contractor and a painter to make the area which ran the length of the house a space where Joy could bring her friends to play and hang out. A finished basement always added to the resale value of a house, too, something Blythe kept in the back of her mind.

Step by step, she slowly descended the wooden stairs, one hand clinging to her phone, the other, the rail. The stairs were as old as the house and needed to be redone along with the basement. They creaked and groaned with each move Blythe took from one to the next. There was no way she could be silent as she descended. At the bottom rung, the ring tone cut out again, but not before Blythe ascertained it was coming from the laundry room off to the left of the staircase.

“MaryElena? Joy? You guys down here?”

Silence surrounded her.

“If this is some kind of prank, I’m not amused.”

Willing her feet to move, Blythe cautiously crept towards the laundry room, holding her cell phone out in front of her as if it were a weapon.

“I swear, Joy Charity Engersol, I will ground you until you’re fifty if something jumps out at me.”

Placing one hand on the doorjamb separating the laundry area from the basement proper, Blythe angled her body behind the wall and peeked into the tiny room. Nothing, as she’d feared, flew out at her.

But an odor she was intimately familiar with, did. The metallic, copper-filled stench of fresh blood hit her hard and hot. A swell of nausea pushed at her throat.  At the same time she understood what it was, she saw the cause.

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

Blythe bent to the fallen form of her nanny. The young girl was on her back, her arms flung out at her sides, her right leg bent at a critical angle. Her neck was sliced from ear to ear, blood from the wound a crimson-colored wave. That told the doctor in Blythe whatever had attacked her had done so very recently. Vacant, brown eyes, the irises beginning to glaze over, stared up at Blythe. MaryEllena’s cell phone was gripped between her fingers.

Even instinctively knowing the girl was dead, Blythe’s training forced her to check for a heartbeat. She pushed two fingers to the girl’s outstretched wrist, waited, and felt nothing.

Blythe bolted upright. Her gaze darted around the small space searching for her daughter.

“Joy?” This time she allowed her voice to scream the name, over and over as she ran around the width of the basement, throwing open the doors to storage closets nestled into two of the faux walls. When they proved empty, she catapulted back up the stairs at a breakneck speed.

“Joy?” The power behind her shriek made the chandelier in the dining room tremble.

Heart banging against her chest Blythe punched in the emergency code on her phone as she continued to move through the rooms, searching, silently praying to find her daughter.

Back in the kitchen, the county dispatcher answered. Blythe dragged in a deep breath and willed herself to calm down.

“Courtney, it’s Blythe Engersol.”

“Hey, Doc. You got an emergency?”

“I need…help. I just got home.” Her fingers started tingling and the fringes of her vision began to blur.

Breathe. In…out.

“My…my Nanny’s been killed. And my daughter’s missing. I can’t find her. Courtney, I can’t find Joy. Please. Please send help. Please.”

The rest of her vision turned hazy, the tingling in her hands shooting up her arms, her grip of the phone beginning to grow slack. It took every ounce of strength she had to hold on to it. With her free hand, she reached out and bolstered herself against the marble countertop.

“Stay with me, Doc. I’m calling the Chief and the deputies now. Are you in the house?”

“Ye…yes. I’m here.”

“Are you alone?”

“I think … I’m not…sure.”

“Listen, Doc. Leave. Go outside and wait for the Chief. Sit on the curb or something, but don’t stay in the house. I’m gonna stay on the line with you, okay? Go. Now. Right now. Go outside and wait.”

“Leave? I…can’t. Joy…Joy’s not… she needs me. She—”

Her vision tunneled, and all she could see was the countertop in front of her.

Oh, please don’t let me faint.

 “I’m…”

“Doc? Doc?”

The light winked out as if she’d extinguished a candle. The last thought Blythe had as she slid to the tiled kitchen floor, the phone bouncing from her hand across the hard surface, was that she needed to find her daughter.

And so it begins….