So I don’t give teasers on things I’m still working on for a first draft, but today, I feel like being different.
LOL.
On the docket for a 2025 release ( don’t ask me why because i don’t know the date!) is another FBI book. This one’s not about Kella and the SPCD team, but a totally different story and team. The title is CHILDREN OF THE PROPHET. I have the cover, so ta-da…
Once upon a time I was obsessed with WACO, JONESTOWN, MANSON, et al, and read everything I could about cults. When the 25th anniversary of WACO happened a few years, I started to get an idea. What happened to the kids? What happened to the children who were taken before the tragic fire? Where were they today and how were they faring?
An idea sparked: write about them. But make it a suspense about how the past never really dies. So, COTP was imagined.
Here’s a little of the opening…. and remember- this is raw and unedited, so don’t come at me for spelling/typos/tense issues.
Not yet, anyway (LOL)
Chapter 1
Tuesday night, June 28, 6 p.m.
“Have a good night, Dr. Engersol.”
Blythe smiled at her nurse. “You too, Penny. And thanks for all your help today. I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.”
“It was a busy one, that’s for sure.”
Since she was a firm believer in speaking stuff into the universe you wanted to happen, Blythe said, “Here’s hoping tomorrow is a little easier.”
“Your lips to God’s ears.”
Blythe hadn’t believed in a God for a while, so she simply bobbed her head once as she slid her car keys out of her purse.
The parking lot was empty save for her old and reliable Subaru and Penny’s new SUV.
Settled behind the wheel, Blythe sighed, long and deep. Exhaustion oozed from every cell in her body. Penny’s statement had been spot-on. It had been a busy day. Twenty-eight office patients in addition to the two she’d seen at the hospital before starting her official hours. As one of only three family practice docs in the small rural town, Blythe’s days were typically long and demanding. Today, more so than usual.
Too tired to even think about cooking, she pulled her cell from her purse and gave in to a craving she’d been feeling for weeks by ordering a loaded pizza for pickup from the town’s only pizzeria. It wouldn’t hurt to have one night devoid of salads and organically grown and grass fed proteins. Besides, Joy loved pizza.
After placing the order, she pulled out of the parking lot and called home. When the answering machine clicked on she was mildly surprised. Her nanny typically picked up.
“Hey, you two,” Blythe said after the recording ding signaled. “You’re probably out back playing on this lovely evening. Just wanted to give you a head’s up. I’ll be home in about twenty. Just heading to Ralph’s to pick up a pizza for dinner. And I can practically hear you clapping, Joy Charity Engersol. Set the table and I’ll see you both in a bit.”
The main street of Cable, New Hampshire, population 25,678, boasted a local pharmacy, a Quick-E-mart, a real estate office and three bars, in addition to two family style diners, one Chinese food restaurant, and Ralphs, the local –and to date only – town pizzeria. The police and fire departments bookended the wide street, with City Hall nestled smack in the middle between them. The north side of the street housed the Catholic church, the south side the Lutheran one. If a family practiced Judaism they needed to drive a half hour to the next town over to attend Temple. The hometown newspaper, which put out two weekly editions and a Sunday special, ran its operation from the old Woolworth building situated next to the police station.
Cable’s hospital was small but served the community of the five surrounding towns and villages well. Gossip had it a big health care conglomerate was looking to purchase the facility. Blythe heard the rumor from one of the hospital nurses a week ago, but nothing else since. As one of only five attending physicians in town, she figured she’d be approached one of these days about the proposed takeover. Was it bad of her to hope it never happened? She loved the small, insular community where she’d built her practice while raising her daughter. Neighbors knew one another, greeted each other on the streets in passing, but were private enough not to encroach ask too many questions or dig too deep into pasts.
The parking lot of Ralph’s was busy for at Tuesday June night. Once school let out for the year, the pizza joint – a favorite with the middle and high school crowd, would be packed every night until curfews were called and well-meaning parents intruded on the private lives of their offspring.
Thank God Joy is only ten. I don’t know how I’m going cope when she turns into a teenager.
Blythe figured if she still believed in prayer, she’d be sending up quite a few when her daughter’s teen years rolled around. Since she no longer did, she’d need to find an alternative to dealing with what she hoped wouldn’t be a moody, angsty teen like she saw every day in her practice.
Blythe eased her car into a vacant spot. The noise level inside Ralph’s brought forth memories of the early morning egg gatherings she’d been raised on. The hens would cluck, cackle and squawk when she’d reach under them to grab their morning contribution to breakfast, many times aiming a well-honed sharp beak at her roaming hand.
“Hey, Doc, “ Ralph Tremont called from behind the counter. “Yours is coming up in about five minutes.”
Blythe waved and miraculously spotted an empty two-seat table in a corner. After making a beeline for it, she sat and pulled out her phone. There were no messages or texts from either Joy or MaryElena.
Odd.
She dialed her home number again, then her nanny’s cell her gaze taking in the packed pizza parlor. While the phone rang, she spotted Benjamin Reed enter, remove his hat, then run his gaze around the room. It was a gesture she’d seen the police chief make often, and one which she was well versed in making as well.
His gaze lit on her and a tiny nod accompanied by a half smile came her way. Mary Elena’s answering machine kicked in right then, so she left a message, this time ending with call me before disconnecting.
“Seems like this is the hot spot to be tonight,” Ben said as he maneuvered his way to her table. “’Evening, Doc.”
“Chief.”
Blythe pasted a smile on her face. Since moving to Cable and taking over the job from the then retiring chief Dudley Comstock, Ben Reed had made an impression with the town elders as a staunch civil servant and with the females of the community as an eligible bachelor. Word on the street had it the man had never been married. If the available women of the town had anything to say about it, that situation was going to be corrected as soon as possible.
“Having dinner out tonight?” he asked, lifting a foot to a chair rung and leaning an elbow on his bent leg. His stance was calculated to give off a relaxed and easygoing vibe. It only served to put Blythe on edge. The attention of government authorities, police in particular, always made her nervous.
“Waiting for a pie to go,” she told him. “Special treat for tonight.”
“Special, eh? Someone’s birthday?”
It took everything in her to keep the tepid smile on her face.
Why were the police always so nosy? And why was Ben Reed so interested in her?
“Nope. Just a long day and I don’t feel like cooking.”
“I hear ya. Some weeks it seems like I live on take-out because I don’t have time to cook a decent meal. Long days turn into long nights way too often.”
Blythe knew decorum dictated she should ask the man to sit, but a well healed caution and lifelong distrust of lawmen kept her from the offer. She did wonder, though, how a tiny community like Cable could be so full of criminal acts to keep the chief of police up late at night. One of the main reasons she’d decided to come and settle in the area was its reportedly low crime rate.
Instead of giving voice to the question, Blythe gave him her version of a sympathetic expression, the one she used on people who tried to get her to open up and talk about her past.
Reed must have taken her bland smirk as a silent invitation to sit down and commiserate while they waited, because he nodded and he pulled out the chair. Blythe’s pulse kicked up a few beats. Just when it looked like she’d be forced to make unwanted and benign small talk with the man, Ralph called her name from the counter. She couldn’t rein in the relieved sigh that blew from her lips when she stood. Reed halted in his tracks.
“Well, that’s me. Enjoy your dinner, Chief Reed.” She gave him a hopefully not too bright smile and jogged up to the cash register.
The heat from Reed’s gaze as he tracked her while she paid and then bolted from the place burned a hole dead center in her back. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know he was following her with his eyes. With shaking hands she hit the fob on her key ring, opened the passenger side door and tossed the boxed pizza on to the seat with more vigor than she’d intended.
Great. The cheese’ll probably be stuck to the top now.
With an exasperated breath, she put the car in drive, checked her mirrors and pulled out of the parking lot. One quick look out the drivers’ side window and she spotted Ben Reed standing in the doorway to Ralph’s, his hat still in his hand, his eyes still trained on her.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out the man was interested in her. It wasn’t coincidence that he routinely showed up where ever she found herself, be it the gas station when she was filling up and he just happened to drive the squad in for a few added gallons, or those times she’d been going down one aisle in the quick-e-mart, tossing items in her shopping cart, only to spot him coming from the opposite direction, an empty basket dangling from his arm. Or even tonight as he just happened to come into Ralph’s on the one night she’d decided pizza for dinner was a good thing.
The man was interested and letting her know it without coming right out and saying so.
Not that she’d ever encouraged him. One thing Blythe knew for certain was getting personally involved with a man of the law was something to be avoided at all costs. But she also knew drawing attention to herself was the wrong thing to do as well and while she drove down Main Street, she gave herself a few choice words about how her behavior might churn up the Chief’s curiosity. Blythe didn’t need anyone being curious about her. Being curious lead to all manner of things she wanted to avoid at all costs.
Turning from the paved county road onto the winding, gravel-strewn one leading to her home, Blythe told herself to calm down, take a breath, and forget about it. Ben Reed was just a man. One she didn’t need and had no thought she ever would.
She hit the garage door opener and pulled in. With the still-piping hot pizza box in her hand, she came into the kitchen from the garage connecting door.
The room was empty and a quick glance at the table showed her it hadn’t been set.
“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-melted yet 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 that sat 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 on 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 up, 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 at all times.
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 her head 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. MaryEllen’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 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 counter top.
“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 slid to the tiled kitchen floor, the phone bouncing from her hand across the hard surface, was that she needed to find her daughter.
Intrigued?
Peggy Jaeger, Author 