STORIES

AKA # 4: Also Known as Rising & Falling -Now Available!

Now available on Smashwords: Book 4 in the Aka Investigations Series,

Also Known as Rising & Falling.

(Book 3 was just made available a few days ago–read that one first! And if you haven’t read #1 and #2, read them all in order, okay? Okay)

Here’s an excerpt….(Jobeth is recovering from a fall down the stairs, caused by the slippers she was wearing)

~15~

Cranky-Pants & Furbabies

Consciousness crept in again on drug-addled feet, and Jobeth immediately saw the close-up view of slippers on her chest. The ones that caused her fall down the stairs. She looked over at a smiling Izzy standing next to the bed. “Cute. When I am able to get out of this bed, I’m going to beat you with them.”

Izzy dismissed the empty threat. “Are you awake enough to talk?”

“Until the drugs kick in again.” Jobeth reached for the prescription bottle with her left hand. “The laptop keeps waking me up. I keep putting it on sleep mode and it keeps waking up.”

“Maybe it’s not tired,” Izzy suggested, sitting down on the bed. “Do you need me to fluff your pillow?”

“It’s memory foam. It fluffs itself.”

Izzy nodded, smiling. “Okay then. Listen, I think we have a new case.”

Digging out the Darvocet with a finger, Jobeth popped it in her mouth and washed it down with the water on the nightstand. “Who?”

“Ponzi Bonnet.”

“Who?”

“That friend of Phoebe’s. She thinks her husband might be thinking about killing her. Or maybe just having an affair. Or maybe wanting to kill her because he’s having an affair…”

“I thought it was the pain meds. Her name is really Ponzi Bonnet?”

“Yep. And she’s just as weird as her name is.”

“How’s that?”

Izzy pulled a half-eaten rice cracker off the comforter and held it up. Jobeth snatched it with her left hand and popped it in her mouth, chewing. “Do go on.”

“Well, according to Ponzi herself, she’s got some issues…kind of reclusive, has a sleep disorder, and no telling what else.”

“And you don’t think that has something to do with why she thinks her husband is trying to kill her?”

“I have a sleep disorder.”

“See?”

Izzy gave her a raspberry sound. “Maybe. But I have to say, there are suspicious things happening…” Izzy went through the incidents that sent Ponzi to her conclusions. “And Phoebe says Ponzi is so worried about it, that she thought it might be better safe than sorry. She thinks I ought to tail him for a while and see what he’s up to.”

“Well, as long as we’re getting paid, I don’t care.”

“Here’s the interesting part. Ponzi is stinking rich, and her husband is a psychiatrist, and he’s the one who said she needed some help with these issues.”

Jobeth reached for the water bottle again, and washed down the cracker. The meds were giving her an awful case of cotton-mouth. “That’s a little convenient, if he really is going to kill her.”

“That’s what I thought,” Izzy said. “He could fling her off a building and then say she did it to herself, thinking she could fly.”

“Right. Actually, that would be the best way to get away with it…” She looked around for more crackers. “Maybe he’s planning the perfect crime.”

“Not perfect if we catch him at it.”

“Well, keep an eye on him for a few days and see if anything seems weird…and more importantly, bring me some rice crackers.”

“Will do.” Izzy stood up.

“Wait…” Jobeth said.

Izzy waited for a few beats. “What?”

She seemed confused. “I was going to say something…”

“And I was going to be riveted,” Izzy cracked.

Frowning, Jobeth said, “I’m the witty one. You don’t get to be witty.”

“Witty is genetic, apparently. Don’t fight it.” She started for the door again and paused, studying her sister. “It bothers you that I’m doing this stuff without you, doesn’t it?”

“You’re stealing my thunder.”

“I’m stealing a few drops of rain, that’s all. It’s not exactly exciting.”

“Part of the job. But sometimes it can get interesting.”

“Yeah, when will that happen?”

“It will happen when…something happens.”

Izzy snorted. “How much medication are you on?”

“Not enough, apparently, because it hasn’t taken away the pain of your presence.”

“Oh, all right, cranky-pants. I’ll let you go back to sleep.” Izzy paused at the door, eying the discarded footwear by the bed. “Oh, do you want me to fetch your slippers?”

“Vamoose!”

Izzy laughed and closed the door on her way out.

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November 25th, 2012

AUTHORS, Book Reviews, BOOKS, Colorado, fiction, Kelli Jae Baeli, WRITING

“mixture of humor, gut wrenching terror & emotional heartbreak amongst the action and romance” Review

Review of Also Known as DNA

by Terry at Affinity eBooks

AKA Investigations Series Book 2

Jobeth O’Brien and her partner, Phoebe McMasters, are enjoying a peaceful life together on Manor Lane in Colorado after moving from Oklahoma. Jobeth has her P.I License and has her own agency, AKA Investigations. Their new start together is suddenly interrupted by ghosts from the past.

First of all, Jobeth’s estranged sister Izzy turns up out of the blue. At first Jobeth and Izzy don’t appear to get on too well together. But as they get to know one another, that changes. Izzy turns out to be more like Jobeth than either of them thought.

Phoebe’s past comes back to haunt her. In fact, it causes heartbreak for both Phoebe and Jobeth in a big way.

Ginger, Jobeth and Phoebe’s detective friend, has moved to Colorado with them and occupies the cottage behind their house. Ginger is looking for love. Will she find it? Ginger and Izzy appear to get on well together. But Izzy is a lot younger than Ginger and she’s not into relationships. Will Ginger get her heart broken?

It will take the ingenuity of all four of these women to get rid of the ghosts from the past. But will they be able to keep themselves alive to outwit the deranged felons?

***

Even though the plot to this story stretched my imagination a bit, I actually thoroughly enjoyed the story.

I loved Jobeth, Phoebe and Ginger from Armchair Detective and to have them back again is a true pleasure. Izzy has joined the three other women and her character has fit right in with the others. They all interact so well together and play an essential part in furthering the story.

I don’t want to add any spoilers in here, but suffice it say that the story is a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns throughout. There are so many ups and downs, the book is a real page turner from start to finish.

There is a mixture of humor, gut wrenching terror and emotional heartbreak amongst the action and romance. If anything, this story is even better than the first one. Both books are standalone, but I would strongly advise reading Armchair Detective first. It gives more of the characters background. Plus you would be missing out on another good book if you don’t.

I’m hoping there will be another in this series soon.

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November 24th, 2012

AUTHORS, BOOKS, Colorado, fiction, Human Nature, Kate Genet, Kelli Jae Baeli, PSYCHOLOGY, RELATIONSHIPS, Uncategorized, WRITING

Prequels, Sequels, & Spinoffs

Syzygy. Amazingly, the only English word with three Y’s also happens to describe a rare astronomical event involving three heavenly bodies. A syzygy is the alignment of three celestial bodies in a straight line…

On December 3, 2012, Saturn, Venus & Mercury will align. On that same night, 3 women align to see that justice is done.

Ponzi Bonnet thought she had found the perfect husband. A psychologist could certainly understand her damage. But her suspicion of infidelity turns out to be something far worse. Far more sinister. And he had to be stopped.

This new book I’m working on–and almost finished with–is altogether different from any of my others. For one, it’s darker. I usually like to write “dramedy”– an equal mixture of drama and comedy. And I lean toward romantic – suspense – adventure -style plots. The plot in Syzygy is adventuresome, but perhaps that’s where the similarity ends. It deals with some darker subjects. Some disturbing places in the human psyche. I’m not sure of it…I haven’t even let Kate read any of it. She will be acting as my first Beta reader, because I want an impression based on the entire book, without any foreknowledge of content. (Just like most readers get to approach a book). But this has also made it more challenging, because I can’t discuss it with her to help me work things out–to be fair, or to perhaps torture me, she is also keeping mum on her current book (Irrevocable). I will be Beta reader on that one too.

So here’s what happened….I had been working on the 3rd in my AKA Investigations series and I was having trouble with it. Not surprising, after having so much trouble in the last couple of years with the writing…huge changes, huge challenges, and so much had been happening in my life to suck the muse right out of my head…(any of you who read my blog regularly are familiar with what I’m referring to). So I continued to struggle with this one…and then I realized what the problem was. Oddly, I was having trouble getting my MAIN characters in the book after the halfway point. Not a good sign. One of the subplots had started growing and I found that my main characters were being left out in favor of a couple of minor characters. So I thought, well maybe there’s another book here…maybe I’m trying to write two books. So I snatched out the plotline and characters from that portion and put it in a separate file and began to work on it–feeling like I was sort of “cheating” on my other characters by doing so. But it was pushing me to be written. Those characters were being insistent. They had a story to tell and they wanted me to tell it.

So. I was surprised about this new book. It wasn’t even on the docket.

SIDEBAR. I have been trying for years now to get all the other books written that are waiting in line. Some half-done, some just ideas. Like Quintessence, Somewhere Else, Curse of Madagascar, Another Justice, The Girls in the Band, and newer ones like, Hanging the Moon [with Kate Genet], Behind the Left: Authoring the Apocalypse, and a sequel to Resurrection Sticks –and those are just the fiction ones

This book, Syzygy, is also a concept-novel. A concept I came up with–not sure if anyone else ever came up with it too, but for me at least, it’s a new idea…it’s what I might call a spinoff-prequel. The new book sprang from the events and secondary characters of the original one. I started thinking about how interesting it would be to know more about those characters–like, what was happening in THEIR lives, that was just outside the purview of the plot in the book I was working on? What might that scene be like if it was written from the point of view of that other character? So then, an entirely new story evolved, but it was based on the original story in the AKA book. Only, it focused on those secondary characters, making them main characters, and then the main characters from the AKA book became the secondary characters in the new book. So here, I have a timeline of events, and in Syzygy, I’m telling the story of Ponzi Bonnet, Kenda Harper, Anna Dew, Garrison Bishop and Payne Hollister. And in AKA, I’m telling the story during the same timeline but through the characters of Jobeth, Phoebe, Izzy and Ginger. It almost means I need to write both of these books and release them at the same time, but that might be too maddening. So I think I will finish and release Syzygy first, since its timeline might be a little earlier, by about a week or two, than the AKA book. It would also give away less than the AKA book would, if I did that one first. I don’t want to have one book serving as a SPOILER for the other.

I feel like I’m rambling. I’m on first cup of coffee…NOTE TO SELF. Don’t ramble. anyway…

It’s a different sort of challenge, as it’s almost like writing a series, but slightly different…I have to think about what I write in Syzygy affecting what I’ll be writing in the 3rd AKA book. I have to make sure I don’t contradict things. Like I can’t have two different things happening to a character at the same time

(or can I?….. STOP IT.)

All of this has me thinking that there are all these other stories that can stem from stories I’ve written. The other perspectives. The other characters who play a minor role, but have an entire world of their own going on during those events. It’s also a way to create a thread of interest in readership–those who enjoy my books will find alternate stories that are peripheral to the ones they’ve already read. I find the whole concept fascinating. I hope a reader would, too. I have recently been concerned about my literary diversification–I do myself no favors by gaining a reader who then reads a certain genre of mine and realizes there aren’t any more of those yet, but that I jumped over and wrote nonfiction, or in some other genre…. (That’s another blog I wrote half of, but haven’t posted yet).

Jeez. I’m scattered.

Did I mention we’re moving 2 hours away in a week?

Yeah. got that nonfiction stuff to deal with too.

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November 7th, 2012

Book Reviews, BOOKS, fiction, Human Nature, Kelli Jae Baeli, PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, RELIGION

The Handmaid’s Tale: An American Dream Gone Awry

Throughout our recent election process, I kept thinking about how a Romney presidency would begin to remind me of The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood. It reminded me that I wrote a paper on this book years ago in college. I don’t seem to have it compiled in any of my published anthologies, so i thought i would post it here. It’s a timely piece of literature still, which does not speak well of our republic. The Tea-Party is just the sort of organization to bring this dystopian theocracy to fruition. Hopefully those things are back on the road to change, now that we have 4 more years with Obama.

The Handmaid’s Tale

An American Dream Gone Awry

Kelli Jae Baeli
(c)1990

In today’s futuristic literature, one can find the foreshadowing of tomorrow’s issues splattered upon today’s newspapers.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a haunting portrayal of the American Dream gone awry. In the pages of this ominous novel, one finds echoes of a past not unlike our present, and a future twisted by the repercussions of religious zeal and environmental devastation. Many of the horrors reflected by the handmaid who narrates represent the agenda of issues touted by feminists: sexism, pollution, Christian-Fundamentalism’s dangerous inclinations, and racism.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a chilling look at a futuristic society wherein the government rules through oppression, deprivation, and threat of execution. Atwood’s vision is at once frightening and credible, illustrating a scenario that demands attention and consideration from all–whether they believe in the power of the American Dream, or not.

The Handmaid’s Tale uses the Republic of Gilead as its setting, and the themes of the American Dream are played out upon this stage; the players easily represent the crude underbelly of current-day society and its victims. Christian- Fundamentalists, after a coop which results in the machine-gun execution of Congress and the President, usurp the freedoms which Americans once enjoyed. Reading has been outlawed; personal property is now a thing of the past; all liberties are taken from the citizens of Gilead, so that it is reduced to a tyrannical theocracy. This is Atwood’s fictional rendition of the New World.

The Christian-Fundamentalist government in The Handmaid’s Tale has taken as its basic tenets the teachings of the Old Testament and interprets all scripture in a literal sense. This includes the procreation process as depicted in the book of Genesis wherein Rachel offers Jacob her maid, Bilhah, as a surrogate when Rachel

is unable to conceive. In Atwood’s Gilead, this surrogate motherhood is a must; a ghastly combination of pollution and environmental apathy has left many women sterile. With the extinction of the human race so threatened, the conception of

children is assigned to the those women with “viable ovaries.” A monthly ceremony is acted out by each Commander, his barren wife, and the fertile handmaid. Restricted to clinical, procreative purposes only, the Commander inseminates the handmaid assigned to him while the Wife holds the handmaid between her legs in a ritualistic manner.

The Old Testament’s influence is further reflected in the names of shops which deal in goods and produce. The handmaid is sent with a token card representing the items her household wishes to obtain (all paper money has been banned), and she makes her purchases from shops such as “All Flesh,” “Loaves and Fishes,” “Lilies of the Field,” and “Daily Bread.” On her trip to the marketplace, she walks with another handmaid, each of them exchanging puritan-like greetings: “Blessed be the fruit” and “May the Lord open.” Every detail in the Republic of Gilead is arranged as a continual reminder of the religious dogma upon which their very existence depends.

Although Gilead is patriarchal in structure, women are at the center of its operation. The women of Gilead are merely a sad facsimile of the future-woman that today’s feminists wish for. The axiom, “Be careful what you wish for–you just might get it” seems to apply here. In Gilead, women are respected only for their role in the Republic, and considering the strong role females play, it is not surprising that the crime of rape is punished by placing the offender amid a crowd of handmaids, who proceed to beat, kick, scratch, and bludgeon him to death. This ritual

serves as a deterrent to those who would disrupt the valuable procreative process and also recruits in the handmaids a sacredness toward their reproductive duties; this component perpetuates the masterplan of the government.

Within the general understanding of the American Dream, there is also a respect for reason, and though the crime of rape is no less reprehensible than in the Gileadean era, the perpetrator is at least entitled to due process, and vengeance is considered contrary to the true nature of justice. Likewise, reason is ignored by the Republic in its view of friendship as another threat to the government; the distortion of reason is also represented by the perception that freedom of the individual to act out that individuality is strictly insidious.

Progress is achieved in Gilead through a stringent, imperious process of cultural distinction. Classes and races of people are judged and punished according to literal Biblical teachings, as well: The “Children of Ham” are relocated, Jews are sent back to Israel, and undesireables, et al (Catholics, homosexuals, Quakers, abortionists, etc.) are sent to “the Colonies.” Handmaids who fail to perform satisfactorily are also doomed to the Colonies wherein the inmates dispose of deadly pollutants and subsequently die slowly of chemical poisoning.

Depending on the severity of the crime, undesirables can also look forward to public execution, their bodies hung on hooks along the wall around the city in a macabre display of power.

The “work-ethic” ingredient of the American Dream is overturned in The Handmaid’s Tale. Duties and positions in the society are assigned according to each person’s usefulness to the general philosophy of Gilead. Fertile women become handmaids; affluent women become Wives; older, able-bodied women become Marthas (domestic servants), and some become Aunts– sort of the Drill Sergeants in charge of other women. Men are either Commanders or servants or valuable professionals. Accordingly, the element of marriage and family in the American Dream is regressed to a pre-Christ patriarchy that avoids all semblance of individual freedom. Thus, the family unit, which is a staple of the American Dream, is warped into some cruel mockery of the freedoms once enjoyed by American citizens.

There are, as one might expect, rebel factions at work in the underground of this hellish kingdom who hold dear the Old World in The Handmaid’s Tale. These Old World values are familiar and alarming to the reader because it is the world in which the reader lives; Atwood incarnates this New World by momentarily suspending the reader’s disbelief, and this tale suddenly becomes plausible. Gilead is entangled with the infamous Armageddon outside the walls of the city, and the struggle for restoration of the Old World continues despite the government’s attempts to conquer it. Perhaps this illustrates the spirit of the American Dream–patriotism. These rebel forces operate with the knowledge that if one of its members is caught, he or she will most assuredly pay the price with his or her own life. Yet, life to them is meaningless unless they have some say in how they live it, and thus, the mentality of New World versus Old World is brought boldly to life.

If the American Dream is a vision of utopia, then The Handmaid’s Tale is most certainly a dystopia, as it contains a plethora of details regarding the oppressive existence of an imprisoned people, once free. Atwood paints an ugly portrait of a future society starved for a new Eden, with its land of plenty. The “plenty” offered in the Republic of Gilead, however, is plenty of oppression.

In The Handmaid’s Tale the pursuit of the American Dream is counter- productive. Gilead is the result of fanatics who sought to create the perfect society, yet manage to create a living hell. They are blinded by the pursuit of the dream itself and have, in the process, lost large segments of their own humanity. Unfortunately, Americans have become entrenched in the liberties that freedom gives them, and thus, many freedoms are taken for granted. This considered, it is easy to see how the American Dream may seem a myth to some in today’s society. But if all the basic ingredients afforded within that myth were taken away, it might be seen through contrast that the myth is perhaps an exaggeration of an underlying truth.

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September 1st, 2012

AUTHORS, Book Reviews, BOOKS, Kelli Jae Baeli, WRITING

As You Were: “well written and highly enjoyable romance, mystery and intrigue, with a light touch of humor”

Review

As You Were by Kelli Jae Baeli

Singer/songwriter Tru Morgan is totally in love with her live in girl friend Brittany (Brit) Jabot. Together they share a wonderful home on Red Mountain, Colorado. Their lives are idyllic, filled with their dreams, romantic nights and riding their beloved horses in a fairy tale, snowy setting. Life just couldn’t get much better for them……. Until one day, a malicious chain of events ends up being the indirect cause cause of a tragic accident.

Tru finds herself fighting to find the life she once had with Brit. This in itself is an uphill struggle, but add to it disruptive outside influences and it is going to be almost an impossibility. Some people just do not want to see Tru and Brit back together.

The question that has to be asked is…. Will Tru and Brit ever find their way back to the love so callously torn from them?

A well written and highly enjoyable romance, mystery and intrigue, with a light touch of humor. Although this story is basically a romance, there is so much more packed into it. So many twists and turns and ups and downs, it’s a real rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. I simply couldn’t put this book down and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. I had to force myself to slow down. I wouldn’t advise starting this late at night, unless you don’t need to sleep.

***

The two main characters, Tru and Brit are poles apart throughout most of the book. I don’t want to put in any spoilers, but the emotional ride they are on, is hard going for them. The only thing I will say is, I wasn’t disappointed with the outcome of the story.

All the characters in the book were well formed and they each played their parts in progressing the story forward. The scenic descriptions made it easy to visualize being amongst the characters while the story evolves.

One thing I particularly liked about this book is the way we saw how Tru and Brit got together in the first instance in flashbacks. I do like to know the background of the characters.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author, now that I’ve found her, I’ll definitely be buying more.

=================
As You Were is available at

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August 10th, 2012

AUTHORS, book trailer, BOOKS, Colorado, fiction, Kelli Jae Baeli, WRITING

Book Trailer for Also Known as DNA

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August 9th, 2012

AUTHORS, book trailer, BOOKS, Entertainment, fiction, Kelli Jae Baeli, WRITING

New Book Trailer for Armchair Detective

Finally got around to making a book trailer. This was first one. Will post the others after this.

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August 5th, 2012

AUTHORS, BOOKS, Colorado, fiction, Kelli Jae Baeli, RELATIONSHIPS, WRITING

Excerpt from Also Known as DNA

Book 2 of the AKA Investigations series

~ 1 ~

Ceremonial Tarp & Dangle

I’m hanging upside down, wrapped in tarp, like some retarded Houdini.

How did this happen? Well, it all started with me, on the way to my car after a close call. Back to minding my own business. I always mind my own business because I know there are plenty of other people out there who will mind it for me, if I let them, and I don’t feel they’re more qualified to fuck up my life than I am.

Only that morning, I was meeting with a client. Which was, in a way, minding someone else’s business. But that’s the business I’m in. So I can mind someone else’s business and be minding my own business.

Glad I got that cleared up.

Lila Dixon was what one might call a tall drink of water. I never knew what that meant until I met her. She towered over me, and if I weren’t female, I’d say she threatened my manhood. Lila was also regal, and a perfectly lovely woman, but with some unpleasant truths rooted in denial. For instance, she thought it was okay to drink a couple bottles of wine and then drive. Maybe because she was so tall. But I wasn’t on her payroll to play DUI hall monitor. I was there to help her get something useful on her husband, so that she could finally get away from him, legally.

The briefing complete, she signed the tab and left me to finish my short drink of water, going out the rear door to her car, which she had clandestinely parked a block away, just to assuage her paranoia that the dreaded churlish hubby might follow her. I pulled my eCig out of my coat pocket and refilled the mouthpiece with chocolate mint eJuice. I had discovered the wonderful world of electronic cigarettes a few years ago, while searching for a way to quit. Now, I continued to enjoy them, since all the negatives about tobacco cigarettes didn’t exist with the electronic ones. It was just vapor, with the flavoring of your choice. Mine, being chocolate mint.

Lila Dixon’s plan to avoid discovery by her husband had apparently failed, I realized, her paranoia justified, as I saw him come in the front door, hairy knuckles dragging the floor, and recognized him from the photos. It was indeed the churlish one: Lila Dixon’s husband. The way he was looking at me during his approach made me realize he was on to me. He must have waited for her to leave, so he could rough me up, before going home to do the same to her. I pictured him chasing her with one of those cartoony Flintstones clubs. No time now to worry about her future roughing, I had my own to worry about.

I got up and headed for the door, but couldn’t get there through the salad bar, so detoured. The ladies room was just around the corner and I palmed the door open and went inside. He wouldn’t dare follow me in here, in a public restaurant, I told myself. I’m always telling myself these things so I won’t come unglued in a crisis.

I noticed that this restroom smelled purple, like some do. Not sure what the smell of purple is, but I always thought that particular scent just smelled like purple. I stepped into the first stall, and slammed the crooked metal door closed behind me, forcing it into the position to accept the sliding latch, ramming the latch closed just as the restroom entry door burst open and slammed into the wall.

Coarse, meaty hands darted under the door of my stall, and I leapt onto the toilet seat, one foot slipping into the bowl. I pulled my sodden shoe out of the water, and regained my breath, searching frantically for a way out. He shook the door violently, cursing me, and my eyes ascended to the small window above the sink on the other side of the stall. When I looked down again, he was crawling under, shoving his huge shoulders between the door and the ugly yellow linoleum, still reaching for me, straining, pushing at the bottom of the door. The latch wouldn’t stand for that very long, I knew. Why didn’t he just kick the door in? I wondered inanely. Maybe he thought it would make too much noise. The window I spied was small, yet still an escape hatch. The only one to be found. My escape hatches had always been small, but I’d always been able to find them. I’d be damned if I’d break that tradition now.

I climbed the metal wall, boosting myself with the chrome plumbing that rose above the toilet, flushing it accidentally. I’ve escaped down the toilet! my mind screamed absurdly at him, feeling a little crazy with fear. My first question was answered when he wobbled out from under the door and began to fling himself against it. I guess he didn’t care about the noise after all.

Once at the top, I tried to scale the wall without alerting him to my whereabouts, climbed onto the sink at the other side of the second stall, and pulled the window lever down, pushing the single pane open. Thankfully, there was no screen. Or lock. I took hold of the metal sill, hoisting myself up, my sneakered feet scraping the cinderblock wall, as I alternately pushed myself upward and glanced back at him. He had still not figured out that I was out of the stall, but the door was caving in nicely.

I managed to get my hips onto the sill and flail for a handhold on the dirt and leaves outside the ground-level window. I heard the door crash in, and craned my neck to see him struggling to his feet and watching me, his face red, his brows pulled together like the laces of my shoes.

In what seemed a nanosecond later, I felt his big hand close around my left ankle. Instinctively, I kicked at him, feeling myself being dragged back in. The sill scraped painfully across my hip bones and onto my stomach, stopping just under my breasts, and I was suddenly glad I was not flat-chested. I swung my right leg, sodden sneaker and all, as hard as I could toward his head, making contact, but to no avail. I was reminded of my encounter with the Pit Bull in the Stacey Cartwright case, and wasn’t sure if this situation was any less frightening than having a mean dog dangling from my arm as I tried to climb a chain-link fence.

Outside, my hand fell on a broken red brick left over from the construction of the building, no doubt hidden for years behind the shrubbery lining the ground-level windows. When he jerked at me again, I twisted like a cat, felt myself falling. My feet hit the edge of the sink, and I landed with my behind in the bowl, the faucet grinding into my back.

I winced at the pain the awkward landing caused, and when he stepped closer, I lifted the brick, surprised I still clutched it, and brained him. He staggered back, holding the side of his head and I jumped down from the sink, and whacked him again before he could recover. He fell against the wall of the injured stall, and it creaked with his weight. I hurried over to get one more lick in, and when he slumped, I started to climb the sink again, but then stopped, rolling my eyes at myself. I backtracked and went out the door, pausing only long enough to throw the brick at him. It landed on his chest.

The parking lot was just around the building, and in it, my Escalade. The trip to freedom was interrupted by a powerful odor and the sensation of someone’s arms around me. It wasn’t a hug.

When I woke up in the abandoned factory, I was of course unaware that it was an abandoned factory because I couldn’t see through the tarp that had cocooned me, as I dangled in the air by my feet.

What would Jim Rockford do? I don’t think my fictional TV idol had ever been hung upside down with a tarp around him. So I had to just imagine what he would do. And first, he would wait until his captors took the tarp off. Then he would find a way to…to get away.

I am fucked.

But then I heard voices and knew that any escape would be something I figured out on my own without the aid of TV detectives and their clever screenwriters.

“Catch of the day,” one said.

I felt pressure near my chest and looked down, which was really up, due to my unfortunate inversion. I saw the blade poke through and rip an opening up over my head, as I leaned away from the sharp steel of the hunting knife. Blessed oxygen poured over my face and I sucked it in like a black hole.

Even upside down, I recognized Jimmy Dixon, his beefy countenance usually found only in livestock yards.

“How’s it hangin’, Sherlock?” he grinned.

With forced candor, I said, “I am not having a good day.”

They both laughed. Jimmy had some nasty contusions on his face from my recent bricklaying. The other one, I didn’t recognize, so I figured he was the one who did the chloroform honors in the parking lot earlier. “We haven’t met formally.” I said to the accomplice. “I was distracted by unconsciousness…” He just grinned but didn’t offer his name.

“What are we going to do with you?” Jimmy Dixon wondered, without sincerity.

I was willing to lend a hand. “I have a suggestion.”

They laughed again, Dixon saying, “I bet you do.”

“I’m not okay with endangering my life for a disgruntled housewife. She’s not paying me shit anyway. Cheap bitch.” He seemed to like where I was going with this. “In fact, I think she underestimates you, Mr. D. I should be working for you instead. Got any little jobs that need to be taken care of?”

My head was pounding from the blood pooling there, and I was having trouble hearing him as he answered, “Yeah, you could take care of my wife.”

I pretended hesitation. “Is there anything in it for me?”

“Sure. You get to be put back on your feet again. Breathing.”

“That seems fair.”

They laughed, and the Chloroform Guy went over to the wall and untied the rope, slowly lowering me to the ground.

Just like that. It was too easy, but I wasn’t prepared to complain just yet.

As Dixon cut my bindings, and I kicked the tarp away, I checked out my surroundings. Door at the other end, too far away. About as far away, I recalled, as the fence was in that tractor yard during my Cartwright case. The one where the Pit Bull made his home, and anticipated a warm lunch from the armchair detective who made a wrong turn in her escape from another angry husband.

My fetters gone, I sat up and waited for the blood to drain back to my torso. Dizzily, I hefted myself up to stand in front of him. “Everyone has their transgressions. So what did she do to you?”

He lit a cigar and blew the Captain Black smoke in my face. “She wouldn’t let me have a girlfriend.”

“That’s just selfish.”

He grinned, enjoying the repartee. “I want her out of my life. Can you handle that?”

“To save my own skin? Hell yes.”

They both laughed again. We were all having such a good time. The only thing missing was wine and cheese. He pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s her schedule. All the places she goes to spend my money.”

“I’m on it,” I said, taking the paper. I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, and punched up the recorder app, bold as neon, started recording and then switched to a contact list. “How do I reach you?” He stood there and watched while I touched in the number and saved it. “Now, Mr. Dixon, sir, when you say you want me to get rid of your wife…I don’t want any nasty misunderstandings later. You mean you want her—“

“Dead.”

“Well that’s clear enough.” I poked the iPhone back in my pocket. “I’ll be in touch.” Then I just headed for the door, as if I had a set of brass balls and knew how to shine them.

“Hey—“

I felt my renewed hope begin to dwindle. I stopped and turned to face him.

“Don’t fuck me over, or you’ll be back in that tarp, skiing behind my boat.”

I made a clicking sound and pointed a finger-gun at him. “Got it.” Then I turned and continued to the door. I actually made it all the way outside without a single piece of lead in my back. Perhaps I’ve underestimated the kindness of strangers.

As I walked, I pulled out my phone and stopped the recording, tapped play, and listened to him convict himself. Loved my iPhone.

I continued up Jason Street to Lipan, and called a cab, waiting in front of Stomp Them Grapes, a homebrew wine making supply place. After my recent tarping, a glass of wine sounded pretty good to me.

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