Work in Progress Teaser

I’ve been working on my second book in earnest for about a month now. I’m roughly 30k/90k finished which is really decent progress considering everything going on with launching NEITHER LOST NOR FOUND, the move to Florida and being at home with four kids all summer. This week instead of doing a rambling post about my upcoming release instead I’d like to leave y’all with my first pages from my new draft. I hope y’all enjoy.

DISCLAIMER: I’ve only lightly edited this so there will be errors - but I guess that’s a good thing now since it proves I’m not using AI? I’m also messing around with tenses - let me know which one y’all prefer.

Chapter One. Sunday.

“Alpha 3, Signal 5 in Twelve-Mile swamp.” the radio crackles to life. Leanne reacts first. Setting down her glasses and penicil as she looks up at him. Jake Doyle looks up at her after a spell as he finished the verse he was reading. “I don’t know that one,” Leanne said.

“Which one?” Jake responds, his pen scratching his thoughts across the legal pad.

“Signal 5.” Leanne replied not looking up from her notes. Jake’s pen stops, “She said Signal 5?” Leanne nods absent mindedly. Jake stands. Heads to his radio. He clicks the transmitter, “This is Alpha 3, repeat last”.

He waits. Leanne has stopped writing. Her hands are folded on the table as she looks back at him mirroring the feint concern creeping in as he waits.

“Alpha 3, confirmed Signal 5 in Twelve-Mile Swamp, investigators requested”. He bows his head as the static dies off and the transmission clicks closed. He forgets himself and places his elbows on the counter and mutters a quick prayer, “Lord Jesus,” despite himself. Leanne rises and places a soft hand on his back, “Everything alright honey?”

“Fine, just needed at work,”

“Its Sunday baby, really?”

“Yes ma’am,”

“I thought the whole point of you taking that detective test was so you wouldn’t have to work Sundays anymore,” she pouts playfully but Jake is not in the mood. She kisses him softly. He feigns a smile, moves her gently to the side by her waist. He wipes his upper lip and tries to pat down his mustache bristles as headed to his closet to get dressed. He considered a colored shit, bright color or light, but decided to keep it straight forward and selected all white.

Jake stands in front of his safe as he finishes the last buttons to keep his collar down in the humidity. He punches in the code where his side arm lays lonely. Most mornings, he thinks nothing of it and holster it without a second thought. But this morning.

“You know I thought about it,” Leanne says from behind him.

“Dangerous doing that,” Jake says trying to sound in high spirits.

“I don’t know that one,”

“What one sugar?”

“Signal 5,” Leanne’s voice drops to a hushed tone. Jake grunts, takes the gun from the safe and performs a Mag Check. Checking to make sure a round is chamerbered with a press check and the magazine is full. He nods to himself, replaces the magazine and slides the gun into the holster on his duty belt.

“Jake?” Leanna asks.

“Nothing baby, just a disturbance,”

“Now don’t you lie to me Jacob Adam Doyle,” she bites back. Jake raises his hands in fake surrender, “Fine,” he said, “You caught me.”

“I’m serious,”

“I know, it means a bodies’ been found,” strokes her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin through his callouses.

“I thought that was Signal 7,” she says handing him a travel cup of coffee.

“They’re different,” Jake says as he moves past her to put his boots on.

“How different,” She calls behind him.

“Not very, just different. I gotta run, tell everyone at church I said hello,”

“Jake,” she drawls, stopping him as he takes his hat off the rack by the front door.

“Yessum?”

“Different how?”

“7 means just a body’s been found. 5 means its violent,” he says with unintended finality.

“Violent? In Siloam?”

“Apparently so, but it’s probably just a mistake,” he says, “Now baby I gotta get on the get. Love you.” He turns and walks into a wall of humid air. Born and raised in Northeast Florida Detective Jake Doyle still needed a moment when he transitioned to the outdoors to acclimate. The sprinklers ran their grey recycled watering the sod and making his yard smell like a retention pond. He waved as people walked their dogs in the early morning trying to avoid the encroaching heat.

He starts his truck. For the first time in a long while he wishes he had not quit smoking. Instead, he unlocks the gun box in his center console and finds a dented dip tin. He pauses, knowing if Leanne found to, she’d tan his hide again after promising he’d finally quit. But the old habit takes over as he flicks the tin between his thumb and fore finger, needless now that they came in pouches.

He rubbed his eyes, then replaced his sunglasses as he pulled the visor down turning southeast on US-1 heading toward St. Augustine. He sipped his coffee, wiped the creamer from his mustache. He places two pouches into his lower lip, at least having the deceny to fall off the wagon away from the house.

Bodies rot and fall apart under normal circumstances. In the swamps of North East Florida this is an expedited process. Humidity is a bitch, Doyle was known for saying. Tampering with sensitive evidence and squashing any margins for error. Insects breed and multiple in their millions. Scavengers take pieces. The body is hammered by torrential rain, wind and beaten apart by radiation steaming from the Florida sun. It’s Murphy’s Law in practice for homicide detectives as they scramble to preserve anything resembling a scene, chain of evidence found near a body, or walking to and from the site and not accidentally stepping or driving over something valuable.

Doyle arrives. He wants to be the sherrif that doesn’t hesitate or waste time gathering his thoughts. Hell all he really wants is a cigarette as he replaces the pouches in his lower lip with fresh ones. He inhales slowly, trying to slow the race of thoughts all screaming at him about a body in Siloam. A patrol officer approaches. He shuts down his truck missing the AC even as it fades.

“Where’s Thad?” Doyle asks the pale face waiting for him at the trail head as he opens his door.

“Uh, he’s with, the um,”

“The um?” Doyle rolls his eyes behind his sunglasses.

“Victim sir,”

“Victim or the body,” Doyle presses his annoyance rising.

“Body sir, the body. Seargeant Thad sent me to wait for you here,”

“Details,” Doyle mutters as he climbs down from his truck slamming the door behind him.
            “Female, mid 20s we think,” the patrol officer responds following behind him frantically flipping pages in his notebook.

“What’s your name son?” Jake asks over his shoulder.

“Zach sir, well shit, no sorry, Zachary Roberts,” he stammered.

“Right well let’s get one thing straight Zach well shit sorry Zachary, you need to be more specific. What do you mean you think?”

“We, um, we haven’t located the femur yet sir,” Thad hesitated. Doyle stopped and placed a hand on his shoulder noticing the fresh cut and fitness of a recent academy graduate, “Its alright son, no femur, anything else?”

“No ID either sir,”

“Another illegal?”

“Unlikely, but not impossible,”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s white.”

“Out here?”

“Yes? You alright Sheriff?”

“Yeah,” he pulled off his sunglasses. He analyzed details he might have missed before, looking for tire tracks, footprints. His eyes caught the Spanish moss draping from Live Oaks over hanging the trail, hoping for trace splatter or some detail. There were none. “Any cause of death likely?” He asked the patrol kid.

“No sir. We won’t know until we get her back to the lab.”

“Copy,” they continued in silence. Doyle scanned the underbrush. Mindful of stepping on a cotton mouth but hoping to see something anything that might make this a quick case. They approached the clearing where Seargeant Thad Jackson was waiting for them. Doyle shook his hand and smiled.

“Jesus Thad what brings you all the way out here” Doyle smiled.

“Oh, you know sir, I go where the good Lord calls me,” Thad said. They stood for a moment, the patrol officer hovering at Doyle’s shoulder.

“You think we can still make the 11 o’clock service?” Jake asked.

“I sure hope so, you know your father’ll have my hide if I miss church again,” Thad smiled.

“Our afternoon Tee time?” Jake asked as he produced gloves from his pocket and slid the blue latex over his fingers, pulling at his ring finger when it bunched on his wedding ring.

“We better, how much do you  me after you shot over by how much?”

“Couldn’t remembered, memories going you see,” Doyle winked at him. The patrol officer swayed side to side, hoping not to interrupt but clearly wanting to spek.

“How bad is it?”  Doyle whispered.

“I’m not sure, junior here was pretty upset and told me to secure the scene and not to go back. Protocol said to hang here so I did,” Thad said avoiding direct eye contact. Jake placed a hand on Thad’s shoulder, “Alright then, let’s see what we got,” Doyle said. Thad nodded in reply as Jake pushed past him. 

“Should we contact your father sir?” Thad asked as Jake passed.

“Now why on earth would we do that?”

“Well, the body’s located on the edge of his property,” Thad’s voice trails off. Jake nods, “Yeah alright, I’ll let him know, but after church. Ole Solomon Doyle won’t want any disturbance on Sunday Morning.”

They walked, pine needles crunching. Crows cawed in the morning light. Thad slapped at the back of his neck going for a mosquito or a No-see-em. Then Doyle saw her.

Prone. Naked. Mutilated. Unconsciously his hand drifted down to his chest to the cross that hung from his neck that his mother insisted he wear on the job. Tracing it softly while asking, “That’s not the work of the wild life is it Thad,”

“No sir,” Thad said not looking at the body.

“Jesus Christ,” Doyle whispered as he dropped his sunglasses into the mud. Crushing them as he knelt, copper red liquid soaking into his jeans as his knees pressed into the soft mud.