Tag Archives: #shortread #kindlevella

In addition to EVERYTHING else I’m currently doing with my writing career, I’ve begun the process of converting my first KindleVella story into book form. I hope to have the completed work ( it’s 32 chapters Yikes) ready to publish in KU on January 1. That’s a bit of a daunting date, but I seem to thrive well under pressure these days.

The episodic story did so well in KindleVella and continues to do so, I felt I wanted to offer it to a wider reading audience, so, the process begins.

Here’s a little tease from the book for today’s Tuesday Teaser:

Since first learning of their assignment, a question had been burning inside her. Anna finally gave it a voice. “Can she really be as good as we’ve been lead to believe? I mean, she’s been stuck out here in the sticks for ten years. Can she still have that edge?”

None of the current members of the SPCD, aside from Tucker, had been FBI agents when Kella was a major member of the unit.

“From everything I’ve read in her bio, she’s one smart chick,” Diego said. “Three doctorates before the age of twenty-three; tenth-degree black belt. She was the choice of the Director to head the unit after her old man was killed. She passed, so it went to Petrie.”

“And he’s never looked back,” Jemson said, a flash of humor crossing his face. In the next instant, he grew serious again. “Petrie told me a story once a few years ago when we worked on the Bordello Butcher. Remember that one?”

“I heard about it,” Diego said. “One sick dude.”

“Yeah. Petrie figured out who the perp really was because of something he remembered Kella said when she was just a kid. Seems she was always at the Bureau or Quantico with her old man after her mother died. They were working a case where the guy strangled his little boy vics and then tied a big red bow around their necks as a calling card.”

“I remember that one,” Anna said. “Required reading during training because of the age-specific profile.”

“Yeah. Well, it seems Carson O’Brien was the one who wrote the profile, but it was little Miss O’Brien who nailed the guy. She was twelve.”

“How?” Diego asked, keeping his eyes on the car in front of him as it turned off the main street.

“The team liked a coupla guys for the do-er, but couldn’t finger any of them with the limited evidence. The kid comes into the conference room one day, sees the pictures of the crime scenes all over the bulletin board, spots the bows, and tells her old man the guy’s left-handed.”

“How did she figure that?” Anna asked.

“Well, they’d all been staring at the pictures for days, and Petrie and O’Brien felt something wasn’t right about the way the victims were laid out. They thought the positioning was wrong or something. Anyway, she comes in, looks at the pictures, tells her old man the perp’s left-handed and then demonstrates it by tying her shoes first right-handed and then left. Seems she’s ambidextrous as well as brilliant.”

“I am, too,” Anna said. “Ambidextrous, I mean,” she added, her face turning color.

“You shoot both hands?” Diego asked, eyeing her in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah. My Dad taught me how to use both.”

“Well, then you should know there really is a difference in how the bow falls if you tie it left-handed,” Peter said. “Only one of their suspects was, so the team zeroed in on him and actually caught him, under surveillance, pick up his last victim.”

“Pretty smart kid,” Diego said.

“To hear Petrie talk her up, she’s the best thing that ever happened to profiling. The Director offered her anything she wanted to stay on as head of the unit. She’d had enough, though, when her old man bought it. The killer almost did her in as well. The way I heard it, she was an ounce of blood away from dying when she killed the guy.”

“I heard that story at the Academy,” Diego said. “When we took Weapons and Firearms. The instructor drilled into us how important it is to practice shooting from every imaginable angle, no matter what physical condition we’re in. That kind of training saved Kella O’Brien’s butt.”

Intrigued? I’ll keep you posted and if you subscribe to KU you’ll be able to read it.

Enjoy your day, peeps ~ Peg