Sneak Peek Saturday: The Big Easy

Trying to get back in the swing of things now! Today I’m posting the prologue from THE BIG EASY as a sneak peek, in celebration of the fact that it’s been doing so well with the various contest rounds. We’re working on finishing the big climax (figurative, not literal) of this book right now, and then it’s through one last round of brutal editing.

She ran.

The earth flew under her feet, moving so fast it was nothing but a blur of greens and browns. Her ground-devouring lope felt effortless and, though the sun had long since set, she had no problem making out the landscape around her. Gentle rolling hills gave way to a flat, grassy plain on the left and a steep hill climbing up into a dense forest on the right.

She altered her path, heading toward the hill and the safety of the woods. The woods offered protection from predators. The woods offered comfortable places to bed down, safe places to make a den. The woods offered prey.

She ran, but not because she had to. She ran because she loved to, loved feeling the wind rush past, the ground beneath her feet, the freedom of movement and speed.

She loved being free.

The loud report of a gun startled her, interrupting her long, smooth stride. Her ears twitched as the shots sounded again, coming from the direction of the flatlands behind her. She took off again, climbing the hill with ease.

The first strong tree she came to was her refuge, and she ascended into its lower branches with no difficulty. The leaves, aided by the darkness of night, would shield her from the interlopers and their weapons.

She flinched anyway when the gunshots rang out a third time, closer than ever before.

Closer. Always closer….

#

The shots faded, replaced by the sound of a wailing siren drifting through the thin walls, and Mackenzie Brooks shivered as she bolted upright in the bed, torn from her fitful dreams by the raucous noises outside. The air conditioning didn’t work in the aging motel room, and it must have been at least eighty degrees outside, even though the sun had gone down hours ago. Still, goose bumps dotted her arms as she forced herself off the hard mattress and over to the window.

There wasn’t much to see, just the cracked pavement of the parking lot and the garish neon sign belonging to the liquor store across the street. So far, Memphis had been ugly and depressing. The only thing the city had going for it was that no one had tried to kidnap her since she’d arrived.

She let the curtain fall and moved back to the bed, rubbing her arms as she considered turning on the television. A brief attempt to find something to watch the night before had revealed only two working channels, but anything had to be better than pacing anxiously from the bed to the window and back for the rest of the night.

The sudden crash of a nearby door slamming sounded loudly enough to make her jump, and she stifled an embarrassing shriek. She sat frozen on the bed, her heart pounding in her chest until she heard the slurred, amused voices of people too far gone on drugs and alcohol to care if everyone else could hear them. It was a common occurrence in the dingy motel, as were the gunshots and the sirens. For someone who had grown up in Midwestern suburbia, the motel was a place out of a nightmare.

Mackenzie forced herself to take deep breaths as she rose and crossed the room, this time retrieving her large duffle bag from the floor and bringing it back to the bed. Inside an inner pocket she found the envelope containing her remaining cash. Her fingers trembled as she sorted through the bills, and she struggled to fight back tears when she realized how little was left. Not enough for a better motel, not even enough for more than another day or two in this one. Tomorrow she’d have to go out and find work, or find a way to leave town.

And she had to do it without running into Marcus or his thugs, all of whom seemed able to find her wherever she ran, no matter how carefully she hid. Everything bad that had happened to her in the past month could be traced back to the day Marcus had shown up on her doorstep with his killer good looks and his Hollywood smile and proceeded to tear her life apart.

The sound of another door slamming shook Mackenzie out of her reverie. She didn’t have time to think about Marcus Talbot and how he’d destroyed the relative peace of her existence. She shivered again and gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering.

She was gripped with the sudden certainty that she needed to get out of town. Now. She didn’t know how, but she knew she couldn’t wait until the next day, couldn’t waste time looking for a job. She couldn’t stay a minute longer.

She thought longingly of her car, the one possession she had left, then glanced at herself in the dirty mirror and shook her head. They had to be tracking her somehow, and her car was the only thing she hadn’t abandoned yet.

Leave it. Her motel wasn’t far from the interstate, and there was a truck stop right down the road. Maybe, if she was lucky, one of the truckers would be willing to give her a ride, and she could lose Marcus and his goons for good. Wherever she ended up, it had to be better than the last three cities.

It had to be.